2010-03-13T04:51:00Z Eric M Hielscher Copyright 2010, Eric M Hielscher SPHPBLOG
Another was today when Arthur and I were walking home from band practice we stopped into El Beit so he could get a coffee and I some grounds for the mornings. I headbutted him while we were waiting for his coffee, then again after he'd gotten it but I was still waiting for the grounds. I think I must have hit a nerve in his upper arm or something, as he dropped the coffee and it exploded everywhere. I offered to buy a replacement, and Arthur offered to clean up, but the friendly barista made him another on the house and told us not to worry about it.

Good times.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100220-034439 2010-02-20T00:00:00Z 2010-02-20T00:00:00Z
I went with Galia, her parents, brother Tomer, and brother's girlfriend to the far northwest corner of Italy for 5 days at the end of December. Galia and I had our own hotel room in this quite nice hotel and we went snowboarding together twice (my first times ever and I hardly fell - it was really fun). I was a bit baffled by the apparent need for snow chains on the tires of the rental cars when there was hardly any snow on the roads at all, but whatever, I guess non-Americans are just wussy. We also celebrated Tomer's birthday while we were there one of the nights, and Galia's parents got me this little keychain for Christmas with my name engraved in both Roman and Hebrew alphabets which was cute.

I stayed in Israel until the morning of January 25. Galia and I hung out almost 24/7, with only brief times apart when I was at this research seminar led by Prof. Shavit that I was attending at Tel Aviv University or when she had dance class. It was great. We bought ourselves a desk and a couple chairs so we could study in her room together, worked a lot on her PhD applications for the fall, she took the GRE, I gave a guest lecture at the seminar. The time went by too quickly of course.

My last week there she and I, after having joked about the subject off and on since the summer, decided that we want to get married. It was just between us for like 2 days until we told her family at Friday dinner and they were all shocked. Luckily her little brother Noam chimed in that "this is good, this is good" and helped her parents to process the news. After that, it had an existence of its own, and we've been planning it ever since. She'll arrive in New York on Monday evening, then we'll stay here together until May 11, spend 5 days in Amsterdam, and then we'll go on to Israel for the summer together. We're going to have a wedding ceremony there that her parents are more or less in charge of (neither of us wants a traditional large wedding, but they insist on it, so we just have to roll with it) but it won't be the legal thing. That will be in either August or September in my parents' backyard in Minnesota. Then we'll move in together in New York and live there at least until I graduate. I'm really excited, very in love, and very lucky.

Since I got back to New York I've been working really hard. Every day I study some Hebrew, play drums in our practice space for an hour, and spend around 10-12 hours in my office on research. We also have band practice 4 times a week these days and we're getting all the songs I've written down - about 50 or so minutes of material all told, though only 6 songs. It's instrumental math rock with some sludgy metally stuff and more complicated bass lines than I think are usually present (Arthur and I both have big egos) and I'm really proud of it. Arthur bought an 8-channel firewire breakout box and Sal has a bunch of microphones, so we're going to try and record a nice demo and get some gigs before I leave in May.

My research is coming along pretty well. Our compiler as of today finally can launch JITed code onto the GPU. Now starts the phase of adding optimizations to make it actually perform well, but the basic grunt framework is in place which is really satisfying. I have a publication deadline for PACT in late March, and I'm supposedly trying to also finish my Swiss work by March 25 for OOPSLA but we'll see how that goes.

So yeah, life is good, though somewhat monotonous. I can't wait for Galia to get here.

Lewis, Brandy, and I went and saw a performance of the first three Bach Cello Suites on the 9th and then we walked over to IFC after a quick bite at Sacred Chow and saw this amazing movie. It's truly absurd - surreal Japanese horror from the 70s with lots of scantily clad young girls. Tonight Lewis and I are going to see Four Tet which should be fun. I'm trying to start a solo electronic music/live electric guitar project sort of like Ratatat but maybe more up-tempo, but I don't have a keyboard and I'm all of a sudden feeling broke with 2 weddings coming up. I'm thus trying to sell my Orange which is sad but hey I never use it anymore with the 2 Super Reverbs anyway. Also, if anyone knows of someone looking to take over my room in my flat (really an amazing apartment) for $1000/mo in Williamsburg, lemme know.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100217-203928 2010-02-17T00:00:00Z 2010-02-17T00:00:00Z
As I write this I'm sitting on Galia's "poof" on her balcony while she's at ballet class. It's been just over a year now since we re-met-up in Israel. Time sure flies - it's almost unimaginable being without her. I've been in Israel since Dec 11, us having arrive within a couple hours of each other due to having taken different flights here. But I'll back up...

When we left off it was mid-November and I was still battling jetlag (ya'effet in Hebrew as I've recently learned) after coming back to New York. That week on Friday Arthur and I, along with Nguyen and Xu Wei, went to Pianos (my first time there) to see El Ten Eleven. Their shows are always great and this was no exception, and I totally converted Nguyen to trusting my concert judgment after that one. The footwork is truly an art in itself. That Sunday Arthur, I, Nguyen, and another friend of Nguyen's went to the Mercury Lounge to see Cougar, the post-rock band featuring a guy I loosely know from undergrad named Todd on bass. The band was actually really cool, especially the drummer, and Todd was really nice and hung out with us some. This show just further cemented Nguyen's trust in my taste as well. Arthur and I noted that one of the 3 guitarists was using both a Pitch Factor and a Time Factor, the new $500 pedals from Evantide which he and I played around with at Main Drag. The Pitch Factor in particular is really tempting and I may get one.

The following Thursday I went up via Metro North to New Haven, CT, to have Thanksgiving with Liz's family and their family friends. It was really nice to see her and meet her parents, about whom I've heard so much over the years. I'd also never been to New Haven and it was pretty ok - reminded me of a much richer-centered Madison. The dinner was also pretty interesting, being at another family's house with 4 generations of that family represented. I was told repeatedly by an 80-ish year old woman that I saw the word "like" too much, and played with a 3- and 4-year old girl for a while and then went out with Liz to a couple bars. Some guy yelled "who you lookin' at" when I stared at him absently while walking out of the bar which was amusing - my blood boiled from the yelling, and then I felt rather embarrassed that I instinctively responded to such nonsense. I spent the night at Liz's parents' place (which is huge but I saw half the size of their old place) and then took the train back to NYC. Grand Central was pretty damn hectic on Thursday - apparently it's the busiest day for the station all year.

That whole time I was preparing for my DQE, the depth qualifying exam which is an oral exam consisting of two parts: presentation of background research which sets the stage for my own work; and my own work itself. I was stressing about it a bit before I gave a practice run the night before to Alex, Nguyen, Arthur, and Ya'ir, but that went so well that I just drank some whiskey that evening and went to bed late. I passed on Dec 1 and will be awarded a Master's by NYU for my efforts. Now I'm back on track re: the standard timeline for PhD students here which is cool. I have to give another such oral presentation on my Thesis Proposal in the spring but that should be fine.

After the exam I left and headed straight to Williamsburg to meet Arthur and Sal so we could move into our new music practice space on N. 14th. It's something I've dreamed about having for years and now I finally do: 9'x11' space (about 2.75m x 3.35m for my non-imperial friends) with 24-hour access in a factory which has been converted into around 40 such spaces. Sal and Arthur put in a ton of effort and now it's carpeted, somewhat soundproofed, and decked out with shelves running around the perimeter. We got to jam in there just once before I left the country, but I can't wait to come back. I have such a great setup and such great bandmates - we just need to practice.

That evening Arthur and I went to see Russian Circles at Bowery. We were up front on the right (stage-left) so we could see the guitarist's fingerwork, but this time that meant that his amps were right in our faces and all we could really hear was the guitar. He also had some problems with his pedalboard during the first song which lasted around 10 minutes and sent him running to the van for a replacement Memory Man. Embarrassing, but the show was still great of course.

The next day, the 2nd, Galia arrived and I picked her up at JFK. She had trouble with customs cuz she'd taken advantage of a buy four get one free sale on cartons of cigarettes in Tel Aviv but that was apparently too much to be bringing into the U.S. but it turned out OK for her. This combined with a delay with her flight meant I missed the entire DB class that day but Dennis was OK with it. I sent her off to Think while I held office hours and had students sign up with me for their final project demos. While she was in New York (Dec 2-10), I spent at least a couple full days dealing with the demos and the requisite grading but we found time to go out enough. We also took Bolt Bus down to Philly Friday evening and back Saturday evening so that we could catch yet another Russian Circles show as she wanted to see them too. We stayed with my old Hot Topic friend Sean whom I hadn't seen since I moved away from Madison and who's finishing up his Master's at Drexel in Psych. He was very hospitable and came with us to the show and entertained us the following day while it was snowing and cold outside. When he took us by the Comcast building to see the wall of HD screens after eating brunch at a vegan restaurant which was delicious, we randomly caught a holiday special showing of this 3D video on the wall of screens and got to watch it with free 3D goggles in a sea of kids and grandparents. It was really cool - I enjoy such "very American" things way more now that I can share them with someone for whom they're not just banal.

Since I've been in Israel I've mostly just been working and helping Galia study for the GRE as she's applying to grad programs in New York for the fall. I attended a couple Shabat dinners at her parents' and uncles' as part of Chanukkah, we went out a couple times to the Silon, we've been spending days at The Streets - typical Tel Aviv fare. I must say I sure love sufgeniot, the traditional jelly donuts eaten during Chanukkah. I started attending this weekly seminar at Tel Aviv University on Thursdays at the invitation of Prof. Nir Shavit which is pretty nice. I'm looking into summer internship opportunities for me here. Tomorrow we fly to Northwest Italy - Valley D'Aosta, where Galia and I spent most of our Italy trip this summer - with her parents and her brother Tomer and his Aussie girlfriend Lisa where we'll stay until Dec 28. I'm here until late Jan and working on two paper submissions for January (though one is likely not to make it on time). Life is good. I sure wish I had time to work on my Hebrew though.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091222-184536 2009-12-22T00:00:00Z 2009-12-22T00:00:00Z
On Tuesday the 3rd I met Lewis and Brandy over at the new Think Coffee on 4th and 12th and then walked with Lewis over to Curly's Vegetarian Diner. He'd never been, and thoroughly enjoyed the sloppy vegetarian fare (as did I). Brandy joined us after signing up for her pole dancing class, and we had a rather enjoyable meal. We then rode home together and parted ways at the Bedford L - I was to spend the next 12 days in Israel, and the day after I returned he was off to the Midwest for like 2 weeks.

The next day, as most Wednesdays, was packed with stuff to do. I had the research lunch and office hours and class, and got everything together for my trip. The next morning I got up at around 5:15 and took the J to JFK for my 9am flight to Tel Aviv via London. It just so happened to be Guy Fawkes' Day, so when we landed in London at around 20:00 local time I was treated to an overhead view of a city engulfed in flames and fireworks. My plane to Tel Aviv was the last one to leave Heathrow that night, and I landed in Tel Aviv at 5:20am Israeli time. Galia was there sleepily but excitedly waiting to pick me up, and we went through the procedure we've gone through many times before - paying for the parking, driving back to Tel Aviv, climbing into bed to nap away the jetlag. We slept til something like 11:30 which was reasonable, and jetlag didn't bother me too much in the coming days. That evening we went to her parents' place for Shabat dinner which was nice, and then we went just the two of us to the Silon on Ivn Gvirol for a nightcap or two.

My stay in Israel this time was pretty uneventful - we stayed in Tel Aviv / Ramat Aviv / Ramat HaSharon the whole time, except for a very brief little road trip my last day to some rural areas near Herzilliya before stopping at her parents' in Ramat HaSharon, and then going to the son of her parents' cook's wedding in that area as well. We spent quite a few days working together in the libraries of Tel Aviv University, and she finished a big paper on Nietzsche and Spinoza while I got a bunch of research done and worked on preparing for my DQE (after which I'll get a Master's from NYU). I ran into Prof. Nir Shavit one of those days in the humanities building's cafeteria, he being the prof with whom I'd met nearly a year before, and he invited me to attend his research seminar while I'll be there in Dec/Jan which is cool.

Other things I did included: having breakfast with Galia's (and now my) friend Hadar at a hipster cafe; going to another Shabat dinner at Galia's parents' the following Friday as well; spending a lot of time reading Nabokov's Pale Fire to Galia (that book is so amazing); meeting up with Nir, Orit, and Tal at the Armadillo and getting a ride back to Galia's in the Talmobile. The wedding to which I went my last night was quite interesting - very flashy and over the top, but not all that different from American weddings I've attended except for a slight difference in ceremony (the stomping on the glass, e.g. and obviously a Rabbi talking in Hebrew). I danced due to demand (though only after having around 4 drinks), and was told I dance well (I'm still trying to understand how this could be true). On Tuesday morning Galia and I got up at 5:30 so I could catch my 8:15 flight to JFK via Paris. It was quite hard for both of us to say goodbye, even though she'll be here now in less than two weeks. This whole always saying goodbye thing has to stop, but we've got it worked out now so that we'll be together from Dec 2 through late March at least and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Today I woke up at 4am and forced myself to lie in bed til 6, at which point I got up and made coffee and talked to Galia for like an hour. Yesterday I went to the practice space and found my '77 super reverb with a blown speaker so I'll have to have that reconed. Probably a good time for that to happen though since I should really be working my ass off in preparation for the DQE. There then was the usual research lunch, catching up on electronic stuff, talking to Galia on Skype, office hours, and class before heading home and curling up with my Nabokov biography and falling asleep at like 10. That guy is my hero.

Must. Concentrate.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091119-152829 2009-11-19T00:00:00Z 2009-11-19T00:00:00Z http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091108-113725 2009-11-08T00:00:00Z 2009-11-08T00:00:00Z
Woke up sort of late Saturday, and luckily my budding sore throat had disappeared. I got an email from Galia about a discussion on free will and God which she'd had with her friend and wrote up a huge response to that and then made plans to discuss it with her when she got back from visiting her grandfather, and thus to kill time til then I biked over to the tin can and practiced drums for like 40 mins and guitar for like 1.5 hours. Then it was back and we talked on Skype for quite a while. It was a good talk, and for those who don't know, I'm tentatively supporting the position that free will is an illusion but one that, in the daily psychological context, we necessarily adopt and believe in order to function. However, underneath it all are just the deterministic laws of physics and thus free will is actually impossible. And yes, I still believe that morality is compatible with this thank you for asking. However, all of these positions are somewhat tentative as I haven't read enough or thought enough in depth about the matter to fully form a view, though I imagine that no matter what view that were it would have to be only tentative due to intellectual honesty.

Anyway, after that I played guitar for another many hours while talking to Can after spending some time working on my Depth Qualifying Exam reading list and presentation. I have to give a big oral exam on Dec 1 which includes a presentation on around 15 papers which form the background context of my own research work, and then also present my own research itself, all of this to a committee consisting of my advisor and 2 other faculty members. I'm really not worried about it, I just have to make sure I'm fully prepared. After I pass this, I'll be awarded a Master's from NYU (which would be my first, as I still never wrote my UvA thesis). Around 9 I decided I needed to get out of the house and hit up this Wooden Shjips show at a new music venue quite near where I lived my first year in New York though a little more removed in the warehouse district (good for noise reasons). It was raining a tiny bit which almost scared me too much to venture out on my bike, but I braved it, and it was great as the rain was very very mild and it was warm. The venue itself was really cool with little rooms with couches in the main hall and a big rooftop for smoking and admiring the Kosciusko Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. I ended up being there alone for like 5 hours or so, seeing Religious Knives, Vivian Girls, and Crystal Stilts in addition to the headliners. The other bands were quite missable, though I sort of like RK and really didn't like the others. I just hate garage and this is a special variety called shitgaze. I consider the name apt. Anyway, I had a few gin and tonics, took a walk around the hood during a break, and was home by the second 1am. I'll definitely be going back there as it rocked. The place was also insanely crowded with people in costumes and some guy during the RK set offered me mushrooms from a baggie out of which he was eating them and then a "hit" from his beer. I declined both offers, but thanked him graciously.

Today I got up before 10 which in the past weeks is early, talked to Galia for an hour, and then rolled into the office. I mostly just worked on my DQE prep. Now I'm about to meet Lewis at Earthmatters for dinner and then he, I, and Nguyen are gonna see Bellini at Bowery.

I fly to Israel on Thursday morning!]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091102-003941 2009-11-02T00:00:00Z 2009-11-02T00:00:00Z
Last Thursday I went to a CMJ concert headlined by Cinemechanica but I was there to see The Bronzed Chorus, a 2-piece post rock band from North Carolina. Lewis was thinking about joining me but couldn't make it til 10, and they went on more like at 8:45. Thus I saw them myself. They were a little sloppy but it was still cool, and they inspired me by having 2 Fender amps for stereo delay effects (cue the foreshadowing music). The main problem with them was just that they were way too loud for the space, and a few times it felt like I was going to fall over cuz I was dizzy from the mind-blowing loudness. I had a beer there and for some reason felt like lots of girls were checking out my butt while I stood there alone up front and I then let Lewis know that I was ready to roll and we met up at Burp Castle instead of the show. We had 3 beers there in the new outdoor terrace which we both think is a significant downgrade from the previous setup. On the bike ride back we were rather tipsy and sort of got into a race over the Williamsburg Bridge which I decidedly won, even after having to stop and check out some glass I'd run over. I then just went home while I believe he continued the revelry at some other venue.

Friday I gave into temptation and called up a guy who was advertising an early 1968 Fender Super Reverb on Craigslist for $1100. This is one of the older silverfaces which still had the blackface circuit (though of course they're still not as "desirable" as a pre-CBS one). I called up Sal to see whether he'd be down to give me a hand with his van with picking it up and that was a go so we went over to the West Village. I was able to pull out $1000 in cash from the ATM in one shot which was surprising and then we went to the oldish (50?) dude's place and I beat on the amp but it was tip top so I was sold. We then drove over to the practice space and I set that and the pedals up in stereo and we jammed for a while, and then we brought my Orange back home so I can use it as my practice amp until I sell it, though it will be sad to part with it. I'd much rather have a real practice studio and a nice Fender guitar than the Orange however. Anyway, I took Sal out to eat at Fabiane's in payment and it was nice though we noticed that they serve foie gras by which we were both instinctively repulsed. This caused me to look up the production of foie gras and I found that outside of France there are some producers which simply kill the geese or ducks at the time of year just before migration would occur and thus when their livers would naturally be at their fattiest (though French producers claim that this produces clearly inferior meat). I only hope that Fabiane's uses such meat and not the traditional stuff. Anyway, after that I went home and played guitar for another hour or so before Sal called me up again and had me come over to the bar where he used to clean to hang with him and his friend who owns it. We headed over there and hung for a while, mostly being entertained by her adorable new puppy that she'd just gotten that day. After this it was decided that we'd go to the gallery opening of the dick chicken exhibition at 3rd Ward (the one at Lorimer and Metropolitan). For those not in the know, dick chicken is some dude who's been tagging Williamsburg and various other areas of New York with said moniker but also this cartoon drawing of a chicken with a penis for a head. It's pretty much all over the place, and everyone seems to know about it and have an opinion about it, and lately there have been some imitators (Pussy Ham: said phrase with a ham and a vagina in the middle of the ham and blood seeping out; Taint Turkey: a turkey stick figure with a line to its taint and the word taint written there; etc.). I was curious to "meet the man behind the cock", and the exhibition flyer suggested I'd have the chance to do. Sal was really against going, calling it the Britney Spears of street art, but in the end neither of us had anything better to do so we went. Outside the place we ran into a friend of Sal's (of course, he knows everyone) who apparently is friends with dick chicken himself and had helped set up the show. We chatted with dude for a while and then went in to find a super packed little gallery with tons of people. I immediately realized that Sal was right, and the art itself was just like advertisements for dick chicken pizza or dick chicken mcnugglets, and so I sort of was kicking myself for having gone. We didn't even meet the man behind the cock. I did however make my way back to the open bar and luckily, it turns out, they were out of cups. What they did have was a bunch of lemon vodka and some empty 1/3 litre sparkling water bottles, so the guy just filled one of those with like 6 shots for me and gave me that free of charge. With this in tow we just left and went across the street to Kellog's Diner and got dinner and I drank my "water" with my omelet and fries. After this I was quite jolly and we continued the party over at Barcade where I had another 2 beers and we played a bunch of video games, all the while Sal wanting to get on Dig Dug but these dudes were hogging it for well over an hour and a half. When we eventually got on it he showed me this trick you can do to get the game to lock up and not advance to the next level, the only way out being rebooting the machine. We thus sat back and watched the hogs' frustration and then walked up to Bedford before parting ways. At home were Shlomit and her cousin Talie waiting for me as they'd come down to New York with some others on a road trip to see the Leonard Cohen concert. I chatted with them for a while before hitting the hay.

Saturday morning I slept in quite late and then brought Talie over to meet Shlomit at the Roebling Tea Room for brunch. We sat in the back corner and had our cheesy eggs and discussed the tension between research and teaching in academia and then they went off on their own while I went home and relaxed. I was quite tired from the night before and resolved not to drink anything alcoholic that day. I ended up chilling at home, talking to Galia for a while, playing some guitar, etc. Around 7:30 I got a text from Shlomit asking to meet up at Union Sq. and so I braved the pouring rain with an umbrella and waterproof shoes and left the house. I actually really enjoyed the rain and the amazing warmth of the evening, just not so much the wetness of my pants after many blocks of walking. We had dinner with Talie as well at the Vietnamese place to which I went with Galia and her friends a few weeks ago on University and 13th. From there it was Grey Dog's and then a wander through the East Village with the beer bars I'd had in mind vetoed due to a lack of seating and then us ending up at Beauty Bar for a drink. I stayed true to my resolve while Shlomit and Talie each had something. Talie really liked the place while Shlomit and I were very skeptical (I mean, we'd been there before, but I'm pretty convinced now that the place sucks - both the crowd and the music). After the drink it was home and to bed.

Sunday morning Shlomit left really early but Talie stayed in New York for another few days. She went off to a museum or maybe Chelsea while I went into the office cuz I felt sort of guilty about skipping Friday to buy the amp and stuff. I can't remember much of the day other than the working. Alex was in the office too so we had some productive coding going on. That evening I think was the one when I came home to Can having consumed a whole bottle of port and then he and Talie keeping me up for a while before he got her to go to Bagelsmith with him at like 1 in the morning.

Monday I again went to the office and feverishly worked. Alex and I are trying to connect our two programming components in what Dennis calls the Union Pacific. We ended up not getting that done before our meeting with Dennis that evening, but we'd worked hard to get there so it was cool. When I got home I found an empty house around 8:30 so I turned on my amp only to have Talie come back after not to much longer. After a little subtle coaxing I decided to go out with her, after having bragged to a very tipsy Galia not much before about how I'd not drunk any alcohol for 3 whole days. She and I met Can in the elevator and he decided to join. The three of us first went to Foodswings, the vegan fast food place, where they had dinner and I had a rootbeer float with vegan ice cream. We then went to Spuyten Duyvil. We got the usual window seats and then Talie asked me how one picks people up in a bar. I thought about it and said all you need is some "in" to start talking to them, so an obvious tactic is to go with a group and stand next to another group of people with attractive members of the obvious sex. I then resolved to demonstrate how one talks to said members and chatted it up with the bartender a few times. It was rather amusing. Can left after the second drink but Talie and I stayed for a third, which as I had warned her previously in the evening caused me to start going off about how amazingly awesome my girlfriend is. I advertised some Zvoov on the chalkboard in the bathroom and we rolled home.

Tuesday was another office day. I know I didn't make it home until something like 9, at which point I played like 2 hours of guitar. Lately I've decided to try and play for at least 1 hour every single day if not more. Consistency is very important to my improvement on the instrument I've noticed.

Wednesday I talked to Galia for quite a while in the morning and then went to the research lunch with Dennis's group. From there I went back to the office and drew up some slides presenting mistakes that were made a lot on the homework I'd corrected for the Advanced Database Systems class I'm TAing. Next office hours, next class and said presentation (which Dennis says he liked), then more office hours, then home for more guitar playing.

Thursday morning I decided to head into the music practice space for my practicing, thinking that I could just work late and that the space closes at 6 so practicing there isn't an option. Well, this turned into me playing guitar for like 3 hours and drums for like 1.5 hours. The new setup is so amazing, I just can't wait til we have the real practice space and thus I can practice in the evenings. While I was drumming, mostly listening along on my iPhone to Nirvana and Tool and trying to replicate what was going on, a dude who works at the storage place and was cleaning the floors walked by and wanted to watch. I got sort of uncomfortable cuz, well, I'm not a drummer (even though he seemed to think it sounded good, it most definitely did not) so I switched back to guitar and showed him each of the pedals and so forth. He was very interested in the mechanics of how each part worked and I like explaining things so it was fun. By the time I got to the office it was almost 5, and then I just talked to Galia for an hour before getting to work. Sleepiness got the best of me early and I got into bed by 11 to read some of this history book on Nabokov that Lewis bought me and I was dozing off by 12, but then I had trouble actually falling asleep and woke up today at past 10.

I've been sleeping really late for the last week or so and I'm not sure why. I'm sort of considering quitting caffeine, maybe due to reading on his blog that Josiah had done the same recently with alcohol and cigarettes. I've had this weird feeling of anxiety deep in my stomach ever since I left Switzerland and I can't really tell why, but I imagine being hopped up on caffeine can't help. Today I again started the day with a full litre of coffee however and then talked to Galia on video skype (which is really an amazing resource I must say) for something like 2 hours before she had to roll to Shabat dinner. I then biked into the office, running into Dennis in the hallway and then also stopping by the NYU library to pick up a couple books on current philosophical thought on the idea that logical contradictions might not necessarily be fatal to arguments - i.e. that there are multiple classes of contradictions, some of which might be ok. It's a topic in which Galia and I are both interested so I'll bring them along to Israel. Speaking of which, I'll be headed there in less than a week, staying for 12 days this time, and I'm rather excited about that.

This weekend I've got a couple shows in mind: Wooden Shjips Saturday in some new space in Greenpoint near where I lived my first year here; and Bellini Sunday night at Bowery Ballroom. I also learned that this guy Todd who played a few times at parties in my basement in Madison is in this post rock band Cougar, one of whose albums I've had for a while now, and he'll be playing a show at Mercury Lounge after I get back in late November. I also just installed the new Kubuntu which was so far painless. I'm pretty happy to have last.fm scrobbling working again on Amarok.

I came across this quote of Vonnegut which I quite liked while reading Mother Night (which was great, as all Vonnegut is): "Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

Ok, I'm gonna try and work a little now.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091030-233725 2009-10-30T00:00:00Z 2009-10-30T00:00:00Z
Friday morning I went to get a physical exam but the doc basically just looked at me and said wtf you're fine and so he and I chatted about random crap that was bothering me like my elbow and my backne. On the way back I picked up the car charger and then found Galia still sleeping so I hung out for a while eating waffles. We then drove into Rochester the two of us and ended up in the Galleria of all places cuz I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. We bummed around there for a bit and then just took off and drove around on country dirt roads cuz duh that's way more interesting. We stopped home briefly and then continued up to Minneapolis to catch a Tortoise show. We found the venue easily courtesy of my iPhone and then I predicted that Minnesota drivers would stop and wait for us to cross in the middle of a busy street and I was right. We had our IDs checked at the venue which struck me as strange at first cuz it seems my ID has been getting checked far less in New York these days. We had a couple drinks and sat for the opening act Prefuse 73 which was just sort of lame I thought. The main act, though, was just amazing, and Galia really liked it too. I think with bands like that the live show really shows you how cool the music is in a way that's hard to get from just the instrumental recordings. They played a long set, finishing their three song encore with Salt The Skies (my favorite), and then we were off. I was supposed to meet up with my brother at this point but he didn't answer his phone and I was just so exhausted that I was already doubting how well I'd make it home. Galia passed out and I was left to fend for myself and was also sort of nodding off by the time we made it back at like 1:30 or something.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091028-134723 2009-10-28T00:00:00Z 2009-10-28T00:00:00Z
On Sept 29, also a Tuesday, Galia's Dutch friend from when she went to Montessori high school in Amsterdam spent the night up in my loft. She's spending 2 months or so in New York doing acting classes and needed somewhere to crash for one night before she could move into her sublet. She showed up in the evening, and then she, I, and my roommates all went out to Spuyten Duyvil for a couple drinks. I ended up getting far more intoxicated than I thought my four beers should have made me, but oh well, fun times.

The next morning I went to pick Galia up at JFK. She'd spent the previous night at the Paris airport, and had some mild adventures there including being taken into the bowels of the place by an airport worker for a smoke break. Also when she arrived she'd forgotten her passport on the plane and had a rather arduous time convincing the airline staff to let her back on the plane to retrieve it but in the end she was the last one to come out into the waiting area. We went outside, she had a smoke or two, and we took the J back to my place and lazed around together for a couple hours until I had to head to school for office hours and class. I came back to her asleep in my bed (not an unpleasant thing to come home to I must say). We had some wine and went out to this maze / concert at Death By Audio which was surprisingly cool actually, with this weird band which was sort of a cross between soul and experimental punk. We stayed there for maybe an hour and a half, then stayed up rather late in my room even though we had to get up early the next day in order to...

... fly to the Midwest. Stay tuned for part II...]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091025-221213 2009-10-25T00:00:00Z 2009-10-25T00:00:00Z
* Galia came to visit, first one day in NYC, then 6 days in the MIdwest (Oronoco, Minneapolis, and Madison), then another 9 days in NYC. Was awesome, though obviously too short.
* Shlomit and her friend Efrat were here during Galia's final week, with Shlomit staying another couple days after the other two left.
* Shlomit and her cousin came down Friday to go to Leonard Cohen and now her cousin's crashing with me for another couple days.
* I went to an art exhibition with the theme "Dick Chicken: come meet the man behind the cock".
* I went to a huge warehouse/art space party with Galia, Shlomit, Efrat, and Morann and it was quite cool.
* I, along with Arthur and Sal, put down money on a lease for a real, soundproofed, 24-hour access music practice room being built in a 1-floor old factory on N. 14th and Berry next to Gutter. Should be done in like 3-5 weeks.
* I bought two vintage Fender Super Reverb 4x10 amps, sold my pedalboard and my Digitech Whammy, and am now rocking stereo loops and stereo delay. My Orange has become "just the practice amp".]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091025-220301 2009-10-25T00:00:00Z 2009-10-25T00:00:00Z http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090922-212153 2009-09-22T00:00:00Z 2009-09-22T00:00:00Z
Tuesday I attended a meeting which explained the changes NYU made to grad student pay structures, and this involves TAships being paid positions above and beyond the standard stipend of in our cases $12.5K/semester. This totally changes the way things work, in that before RAships were awesome cuz you were paid the same and just didn't have to TA, whereas now the TAships carry around 50% more pay than you'd otherwise get. I happen to be a TA this semester, and with my plans to keep up my transatlantic jetsetting this is obviously welcome news. In the afternoon I went to the Apple store in Soho and bought an iPhone. It was a pretty crazy place - it was huge, with tons of toys for people to play with and tons of very well groomed people waiting in line for Apple tech. Like a hipness factory or something. I played with that a bit, but soon found out that I couldn't sync it via Linux. I then worked until I met Sarah, my ex-breakdancing partner, at some bar in the Village which ended up too loud for our purposes so we went back to Vol de Nuit which happened to be where we first met with Caitlin and Shlomit etc. While I was waiting for her outside the first bar I noticed an internet cafe with its sign (saying internet cafe) in 5 languages: English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Hebrew. A rather strange choice of languages to represent. We ended up drinking 4 Belgian beers and got rather tipsy, waxing about her love of Apple and having a good time. Biking tipsy is always fun.

Wednesday morning we went to practice in the storage locker and it was awesome. Sal is really good, and it's just so fun to play again. I then had group lunch, worked, and went to the class I'm TAing (Advanced Database Systems) before going home to play with my new toys.

Thursday evening I biked over to Bushwick to a gallery opening to which I was invited by Matt. I was there for around an hour before he showed up, and my iPhone wasn't able to pick up phone service after I'd upgraded the firmware so I couldn't really tell what the deal was. I was able to get data so I chatted a bit with Galia as she was still up after having gone out, and eventually Matt came and it was cool. There was free booze, and the paintings were actually pretty cool (lots of urban decay and dead deer in them). Julie came too, along with her new boyfriend and Matt's new girlfriend. The boyfriend plays jazz guitar so we talked quite a bit about music. The five of us picked up a guy Joel and went to this place Roberta's in the hood which is a quite cool pizza place with a backyard beer garden. We weren't allowed to order food in the outdoor area for some reason and indoors was full, so we just got drinks for a while before going to a falafel joint rather buzzed and then heading home. Good times.

Friday I went to practice in the morning again, then went home and talked with Galia for a while, and reflashed the firmware on my phone to fix it. I also reinstalled iTunes to try and get rid of its memory of my huge server-based library as it kept rescanning it annoyingly, but that caused iTunes to erase the contents of my phone so I'm again syncing music to it - still even now. Whatever. That evening I went to Julie's apartment to a Rosh Hashanah dinner party. I accidentally ate something non-vegetarian for the first time to my knowledge in a while - rice cooked in chicken stock - but I didn't get overly upset about it. The party was fine, pretty low-key, drank a bunch of wine, talked some philosophy etc. New Yorkers are conversationally ruthless and I'd forgotten, so I had to crank up the wit a notch but after that it was all good.

Saturday morning was again band practice, with Sal and I getting there around 9 and Arthur coming closer to 10. We again played for a number of hours and it was again awesome, this time having the oscillating fan out in the hall to keep the power from cutting out. Things are starting to come together, but the songs are pretty complicated to it won't be an overnight thing. That afternoon after practice we all went over to this practice space being built out of an old factory on north 14th next to Gutter and it was so cool. The rooms are only framed as of yet, so we won't be able to move in until early-mid November, but man it's gonna rule - 9x11 room to ourselves, 24hr access, like 40 other bands all around us. Think nonstop loud ass party. We signed the lease and paid the deposit and I can't wait. I kept playing around with my Apple stuff and then at 8 Nguyen came by to drop off my drill and saw (he took the subway with them, walked 12 blocks, and then had to walk up 5 flights of stairs cuz the elevator is broken) and then we went out to eat at Lodge before heading over to Gutter to drink a few and bowl a couple games. We both sucked it up really badly, and toward the end of the second game Sal and his friend Andy came by and we all hung out for a while in the bar area.

Sunday morning I talked with Galia and then had brunch with Dafna at Fabiane's which she loved. We then meandered along Bedford, me showing her El Beit and the bookstore on the corner of 5th. I did laundry, annoyingly finding the spin cycle broken and thus having to pay for 3 dryer cycles instead of 1 to get my clothes dry, restrung my acoustic guitar for the first time since buying it like a year ago (I'd restrung my Les Paul and it sounded awesome so I was inspired), and then Ian, Joscha, and Tim came over at 7 for some beer and Settlers. I won the first rather handily, and then Tim left and Joscha won the second. I blame it on very favorable die rolls but whatever. Good times.

Today talked with Shlomit for a while, went to the office, had lunch with Y-Lan which was nice, and then programmed some before meeting with Dennis. It's almost 8 and I'm debating whether I can stay focused enough to be productive or whether I should just head home. I think the latter.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090921-231506 2009-09-21T00:00:00Z 2009-09-21T00:00:00Z
I spent the day really lazily, Arthur and I stopping buy Main Drag but not really doing anything cuz it was so packed in there, and eventually capping it off by ordering a pizza and watching Europa (Lars von Trier) with Arthur. I think I liked it - very surreal - but I fell asleep cuz of the jetlag and getting up so early.

Yesterday Arthur and I walked over to the practice room which took us through the Hassidic neighborhood which ended up being a slight distraction cuz I was trying to sound out all the Yiddish signs. I did determine that they use one of the letters Hebrew uses for the T sound for the S sound instead. We needed an extension cord and didn't see a hardware store along the way so we had to walk like 15 mins each way at least to get to one but then we were all biz, plugging in and practicing for like 3 hours. I think we'll have things solid within a month. We did experience a minor nuisance in that the outlet Sal and I wired is on a circuit which is cut by a motion sensor so someone has to stand in the hallway and move around or the amps die. I think we'll get an oscillating fan in there to help us out. The space is only temporary, but the romance of playing in such a place is quite appealing.

After that I went home, took an hour nap, and then went and filled my bike tires (luckily they stayed full). I then went to El Beit and read a research paper and then a bunch of the Philosophical Investigations for like 3 hours. Lewis swung by, but by then I was pretty much ready to go. I biked over to Europa in the hopes of getting Om tickets without having to pay a Ticketweb fee but they said they no longer have a box office. The evening was whittled away at home with more reading and early slumber.

This morning I made some cut off jeans, figured out that what was wrong with my laptop was likely a bad memory stick and removed it, talked to Galia for an hour, and biked into the office for the first time which was great. Now I'm hungry and just anxiously awaiting my Macbook Air to arrive via Fedex...]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090914-151034 2009-09-14T00:00:00Z 2009-09-14T00:00:00Z
One Sal and I set it up and moved the gear in there, we drove over to Home Depot cuz there isn't an outlet near the storage room. The guy told us we could wire one up ourselves as there are electric boxes all around for powering the lights so we just needed to get supplies (Sal was in charge of wiring as I've never done any before). The Home Depot experience brought back bad memories of building (but also good ones too) and we went back and he spliced the outlet on. The box was quite full of wires and while he was jamming everything in there something shorted and sparks flew and the hall's lights went out. It was really funny and would have looked quite sketchy to anyone walking by - two dudes with tools splicing wires in the dark. We just finished cramming it in, screwed it shut, and went and asked the guy at the front desk where the circuit breaker was. He was quite nonchalant about it and told us it was on the floor below ours so we went there and ran all over the place in these little warehouse hallways looking for it for maybe 5 mins before we found it. We tripped it, went back, and the lights were on so we were good to go. We moved his drums into the room and checked the outlet with an electric razor (it worked - as demonstrated by Sal using it somewhere I'll not mention) and then we had to roll cuz the place was closing even though we really wanted to check it out and jam. He dropped me off at home and I killed time until Lewis came over in the evening and we had some beers and watched Breaking The Waves (I'd still not seen the end). It was very sad, but I still say Dancer in the Dark was way more intense. I was too exhausted to go out with him and Brandy when he left at 12:30, so I passed out.

This morning I woke up at 7 - still haven't reset the bioclock apparently. Off to brunch with Dafna (who now lives like 2 blocks away) in a bit. I also tried to remove the window air conditioner from my window which my sublettor had left and of course it felt 6 stories to its death. Luckily only it and no people died. Man I'm sure smart sometimes...]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090912-144721 2009-09-12T00:00:00Z 2009-09-12T00:00:00Z
I got back into New York on Tuesday night, touching down at JFK around 6:30pm and making it back to my apartment at a bit before 9. I made a rather absurd error (fadicha in Hebrew) when in my happiness to finally see my bags on the carousel I forgot my laptop bag on the ground and made my way through customs and out into the hall. Luckily I remembered it, and asked a very nice staff woman to go back in and get it for me which she did. In the end all it cost me was like 5 minutes, but it could have been far worse. Can welcomed me home and we talked a bit before I passed out around 11, having been awake and traveling for around 25 hours straight.

Wednesday I got up at 8, so I'm pretty much back on normal hours even though I'm pretty sleepy during the days. I went into Manhattan with Arthur so we could attend Dennis's research lunch and then swung by the bank to deposit my 1030 CHF into my account (they gave me a 0.9 exchange rate... man), got a brownie at Think, hung in my office for a while, and then went to Dennis's class for which I probably will be the TA this semester. From there I went home, played guitar on my amp for the first time (which was great), and then walked over to Lewis's to get schooled in Puerto Rico by both him and Brandy. I was really tired but forced myself to do it anyway.

The next day I got up at 10:30 which was welcome, Skyped with Galia for a while, then unpacked all my crap and organized it. At around 4 Sal came over and we caught up and then had dinner at Bliss before he drove me into Manhattan (which cost me lots of time compared with the subway, but was nice cuz we got to hang). He started working part time as a mover for some extra cash and had a job. He, Arthur, and I are going to look at at least 1 music practice space tonight at the Halsey L stop (and maybe some in the neighborhood too) and I'm pumped. After that I took the subway up to Columbia where I was taking Arthur to the Do Make Say Think concert for his birthday which is on Monday. The opening act was one of the guys from Do Make Say Think doing some random stuff with spoken word clips which was sort of boring, but the DMST set was great. I really love those guys, and fell in love with Danelectro guitars a bit, but it was perhaps not the best thing to see when you're super tired from jetlag. We rode the subway home and I hit the sack.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090911-151620 2009-09-11T00:00:00Z 2009-09-11T00:00:00Z
My last weekend in Switzerland I went to Stephane's parents' mountain chalet in this tiny town in Valais called Ovronnaz. I invited Job and this girl Katherina whom Lewis and I'd met at the fondue restaurant at which we ate when he was in Lausanne. We met at the train station at 7 and took Stephane's car there, driving like 1.5 hours through the valleys and then up into the mountains. Stephane cooked us a huge fondue dinner which we ate outside, drinking quite heavily throughout it all. Eventually it came out that I don't mind nudity, and somehow this translated into Job and I getting completely naked and running around in and out of the house for a while. I hope this didn't cause Stephane too much discomfort.

The next morning Stephane got up quite early, I arose around 11 or something and ate breakfast and played a few rounds of bocci with him, and then eventually the other two got up. We then drove up into the mountain and went on a few hour hike up to this lookout point which was spectacularly beautiful (check the pics). There was a farm with cows on the way, and at some point I mentioned Miksang even though I don't really know what it is and this led to all of us snapping photos which were mostly empty space with a little bit of something in a corner (again, check). We hiked back down, Katherina went swimming in the city pool, we had roesti for dinner, and I schooled everyone in Settlers before we called it an evening far more sober and clothed than the previous night. The next morning we had to get back pretty early as Katherina had a horsejumping competition. Stephane kindly drove my dishes back to EPFL and then left Job and I there, and then we took the metro back to my place and gathered up all my shit so I could move out and over to his room in Geneva for the next couple days until my flight to Israel.

The moving process was quite the bitch even with his help, but I left a bunch of crap at his place after that. He's living for now in a room in a little apartment with some old Moroccan woman and it's a little awkward as she doesn't speak English and I felt like I was sort of intruding on her space. We went out after a while and had dinner with this Dutch friend of Job's at an Ethiopian restaurant where we learned that the Ethiopian Christian calendar has the year to be 2001 this year. The next day I went with him to the ILO for lunch to check it out, wandered a bit around the city and talked on Skype with Galia a bit, and then met him for a cocktail dinner as part of some conference on climate change. It was pretty fancy but I liked it, free food and wine and all. Talked to some people who were pretty boring, talked to some Dutch man for a while, met a very adorable Korean high school student who'd won a scholarship to come there and found the conference "very very hard" to follow (she gave me her business card). We then walked over to his Hungarian friend Vera's apartment and had a really fun time hanging out on her balcony and watching her dog run around with a diaper on to assist in its period.

The next morning I had to leave at like 7 to catch my train at 8:15 to Cologne from where I was to fly to Israel. I strapped my backpack on my back, my guitar around the front of my torso, and carried my laptop and drug my suitcase and slung my manpurse over my shoulder and wrapped my coats around that... I'm sure I looked ridiculous. I had a first class train ticket as the cheap seats in the second class had sold out, which actually was quite nice as it meant way fewer people in my way when I was getting in and out of the trains (I had to change like 4 times on the 7 hour journey). Right away though my water bottle spilled all over my books in my manpurse (though luckily not on my mp3 player) but that ended up being the only mishap. I even was served breakfast at my seat - I could get used to first class. I ended up having to pay 80 euros overweight because I wasn't staying at least a month in Israel (though I could have just said I was - I'll remember what the correct answer to that question is in the future) but that was my only overweight charge in all my flights so I couldn't complain too much and I was carting my little Orange amp along to leave there for future use.

So that was that, I no longer lived in Europe as of boarding the plane. Was fun, but I was ready to go too, both to Israel and back to New York.]]> http://www.ehielscher.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090911-144509 2009-09-11T00:00:00Z 2009-09-11T00:00:00Z