July 24, 2005
last looks
Posted by Sam on
08:25 AM
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July 14, 2005
Chart 2: Earnings year-over-year
Here's a chart showing the cart's first year earnings compared to the second. I've added a rolling average to give some sense to the data-points.
click for larger version
the main seasonal variations that show up at this point are missed nights. I'm sure you could see the more subtle variations in customer demand if I was there an equal number of nights
In fact, to really show the seasonal variation I should do average nightly totals
i'll post that tommorrow
in this chart, really, each year shows a differet story...
The first 5 months -- pretty steady building, a little jarring, a little inconsistent.
November 03 -- when we came back from thanksgiving in florida, there was a foot of snow on the ground. The next 2 months I worked on winterizing the cart.
Late Winter - spring (04) -- after a few slow, cold weeks in Feb., business started coming back nicely.
Summer 04 (split between the end of the orange and the beginning of the blue) -- inconsistency in the face of rising demand. *a two-week vacation in May got me off to a shakey start. **I also brought an employee on and tried to set him up during the week. This contributed, in part, to my inconsistency getting out on the weekend nights. At the same time, the overall capacity of my prep work was also greatly increased by this exercise (more on this in a future post)
a blistering fall, business wise
some nights missed in Jan 05
But what is really astonishing is how spring-summer 05 has set the pushcart off to a whole new level.
Posted by Sam on
11:03 AM
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Drafts
silly first take on TWO YEARS IN over in the drafts section.
Posted by Sam on
10:33 AM
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Two Years In
Pinky has been here with just the right comment to put my inquiry back on track (as pinky so often is).
Control? was the question.
"PRODUCE", pinky said, is
A WORD THAT SHOWS
THE SELF'S LIMITS
BOTH WAYS
MUCH MORE CLEARLY
THE SELF'S LIMITS
AND ITS FREEDOM OF ACTION
----------
Puts it back in the frame, don't it.
And yet I wonder if he understands just what I meant
by the question?
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Production and consumption.
between them commercial society.
The necessaries of life -- produced, yes,
but also consumed. As consumables, they
must be controlled.
Produced, yes, but also monopolized.
This is why I speak in terms of control, as
uncomfortable as the word is.
Control, dangerous, echoed footsteps
of the Golem. Like ambition and nationalism.
But at the same time, clarifying, necessary.
I'm telling you, days were the cart was so
hard, so heavy to pick up. If there is no
hope of calming the storm, of making the
earth yield up to us, of finding a spot where
blind compulsion cannot override your core being,
--------------
If there is that quicksilver marrow
inside me
what when it aches and tries
to run out my eyes,
what when it wants
to burst
or finding its burden
so heavy
wishes to flee?
Should I let it
explode me
cut me
and run away
with my feet?
Can we be enemies?
"In life the body suffers greatly"
do I then side with the sufferer?
(Deluze & Guatarri would have me do)
do I side with him by
suffering also, at his side,
or by suffering my own
pains, but enduring them
nobly and savoring their
greatness?
Or does he become
taken into my ambition,
my hope for the world?
.
When I speak of control,
I mean it in this sense.
the quicksilver at the heart
of humankind can never be tamed.
Neither controlled or controllable.
Nature, to, is beyond the control
of mankind.
But is it not my ambition to
have food for myself, is it
not my ambition to have shelter
for myself and my family.
To have comfort.
To have security.
How could I not be moved to
remedy my body's suffering?
By Molly's suffering?
Therefore it is taken into
my ambition, and can be worked
for without direct contact
with the suffering itself.
The notion of control in this
way functions as a kind of anasthetic.
Administered upon us so that we
may be operated upon,
it is necessarily odious.
But what of the operations
we must perform on ourselves?
Just the right amount of anasthetic
to do the job with a minimum
of gore,
not enough to numb
the hands and the mind.
Not enough to wrap
the quicksilver in a
gauzy coccoon,
for there will never
be enough anasthetic
to stop its
larval aching.
like a larva
Posted by Sam on
10:32 AM
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July 12, 2005
2 years in
this rickety fence is my two year earnings chart:
click for larger image pop-up
the blue columns represent the total take for each night I've been out -- dark blue are saturdays, medium blue are fridays, light blue are thursdays -- 191 nights total, by my count. the week totals are in orange.
this last year has been quite different than I imagined it. I did not learn about collaboration. What did I learn about? Running a (modestly) profitable business? Having a (modestly) secure place in the world? More thoughts to come...
NEXT: CHART COMPARING YEAR ONE TO YEAR TWO
Posted by Sam on
09:35 AM
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July 10, 2005
fireworks
happy 4th, belatedly. molly and I went to see the east river fireworks, which were pretty dinky this year. also not helped by the fact that the police only let a small corral full of spectators pass the FDR, so the rest of us were left with a fairly major obstruction!
people got angry, but it was a family affair, so no clashes with the police (although it got a little close for a minute).
the officers up on the FDR had a great view, though.
Here we've got the FDR Drive, possibly the world's best grandstand, and the city gov't is having everybody stand behind it. Ho ho ho...
also remember that july 5th was the cart's 2nd birthday!
Posted by Sam on
10:10 AM
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July 08, 2005
hipsters vs. professionals
showcase showdown part 11
I've been thinking a bit about the "hipster" tag again recently.
My standing theory was "hipsters are a bogey" -- that since "hipsters" doesn't refer to a coherent social group, the concept was more driven by social angst and fear of exclusion than anything else.
Moreover, though, I have come to understand the way the concept divides "hipsters" from another, unstated group. This group is the "professionals", pictured here as an office worker.
So is "hipsters" a way of negotiating the realities of service work? Of feeling both connected and repelled by the people who wait on you?
It functions like that, yes, but also people use it with affection. This young man once said to me at the cart: "there should be more carts like this, you know, hipster carts!"
Posted by Sam on
05:04 AM
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July 02, 2005
trust
trust is difficult because it is not a question of whether or not you can trust someone, but what you can trust someone to do.
"I trust truth-tellers, I trust liars too." -- attributed to lao tsu
this is because trust is not absolute, a distinction between good people and bad people, but a learning process, finding out about each other.
can you blame people for being hesitant about rebellion? when real things hang in the balance, our lives and livelyhoods, the lives of the people we love, isn't this inevitable?
Posted by Sam on
06:21 PM
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