I’m returning to an old blog I had set up over a decade ago, to share observations about the stage 3 rectal cancer diagnosis that I received on Apr 2, 2024.

Currently I am about halfway through daily (M-F) chemoradiation treatment at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle. Fortunately I don’t live far from there — the drive is around 12-15 minutes — so I am able to accommodate these daily afternoon visits in my work schedule.

As more folks learn about this — my colleagues, extended family members, and friends I have made throughout many chapters in my life — I feel the need to provide more of a regular cadence of updates. I have been attempting this through a google doc, but I’m going to switch to this medium and see how it goes.

…there was Lisztomania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisztomania_(phenomenon)

Moved to a new location in Manhattan for work last week: 37th and Broadway. Here’s a view of the building, with the Empire State Building shadowed by mist in the background:

The view from inside the office:

I spent much of the past month in Washington state: at work in Seattle for a week and up at my parents’ place up near the Canadian border for the holidays.

Here’s another electronic track I’ve composed over the past month — built using three different ipad apps and countless iterations, ending with long periods spent obsessing over granular sonic details, up at my folks’ place, in front of the wood stove:

I was in Seattle last week for work, and spent the weekend working on another ipad musical project. As I worked on this, I noticed two tiny mice scurrying about the apartment. They were surprisingly bold around me, running right up to me and checking out my feet. So. I dedicate this song to those miniscule mouse muses. “Topolino” is Italian for “little mouse.”

Here at work now in the Manhattan office. This is a late-waking city. I got on the subway at 7:35am and it was relatively empty — rush hour apparently hasn’t started yet. I got off at Grand Central and walked to my building, which is a few blocks away. In the lobby, a man in custodial garb eyed me suspiciously and walked towards me: “where are you going?”  I said “to work” and kept walking towards the stairs (the office is on the 2nd floor).  He said “2nd floor or 3rd floor?”  I told him 2nd — I’m not sure why he asked that. Perhaps he was just making conversation — this is something we Seattle ex-pats can’t quite handle until we’ve had our coffee. 

I work in a small office (Manhattan branch of a Seattle-based company) that is in a group of small offices with a shared receptionist, kitchen, conference room, etc. The main door to the suite was locked — at 8am! Remarkable. They had given me an access code and keyed the biometric lock to my right index finger (I know this technology has been around for a while, but it still feels very sci-fi to me). That got me in — and there is not another soul in here. 

Quick post here, as I’ve got to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning for a flight to Seattle for work.

Last weekend I audio toured lower Manhattan:

Sandy recovery work is still underway down there:

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25 years ago, I used to mess around with rudimentary music composition software on my family’s Atari 800 XL computer. I don’t remember what the software was called, but basically it allowed me to plug notes onto a musical staff. I remember using it to work on a song — for weeks and weeks I slaved away, and after all that work, I had come up with nothing but an unimpressive, one-dimensional midi file.

Things are different today. You can download a few apps and tinker about on an iPad for a few hours, and — voila, you can compose a fairly interesting chunk of music. This is what I’ve been up to over the past few days. I’ve been using Addictive Synth to produce basic sound structures — the app enables endless manipulation of sonic components (note all the knobs).

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Busy week; I just started a new job that had me down for a training meeting in Atlanta. Well, not Atlanta, but whatever you call the amalgamation of hotels, restaurants, and convention centers around the airport. I’ve been reading a few books by contemporary urbanists that describe the shift towards development around airports — we always build cities around transportation hubs, and airports today play the role that marine ports played in previous centuries. What you see sprouting up around the Atlanta airport is not sustainable and depends on cars. I’d be curious to see an example of high-density, walkable mixed-use development around an airport. There is the noise issue, however…hm. A broader question: how long will airports be the primary transportation hub — what will replace them? Continue reading →

I was walking back from breakfast just now when a grizzled, non-sober old fellow, maybe 80 years old, smiled at me broadly, pointed at my jacket and then at his, and said “they’re the same.”  The jackets are vaguely similar — well, they’re both black. He reached out to shake my hand and I told him “we’re twins!”  (I am an old man at heart.)  He kept hold of my hand and suddenly started dancing with me, doing a sort of twirl around me. This just lasted a couple of seconds, and then he gave me a salute and we were both on our way.

I went on good long walk through the city on this grey and misty autumn day, and here’s what I encountered:

• South along the High Line: thousands of slow-walking tourists stopping and puzzling over fold-out maps. Autumn leaves, autumn smells. A few stray patches of residual snow from the recent nor’easter.
• South from there along Greenwich St: cobblestone streets, beautiful architecture.
• Hudson Square area: I’ve heard a bit about new commercial real estate projects here. It has a feel of things to come — construction and billboards with marketing messages from realtors. At this point, it’s not a very interesting place to walk through.
• East to Soho: I stopped off at Souen, a restaurant that describes itself as “organic and macrobiotic” and consumed an insanely healthy lunch: sautéed brussel sprouts with peanut sauce (topped with walnuts), and wakame soup. Continue reading →