My abdomen, triceps and calves hurt in a way I never imagined possible. Trapeze is definitely physically strenuous. Glad I'm not a pregnant person (they aren't allowed to trapeze) but sorry I have never exerted myself before because now I'm definitely feeling it. Going to sit in a warm bath the whole weekend. But Trapeze is still the most fun and exhilarating thing I've ever done. Already signed up for 3 more classes before they close for the season at the end of the month.

The Flying Jacobs

Still working on names for the flying circus I plan to start soon. As a super-non-athletic person, seldom exerting myself for any reason, I was amazed at the feeling of flying through the air this morning during my very first trapeze class. Happy to be flying with a friend from college, we learned the basics of trapezing in beautiful weather. The trapeze rig is right on the boardwalk of Hudson River Park, just south of Canal Street and north of Stuyvesant High School. As we rehearsed, Richard Kind of Spin City fame (currently in The Allergist's Wife) walked by and took a long look. I was the only one who noticed him.

Standing two and half stories in the air with no place to go but down was such an amazing feeling of clarity. I took a moment to look straight ahead and saw the giant painting by Yakov Smirnoff that hangs beside Ground Zero. Fear is an obvious and expected emotion while up there. But when the man yelps "hep" (that's circus for "go") I just went. Whooosh. Swinging back and forth. Using the momentum from the swing to get my knees up above me. Lock onto the 20 pound bar with the pit of my knees. Another swing. I let my hands go and arch my back backward. Looking upward while hanging by my knees. Another swing. Reach back for the bar. Return my legs to their proper position. Swing back, forth, back and do a flip as I fall gently to the awaiting net. WOW. What a rush. What a thrill.

Sadly, they will soon be closing up for the winter but I definitely plan on continuing once April rolls around.

Click below to see the full versions.

The June 24th issue of eWeek magazine had an interesting editorial piece by Peter Coffee that I would like to share with my 2-5 readers.

The piece deals with why we put up with inferior products in the technology area - inferiorities we'd never put up with in other areas of our consumer life.

One point is the "illusion of control" where scientists observed that people who had access to complex and advanced tools when creating a spreadsheet thought they had produced better and more accurate results than those who used simpler spreadsheet utilities. Of course, the end result was identical as most people don't take advantage of extra widgets or even understand them. Interestingly, it takes them longer to complete the same work.

"In short: The more things we get to control, the more we tend to believe that we'll do those things better than others. More complexity makes us feel more powerful."

I think this point is right on. I use the phrases "sure" and "no problem" almost constantly in my professional life. That's because I tend to minimize things instead of blow them out of control. When people notice this about me I explain my belief that many people tend to make things more complicated in order to feel that they are doing more work or doing better work. I'm the exact opposite - I'll actually do more work and get it done quicker and better because I don't think it is difficult - or choose to believe it isn't difficult. Things do not have to be complicated to have meaning or validity. Being busy all the time - or believing that you are - does not make you a better or more deserving person - it just makes you die sooner.

Finally, and most interestingly, in a study appearing in The Economist about persuasion, "Students, posing as beggars, asked people for 'small change' and got something 44 percent of the time; they asked for a specific single-coin amount, like a quarter, and got it 64 percent of the time; they asked for arbitrary amounts like 37 cents, and got what they asked for 75 percent of the time. 'The more precise and unusual the request, the less people were able to resist it.'"

I think that's pretty cool and gets me thinking about all sorts of things. So don't just leave one comment to this blog posting, leave 3 comments.

Bad Madonna

Been getting a lot of emails in response to my criticism of Madonna's flagrant use of holy Jewish paraphernalia (tefillin) and Hebrew letters in her latest video, Die Another Day (the title track of the James Bond film coming out soon). Thanks! I wonder what the other side of the argument is. Can't really think of a justification.

Jerry Seinfeld is God

I am totally unashamed to admit that I am a totally unabashed Jerry Seinfeld fan. I still watch the show at least once a day (it airs 4 times here in Brooklyn every day)! Tonight I was very excited to get tickets to the new movie, Comedian - a documentary starring Jerry Seinfeld. It's only playing in one measly theater in all of New York and there's almost no publicity for what may become a cult classic.

I don't know many films about the art of comedy, nor have I encountered a documentary on the subject before. Jerry is in the unique position of having gone as high as anyone has ever gone only to turn around and start from the very beginning. Sure he still has his fame - but that just gets him a few minutes of buffer time until he, like everyone else on stage, has to be funny or suffer the boos. In one sense he has to be even funnier than others because of insanely high expectations. We get to see conversation with Colin Quinn, Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Gary Shandling, Kevin Nealon and others throughout the film - each offering their own perspective on the business and advice on life.

Interestingly, the documentary is intercut between Seinfeld and an up and coming comedian, Orny Adams. He is the stereotypical fragile, gentile creative, always in a state of insanity, anxiety or nervousness. No matter what the press says, what gigs he books or who he gets to manage him (even the best in the biz), nothing is good enough to bring some peace and quiet. Much of the film's humor comes from seeing how Orny acts.

I recommend to film for anyone interested in how creativity works, comedy works or anyone just looking for a funny hour and a half.

It is appropriate that as I prepare a return to my high school to teach a class on entrepreneurship my name appears in a periodical entitled Syllabus.

The 10/1/02 issue contains an article called "Blogs: A Disruptive Technology Coming of Age?" where the author, Phillip D. Long, gives a nod to the way I describe my company's site, GAZM.org - the Digital Campfire. Here is my 2 seconds in the sun:

"But blogging has exploded beyond journalism (see sidebar on the growth of blogging). Web entrepreneur Jacob Schwirtz (it is really Shwirtz) likens this growth to the digital equivalent of sharing stories around the campfire, almost a primal urge. The New York Times estimated in August that there were now over a half a million Weblogs, with the number growing."

Thank you AKMA for clueing me in to my fame, I had no idea the article existed previously. I guess I can get over the facts that he misspelled my name and didn't link to either my own blog or the site I call the Digital Campfire.

Hope everyone's weekend is going well. So far I have seen The Last Castle (Robert Redford), Sweet Smell of Success (Burt Lancaster), Swimming with Sharks (Kevin Spacey) and Marathon Man (Dustin Hoffman).