Author: JH

These two images from an ice hockey practice session near Harlem Meer. They oddly remind me of the winter of 2000 in NYC, when it was close to 65 degrees in mid February, and I got myself a slight sunburn from sitting outside during lunch break. Ever since, I’ve been longing for a similar taste of spring in the middle of winter. It never happened (at least not when I was here).

As the numbering of my earlier entry indicated, I owe you further installments of my report from the Ethics class that I audited at Columbia University. At the end of the semester, we spent a week reading some chapters from The View from Nowhere by Thomas Nagel, my favorite author in philosophy.

Yes, even the theme of this blog – Notes From Nowhere – is a reference. That’s not because I prefer reading philosophy to, say, having Frigor Noir chocolate with red wine from Sicily, and/or watching TV all day. And it’s not because The View from Nowhere explores the monumental distinction between a subjective and an objective point of view. No, it’s because the man (who is still around, having fun) can write.

If you ever read Kant’s Groundwork, and compared it to The View from Nowhere, you would probably agree that there is a difference between being ridiculously smart, and being ridiculously smart combined with an ability to write. Here are a few excerpts from the beginning of Chapter 11, “Birth, Death, and the Meaning of Life”:

“One summer more than ten years ago, when I taught at Princeton, a large spider appeared in the urinal of the men’s room in 1879 Hall, a building that houses the Philosophy Department. […] Sometimes he was caught, tumbled and drenched by the flushing torrent. He didn’t seem to like it […] The urinal must have been used more than a hundred times a day, and always it was the same desperate scramble to get out of the way. His life seemed miserable and exhausting. Gradually our encounters began to oppress me…”

Who could deny that it’s the fate of a spider living in the urinal of Princeton’s Philosophy Department that will tell us what we want to know about birth, death, and the meaning of life? To me, it’s probably the most promising intro I ever read. Highly recommended to read on, here.

If you happen to live in what the medical profession calls ‘Area A,’ a.k.a. the West Coast, where you glide through a life that can only be described as smooth and pleasant, then you may want to swing by Wall Space Gallery tonight (Dec. 2, 2010), for a show opening that includes some of my work from Walk in the Park.

I’ve used much worse excuses to hop on a plane and get out of the misery of Area B (which I conclude must be everything east of the Rockies). Instead, I’m making it even worse this time. I’m on my way, in the footsteps of Einstein, to the swamps of New Jersey, to the Epicenter of Cool (ahem), to… Princeton. Oh well.