Last week I posted The most amazing “You Are Here” map you’ve ever seen, which featured a map that referred to itself. In the closing paragraph I referred to a book—Godel, Escher, Bach—on recursion. I’d read and reread the book in the 1980s and it stuck with me. Not sure if anything would come of it, I wrote the author, Douglas Hofstadter, with a link. Beyond writing back that he[…] Keep reading →

I live in Greenwich Village. Here’s an old map of the neighborhood: It’s a tall building. From the roof, I can see across the street to a playground for a school between a couple brick buildings: You probably see marked on the ground the two basketball half-courts on the left and the blue track that curves beside them. You’ll also see a colorful block pattern inside the track. Let’s look[…] Keep reading →

The average American watches 5 hours of TV per day. Many fly or drive around for fun. If we want to pollute less, will we lose the ability to enjoy ourselves? I’ve written before how Vincent Stanley‘s commitment to turn off his computer Friday mornings and Nicola Pirulli‘s walking me through The Spodek Method led to me turning off all my electronics and practicing singing daily. Since starting, I’ve missed[…] Keep reading →

I doubt I’ll ever write a novel, but if I do, a long time ago I thought of an idea. I’ve never told it to anyone. My idea is a full novel written on an almost momentary incident, written from several people’s perspectives, each in a different chapter. I generally think of writing it on a single pitch in a baseball game. The perspectives would be the pitcher, batter, catcher,[…] Keep reading →

People ask how to use only $1.70 for a month of electrical use and take two years to fill a load of trash. I tell them I’ll give them two answers. The first is the one they think they want, but they always respond with something like, “Oh, yeah, well I can see that would work for you, but I’m different. It wouldn’t work for me.” That answer is to[…] Keep reading →

Before I had an outline and composition that worked for this book, I wrote a lot, but kept having to restart. I was spinning my wheels. Then I started working with a coach. She didn’t know anything about sustainability or stewardship, but she knew about writing. I could separate my two broad challenges—structure and content. By structure I mean the craft of writing, which included composition, time writing, focusing on[…] Keep reading →

Today marks the first day of my sixth month with my fridge unplugged. My past two months’ electrical charges from Con Ed were $1.70. I used about two percent the average American’s power use. I’m still avoiding packaging, so no cans or other sealed stuff. On the contrary, I’m finding fresh vegetables and fruit stay a long time without refrigeration. Here’s my podcast episode describing my motivation. It’s not about[…] Keep reading →