A Inauguration of Things Past

President Obama now taking the stage for his second inaugural address.  Roberta's reaction to camera pans of the mall was, "That's a lot of people!  I wouldn't want to be there!!"

I only had one chance to be there: President Bush's first inauguration in 2001, the only one coinciding with my five years in D.C.  Especially during that time in my life, I felt an importance to be present at major events, that absorbing life through television or print media was artificial, secondary, and inferior (in general, I now appreciate better viewing "seats" experienced through HDTV than the cheap seats twenty-something nobodys get, the comforts of controlled-climates, available bathrooms, a stocked refrigerator when I want it, and no pushy crowds).

I passed on walking down that year, even though I was only a mile from the parade route.  I recall the day was unpleasantly rainy and cold.  Moreover, that election was controversial.  With that taint I believed the experience would be unsatisfactory.  My first time should wait.

Instead, I watched the parade, a few minutes only, in Thurston's Dining Hall.  When the coverage focused on the protesters lining the motorcade route, I could only imagine the passengers' dismissive contempt for the people they sped past, windows-up.  This divide between our leaders and fellow citizens, so clearly manifested, was disheartening.

There were no major protests today, just less excitement than was present four years ago.  We're all a bit disillusioned, probably the Obamas included.

Both geographically and enthusiastically, I'm much further from attending an inauguration than that college kid munching brunch twelve years ago.  I'm certainly more apathetic now; not disregard the serious impacts of our elected officials and their decisions, but rather about the theatrics of political circuses.  The inauguration coverage playing in the background, I'm now watching a whole lot of people who love to be on TV, along with - even more troubling to me - occasional shots of faces in the crowds who love to watch those people on TV.

What is Sexy? (An Image Atlas Comparison)

Yesterday on Planet Fitness' treadmill I was stuck watching the very horrible Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines on TNT.  I hopped on towards the movie's beginning, when Kristanna Loken sees the Victoria Secret "What is Sexy" billboard and sexy-fies herself.  (And that's where the franchise jumped the shark.  To me, nothing beyond Arnold's thumbs-up in Terminator 2 happened).

Later last night, I read a New York Times Magazine blog post discussing the late Internet activist Aaron Swartz's collaboration, Image Atlas.  It's a fun little site.  Essentially, the way is works is that you enter a search term which is then translated into the primary language of several countries.  Several image search results are then returned to you grouped by country using the most popular search service in each respective county.  The idea of your grouped results is that you're given what you would see as if you were searching for the term in each county listed.  Thus, you're able to compare not only differences in the culture understanding of the term (assuming your word translated appropriately) but also how governmental censorship might affect which images you're given.

I searched several terms: happiness, justice, heaven - broad concepts.  Because I still had Terminator 3 on the brain, I also searched "sexy".  I was interested in how conceptions of aesthetics and beauty might vary by culture (also interesting, searching "beauty".  Very weird, searching "ugly)".

Below are ten image returns for "sexy".  Most Middle Eastern countries returned conceptual, non-person images, which I didn't include.  Interestingly, the United States and Spain returned two of the exact same images.  North Korea returned "No images found."

ImageAtlas(.org) return images for "Sexy" corresponding to U.S./Spain, Brazil, China, France, Israel, Kenya, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and U.S./Spain

My Missed Connections

Craiglist includes a "missed connections" listings, where locals describe brief encounters suggesting a potential for love, hoping the other person felt the same and will read the board and contact them.  Browsing the listings, I'm sure many are delusional, where the attraction was one-sided.  Still, the many other cases illustrate how much more love the world might have had if just one of the two were a little bit braver that day.

I believe this strongly.  So much in love is serendipity.  Roberta's mom, and my Aunt Barbara (I learned this Christmas), both met their spouses walking down the road when their future husbands drove by.  My parents met at a social club one ordinary night.  If either of our parents had instead stayed home that day, had gone at slightly different times, or haddn't glanced up a certain moment, neither of us would be here, I wouldn't be typing this right now, and we'd never make our own connection a quarter-century later.  Just a little nudge another way at a seemingly inconsequential momentum and so much life would be different.

I, too, have "missed connections".  While I have no regrets over how life turned out, I still characterize my teens and early twenties as particularly lonely.  My life suffered from lack of connections.  So many moments would have been richer if shared!

When I think of my missed connections, here is what I think of:

• At the end of high school freshman year, you were the first girl I ever learned had a crush on me.  We had never spoken, never had class together, yet you wrote "I love T.J." on your notebook.  Several people saw it, everyone told me, and actually many warned me against you (without explanation).  But, secretly, I had a crush on you, too, since I first saw you as an acquaintance's girlfriend.  You asked a friend to give me your number and we spoke several times.  You would never know, but things weren't ideal at home, so I never gave my house number to you.  Moreover, the timing was just bad.  We soon entered summer and lost touch.  When sophomore year started and we had classes together I avoided you.  But I still liked you.  This is probably the opposite of what you thought, and I'm so sorry.
• You were two sisters at Epcot.  Giggling, you approached and asked me whether I spoke Spanish.  I didn't.  I wanted to try.
• We met in the Typhoon Lagoon's wave pool.  You came crashing down on me in the middle of a wave series.  We tumbled in the wave, a tangle of limbs.  Afterwards, you faced me flirtatiously giggling; I, sunburn-red blushing and mortified I'd done something inappropriate, repeated "sorry, Sorry!", my face focused downwards while hurrying away.  You were incredibly beautiful.
• You were a horn player from another high school in the 1999 Orange Bowl halftime show, positioned down the line from me.  When our bands were brought to the the beach for a recreation day, you found me as we waited for the buses.  You asked your friend to take our picture.  I was rubbing sand off my feet, not my sexiest moment.  You asked us despite never speaking to me before.  I wish I had a copy of that photo.
• You lived down my hall freshman year of college.  We walked to discussion section together each Thursday that fall.  You insisted we keep that appointment.  I wasn't sure whether you wanted a connection or didn't want to walk alone.  Being shy, it was easier to assume the latter.
• You filled the empty seat next to me, halfway through the ride, on the shuttle bus home from the 2001 Inaugural Ball.  I was clearly dateless, silently despondent.  You said you were headed to Froggy Bottom with your roommates afterwards.  Was it an invitation to meet you there?  Sorry, I can't, just can't do bars.  If any other place.  I could barely see your face in the dark; my roommate called you gorgeous.  
• You sat next to me in an Oslo Internet cafe.  After you sneezed I instinctively said "Bless you" (in English).  You giggled as if I was a puppy peeing the floor, then rapid-fire typed (I assume the experience of my Yankee ill-sophistication).   I wish we could have talked.

How I'm Entering 2013

Happy New Year!  I began the new year as I ended the old, contended in reading:

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

This morning I finished Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, which recounts the pre-Renaissance rediscovery of Lucretius' Epicurean poem "On the Nature of Things".  I've long loved Epicureanism's championing and prioritization on life simple joys, a theme frequently revisited throughout the work.  In one section, the book's hero, Poggio Bracciolini, after observing bathers in the German town of Baden, described his reactions to the bathers' happy lifestyle in a letter to a friend:

"I often envy their calm and I hate our perversity of spirit, for we are always searching, always hunting, always turning sky, earth, and sea upside down in order to make a fortune, content with no gain, appeased by no money.  We are terrified of future catastrophes and are thrown into a continuous state of misery and anxiety, and for fear of becoming miserable, we never cease to be so, always panting for riches and never giving our souls or bodies a moment's peace.  But those who are content with little live day by day and treat any day like a feast day.  They do not seek wealth that will do them little good but enjoy their own property and do not worry about the future; if anything goes wrong, they bear it optimistically.  And so they are enriched by this saying: 'He has lived, as long as he has lived well.'" 

I read Poggio's words at an apt moment.  As I develop resolutions and goals for the upcoming year, Poggio's reflections are helpfully orienting.