Science

If you aren't completely baffled most of the time, you're doing it wrong.

A flâneur skims Boston.

Saturday was another sweltering day, though not as bad as Friday (temperatures in Newark apparently hit a record high that afternoon. Well, well.) It didn't hurt that we spent the hottest hours of the day indoors in the air-conditioned comfort of the Museum of Science, learning that grass and apple smell really similar, trying to locate Waldo but finding only illustrated puns, and marvelling at the sheer range of diets and caloric intake around the world.
Sometime in the afternoon there was lunch at the museum cafe, which had a great panoramic view over the Charles River. The Charles was a recurrent point of reference over the weekend as we crossed back and forth over it along Storrow Drive, first to listen to Elaine gushing over this year's IMO results over dinner, and then to visit the MIT Museum the next day. They hadn't changed any of their exhibits since winter, but they didn't seem any less cool or interesting to me. Technology: it's awesome.

The heatwave had subsided by Sunday, and it was excellent weather for a walk down Mass Ave, by Beacon Hill and through the Public Garden to Chinatown. Far better than the snowy and biting cold that we walked the Freedom Trail in earlier this year. Ambling through the Public Garden after a tasty and very filling bowl of phở bò, watching the crimson and violet sunset over the Boston skyline and people lounging on the lawns enjoying the weather, ZM's comment that this was "such a liveable city" seemed almost undisputable.
Though I couldn't help but wonder---would any of us ever actually live here; truly "belong" here, whatever that may mean? Or would we never be more than mere visitors? And if so, is that reason to be sad? Or is it just the way the world is, something of no import or practical consequence?

Anyway, back to New Jersey now. Cheers.

And all you hear is silence.

Or, the state of the known world.

1. The Ayasofya has become but a wandering symbol. There is no normative involved here, only objective fact.
2. A new symbol is rising to the north-east. Perchance. 
3. In the spirit of their bearers I dedicate these new symbols: Amsterdam, København, and Kraków / Warszawa.

Through a window, at sixty miles an hour.

New Jersey's highways, especially the Turnpike, seemed to have their own unique quality of ugly sprawl, something which rather disappeared once the "New York: Empire State" sign popped up. Or was I just imagining that, based on all the stereotypes of the Garden State / Land of the Mall that everyone, even---particularly---New Jerseyans, has been feeding me?
What Darvin was saying about how New Jersey was the very definition of suburbia also seemed to bear itself out (or perhaps once again, was coloring my view.) Compared to the sprawling prevalence of built-up areas in the Garden State, New York and even Connecticut seemed to have more clearly-delineated rural-urban boundaries, almost in the European mode. The striking towers of Waterbury's Union Station and St. Anne's Church were all the more striking for having appeared almost suddenly after a long passage through relative, lightly-forested emptiness.

I'd like to actually visit these places one day, instead of just flying through on a coach. But then again, would it actually be worth the time and expense to travel through a generally unremarkable stretch of the semi-urban Northeast? The same dilemma is happening in my life, on a slightly larger scale: there are all these paths which all seem interesting, which all seem like they could lead somewhere. But they're all going to take time and energy and expense to pursue, and as much as I would like to, I'm not going to be able to follow up on all of them. So what now?

But anyway, it's approaching eight, and the sun is setting over central Massachussetts. The Mass Pike just flew over a small lake: it was lovely to see the waning light of the sun dance serenely off the watery mirror.
Soon we will arrive in Boston, and then the bustle of life will start anew.

"Is there something you're trying to escape from?"

Yes. The frustration of drudgery. It's something we are all trying to escape from---why else would the concept of entertainment exist? But what if your escapade could shape the course of human experience---if not now or in the near future, then decades, even centuries into the future ... wouldn't that be something?
Not that that alone would have landed you anything, in all likelihood, but a lesson worth remembering: believe in what you say, and don't be afraid to give it straight.

AUGH

Cramming in too much information feels just like stuffing in too much food.
Both leave a slightly nauseous aftertaste.

A still pond.

Let the waters of the world cleanse us, and let us walk lightly in a world that is already wonderful without our fantasies.

Apparently Good Advice

Vouched for by a random person on the street, two in the lab, and counting.