More press for I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG, an online interactive experience I worked on at Purpose:

TechPresident: Avaaz Co-Founders Seek Purpose Driven Consumer Life

Huffington Post: Julia Moulden on How to Use Technology to Change the World

Cool Hunting: This Week’s Picks

PSFK: Online Game I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG Raises Funds, Awareness, and Social Empowerment

Previous post: I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG in the NY Times

I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG by Purpose in the NY Times Media Decoder Blog!
I was in charge of the music and audio and also worked on animation and visual/interaction design.

Stuart Elliot reports:

A new agency whose name, Purpose, signals the kind of campaigns it hopes to produce is creating for Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong initiative that fights cancer, a virtual version of an annual bicycle race.

The effort is in the form of a game called I Ride for Livestrong. The online race began on Wednesday and continues through May 23, which is the end date for the actual race it mirrors, the 2010 Amgen Tour of California.

On the tech side, I have been researching various frameworks for developing the new version of SokoSquare moving forward.  Looked into CakePHP and CodeIgniter and looked at some how-to videos.  There’s also the Ruby on Rails option, but I think I’m over my head in this area.  Meeting with Elizabeth tonight to discuss, and need to loop Peter in too.  In the mean time, I need to finish mocking up the various user registration pages.

Also, found out at the Awesome Foundation trustee meeting on Monday night that someone else is working on a project very similar to SokoSquare, so meeting on Thursday night to follow up.

A quick update on the status of SokoSquare:  Catherine, Peter, and I went to a “how to pitch” workshop at Stern this Tuesday and got some practice presenting and feedback from other teams.  We have a dress rehearsal of the full pitch next Wednesday.

We will also be participating in an ITP pitch-off this Saturday, for which I prepared this new 1-pager on our project.  In short, we are getting lots of opportunities to practice and refine our presentation for different audiences.

In other news, the Drupal intro session at Purpose I was supposed to attend was canceled, so I’m going to look into other ways to get up to speed on the tech side of building the next SokoSquare prototype.  In the meantime, I will focus on developing the user interactions and the trust mechanisms (I got lots of good feedback from my thesis group on this on Wednesday).

Latest documentation here (PDF).

The Awesome Foundation NY has made our first selection! It was tough NY – you completely blew us away with amazing incredibly brilliant ideas.

But – this month, for our inaugural grant, we’ve picked a LASER TWEEZER that makes amoebas eat bacteria.

Awesomeness to the MAX.

No – really, its a laser tractor beam that prods amoebas. We’ve awarded January’s $1000 grant to Ben Dubin-Thaler’s Cell Motion BioBus.

We’ll be celebrating with Ben at the First AF-NY Award Ceremony on Monday February 8 at 8 pm, at the Apple Bar, Waverly at Greene. Come and join us for a beer, meet the NY Micro Trustees – and we’re working on getting the BioBus there too. Beyond Awesome.

Read more

Ubiqui.tv is a prototype online video travel guide for the Boxee platform.  Ubiqui.tv was created by Joel Leimer, Oskar Von Hauske, Timothy Haynes, and myself as our group project for the ITP class Designing The Future of Television with Richard Ting.

YouTube video tutorial on how to get a Wiimote to talk to a Mac

13.4 million Americans watch some form of mobile video each month, and of those 13.4 million people, each watched an average of 3.5 hours of mobile video per month.  By comparison, the average American watches 153 hours of TV per month.  (Nielsen via Mashable, May 2009)

Also from Nielsen:

Except for the teenage years, viewing of traditional television increases with age; the use of video on the Internet peaks among young adults while viewing mobile video is highest in the teen years.

Men continue to watch video on mobile phones more than women, and women continue to watch video on the Internet and TV more than men.

In a 2007 international survey, a majority of all respondents agreed that “recommendations from friends had the most impact on the type of content they viewed over celebrity, amateur and professional endorsements.” (IBM via REELSEO)

According to a 2008 comScore study: on-demand video was the most popular mobile video format (compared to mobile broadcast), with 3.6 million viewers in the US. The report also gave a breakdown of the kinds of content mobile video users consumed:

See also:
Eyes Wide Open: Video Usage Up, More Watch Cross-Platform
Nielsen: Mobile Video Use Lags Behind

1. Washington Post writer Ian Shapira writes an article about business coach/’generational consultant’ Anne Loehr: Speaking to Generation Nexus: Guru Explains Gens X, Y, Boomer To One Another
2. Gawker blogger Hamilton Nolan picks up the story: ‘Generational Consultant’ Holds America’s Fakest Job
3. Shapira complains that Gawker stole his story: The Death of Journalism (Gawker Edition)

My take

Shapira’s claim that Gawker did not properly attribute him are unfounded.  The Gawker post links to the original article and to Loeher’s generational cheat sheet.  Hyperlinks are the footnotes and citations of our generation (as Loeher would probably say). I’m giving my advice for free: my generation thinks that generational business coaches are B$.  We live in a cut and paste culture; computers lower the barrier to making derivative works, as the next section of this post will demonstrate.  The subject of the original article was pretty ridiculous to begin with, as if it were tailor-made for Gawker fodder.  Gawker added value to the original with its snarky commentary. (Ms. Loeher, is snark a characteristic of my generation too?)

If Oscar Wilde were alive today, he would probably say, “the only thing worse than being blogged about is NOT being blogged about.”  While we are on aphorisms, let me give you some more free (useless) advice about my generation, courtesy of Descartes, updated for our times: Blogito ergo sum. “I blog, therefore I am.”

I don’t think Gawker is so much ruining journalism as Shapira claims as much as it is Maybe the WaPo should stick to actual news coverage and investigative reporting (after all, this is the newspaper that exposed the Watergate scandal, but “old media” can’t just rest on its past laurels).  “New media” like Gizmodo is going to give newspapers a run for their money in terms of business model.  Newspapers can either adapt their business models and learn to compete with the supposed “pirates” (“piracy is just another business model“), or they can fail.  They can revamp their content and delivery models, or they can streamline and specialize in what they do best.  But here’s a hint for being hip with the kids: complaining about the death of journalism is old news and kind of played out.

Or, in a move of desperation, they can throw down the gauntlet and start an Internet turf war like Shapira has done, which is actually a very Gawker-esque thing to do.  (What would Anne Loeher say about how that reflects on Shapira’s generational values?) It certainly has succeeded in getting people’s attention, but I hope this is not the sustainable business model the WaPo has in mind.

Commentary from the blogosphere AKA aggregation adds value

Stowe Boyd: As Media Economics Shift, Old Media Can’t See The Forest, Only Trees

So, at core, the issue here is something larger. Who owns the world of discourse? Who is allowed to profit, and in what way, from the actions of participants in this web sphere?

Various arguments could be made about fanciful mechanisms.

• Imagine a world where people are paid to read stories, basically getting a kickback from publishers from ad revenue. (Hasn’t caught on.)
• We could weigh the value of every link pointing to or away a piece on the web, and a complex, Google-pagerank-ish algorithm could figure out to six decimal points how much everyone owes each other each week. (Impossible to implement, I bet.)
• Authors could attempt to demand that no one should link to their pieces, or clip any information from them without permission or recompense. (Counter to fair use provisions of copyright and free speech protections.)
• Companies like the Washington Post can put everything behind a paywall. (Good luck.)

These mechanisms hinge on old thinking about value.

The web is a place where connection trumps content: content isn’t king, context in a web of meaning is king.

Rachel Sklar: Did Gawker Rip Off The Washington Post? Yep.

The blogosphere has done something weird to the media industry: Now, the imprimatur of having contributed something is not the original byline, but whether your piece was “picked up.” Pickup provides that extra stamp of relevance, that what you did is worthy of inclusion by the all-important aggregators — the outlets which determine the days need-to-know stories, so busy people with no time to read any of it will at least know what’s up. Yes, yes, congratulations on getting your little article published in a top national newspaper — but a Drudge/Romenesko/HuffPo/Gawker link? Awesome!

It’s not just about traffic, it’s about affirmation: You’re on to something. You’re relevant.

Zachary M. Seward: Gawker and The Washington Post: A case study in fair use

Words in Post article: 1,527
Words from Post article quoted in Gawker post: 226 (15%)
Original words in Gawker post: 204
Labor devoted to Post article: about 2 days
Labor devoted to Gawker post: 30-60 minutes
Cost of Post article: roughly $750
Cost of Gawker post: roughly $20
Revenue generated from Post article: unknown
Revenue generated from Gawker post: roughly $200
Blog links to Post article: 7
Blog links to Gawker post: 4
Rank of Gawker post among referrers to Post article: 2nd
Rank of Post article in Google search for profile subject: 3rd
Rank of Gawker post in Google search for profile subject: 6th

Matthew Ingram: Gawker, the WaPo and the death of journalism

I’d be willing to agree that Gawker could have — and maybe even should have, in an ethical sense — mentioned Shapira and his story specifically. But there is no way in heck that a post with three links and an explicit reference to the source constitutes anything approaching a “rip-off” or the “death of journalism.” How about the death of hyperbole, and the rebirth of rational debate about the value of linking and traffic, and/or the ethics of sourcing online? That would be nice.

emptywheel: The Stealing Wars: What’s Good for Gawker Is Good for WaPo’s Slate

Shapira has a point about this particular instance of Gawker’s abuse of etiquette. But he misses all the ways that this information economy is a multiple-directional exchange, one the WaPo is as happy to engage in as Gawker.

VOXPOPULI: How Alan Denton And His Gawker Henchmen Are Ruining Journalism Forever

So, what’s the point of all this? Shapira points out that what took him a day to produce took Gawker less than an hour to claim as its own and make ad revenue from. Newspapers and other traditional media are certainly not the only form of journalism, but they are the ones that 1. pay well enough for one to live a decent life as a working journalist and 2. have (had?) the resources to allow for real news-gathering, which takes time and effort. And with newspapers fading away, there’s less original content for blogs to re-purpose as their own.

On the other hand…blogs are more fun, or can be, and I myself am a Gawker regular. Blogs are a lot less formal and the best don’t, after all, just cut and paste without adding a bit of their own eleven herbs and spices. In the age of the Internet, information is an increasingly free commodity.

Appendix

This is totally tangential, and I doubt you’ve made it this far, but I’ve had my own brush with Nick Denton’s blogging empire before.  Gizmodo picked up my head(banger)phones project from the ITP Winter Show last December.  They misreported the programming language I used to execute the project.  I posted a comment to correct them, but the post was never corrected.  Oh well, I enjoyed the 15 seconds of Internet fame while it lasted.  You could always read the official story about the head(banger)phones on LEESEAN.NET.

In case you haven’t heard enough from Shapira:

Washington Post staff writer Ian Shapira will be online Monday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss his Outlook article titled “How Gawker Ripped Off My tory and Why It’s Destroying Journalism.”

Looking at myself in the Self-Centered Mirror

Broken Red Mirror: pieces of a portrait of Red Burns

Broken Red Mirror viewed from the front

Snow Mirror

Mirror No. 5 (Pac Man Mirror)

Mirrors Mirror

More photos on Flickr

The Creative Commons Salon San Francisco took place on June 24th at PariSoMa, “a coworking space that provides desks, wi-fi, coffee and community to independent professionals.”  The theme of the salon was “[t]he digital intersection of art, history, and culture, and how CC can play a defining role in enriching all three.”  Videos after the jump.

Part 1: Francesco Spagnolo

Francesco Spagnolo, Director of Research and Collections at the Magnes Museum. Francesco will explore the sharing and marketing of cultural heritage through the lenses of the Magnes’ “Digital Narratives,” a project that seeks an alignment between a narrative approach to history, a collaborative practice in the interpretation of cultural history, and the uses of technology and online social media.

Part 2: David Toole

Dave Toole, CEO and Founder, Outhink Media, will present on how storytelling bridges the cultural and business arenas, outlining the challenges posed by the new social media and the crucial role played by research in information technology.

Part 3: Nancy Van House

Nancy Van House, Professor, UC Berkeley School of Information, will respond to the other presenters by reflecting on the way in which academia is looking at social media and personal/historical digital archiving, exploring the human interactions that populate the online world.

ITP Spring Show 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2-6pm & Monday, May 11, 5-9 pm
A festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP
This event is free and open to the public. No need to RSVP
ITP @ 721 Broadway, 4th Floor

Punchcard, a project by Caroline Brown, Peter Horvath, Catherine White, and myself, came in runner up at the NYU/Microsoft Design Expo competition yesterday.

Punchcard is a proposal for a membership service targetting freelancers, independent workers and others who do not work in tradition offices.  Punchcard membership would give members access to a network of coworking spaces.  In addition, Punchcard membership would offer access to an online “dashboard” communications/social networking platform, that appears on members’ computers when they log into the WiFi at a Punchcard location.  The platform draws on elements of Twitter, social networking sites, and instant messaging, but is location-based, so that members can see who else is in that space at a given time, and view their profiles.  Punchcard platform is meant to facillitate serendipitious interactions between Punchcard members with the goal of potential networking and collaborative opportunities.

The dean of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Mary Schmidt Campbell, was a special guest during our final pitches.  She noted in the post-presentation Q&A that the Punchcard platform could also be adapted to other applications besides networking for laptop-nomad freelancers.  She said that something like it could be implemented in a university context to build community and interdisciplinary collaboration between students in different departments.

While team Punchcard will not be continuing on to the next stage of the competition at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA this summer, we would still like to continue to develop the project in some way, perhaps in the Stern Business Plan competition in the fall.

Download PDF of the Punchcard presentation deck.

Photo: Team Punchcard is Catherine White, Lee-Sean Huang, Caroline Brown and Peter Horvath.

2. In concert with JC Cassis @ Arlene’s Grocery
Sunday, May 3, 2009
8pm SHARP
Arlene’s Grocery, 95 Stanton Street, Lower East Side, NYC
$8 at the door (Make sure to say you’re there to see JC Cassis)
21+
JC will be performing all her new dance-pop tracks off the forthcoming album, Four on the Floor, as well as some old faves.

3.  ITP Spring Show 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2-6pm & Monday, May 11, 5-9 pm
ITP @ 721 Broadway, 4th Floor
A festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP
This event is free and open to the public. No need to RSVP

4. I’ll be in Washington DC from May 13-15, and I’ll be in the San Francisco Bay Area from May 15-20 and then from early June to mid-August.  Ping me if you want to meet up.

Here are a couple screenshots taken from my upcoming piece, ODI et AMO, a music video/karaoke performance piece I am working on as the final project for my Visual Music and Animals class.  JC Cassis will be doing some vocals for the piece, and she’ll be coming over later today to rehearse and record her parts.

I will be presenting the piece for my Animals class next Tuesday, and then to the general public at Issue Project Room on April 28, at 8 pm.

Also check out the ODI and AMO T-shirt I designed, and my original project proposal.

For my Dynamic Web Development final, I am working on Givkwik, a mobile-based philanthropic micropayment system, with my ITP classmates, Jason Rosado, Cameron Cundiff, and Thomas Robertson.

Read more on the Givkwik Blog.

I just happend to have my Samson Zoom H2 audio recorder on me because I was coming from band practice with JC Cassis and company, so I was able to capture a high-quality MP3 recording of Ari and Steven’s performance.  Unfortunately, it took me a minute to fumble with the recorder in the dark, so I missed the first couple minutes of the performance.  Nonetheless, here it is:

From my colleague Enrique Piraces at Human Rights Watch:

I want to share with you our submission to the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge. 

The project is great and we have an opportunity to get some attention and further develop the idea. 

Voting will take place between March 23 and March 27, 2009 and will determine the Top Ten Finalists. 

I want to invite you to keep an eye on the project and to help us spread the word about it. And if you want to further improve your karma, please consider registering to vote for the project. [It is so easy. Just register, go to the project page, and give us a "star". After that you can also share any comments and criticisms in the same page] 

http://www.netsquared.org/projects/bug4good 

I’m finding more blog posts about the head(banger)phones from across the international Internets.

Here are posts from Australia, Brazil, and France.

Here are some photos of me presenting the head(banger)phones at the ITP Winter Show 2008 last night.  Thanks to Justin Tedaldi, editor of the JETAANY Newsletter, for the photos.

The head(banger)phones are a personal music device made up of a pair of headphones and a sensor.  When the user wears the head(banger)phones, the motion and position of her head triggers different sounds, creating a dynamic interactive musical experience.

Here is some internet ink about head(banger)phones:

Nod Your Head, Change the Beat: Accelerometer Headphones | PSFK

ITP Winter 2008: Accelerometer Headphones Control Music Via Headbanging

The Listenerd’s Links for 12.18.08

Gizmodo reports that I did the project using Max/MSP, but actually I used Processing/Arduino.

Here are some news clippings of the ITP Winter Show from across the Internets:

MAKE: Blog: ITP Winter Show 2008 – Best of show… Plate spinning DJ, drinking piano, magnet music

MAKE: Blog: More from the ITP Winter Show 2008

More from the ITP Winter Appearance 2008 | USD6.com

ITP Winter Show 2008 – Highlights.  – Wiredset / Blogs / Mark Ghuneim

ICM Final in Progress: Musical Typewriter

ICM Final Project Proposal: Text2Drum

After getting help from the ICM email list, I changed my AudioPlayer objects to AudioSamples, which only need to be triggered once, as opposed to AudioPlayer objects that require play and rewind functions.  This tweak solved my latency and crackle issues.

Testing out the new version has reminded me of the aural pleasure of typing on analog typewriters.  The rhythmic, percussive quality of clanking keys is now lost on contemporary computer keyboards that make more muted sounds when used.

I also thought it would be cool to visualize the waveform of the audio output and display that along with the letter on the screen.  Well, back to work…

New code after the jump:

import ddf.minim.signals.*;
import ddf.minim.*;
import ddf.minim.analysis.*;
import ddf.minim.effects.*;

Minim minim;
//AudioSample objects for each letter of the alphabet
AudioSample play_a;
AudioSample play_b;
AudioSample play_c;
AudioSample play_d;
AudioSample play_e;
AudioSample play_f;
AudioSample play_g;
AudioSample play_h;
AudioSample play_i;
AudioSample play_j;
AudioSample play_k;
AudioSample play_l;
AudioSample play_m;
AudioSample play_n;
AudioSample play_o;
AudioSample play_p;
AudioSample play_q;
AudioSample play_r;
AudioSample play_s;
AudioSample play_t;
AudioSample play_u;
AudioSample play_v;
AudioSample play_w;
AudioSample play_x;
AudioSample play_y;
AudioSample play_z;

void setup()
{
minim = new Minim(this);
size(500,500);

background(0);
textFont(createFont(“Courier”, 50));
text(“Type letters”, 30, height/2-50);
text(“to play”, 30, height/2+25);

play_a = minim.loadSample(“A.mp3″, 512);
play_b = minim.loadSample(“B.mp3″, 512);
play_c = minim.loadSample(“C.mp3″, 512);
play_d = minim.loadSample(“D.mp3″, 512);
play_e = minim.loadSample(“E.mp3″, 512);
play_f = minim.loadSample(“F.mp3″, 512);
play_g = minim.loadSample(“G.mp3″, 512);
play_h = minim.loadSample(“H.mp3″, 512);
play_i = minim.loadSample(“I.mp3″, 512);
play_j = minim.loadSample(“J.mp3″, 512);
play_k = minim.loadSample(“K.mp3″, 512);
play_l = minim.loadSample(“L.mp3″, 512);
play_m = minim.loadSample(“M.mp3″, 512);
play_n = minim.loadSample(“N.mp3″, 512);
play_o = minim.loadSample(“O.mp3″, 512);
play_p = minim.loadSample(“P.mp3″, 512);
play_q = minim.loadSample(“Q.mp3″, 512);
play_r = minim.loadSample(“R.mp3″, 512);
play_s = minim.loadSample(“S.mp3″, 512);
play_t = minim.loadSample(“T.mp3″, 512);
play_u = minim.loadSample(“U.mp3″, 512);
play_v = minim.loadSample(“V.mp3″, 512);
play_w = minim.loadSample(“W.mp3″, 512);
play_x = minim.loadSample(“X.mp3″, 512);
play_y = minim.loadSample(“Y.mp3″, 512);
play_z = minim.loadSample(“Z.mp3″, 512);

textFont(createFont(“Courier”, 200));
}

void draw()
{

}

void keyPressed()
{
if ( key == ‘a’)
{
background(0);
text(“A”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_a.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘b’)
{
background(0);
text(“B”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_b.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘c’)
{
background(0);
text(“C”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_c.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘d’)
{
background(0);
text(“D”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_d.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘e’)
{
background(0);
text(“E”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_e.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘f’)
{
background(0);
text(“F”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_f.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘g’)
{
background(0);
text(“G”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_g.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘h’)
{
background(0);
text(“H”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_h.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘i’)
{
background(0);
text(“I”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_i.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘j’)
{
background(0);
text(“J”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_j.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘k’)
{
background(0);
text(“K”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_k.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘l’)
{
background(0);
text(“L”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_l.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘m’)
{
background(0);
text(“M”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_m.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘n’)
{
background(0);
text(“N”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_n.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘o’)
{
background(0);
text(“O”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_o.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘p’)
{
background(0);
text(“P”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_p.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘q’)
{
background(0);
text(“Q”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_q.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘r’)
{
background(0);
text(“R”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_r.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘s’)
{
background(0);
text(“S”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_s.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘t’)
{
background(0);
text(“T”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_t.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘u’)
{
background(0);
text(“U”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_u.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘v’)
{
background(0);
text(“V”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_v.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘w’)
{
background(0);
text(“W”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_w.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘x’)
{
background(0);
text(“X”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_x.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘y’)
{
background(0);
text(“Y”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_y.trigger();
}

if ( key == ‘z’)
{
background(0);
text(“Z”, width/2-60, height/2+20);
play_z.trigger();
}

if (key == ‘ ‘)
{
background(0);
}
}

void stop()
{
minim.stop();
super.stop();
}

I watched the Obama-McCain debate tonight, while chatting on AIM with my ITP classmates.  Rather amusing indeed, the best part was when both candidates compared their accessories collection.

“I HAVE A BRACELET TOO!”  Are bracelets from military families the new yellow ribbons or flag pins?

Show your patriotism with an “I HAVE A BRACELET” T-shirt.  Buying stuff is patriotic too.

More on the bracelet battle from Reuters.

And from Michelle Malkin of all people.

End of summer update: I got back this morning from a week-long holiday in Northern California. Tons of pictures on Flickr. I will blog more about it later.

Above: The famous Fisherman’s Wharf of San Francisco. Below: LS plays with eels at the Monterey Aquarium.

Sophia & Perilla

I hung out with Sophia today. We had dinner in the West Village at a place called Perilla, which is Top Chef Harold Dieterle’s restaurant. The ambience was casual and cosy, typical West Village. Our waiter was attentive and the menu looked good. I was a big fan of Harold’s when I watched Top Chef, so I had high hopes. But unfortunately, things got weird, but not in a good way. We were presented with exactly one slice of bread each. Mmm, gee thanks. Nobody asked if we wanted more. We shared an heirloom tomato salad and seared sea scallops for the appetizer course. The tomato salad was good, but a bit pedestrian. The pine nuts and the feta cheese in the salad overpowered the subtly of the tomatoes. The scallops themselves were executed to textbook perfection, but like the tomato salad, had some balance issues: their were bacon or pancetta bits that were a little overwhelming, and not advertised on the menu.

Entrees. This is where it gets bad. We had the Romesco Oil Poached Chatham Cod with black olive gnocchi, oyster mushrooms & summer zucchini sauce and the Grilled Pork T-Bone with lavender, lychee-black chick pea salad & green mustard sauce. Off the bat, the cod dish was way too salty, and had a weird “squeaky texture.” The “romesco” was a red sauce smeared on the cod with chunks of nuts in it, a departure from the smooth Catalan classic. I found the nuts too aggressive in texture compared to the tender cod. Much better after I scraped off most of the sauce. The summer zucchini sauce was more of a color element than a flavor contrast, so I can’t say it was all the memorable. The black olive gnocchi was too similar to the oyster mushrooms in color, but were surprising in taste and texture when I bit into them. The color and texture reminded me of Taiwanese pig’s blood black pudding, and not in a good way.

The pork t-bone was a big, thick peace of meat, but not at all juicy or particularly flavorful. It was covered by a giant mound of salad that obscured the meat on the plate, not all too flattering a presentation. I couldn’t really taste the lavender, and the lychees were just kind of random surprises that lacked a real context.

Dessert was redeeming. Sophia ordered the Vanilla Scented Doughnuts with peach compote filling & sour cream curd. Fried dough. Peaches. Cream. Yum. ‘Nuff said. I had the local blackberries Linzer Torte, which was very well executed as well. It did a nice job of clearing my palate of all excess salt from the entrees.

Sorry Perilla, I really wanted to like it. I really tried, but I left disappointed. Luckily, we were able to amuse ourselves with some great people watching, as we observed two very awkward dates at adjacent tables unfold before our eyes. Made up for the lackluster food. We noticed that the awkward date people were drinking a lot more than we were. Maybe they were on to something.

Interactive Telecommunications @ NYU Tisch

Orientation starts tomorrow morning for the masters program in Interactive Telecommunications that I am doing at NYU. Updates forthcoming.

Below: Lee-Sean and the giant sunflowers of Sonoma.