2001: A Space Odyssey

This is a rather creepy photograph of Arthur C. Clarke, taken by Madeleine at the National Science Museum (it's a billboard). Sonnet still plays catch-up at work. Clarke's image appropriately adorns the entrance to the space travel, and we learn about rocket boosters, planets and satellites and the space race. Did you know, for instance, that Saturn's famous ring is only 150 feet thick? The museum is crowded as it's Sunday, and Madeleine gets herself lost for about three minutes which has me and her in a frantic tizzy until she turns up in tears. She tells me she was afraid of "staying forever " at the museum. The late afternoon is spent at the Movies in Richmond where we cheer on a bunch of rats in Flushed Away. Sonnet is home for dinner, and I blog in front of the T.V. while Eitan does his homework.

On Wireless Charging

PowerKiss, a Finnish company, recently launched a line of products with small receivers that plug into handheld devices (the Ring) and an electrical transmitter built into a piece of furniture (the Heart), pictured. When a device is placed on the table it charges wirelessly by using a resonating field induction that creates an electromagnetic field around the Heart transmitter. The Ring receiver adapts the current produced by the field to the requirements of the mobile device. Induction of this kind has a short range so the transmitter and receiver must be close together.

Arthur and I, on a long London walk, once discussed whether a wireless charge would one day be possible. He noted this impossible since a charge must be transferred via a conducting path of some sort. Here is what he says about PowerKiss:

"This is a clever idea and I wonder if it will really take off. You have to convince people to buy the receiver thingie. And you have to convince furniture manufacturers to build the wires into the furniture! I think when we talked about this previously, the idea was whether you could "beam" energy around across distances and that turns out to be very difficult. Radar dishes and lasers do indeed beam energy from one place to another, but it's hard to recover the energy and use it at the other end. And a person who gets in the way suffers bad side effects like cancer or just getting burned.

What they're doing here is putting you and your electronics inside a big electric field. Maybe a little bit analogous with those wires they bury in the asphalt at intersections to detect when cars are stopped at the lights, or your electric toothbrush which charges when you put it in the stand. I'm surprised they can get enough energy into the little receiver to charge a phone. Maybe over a long period of time you can charge it.

We're not talking about a lot of energy to run a phone (as evidenced by the tiny battery).

"

Trampoline

Our neighbours Helen and Martin have a bouncer in their backyard, pictured, which receives a joyous whoop! from the Shakespeares. They are invited to give it a test-run. Eitan says, looking at the photo, "I think it was really fun and big. Uhhhh" (his contented sigh similar, dear reader, to an extra serving of desert and I raise an eyebrow). Martin meanwhile an electrical engineer and I admire the wiring which he did on his own. In the dining room, for instance, a master control connects 16 switches to each ceiling light - or, as Martin says, "to confuse everybody." Me, I think it is genus. It reminds me of Arthur. Their house has all sorts of fun peculiarities like the fold-down stools in the kitchen or the bunson burner like stove. They also have a wonderful border collie, my favorite dog ever, and a pet rat (Madeleine notes that the cage a good one - she should know ). Helen and Martin's daughter engaged yesterday - bravo.

Mass

Eitan asks me how to measure mass. As I consider his question I realise that I have no idea how to even describe mass. Here is Arthur's follow-up:

"

OK, but this is not an easy one...

My thought is that you keep this answer "alive" over a period of time with Eitan because it's something that may take a while for him to truly grasp. Point out the concept when you see examples of it around you in the world.

Technically, mass is the reluctance of an object to move. More technically, it's the reluctance to CHANGE speed. If you start something moving or stop it moving, either way, how hard you have to push is aconsequence of its mass. The problem with this definition is that on earth, most of the time when we move or stop something, we are dealing with a lot of friction that gets in the way of seeing what's going on. For example, it is entirely possible for an ant to push a car. The car
would just speed up very, very slowly because of its large mass and the weak push from the ant. In real life, the friction in the tires and wheel bearings and so on make it impossible for an ant to move a car.

Even a single person has trouble getting much motion going. If you leave out friction, the greater the mass of an object, the harder you need to push to get a result. Twice the mass and you need to push twice as hard for the same change of speed. You may recall that there have been instances of astronauts manhandling satellites orbiting right next to the shuttle. The satellites may weigh a ton or more and it takes a very great effort to move them, but the astronauts can do so. I raise this example because in space, there's no friction.

On earth, one example that occurs to me is really heavy metal doors that some office buildings sometimes have. If you can find one that doesn't have a spring closure (The doors at Seymour center come to mind), you can see for yourself how hard it is to get them moving and then how hard
It is to stop them once they are moving. Maybe you can see a bit of a difference in the doors in your house. The front door is probably pretty solid. Compare that to interior doors, particularly if you can find one that is flimsy and hollow.

Here's something you could try if you have two skate boards. On a really smooth floor (definitely not on carpet), you and Eitan stand facing each other each on a skate board. Now push yourselves apart (push against each other) and you should see that because you are more massive, you move less than Eitan who is less massive. The moral is that for one push you shared, Eitan moved more than you did because of the difference in mass. You can also do this next time you're ice skating and probably get even better results.

Now for the clincher. It turns out that mass is proportional to weight. It's not sort-of or approximately proportional. It's exactly proportional. I remember reading some musings by Einstein in which he
pointed out that no one had ever really questioned why the pull of the earth is exactly proportional to mass (you have to ponder this a moment.

An object that has twice the mass is tugged on by the earth EXACTLY twice as hard - it has twice the weight - with the result that all objects fall towards the earth under the pull of gravity at the same
speed regardless of their mass. A bus and a coin fall at the same speed. The earth pulls on the bus much harder than it pulls on the coin (you can weigh them to see the difference in the earth's pull). Somehow the earth magically determines the mass of the objects (their reluctance to move) and adjusts the tug of gravity by just the right amount to get them moving at the same speed.) Einstein had to develop the theory of general relativity to fully explain this.

So the point of that last paragraph is to point out that you can exactly measure the mass of an object simply by weighing it! But you have to do it on earth. If you do it on the moon you will get a different weight because the pull of the moon's gravity is much less. Of course you can still use the weight on the moon to determine mass, but you need to take into account the weaker gravity.

Phew!

"

Hell

John Martin's Arthur and Aegle in the Happy Valley based on an Arthurian legend of Aegle’s last night on earth. Pictured, from the Tate Britain collection.

Today is one of those collectives bummers shared by commuters. I am late from the house and it starts raining  (me, in suit, no umbrella). The train over-crowded and humid so I stand perspiring , jammed against a woman reading Farsi on her phone app, wishing the sweat down my back would go away. Wishing I was anywhere else. Each stop brings more people who implore us to "move in!" or "Move to the middle!" As, if.  I make eye contact with the blond and we are both equally uncomfortable when this happens for the fifth time. No pick-up scene, this. I have seen people yell at each other in similar circumstances.

By Clapham Jnct I consider ditching my first meeting. Vauxhall, where I finally exit , finds a 50-foot line to enter the Underground.  I see not one smiling face. Buying an umbrella at Victoria, I am told that I must spend ten-pounds to use my debit card. The purchase price : $9.75.  We actually discuss this. I add some shoelaces to my purchase. It is not 9AM.

Madeleine: "Did you know that it takes seven red ants to kill a butterfly?"
Me: "That's nice, Dear."

Selfish Gene

Emily Kasriel invites me to the BBC World Services Book Club at Bush House to hear Richard Dawkins speak about his evolutionary theory: "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities" most famously put forward in The Selfish Gene" in 1971. I happily agree as Arthur Garrison and I read the book in 2003 which we discussed on one of our many London walks. The show will broadcast 29 July and to reach 60 million; I ask a question: "how does the selfish gene reconcile non-propagating traits like homosexuality." Woo-hoo! Following Dawkins, I jump a taxi and tell the driver I have seen the world-famous writer. His reply: "He can't be fuck'n famous, mate, cuz I've never heard of 'im". We then have a rousing conversation about England football, project houses and the troubles with Britain. At the end he shakes my hand as I receive my change which is something quite extraordinary, really.

After Dawkins, Sonnet and I say goodbye to Mike and Gretchen Bransford, who have a going away party in South Kensington Mike is a friend from business school and the Bransfords are our longest-held American friends in London. It is sad for us to see them go.

Blue Mesa

We leave Montrose saying good-bye to Katie and Mark. On the drive away we stop at the Blue Mesa Dam - pictured - which creates the largest body of water in Colorado and allows for places like Montrose to exist. A post tells us:

Dam Embankment: 3,100,000 CU YD
Reservoir Capacity: 941,000 AC FT
Height above river: 341 feet
Spillway Tunnel Diameter: 21 feet
Power Plant Output: 98 MW
Crest Length: 800 feet

The water is cold too - about 49 degrees - which compares to the Pacific's 60-62 (in these temps your nuts go into serious hiding even with a wet-suit). Still a water skier goes for it bothered only by the fisherman sitting idle in their boats. Not a bad life.

In Seguach, a small town of 500, we visit the local museum interesting because Chief Ouray spent his summers here so there is plenty of his history. Recall, Dear Reader, that Ouray was the Utes, who were moved from their territorial lands to Indian "reserves" in the 1850s; the brave Ouray went to Washington to be told of his people's humiliation. His and other treasures are housed in a white-wall built in 1851 by the earliest settler. Over time, it has served as a home, the blacksmiths, the local high school (until the 1940s) and finally the sheriff's office and jail until 1959. Arthur Packer, the infamous cannibal captured in 1891 and tried eventually in the state capital, stayed here before his transfer. Packer garnished at least six co-travelers on their way to gold in thar mountains. Today the old jail is open for viewing and Eitan and Madeleine have no problem closing themselves behind bolted doors. Frankly it gives me the creeps: two cells each hold bunk beds with light nor room to move. A crapper, in its own contained cell, rests outside the bunks. Prisoners whittled their names or "painted" images using matches on the walls which are visible clearly today. Cool. The children ask good questions and give it their interest, which make the elderly staffers feel good I think. Probably too cuz we are likely the only guests today and perhaps the weekend. Still it is a jewel.

We pull into Santa Fe this evening surviving mountain storms and Sonnet's driving. OK, her driving is not bad usually but I am cranky. We see Bill and Martine who stop by our hotel to say 'hello' and discuss horses; we then meet everybody for dinner including Brigitte and Shelton (Stan's brother) who retired several years ago but still Chairs the Telluride Film Festival, which he founded and begins next week-end. A committee of two select the films BTW and nobody knows what it will be, even Shelton, until the day.

Katie in Paris

Katie over oysters, Tuesday, in Paris. Katie is a special gal and her women's Op-Ed foundation has taken off - she is excited, boy.

My favorite things about Paris:
1. Seasonal change. Spring or fall, this is the only place to be. Paris does not have the greenery of London yet seeing the trees and parks blossom or die-off while fashions change gives me the sense of moving on. This time of year unsettling yet I love the feeling.
2. Food. Of course. It is impossible to have a bad meal and children not invited. Paris takes its gustacian seriously.
3. Eurostar from London. Unfortunately the London terminus moved from Waterloo to St Pancras this year making the train less convenient to Southwest London. Oh well. Arriving at du Nord always thrilling+Terminus restaurant a favorite, similar to the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar in NY. I have the same thing every time: smoked fish+onion soup or oysters.
4. rue Faubourg Saint-Honoree. This is where Astorg is located and nearby l'Église de la Madeleine and Place de la Concorde. I have a favorite hotel, Le Faubourg, which is not ostentatious and perfectly located in the 8th next to the Crillon. This is where Sarkozy and Carla Bruni live in the Presidential Palace next to the British Embassy. The shops are chic and outside my league except Hermès where I buy my ties.
5. Le Dome in Montparnasse - and not because it is one of the best seafood restaurants in Paris, which it is. Rather - Sonnet, Christian and I had dinner during Blake's wedding in '00 (Sonnet six months pregnant) and I looked over my shoulder to see Alan Greenspan no more than six inches from my nose. He was huddled outside, on his mobile, opposite the window. Since it was Sunday evening presumably he was dialing in an interest-rate change - and indeed, rates came down a quarter-point the next day. At Greenspan's table was Felix Rohatyn (US Ambassador to France and Chairman of Lehman Bros. RIP)+Arthur Schlesinger Jr (RIP)+their wives in cool glasses and B-52 hairstyles.
6. Hôtel Costes, which has the best martini in Paris and the highest concentration of beautiful people anywhere.
7. Astorg Partners and Rothschild, who have given me a reason, as though I needed one, to visit frequently since '03.
8. French. OK, my language often fails me but I make the effort and the Parisians (most of them anyway) appreciate my efforts. My problem, you see, is my accent which is pretty good and sets an expectation for competency. I still struggle with vocabulary and verb-tenses, oh well. But at least I am unafraid which is half the battle.
9. Lacoste. As a rule I buy three new alligators a year in spring. It adds colour and what could be more cool for a middle-aged dad?

Kansas City Missouri

A boy in transition

We pull in to Kansas City and decamp at the hotel, which means clothes and debris everywhere.

Sonnet meets her ancient dear friend Kevin, who drives to us from St Louis.  Kevin and Sonnet worked together at I. Magnin in San Francisco in those post college days when life was but a goof. These are the best friendships.

I have the Shakespeares solo so we go for a bike ride along the Missouri River, swim at the hotel pool then, treat-of-treats, Arthur Bryant's BBQ for dinner, the best in Kansas City and anywhere (says Calvin Trillin : "the single best restaurant in the world"). Barak Obama lunched here three days ago. Sonnet and I at Bryant's in 1997 when driving across the country and not much has changed - it has cleaned up a bit perhaps but the pulled pork as good as it ever was. The kids share a full rack of ribs and a plate of fries, washed down with lemonade. It's a restaurant without pretencion , where everybody enjoying themselves, and beats any of London's Michelin stars, hands down.

Mt Equinox And A Bit Of The Revolutionary War

Sonnet, Katie, Eitan and I go for a "gentle walk" and end up climbing 3,800 ft Equinox Mountain instead. Equinox the highest peak of the Taconic Range. Starting from Manchester, it is straight up followed by straight down , leaving us perspired, exhausted and achy - the downward trek taxes muscles I knew not of. The peak marked by an ancient hotel which, Larry tells me, closed 15 years ago. On a winter's day it might be the Overlook Hotel. Me, I follow up with a three-hour nap (not 30 anymore dude) and go to bed at 9PM which vexes Sonnet at 4AM as I wake her to discuss house-design. Instead of fighting me, we go for a sunrise walk.

A signage at the trail head in Manchester:

"The Revolutionary War. Ethan Allen crossed Lake Champlain to capture Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775 for "America's First Victory." Allen's expedition passed through here on May 5, 1775. Nathan Beman from Manchester guided the expedition into the fort: John Roberts of Manchester was the head of the expedition's largest immediate family. In 1777, after evacuating Ft. Ti and Mount Independence, Gen. Arthur St Claire traveled to the Saratoga area via Manchester. The first meeting of the council of Safety (Vermont's initial government) were at the original Marsh Tavern (on site of the south wing of the Equinox). In Manchester, Gen. John Stark declined orders from Gen. Benjamin Lincoln and opted to go to Bennington. Stark's NH troops and Seth Warner's "Green Mountain Boys" camped in Manchester prior to the battle of Bennington victory on August 16, 1777.

--Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, 2011

Wiring

Now this is how a skyscraper should look. Powerful. Direct. Pointy. None of the new fangled designs with their space age materials compare. Prince Charles agrees BTW.

I am fascinated by the visible wiring everywhere in the New York subway - I mean, does it serve some purpose? Here is what Arthur says: "This question reminds me of when we were trying to put the police radios down in the tunnels of the London Underground. Somebody important (can't remember who) said the London Underground was a victorian rail system run by a Victorian organization.

"In other words a worn out antiquated system run by worn out antiquated people. The other thing I learned was that LU had very little information about what was actually down in the tunnels. In modern engineering, we call this "configuration control", which is the business of understanding how your equipment is configured. This can be challenging when you have a large system spread out geographically with many people working on it. People have to keep accurate records or you pretty quickly lose control. Apparently, it was not uncommon for crews to go into the tunnels at night (the window of opportunity is very short from about 1:00 to 5:00am) to do installations or repairs and discover that the equipment or layout of the equipment that they went to work on didn't match the drawings and they didn't have the right parts to make the repair or the new equipment wouldn't fit where it was planned.

"So to answer your question, I suspect most of the wiring is associated with signaling, that is, determining where trains are (sensors in the tracks) and controlling the "points" or switches and also the safety control systems that can stop a train that runs a red light. There's probably also various communication links between the stations.

"But it's also possible that as new systems are installed, which probably use far less wires, the old stuff is just left in place. Maybe you could reach out of the window and snip a wire to see what happens?

"And one last thing which I thought was a pretty neat piece of trivia. When the fiber-optic boom hit, entrepreneurs were looking for ways to run major fiber trunk lines across the UK and somebody realized that just about the only pieces of land that provided continuous access over long distances were the rail lines. So they all leased space along the sides of the rail lines. "

God bless.

Guggenheim

I wake up early Sunday in Manhattan and, feeling disoriented from jet lag and lack of sleep, do what I always do in these circumstances: put on my running shoes and hit the road. In this case, it is a short hop from the Four Seasons to Central Park where I am greeted by 1000s of runners completing a half-marathon. I love the company which inspires me to go for a full loop, which passes in a New York minute. This is my second favourites place to run after Tilden Park.

From the Guggenheim website (abbreviated):
In June 1943, Frank Lloyd Wright received a letter from Hilla Rebay, the art advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, asking the architect to design a new building to house Guggenheim's four-year-old Museum of Non-Objective Painting. The project evolved into a complex struggle pitting the architect against his clients, city officials, the art world, and public opinion. Both Guggenheim and Wright would die before the building's 1959 completion.

Wright made no secret of his disenchantment with Guggenheim's choice of New York for his museum: "I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build his great museum," Wright wrote in 1949 to Arthur Holden, "but we will have to try New York." To Wright, the city was overbuilt, overpopulated, and lacked architectural merit.

Still, he proceeded with his client's wishes, considering locations on 36th Street, 54th Street, and Park Avenue (all in Manhattan), as well as in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, before settling on the present site on Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets. Its proximity to Central Park was key: the museum is an embodiment of Wright's attempts to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture.

The Queen is 90

Arthur and I on the water metro pass by the Tower Bridge as the Queen goes by in her row boat. I'm not kidding. Canons rumble. Fighter jets fly overhead then other military vehicles and finally the Blue Eagles (I think) who cover the sky in blue, red and white. It's Her Majesty's 90th.

The country celebrates with block parties and BBQs and a million people show up at the Pall Mall. A celebration and a touch of rain ? Carry on.