grad school: board work

The other day, Sarah drew this graph on the board. I know it's a little hard to read in the photo, but here are the pertinent details: it's titled "My Life's Happiness," and you'll notice that the Y-axis is labelled "happiness", as measured in the units of "giddies." Along the X-axis we have "grade school," "jr. high," "high school," "college," and, finally, accompanied by a marked plunge in the ordinate, "grad school."


I am in awe of the handwriting of the professor (Eberly?) who teaches the lecture preceeding my E&M course. Look at those curly script E's—I've been working on those for years! This photo is of only one panel out of three or four, which, taken together, are a masterpiece to behold. Not only is the handwriting so pretty, but you can almost understand the whole lecture from a glance at the board. Then, sadly, they are erased to make room for several boards full of non-sequitir scrawled heiroglyphics...

Critical Mass!

We had a great Critical Mass ride last night. Do I say that every month? In any case, it was great. Before the ride I was feeling tired and not very motivated to do anything other than take a nap at my desk. But I can't miss a Critical Mass—it's a movement, it's a ritual, and if I didn't show up there, how could I expect anyone else to? Besides, I know I'm always thrilled after the ride.

So I bundled up as best I could (it was nearly freezing) and somewhat reluctantly trucked on downstairs, picked up the bicycle... You never know how many or how few people are going to show up for one of these things. At our worst we had just three people (it was, nonetheless, a fine ride), last November; and at our best we have had nearly thirty. Busy with school this week, I had done nearly no promotion—usually I, at a minimum, email out an announcement to half a dozen relevant organisations, and generally try to recruit for the ride. But this time, pretty much nothing from me.

It's so gratifying, then, so energizing to see people accumulate there at the meeting point. Who knows where they came from, how they got the word, how they got there, but they come out of the woodwork and arrive at the designated meeting place at the designated time. That's what our discipline gets us; every month we ride and gradually the word gets out; we sustain this thing and slowly it builds. It's a ritual, it's a celebration; the pun on Mass is made often (Are you going to Mass?) and I don't mind.

The way our rides work is that we meet first at the University of Rochester at 17:30; that group bicycles downtown and there's a second meeting place at 18:00 at the Liberty Pole, a prominent geometric sculpture in the heart of downtown that sort of looks like one of those spirograph patterns. We had nine people leaving the University of Rochester clocktower, and that was enough to buoy my spirits. Riding out from the U of R in a big happy crowd—it's energizing because of the group--the social dynamic--and because of the envigorating rush of cold air, envigorating and energizing because of the endorphines and all that gratitude that come from human powered transport, pushing pedals, moving forward, deliberately and en mass, social banter back and forth, reunited with friends I haven't seen for a month, crazy costumes and amused passers by.

By the time we arrived at the Liberty Pole, we had fourteen riders, our ranks swelled by new riders who had caught up, joined in along the way. Eli from St. Joes, Kastan from Ant Hill, a few riders I didn't know. Even Chris Maj, maverick mayoral candidate, is now a regular rider. Ultimately we had a total of 19 riders this month.

At the Liberty Pole I made the announcement that we'd be showing the film The Winking Circle at the Ant Hill, that anyone who wanted to join could just follow our crew there following the mass. Andrew (from EcoHouse) stood up and led a small discussion about our techniques—one lane or two (one), staying together, sharing the road. Joel Pomerantz facilitated, chimed in with helpful suggestions, introduced 'corking', which is the critical mass way of spontanously directing traffic to get the tail end of a Mass through a light that's changed to red (a couple riders peel off, hold back the cars, wave the cycles through—everybody appreciates it, it works well, and it appears so fantastically well-organized).

The ride itself was short (down East to Alexander, down Park to Culver, and back on Monroe), but exceedingly well paced.

Afterwards about a dozen people gathered at Ant Hill Co-op for the screening of The Winking Circle. Becky had made up a huge batch of rice pudding, hot, delicious, and exactly the right thing for that moment. I cooked up two batches of Mexican hot chocolate (one non-dairy). Jeremy set up his projector, and we projected the film on the wall—I think everyone found it amazing and inspiring and terribly funny too—it wasn't fully finished when plans were already made to roadtrip up to Uxbridge to go visit these folks. What I like about this film is that while maybe not everyone shares these guys' crazy interests, nobody can argue with their mission: to transform their "boring" little town into the utopia of their dreams by taking matters into their own hands, getting involved, expressing themselves, building things... It's a fantastically energizing film. [I'll put some quotes from the film in here when I get a chance.]

So, you see, the dream is alive! We've made contact with another organic (and I mean that in the "arisen naturally") housing co-op, informally known as the South Ave Motel--we've had three or four of their members as guests recently at the Ant Hill, we're planning Thanksgiving dinner together, their house and ours and maybe EcoHouse. A network of cooperatives. And the Ant Hill is becoming the focal point I had hoped it to be, hosting post-critical mass gatherings and everything. Do you notice that everyone above is identified by a House or similar organisation? Especially now we have EcoHouse, Ant Hill, and the South Ave Motel—three very different housing cooperatives, building on each other, networking... Last month's CM after-event was hosted at St. Joesph's House of Hospitality and the film there was presented by Rochester Indymedia. If this networking—these partnerships—continue to grow, as they inevitably will—we will be, collectively, invincible.

After the Critical Mass gathering at Ant Hill, almost everyone went to the annual Occupational Funk halloween party at the EcoHouse. For me, I was content to sit back in an almost entirely empty house, and reflect on meeting the EcoHouse one year ago, when Ryan and I attended their party (we had gone to a potluck there a little earlier, so it wasn't our first meeting), and how this time a huge delegation from the Ant Hill Co-op, which had arisen in the meantime, was able to attend that party whereas it had been just us two the year before.

As written on April 18, 2005:

Ant Hill Cooperative is a new student housing co-op getting underway in Rochester, New York. Starting up in Summer 2005 with one or two rented houses conveniently located across the Genesee River from the University of Rochester and within commuting distance to several other universities, Ant Hill will be not only a communal living environment for its residents, but a focal point of the community. Like many other housing co-ops, we aim to be not just a supportive, affordable, and ecologically responsible place to live, but a place for exchange of ideas, building of community, incubation of creative projects, and development of ways of living that further our goals. Ant Hill will be an experimental community and a cheap, fun place to live.

Ant Hill was inspired by the co-op system in Berkeley and by the need for communal, non-university-controlled housing in Rochester (or "ROC" as we like to call it). Along with our friends at the EcoHouse (an environmentally-themed rental co-op up the street!) we are making great progress. We invite students, activists, creative persons, and anyone interested in good food, good people, and communal living to help make this dream a reality.

So, you see, we are changing the world—or, at least, a small corner of Rochester, and the lives of a couple dozen people.

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Previous posts about Critical Mass: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nibot/tag/critical+mass

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass , a very informative write-up.