 nathan - nbell1 | All Comments |
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| 11th December 2008 laura | communities - From: Essay "Loss of Contact" natham, this is great. so interesting and, as catie said, brings up so many issues. this was exactly what i struggled with after coming back from india...suddenly surrounded by people in their cars with the windows rolled up, who won't make eye contact with you in the street, automated check-machines, even just having so much space in our houses here. i read a study that said the reason that so many people remember college as the best years of their life is because those were the 4 years they lived the way, deep down, we want to live - in a close community, surrounded by each other all the time. an awesome book that looks at this issue in the context of environmental sustainability is Bill McKibben's 'Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future' keep up the good work. see you soon! |
| 10th December 2008 catie | ah, thanks! - From: Essay "Loss of Contact" thanks for this, nate. it's such a good christmas-time message, also. I was so excited yesterday when a woman asked me where 79th street was. Then I was elated when she revealed she was actually looking for the "american museum of natural history". Ah, a chance to prolong this short conversation for a few more seconds! this essay brings up a lot of interesting ideas- from globalization and "business" and "development" and how these things affects each of us on a personal, emotional level, to the impact of gender dynamics. I can easily say that when I'm in my neighborhood I generally dread people talking to me because 90% of the time it's a man harassing me. But again, this could be a result of the impersonal nature of living in NYC- people don't interact with those who live on the same street as them. These men don't see me as a neighbor they live with- someone who goes to the shops they go to, buys the same food, goes to the same street fairs, etc. anyway, thanks for sharing! |
| 27th September 2008 Mombo | Soccer-Football - From: Little journal entry about soccer and writing for Public Essay Gosh Nathan, In this piece you write with a fluidity which I do not think that I have encountered before in your writing. Your passion and grace are moving and I "almost" feel like kicking a ball around the backyard so that I too would be accepted in a pick-up game in Memorial park. This is an inspiring next step in your journey. Love, Mom |
| 11th September 2008 Dad | A father's reflection - From: Little journal entry about soccer and writing for Public Essay As someone who has lived you with a football(soccer) fanatic all these years I welcome the chance to finally hear about all the ways it has touched your life. I have been pleased to have shared in some of them. I hope you do get a chance to travel the world and write about the pickup games you play in. Will you take a soccer ball made of socks to Africa? |
| 1st August 2008 zazzazz | Get It Up - From: Elevators Nathan, Nicely done! As an extrovert I've always been intrigued by those that have hang-ups about strangers. Your essay covers this topic well, with some good insight into people's personal spaces and how they conceive their "buffer zones". As an Elevator Constructor, I'm constantly amazed at the inherent fear attached to elevators. The Hollywood vision of an elevator plummeting 40 floors at 100 mph is bad cliche and, due to modern (being in the last 125 years or so) safety mechanisms and regulatory-body mandated safety inspections, not likely at all. Like your research shows, vertical transportation is a very safe way to travel. The multiple and redundant safety features and circuits make today's elevator a safe and reliable ride. If there is a mechanical malfunction or a value out of parameter in an electronic circuit the elevator will fault-out and shut down. This is a good thing. In the worst-case scenario I'm in an entrapment (the elevator is faulted out for some reason or other and has stopped at whatever point it is at in the hoistway) like Mr. Chen. The logical thing to do is not to panic, but to assess the particular car that I find myself temporarily inconvenienced in for which corner I might need to avail myself of if the duration of my stay requires it and then have a seat. Maybe take a nap like Mr. Chen. DO NOT attempt to escape the car ala Bruce Willis with two guns blazing as you leap through the "escape" door. This is in actuality an access hatch for service and depending on local regulations may be locked. This is where people get seriously hurt or seriously dead as the elevator may run on automatic at any time and will not even care that a flimsy human hero is scaling the hoistway wall adjacent to the car on its way for help. Take a break and wait. If you're lucky you might be on the clock like our Mr. Chen. Life has it's ups and downs- Enjoy the ride! The International Union Of Elevator Constructors - Local 133 - Austin, Texas "We Bring You Up When You're Down" |
| 19th May 2008 Priscilla | Interesting - From: Essay on Soccer in Madurai Hey Nathan, an interesting account but a bit disjointed with the insert of the introduction to culture at Madura. It could be sharpened by some condensation but all in all interesting. Love ya PBB |
| 8th May 2008 Mike | - From: Essay about my youth playing baseball Wow! Your mom was right. You love(d) baseball! I see the same diligence with your writing. Maybe one day you can be a major league writer. Just don't wear our your wrists. Nice piece Nate. ps. To all other readers... I hit the curve! |
| 8th May 2008 Priscilla | Wow - From: Essay about my youth playing baseball You made me cry with that one Nate. Then again I lived through some of that with you. I'm glad time has enabled you to appreciate the hard actions that parents are forced to take and to value the result. Good work. I'm proud of you. PBB |
| 6th May 2008 Philip Porter | - From: Personal Essay/story of Gokarna I enjoyed your essay. I was in Gokarna briefly last year and the memories came flooding back. I even bought a necklace from a very friendly Tamil family - maybe the same people. If I had a criticism, it would be that your take on events could come across as a little smug. Your greater understanding of the real India, the effortless way in which you converse with and delight the stallholders, the intolerance of the hippies - I'm not saying these recollections aren't true, but a little more modesty might warm the reader to the story. I also thought it was a bit misleading to suggest that the hippies were quite so dominant. As I remember it, a large proportion of the tourists are Hindus from elsewhere in India visiting because of Gokarna's religious significance. |
| 13th April 2008 Ryanne Buchannan | - From: NY Times Modern Love college Essay competition That was truly beautiful! I am not one to cry...ever, but this story brought tears to my eyes. |
| 1st April 2008 emma | wow - From: NY Times Modern Love college Essay competition Nate, you made me tear up and hold back crying. What an amazing piece you've written. Thank you for sharing! |
| 31st March 2008 catie | nice - From: NY Times Modern Love college Essay competition nice work nate! i think it turned out really well! really awesome! i hope you win the contest- i'd love to have a lot of people reading this! great job! |
| 4th March 2008 nbell1 | Mombo bites - From: Story for fiction Nate, This may be the best thing that you have written. It is from the heart, I was rooting for Raj all the way and wanted to unplug Adam. You understood the longing and need to explore which Raj was consumed with. It would be interesting to see what advice Owen has for you. Mom |
| 29th February 2008 Owen | - From: Story for fiction Wow. This is really really good. The emotions of the characters are visceral and powerful without being melodramatic. Email me a copy if you want me to make a couple suggestions for line edits. Holla! Your writing is getting mad good kid. |
| 27th February 2008 Emily | - From: Essay on Nyack language This essay was great and I love the comment. |
| 26th February 2008 oldirtydirty | Fire - From: Essay on Nyack language Son, shit is fire. Here's what I've noticed since I've been at school- I use some Yackisms, but def not as often as when I'm chillin at home and especially not as often as when I'm chillin with you, Em, and Shane. Remember when we were in Spain? We went OD on the Yackisms, using at least two per sentence. Part of it was being with close friends from the same hometown, but part of it was that we were in a place where most people weren't gonna understand us anyway, so we were free to speak our basterdized yackspeak. I remember Shane sayin he used to drop yack vocab on heads when he was up at Vermont, but I wonder how thick your yack speak would be if you and Emi, and now Shane, had all gone to different schools. I'm not sayin I completely stop talkin like a yackhead when I'm at school, and sometimes my friends even pick up on ish, like refering to a friend as "my boy". It sounded maaad funny when my preppy friend Dave leaned over to me at a party when I had a friend visiting and said, "I like your boy." In yack speak, it would have been prudent to add "no mo", or something along those lines. Anyway, I've noticed that I'll only drop a yack word every once in a while, and definitely not two or three times a sentence when I'm at school. So my question to you is, if you and Em had gone to different schools, do you think you would use the yackilect as often as you do? Holla atcha boy. |
| 26th January 2008 Priscilla | fun - From: Short story I wrote over break I like it Nathan but found it a bit jumpy to read. Perhaps that is a function of reading off a computer screen. The start I found a bit hard to follow but liked the symmetry. Keep writing it's fun to read. PBB |
| 25th January 2008 Maya | - From: Short story I wrote over break Fantastic story Gnat! and very cute. I agree with Tad that it was somewhat heard to read in the format presented, I lost my place a couple of times and such.... but overall a real pleasure to read. There were a couple of sports (literally 2 I think) where I believe there were typos: a what that should've been a that and..... dammit I can't remember the other one. thanks for the great entertainment. sending <3 <3 <3 |
| 23rd January 2008 taddie | - From: Short story I wrote over break It's really good, although the lines are so long it makes it more dificult to read (I mean on the computer - I doubt you have any control over that) just a question - does circumcision in itself equal conversion to judaism? Of course the meaning is still there regardless, but i just wondered |
| 4th December 2007 taddie | - From: Two Poems i really like the first one; the lines are really well chosen to tell the story, but incompletely. it's really hard to say what someone would say if they didn't already know the story... maybe ill introduce it to one |
| 2nd December 2007 Ms Sam Smale | You have to chuckle - From: Personal Essay/story of Gokarna What do you mean the story doesn't flow well? The style is fine. You can always write another tale with Raja in central position. ( Maybe you do. Haven't read the next blog ) Regarding the dreadlocked Brit. Well. You just have to chuckle don't you. I mean, they go with territory as much as we wish they didn't. Everyone seems to want to be the smartest, hippest, and most goin' on when they clearly are not. My pushy answer to these polite restaurant owners in the future would be to show other people to the table, and force her to share. Might be the beginning of some real feeling and fun from her, or give her something to complain about when she goes home. I'm sure her friends have heard it all before!! |
| 8th November 2007 oldirtydirty | 2 comments - From: Musings and an Essay on Grades Looks like I'm currently your biggest blogfan Nata. I have two comments- 1- Different civilizations/cultures/socities (whatever you want to call it) have different approaches to learning. The most interesting cleavage in approach, in my opinion, is between Western (European) and Eastern (Chinese) civilizations. In the West, the traditional approach is to introduce the student to a wide range of knoweldge, and gradually allow them to specialize based on their particular skills and interests. This is evident K-12, as we are required to take Math, Science, Social Studies, Art, Gym, etc etc. To a lesser extent, this is also the case in college, where most schools require students to complete core courses outside their chosen major. The image one could draw of this style is a pyramid, starting with a base of general knowledge, and then narrowing as the student persues a specific interest. In ancient China, the approach was signficantly different. A student was allowed to chose a subject based upon their personal interests right from the begining. The theory held that exploring this topic would introduce the pupil to other, related topics, and the student would naturally gravitate to these subjects in order to compliment and support their core subject. The image here would be of a spiral, starting at a signal point and growing wider and wider as the student developed mentally. This leads me to my second point, related to what you said of incentive. My first semester at college, the adviser who 'helped' make my schedule 'encouraged' me to take core classes (a math course, a science course, a diversity credit art history course, and a study skills course) completely unrelated to my government and politics major. There was a lot of other issues going on that semester, but suffice to say I did terribly in my four non-major courses, and grabbed an A in my gov class. Compare that doleful semester to the one I had last spring. I took five history and goverment courses, all of which related to one another in some demension. My Political Theory class could be applied to my Dictators of Latin America course; my history of Mexico could be applied to my history of Latin America course, and so on. I chose courses that interested me, courses which were engaging and interrelated. I was able to use concepts and information I had learned in one class in a paper or on a test in another. This was extremely helpful. Of course I worked much harder, was more focused, and happier last semester than my first at college, and all these factors contributed to my improvement as well. Suffice to say I went to work. Holler atcha boy. And expect long comments from me from now on. If I've gotta read your long ass blogs, you're gonna hafta read my long ass comments. Peace. Owen |
| 30th October 2007 Dadcan | Need to change my pants - From: Alley Flash fiction I wet myself in fear. Nice writing. Could you write something sweet and charming now so that I can fall asleep tonight? |
| 30th March 2007 sally | awed - From: Next Chapter Dear Nate, your chapter on community gave me the chills. It is so well-written and so sincerely from the heart. You have put a lot of thought into this work. I am humbled by your beautiful writing. Thanks so much for sending it to me. I saw a few very small editing issues. Love you so much, Mom |
| 24th March 2007 tad | - From: Security Part I like this a lot, you have some good examples.. I really liked the part about the metrostars, as an example of insecurity. (it isn't so important, but Chirac is the President of France) |
| 13th March 2007 Tad | - From: Hi I know there are at least SOME Tamils in Nyack (Sri Lankan Tamils), but maybe none your age. I could try and see... |
| 9th March 2007 sally | Yes - From: Hi Yes Nathan, I whole-heartedly agree that one must push people to be better. Often it is the only way to move them. However, how you push them is VERY important. I prefer to use music and beauty, Sometimes one must use words and action. I admire you for the way that you stood up for your friends. That was very good. Love, Mom |
| 4th March 2007 tad | - From: First chapter I think em is probably right that more people died of war in the 2oth century, but perhaps because there were at least 4 times as many people alive in the 20th than even the 19th century. but maybe percentage-wise there is a lesser chance of dying from war nowadays |
| 20th February 2007 anonymous | - From: First chapter Reading this was fascinating. Looking forward to rest of the installments. In general, from the tribals to the destitutes on the streets the people in India are happy people. |
| 20th February 2007 Emiliano | Some notes - From: First chapter first of all. when you mention the fact that wars have decreased, i remind you that the 20th century saw the greatest death toll at the hands of other humans in history. i think that world war two alone had more casualties than like all the wars in history of some insanity. 63 million people. sooo. second of all i think you need to read a book called 'mans search for meaning' by viktor frankl. it is an extraordinary book writen as an attempt to make a psychological evaluation of inmates in nazi concentration camps. definelty worth reading on its own merit, and even more so when attempting your task. it is short, i read it in a day, so it shouldnt be too much of a burden. third: 'veritable stalwarts' haha. fourth: i dont know if flexibility is the best title for that category. maybe more like serenity, or perseverance, or surrender. just an idea, but i dont think that flexibility quite captures it. fifth: where does religious practice come in? or is that fluid throughout? i think that spitituality is somewhat behind most of the categories that you mention. it creates communities of beleivers. it gives people purpose far above themselves, to live in a way or do things that satisfy their notion of the divine. it certainly leads to fascination and wonder, and i suppose an understanding of our inherant 'smallness' which correlates with awe. flexibility as you call it is also present because you are able to accept your place and it also gives meaning and cause to those inexplicable tragedies that befall us. finally security, i suppose that a religious community offers some security, we all know that being jewish certainly does, but also it provides you the faith that gives you security even if it is not materially available at the moment. the notion that god will take care of you can be very reassuring. well thats all for now, good luck and godspeed |
| 18th February 2007 sally | ? ? ? ? ? - From: Short story of experience Hi nate, I just lost a long comment to you. I need to be more able on the computer. Well, I loved your blog. This is the best one yet especially in regards to your writing style. The story about Raja is brilliant. I rambled on in the lost comment about your identifying question and due to India and France I eliminated class and nation. Once you are surrounded by another race I lose my strong identity with race but it is not forgotten by everyone so there is quite a strong identity with that (this is true also of class and nation). With my new understanding of religion I do not identify so strongly with Christianity as I do with people with a living faith outside of themselves and those who do not. My heart does not seem to be faith specific but rather I identify with people who strongly care about others and have a sense of the reality beyond their own daily life and a sense of eternity whatever that means. I cannot narrow it down any more than that. Love, Mom |
| 17th February 2007 Priscilla | identification - From: Short story of experience For me Nathan the identification would have to be religious belief. I can immediately bond with a born-again Christian who is from pretty much anywhere. We are afterall in the same family. I went last fall to a Yom Kippur service and found elements of relationship even though my connection to my Jewish friends was only from the shared Old Testament heritage. Neat Huh? |
| 15th February 2007 Becky | - From: Back at it Now you know why my job is so exciting! However, I try not to harrass bulls or cows. Glad to have you back on blog. |
| 15th February 2007 mom | goat/priest - From: Trip to Tanjavoor Hi Nate, I probably don't get it but Can any priest be close to infallible? Isn't there the greatest power in someone who doesn't even know that he/she is powerful? Or maybe it is important to be aware of one's own abilities/ power. What do you think? I love your grass experience. Abby and I just had tea and a game at Karin's. Like grass, I had forgotten how great it is to spend time with tea and a best friend like that since I don't have a lot of free time. I was going with it...... Love, Mom |
| 14th February 2007 Priscilla | interesting trip - From: Trip to Tanjavoor One can't help but wonder how the people would trust Dr. V if he is telling them the student visitors are incarnations of their gods. Do you feel especially god-like? While I guess one can assume that visiting students could avoid polluting the pond should he lie to them to gain access? PBB |
| 7th February 2007 tad | - From: Back at it so, i'm still reading.. Keep writing, because it's interesting! |
| 7th February 2007 sally | yes im reading - From: Back at it Nate, it is so good to hear your writing voice again. I missed it. think of you often, daily. Much love, Mom |
| 7th February 2007 Priscilla | this bull thing - From: Back at it Seems llike only men enjoy the bull harrassing. I hope that like the sugar cane this experience satisfied you for life. You lived through them both. I'm glad. PBB |
| 2nd December 2006 Priscilla | Good start - From: Preface to my project Hi Nathan. As a college professor myself I am gratified that your questioning included the propaganda that we ourselves perpetuate in academia. I listen to a radio host who has an hour program on happiness each week and although I seldom am able to hear that particular hour I bet you would benefit from his insights (Dennis Prager). Keep up the thoughtful effort to see your place in the wide world. Also note that there is a fundamental difference in East Asian perspectives from our European based culture (China, Vietnam, Thailand etc). Your Aunt PBB |
| 2nd December 2006 Stain | - From: Preface to my project I like it alot, natdog, I think that you have set yourself on a most splended course. |
| 1st December 2006 sally bell | wow - From: Preface to my project Dear Nate, I love your first draft. It gave me a much better idea of what you are striving to go after. Thank you so much for sharing this wih me and others. |
| 30th October 2006 Loan | - From: Monsoons n such Nate, Glad that you arw doing well and enjoying India as always... Man I remember those Monsoons when I was in Vietnam... those were the day. Some people were unfortunate to have all their crops ruined as well as their shelter. My family lost all the corns and rice... :(... |
| 17th October 2006 Loan | - From: Birthday! omg....that's just way too funny... Happy Birthday Nate |
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