cities. physics. food. environment. fatherhood.

When asked if the Washington Metro is “safe,” this is how I’ve responded:

Yes, absolutely. Inside the system–on trains and in stations, generally anywhere inside the faregates, the system is safe for everyone at all hours. I even consider the station platform areas to be safe for those stations that are in neighborhoods that tend towards rough. The system was designed and built in the 1970s, and has a much cleaner, space-age, modernist feel than the older systems of New York, Chicago, or Boston. The stations are open and airy, creating far fewer places for hoodlums to hide. Almost all the entrances and exits are supervised at all times by a station manager: there are no cage-like revolving door exits and no lonely staircases framed by rusting steel girders. On the trains, its very rare to encounter a bum or panhandler or street preacher or some sketchy guy selling socks and batteries.

Metro’s first general manager was a retired army general, Jackson Graham, whose military background contributed much to the culture that grew around Metro. Metro is safe and comfortable, and clean and uniform, and slightly dull. There are no abandoned stations or little-known gems or interesting or historic artwork. Metro is straightforward: unlike New Yorkers, who can have endless discussions about the most efficient way to get from one part of Manhattan to another, Metro riders have little lore to learn and share. Riding Metro is, generally, uneventful.

So we were pleasantly surprised today when a talented accordionist boarded our Metro train and played as we rode. Like most Washingtonians, it took me a while to realize how fortunate we were, and what a joyous addition to an otherwise cold and gloomy day his music was. (Read Post columnist Gene Weingarten’s brilliant social experiment, to see how Washingtonians react to a busking Joshua Bell.) (See also the followup discussion, which describes the unimaginative intransigence of Metro in preparations for the experiment.)

The accordionist rode a few stops, by which point I’d lost any unexpected-event-induced grumpiness, and I happily contributed when he came by with his outstretched hat. He was very gracious, smiling at our son and playing a few notes for him. While he was playing, I took a picture.

This weekend I begin my Christmas shopping, and it’s of course the first year I’ll have the opportunity to buy Christmas presents for my son. He will not quite be old enough to understand what’s going on, though, for his first Christmas. The concepts of owning things, having things, and getting things are several months away, as is the notion of how fun it is to get new things. Next year will be different, of course, but for now we can get away with things mostly for our benefit, such as books we’d like to read to him, or outfits we’d like to see him wear. With a child in the house, though, the focus of Christmas changes completely, and this gives me an opportunity for me to reflect on the whole enterprise of gift-giving.

My theory on gift-giving is that there are two elements to a good gift: that it is something the recipient will appreciate, and that it is something which the recipient would not have acquired otherwise. Additionally, there should be some element of surprise; the recipient should not know in advance what the gift will be. It sounds straightforward enough, but it has very different results for children compared to adults. For children, the primary reason they haven’t already acquired something is that they don’t have enough money to buy it. That doesn’t really work with adults: when I want a book, or a new frying pan, or new hiking boots, I just buy them. (Well, I used to, before we had to rein in our spending to make sure we had enough money for child care.) Adults have a whole host of other reasons not to have acquired something, even if they would appreciate it: they don’t know about it, they haven’t had time to find it, they haven’t had time to select the most appropriate version. Or, something has seemed too much like a splurge. But it’s always seemed silly to me to ask (financially stable) adults what they want: if they want something, why not just go buy it? If its the thought that counts, whose thought is it?

Of course, it’s not always easy to pick something that the recipient will appreciate; I’ve been hit and miss over the years but I do think overall the usefulness of the hits makes it worthwhile to try. Some of the best things I’ve given and received over the years: a nightcap, an electric kettle, a laser pointer (before they became ubiquitous), my first coffee grinder, an iPod. I wonder, in the coming years, what sorts of things our son will consider to be his favorite gifts–and will I have to assemble them Christmas eve?

I finally listened to my iPod again, during my commute, but not, of course, while walking to the Metro. Mostly, I listen to podcasts. Today I listened to:

Sierra Club Radio, the Dec. 1st episode. Excellent interview with Ken Weiss who wrote the LA Times series on the plight of the oceans. 

The Splendid Table, an NPR show about food, with ebullient host Lynne Rossetto Kasper. 

This American Life, which is consistently the most captivating radio show around. When I was in grad school, this came on Sunday mornings and I almost always listened, but here in DC it’s been on at a time when I’ve almost always been doing something else. Which is why I love the podcast. 

I trust Cook’s Illustrated far more than any other cooking resource. Before I discovered Cook’s, I would rarely try a recipe and serve it to guests without having (successfully) made it for myself first, but recipes from Cook’s are generally so reliable that I will experiment like that. So when Cook’s Illustrated finds that Dutch-processed cocoa works better than natural cocoa in most recipes, I’m willing to believe them.

But finding Dutch-processed cocoa! We’ve been unsuccessful looking in: The local natural food coop, the local organic store that serves as our neighborhood’s grocery store, two Safeway stores, one Giant supermarket, a Trader Joe’s, a Korean grocery store, and finally, a Whole Foods, where I had thought I had previously been able to buy Droste brand Dutched cocoa.

What’s really irritating about trying to find Dutched cocoa at Whole Foods is that can make shelf space for, from one brand: All natural unsweetened cocoa, all natural hot chocolate, new world drinking chocolate, old world hot chocolate, traditional hot chocolate, Aztec spicy hot chocolate, and mocha hot chocolate. But no Dutched cocoa!

and von vas… assaulted!

Except in this case, it’s not a joke; I was assaulted Friday evening while walking home from the Metro, about 3 blocks from my home. This is, in large part, why I haven’t posted anything lately.

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At some point each day, there is a transition between “early in the day” and “late in the day.” If I manage to get something done while it’s still “early in the day,” then I’m happy; if I don’t finish until it’s “late in the day,” then I feel that I’ve spent the entire day on that task and don’t really have much time left to accomplish anything else. This is true whether at home or at work. Of course I hardly ever get things done “early in the day.” 

Presently, I think that the transition point is 2:30pm.

Along similar lines, I think the boundary between “late at night” and “early in the morning” is 3:30am. Or at least now that I’ve left graduate school, I hope never to have to stay up past or wake up before this point. 

I’m not, by any stretch, a serious railfan. No vacations centered around sites to watch trains, no vest or baseball cap studded with rail-themed collectors’ pins, no log of serial numbers of cars I’ve seen, or even ridden, nor even a mileage log of my own. But I have enjoyed watching trains for as long as I can remember, and I’m told that when I was very young I’d make my parents stop the car to watch a passing train. If my son asks, in a few years, to stop and watch a train go by, I’ll happily agree.

One of the bonus features, then, of living in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington DC is that the Metro tracks parallel the Amtrak tracks on the way to Brookland leaving Union Station, so when I’m riding the Metro to or from home I have a few minutes view of some busy rail lines.

One sees lots of MARC trains, especially during commuter hours; they’re not so interesting. There are usually random pieces of Amtrak equipment in the yards, locomotives and switchers and the like. It’s a good day when I see a revenue service Amtrak train moving, especially an Acela Express, or the Capitol Limited. Once I saw the American Orient Express. In the late mornings, when most of the VRE  trains have arrived and are waiting for their evening departures, there’s a particularly nice view of 4 or 5 of them on different tracks but lined up: a nice illustration, I think, of the Zen View from A Pattern Language.

I of course prepare for this brief trip through the railyard, by trying to get a window seat on the appropriate side of the train: right side when going in the direction of Glenmont, left side when traveling in the direction of Shady Grove. In morning rush hour, it’s rare that any seat is available, but in the evening enough people get off at Gallery Place-Chinatown, with some more getting off at Union Station, so that there’s a reasonable of a window seat opening up. When one does, and especially if I get to see some trains, it’s a small but welcome pleasure in my day.

There are magic words in our society, words whose utterance casts a spell over all those who hear them. No, this isn’t about any supernatural hogwash.Two magic words–there may be more–are liability and security. “Liability” has been with us for decades now, but the magical effects of “security” were only discovered post 9/11.When these words are uttered, and the spells cast, those under the spell temporarily lose the ability to think. The usual context is something like this: several people are gathered in a meeting. One of them suggests doing something that would be enlightening, entertaining, or otherwise innovative. Someone else, feeling threatened by this idea, will respond by chanting the spell, along the lines of “What about our liability?” or “that brings up security issues.” At this point, instead of a discussion about the actual potential legal liabilites, or of what, specifically, the security concerns are–it does not matter if there are no genuine experts at either liability or security in the meeting–the idea dies. (I do not wish to imply here that I necessarily believe in the existence of genuine security experts.) The other people at the meeting are under the spell, so great is their fear of being personally responsible for the next multi-million dollar lawsuit, or the next 9/11.I do not know of effective ways to counter these spells: perhaps to call out “Abracadabra” and demand specifics?

We cut our Christmas tree today, at Butler’s Orchard, where we’ve gone for our tree every year since 2004. Tree harvest was from a new stand of trees this year–we got a Douglas Fir (they also had White Pine); there were no Canaan Firs as in previous years. By and large, the trees in this field were beautifully sheared, giving them near-perfect conical shapes. (How long before someone introduces topiary Christmas trees, I wonder?)

Counting the rings on a slice of trunk, I guess the tree has been around a few months longer than we’ve been in DC. Here’s an annotated picture:

It’s 6am; I’ve overslept! I should have been in line at the mall three hours ago!

I’m not a strict BND observer, but considering how you can’t separate the environmental damage caused by manufacturing, by mining and refining raw materials for manufacture, by transportation of goods and materials, and by disposal of packaging and worn-out junk from the purchase of new goods, BND does seem to be one of the more useful spiritual holidays around. There’s a reason that “reduce” is the first keyword in the “reduce, reuse, repair, recycle” mantra.

Many argue that stuff not bought today will be bought some other day, so it’s understood that BND is not a cure for consumerism, but rather a time to reflect on the future of a consumer society in the age of global warming and Peak Oil. We should question the underlying assumption of that argument, though, that there’s some fixed amount of stuff that we’re going to buy. Rather, we need to keep the Jevons paradox in mind, and consider whether the ease with which we can purchase something plays a role in our decision to purchase it in the first place.

If you’re going to make any observation of BND today, I’d say the first priority is to avoid products that are explicitly marketed as “green.” One of the softer, and IMHO more unreasonably optimistic environmental notions out there is that we can save the world simply buy buying the right stuff. A much larger fraction of the Green Living blog and its companion piece on Sierra Club Radio are devoted to buying less damaging products, instead of reducing, reusing or repairing. So today, instead of buying a shirt made from organic cotton, ask yourself instead whether you really need another shirt in the first place.

I did look through all the sale flyers that came with Yesterday’s Washington Post. Among the things advertised, without which I think that that, on balance, the world would be a better place: electric martini makers, “Latte” makers (ironically, from a company called “Back to Basics”), and Margarita makers. And scented candles.