Beyond, behind, and even underneath the towering spires and world-famous spaces that make up New York City – the best city in the world – lies a vast wealth of hidden delights. Whether it’s a great little place to while away an afternoon; a club that’s underground in every sense of the word; or a tiny little taqueria on a side street serving the best quesedillas north of the border, you could explore this city for a lifetime and still be surprised.

A few of my friends have sent me a link to this fantastic video, which I’ve only recently gotten around to watching fully. It’s a mini-documentary by an urban explorer who shows us around the hidden depths of the city, and then climbs the Brooklyn Bridge to top it all off.

The real hidden treasure in New York, though, isn’t one of the thousand diversions one can share with a friend or loved one. It’s not the architecture, the landscaping or even the unfound areas of the city seen by a select few. The real hidden treasure is $10,000 in dollar-coins in a treasure chest somewhere.

Yes, there is buried treasure under New York City. I want to go and find it. Who’s in?

Xx

I’m not sure the video quite captures the rush and excitement of the game itself (and the many distractions between it that kept us awake,) but it’s a pretty good start.

Xx

At the time of writing, my overnight jaunt in the NYPL for Find The Future is the Bing homepage image — if you don’t see it there, click the back arrow and you might find it.

That aside, I think my favourite other stories from around the web about it are an article on CNet and a wonderful write-up with some stunning pictures over at Untapped Cities.

It was also in a bunch of the New York papers so I’m told. If anyone has a copy of one of these, please send it over!

Xx

Over the entirety of the past Friday night, 499 strangers friends and I made history; created a book that will be preserved and displayed in the New York Public Library ‘for as long as New York City stands‘ (a claim that sounded slightly worrisome on the eve of The Rapture, but we seemed to survive that OK;) and found the future. It was pretty awesome.

Putting the book, the quest and the library’s hundred-plus historic artefacts aside until I have chance to process them fully and internalise how amazing they all were, I’d just like to say a word about the people. I hugged strangers, hi-fived someone in a lion suit, cheered the chap who kept our spirits up with his vuvuzela, took an impromptu Yoga class at 3am in the main lobby – which is made entirely of marble – and spent the majority of the night creating the most wonderful things with the most wonderful people:- The Posse.

I’d met most of these folks at pre-Find The Future events. One of these involved a library tour followed by beer, and the other, in a similar vein, skipped straight to beer in The Library – a bar on the Lower East Side. Priorities were clear and sensible.

The Posse consisted of @idealect, capekid, @notthemermaid, a chap called Nazary, and my fellow pub-quiz champions from the week before, @ianbrier and @mandamaria. They’re fantastic. You want these people in your life.

Here’s a couple of pics of the group, plenty more to follow.

Xx

Hello LaTeX my old friend,
I’ve come to type with you again,
Because a deadline softly creeping,
Is interfering with my sleeping,
And the theory, that was valid in my brain,
Still remains,
Within the sound of silence.

With marker pens I drew alone,
My calculations error-prone,
‘Neath the glare of a desk lamp,
My office chair becoming warm and damp,
When my eyes, were struck by a flash of a rare insight,
I wouldn’t cite,
It touched the sound of silence.

And on the Internet I saw,
Ten thousand kittens, maybe more,
Kittens walking without looking,
Kittens splashing without drinking,
Kittens that were sleeping in their favourite chair,
And no-one dared,
Disturb the sound of silence.

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know
How to walk straight when it snows,
Roll over, so that I might poke you,
Snuggle up, so that I might stroke you,”
But my words, like YouTube comments fell,
And echoed,
In the wells of silence.

To editors I bowed and prayed,
My paper might make the grade,
And my alarm rang out its warning,
Telling me that it was morning,
And my screen said, ‘the words of the authors that you quote must be italicised,
and default font size’
And whispered in the sounds, of silence.

I’ve been writing a paper for CIKM 2011 all day. I think it’s done something funny to my brain. The deadline is early next week. I’m staying at the NYPL all night Friday. This will go well.

Xx

My new housemates say that they’re not told they’re pretty often enough. I’m unsure what they mean by ‘enough’ — actually, I’m pretty lost by about 50% of what they say, here’s a sample conversation from yesterday:

“They had Bunny Grahams”

“What are they?”

“Bunny Grahams? They’re graham crackers shaped like bunnies”

“But what are they?”

“Graham crackers?”

“Yes”

“…Graham crackers”

“But what are they?”

“Graham crackers”

“Are they crisps?”

“They’re graham crackers”

“Are they a biscuit?”

“When you say biscuit you mean like…”

“…a cookie, yeah”

“Not really”

“Are they more like a biscuit or a crisp?”

“I don’t know, they’re just graham crackers”

“Are they more like a cookie or a chip?”

“They’re…they’re kinda…they’re crackers.”

This went on. A lot. Apparently they’re quite like digestives, a fact which makes me very happy indeed.

Anyway, where was I? Right, my new housemates. They’re pretty. I told them yesterday that some girls might be so pretty that they look like a million dollars, but that these two are even prettier. Then I gave them each one of these.

Who says hyperinflation can’t be romantic?

Xx