Lack of Cream

There was no cream or milk at work this morning, so for the first time in quite some time, I'm having my coffee black. While hunting for the milk, someone suggested looking around our kitchenette for some of powdered non-diary creamer. I couldn't find any. Perhaps I should buy some for my desk, in case of "emergencies".

Of course, just as I'm typing this, I realized that I could have walked over to the other kitchenette on the other side of the building. It's Friday the 13th, and I think it's going to be one of those days.

Some Kind of Monster

There's one scene in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, in which James Hetfield, the lead singer, openly wonders whether the filming of their own documentary should even continue. When the directors (who appear in the film) ask whether Hetfield remembered his motivations for doing the documentary, he said (I'm paraphrasing): "I figured 'We're Metallica'; we're supposed to have a documentary."

This at once sums up the nature of "the monster" that is Metallica. A heavy metal icon, the band has been around for over twenty years. They have sold an immense amount of records. Their fans are loyal and legion. Should this band have a documentary? That's a silly question. Of course it should have a documentary.

I enjoyed watching Metallica's creative process so openly documented. The song writing, the riff conjuring, and the music making process is depicted as awkward, frustrating, and hardly glamorous. Their efforts in the studio and in the mixing sessions seem to yield precious few rewards.

The core band (Hetfield, outspoken drummer Lars Ulrich, and guitarist Kirk Hammett) have accumulated much wealth, and it is in full display, but throughout the movie they yearn for things that money can't buy: the love of their families and parents, the time and space to think, the opportunity to become better versions of themselves.

There are some inadvertent references to Spinal Tap, but Monster proves that art does imitate life. You see their children parading around in their studio. You see the band whining about their group therapy sessions. You see the rehabilitated Hetfield quitting "work" at 4 so he can catch his daughter's ballet class.

During the documentary, the group constantly struggled with the fear of being considered 'yesterday's music.' The ending suggests that they're still as vital as ever, but we've learned that it takes a lot of work to stay vital. It's a lesson worth seeing through this movie.

A Walking Commute

My commute home begins with the walk from my office to the Kendall Square "T Stop". From Kendall, I take a train to the bus stop at Alewife. The train ride from Kendall to Alewife is about fifteen minutes. The 6:25PM bus gets me home in about twenty minutes.

The key factor to making the 6:25PM bus is the walk from my office. I leave work by 5:50PM. It takes a few minutes for the elevator to rise to the eighth floor office where I work. By the time I'm street level, it may be 5:53PM or 5:54PM. The walk from my office to the train can be done in ten or eleven minutes at a leisurely pace.

But I don't go at a leisurely pace. I walk heads down, long strides, taking a criss-crossing path that gets me to the T in about nine to ten minutes. A few days ago, however, I walked to the train with another person who went a completely different way. She said her route was faster, and I was amazed when we got to the T in slightly over eight minutes!

The new route crosses fewer streets, and when it does cross a street, the intersection is less busier, so I don't have to wait. The new route also cuts an angle. The sidewalk on this new route curves away from the T, but she cuts across this curve, going straight, making the walk seem even faster. The new route also avoids traffic lights, whereas my original walk crosses at least three lights.

We go through life accepting things as being 'set'. "That's the way I always walk." "That's the turn I always make". I was starting to get 'set' with my walk. It's rewarding to reexamine old habits, and to make new discoveries about them.

Now if I could only call up the elevator from my desk.

Alpe D'Huez

I'm watching the OLNTV repeat broadcast of the 16th stage of the Tour de France. The race today was a time-trial up the infamous Alpe D'Huez. He was the fastest person up the mountain, taking 39 minutes and 41 seconds to ride 9.6 miles. He was the only rider to race up the mountain in under forty minutes. He finished a minute faster than the second place rider, Jan Ullrich.

Two remarks: One, he caught up with the rider ahead of him, Ivan Basso. In time-trials, races start two minutes apart. I've seen him catch up with riders ahead of him in relatively flat time trials, but this was up a mountain! Two: In an overhead camera angle, looking down on the road at Lance chugging up the mountain, I saw on the road, in huge white painted letters, the exhortation: "Rip their balls off Lance." He did. Oh, yes, he did.

Moon Landing

Thirty-five years ago, man first walked on the moon. The President has declared that we would return to the moon, and I am eager to see it happen.

Tonight, in a brief celebration, I watched the episode from the HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon featuring the lunar landing (episode six: "Mare Tranquilitatis"). The show focused on the preparation by the crew (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins) and the flight operations team. In a series of flashbacks, the episode described the easy-going attitude of Collins (who never set foot on the moon, orbiting instead in the command module), the decision behind Armstrong walking on the moon first before Aldrin (Armstrong was the mission commander), and the strain of working in simulators, preparing for the worst.

The moon landing was the singular human achievement of the 20th century. I hope we try it again in the 21st century.

Reading at Risk

The New York Times had an op-ed piece about a report by the National Endowment of the Arts called Reading at Risk. The report, which you can download from their website, states that less than half of the American population now reads literature.

As I scanned the document, I was worried that the NEA had set the bar too high: literature means a certain thing. Literature means Dickens, Shakespeare, and other books that are supposed to be "good for you" (but may not necessarily be fun for you). But the report defines literature as "any novel, short story, plays, or poetry." For purposes of their survey, reading any of the above items "counted as reading literature, including popular genres such as mysteries, as well as contemporary and classic literary fiction. No distinctions were drawn on the quality of literary works."

So we're in trouble. Reading is indeed at risk. The NEA is quite clearly stating that reading for pleasure is in decline. The report doesn't offer an action plan. The report sought to explain, not to prescribe.

Are you reading? In my morning and evening commute (on a train and a bus), my head is buried in a book. But before I hit the pages, I take a brief survey of what people are reading around me. In a train car of perhaps sixty to eighty people, at most only ten have a book in their hands. Most have newspapers or music. Some (to my amazement) just sit.

Since I started this commuting schedule at the end of April, I have read nine books. This makes me part of a dwindling statistic.

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Hello, July! We'll soon be cresting the exact middle of the year.