Russian Doll

The second season of Russian Doll is on Netflix, but first I’ll watch the first season again. I don’t have a strong recollection of the show, but I recognize the twist in rewatching a show about repeating the same evening. Like Groundhog Day, but not.

I originally binged the show on my second return from Hong Kong in 2019, during an in-flight endless twilight with windows down and lights dimmed, trying to stay awake or at least jumble my circadian rhythm to flip back the circle of the world from night to day, or day to night. On my first flight out I could look out the window and marvel at the vast white expanse of Siberia. On this second return back, along a shorter geodesic to Vancouver, I was in a middle seat and could only see the media I had downloaded: films and series set in Hong Kong; Russian Doll. But now I remember little of the show because I was half-dreaming while hurtling through the stratosphere.

Not that my memory is always that great anyhow, especially when it comes to programs that I watch on my own, sometimes while performing other tasks, and then barely discuss afterwards. This month I watched Stranger Things again, because the fourth season will be out next month. I noticed more on this second watch: the excellence of the acting, the attention to detail to the time period. I also realized that Suzie’s insistence on singing the “Neverending Story” duet with Dustin caused just enough of a delay for Hopper and Billy to meet tragic ends. I suppose that was obvious in retrospect.

Feliz Pascua

Feliz Pascua a todos los que celebran la día hoy. En SpanishDict, la palabra del día es conejito. Yo recuerdo la palabra conejo por Coney Island, cerca de donde viví de niño.

La Real Academia Española dice que la forma correcta es Feliz Pascua en vez de Felices Pascuas. Realmente no entiendo por qué — ambos son igualmente confusos para mí. ¿Por qué decimos buenas noches en lugar de buena noche? Y ¿por qué Feliz Nochevieja, y no Felices Nocheviejas? (y ¿por qué el plural de nochevieja es nocheviejas — el original fue noches viejas).

Mira:

singular Feliz Navidad, Feliz Nochevieja, Feliz Año Nuevo, Feliz Pascua

plural buenos días, buenas tardes, buenas noches

Creo que el singular es por veces infrecuentes. De verdad, no sé.

Y mira feliz cumpleaños — ¡ambos singular y plural! (Por cierto, mi cumpleaños a menudo es alrededor de la Semana Senta. Era católico de niño. Ahora ya no celebro Pascua; apenas celebro mi propio cumpleaños.) Supongo que cumpleaños es un sustantivo singular, como rompecabezas: un grupo de años, un rompimiento de cabezas. Muchos son uno; la trinidad es el único dios.

Aprender, en particular idiomas, es divertida: una diversión paradójica, un rompecabezas atractivo.

dreams and the edge of knowing

I had a dream, last night or maybe it was the night before, where I went to write something on my hand, because I had a pen (of course I had a pen, even in my dreams) but I didn’t have any paper. I needed to remember something important.

There was already something written on my left hand, in a different color ink — black, I think, when the pen was blue. The writing was on the back as well as the palm, with just enough space to cramp in my thoughts. (That’s not right: cram in my thoughts.)

I wrote what I wanted to remember but today I look at my hand and there is only the blank canvas of my skin. It could not have been important after all, this thing I thought I needed to remember.

I occasionally have other dreams where I retain some awareness I am inhabiting a dream world distinct from the waking world. In one dream years ago I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming and in the dream I didn’t wake up, so I thought it was real. That’s my only memory of that dream: that I convinced myself I wasn’t dreaming.

In another dream, something so funny happened that by laughing I woke myself up. I have also woken up smiling, or crying, or calling out for a dog who sometimes I see alive in dreams.

On a break from college I woke up startled in the late afternoon and mistook the red sunlight streaming into my window as the blast from one of the nuclear bombs that were exploding across the Ohio Valley.

And I have dreams like this recent one. In such dreams I am thinking that I need to remember a poem or an idea, so that I can carry it out from the dream world, to examine it in the light of day.

… 

No one understands why we need to sleep and no one understands why we need to dream. Freud and Jung and various religions? Really, no one knows.

earth

Today the ground is warming up. As it dries, the mud releases subtle particular scents. Having lived many places over the decades, I recognize different smells after rainfall. This is not the sharp chamisa and juniper of the high desert in Santa Fe, or the washed urban grit of Manhattan. This smells like home — or at least it smells familiar, close to the red clay of my childhood home down the Ohio, related to the rich loam of my beloved alma mater in the Finger Lakes.

It is 78 Fahrenheit at the moment, a good 20 degrees warmer than Las Vegas. What an unusual inversion. This is the first time I’ve seen it.

Throw open the doors, put up the storm windows. This afternoon, summer is here.

taking flight

I enjoy flying. In 2019 I flew twice to Hong Kong, as well as Princeton (via Newark), New York, and Madrid. However, I grounded myself in early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For over a year, I barely even drove anywhere. Except for a quick trip to Washington County for a propane heater, I did not venture beyond the city limits of Pittsburgh until June 2021, when we enjoyed a weekend with extended family in West Virginia.

After everyone in the family was fully vaccinated, I started to spread my wings. Last July we drove cross-country. In August I flew back from Las Vegas, and traveled there again in October and December. We did cancel our winter flights to Barcelona and from Lisbon because we thought it might be difficult returning to the US if we tested for the infectious omicron variant. Still, I have now flown every month in 2022: from Vegas in January; Chicago in February; Ole Miss (via Memphis) and Vegas again in March; Atlanta in April. I anticipate being in the air at least once more this summer.

While I do enjoy flying, I enjoy having flown even more. Despite TSA PreCheck, security theater can be annoying. Despite lounge access, connections in large airports can be stressful. Despite online maps, navigating unfamiliar public transportation systems can be taxing.

So it’s good to come to Pittsburgh International. Yes, it’s a familiar airport but this is not me being a homer — PIT is modest-sized, rarely crowded apart from TSA, the moving sidewalks and other facilities always operate smoothly, the corridors are spacious, and the lounge couldn’t be more convenient. Although I might wish it were closer to the East End (the 28X takes an hour) and that it had a greater number of cheaper flights, overall this facility is tied with Albuquerque as my favorite airport in the country.

So why does Pittsburgh need a new terminal

PIT TMP DDRender Arrivals2 1200x850

Yes, this construction supports jobs. But what are the actual benefits as a passenger? The “terminal modernization program” website lists:

  • Increasing the main security checkpoint area
  • Reducing the time it takes to get from curbside to airside by 50 percent
  • Increasing area for concessions and retail
  • Increasing covered parking by 3x the amount of current spots
  • Reducing the time it takes to get from International Arrivals to curbside by 67 percent
  • A dedicated Ground Transportation Center
  • One Meeter/Greeter location for less confusion
  • Only one level change from curb to gates

A billion dollars for this? The security checkpoint doesn’t need to become larger — it just needs to clear people faster. The time from curbside to airside is already rapid — from the moment I deplane, even from the farthest gate it’s less than ten minutes to the bus stop. We don’t need more concessions and retail; the stores there get little foot traffic. We should be creating better access to the airport by public transit, not building more covered parking. The level change from curb to gates is already virtually unnoticeable. And so forth.

I’m unconvinced that “smart” baggage handling designed by Carnegie Mellon researchers will improve anything. Instead, I fully expect the technoglitter will prove as useful as pixie dust, and will in fact lead to less robust systems. While I try to avoid checking in luggage, I can report the baggage claim process is pretty fast. After all, we are talking about a small airport with few flights. I’d rather wait five more minutes for my bag, if I know that the system is reliable.

The airport as it stands was built to be a hub for US Airways, which soon afterwards abandoned the city. In some ways, the airport mirrors the city itself. Both have the infrastructure and amenities to serve a much larger population, which is an advantage for those of us who remain.

The new facility will have fewer gates, in a frank admission this airport did not become a hub and will not become one within my lifetime. The groundside terminal will be moved to nest within the crux formed by four wings. I suppose this will eliminate about a quarter of the gates.

PIT TMP DDRender Aerial 1200x850

Those gates weren’t being used anyway; again, the airport was built to be a hub, so it has way too much capacity.

But really now, what are we gaining for a billion dollars? Quicker transit time from curbside to airside (but this was already quite short), the elimination of the people mover (which, granted, might be difficult to maintain), and a greener facility with its own microgrid. 

I get it: there is economic incentive to create something new, even when the old system works perfectly fine for passengers. A flashy Big Project feeds egos, establishes reputations, and creates “lasting legacies.” Look at this Big Thing I Made (never mind the actual builders on site).

Higher education is riddled with similar incentives, producing similar results. If it’s not a new building with someone’s name, it’s a glossy new general education curriculum that can shine only after eliminating a program the students actually prefer.

At least the rendering of the interior depicts a bigger space, with better sightlines for Calder’s Pittsburgh. One billion dollars and, at long last, the city provides a suitable setting for that work of art.

counting and not being counted

Last Friday the Census Bureau released the 1950 dataset, after the mandated 72-year quiet period. Because artificial intelligence applied optical character recognition to these hand-written documents, it’s now possible to search for people with simple text strings. Although the OCR is imperfect, it was good enough for me to locate my father-in-law. He was 5 years old when his family was surveyed; his younger brother had also been born, but not his sister yet. I also tracked down the record of his paternal grandfather and uncle. Unfortunately, I could not find my mother-in-law.

As for blood relations, my own ancestors weren’t in the States until later, when my parents independently immigrated from the Philippines, being the pioneers of their respective families. My dad arrived in Albany (New York) in 1959, and would have been counted in Paramus in 1960. My mom arrived in St. Louis in 1962; for the 1970 Census, she would have been in the Bronx, married, with three children. It’s amazing how much life can change between censuses.

Soon after World War II, the Philippines had become its own nation. However, during the 1940 Census, it was part of the concealed empire of the United States. As Daniel Immerwahr states in How to Hide an Empireabout 131 million citizens lived in the US mainland (that is, the extant 48 states), while nearly 19 million people lived in Alaska, Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, other territories, and especially (more than 16 million) in the Philippines. When my parents were young adults, they were among the more than 1 out of every 8 people who were colonial subjects of the United States. In Immerwahr’s words: If you lived in the United States on the eve of World War II, … you were more likely to be colonized than black, by odds of three to two. This map from his book shows the size and extent of the land held by the American empire at that time:

Greater United States

Although millions of Filipino subjects in overseas territory were not counted in the 1940 Census, the category of “Filipino” was one of the races listed, along with White, Negro, American Indian, Japanese, Chinese, and “Other race — spell out”. There are so many other historical artifacts in this brief survey: the head of household is assumed to be male, his spouse is female, there are two genders, etc. And under “What kind of work was he doing?” there are five examples: Nails heels on shoes (?!), Chemistry professor, Farmer, Farm helper, and Armed forces. What a strange set of occupations; overall, what a parochial national self-vision.

The questions we are asked, and those we are not asked. The types of answers we are permitted to provide, and those we cannot give. How much has really changed in the last 72 years? The truth is silent.

oil and vinegar

While building my Spanish vocabulary, I often establish words in my memory by connecting them to similar words in other languages. I lean most heavily on English, but also think about other words in Spanish, French, as well as Tagalog, Latin, and Greek. There are so many examples: vinagre is clearly related to English (vinegar) as well as French (vinaigre), being derived from Latin (vinum acer) — wine gone sour.
Vinegar
However, I occasionally run into false friends — words that appear similar but have different meanings: embarazada means pregnant (not embarrassed, which is avergonzado)decepcionado means disappointed (not deceptive, which is engañoso). Some false friends are also false cognates — words that appear the same but have different etymological origins.

Aceite is both false friend and false cognate. On first meeting the word, I expected it to mean something sour: acid, acrid, acetic. When teaching chemistry, in the back of my mind I sometimes think about the strangeness of a molecule having the name “acetic acid” — it’s a duplication like “heat transfer” (heat already being a transfer of energy), “ATM machine” (M already standing for machine), or “PIN number” (N already standing for number). For a while I thought “Potomac River” also involved a strange duplication, but the place name (Patawomeck) in Algonquian is unrelated to the word for river (ποταμός or “potamós”) in Greek.

Acetic acid

Aceite is a very confusing false friend, because it is the Spanish word for oil, not for vinegar. Oil and vinegar are culinary opposites!

How can this be? I had expected the Spanish word for oil would look something like English or French. Trying to explain this anomaly to myself, I initially speculated aceite might refer to the sharp peppery overtones of high-quality olive oil. But the truth can be found in its etymology:

AceiteAceite comes from Arabic, not Latin. The word is a reflection of the tapestry of cultures that have inhabited the landscape of Spain. Our family witnessed this in the Muslim influence on architecture during our visit to Andalusia (Andalucía) two years ago.

However, the adoption of this particular Arabic word into Spanish doesn’t make complete sense to me. After all, Iberia was part of the Roman Empire; some olive trees in Spain are two thousand years old, which predates the Muslim era by centuries. For many generations, the people living there harvested olives and consumed the oil, presumably referring to this central foodstuff in Vulgar Latin or Latin (oleum) — a word that has spread all around the region to be adopted by English (oil), French (huile), Italian (olio), Portuguese (óleo), Romanian (ulei), and German (Öl).

I could understand if the people had taken up “oleum” and “azeyte” as synonyms for oil, or differentiated between the words depending on circumstances. For example, in English we use Anglo-Saxon words for animals (steer and cow, sheep, chicken, pig) and Norman French words for food (beef viz. boeuf, mutton viz. mouton, poultry viz. poulet, pork viz. porc). And in Tagalog there are counting numbers used for most situations, but Spanish-derived counting numbers are used to tell time, which I suppose tells us something about the Filipino relationship to time before (as well as after) colonization.

However, instead of aceite being introduced as a parallel word for oil, it somehow completely supplanted “oleum”. I still have questions — I always have questions.

Resources:

April Fools

Marissa’s friend Kristine and my friend Marc both celebrate their birthdays today. Marc and I met when we lived in the same suite in Low Rise 7 through the middle of sophomore year. Marissa and Kristine lived in the same house during college.

They are among our dearest friends. I can confide in Marc on just about anything. What a blessing, to have friends facing the same challenges in life. What a coincidence, that they are both April Fools.

following and being followed

On Duolingo, friends can be “following” and/or they can be “followers”: in the language of graph theory, everyone’s friendship network is a digraph. That is, following someone is completely independent of being followed, which reflects the reality of human relationships, as in the lyric to Nature Boy (“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”) and the Song of Solomon (“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine…”)

As of this moment, I follow 17 other Duolingo accounts — people whom I know in real life, some with more than one login. On the other hand, 190 Duolingo accounts follow me. I don’t mind that my account is public; as far as I know, all Duolingo accounts are public, so everyone can follow anyone else. “Friendship” in Duolingo is noncommittal and nonintrusive; for example, you can’t send personalized messages to friends. I think the only reason to define a friend on the platform is to monitor someone else’s language progress and encourage each other to use Duolingo more.

Why are complete strangers following me, especially when I don’t interact with them at all? On a spot check of other accounts, this heavily weighted ratio of followers-to-following (11 to 1) is unique in my Duolingo friend network.

One possibility is that I have posted very occasionally on the forums, and maybe people follow me because they like my questions and responses. But I am far from active on the platform in that way.

Another possibility is that my account appear near the top of the 121485 results when someone looks for a friend with the search term “Alba.” I do appear at the very top of my own search for “Alba” but that could easily be personalized. While I don’t know what factors into the sort algorithm for searches, I think I would rank high in terms of reasonable metrics such as exact character match (@Alba), account age (a very early adopter from almost exactly ten years ago, since 2022-03-31), number of followers (190), consistent activity (387 day streak),and total XP (132174). I also previously subscribed to Duolingo Plus, and maybe during those two years Duolingo bumped up my account on searches.

Because it’s impossible to stop someone from following you on the platform, and there’s hardly any reason to unfollow someone, the simple longevity of my account might also explain why I have accreted a relatively large number of followers.

A fourth possible explanation for my high follower-to-following ratio is the profile image I use:

William  Alba Duolingo

I chose the Statue of Liberty because I was born in New York City and had been brushing up my French when I joined Duolingo.

I’ve noticed a fair number of my followers are engaged in learning English. The Statue of Liberty is a widely recognized, highly positive cultural icon. This is a bold, eye-catching photo.

Visitors to the city gravitate to the statue. My nephew Benny stood on Liberty Island last week during spring break. I stared at the statue on my first ride on the Staten Island Ferry two winters ago, climbed to the windows of her crown as a teenager, and was fascinated as a child whenever we rode Circle Line.

With a broken shackle and chain at her feet, she represents freedom from slavery. Walking forward, she embodies progress. Thanks to Emma Lazarus’ poem, she has become a symbol to welcome immigrants, especially the dispossessed.

For these reasons, I suspect my profile image is the main reason others follow me on Duolingo. It is a small vote for the hope that the United States still values certain ideals and that, despite everything, this nation remains a steadfast beacon of liberty to the world.

there was a boy

Last week after listening to “La Reina del Baile” (ABBA’s Spanish version of “Dancing Queen”), I sought out other versions of the song. The Real Group and Frida performed a fantastic a cappella version for the Queen of Sweden’s 50th birthday.

Being unfamiliar with The Real Group, I looked for more of their music and saw they had covered “Nature Boy”. How wonderful, I thought, that they covered a song by Big Star, although I found myself preferring the more raw vocals of Alex Chilton.

Until that day, I didn’t know Chilton was not the writer of “Nature Boy”. I was also completely unfamiliar with any other versions of the song, most notably Nat King Cole’s original. I didn’t know it was written by someone named eden ahbez, who around that time lived under the Hollywood Sign.

In that moment of revelation I felt like the boy who heard Andy Williams’s Greatest Hits on 8-track, thinking he must have written most of the songs on that album. As a boy, I assumed every musician of the time was writing most of their own songs.

This remains the gold standard for me: singers and bands should write the music they perform, just as poets should read their own words, and stand-up comedians should write their own lines, and scientists should present their own research. But I can’t fully justify this. After all, I certainly don’t expect orchestras or conductors to compose their own music, or writers to be the readers of their audiobooks, or actors to pen their own lines, or undergraduate students to develop their own theories.

Why this distinction? That’s just the way it is, sometimes performers create the work they perform, and sometimes they don’t is hardly a reason.