York, Maine Synchronicity.

Internet wandering, the kind where you click on one link, which leads you to another site where you click on another link, and so on, brought me to looking at the photography of this guy today.

This one particular photo looked so familiar.

I almost didn't make the connection that I have seen Flo's manytimes, until I saw that the words on the truck say "York, Maine."

I drove past Flo's Steamed Hot Dogs many times a week earlier this fall when I worked in Ogunquit, just a little ways up 1. I always noticed Flo's because no matter what time of day I drove by in the afternoons, there were tons of cars parked perpendicular almost to the point that they were spilling out into the road. Since then, I have started working somewhere else that has me driving in the opposite direction.

Photo by Jonathan Levitt

uh-oh!

One of my potential child's names--Cadence--was chosen by one of the moms on "sixteen and Pregnant" as a middle name for her kid. Silver lining: gender entirely neutral. Name: Bentley Cadence. Source: 16 First and Middle Names of Babies on 16 and Pregnant, in Order of How Much I Spit Out My Drink When They Were Revealed

#twitterversecoincidence

These two tweets were posted right next to each other in my feed this morning. NB the timeline on Twitter is such that the most recent tweets are on the top and the older tweets are on the bottom.

(I don't feel bad about including their "twitter handles" because it just gives them both good press.)

Measuring Knowledge

Here is the test Thomas Edison required his employees to pass.
Find the multiple choice version (and the answers) by clicking here

1) What is the lightest wood?

2) Where is Manchuria?

3) What is the highest mountain?

4) Who invented the cotton gin?

5) What country are earthquakes most frequent?

6) How many miles are there between the earth and the sun?

7) Where is Pikes Peak?

8) Which U.S. president started a speech with the words, "Four score and seven years ago..."?

9) Rhode Island is the smallest state.  What is the next smallest?

10) Where is the river Volga?

11) From what country did we get Louisiana?

12) Where is the so-called "Bad Lands"?

13) What is the Spanish Armada?

14) What state is the largest in 1921?

15) Where is Copenhagen?

16) Where is Tierra del Fuego?

17) Who was Hannibal?

This is in honor of studying for the GRE and LSAT

"Dancers" in Western North Carolina

Many people would fit into this category.

I want to mention in this post two dancers / entrepreneurs from the Asheville, North Carolina area. I was visiting Asheville and Brevard and Hendersonville two weekends ago and I saw two businesses that are owned by people who are also famous famous dancer choreographers. The coincidence seems worth noting here.

One was MARK MORRIS, whom most know as person of joyful movement (The Hard Nut Nutcracker "parody" and Gloria are especially celebrated works of his), but might be more celebrated in Western North Carolina as a realtor.

The other is PAUL TAYLOR, an ingenue of American modern dance (see Esplanade, in order!! and the more recent Promethean Fire), and of hand-made sandals. 

Things that are the exact same color as other things

living by salt marshes: the last 3 months

 

looking for patterns

NYtimes.com's new feature articles "recommended for you" is currently listing 3 items for me:

Theatre Listings

Mixed-Use Zorlu Center Raises Stakes in Istanbul

Names of the Dead


What is message is NYtimes.com trying to tell me?

"stranded in new york"

Response to April 11 (taken April 22)

5-10 / moon sun

4-11 / 4:11 pm

4-10 / 4:10pm

4-5 / 4:05pm

4-5 / 4:05pm

4-3 / 4:03pm

4-2 / 4:02pm

4-1 / 4:01pm

3-30 / 3:30pm

3-28 / 3:28pm

3-27 / 3:27pm MST

3-26 / 3:26pm

3:25 / 5:05pm PST

3-24 / 3:24pm

3-23 / 3:23pm PST

3-22 / 3:22pm

3-21 / 3:21pm

7 January

I am at work updating our database to reflect which of our clients have died. The first step in this process is matching the client's birth date on the Social Security death record with their birth date in our database, to make sure it is the same person. Just at the moment when I was thinking fondly of a friend from high school I confirmed the birth date of a deceased client and saw it is THE SAME birth date as my remembered friend.

3-20 / 3:20pm

Unintended Reunions

Last week I ran into people from high school and college a lot.


DATE                                LOCATION                                     ACQUAINTANCE SEEN
Monday 14.3                    W. 4th area               three separate people walked by the Greek restaurant
Tuesday                                    I don't remember right now but I know I saw people
Wednesday                        at the gym                        classic SLC pretend not to know the other one
Thursday            Lincoln Center to Columbus Circle             "                     "                      "
Friday    Prospect Lefferts Gardens Indian restaurant      a kid I don't remember from h.s. said hi

3-19 / 3:-9 pm

st. patrick's day affirmation

There's a line in a book of short stories by Simon Van Booy recalling wisdom from somebody's grandfather: "Coincidences mean that you are on the right track."  Tempting words to keep in mind.

This St. Patrick's day, like most, we did a little research to recall what the day is celebrating.  I read this much on a wikipedia, or maybe heard it on a report from NPR Morning Edition, that St. Patrick is remembered for driving the snakes out of Ireland.  This idea was debated briefly by graduates of conservation biology school: what factors cause extinction of an animal group from a certain region?

Ok.  A day later, a housemate, reading The Mists of Avalon, came upon the St. Patrick story.  "Snakes" stands for Druids being driven out by Catholics. A day later, I started reading the book Forever, by Pete Hamil and the subject came up again, talking about "the lonely God of St. Patrick," and the persecution of the Celts.

3-18 / 3:18pm

3-17 / 3:17pm

3-16 / 3:16pm

3-15 / 3:15pm

(Continued) Review of Autumn/Winter Synchronicity (part 2)

A housemate has been reading The Mists of Avalon, a book she received from another housemate, who got it from his mom.

Yesterday, she was sitting at the dining room table, with the book and her laptop on the table in front of her.  Since we live in a partially furnished beach vacation house, objects that came with the house fill the shelves and cabinets.  I sat next to her at the table, and looking behind her on the bookshelf, I pulled out a copy of Die Nebel von Avalon.  It has been sitting on the lower shelf unnoticed, until last night.

Bonus: We moved into the beach house in December.  I had just finished The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene, a book I bought at a used bookstore some time ago, and finally decided to read.  Of the small collection of books that came with the house, stored on the bookshelves mentioned above: The End of the Afair by Graham Greene.

3-14 / 3:14pm

 

 march 14 3:14pm

3-13 / 3:13pm

3-12 / 3:12pm

3-3 / 3:03pm

I work for about 30 hours each week in an office in Midtown Manhattan, scanning documents, old (pertaining to peoples' persecution under the Nazis in WWII) and new (applications for monetary compensation because of the persecution). The papers in my post from the 3rd of March come from one woman's application file. She was not approved for compensation because in her application she told two different stories, utterly in conflict, about her persecution. One version said that she fled east through the USSR, and the other one said that she spent several years in a hospital in the south of Germany, in Bavaria.

The documents in my post contain a photograph of the applicant as a young girl. I have scanned many photocopies of old photographs, but always photocopies--never the original. This is an original photograph. The international organization that was helping the applicant verify her story sent her a letter saying that they had found records of her hospital stay, and some photographs of her as a child when she was admitted to the hospital, and she could have those photographs to keep, if she wanted, as they might provide sentimental value. But then she sent us one of the photographs, the actual photograph, not a copy. Why? Did it not affect her? Did she think it would help in the approval of her claim (it didn't)? Did the organization maybe send a duplicate, and this was the extra? Or did the photograph bring back too many memories? I wonder how I would have behaved in her situation. I wonder that a lot at my job, how I would have acted in the applicants' situations.

Also noteworthy: The hospital this applicant stayed in during and after the war is in a small tiny town in Germany where my friend was working a couple years ago. I have visited that small tiny Bavarian town, on the lake, in the gently rolling hills. 

3-11 / 3:11pm

3-10 / 3:10pm

3-9 / 8:39pm

3-8 / 3:08pm