Analysis of an Article

1989 to 2019 was known as Japan’s Heisei Period in which Emperor Akihito was inpower. Haruki Murakami’s iQ84 was ranked as the best literary work seen from Japan in this era.Before his career took off, Murakami ran a small jazz bar for 7 years. This definitely show’s inhis work. He’s won many awards for his novels. My favorite quote that really does a good jobdescribing what kind of writer he is goes as follows, “When I’m in writing mode for a novel, Iget up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep tothis routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s aform of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. This quote ringsextremely true to his writing. Murakami is globally recognized, his audience is in every corner ofthe world, but to really narrow it down. Murakami’s audience probably consists of people (likeme) who see bits and pieces of themselves in the characters in his novels. Reading his novelsyou get obsessed with his very obsessed and routine based writing. I like many other people,could read pages upon pages of some guy just cooking dinner and listening to jazz. There’s someunspoken magic that lingers in every single sentence he writes. In this passage from KillingCommendatore, the nameless protagonist describes the house he often looks at from his balconythat lays across the valley. To the right, diagonally across from the house I was living in, was aparticularly striking modern-style house. The mountain-top house, built of white concrete andplenty of bluish tinted glass, was so elegant and luxurious the word “mansion” seemed a betterterm. The purpose in this passage was to introduce the mansion where the mysterious wealthyman lives. Murakami talks about this mansion in a way that gives it a very mysterious andhair-raising feel. Through the way it is described, it affects the audience’s stance on how they feelabout it. It raises questions in the reader’s head such as “What kind of person live(s)d in a place

like (this) that?” Just as the protagonist does. In the protagonist’s tone of voice and language Ican detect mistrustfulness. “Did this person really live all by himself on this out-of-the-waymountain top?” He is very doubtful, he can sense something is off. It just doesn’t add up.Throughout Murakami’s writing he writes about redemption, identity, nature, prophecy and fate.Even in moments where a character is just making spaghetti and listening to jazz, there is still astrong sense of spirituality that lingers in the background. He transports hi readers to somealternate world where things seem pretty similar to Earth, but something is off.

Modern Object Essay

1Jacob AltsteinNicholas Otte/Cesare Birignani9/22/21Metropolis:

Architecture and the Modern CityOne of the greatest pleasures in life is retreating inside on a scorching hot summer dayand letting the cool air from the air conditioner blast in your face. Escaping from the scathing suninto the comfort of a chilled movie theater for a few hours. With just the flip of a switch you canchange a room’s climate to whatever temperature you please. It’s something that has always beena part of my life and I don’t know life without it. Being able to control a room’s climatesignificantly increases one’s quality of life, levels of productivity and overall comfort andcontentment. Icy cold air blows in my direction as I write this essay.In the early 1900’s, calls for help from a printing press company attracted Willis Carrier,a young engineer to help resolve the issue of over-humidity that was causing their prints to comeout smudged and illegible. From this problem arose the first model of what we know today as theair conditioner. What was produced was an extensive system of pipes and tanks that took up thebetter part of a room. Nonetheless it was the first modern air conditioner. Of course prior to thisextraordinary moment in history people had other ways of keeping cool and controlling a room’sclimate. Hand fans, a timeless invention, began popping up in Japan and China in between thesixth and ninth century. During the hotter hours of the day, people would keep doors andwindows closed to retain a room’s cooler temperature. Lastly there was the Ice Trade. Ice wasextracted from ponds and rivers and then hauled all the way to it’s destination where it would besold. Of course this industry had an unstoppable opponent, heat. Not the most efficient industry.

2I rang up my grandparents to ask them about when Air Conditioners became a commonhousehold appliance. “Well I was born in the late thirties,” says my grandpa over the phone,“And it wasn’t until the year me and your bubbe got married in 1962 that we got our first ACwindow unit, of course your father was just a little baby at the time.”. He goes on to tell me that“to my knowledge, air conditioners didn’t start getting mass produced and commercially solduntil 1958 or ‘59, and became more affordable in the early sixties.” I thanked him for theinformation and hung up.Well what makes something modern? Do we use it regularly? Does it make living morecomfortable and efficient? Has it been remodeled, repurposed and enhanced over time? Airconditioners allow so much for humans. We can now inhabit much warmer parts of Earth withease, work more comfortably, the list goes on and on. It’s not something that we nevercontemplate but life without air conditioning would be miserable. In my own personalexperience, I need air conditioning to sleep as well as to drown out the sounds of my roommatesblasting music at ungodly hours of the night. But what really makes the air conditioner modern isthat it is a staple piece for homes. It’s a given that homes and establishments have some sort ofcooling system be it central air condition or the standard window air conditioner.Contrastingly, the very thing used to cool us down, is heating our planet up. It could beargued that the air conditioner is not at all modern in today’s standards because it is not at allenvironmentally friendly. Air conditioners work by blowing hot air outside which warms theimmediate surrounding area. On average, air conditioners use 3,000 to 5,000 watts of electricity

3per hour which generates loads of waste and lets out greenhouse gasses that get trappedunderneath Earth’s atmosphere. Warming the Earth and building up smog and unhealthy airquality. It can also be observed and entertained that air conditioning is making humans weaker.By being able to control any interior space to whatever temperature we please, are our bodiesbecoming less adaptable to climatic changes? We are stuck in a terrible loophole in which theEarth grows hotter so humans will rely more heavily on air conditioners to inhabit theseprofanely hot places, at the same time these air conditioners are making the Earth hotter. It seemsas if the cons heavily outweigh the pros.Closing remarks? Humanity is doomed. We will not act quickly enough to stop the everwarming globe and we just love air conditioning too much. Politicians don’t care enough, itseems only right that humans need to disappear off the face of this planet. Since the industrialrevolution, humanities advancements in technology have only been killing us. Humanity’s lasthope in my opinion is a climate based, neo-luddism revolution. What I have taken from all thisresearch is that us as Humans need to redefine what it means for something to be modern. Doesit affect the environment negatively? Will it reduce my carbon footprint? Today’s definition ofmodernism is based on improving comfort and quality of life, disregarding everything else.Allairhvac. “Air Conditioning and Its Impact on the Environment.” AllAirSystemsNJ.com, 26 Mar. 2021,allairsystemsnj.com/air-conditioning-and-its-impact-on-the-environment/.Pierre-louis, Kendra. “The World Wants Air-Conditioning. That Could Warm the World.” The New York Times,The New York Times, 15 May 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/climate/air-conditioning.html.Altstein, Jacob Louis, and Howard Altstein. “Interview with My Grandpa.” 19 Sept. 2021.“History of Air Conditioning.” Energy.gov, www.energy.gov/articles/history-air-conditioning.Shah, Haleema. “The Unexpected History of the Air Conditioner.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution,24 June 2019,www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/unexpected-history-air-conditioner-180972108/.

Personal Narrative

Jacob AltsteinPersonal Narrative Draft11/12/2021Fridays were always my favorite, it wasn’t the weekend I looked forward to nor was ithanging with friends. But on Fridays we had family dinner. As soon as the clock struck 4:09 (arather odd time for school to let out) I would make haste and head straight toward Columbus circlewhere I would board the downtown B train and make the long voyage back to Brooklyn. Arrivingat my house no later than 5:30, I would be greeted with a plethora of aromas. The place would bein full swing preparation mode. My Mom and Dad would be tending to several dishes. Dad bakeda batch of sourdough bread and my Mom chopped a variety of vegetables while either Wait waitdon’t tell me or some other National Public radio program played. By the time the clock struck6:30 extended family would pour through the door. Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, grandparents and asmall dog would come flooding through our front door. With them came loads of home cookedfamiliar foods. My Bubbe’s brisket, my Aunts’ shakshuka, babka, a huge spread of hummus andother dips. Nights like these put the “home” in house. These are the sights, sounds and tastes ofhome to me.For most of my life I lived without a dishwasher. My family, too big. The apartment, toosmall. That’s just the reality of living in a cramped and crowded city. The odd thing was, once wedid move into a place with a dishwasher, my family was very skeptical about using it. I don’t knowif my family was scared of the machine or just overwhelmed and confused. But for the longesttime, we just didn’t touch it. I theorize that we were afraid about relying on a machine.

Now-a-days I thoughtlessly throw my dishes in the dishwasher, clothes in the washingmachine, when I’m too hot I just adjust the thermostat. The modern home has greatly enriched mylife, yet I feel I take it all for granted. If something were to cause all of these luxurious amenities todisappear tomorrow, perhaps everyone loses internet. I would be on my back scrambling. I feel Iam way too dependent on many of the appliances I use in my day to day life.Me and my family have owned several pets over the course of my childhood. There’salways been some sort of creature in our home, be it in a tank, a cage or at the foot of my bed. Myyoungest sister owned a few fish, all of which wound up eating each other. A foster dog that didn’twork out, two brothers named Atticus and Flash who happen to be cats. A rescue dog from a beachin Aruba named Elsa and when I was a little boy, a skinny white fluffy cat named Haley who hassince been reduced to some dust and is now lost in some shoe box that we cannot locate. Eventhough Haley is long gone, she’s had quite the impact on me as she’s been incorporated into all ofmy passwords. Home has never felt like home without an animal that I could love and care for.When my family members were in too foul of a mood to greet me after a grueling day at school, italways felt amazing to have a smiling puppy happily waiting to give me loads of kisses and gamesof tug-a-war. Or two purring cats brushing against my legs wanting to be massaged for hours. Theanimals never knew how I was doing in school or what type of troubling I had gotten myself into.They were only ever happy to see me. Animals truly can turn houses into homes and make peoplemerrier and full of joy.I can still clearly remember our cat Haley went missing. The feeling of losing a pet is one Ican never scrape from my brain. Within this whole incident arose a new fear that will stick with mefor the rest of my life. But in these dreadful and worrisome couple days, time came to a completestandstill. An eerie and depressed blanket was thrown over my family. Our home became a house.

It felt cold and empty. The whereabouts of our beloved feline was unknown. When my motherwasn’t wandering around our neighborhood calling out Haley’s name, she was sitting teary-eyed inbed.It was the big unknown that was scary. There was nobody that could tell us where Haleywas. Had she joined a gang of stray cats? Had a large commercial vehicle turned her into apancake? Or worse of all, had somebody taken her as their own? Growing up I’ve seen countlessneighborhood cats smeared across the pavement. Up until losing Haley it had never occurred to methat those cats with their disfigured and smudged brains on the asphalt belonged to someone whoprobably loved them as much as I loved Haley. Now I loved my cat and I especially loved her withher organs intact and whereabouts known. So we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when somerandom guy in the neighborhood called and informed us that he had the cat and that she was safeand sound.Coming out of this experience I came to the understanding of just how delicate a home is.It really only takes an open door to shred it and its inhabitants’ hearts apart. In order for it to workout it usually helps if all of its members are aware of each other’s whereabouts and wellbeing. Allof these things are what allows my home to be what Steven King calls a “far-seeing place” in theopening chapter from his memoir, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Our City in Two Genres

Jacob AltsteinRationale11/18/21I made my project in the style of an essayistic and observational film/documentary,certain tech limitations caused me to tweak the format and theme but overall I got my pointsdown.Over the course of the last few years, you may have noticed an increase in greenprotected bike lanes in the city. There are quite a few that run vertically up Manhattan’s avenues.By protected I mean that the bike lane is separated from traffic usually through parked cars and apainted “barrier”. Biking in these lanes seems pretty safe right? There’s no delivery truckswhizzing by you, no cabs cutting you off, no distracted drivers opening doors for you to collidewith. Seems like a great solution to keep cyclists safe right? No, not really. These “protected”bike lanes are often littered with people mindlessly walking through them and parked cars thatthink they’re just too good for respecting bikers.The biggest problem I have with these bike lanes is where the bike lane meets anintersection or crosswalk of any kind. So you’re biking up a protected bike lane. “Oh wow” yousay to yourself. “I’m so safe and secure in this green bike lane, there’s no possible way that a carcould end my life or cause me to sustain a traumatic injury!” Well here’s the bike lane’s biggestflaw as well as what happened to me. You’re biking north up the sixth avenue bike lane. Thereare cars moving next to you in the same direction. In crossing a street that runs from left to right,a car that was driving in the same direction as you suddenly decides to take this turn sharply andunexpectedly completely disregarding the bike lane with flowing traffic, thus cutting you off.Now it’s time to think fast, are you going to A) smash into the side of this moving vehicle and

possibly get dragged under the wheel? Or B) in this short window of time break as hard as youcan and hope for the best. Well when faced with this situation I chose B. Choice B led me to hitmy break so hard that I just instantly flew over my handlebars. Thankfully I did not make anycontact with the car but I was greeted by the hard asphalt and was instantly mangled in my bikeas my feet stayed in my pedal straps the entire time. I was pretty quick to realize that somethingdidn’t feel right, thus my elbow bone that had broken right off. So, regardless of that protectedbike line, that car still doesn’t give a shit about you. It’s not good enough. Cyclists are stillstruck by vehicles at an alarming rate and the city is in need of better bike infrastructure.Bike Riding is what balances out my day and mood, keeps me focused and happy,without it I feel trapped in my body and unproductive. It’s how I’ve been able to achieveenlightenment. The evidence to support that lies in my broken elbow that prevents me fromhopping on my beloved track bike. Just sitting down to do my work has become such anunbearable task.Doing this project was pretty enjoyable. I’m really glad there was room for us to do onesomething that we are actually interested in as well as being able to scrap the old essay format.The biggest issue I had working on this project was the tech aspect. So much footage was lostdue to my computer which isn’t able to handle much and also having to re-record a ton of audio.It was a major pain. As I write this the actual film has been exporting from iMovie for an hour and a half so I’m pretty nervous.

Inquiry Essay

Jacob AltsteinProfessor OtteArchitecture and Modern City14 December 2021Plants but on Your RoofCome every summer, for about four days a week, I along with fifteen individuals wake upat the crack of dawn to begin our day. From all over the city, we congregate at a predeterminedlocation. Amongst the crew are actors, dancers, musicians, fathers and college students. But onthese days when we are together, we are landscapers. While landlords yell at us and wealthyclients tell us we can’t use their bathroom, we haul a plethora of items to the client’s rooftop. Weare surrounded by power tools, a couple hundred bags of soil, planters, drip irrigation, big plants,small plants, a few small trees and flowers that are pretty to the eye but hurt to handle.Sometimes we even carry a positive and optimistic attitude. For the following eight or so hourswe work, sweat, gossip and chat while “transforming your rooftop garden into an urban gardenoasis” as quoted from the company’s website.Greenery teeming from every square inch of your rooftop comes with so many benefits.Flooding is less likely to occur as plants and soil happen to love water. It reduces a building’stemperature and insulates it which is beneficial economically and environmentally. However, inmy career as an urban landscaper I’ve observed a different side of these benefits, more social andcommunal benefits. It’s really more than just an aesthetic. The beautiful and green roofs that Iand my coworkers fabricate promote the feeling of well-being and social interaction. In my ownexperience, it really puts the mind at ease to be around so much greenery.

My summers working on countless green roofs opened my eyes and revealed so much tome about the importance of greenery within cities, what it takes to uphold a steady and reliableteam of coworkers and the limitations and flaws of owning and maintaining a green roof. Being alandscaper for so long made me start to view spaces differently. Greenery is essential tomaintaining and improving a city’s health. So why can’t we just start planting trees and growingflowers already? Apparently it’s not that simple.The sad truth is that unfortunately New York City isn’t a place teeming with greenery.Ever walk through Midtown? Our concrete jungle where dreams are made of does not makeroom for trees and green space. I have to trek all the way to central park just to escape theinfinite prison of concrete. Street trees make me sad when I walk by them. These free-standingtrees have no other green friends around them. Instead they are surrounded on all fours bypavementAs someone who plans on living in this spectacular and striking city for the long run, Iwill continue to install green roofs and beautify this city every spring and summer. Over thecourse of my many months working up top the roofs, I’ve made a lot of discoveries, findings andexamples that I would like to share.For the health of individual buildings, green roofs are a must. Green roofs benefitbuildings both environmentally and economically. The two tie together really well. Green roofsare great for stormwater management and trapping water. How so, you ask? Well, plants happento love water. In fact that’s what they live off of. During the summertime, a green roof can beexpected to retain about 70% to 90% of the rain that falls over the season. Plants are such a greatnatural barrier between buildings and the force of nature.

Green roofs are also spectacular for a building’s energy use and efficiency. What greenroofs are other than pretty little plants on roofs are natural insulators. They are temperatureregulators that can lower a building’s temperature. This is great for those scorching hot summerdays when your mom only lets you run the air conditioner during certain hours of the day. Godmom, it’s too hot out for this nonsense. While air conditioners are great at what they do,unfortunately they leave an extremely bad impact on the environment. Green roofs on the otherhand, absorb the sun’s sunny rays, and feed ‘em to the plants on the roof with a little thing calledphotosynthesis. All while this occurs, green roofs are able to decrease air conditioning use withina building by seventy-five percent which reduces said buildings greenhouse gas emissions.Not only are green roofs great for temperature regulations, but they also act as great andeffective sound insulators. Plants have the ability to absorb and reflect sound waves. This isperfect for all the noise pollution in this city. This is also why green roofs are great for musicvenues. Ever walk by the Barclays center? Well if you have, you may have noticed it’s massivegreen roof. In 2017, the Barclays center had a green roof installed for the sole purpose ofmuffling concert noise and beautifying the area. And I would say it has succeeded in doing so asit’s quite beautiful and I’ve never heard a peep from inside there.In my opinion this is the most impressive large scale green roof in New York City sizingat 130,000 square feet. The green roof which consists of grass was constructed in response tonoise complaints in the area. Since then, a whole apartment complex has been constructed

around and on top of the Barclays Center. The green roof has got to be working for people to beliving so close to a literal music venue.While I do pride myself in helping “beautify” the city I think it’s a bit flawed. I don’tbeautify the city that you, I and the everyday Joe know. I beautify the fancy ultra rich Soho,Upper East Side penthouse, luxury apartment New york that is not the reality that most NewYorker’s experience. This leads me to the green roof’s main flaw. They are extremely expensiveand pricey and for the most part, it’s wealthy people who can afford them.I recall this one Wednesday at work in particular. Me and the team were at some crazyUpper West side brownstone, basement to rooftop, the whole deal. And of course no elevator tobe seen. We engaged in the usual painstaking routine of lugging bags or soil and rocks alongwith the usual load of immensely heavy plants, planters and tools. And only after that did the realwork begin of planting and what not. Fast forward hours later as we were wrapping and cleaningup. I caught a glimpse of what I realized was the receipt for the service and plants purchased.Sixteen thousand! Sixteen thousand for a couple of skanky (yet hard working) teenagers andstruggling actors and artists to put some stuff into some dirt! Sure it has a tremendous impact ona city’s health but that should not be the price to pay for such an important and essential thing.The idea itself is creative. To mimic nature. When we have no more space down here, wemust look up. My journey as a landscaper has transformed the way I view and appreciate aspace. Most people don’t have the funds to drop a couple grand on a green roof and it’sunfortunate that the people I work for are insanely rich. Above all this, not everyone is luckyenough to have a skilled hard working teenager in their life who will help you make a green rooffor exponentially less than what my boss asks for.

“About Green Roofs.” Green Roofs for Healthy Cities,https://greenroofs.org/about-green-roofs.EPA, Environmental Protection Agency,https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/using-green-roofs-reduce-heat-islands.Dinardo, Kelly. “The Green Revolution Spreading across Our Rooftops.” The New YorkTimes, The New York Times, 9 Oct. 2019,