Bionic eyesight, cell-phone microscopes

An article I wrote for C&EN, here.

"Snickers is almost a perfect food"

A blog post I wrote for C&EN about food texture, here.

Breaths of chocolate, no sweat research

Now, you can indulge in one of the world’s finest flavors without gaining weight. How so, you ask? It has become possible to, say, sit at a chic café and inhale chocolate to your heart’s content without the threat of accumulating cellulite. All you have to do is online-order a pack of Le Whifs: lipstick-sized tubes filled with chocolate particles that you puff into your mouth for a cocoa sensation. Calorie count? Less than one.

Continue reading on C&EN, here.

Work-and-play fabric, translucent concrete

Say it's raining on the day of a board meeting, but you still want to bike to work—and afterward ride to that new restaurant that opened downtown—without changing your clothes. Now you can.

Continue reading on C&EN, here.

Blurb: Guy on Metro

On the metro I sat next to a guy in a dark suit and a top hat. He had a black briefcase on his lap that looked like it came out of the early 1900s or something. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that really the whole outfit looked like he’d just walked off the boat at Ellis Island, back in the day when many people walked off boats there. Something smelled strongly of flowers and it came from him I think. The smell was very strong, like he’d just taken a shower in his mother’s perfume, or his girlfriend’s perfume. He started looking for something in his briefcase, and I was wondering if maybe the whole thing was filled with rose petals. I thought of him opening his bag and the rose petals pouring out of it, onto the seat and my thighs and the floor and my feet. I felt good next to this guy, like I was in a very sweet time warp. Like I was on a ship coming from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, but instead of the air smelling like seawater and piss, it smelled like this guy who showered in rose petals.

Narrative for the Soul of a City: Interpreting the Artwork of Nick Haas

Event Horizon

South Loop and Urban Artery

Haas’ collages present a unique interplay between urban structures, as he creates decorative patterns inspired by the urban environment without completely abstracting its individual elements. Things radiate from all sides, giving the sense that the city’s lifeless objects play as equal a part in the life of the city as its inhabitants. Lights move purposefully toward a goal (Event Horizon), a building protects a passing train from the heat of the sun (South Loop), and train tracks pump energy into the streets they intersect (Urban Artery). We get a vision of a city that breathes with life independently of the living. It’s as if each element has its own personality, a unique character that adds a new angle to the piece as a whole. In turn, each piece acts out its own drama, and together they form a collection that provides a narrative for the soul of the city.

Ina

I was lying in bed reading a poem when I thought of Ina
the poem itself didn’t remind me of her
but reading it did
(and lying in bed,
especially)

I thought of her reading poems in bed
and reading books and reading the New Yorker
(at the time I was reading many books
too
but no poems and no
New Yorker)

dirty tricks (writing)

you should only write when you need to
they say
only when you really, absolutely have to
if you have nothing to say
and don’t really need to
then you shouldn’t write
at all

the madman

he called her at midnight
and he called her at one
he called her at any odd hour

but he'd never call at five
and never call at six
not even seven for a happy hour

the crazies

the crazies
they wander around
with big eyes and big hair and big ideas
making things

and the others
they also wander
happy and healthy and loving and free
but they make nothing

so if you want to make things
you have to be a crazy
with big eyes and big hair and big ideas
but you can’t be happy
and you can’t be healthy
and I guess you can’t be free

but you’ll be able to make things
and you’ll be special
and the others will want to be crazy like you

and everyone will love you
and in death you will be loved
in your grave you’ll roll in crazy love
and the dirt will ooze with poetry

but you’re not alive to see it, really
and you’re not alive to taste it
so while in life you had big eyes and big hair and big ideas
only in death will you be free

New Year's congestion

I'm in a backwards New Year's mood
nothing to say
nothing to do but
to scroll through
a thousand photos of eggs.