From Facebook Wall to Surface Web, 1–10 May 2009.

 Compiled below are my writings on my own Facebook wall 1–10 May 2009, as well as anything else that might be construed as an example of micro-blogging.

▴ Elyaqim is willing to walk quite the distance for the right salad. —2 May, 01:53 (Fb.|FF|FF, Jk.|FF)▴ It’s a Jackson Heights situation comedy: The Trade Fair at 75^th Street usually doesn’t have the store-made prepared green salads I like (with red cabbage, bell pepper and shredded carrot), so I walk all the way over to the Trade Fair at 89^th Street. I am further encouraged by often bumping into interesting supporting cast members along the way. —2 May, 02:10

♐ “Carl Sagan on Astrology,” critical thinking about astrology combined with scenes of Manhattan in the late 1970s, from the PBS mini-series Cosmos, episode “The Harmony of the Worlds,” 12 October 1980. —2 May, 16:24 (YT¹, Fb.|FF)

▴ Elyaqim ate at a restaurant near a young woman who limits her male Facebook friends so they don’t see her pictures without hijab {حجاب}, and then a gay man who said he kissed his male friend because he was horny. “What are friends for?” (I agree.) Such is Jackson Heights life. —2 May, 22:23 (Fb.|FF|FF)

▴ Elyaqim is drooling over the new character blocks in Unicode 5.2, due in autumn, including ☥Egyptian hieroglyphs☥. —5 May, 12:28 (BS², Fb.|FF, Jk.|FF)

‎٭ Gays are organizing in Morocco! A nascent group called Kifkif (كيفكيف) planned a conference in Marrakech {مراكش} last month. I have been informed it did indeed take place: “The conference was held on the 15^th in Marrakech and a few brave souls gathered outside to lend their support. It was a much more sedate event then promised, but a huge first steep for gay rights here. That’s what I keep telling myself to remember.” —5 May, 21:17 (F24³, Fb.|FF)▴ New York City is the greatest city on earth, but Marrakech is like my second home. It’s beautiful and friendly. I have not been back in about five years, and the things that are happening there now would probably not have been possible then.—7 May, 00:18

▴ Elyaqim misses three people whom he admits he didn’t know very well, but of whom he was quite fond and who dropped him as Facebook friend. :`( —6 May, 23:53 (Fb.|FF|FF, Jk.|FF)▴ …Look at the emoticon and see how they made me so sad that I shed a grave accent from my colon. (I of course mean the typographical, not the anatomical, colon.) —7 May, 00:35
▴ …Different folks have accounts for different reasons. I’m sure some people feel overwhelmed, or even that their privacy is compromised, if they have too many Facebook friends. Having over 600 friends, I am nearly immune to occasionally being dropped by some people I barely know. When I come home from a party, my friend list will increase dramatically, but two of the three to whom I refer in this status update were “stars” of the respective parties at which I met them, people who really contributed to making a memorable time for me and with whom I certainly wanted to maintain contact. —7 May, 17:17

☤ This is outstanding news. My father and his mother were destroyed by Alzheimer’s, so maybe there’ll be a cure should I develop the illness. —7 May, 09:47 (BBCN⁴, Fb.|FF)

▴ Elyaqim notes that the Persian suffix “-stān” (ـستان), as in the names of so many countries and regions, comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root (*stā-) as the Yiddish word “ştetl” (שטעטל), a small Eastern European town with a large Jewish population. —7 May, 17:40 (Fb.|FF|FF)▴ The English “-stead” and “stand” came from the same root. —7 May, 17:57

▴ Elyaqim sat next to super-villain Firebrand (a.k.a. Gary Gilbert) at a Jackson Heights pizzeria last night. Firebrand’s fights with Iron Man in the 1970s and ’80s did not come up in conversation. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebrand_(Marvel_Comics). —8 May, 05:13 (Fb.|FF|FF)

⚘ It would be my first time back in the Bronx in over a year! —8 May, 08:12 (PGM on MU, Fb.)

▴ Elyaqim ordered food from Maharaja (ਮਹਾਰਾਜਾ) on 37^th Avenue, and the toothpick holder was labeled “Objects of domestic utility.” —8 May, 22:52 (SC⁵, Fb.|FF, Jk.|FF)

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 1. Carl Sagan, writer, “The Harmony of the Worlds,” episode of télévision series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, 12 October 1980, excerpt duplicated as “Carl Sagan on Astrology,” undercoverkptic channel of YouTube, 16 November 2006.
 2. Andrew West, “What’s New in Unicode 5.2 ?,” BabelStone, 27 April 2008.
 3. Samir Barkachi, “Morocco’s Gays Come out of the Shadows,” The Observers (France 24), 26 March 2009.
 4. “Trial Drugs ‘Reverse’ Alzheimer’s: US Scientists Say They Have Successfully Reversed the Effects of Alzheimer’s with Experimental Drugs,” BBC News, 6 May 2009.
 5. Anna Broadway [Christi Foist], “Objects of Domestic Utility,” Sexless in the City, 25 April 2005.

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5h1BaTm4r.