We captured some Spatial Video that will be fun to look at on the Vision Pro later (mine just arrived, but I haven’t opened it yet).

I think what I learned this morning is there is something deeply profound about the act of rowing, of being in harmony and synchronicity with others on your boat, how good it feels when you’re in sync, and how obvious it is when you aren’t. I’ve done rowing machines before many times but never been on the open water, and I saw also the impact of the variability of the ocean, currents, and waves had on the rowing. I think there is also something related here to when autistic people (and myself!) rock back and forth when something feels like it’s in alignment.

Luckily I was with literally one of the world’s best rowers, so I always felt safe and was able to enjoy the feeling of being on the water, and really felt the heritage and respect of these beautiful craft we were on, Cronin-1938. I introduced Neal to the concept of the Ship of Theseus, one Matias and I love to talk about in the context of Gutenberg. One of the most beautiful days I’ve seen in San Francisco. Here are a few photos from this morning.

My sabbatical is off to a great start.

It was less than a week later I got an email from a friend who was helping organize a hush-hush event where Jay-Z would sing his song Picasso Baby over and over 6 hours while interacting with various artists and an audience as a performance piece, and there might even be an opportunity to be one of the people he interacted with. My jaw dropped.

The entire experience was fairly surreal, this article by Jerry Saltz captured it well, and in the end I did get to “perform” (in a very loose performance art sense) directly with Jay (we’re on a first syllable basis now), which was even caught in a photo. An hour into the event I couldn’t find any trace of it on Twitter or blogs. I brought my Nikon D3S to the event and snapped a few photos, some of which of his performance with Marina Abramovic turned out really well. If I could do it again the only thing I’d do differently is try and get portraits of more of the amazing artists who were there, from Andres Serrano to Elizabeth Peyton. Also huge thanks and kudos to Yvonne Force Villerael and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn for putting together such an unique happening.

Here’s a video Shannon Lanier took when we went up together:

Here are some of the photos from the event:

Update: The video made from this is now online:

For a peak at what the lights look like in their testing at night check out this video: