He Built This City
This is from the Museum of the City of New York website:
He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model celebrates the extraordinary vision and dedication behind one of the most ambitious handmade representations of New York City ever created. For the first time in New York—Macken’s muse—the artist’s monumental model will be presented to the public at the Museum of the City of New York.
Queens-born artist Joe Macken began the project in 2004. Over the next 21 years, working first in Middle Village, Queens and later in Clifton Park, New York, he devoted himself to crafting a vast architectural portrait of the city he calls home. Built entirely by hand using everyday materials—including balsa wood, cardboard, and glue—the model spans 50 by 27 feet and comprises over 340 individual sections. It renders the city’s skyline, neighborhoods, and landmarks with remarkable precision, character, and imagination. Macken started with the Comcast Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, infusing its familiar form with details that signal his personal artistic vision.
He wasn't an artist when he started, just a guy. Here's an article about him: A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Building a Miniature Model of New York City. Then, It Went Viral.
We went today (along with seeing Museo de Barrio, which was fantastic) and I took some pictures. You'll have to zoom in because the scope is so massive it's difficult to photograph.
The second image was taken zoomed in with my camera. Our neighborhood is actually in there, and I was even able to find our street. Incredible.
Around the first image you can see small information pages, and on one of them he explained that he only wanted to do one building at first (the Rockefeller Center, I think, though it was called the RCA Center then). When it was done, he decided to do one more. Then he just kept working, day after day. "It's just consistency," he said.
The Strand and Shigeru Mizuki
While Eli 25.1 was here, we all went to the Strand bookstore in Manhattan.
It's one of the most famous bookstores in the world, with an inconceivably diverse collection of books.
I focused on the graphic novel section, which was the largest I've ever seen. And it was there that I found Shigeru Mizuki's four volume history of Japan, covering the years from 1926 to 1989. It's relatively famous, and given that it was right in front of me, impossible to resist.
I bought the first two volumes and have almost finished the first. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a dual narrative, both a general history of that time in Japan and a personal recounting of Mizuki's life. In the first volume, he's only a boy, and the stories are tremendously entertaining.
It's deeply informative, and the art style is terrific as well. Here's a link if you're interested (to the paperback edition, not the Kindle version, for obvious reasons: Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan.
Ode to a Sign
if you blast gas
with your ass
close the door
and let it pass
Some of my finest work, really.
The Psychopath Roundtable
Psychopath
: a mentally unstable person
especially: a person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one's actions, an absence of empathy for others, and often criminal tendencies
_______
Damn it, I didn't want to talk about this today.
I had no choice, though, after Sam Altman claimed losing control of AI was "keeping him awake" at night.
Sure, buddy. Sure.
The problem with interpreting anything a tech bro says is that they're often psychopaths, according to the definition provided by Merriam-Webster up top.
Jobs. Ellison. Zuckerberg. Musk. Altman. So, so many more. The tech sector is and always has been dominated by genuinely terrible people.
The single exception I can think of is Bill Gates, who has given billions and billions of dollars specifically to improve health in Africa, though even he is deeply compromised by Jeffrey Epstein.
This means that almost anything these people say is a lie, crafted specifically not to be honest, but to achieve an objective.
In this case, the logical way to interpret Altman's statement lies along three possible paths. First, the public backlash against AI (some of which is reasonable, and some of which is unfathomably stupid) is affecting the prospects of the Open AI IPO, so he needs to be seen as deeply responsible and reasonable as quickly as possible.
Second, that he perceives other companies are either catching up or ahead, and wants to regulate AI quickly so it's far more difficult for other players in the space to emerge.
Third, they're running out of money. Maybe the infinite money training funding development has run out of steam, and unless the IPO succeeds, they're cooked, taking the entire tech sector with them.
The problem has never been technology. It's always the people who control the technology. That's true whether it's railroads or robots or nuclear weapons or AI. As Walt Kelly famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
A New Goal
We were getting ready to go to the U.S. Open.
"I was going to wear my monster socks today, but I guess they're not clean," I said.
"That's too bad," Eli 25.1 said.
"Maybe better for everyone. You'd be embarrassed to be seen with me."
"Dad, there is absolutely nothing you could do that would make me embarrassed to be with you."
"Challenge accepted," I said.
The U.S. Open is Stupid
One of the best tennis matches in years happened last night. Almost no one saw it.
The U.S. Open, for years, has stacked matches on the court (Ashe) with the largest capacity. They also schedule insufficient time between matches if you consider how variable the length between matches will inevitably be.
Yesterday, there was an almost five-hour men's match followed by an almost three-hour women's match--again, on the same court. This meant that the Alcaraz-Shelton match, scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. (already too late), actually started at 11:00 p.m.
Are there any other world-class sporting events that have events starting at 11 p.m.? No, of course not. Not even in other tennis events is it like this.
The match, which was absolutely thrilling, ended at 3:30 a.m. By then, eighteen thousand of the twenty-four thousand people in attendance had left.
In the U.S., only in Alaska and Hawaii did the match end before midnight.
It's such an incredibly easy fix: don't schedule four consecutive matches on the same court when you get to the later rounds (this match was a quarterfinal). The next highest-capacity court (Armstrong) still seats fourteen thousand people.
How about using it?
Also, we're off to the other quarterfinals today. The day session, thank goodness.
Happiness
I thought about happiness yesterday.
What makes me happiest? What are the things in life that give me the most lasting sense of well-being? I decided to make a top five.
Swimming
Games
Being in flow state while working on a large project (book/game)
Going out to do things with C
Thoughtful/stupid conversations with Eli 25.1
Those are in no particular order.
Some of those are more accessible to me than others (Eli is much less available than swimming). And some have time limits (I can't play a game for too long or it turns into a negative instead of a positive). And they're not the only things that make me happy. I really enjoy talking to Mom 96.5 every day, for example.
I'm going to try to do these five things as much as I can.
I just wonder if being consistently happy is as simple as deciding what makes you happy and spending as much time on those things as you can.
ALS Ride
Longtime reader Ken P. does an annual ride to raise funds for the
ALS Network. He does it in honor of a friend with ALS and the homepage is here:
2026 Napa Valley Ride.
Please consider a donation and thank you.
Labor Day
Happy Labor Day, everyone! Here's a brief history, if you're interested: Labor Day: From Protest to Picnics.
Friday Links!
Leading off this week, a stunning number: 1 in 4 NFL players who died from 2016 to 2021 had CTE, study finds.
From D.G.F., an incredible miscarriage of justice: The framing of Chris Duncan.
From Wally, and honestly, it's too ridiculously expensive to indulge much: The U.S. Open is now a food festival with a side of tennis. Jimmy John's is not like this: Thank You for Your Reservation. An excellent article about an overlooked sailor: Race in America: Dorie Miller, American Hero.
From Ken P., and it's ridiculous that this only results in a fine: San Francisco’s Hunters Point cleanup scandal leads to major settlement. This is a positive story about NIL, for once: Marquette freshman volleyball player has hot-selling '6 Beers' jersey. How is this not illegal? Alibaba’s AliExpress caught tracking user audio systems. An interesting strategy: Scientists just unleashed an army of 130,000 baby octopuses to fight off a blue crab invasion. There should be stronger laws about this, too (unfortunately, the same people profiting from this would have to make them): The Bulwark Killed an Investigation into Political Fundraising Spam After Its Publisher Took the Consultants’ Side. This is genuinely insane: Police request public's help to find suspect who picked up $30 off ground in Walmart. This is mind-blowing: The Cop Who Took On Flock: After Noel Pichardo called out his city's embrace of Flock surveillance cameras, he was subjected to five internal affairs investigations in less than two years.
The Only Way This Joint Runs
Eli 25.1 said, "Do you have a Post-it note?"
I burst out laughing. I have six packs of them just on my desk.
I have a list of things that must be done on a Post-it note every day. I make it the night before, then look at it before I write. Every day for decades.
I can't imagine anyone being able to get through a day without having a list. My brain can't comprehend it.
I'm very digital, generally, but this is the one way I'm not. I don't like digital calendars or lists because I don't see them unless I specifically pull them up. I like writing things down and then having the list in front of me in a way I can't ignore. Plus it's satisfying when you finish the list and tear off the note.
There's nothing underneath but a blank space.
The U.S. Open
Eli 25.1 is here until early tomorrow, so I'm scrambling a bit because we'll be gone most of the day. Here are a few bits about the U.S. Open, though.
I've never been to a Grand Slam before (Eli's been to various ones five times now), so it was a brand new experience for me. I didn't realize that Grand Slams are like a sports theme park. There are rides (courts), some huge ones and some small ones, and you just ride the vibes between various matches, never staying at one for longer than a set because so much else is happening.
It's fun--unbelievable fun, really--and seeing world class athletes up close is incredible. On the outer courts, we were watching matches at distance of less than fifty feet.
Some of the physicality of tennis comes through on TV, but man, it really comes through in person. High-level tennis is incredibly physical, and it's easier to under how quickly players can fatigue. Particularly on high heat or humidity days, because it was a swamp on Tuesday, even though it was overcast most of the day.
The other thing that stood out most keenly was the serve. Players go multiple games cranking in a high percentage of their serves, looking utterly comfortable, but when a particularly important game comes around, their motions start to--ever so slightly--fall apart. All those first serves that were going in easily suddenly go two feet long or hit the net. For some reason, it was particularly pronounced when you're watching in person.
These events are almost festivals. There's so much to do besides watch matches. Lots of vendors, lots of food (at the U.S. Open, it's comically expensive), lots of fan stuff. It's a blast.
Oh, and I learned that having a reserved seat for one of the big courts in the early rounds is totally unnecessary. There are so many courts with open seating that you can have a great time with a day pass, just wandering between the outer courts and going to the best match currently happening. Cheaper and every bit as much fun. For the U.S. Open, at least.
