26 March 2004
| It turns out that Montreal is in my karass. If cities can be in one's karass, anyway. | I have discovered the greatest internet game ever (except for "Mars Attacks!"). And the greatest study ever. |
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As a linguistic observation: people pronounce the names "Powell" and "Howell" like they rhyme with "towel". But they pronounce the name "Nowell" like it rhymes with "hole" or "oh, well". Why is that? | I have a very distinctive name, so I am pretty certain that I have no alter-egos on the web. But I am do have some semi-alter egos: David Nowell the blogger, the marketing professor, the aerial cinematographer, the author of Stepparent is not a Bad Word, the author of Too Darn Soulful, the engineering science professor; and David Liben the NYPS District 4 school director. |
| From 1999 to 2000, I played ultimate frisbee with Strange Blue, the Cambridge ultimate team. They're very cool people. I've also played on summer league teams in State College, Boston, and Ithaca. | |
| Current free time activities: learning Yiddish; doing crossword puzzles; writing crossword puzzles; catching up on old issues of the New Yorker; attempting to learn to control coin flips. | |
| Current sports interests: ultimate, cycling (in a non-racing, man-versus-self kind of way), racquetball (more precisely: finding somewhere free to play racquetball in Boston). | |
| During my stay in England, I became mildly obsessed with the game of cricket. Occasionally, I annoy my roommates by trying to bowl in our hallway. | |
| I am also obsessed with punting, which is roughly the stupidest method of transportation ever invented. I am particularly adept at the get-the-pole-stuck-on-the-bridge maneuver. (Here is someone has learned a few of my tricks.) | |
| I really like music with meaningful lyrics, which usually ends up meaning sort of folky stuff. My two favorite musical acts are Eddie From Ohio and Harry Chapin. EFO is really a really cool folk quartet (from Virginia, of course); Harry Chapin was one of the most soulful rock(ish) artists of all time. They make (and made) awesome music. Also cool: the Magnetic Fields, Kris Delmhorst. | |
| Crazy trips taken in my life: Month-long cross-country-and-back-again trip on Greyhound with Emily Walsh and Linda White (Summer 1998). Ten-day cycling trip through France with Carrie Simons, with no training, no plan, no experience, and no clue (December 1999). Two-week five-hundred mile cycling trip from Boston to Montreal with Rachel Stern (Summer 2001). | |
| The collection of nicknames I've had in my life: "Rufus" (before I was born, and before my parents had decided on a name), "Buckwheat" (on the Baskin Robbins Little League team in State College), "Nip" (in the Cornell Big Red Marching Band), "Ellen" (on ultimate teams [hint: pronounce my initials]), "Ginger" (by the others on my course in Cambridge, where there were five "David"s -- I showed up late at the dinner in which these were allocated, and "Sporty," "Posh," and "Scary" were already taken by the time I arrived) and "DLN" (everywhere and always). |
David Liben-Nowell
26 March 2004