Point Omega

I picked up four books on our first excursion to the Fanueil Library: The Daughters of Cain, by Colin Dexter, How Fiction Works, by James Wood, The Suicide Run, by William Styron, and Point Omega, by Don DeLillo. The last two I plucked from the New Additions bookshelf. Styron hasn't been writing for a few years, sadly, but his short stories are being collected and periodically (re)issued; The Suicide Run is folio of five Marine Corps stories. I enjoyed Styron's slender martial story-novella The Long March, and I expect these stories to be good.

Point Omega is a Deep Book about a Deep Subject laden with Deep Meaning. Like many a Deep Book, its setting is lonesome and isolated, its descriptions spare, its dialogue terse, its characters unburdened by personality. Blankness equals deepness, not to be confused with depth, which is really a shallow novelistic affectation. A ghostly mental chosisme is the ideal. Let the reader fill in the blanks.

Don Delillo is a very good writer, but I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about his novels. White Noise was a delight to read, and very cleverly done, but was its point even memorable? Underworld was superbly written, page by page, sweeping and endlessly layered, like its grand subject, a book to be read twice (though I've only managed one pass through), but was it enjoyable to read? Point Omega may pose an important metaphysical conundrum, one that deserves pondering or even savoring. I don't know. In style and subject, it seems to be a book that might have, nay, should have been written by Paul Auster. It probably would have been more interesting, and definitely would have been more fun.

Save the Fanueil library

In the late afternoon of Thursday a week ago, M. and I took a walk through the nicer parts of our neighborhood, meandering along the streets of the river-facing slope of the hill atop which our apartment sits. In the sunshine, the houses shed their wintertime drabness and seem cheery and quaint, and we are able to imagine Brighton as a real neighborhood, rather than a noisy entrepot jumbled with students, pseudo-yuppies and working stiffs.

We didn't have a fixed destination guiding our wandering, but as we neared Oak Square we decided to check out the small branch library on Fanueil Street. It's rather tiny, but stocked with an excellent selection of books from every leading digit of the Dewey Decimal System. The new fiction section didn't necessarily boast the month's latest releases, but I did find several books that had only been published in the last four to six months, and of course classic literature was well represented. And there were a lot of detective novels and a decent set of science fiction books (though not so many by the old grand masters) available.




The library was even full -- there adults being tutored for the GRE, census workers, internet browsers, readers like ourselves casually scanning the shelves. The art deco children's room, which has a stage for readings, muralled walls and ceiling, a fireplace, and beautiful old wooden bookshelves, was full of quietly busy children, several apparently well known by the library staff, who took their phone calls: "Jerome, it's your mother. She wants you home. Right. Now." The front foyer was plastered with flyers advertising concerts, art lessons, museums, and volunteer opportunities -- working with distressed veterans, reading to the blind, spending time with homeless children. The atmosphere was wonderful, and it stirred neighborly feelings for our fellow Brightonians.




Thrilled as we were to discover a relatively convenient library branch, one with plenty of books to read and movies to watch, we were dismayed to learn, from the same bulletin boards, that the library is slated for closure due to budget woes. If it is closed, we will have no active library branch within walking distance. The main Brighton branch, which lies a hair closer to our apartment, albeit in an uglier direction, is a moldy cinderblock dropped beside the local courthouse, and it has been closed for renovations all year, with no outside indication that it will reopen anytime soon. The closure decision is not yet final, but multiple-choice budget cut proposals presented to the public seem slanted towards just this outcome. The numbers for the past few years---budget reductions of 60% accompanying a 30% increase in library use---seem crazy. I'd happily pay an extra percent in sales tax if I knew it went to the library. Or even a library tax on book sales in Boston. Whatever -- save the library! It's one of the few nice things Brighton has going for it!

In a nutshell

After a teasingly warm and sunny workweek, we've had dreary, dismal weather all weekend: cold, grey, rainy. Nonetheless, M. and I decided to make a brunch excursion to Coolidge Corner, tired as we were of being cooped up indoors for so long. Despite the pluvial weather, there was a line out the door at Zaftig's, and we opted to try a new deli, Michael's ("The Corned Beef King") just down the street. Not bad, indeed, quite good, but not Zaftig's. Afterwards we made our obligatory rounds at the Booksmith and TJs. In the bookstore we were drawn to the "dealing with your job"/"finding a job" section, as we retain our membership in the ranks of the academically frustrated and underemployed.

I was drawn to this book, which I first mistook for a potential candidate tome to be handed out to each new university employee: Dealing with Difficult People



Upon reading the subtitle, I realized it was the wrong book.

E: "I don't need '24 lessons for bringing out the best in people.' I want '24 lessons for punishing the worst in people!'"

M. skimmed a book intended to help find the right job for you, based on your Myers-Briggs personality type; from our experiences in this year's academic job market, professorships may not be the right jobs for us. She's an ENFJ/P, I'm an INTJ/P, almost affirming the "opposites attract" maxim. We are both situated midway along the "Judging/Perceiving" axis, though M. would surely attest that I am more judgmental (not one to suffer fools, gladly or otherwise, am I) and less perceptive (particularly in matters of fashion and household cleanliness) than the inventory reveals. My ideal jobs, whether J or P, seem just right: mathematician, writer, software entrepreneur, judge. Hers seemed wrong: flight attendant? receptionist? At home we realized that we'd looked up the wrong type: ESFJ, not ENFJ. The new suggestions made more sense: actor, diplomat, executive management, politician, social worker, teacher--college level humanities.

We amusedly browsed the subject on the web, finding more possibilities and role models.

E: "Famous INTJs include Neils Bohr, Isaac Newton, Dwight Eisenhower, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Nietzche, Peter the Great...."

M: "Well, I'm in between Oprah Winfrey and Martin Luther King, Jr."

E: "So I'll rule the world, and you'll make people feel better about the situation."

M: "Honey, that's our relationship in a nutshell."

BU vs. CAM

The past several months have been very difficult for us. Here's hoping that the advent of spring, soon to be summer, means better times ahead.

We're in the home stretch of the semester, thank goodness. Teaching, at least for me, has been quite a burden, one piled on top of a hundred other responsibilities requiring more effort than can possibly be mustered. M. has had a much better teaching experience (and she's a better teacher), but she, too, has been worn down by the semester.

This summer we will be back in Ithaca: I will be working for the Cornell Summer Math Institute, and M. will wrap up her dissertation. We are quite excited by the prospect -- summer in Ithaca is always terrific, and we need a respite from Boston.

I was asked recently to give advice to a prospective graduate student, interested in mathematical biology and dynamical systems, who had been admitted to both BU's math department and Cornell's Center for Applied Mathematics. I had fun sharing my opinion:

Dear ***,

It's taken me a while to find the time to answer your email, as this was a very busy week for me. I'm happy to give you my two cents about BU and CAM.

I think the academic strengths of the two departments are similar in many ways: both have very strong programs in dynamical systems and in probability/statistics. If either of those are your main mathematical interest, you would be well served academically by either institution.

With that said, I will express my opinion forthrightly: I would choose Cornell.

Academics: I don't have direct experience with the grad courses at BU, but I do have firsthand knowledge of the undergrad program (since I teach in it) and I know many grad students. The math grad students I've interacted with at BU are generally quite good, more or less on par with those at Cornell. The undergraduates at Cornell are considerably better than their BU counterparts, if that makes any difference. In terms of your grad focus, you should know that BU's dynamics group has three camps: one doing complex dynamics, one doing mostly PDEs and multiple time-scale systems (centered around *** and ***) and one with a focus on applications to neuroscience (centered around ***). Each group is quite good at what it does, but there are a few things to note. First, there's essentially no connection between complex dynamics and mathematical biology. Second, the students doing work with the PDE group seem to be quite well-trained in the relevant mathematics, but their projects have little or nothing to do with biology, and they are not trained in bio-speak to any significant degree. Students in the neurodynamics group, on the other hand, tend to have a good grasp of the relevant neuroscience but are weaker on the mathematics. Third, the only real biology applications that are actively pursued at BU are in neuroscience. As far as I can tell, there is no other bio component to the math bio program at BU.

Cornell is very strong in dynamics, probability, computer science, biostatistics, etc. etc. Within the dynamics subcommunity of the math world, you will find people working on applications to neuroscience, ecology, climate change/sustainability, social networks, animal movement/behavior, gene dynamics, and so forth. Many of the mathematicians work on applications in multiple fields, e.g. Guckenheimer and Strogatz. The main applied dynamicists, Guckenheimer (my advisor), Strogatz, Rand, Ellner, Wang, Vladimirsky, Healey, and others, are very good, and so are the more "pure" dynamics people, like Illyashenko. It's hard to go wrong, unless you have a very specific interest that doesn't match one of those people. It happens: I had a friend who was interested in modeling cardiac dynamics and in PDEs, and there just wasn't anybody working on that at Cornell. She left for U. Utah (which also has a very strong math bio program) after a year and was much happier after she transferred. (You should realize that you are not completely locked in after choosing a particular grad school, but transferring is not a completely trivial process.)

Finally, the facilities---buildings, computers, and especially libraries---are much, much better at Cornell. And the BU bureaucracy is an awful zombie-hydra that continues to torment even after its manifold heads have been lopped off and the necks cauterized. Inanity and incompetence are inescapable. At Cornell, by contrast, people seemed to know what they were doing, be able to get it done, and make a real effort to do it well.

Ithaca vs. Boston: I loved living in Ithaca, even in the winter (which is cold but not brutal -- it's the grey, seemingly interminable transition to spring that gets to you). "Ithaca is gorges," as they say, and the town and its environs are great, if you are comfortable with small town life. Ithaca has 30,000 year-round inhabitants, and there is plenty to do off campus, with very good restaurants, several cinemas (including independent theaters that are as good or better than the ones we have in Boston), a few clubs, bars, etc. You can walk, take the bus, or ride anywhere with no problem. If you like outdoorsy stuff, you will have much to choose from. If you are a devoted urbanist or a clubber, you will be understimulated in Ithaca and continually itch to get away, but be stymied by Ithaca's "central isolation" -- an hour from Syracuse, four hours from NYC, two hours from Rochester. You may also get annoyed with Ithaca's laid back, hippie-dippy granola atmosphere (which I found charming, though I'm hardly a tie-dyed tee-shirt and Birkenstocks kind of person).

Boston seems to be a good town for the young and single---neither of which I am anymore---with a huge student population and a lot of nightlife and other activities. The dating scene in Ithaca is more difficult, simply because it's smaller and dominated by people on an academic track, who all tend to be just a little bit weird -- else why would they want to go to grad school? That being said, there is a very active social/dating scene, partly centered around the Big Red Barn grad student center (where I met my wife) and partly located at the downtown bars, and there is plenty of fun to be had. (I recommend trying to cross the science-humanities divide). These considerations might also not apply to you.

If you're into sports, Boston is a good place to be, unless you favor the Yankees. There is plenty of music for all persuasions, but the art scene is pretty lame. Because it is small and the town is dominated by two colleges, Ithaca is, on the average, pretty intellectual and cosmopolitan (this is not the case for the rest of upstate New York), but also homogenous in a weird way that's difficult to put into words (everything is different in the same way, somehow). Boston is much more diverse, with the Brookline and Cambridge areas being yuppier and hipper, Newton older and more upscale, Jamaica Plain and Somerville middle of the road, Allston and Brighton a mix of students and working class, and the rest of Boston pretty solidly working class. You can find just about anything here, but getting to it might be a problem. Public transportation is but a cruel joke for anyone who has spent time in Europe or NYC. Automobile traffic is an absurd nightmare. (I now bike just about everywhere, though Boston is not a particularly bike-friendly city, and in this it is somewhat dangerous -- two days ago a cyclist was killed by an MBTA bus, for example -- but if you do decide on Boston I suggest you bike for health and happiness. Since giving up on the bus my blood pressure is down and I no longer arrive home after work contorted in apoplectic rage. I still have more encounters with the rude and the insane than I would like, but this is unavoidable since such people constitute the vast majority of Boston drivers.)

The cost of living in Boston is quite high. Housing is particularly expensive, and to find an apartment one typically deals with the local mafia of real estate brokers, who take a month's worth of rent as fee for finding you an overpriced apartment. (If you come to Boston, avoid brokers when looking for housing.) My wife and I pay about $1600 for a relatively large 2 bedroom apartment in an okay but by no means great location. We would pay around $800 - $900 for the same apartment in a much better location in Ithaca. Food, entertainment, and just about everything else (except gas) cost 30-50+% more in Boston. In Ithaca you can live very well on a grad student stipend; in Boston you will feel poor.

A final note: One of the great things about CAM, when I was there, was that we had a very fun, active social community, where people hung out together, went hiking, movie watching, running, biking, you name it, either as a big group or in small clusters. We were, by and large, friends and friendly. We didn't spend all of our time talking math, a topic which eventually gets boring to all but the most obsessive. (However, the small townness of Ithaca means you can't escape the presence of Cornellians, and there is a strong proclivity to talk about work and stress at social gatherings, a bad communal habit that should be avoided. The many external opportunities in Boston would tend to counteract this tendency towards inward focus and preoccupation.) Even when I was stressed out by work (as we all are at some point), I had a great time with my fellow CAMsters. I get the impression that there is no such community at BU. We go out for a Friday afternoon beer now and then, but after an hour or so people scurry off to their apartments for weekends (and weeknights) spent independently. We don't hang out together, and we generally don't live close to one another. As a general rule, there is little or no social mixing between departments, and I don't know of much of a social connection with other universities in the area, either. If you want to build a social life independent of your school, this is fine, but if you expect your cadre of work/school associates and free time friends to overlap significantly, this might be a problem.

There you have it: my clear though probably biased opinion. I hope you find it helpful, and I wish you the best in your decision-making and your grad school career.