Recently, I realized I needed more local friends.
I could pontificate here on the fragmentation of modern society, the industrialization of things that used to be personal and the disaffection caused by modern communication methods and media that may have gotten me to this point, but I won’t.
This isn’t a story about how I needed to find friends because globalization is a lonely making force.This is actually a story about how I found them.
Two weeks into the new year, I posted an ad on Craigslist, a Web site community familiar to most who consider themselves geeks, nerds or hipsters.
I’m using the word “community” here deliberately; Craigslist isn’t only a dating site like Match.com or eHarmony. It isn’t a career site like Monster or Idealist.org. And it doesn’t only offer free things to people willing to pick them up like a regional Freecycle listserve group. Craigslist is a do-it-yourself version of all of these things in one.
And it’s free, and is organized by geographic location, which was what I was looking for.
I was a Craigslist novice when I first looked up the personals section on the Hartford network, but I knew enough to realize that the “strictly platonic” category of personal ad was more for hook-ups than friendship-building. So I posted my ad in the section I thought would get me the most responses: “women seeking men.”
I introduced myself to central Connecticut as a nerd looking for people to hang out with, sat back and waited to see what I’d get back.
I was almost immediately overwhelmed with responses: In the first three days of my ad being posted, I got e-mails from no fewer than 50 different e-mail addresses.
True, some of these were spam ads for other “dating sites,” and some were from men looking for the sorts of relationships I wasn’t interested in — but the majority were from real people looking, as I had been, for a sense of connection.
I was touched, personally, by the positive responses I’d gotten. But beyond that, I was shocked by how many people out there — how many of us — are searching hopefully for others to have fun with, relate to and share their ideas and passions.
I got e-mails from people who liked the same music I liked, filled with “they’re great, aren’t they?” types of comments. I instant-messaged about the comic books I’ve read and the independent coffee shops I like to hang out at. I learned a bit more about towns I’d grown up near but never investigated.
I found a local whose hometown in China is an hour away from my adopted hometown, and a fellow nerd who took me to task for never having seen “Dr. Who.”
I was charmed by the people I wrote to, and even more charmed by the ones I met. Who knew central Connecticut was so full of engaging people?
I decided to do a little more digging and see how deep this vein went.
It wasn’t all sunshine and springtime: One responder said I was the first person he’d replied to on Craigslist who was real — the rest had all been spam ads.
And Mike Z. of Berlin has had plenty of trouble finding the connection he’s looking for.
Mike has been posting a new ad on the Hartford Craigslist most days since Jan. 2. He says he’ll continue posting for 30 days, or until he starts corresponding with someone interesting — and real.
Next week, Mike’s story.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
1/23/09: It's time to add hope to our history
This week has been unprecedented. The news has been full of analysis of the inauguration, from how much money was spent on it (an unprecedented amount), how many celebratory balls the Obamas went to (an unprecedented number), how many people gathered in D.C. to participate (unprecedented crowds of them) and how great it is that America has finally elected a leader who is a person of color.
I like talking about things in this way, and I hope we keep it up.
I like it because before the newness of this inauguration, news cycles were full of accounts of an impending economic depression — “the second Great Depression,” I’d heard it called — and how the bailout would still be affecting us generations from now.
Before Obama even became president-elect, too, he was being compared to President Kennedy, and an Obama White House was being touted as a “return to Camelot.” Some of my friends, citing the fresh-faced young family’s similarities to the Kennedys, expressed concern for Obama’s safety, in the kind of hushed tones reserved for talking about things you’re afraid to say aloud in case it would somehow cause them to happen.
There’s a certain kind of adrenaline created by all that talk, especially when it links us now to memories of past traumas still shocking and dire enough to warrant moments of silent reflection.
But that kind of agitation is nothing compared with the adrenaline of moving forward, and that’s what I want to focus on. In fact, what I want most to say here is that we all should.
Our times are unprecedented. We can learn a lot from the past, and I hope we do: Saving money and learning to live within our means, as modest as they may be in this economy, are lessons we can glean from the 1930s. I, for one, have learned to cook turnips and make my own marmalade.
As loath as I am to suggest that anything “good” could come from the national trauma of the assassination of our president in 1963, I hope even the most extreme protestors learned that proper, democratic dissent can’t be handled by a gun or any violent solution. It can only be productively expressed in words and through legal, peaceful means.
But we’re not living in the Great Depression. We’re not living in the Cold War. Our lives now are so significantly different that we couldn’t have predicted what we’d be doing or caring about now even 20 years ago. Even 10 years ago, most of us would not have guessed we’d be where we are today.
We’re living in a country with people willing to participate in more than 12,000 service projects in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama’s call to service, for one thing.
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for service projects; I spent two years in Washington, D.C., as a full-time Americorps volunteer, and loved it enough to be seriously tempted by the possibility of visiting for this week’s inauguration. My time in D.C., and as a volunteer, taught me that a lot can get done with a bit of optimism and elbow grease.
I’m not saying that I think that “the power of positive thinking” will magically save us from the need to right our economic situation any more than I think the King Day of Service will eliminate the need for social programs.
But these days require out-of-the-history-book thinking. Hope needs to be taken into account when we’re talking about the future.I think we’ll find our accounts are better off than we thought.
I like talking about things in this way, and I hope we keep it up.
I like it because before the newness of this inauguration, news cycles were full of accounts of an impending economic depression — “the second Great Depression,” I’d heard it called — and how the bailout would still be affecting us generations from now.
Before Obama even became president-elect, too, he was being compared to President Kennedy, and an Obama White House was being touted as a “return to Camelot.” Some of my friends, citing the fresh-faced young family’s similarities to the Kennedys, expressed concern for Obama’s safety, in the kind of hushed tones reserved for talking about things you’re afraid to say aloud in case it would somehow cause them to happen.
There’s a certain kind of adrenaline created by all that talk, especially when it links us now to memories of past traumas still shocking and dire enough to warrant moments of silent reflection.
But that kind of agitation is nothing compared with the adrenaline of moving forward, and that’s what I want to focus on. In fact, what I want most to say here is that we all should.
Our times are unprecedented. We can learn a lot from the past, and I hope we do: Saving money and learning to live within our means, as modest as they may be in this economy, are lessons we can glean from the 1930s. I, for one, have learned to cook turnips and make my own marmalade.
As loath as I am to suggest that anything “good” could come from the national trauma of the assassination of our president in 1963, I hope even the most extreme protestors learned that proper, democratic dissent can’t be handled by a gun or any violent solution. It can only be productively expressed in words and through legal, peaceful means.
But we’re not living in the Great Depression. We’re not living in the Cold War. Our lives now are so significantly different that we couldn’t have predicted what we’d be doing or caring about now even 20 years ago. Even 10 years ago, most of us would not have guessed we’d be where we are today.
We’re living in a country with people willing to participate in more than 12,000 service projects in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama’s call to service, for one thing.
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for service projects; I spent two years in Washington, D.C., as a full-time Americorps volunteer, and loved it enough to be seriously tempted by the possibility of visiting for this week’s inauguration. My time in D.C., and as a volunteer, taught me that a lot can get done with a bit of optimism and elbow grease.
I’m not saying that I think that “the power of positive thinking” will magically save us from the need to right our economic situation any more than I think the King Day of Service will eliminate the need for social programs.
But these days require out-of-the-history-book thinking. Hope needs to be taken into account when we’re talking about the future.I think we’ll find our accounts are better off than we thought.
Friday, January 16, 2009
1/16/09: Goodbye Forest City, it's duet from now on
Well, I think you’ve almost certainly heard the news by now — if not in the paper you’re reading, then probably on TV. But in case you’re like me and only read my column and the comics, and only watch TV shows in commercial-free DVD form, here it is: The Herald and The Bristol Press have been bought.
In all the talk of buying and selling and the action-movielike last-minute appearance of publisher and newsman Mike Schroeder to save the day, though, in all the excitement and celebration, no one’s taken time to acknowledge that this is also a parting of ways. The Middletown Press, once called "the Marsha Brady" of our triplet papers, will be going it alone.
In case you’re wondering who’s ever called it that, it was me, just now.
You’ve probably noticed that I have a bit of a crush on Middletown. In a past column, I cited the city as a good example of downtown revitalization — an example New Britain and Bristol are justified in trying to emulate.
Alas, Middletown, it’s not to be: This is our last column together. I’ll be writing for The Bristol Press and The Herald, alone, from now on.
We’ve had some good times. I brought my friends to Javapalooza as a nice Starbucks alternative when they came to visit last year; the lamb Rogan Josh at Tandoor is excellent; and I love the way the Victorian houses on Broad Street have been made into businesses. I can even forgive you for towing my out-of-town friend’s car during the parking ban last week.
But it’s time for me to "love the one I’m with" now: New Britain’s Staropolska’s pierogies and the giant satellite dishes of Bristol’s ESPN.
Now’s a pretty good time to love New Britain and Bristol, actually. Despite our ailing economy (and snowy, cold winters), urban central Connecticut holds onto the "almost sacred relationship to work" that made author Stewart O’Nan set his novel "Last Night at the Lobster" in New Britain. And despite the advantages of Middletown’s Main Street collection of diversions, ferreting out hole-in-the-wall places (like the Hole-in-the-Wall Theater) for entertaining ourselves often becomes another form of entertainment — especially when many of us are already strapped for cash to spend once we get to wherever we’re going.
It’s getting easier to love other places from New Britain and Bristol as well. With the still-years-away busway between New Britain and Hartford at least in serious planning phases, and the construction of the Route 72 expansion into Bristol begun, we’re heading toward the integration of our communities that I expressed hope for this summer.
If U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy has his way, we’ll have increased commuter rail service between Hartford and Springfield, and while the rail spur between Berlin and Waterbury has always been more a dream than an impending reality, once everything else is in place, that connection would link the Amtrak Vermonter and the Metro-North train into New York City. We’d be right in the middle of the action.
As much as we’re about to be at a literal crossroad, newspapers in general, and our papers especially, are at a virtual one. We’re not stopping the presses, but plans for the Herald and Bristol Press will focus just as much on getting our local news online as getting it into print.
And that’s where you can still find me, Middletown.
We’ll always have the Web.
In all the talk of buying and selling and the action-movielike last-minute appearance of publisher and newsman Mike Schroeder to save the day, though, in all the excitement and celebration, no one’s taken time to acknowledge that this is also a parting of ways. The Middletown Press, once called "the Marsha Brady" of our triplet papers, will be going it alone.
In case you’re wondering who’s ever called it that, it was me, just now.
You’ve probably noticed that I have a bit of a crush on Middletown. In a past column, I cited the city as a good example of downtown revitalization — an example New Britain and Bristol are justified in trying to emulate.
Alas, Middletown, it’s not to be: This is our last column together. I’ll be writing for The Bristol Press and The Herald, alone, from now on.
We’ve had some good times. I brought my friends to Javapalooza as a nice Starbucks alternative when they came to visit last year; the lamb Rogan Josh at Tandoor is excellent; and I love the way the Victorian houses on Broad Street have been made into businesses. I can even forgive you for towing my out-of-town friend’s car during the parking ban last week.
But it’s time for me to "love the one I’m with" now: New Britain’s Staropolska’s pierogies and the giant satellite dishes of Bristol’s ESPN.
Now’s a pretty good time to love New Britain and Bristol, actually. Despite our ailing economy (and snowy, cold winters), urban central Connecticut holds onto the "almost sacred relationship to work" that made author Stewart O’Nan set his novel "Last Night at the Lobster" in New Britain. And despite the advantages of Middletown’s Main Street collection of diversions, ferreting out hole-in-the-wall places (like the Hole-in-the-Wall Theater) for entertaining ourselves often becomes another form of entertainment — especially when many of us are already strapped for cash to spend once we get to wherever we’re going.
It’s getting easier to love other places from New Britain and Bristol as well. With the still-years-away busway between New Britain and Hartford at least in serious planning phases, and the construction of the Route 72 expansion into Bristol begun, we’re heading toward the integration of our communities that I expressed hope for this summer.
If U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy has his way, we’ll have increased commuter rail service between Hartford and Springfield, and while the rail spur between Berlin and Waterbury has always been more a dream than an impending reality, once everything else is in place, that connection would link the Amtrak Vermonter and the Metro-North train into New York City. We’d be right in the middle of the action.
As much as we’re about to be at a literal crossroad, newspapers in general, and our papers especially, are at a virtual one. We’re not stopping the presses, but plans for the Herald and Bristol Press will focus just as much on getting our local news online as getting it into print.
And that’s where you can still find me, Middletown.
We’ll always have the Web.
Friday, January 9, 2009
1/9/08:
When I was in high school, my younger brother got a pet dragon.
Now he plays in a rock band with his friends when he’s home on vacation, usually between midnight and 3 a.m.
I would never have thought of doing these things, myself — but then, he never went on a River Raid or destroyed Asteroids.
By now you probably know I’m talking about video games.
But I’m not just talking about video games. I’m talking about the way "kids these days" think and act, and how it’s been influenced by video games and new television genres.
I’m talking about it because despite my own relative youth, the way my brother — about 10 years younger than me — thinks is significantly different than the way I do. And I think it’s in large part thanks to his history with video games.
When I was 9, we had an Atari. By the time my brother was 9, we had a Sega and Super Nintendo, and as he grew older, he went through a Sony PlayStation, a Nintendo 64, an Xbox and several computers’ worth of computer games.
Was I deprived, or was I mercifully spared a virtual childhood?
I think that partly depends on how well the skills we learn in video games translate into real-world know-how.
On a practical level, for instance, thanks to his Halo experience, my brother may know how to outstrategize alien invaders.
That may not sound very practical, but while I probably learned some level of hand-eye coordination from my Atari adventures, my brother learned entire ways of thinking. Increasingly, the skills games require are the ones demanded by a global, information-driven economy: strategic thinking, virtual problem-solving and even (groan) some game theory.
Perhaps most importantly, he learned how to learn-by-video-game.
It’s not likely that his career path will veer into "professional video gamer," nor that all careers in the future will have video-game components. But we’re living in the society predicted by both naysayers and advocates of the Internet’s ubiquity. Our lives are just as much virtual as they are actual these days, and lines between real and not-real are smudging.
The blurring of boundaries heralded by the influx of "reality TV" shows 10 years ago has become much more sophisticated. We still have "Survivor," but we also have "Lost," which is a scripted show (less "real" than "Survivor" in that sense) with interactive elements such as "The Lost Experience" alternate-reality game that people play online (more "real" than "Survivor").
Even in sitcoms, which used to be about setting up elaborate one-line gags no matter how unrealistic the premise, we’ve moved on from "Friends" to "The Office," which subtracts the laugh track for awkward moments and the quotidian victories of paper company employees in Scranton, Pa. – also more like real life, unless you spend all your days being witty in Central Perk.
And "Lost" and "The Office" took their venture into "reality" one step further, running ads for products that exist only within the series. The uninitiated wouldn’t even know these weren’t real.
If interacting with the real world requires dealing with this much virtual input, maybe we should all be playing video games.
James Paul Gee, the author of "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy," says that "we can learn a lot from those young people who play [video] games, if only we take them and their games seriously."
I agree. We all need to learn how to interpret, interact and think in a virtual world. Relying on old standards would be like training as a blacksmith after the Industrial Revolution: useful and quaint, but not quite relevant.
Now he plays in a rock band with his friends when he’s home on vacation, usually between midnight and 3 a.m.
I would never have thought of doing these things, myself — but then, he never went on a River Raid or destroyed Asteroids.
By now you probably know I’m talking about video games.
But I’m not just talking about video games. I’m talking about the way "kids these days" think and act, and how it’s been influenced by video games and new television genres.
I’m talking about it because despite my own relative youth, the way my brother — about 10 years younger than me — thinks is significantly different than the way I do. And I think it’s in large part thanks to his history with video games.
When I was 9, we had an Atari. By the time my brother was 9, we had a Sega and Super Nintendo, and as he grew older, he went through a Sony PlayStation, a Nintendo 64, an Xbox and several computers’ worth of computer games.
Was I deprived, or was I mercifully spared a virtual childhood?
I think that partly depends on how well the skills we learn in video games translate into real-world know-how.
On a practical level, for instance, thanks to his Halo experience, my brother may know how to outstrategize alien invaders.
That may not sound very practical, but while I probably learned some level of hand-eye coordination from my Atari adventures, my brother learned entire ways of thinking. Increasingly, the skills games require are the ones demanded by a global, information-driven economy: strategic thinking, virtual problem-solving and even (groan) some game theory.
Perhaps most importantly, he learned how to learn-by-video-game.
It’s not likely that his career path will veer into "professional video gamer," nor that all careers in the future will have video-game components. But we’re living in the society predicted by both naysayers and advocates of the Internet’s ubiquity. Our lives are just as much virtual as they are actual these days, and lines between real and not-real are smudging.
The blurring of boundaries heralded by the influx of "reality TV" shows 10 years ago has become much more sophisticated. We still have "Survivor," but we also have "Lost," which is a scripted show (less "real" than "Survivor" in that sense) with interactive elements such as "The Lost Experience" alternate-reality game that people play online (more "real" than "Survivor").
Even in sitcoms, which used to be about setting up elaborate one-line gags no matter how unrealistic the premise, we’ve moved on from "Friends" to "The Office," which subtracts the laugh track for awkward moments and the quotidian victories of paper company employees in Scranton, Pa. – also more like real life, unless you spend all your days being witty in Central Perk.
And "Lost" and "The Office" took their venture into "reality" one step further, running ads for products that exist only within the series. The uninitiated wouldn’t even know these weren’t real.
If interacting with the real world requires dealing with this much virtual input, maybe we should all be playing video games.
James Paul Gee, the author of "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy," says that "we can learn a lot from those young people who play [video] games, if only we take them and their games seriously."
I agree. We all need to learn how to interpret, interact and think in a virtual world. Relying on old standards would be like training as a blacksmith after the Industrial Revolution: useful and quaint, but not quite relevant.
Friday, January 2, 2009
1/2/09:Traditionally, China isn't about the future
My second year in China, my brother called to chat. The conversation worked its way around to the "what time is it there?" point that most trans-time-zone conversations get to, and I said "it’s exactly the same time it is in Connecticut, but tomorrow morning."
"So you’re in the future?" he asked.
"Compared to you, yes. Twelve hours in the future."
"What’s tomorrow like? Oh, oh, wait — what are the newspaper headlines for tomorrow?"
I explained that it didn’t work like that. Just because it’s tomorrow in China doesn’t mean calling there gives us a psychic reading on the future. And that’s fitting. Fortune cookies notwithstanding, China is a country more about tradition than predicting the future.
He was disappointed but understanding.
In particular, relying on China for predictions on the new year won’t help, since Chinese New Year comes after ours. This year, Spring Festival, or Chunjie, falls on Jan. 26.
My first Chunjie in China was a bit startling, though I’d gotten used to some of the differences between Western and Chinese holidays during the fall. If I’d had Chinese ancestors, for instance, I might have participated in the burning of "ghost money," or fake paper currency, to ensure they weren’t living the afterlife in poverty during Ghost Festival.
My school had a Ghost Festival celebration culminating in "the sailing of the paper boats": We released folded paper boats, each carrying a single candle, onto an outdoor pool, and watched them burn and eventually sink.
An eerie reverie fell over the students as the boats floated away — eerie particularly if you’d tried to teach a class of squirmy, talkative fourth graders just a few hours earlier. (My students were barely recognizable when they weren’t wiggling out of their chairs or shouting "a hamburger!" in answer to a question.) — and it seemed we were all caught up in the past and our memories.
Chunjie, the biggest, oldest, loudest and most future-oriented Chinese holiday, doesn’t involve sailing paper boats, but it does involve paper, in the form of red scrolls inviting luck and fortune hung around doorways.
Chunjie also involves fire, which I was completely unprepared for.
Walking back from town around Chunjie, I came across pair after pair of children giggling conspiratorially — and almost all of them grasping some form of explosive.
This was alarming at first. If the kids, some of whom seemed barely old enough to toddle a safe firecrackering distance from their homes, hadn’t been so intimidatingly intent on setting them off, I might have demanded to know where their mothers were and marched them all home.
If I had, I probably would have encountered a bunch of moms wondering how the foreigner got in rather than what their kids were doing with sparklers and Roman candles. They all knew what their kids were up to; in China, everyone gets in on Chunjie firecrackers. They’re meant to ward off evil spirits, and kids are taught how to use them, mostly safely, practically from infancy. They symbolize Chinese connections to the past — to ancestors and past life events — while ushering in the future.
I learned this after a traditional dinner banquet and special variety-TV-show viewing at the headmaster’s house, when he invited me to join his family outside. He brought a giant wheel of firecrackers, the equivalent of a few thousand cap-gun caps, and lit the end. We all stood back as it spun and sparked, the lit end traveling inward on a spiral heading for the center.
Watching the spark travel toward its end was just as good as "watching the ball drop" for putting the old year to rest; and it was the closest I’ve ever gotten, or expect to get, to being able to predict the future.
"So you’re in the future?" he asked.
"Compared to you, yes. Twelve hours in the future."
"What’s tomorrow like? Oh, oh, wait — what are the newspaper headlines for tomorrow?"
I explained that it didn’t work like that. Just because it’s tomorrow in China doesn’t mean calling there gives us a psychic reading on the future. And that’s fitting. Fortune cookies notwithstanding, China is a country more about tradition than predicting the future.
He was disappointed but understanding.
In particular, relying on China for predictions on the new year won’t help, since Chinese New Year comes after ours. This year, Spring Festival, or Chunjie, falls on Jan. 26.
My first Chunjie in China was a bit startling, though I’d gotten used to some of the differences between Western and Chinese holidays during the fall. If I’d had Chinese ancestors, for instance, I might have participated in the burning of "ghost money," or fake paper currency, to ensure they weren’t living the afterlife in poverty during Ghost Festival.
My school had a Ghost Festival celebration culminating in "the sailing of the paper boats": We released folded paper boats, each carrying a single candle, onto an outdoor pool, and watched them burn and eventually sink.
An eerie reverie fell over the students as the boats floated away — eerie particularly if you’d tried to teach a class of squirmy, talkative fourth graders just a few hours earlier. (My students were barely recognizable when they weren’t wiggling out of their chairs or shouting "a hamburger!" in answer to a question.) — and it seemed we were all caught up in the past and our memories.
Chunjie, the biggest, oldest, loudest and most future-oriented Chinese holiday, doesn’t involve sailing paper boats, but it does involve paper, in the form of red scrolls inviting luck and fortune hung around doorways.
Chunjie also involves fire, which I was completely unprepared for.
Walking back from town around Chunjie, I came across pair after pair of children giggling conspiratorially — and almost all of them grasping some form of explosive.
This was alarming at first. If the kids, some of whom seemed barely old enough to toddle a safe firecrackering distance from their homes, hadn’t been so intimidatingly intent on setting them off, I might have demanded to know where their mothers were and marched them all home.
If I had, I probably would have encountered a bunch of moms wondering how the foreigner got in rather than what their kids were doing with sparklers and Roman candles. They all knew what their kids were up to; in China, everyone gets in on Chunjie firecrackers. They’re meant to ward off evil spirits, and kids are taught how to use them, mostly safely, practically from infancy. They symbolize Chinese connections to the past — to ancestors and past life events — while ushering in the future.
I learned this after a traditional dinner banquet and special variety-TV-show viewing at the headmaster’s house, when he invited me to join his family outside. He brought a giant wheel of firecrackers, the equivalent of a few thousand cap-gun caps, and lit the end. We all stood back as it spun and sparked, the lit end traveling inward on a spiral heading for the center.
Watching the spark travel toward its end was just as good as "watching the ball drop" for putting the old year to rest; and it was the closest I’ve ever gotten, or expect to get, to being able to predict the future.
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