I enjoyed an article that my cousin Ethan just wrote about people connecting more during tough economic times. All along I’ve been watching vehicle mileage trends and hearing about “the staycation”, thinking about how good this downturn has been for global warming. But Ethan talks about where this stuff hits home, literally.

A quote from a recent piece about Obama’s campaign in the New Yorker keeps coming back— “our biggest weakness can be our biggest strength.” So far, that has really rung true with this downturn.

It just occurred to me what a cool space the oval office is.
different seats for different moods
it really lends itself to all kinds of communication:
the chat with a casual veneer
(don’t be fooled—it’s always loaded)
the multi-party negotiation
the policy charrette
pronouncements from the desk
the check-in with a confidant
kids playing on the sofa
the stern confrontation
quiet reading alone.
It works for everything you wouldn’t use a meeting room for.
each piece of furniture is key
and there is bilateral symmetry:
the office equivalent of an oval table

I’ve been assisting the professor of a class at ITP @ NYU called Visualizing the Five Senses, and for it I’ve created a visualization of different wine varieties and flavors, based on over 5,000 wine tasting notes from a major Australian wine magazine. If you’ve ever wondered, as I have, how wine varieties correspond to flavor components, you may be interested in this visualization…

As always, I’d love to hear your feedback on it.

Head cheese is a pig head meat suspended in a jellied stock. It’s very delicious. Here’s the full recipe, adapted from Charcuterie by Micharel Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn:

For the brine:

• 1 pig’s head
• 2-4 pig’s trotters or hocks
• 2 gallons of brine (1 cup Kosher salt and 1/2 cup sugar per gallon of water)
• 1-2 pig’s tongues

For the stock:

• 2 cups dry white wine
• 1 bouquet garni
• 4 garlic cloves
• 10 black peppercorns
• 8 bay leaves
• 6 cloves

For the terrine:

• kosher salt
• parsley or other flavorings (nutmeg and/or allspice)

Brine all the meat overnight. Drain and rinse the meat. Add the meat and stock ingredients to a 20 quart stockpot and add water to cover as much as possible. Bring everything to a boil and maintain a very slow simmer for 3-4 hours, skimming fat as needed, until the stock is very dark.

Remove the meat and let it cool. Bring the remaining stock to a rolling boil until it reduces in volume by 1/3, about 2 more hours. Meanwhile, pick off the edible meat from the tongues, head, and trotters. The tongues must be peeled. Work around the bones and skin, judiciously selecting the meat and a little of the fat. The meat should fill one terrine, lined with plastic wrap, with some leftovers.

Mix the meat with the parsley or other flavorings. Ladle the reduced stock over the meat to fill the terrine, then salt the entire thing to taste.

Cover and refrigerate the head cheese overnight or until set. The terrine should be firm all around. Invert onto a serving plate, remove the plastic wrap, and serve with salsa verde, cornichons and other pickled accompaniments, mustards, bread and a salad.

Here’s a photo I took this morning while waiting in line at Target.

You’re probably wondering where all the stuff is. The Target I went to growing up in Nashville would close out of shame if it looked this way.

But this is not the Nashville Target. This is one of Target’s biggest stores in the country, and the only Target in the New York area. This is Brooklyn Target. And I will admit that on weekends, it can be a zoo.

So much a zoo that the company doesn’t know how to handle it. When I first visited this store eight months ago, I thought they were undergoing a reorganization, because so many shelves were completely bare, and sometimes entire aisles were empty. The merchandise was frequently laid out on the floor of the shelving system. But I kept going back, and nothing changed. And it’s the same today. This place just gets pummeled every single weekend, and by Sunday night it is utterly ravaged. Sure, the prices are pretty good, so I can see how popular it is. And a big part of Target’s image is the price—while not on Wal-Mart’s level, it’s definitely cheaper than the corner bodega or convenience store.

But Target has failed to adapt to New York City. They clearly built this store without planning to cover the volume of business they’re seeing. It feels like a test run for them. They’re dipping their toes in the water. I’m sure they knew, going into this, that Brooklyn is not Nashville. But whatever they did to compensate for the New York market, they didn’t do enough of it.

The funny thing is, the shoppers seem unfazed—their carts are full, they seem content. It’s as though they haven’t had the experience of other Targets. They’re just happy to be here, happy to have the option to save some cash. And after all, who needs AA batteries? Or anything else that is extremely popular and always completely sold out?

I’m starting to get used to it myself. But I know it’s possible to run a retail store in New York and keep things in stock, so I’m tempted to raise my expectations. I really am. Yes, there’s a lot more people here. Yes, things get really dirty quickly. But look at the New York-area chains: Duane Reade, Fairway, Key Food, and so on. These companies were built upon the mechanics of the New York market. They’ve learned how to protect themselves from being ransacked every weekend. National chains that come to New York have to learn some lessons from these folks.

By now, there are many reviews of the iPhone 3G. They evaluate hardware specs and software features, make speed and pricing comparisons, and foment rumors about future changes. But when it comes to the way technology changes my life, all this information is irrelevant. What’s relevant is the impact of this device, as a whole, on my behavior. Does it improve the quality of my life? Kill bad habits? Save time? Does it encourage responsibility or better organization?

To find out, I had to go buy the phone and start using it. I have had the iPhone 3G for two weeks now, and during this time I’ve paid particular attention its impact on my everyday behavior. So I thought I’d summarize what I’ve found so far.

For me, the iPhone’s unwieldy keyboard and tiny screen provide its greatest behavioral benefits. Its embodied interface inertia has weened me from unhealthy technology habits and has improved my communication. With the iPhone, I write fewer and shorter e-mails, I call people more often, and I don’t browse the web as much.

Here’s what happens in practice. Walking around the city during the day, I’ve found only one way to hold the phone and type on it with more than one finger: cradle it in both hands and use your thumbs to type as you narrowly avoid walking into fire hydrants or other iPhone users. For me, this typing position starts hurting pretty quickly. My thumbs tighten up and get sore from all the flexing, and my wrists start to hurt. It’s true that the iPhone keyboard software is very polished, but compared to a desktop it is almost entirely unusable, even without the wrist problems. I can eek out short e-mails or enter calendar events, but for any serious writing I need a real computer.

So the iPhone is a huge time saver because it’s so painful to use. On a typical pre-iPhone morning, I would wake up and rush to the computer—before doing anything else—to check my e-mail. It’s a terrible habit, and I think it’s pervasive among the folks I hang out with. But the morning after I bought the iPhone, I woke up and checked my e-mail before even getting out of bed, and when I was finished I didn’t feel compelled to approach my real computer before breakfast. This morning, for example, I actually read a book! I spent an hour reading before even going near my desk. This habit has stuck since day one, and I’m loving it.

The iPhone has also encouraged me to find new ways to communicate. Let’s say I get an inspiring e-mail from someone that generates lots of ideas. On the computer, I would reply with a brain dump, maybe spending an hour crafting a message. But with the iPhone, I’m reluctant to type more than a sentence. Maybe I call the person instead. Voice conversations are so much more efficient and intimate than e-mail. And yes, sometimes a long e-mail is warranted, in which case I can sit down at the computer and really focus on it.

My web browsing habits have changed, as well. I’ve spent way too many days of my life staring blankly at random web sites. But Mobile Safari requires so much patience and determination that I don’t use it unless I really, truly need it. This is the feature I’ve always wanted in a web browser, and the iPhone delivers!

A side effect of these changing habits is that my computer is now reinvented as the place where only real work gets done. If I sit down at the computer, it is because I have a task in mind. As long as I can pull myself away when that task is done, I’ll be much more efficient with it. And it’s easier to pull myself away if the computer isn’t so overloaded with different functions in my life.

Google Maps invoke the other big behavior change. I needed to find a good cafe the other day, in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Normally this would entail 20 minutes of wandering around. But I quickly found something within one block. I’m always in the position to suggest something nearby, or to look something up, and I’m really happy about that.

Beyond that, there isn’t much. What about the amazing touch interface? The WiFi? The App Store? The iPod features? I suppose I can cite Terry Gross more often now, but in general these features haven’t had a big impact on my behavior, they’re just nice to have. Also, there are lots of iPhone games and other applications that I haven’t delved into yet, so I’m excited about opening up more good-behavior potential from this device. I’ll let you know what arises…

A few months ago I fell into conversation with someone at a pig roast in Boston when I overheard something about Brooklyn. I asked if she was also visiting from Brooklyn, and by chance she was. It turns out she lived right in my neighborhood.

In fact, she lived on the same street as me.

I asked what house number, and she said 30, which is my building.

At this point I’m wondering if this is a trick.

Wait, what floor? The fourth floor, she said.

I live on the forth floor, too.

It turns out she lived in 4A. And I live in 4C, just across the hall. And I’d never noticed her before. We laughed about it and ate pork belly and drank beer together, and for a moment I felt like I’d won the lottery.

It was nice to meet a neighbor. I don’t know many of them, but sometimes I see evidence of their lives: a package from Edible Arrangements or some other mail order company I thought nobody ever, ever ordered from. So if I greet or even meet my neighbors, I know it’s not because we have something in common. It is only because they live right next door to me. There is no shared value, no deep personal connection. It’s very unlikely we’d have met otherwise.

Yes, I suppose these people, my neighbors, could be amazing. They could be lifelong friends that challenge me yet bring out my best attributes. They could be people with whom I could grow old and wise. But that’s too easy. They’re probably freaks. They’re probably sharks. They probably don’t floss after eating all the strawberries out of their edible arrangement.

In a recent survey, 56% of respondents said they don’t have time to make lasting connections, and that’s why they don’t know their neighbors. I don’t believe it. It’s just that they’re too busy nurturing lasting connections with people across town and across the world. That’s why they don’t have time. I’m sure if their neighbors were something special, they’d have met and fallen in love by now.

But neighbors are never special, or they’re never just special enough. I once lived right across from Steve Buscemi, and he’s a little too special. The neighbor connection wouldn’t work. Besides, he owned and I rented.

So we keep our lives separate. The only resource I share with my current neighbors is the laundry room in the basement—not exactly a sidewalk cafe. Laundry is a surgical operation. And people often forget about it, which means I end up having to touch my neighbors underwear before we get to exchange our first words.

Maybe that’s why neighbors don’t talk. Even with segregated lives, maybe we’re too close for comfort. Maybe they’re suspicious that I’m the kind of person who likes touching my neighbors underwear in the laundry room. In which case, they’d probably rather not meet me. I’m probably a freak. I’m probably a shark. I probably don’t floss after eating all the strawberries out of my edible arrangement.

A week after the serendipitous pig roast, I went across the hall to visit my new friend, but the conversation was strained. She was busy in her life, and I in mine. Our worlds had collided, but it was a collision of perfect elasticity. I later saw her in the stairwell but by the time I recognized her, it was too late to say hello. But she didn’t say hello, either, and I could tell she recognized me. Here we are, living together on the same block, in the same building, on the same floor. If we’d never met, the stairwell would have been a completely neutral encounter. Instead I was ashamed at myself and upset at her. I can’t blame her, though. There are only ten people living on my floor, and only one with whom I have eaten pork belly in Boston, but pork belly just doesn’t have enough sinew to hold people together.

Shame on me. I spent eight hours at the Apple Store waiting to get an iPhone 3G. Karl and I got there at 8am, and I thought I could make it out by 10am. No chance. But once you’ve waited somewhere two hours, you’ve got a strong incentive to stay. What kind of materialistic, selfish, foolhardy, spendthrift, oafish, uber-trendy halfwit am I? I am so embarrassed.

Shame on AT&T. From my perspective, their red tape is the reason there are such long waits for these phones. Once Karl and I got to the front of the line, we were ushered upstairs where an Apple rep helped us activate our phones. But when he brought up the price, it was $499, not $299. We weren’t eligible for an upgrade. As I pleaded for their help getting my account set up properly so I could start paying them twice the price for their lovely service, I looked around and noticed that many of the people I waited in line with were also on their phones, also wrangling with AT&T.

Shame on Apple. It is not at all clear from their web site that the phone is subsidized. Nowhere do they mention $499. The only prices they talk about are $199 and $299. And Apple doesn’t advise current AT&T customers to call AT&T and check upgrade eligibility. Apple’s what to bring page is silent on the issue. It seems as though they’d rather have me find out only after a long wait, at which point I might buckle and get the phone anyway, even at $499. So beyond the six hours we waited in line, I spent two more hours making three phone calls to AT&T to discuss eligibility. Then I was told I would have to wait 72 hours for an answer from AT&T. Apple gave me a “golden ticket” in lieu of a phone and sent me home.

Flash forward 72 business hours, 5 days later. AT&T approved me for the lower pricing. But the store I waited in line at is now completely out of iPhones. So I took my golden ticket up to the 5th Avenue store—practically the only store in the country with the phone in stock at this point—and got into another battle. This time, thankfully, I was able to skip the entire line. And I found an employee who worked for both Apple and AT&T. The entire time we talked, she had two iPhones up to her head, both connected to AT&T customer service on behalf of different people in the store. Even though she works for AT&T, she only has access to the same customer service number that customers do. She just knows the right keywords to say if she wants things escalated.

Two hours later I emerged, iPhone in hand!, having paid the full price because Apple’s system still wouldn’t recognize that I was eligible. The AT&T rep told me I have to call AT&T and ask for a $200 refund, wait another 72 hours, then call Apple and ask for my money back, then wait another 5 days, and I should get a refund.

Flash forward another week and a half. AT&T hasn’t done anything yet. My call with them was escalated up to the VP’s office, and they called me a couple times just to confirm what was happening. One person asked if they could call me back in 30 seconds, and didn’t call back. I missed two calls from them over the weekend, when I was on vacation. And of course they don’t leave a direct phone number, so I called back this morning, to the general customer service number, and the guy said he’d put in a reminder that I was waiting. We’ll see if that works. So far at least AT&T acknowledges that I am owed money, but who knows how long it will take for them to proceed.

Long story short, it will be a while before the conveniences of this new phone defray the time and money I’ve already spent on it. Oh, how the materialistic, selfish, foolhardy, spendthrift, oafish, uber-trendy halfwit suffers.