Loyal Readers:
I’m headed to Manhattan this weekend and it would be fun to get together for coffee. Please email philg@mit.edu if interested. I propose Sunday, August 17 at 10:30 am. I propose that we meet near the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side to celebrate NYC’s return to its glorious heritage of migrants housed in squalor. After coffee we can proceed to the nearby International Center of Photography and its “Great Acceleration” exhibition:
The Great Acceleration is an established term used to describe the rapid rise of human impact on our planet according to a range of measures, among them population growth, water usage, transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, resource extraction and food production, each of which Burtynsky has photographed the outward signs of at length and in great detail over the past forty years.
(And what better way to accelerate the Great Acceleration in the United States than via open borders and associated rapid population growth?)
After NYC I’ll be traveling to Boston/Cambridge. How about a Friday, August 22 noon meeting at Yume Ga Arukara, an udon place in Porter Square that is supposedly great? I’m open to alternative suggestions, but let’s try to avoid the towns in Maskachusetts that are currently drowning in garbage because elite Massachusetts Democrats refuse to pay their peasant workers a fair wage (the state is home to at least 355,000 “illegal and inadmissible migrants” so maybe the hope was that these enrichers would pick up garbage at a lower hourly rate?):
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Obituary
In other positive news, we note the passing of one Mr. Xavier Alloicious Toad, and various other aliases, from the Willowcreek Development Phase III. He was found flattened in the road, apparently either run over by a jacked-up Ford F350 while crossing to the riverbank or the crushing weight of public opinion of his radical “Toad-a-sphere” leanings–the coroner’s report is pending.
His recent social media boasts about owning Toad Hall without a mortgage, were after an investigation by The Gazette, found to be lies. He had to take out a mortgage on his inherited, unkempt mansion to pay for repairs on his little-used deck.
Found in his sprawling Victorian McMansion was a secret room covered in dot matrix printouts of various older blonde women converted to 7-bit ASCII art, apparently from Reddit’s r/ChavsGalore (NSFW) newsgroup. Many had “Becky” and “Blond Wharf Rat” scrawled on them. Little is known about this bizarre obsession. Of late, he had been crap posting on various social media sites, with his alt-Toad muckraking propaganda. Some Winnie-the-alt-Pooh fan-fiction, apparently in his handwriting, were found by Willowton CSI in the back of a dishware hutch.
Known for GTA of fine motorcars with brass radiator caps and spruce/canvas aeroplanes, he escaped jail several times as a washerwoman, and why the locals did not just return him to custody cannot be explained. His pronouns were “herm”, which we do not use at the Gazette–preferring the Chicago Style Guide. One neighbor commented, “Why wasn’t he under observation? Why was he loose?”
Toadie died as he lived, roadkill on the Internet Superhighway. He prefered the “Oxford Comma” when writing lists, as per the “Handbook of Nonsexist Writing”. His last words were croaked, “I am not a Gay Uncle.” He will not be missed. He was put in a box and buried in the Toad Hall Rose Garden, by some stoats and weasels. He obviously will not be attending PhilG’s soire.
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Our “Integrity in Government Subsidized Journalism Pledge”: No AI was used in creating this obituary. (Except for suggestions on his middle name, which we just threw away, and made one up ourselves. There is no “I” in government subsidized Integrity, we always say.)
not sure what the protocols here are when i am off email unless legally or otherwise compelled.
Manhattan is expensive and miserable and fake. Have you considered Queens?
MWEE: I am not young and hip enough for Brooklyn nor Asian enough for Queens, I don’t think.
skcus nylkoorb.
You would fit right in here in Queens, the birthplace of GEOTUS Trump.
Might I suggest a coffee house suitable for both veiled unveiled women by the terminus of the N. Excellent for groups large and small and no sense of rush.
half hour from movingimage.org by any method of transport.
I mean, isn’t it staring us right in the face?
https://www.college.columbia.edu/alumni/content/class-1989-35th-reunion
(I knew most of those people.) We could stay at Carmen dorm at summer rates, visit the historic Mattress Girl site, play some hacky sack, and girl watch on the Lowe Library steps. Grab some munchies at Furnald Green Grocers. I haven’t been on the Scrote Island side of the Mason/Dixon line since I left in ’89, it could be fun to see some of NYC again. Might still be a few wanted posters on me, though. It is considered déclassé not to wear *something* Columbia Blue on campus (see photo). Phil could get some photos of the little crown iconography all over everything.
Alternately, if I had more notice, I could make Orlando, winterish time frame. Your commenters are extremely busy people, we have to at least be able to pencil you in. 🙂
Ooh, ooh, I know…
Then we could meet up at MIT, maybe the engineering building that looks like architect forgot to check the “snap to” option in AutoCAD. Look for leaks and mold. Sleep in an office, like those cool Lisp Ha><orz used to. Find some nerds to pick on. Find the historical ruins of Radcliffe College and girl watch? "Toga, toga, toga…" — young Senator Blutarski
In aerospace, we used to have group photos like that when we had a first flight or got Collier Trophy or something, similar to this one which I’m not in:
https://planenerd.com/content/images/size/w1000/2022/12/boeing-737-first-flight-planenerd-04.webp
(planenerd.com, heh.) I didn’t get my gold plated invitation to the 35th anniversary celebration above, so I’m not in it either.