I’m fascinated by Dutch Manhattan. I like imagining it’s wooden homes and windmills. I am stunned by its perceived closeness with the Lenape tribe, the very people whose primal Manhattan identity has been all but obliterated by the city. I romanticize pre-New York as something manageable and intimate. An experience peeking out from monuments and hidden in urban details of the modern metropolis.

This makes Manhattan more human to me. More human and fundamental. Seeing a New York when it was New (Amsterdam) resonates deeply with my own newness to this island with my off-the-boat awe and its new world grandeur, openness, and prospect.

Since the week before Labor day, I’ve been in NY working as the Community Manager at Piictu. It’s a social photography start-up that fits in wonderfully with my love for creativity and technology. We’re based in Union Square for the next month or so, as the team completes the ambitious TechStars program. Work is a joyous blur. I put in 10-11 hour shifts without noticing. Some days we listen in on product pitches for tech products of yesteryear. Other days we take advice from ex-CEO’s of major businesses telling us what they wish they had been told. There are lunches with VC groups and open bars for TV events (which happen to be about TechStars in NYC). It is the most dynamic and frontline situation I could have wound up in, and I’m absolutely loving it.

Evenings and weekends offer little in reprieve. Manhattan is where nights run away with people. If I’m not careful, an afterwork drink because a romp through Ft. Greene Brooklyn, or a few rounds of pool in an obscure part of Chinatown.

My first months in Manhattan have been spent in the Upper East Side, crashing with good friends near 86th and Lexington. The prime position allows 15 minute express access to werk, and easy ambulation to Central Park, that most mythic and enchanted of American backyards. Last week, I realized an ancient fantasy from Stuart Little and rented a model sailboat on Conversatory Water. The breeze was a touch light, but my allotted half hour flew by as I got the hang of darting across the pond, tacking in wide, fast reaches.

September rushes by. The skyline grows more familiar as I find New York’s habits and hustle more predictable. I am stitching its cultural postcards together to form a united, mythology for myself: A McCune’s Gotham.

This is the Upper West Side, here’s the Hudson. This is Lincoln Center, shall we find a cheap show? This is Wall Street, why is it so empty and inhuman? This is Chinatown, where I buy ancient coins from a street vendor 3 for $2.

If you walk halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, at sunset, you can see the torch on Lady Liberty sparkle out on the sea. Meanwhile, the Bridge’s imposing arches will make clear that it’s architect imagined the future of the city as an intimidating neo-gothic expanse, heavy with stone and peaked Cathedral keystones. It never happened. Rampant modernism clad the city in glass and steel, raising her financial stellae towards the heavens, cloaking them in color, filling them with new jazz sounds.

And now, a new age in Manhattan opens, on the very same bedrock into which the Dutch first shook hands with the Lenape promising a stability that a sleepless city will never deliver. I imagine that handshake like the splitting of an atom (the Manhattan Project after all, an inextricable part of this same island) in which the meeting of old and new released an impossible energy the world is still infected by: the inevitability of New York City.

The Irish became Irish-American. Boston got a basketball team that paid homage to its yankee Brahmins being outpaced by celtic people. Catholic churches proliferated widely. And Newport, itself an emerald isle of sorts, gained a swelling Irish population. The Irish were too poor to stay in Ireland. So they left for brighter shores, altering the shape and accent of history forever.
Now, in the spiraling chaos of the Recession, the Irish are again leaving home.

With unemployment in the Republic over 13%, more than 100,000 citizens expected to leave the country of 4 million in the next three years. They join a bittersweet history of exodus. From Ireland to the world, the Irish have given literature, entertainment, innovation and a celebrated sense of joi de vie best summarized by the (outrageous) Irish word craic meaning fun or a good time. Used in conversation “after the game the lads and I went to the pub for a bit of craic,” Americans can be forgiven for assuming drug use.

The Irish are going to need all the craic they can muster. After the economic collapse of Greece, the Irish have fallen need to a similarly dramatic bailout. Which ends the first, and now possibly only period of general wealth, growth and prosperity that ever occurred in Ireland. Termed the “celtic tiger” this economic force grew from the mid 90’s into years of glory in the early millenials. And now its come crashing down.

Where will the Irish go?

Can they afford to join us in the America again? We’ve enough of our problems to manage- where will they fit in?
Can they go to Europe or the UK, the places they traditionally gone to for short stints to improve their economic viability? Not in a time when Europe is reeling from the very collapse that sends the Irish deep into its heart.

So the Irish must go to places more unlikely. Australia and New Zealand have been suggested, but I wonder if there is not something more dramatic and fascinating to emerge. Will, for instance, the Irish follow the wealth in the world to China or Brazil or India? Those are the developing nations whose growth requires some guidance. And English is already a valorized skill in those countries. Will the Irish teach English to a new generation of students abroad, bringing the playful Irish version of the language with them, fulfilling the promise of Becket, Yeats, and Joyce in Beijing and Delhi? Or might the Irish adopt and entwine themselves into new contexts, creating unique intercultural realities so fresh and unexpected we can scarcely imagine their characteristics?

One might hope so. Especially as the Irish look down at decades of debt and unemployment and collapsed confident. Now more than ever, the world needs the Irish to remember their mirth and craic, if only for themselves.

Zachary McCune asked a man in Ireland what his son’s future would hold. The response had something to do with “abroad” and was said with a smile and a tear.

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEWPORT MERCURY]

the kino-eye (an early soviet film collective) believed that the camera could supplement and augment the vision (and thus perception) of the human being. i found this to never be true in watching film, but in producing it, it does seem present. in reviewing my clips, i found my perception augmented and expanded. why? because captured in a reviewable format, the moment was given many lives and almost a certain immortality. barthes of course talks about this through camera lucida, but he did not stop to consider how much moving pictures complicate the capturing of time. siegfried kracaeur did. an his theory moves from the film as a photograph made several in tracing the cinema’s unique ability to vivify what is only promised as living in static photographs.

anyway, with these things swirling about, i captured a few days of video of newport life, then cut it all together. included is the newport bermuda race, a nice bonus!

newport, a summer day from Zachary McCune on Vimeo.

i’ve been missing my gaming fix lately. this time last year, i was rock band-ing daily a la berkman center, and even exercising my gamer theory with monthly mit-harvard game design meetings hosted by the ever brilliant gene koo.

anyway, between a brother who is no longer all that interested in video games (or staying up late for that matter) and an antiquated game system (wait, you mean they aren’t still developing titles for my beloved game cube?) i’ve decided its time for a change. something new. a next step.

i was tempted initally to buy an xbox 360. i love playing fifa 09 with my boys, and project natal will surely make that system all the better. PLUS, the xbox 360 has netflix interaction, and will soon have even more media possibilities- what’s not too love? the games basically. tho i love me some first person shooters, there’s really no reason to invest in a system that only does that with its time. ok, there’s also rock band and sports games, but they are really only fun with other people. ONE OF MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS IS LACKING A STEADY GAMING CREW (again, tears for the rock band core of yore).

as for the other considerations, the playstation 3, for all its awesomeness (like Little Big Planet) is too expensive. and the wii is too gimmicky. its like an arcade for your home, and i don’t want to buy an arcade. moreover, between my roomates next year, their should be one of each console in our apartment. SO WHY COMPLICATE THINGS.

plus, i love puzzle games. i loved myst back in the day, i loved games like journeyman project legacy of time, and adventure games. these genres have been forced into the ds market having been rudely rejected by adrenaline-addled Xboxers and PSers. no worries, i’m more than happy to find things like Professor Layton and the Curious Village or the much hyped scribblenauts in a single man machine. my prayers seem answered.

i struggled for a while about whether or not i should actually buy a ds. i researched into them extensively. i played a few, i read the reviews. at every turn i found myself more sold. the new dsi features suave (albeit slow) internet browsing, an online store with downloadable games (the next generation in video game delivery) and cameras promising both inventive game play and possible skyping/webcamage. one game called ghostwire will actually employ augmented-reality gaming, which uses the cameras to superimpose the game reality into your “physical reality.” i cannot wait to play/theorize on that.

finally, i am going to ars electronica this fall, and i’m worried about bringing along a full computer. i was thinking initially of getting a netbook for the trip, but i really only want one for the trip, not the long term. with the dsi, i may (note “may”) have a solution, as the dsi might be just the lightweight multipurpose ticket to bring to the festival. now lets just hope nintendo has a blogging platform working by then (plz wordpress?)

an animated summary of my arguements

i’ve been playing with a fun web 2.0 presentation tool called prezi this week. take a look at the slick little animation of my arguments that i composed on the beast in about a half hour. this thing is a very slick tool for showing your audience that slideshows are for cartesian minds, while prezi is for deleuzians. sort of.

http://prezi.com/128668/

Canada is like a popular American movie remade by amateurs with French subtitles.

You recognize certain scenes, and the plot feels familiar, but somehow the whole thing is off.

Not that this is bad thing.

Indeed, I rather like it.

Valentine’s Day Trip

A recent jaunt up to Montreal for a weekend both confirmed everything I had ever remembered liking about the place, and introduced wholly new things to enjoy.
Back in the day, I had remember being kinda turned on by the whole speaking-French thing. It was like there was this truly foreign country right above Vermont that I’d never been to. It was like another dimension. And I really mean a dimension distinctly different than the rest of Canada where English is the primary language. For all intensive purposes, Toronto is an American city. Montreal on the other hand is the second largest French-speaking city in the world. After Paris.

Just above New England, it seems, there is the ancient, forgotten kingdom of Noveau France.

The Quebecoise (or Quebecers, as I saw them identified in some Anglophile magazine) love two things: hockey and beer. They also have a penchant for friend foods, winter sports, and sparsely-clad women, which seems all the more erotic to the Quebecoise men given the temperature. Sacrifice, as always, is the root of sexiness.

Hockey

In order to get the real Quebec experience, my girlfriend and I snuck out of the downtown hotel-bar-nightclub area of the city to attend a Junior League Hockey match. Junior League Hockey is something of a cross between Minor League Baseball and Division I sports. The athletes are young, and in development, but they are also professional athletes, aspiring to the great NHL. Even though the NHL has only 6 of 36 teams located in Canada, Canadian players outnumber Americans in the league. Which can probably tell you something about the quality of Junior League Hockey on a Friday night just outside of Montreal proper.

We sat in the bleachers, high above the main action, because it was cheaper. But that didn’t mean that suggestively-dressed “beer bimbos” (my sexist term) weren’t cycling around with cups of beer for $4.50. I had two, one for each of the first two periods, and then tracked down some nachos. The scored was tied at 0-0 through the end of two periods, because the goaltending was outstanding. Only late (5:30 left) in the third period, did the visiting Quebec (City) Remparts get on the board with a top shelf flick in goal.
When the Montreal Juniors pulled the keeper a few minutes later, Quebec put the game out of reach when a bad pass was converted to a long-range empty-netter.

And that was how it ended.

Hockey Culture

Perhaps more interesting than the game itself was observing the Canadian culture surrounding the game. Alongside the “beer bimbos” a host of other erotically charged young girls did everything from monitor the VIP Section (Salon de VIP) to shoveling the snow off of the ice during media timeouts. These girls, the much-beloved “Cintron Girls” wore the most interesting outfits of any of the women, and were met with standing ovations every time they got on the ice. The man in front of me, at the game with his wife, was reprimanded silently by his spouse after whistling enthusiastically when the “Cintron Girls” arrived on the ice.

Next door to the main rink was a second, smaller rink for local play. Though it was 11:00 on a Friday night, some local game was in full force, with teenage boys eagerly passing across the ice and taking crack shots on goal.

When we finally got back to the hotel, we were greeted by further hockey. The Canadiens (the single most beloved thing in Montreal) were tied with the Colorado Avalanche until a breakaway goal gave Montreal the win.

Brutalism

Brutalism is the dominant mise-en-scene of Montreal. Which compliments the icebound feeling of the city quite well. Because of the way the city expanded, with its major construction projects happening in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, there was really no way for the Quebecoise to dodge the architectural cast-concrete bullet that is brutalism. Everywhere you go, from the metro system, to the Olympic Stadium, to the highways and national theater is brutalist beyond belief. No windows. Lots of rough, corrugated cement. Stiff corners and rigid angles.

The only redeeming thing about this widespread use of brutalism is that it manages to give the city an amazingly aesthetic cohesion. The kind of cohesion that most American cities can only have in their historic sections, which are harmonized by colonial and federal stylings. That this cohesion happens through brutalism however, does give some cause for fear and dystopian aesthetic nightmares. The whole time I wandered through the underground city (tunnels connecting corporate buildings and metro stations) I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the setting for some awesome cyberpunk movie I’d yet to write. It was also a little bit like being in the contemporary mines of Moria, as vaulted ceremonial halls opened 100 feet underground from thin, cold tunnels. What a strange, advanced Northern civilization Montreal manifests. It is like visiting a city of great industrial strength that is constantly at war with the natural climate it is entirely dependent upon.

Ice

After a stunning breakfast, made virtually free by travel vouchers for a Chef’s Special at La Belle Province (later described by locals as the McDonald’s of Montreal) the girlfriend and I wandered over to the Vieux Port, which was said to be picturesque and historic. What that meant, was that it was the only section of the city that wasn’t explicitly postmodern or brutalist. In the place of those revered local styles, everything from traditional French limestone housing to Belle Epoque apartments could be found jumbled together.

This was disappointing.

The Quays of the Old Port, on the other hand, were not disappointing. Most unfortunately, we managed to find ourselves between two winter festivals, and as such the Quays were largely empty. I say largely because there was of course, a ton of ice. Also to be found were large coal ships and container vessels which appear to have been intentionally left icebound for the winter.

All around them, as endless as the horizon, was ice.

Between two wharves, a large section of ice had been marked off as a skating area. After getting a good look at it during the day, Colleen and I returned after dinner for a wonderful late evening skate. Rentals were $7. Tickets to Skate were $5. It was a wonderful way to spend evening, particularly as we had busted out our snowpants, just in case it got a little cold.

Which of course, it did, but we didn’t care. We were wearing fucking snow pants.

Real ice, frozen as this was from the surface of the Saint Laurence River, is much rougher than rink ice. Not that we cared. In fact, we were more than disappointed that the staff wouldn’t let us skate around the large track outside of the designated skating area, that had benches and other fun things to explore, and certainly stretched about a half mile in total.

Still, skating seemed a perfect compliment to the hockey of the night before, and though we didn’t actually take advantage of it, there was a “winter bar” that was accessible from the skating area, just in case.

Beer

Beer was the only more ubiquitous in Quebec than Brutalism. Everywhere you turn, every restaurant you go into, every pharmacy or bodega you shop at, is selling beer, and not just the Canadian standards of “Molson’s” “LaBatt’s” and “Moosehead.”

No, the Quebecoise have discriminating tastes, and as such have developed a rich microbrewery tradition. All around the city, “Trois Brasseurs” can be found selling the microbrewery experience as a eatery/bar. This was the first place we ate in Montreal, and the food was excellent, as was the beer (Which was apparently made right next to the bath room, which seems gross, but only encouraged me to drink more everytime I had to go to the bathroom).

The “Trois Brasseur” people make a deadly compliment to their beer. It is called “Flamm” and it is a bizarrely wonderful thin-crust pizza that is built on salt cream and goat cheese, and includes options for pesto, chicken, tomatoes, and bacon. It is absolutely delicious, but is entirely too little to sastify any appetite. Which is why we had two.

The next night, we hit the other Quebecoise chain, “St. Hubert.” Though they didn’t offer any in house beers, they did make a great sandwich, and complimented it with a local microbrew called “Keith Alexander.”

Which was middling.

By far, the best microbrew had to be “Blanche de Chambly,” a Hefeweizen-like wheat beer with a floral tang. And despite being good, it was also damn cheap, especially when purchased at the incomparably-budget “Peel Pub.” Though we didn’t spend nearly enough time at that particular bar, it was certainly a wonderful place to drink.

Blanche de Chambly proved so good, we bought a bottle to take home. We also brought back some Boreale, which my brother (having himself visited Montreal recently) told me was top stuff.

I would have to disagree, but his point was good. Beer in Montreal was damn good, and don’t those frozen Canadians deserve it.

Bottom Line

I can’t wait to get back up to Montreal. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, and being a college student, that means something. Just cause it’s cold up there now (and is definitely COLD) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go up. In fact, it’s all the more reason to go, because this is when you see how Canadiens really live (hockey+beer+ice+brutalism) and why they haven’t moved to Miami.

yet.