{"id":408,"date":"2007-11-20T11:42:58","date_gmt":"2007-11-20T16:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/news\/2007\/parcels\/"},"modified":"2007-11-20T12:40:51","modified_gmt":"2007-11-20T17:40:51","slug":"parcels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/news\/2007\/parcels\/","title":{"rendered":"Parcels"},"content":{"rendered":"
I am inordinately excited about Oliver Sacks’s new book<\/a>! I love him. One of my favorite thing to do when I travel is to keep a small running list of books on Amazon.com and then have them turn up in time for my arrival back home; I bought the Sacks book, I bought Phoebe Damrosch’s Service Included<\/em> (as reviewed here<\/a>), the new Nigella Lawson<\/a>, and a birthday present for a friend (well in advance!). <\/p>\n Two nights ago we had a dusky walk to the pool with a really spectacular sunset (click to enlarge!). <\/a> I’m not sure why I am so obsessed with this intersection between something being state-run and it being really clean and wonderful. I guess in my vision of utopia, that’s sort of how things are organized…? I love the weirdness of the municipal buildings in Chinatown, though: the “No Spitting!” sign in Chinese <\/a>in the post office, the completely surreal video collection at the local library, the old-fashioned spatial organization of the Knickerbocker post office on East Broadway. I don’t think you could get away with such quirkiness in this Scandolovely configuration; I think the weirdest thing you have here is a diagram in the municipal showers with Big Red Dots instructing you where on your body you have to wash before entering the pool. I had thought it was myth, but in October, I actually saw somebody get asked by the Man in the Booth to go back and have a do-over.<\/p>\n An observation: winters in Vermont are windy, sure, but the wind seems to be circular and sort of dramatic\/romantic in its paths, whipping around trees and over and through buildings. Here, however, the fact of the island’s existence seems irrelevant to nature; the wind rushes right by, on its way to Norway. It’s a lonesome feeling, but when you get inside, it is that much cozier for it.<\/p>\n