Notes From Nowhere – Page 178

January 31, 2007February 1, 2007

Speaking Of Peripherals I

A timeless moment yesterday morning, on CNN: Bill Gates being interviewed by Miles O’Brien on the launch of Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system. So after some introductory niceties, O’Brien delivers the question everybody is asking, in an amazingly smooth and charming tone: “Doesn’t this all look very much like Mac OS X?” Gates horrified. Goes on and on about users “now working with photos and communicating at the same time.” O’Brien smiling politely along. Then, next question: “For existing Windows users, does it make sense to upgrade to Vista now?” Gates: “Yes, uhmmm, here’s why […], You Can Now Send Files Over The Internet.” O’Brien mercifully ends the segment.

It was not until yesterday that I realized the PC guy in the current Apple commercials actually depicts Bill Gates himself.

January 30, 2007June 10, 2007

A Photo And A Bio

I’ve done some serious housekeeping today regarding my website. That included the delicious task to write up some sort of a bio. As my favorite author said: “They keep asking for a photo and a bio. What a photo and a bio have to do with a man’s work, I dunno.” Well, this is a far as I’ll go:

“I live in Berlin and Manhattan, and suffer from a serious desire for living in the Italian Alps. Between the former two, I do prefer Manhattan. It’s an attitude thing. For example, Berlin cab drivers have a tendency to slow down from their average 15 mph to about 5 mph in front of every green light until it turns red; meanwhile, “my” personal Town Car record from JFK to the West Side, achieved by a Pakistani driver, is 33 minutes, with an even more remarkable third place held by an Italian: 47 minutes during a severe snow storm, and no toll.

I started my professional life as a lawyer in one of Germany’s fiercest firms for criminal law. But I could not stand the idea of being tied to anything, not even to the very outskirts of society, for the rest of my life, and left after two years. I now occasionally miss being in an environment where everybody is smarter than I am, but other than that, I have no regrets. I have held leading positions in what some refer to as the “creative industry”, including major editing, design and exhibition projects both in Germany and the US. My images have been used by companies such as Microsoft, Penguin Putnam Inc., Random House Publishing, BMW, Sun Microsystems, United Airlines, Oracle and Citibank.

Prints of my work have sold to collectors both in Europe and the US. This site and my blog, Notes From Nowhere, evolve with my work and show what I am about. My personal projects include “Life In Exile”, “What It Is Like To Be A Traffic Cone”, “The Manhattan Project”, “The End Of The Nuclear Winter”, “The Mountain Project”, and others.

My girlfriend is a philosophy professor, and we have several great books.”

January 25, 2007March 3, 2009

The Dilemma Of Remorseless Pleasure, By Mara L.

Perhaps culinary survival for an expatriate in New York is after all possible, and there might even be a bright side to it. Isn’t it true that you, like all Italian gourmets, used to live with a conflict between the two major values in your life?
(1) Be thin.
(2) Eat great food.

So, for the past 30 years of your life (1) had to be sacrificed. Not completely, for Milan you look quite ok, and in London people actually think that you are thin. But not so in Paris, and certainly not in Manhattan. So, if (2) enjoyed its rule for 30 years, why not, for a change, let (1) rule for the next 30 (or perhaps three) years? Decide that starving actually has its advantages. You will be thin. You can eat as much as you like when you go home to Italy. Since you are here most of the time, even limitless indulgence over Christmas and the summer holidays is not going to hurt.

However, here’s the rub: In the 30 years of the rule of (2), (1) wasn’t simply given up on. Recall, you did manage to meet the relaxed standards of thinness in northern Italy. Giving precedence to (2) doesn’t mean that you stop caring about (1) (and the other way around). So what about (2), eat great food, while you are here?

This is what my entries to this blog will be concerned with. Like a pig which finds truffles in the deepest forest, I am running through New York, stopping at the faintest smell of something tasty. No matter how much I find, it will be little enough to stay thin. Thus, this is the time of remorseless pleasure.

Coming up: Fruit Tarte in New York