Reunion

I went to my 40th high school reunion in NY this week. It reminded me of what for me was the biggest part of my high school experience - 11th grade as an exchange student in Marcos Paz Argentina. That was 1969. I have been back to Marcos Paz many times since but my trip back in 2008 was special. Below is a video of my arrival. That was a reunion.

A Genuine Rough Fractal...

(photos by Steven Germain)

One Heart World-Wide...

40 years ago in Spanish and English

21 Mayo 2009

Estimados socios del Rotary club de Marcos Paz, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Es un placer especial para poder escribirles para felicitarle en el aniversario 50. Fue exactamente hace 40 años - 28 de julio, 1969 que recibí una carta dirigida a Steven Germain, 63 Aster Street, Massapequa Park , Nueva York EEUU del Roatary Club de Marcos Paz. La carta empezaba diciendo, "Estimado Stevens, y pasó a preguntarme lo que fecha llegaba en el aeropuerto de Ezeiza para que poder ir a buscarme y me dijeron que yo ya estaba registrado en el Colegio Secundario. La carta fue firmada por Andres Cahue, Secretario, por Roberto Savall, Presidente, y por Adolfo Aquilar, Pte. Comite Intercambio. Cuándo yo sali de EEUU el 16 de agosto el Rotary club de Nueva York tomó una fotografía del grupo de estudiantes de intercambio que viajaban para la Argentina esa noche. Hoy esta foto está en mi escritorio de mi officina.

En los 40 años desde que yo llege en Marcos Paz volvi muchos veces a mi residencia secundaria. Estuve cuando mi hermana, Pupe Bonati, regresso de su ano en Filadelfia; viajé a Salta en 1973 con mis amigos, Carlos Garcia, Ruebn Donis y Marcial Hourquebie; estuve en la boda de mi hermano, Luis Bonati en 1988; visite con mi hijo y luego con mi hija y el ano pasado mi hija viajo a Vila Gessel con sus amigas Argentinos, Eugenia Garcia y Alejandra Horquebie. El año pasado estuve de nuevo para las cumpleaños 80 de Mamá y en casi un mes mi Papá me estará visitando aquí en Nueva York unos pocos dia depues de su cumpleanso de los 81 (Nosotros le llamamos "Papa Immortal").

En el esquema de acontecimientos de mundo, yo supongo que la historia de un joven de EEUU que pasa un año en la Argentina es un asunto insignificante. Pero en las vidas de dos familias y sus amigos lo no es poca cosa. Es verdad y es importante.

Y así que les estoy muy agredcidos a todos Ustedes - al Rotary Club de Marcos Paz por todo lo que ustedes han hecho para mí. Yo ahora soy mayor - tengo 56 años de edad ya no soy el joven idealista que era cuando baje de ese avión en Ezeiza. Pero en mi corazón - soy todavía ese mismo joven. Un joven bendecido para haber tenido tuvo la oportunidad que el Rotary Club me dio.

Con mis mejores deseos acceptan las felicitaciones de su amigo, su hijo, su hermano y ciudadano honorario de Marcos Paz, Pcia Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Un carinoso abrazo fuerte a todos.

Steven

****************************************************************

May 21, 2009

Dear members of the Rotary Club of Marcos Paz, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina:

It is a special pleasure to be able to write to congratulate you on the 50th anniversary of the Rotary Club of Marcos Paz. It was exactly 40 years ago - 28 of July, 1969 that I received a letter addressed to Steven Germain, 63 Aster Street, Massapequa Park, New York, US from the Rotary Club. The letter began, "Dear Stevens", and asked me what date I would be arriving at Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires so that I could be welcomed and went on to say that I was already registered in the Secondary School. The letter was signed by Andres Cahue, Secretary, by Roberto Savall, President, and by Adolfo Alquilar, Pres. Exchange Student Committee. When I left NY on the 16th of August, the Rotary Club of New York took a photograph of the group of exchange students going to Argentina that night. Today that photo is in my desk at home.

In the 40 years since I fist arrived in Marcos Paz, I have returned many times to my second home. I was there when my sister, Stella Bonati, returned from her year abroad in Philadelphia; I travelled to Salta in 1973 with my friends, Carlos Garcia, Ruben Donis and Marcial Hourquebie; I was at the wedding of my brother, Luis Bonati in 1988; I visited with my son and then with my daughter and then my daughter travelled to Villa Gessel with her Argentine friends, Eugenia Garcia and Alejandra Horquebie. Last year I was there again for the 80th birthday of Mama and in almost a month my Papa will be visiting me here in New York a few days after his 81st birthday (We call him "Papa Immortal").

In the grand scheme of world events, I suppose that the history of an American 16 year old who spends a year in Argentina is an insignificant matter. But in the lives of two families and their friends it is not little thing. Is true and is important.

And so I am very grateful to all you - to the Rotary Club for everything that you have done for me. I now am older - I am 56 years old, no longer the idealistic youth that I was when I stepped off that pane at Ezeiza airport. But in my heart - I am still that same young man - blessed to have had the opportunity that the Rotary Club gave me.

With my best wishes, please accept my congratulations. Your friend, son, brother and honorary citizen of Marcos Paz, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A carinoso strong hug to all.

Steven

What You Learn From A Substance Recovery Clinic...

I happened across a web site called Ben.Casnocha.com that had compiled a lot of David Foster Wallace info. Below is a partial list of DFW quotes on what you learn from a substance recovery clinic and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings from DFW's writings (in my mind these can stand as things you learn from paying attention - but maybe paying attention and recovery are one and the same):



That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most nonaddicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.

That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.

That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused.

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it.

That loneliness is not a function of solitude.

That (both a relief and a kind of an odd let-down) black penises tend to be the same general size as white penises, on the whole.

That cliquey alliance and exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape.

That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.

That 99% of compulsive thinkers' thinking is about themselves. That most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.

That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak.

That you don't have to hit somebody even if you really really want to.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward.

The shopworn "Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure" would seem to have been custom-designed for the case of tattoos.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way shape or form trying to get credit for it, it's almost its own form of intoxicating buzz.

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

That AA and NA does not apparently require that you believe in Him/Her/It before He/She/It will help you.

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt.

Science Fact of the Every Other Day...

Question: on earth we measure distance in meters or yards and feet, miles etc, how do we measure distance in intergalactic space?

Answer: in Parsecs

One parsec equals 3.26 light years. On earth that would be about 19 trillion miles or 103,000 round trips to the Sun from the Earth. Our solar system, by way of further example, is only 1/800ths of one light year across.

The nearest known star to the Earth (other than the Sun) is Proxima Centauri, 1.29 parsecs away.

The center of the Milky Way is about 8000 parsecs from the Earth.

One gigaparsec (Gpc) is one billion parsecs. It is believed that the entire Universe has a diameter of about 28 Gpc.

Quote Of The Every Other Day

In the end that is the great commodity of value...focused engagement with ideas and other people... the answer for isolation of both the pathetic and heroic variety... I am convinced that there is a simple yet profound physics to emotional wellness... the farther down we go - that is how far up we can be allowed to go up... it's finding that humble path up that is the x factor... I believe we all have it - that lovely natural awe that I believe is considered a boddishatva sign of something very, very good.

-- Anonymous

The Tree of Life...

MOTIVATION: Fractal methods have been identified as a possible approach to the reconstruction of the 'Tree of Life' (eg human progress). However, a limitation of such methods is that, typically, they use just leaf-labelled phylogenetic trees to simply infer the resulting supertree without further proof.

RESULT: Unclear definition of progress or measurement of same (eg inherent doubt/flux). There are several new supertree algorithms that extend the allowable information that can be used for phylogenetic inference.

AVAILABILITY: These new algorithms are freely available.

For example, input could include information such as whether one particular event occurred before or after an
alteration juncture. This allows the inclusion of general and specific nested information in the input. In this way each life can be viewed as a variation of BUILD (one of the oldest algorithms). In addition, new algorithms for ancestral divergence dates and nested information, respectively, can be applied to all data sets.

THE BUILD APPROACH

Originally designed for other purposes, BUILD PROGRAMS (see eg; germain, swerdlow, giovannitti, others et al., 1971) is an imprecise algorithm in that it outputs lives precisely because (...simply put...) the input collection satisfies a particular compatibility criteria. In other words: A rooted tree ("T") displays a rooted subset of T with at least two (often more) vertices. See for example any number of fractals: evolution, revolution, young/old, friends, family, even exchange student, ... bottom line: a karuma sign of something very good.

It is important to note that these "tree of life" algorithms are not "all-or-nothing" devices. Each algorithm either returns a supertree with certain desirable properties relative to the norm or returns a statement indicating alternative selfdom -- these are things that are outside of our control and further understanding can only be obtained by exponential reduplication to a higher power (eg comparison of different sized infinities). In practice, this limits the utility of these algorithms. However, such important first steps are needed, indeed, that is the whole point.

Lastly, two natural questions arise: (i) how many such supertrees are there and (ii) what common information is carried by all of these supertrees? In order to address those two questions Sensitivity Analysis can be used to identify uncertainties. Typically, such analysis has several basic input variables. In other words, to realize supertree potential, one must get to the root of the matter.

Quote Of The Every Other Day: I Am The Penguin...

The last two paragraphs of a letter written by film critic Roger Ebert to film maker Werner Hertzog about his documentary "Encounters At The End Of The World":

"In the process of compiling your life’s work, you have never lost your sense of humor. Your narrations are central to the appeal of your documentaries, and your wonder at human nature is central to your fiction. In one scene you can foresee the end of life on earth, and in another show us country musicians picking their guitars and banjos on the roof of a hut at the South Pole. You did not go to Antarctica, you assure us at the outset, to film cute penguins. But you did film one cute penguin, a penguin that was disoriented, and was steadfastly walking in precisely the wrong direction—into an ice vastness the size of Texas. “And if you turn him around in the right direction,” you say, “he will turn himself around, and keep going in the wrong direction, until he starves and dies.” The sight of that penguin waddling optimistically toward his doom would be heartbreaking, except that he is so sure he is correct.

But I have started to wander off like the penguin, my friend.

I have started out to praise your work, and have ended by describing it. Maybe it is the same thing. You and your work are unique and invaluable, and you ennoble the cinema when so many debase it. You have the audacity to believe that if you make a film about anything that interests you, it will interest us as well. And you have proven it.

With admiration,
Roger "

How Many Megaparsecs Does It Take To Make A Supertree?

The blog "rough fractals" aspires to provide an apt description of living things and the Universe at large, although in each case, the fractal description breaks down on the very small scale and on the very large. Trees or arteries do not branch endlessly, and whole trees are not part of supertrees.The opposite may be true for the distribution of galaxies in the Universe. Counts of galaxies yield undisputed evidence that at comparatively small scales the distribution is fractal. These small scales are known to extend at least as far as 5 to 10 megaparsecs. There is increasingly strong evidence that there are large voids at a size well above 100 megaparsecs. Such voids are precisely what is expected in a fractal distribution.

How important is the blog "rough fractals"? As with the theory of chaos, it is too early to say for sure, but the prospects are not unfavourable. Many blogs (indivudually and collectively (eg fractally) have had an important cultural impact and have already been accepted as works of a new form of art. Some are representational while others are totally unreal and abstract. It must come as a surprise to both mathematicians and artists to see this kind of cultural interaction.

A final satisfying spin-off from the rough fractal blog is the hope that it may provide at least a sense for the beauty and eloquence of the inner life of the psyche, art and literature, and their profound relationship with the real world of psychology, math, science, culture and politics.

The Tao of Now

Rough Fractals is working on a coffee table book about the Snow Globe. A comprehensive photo history, the book will address (among other things) when the Snow Globe was first invented, how they are made, what the snow is made of, can you make money collecting them - that kind of stuff.

Also in the works is a custom line of Snow Globes manufactured to order. For example, as part of the promotion for the recent movie, Lars and The Real Girl, celebrity guests at the L.A. premier were given goodie bags containing a Snow Globe depicting the scene in the movie where Lars (Ryan Gosling) is dancing with the Doll. The snow comes down, they twirl around, music plays and for a moment the Snow Globe owner realizes that each of us, in our own way, lives in our own private Snow Globe where we dance with our illusions (or can the Doll become a Real Girl?).

Currently in the pipeline is a new Snow Globe to be called "Cognitive Rocket Ship". Inside the Globe is a rocket ship that is about to take off and in the cockpit of the rocket ship sits the pilot (the pilot is a woman - for more about the pilot see the relevant parenthetical below) who is gazing into a Snow Globe of a rocket ship in which sits the pilot looking into a Snow Globe of a rocket ship. There are some technical problems in the manufacturing because the third Snow Globe in a Snow Globe is really, really tiny.

When Rough Fractals was nothing more than a glean in this author’s eye he would often consult the I Ching (Classic Chinese Book of Changes) for hexagrams of inspiration and revelation (the I Ching contains a series of hexagrams one of which is synchronistically chosen (if you are a traditional Han Chinese) by tossing yarrow stalks, or, more commonly in the modern era, by tossing six pennies whose heads and tails combinations serve as a kind of random number generator matching one of the 64 possible hexagrams. This random selection process is called "throwing the I Ching" and is done in search of a thematic oracular summation of the question most in the mind (conscious or subconscious) of the thrower. In writing this post, Rough Fractals thought it befitting to commune with the I Ching to divine the essence (the Tao) of Now. The faded yellow hard covered extensively underlined copy of the I Ching was long ago relegated to Emeritus status so Rough Fractals resorted to "throwing The Google" which delivered the following passage from author, David Foster Wallace:

"There are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness...the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing..."

There is mucho wisdom in The Google (and in the catechism of Now).

(The pilot in the rocket ship in the Snow Globe is wearing well worn, brown suede, I-loved-you-from-the-moment-I-met-you, cowboy boots, vintage Colorado 1971. Covered by the boot sleeve just above her right ankle is a small tattoo of a heart across which is a banner that says "Breakable".)

Exactly one year ago I sent this report from the field:

"...the rest of the evening consisted of meeting Rhoda, an 80 year old ex jazz singer from Humbolt County, California who performs nightly along with two old friends (also in their 80's) (one on sax and one on trumpet, at the Walla Walla restaurant in town (she does a good rendition of When the Saints Come Marching Home in Spanish), and later meeting a guy named Bob who is a few years older than us who is a dead ringer for Timothy Leary. Bob lives on a commune in Oregon where he grows a small marijuana cash crop and winters here in San Blas, Mexico, where he seems to know everyone. He has six kids, two of whom (the youngest), "Starlight Rain" (11 years old) and "Harmony" (8 years old) are here with him. Bob kind of summed up his situation when he concisely explained that he started living off the grid 35 years ago and has stayed off the grid ever since. I would say that pretty much sums up his situation. He held court all evening at the bar while Starlight and Harmony wandered around. Bob and kids and their friend Roger (Roger is a whole other story) are staying at the house of the owner of the San Blas Social Club which Bob says is a really beautiful place right on the beach except that the roof is caved in."

Some Thoughts on Movie Making and Other Jobs...

Movie making (maybe a lot like all jobs to a degree) is a fluky mix of craft, art, luck, commerce and merchantry. What does it take to make it? Certainly talent, appetite, obsession, drive and, then too, you need to be a salesman - a vendor who convinces people to hand over capital anticipating a speculative return based on conjective visualization; page to screen to ticket sales. I do not know how many try versus how many succeed but I figure that most who do (either one - fall short or pull it off) have the same qualities -- some are appealing, some not so much. The mordant part is the notion that if you "make it" it will have been worth it - but if you don't - you have failed. Or worse, if you do not even try you are somehow found to be lacking. If there is anything we learn in watching (as opposed to making) movies, it's the lessons they teach us in their romance; that we each in our own way lay legitimate claim to stature that is not diminished one iota if ours is to end up sine die a journeyman, going to work, doing a good job at whatever task is assigned, addressing the successes, the set backs, the breaks, the bummers and rising to the occasion of day to day.

Quote Of The Every Other Day...

PHILANTHROPY AND POVERTY

"Interestingly, neither Gates nor Buffett seems motivated by the possibility of being rewarded in heaven for his good deeds on earth. Gates told a Times interviewer, "There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning" than going to church. Put them together with Andrew carnegie, famous for his free thinking, and three of the four greatest American philanthropists have been atheists or agnostics. (The exception is John D. Rockefeller.) In a country in which 96% of the population say they believe in a supreme being, that's a striking fact. It seems that in one sense, Gates and Buffett are probably less self interested in their charity than someone like Mother Teresa, who as a pious Roman Catholic believed in reward and punishment in the afterlife."

Peter Singer in his essay, What Should A Billionaire Give? In his research for the essay, Mr. Singer calculated how much America's top 10% of income earners actually make and concludes that it would be easy for the world's rich to virtually eliminate global poverty. Mr. Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

Quote of The Every Other Day

There is so much smart stuff around that maybe we will be able to change our quote of the week to a quote of the every other day. Here is today's:

"...Life is a motherfucker; living it anyway, and sometimes laughing in the process, is where humanity is won."

from an essay by Jerald Walker entitled "Dragon Slayers" published in 2007 in the Iowa Review. "Dragon Slayers" is from Notes from the Promised Land, an in progress collection of essays on being a black academic. Mr. Walker is an assistant professor of English at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, MA.
.

Germain Joins Grateful Dead

AP Photo (Germain on Left standing next to bassist, Phil Lesh). FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 01/06/09:

The Grateful Dead have announced that former reinsurance executive. Steve Germain, will be doing back up vocals for the band starting immediately. When asked how he came to join the band, Steve said it started with a letter he wrote to the NY Times quoting the Dead's lyric from their classic hit Uncle John's Band. Bob "Ace" Weir has recently been unhappy with the performance of his investment portfolio and was looking for a new investment advisor when he came across Steve's letter. Weir, Lesh and drummer Billy "Pig Pen" Kreutzmann spent a weekend with Germain at the Post Ranch Inn at Big Sur listening to music and talking about alternative investment strategies. They decided to join forces: Steve views their partnership as a 50/50 sharing arrangement adding: "our philosophy is that we can share what we got of yours because we done shared all of mine". Weir added, "we are partners in the truest sense, we can share the women, we can share the wine - we are not possessive types". Germain concluded his remarks commenting that he regrets that he will no longer be attending Ramada Inn sponsored "accounting for insurance" seminars but stated, "I will get by, I will survive." From now on Steve will be using his stage name, Casey Jones.

Fractal video: Faces of Nayarit

Las Parteras de Santa Teresa - video