I like to run. Specifically, I like to train for marathons. I’m not exactly sure why I like to train for marathons, but there are a number of reasons. I’ll forego those reasons for now and just say that I really like running in Central Park. I do almost all of my marathon training there. Although I have the course practically memorized, it never ceases to bore me. I ran in the summer of 2008 in London–along the Thames, through Greenwich Park, along canals, etc.–and that tended to bore me. But Central Park? Nuh-uh.

My recent goal was to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which required me in my age group to run a qualifying marathon in 3:10 or less. A marathon is 26.2 miles. As of January 2010, I’ve run 4 marathons–3 NYC marathons and 1 Philadelphia marathon. In November 2009, I ran the Philadelphia Marathon in 3:07:32, which qualified me for Boston.

In the near future, I look forward to running the 2010 NYC Marathon for which I have guaranteed entry, and the 2011 Boston Marathon, which I have qualified for. Some dream runs? The Empire State Building Run up to the top. Big Sur. And doing the 5th Avenue Mile in under 5 minutes. My record right now is 5:19 …

My most favorite run was there just before a huge severe thunderstorm–and during. I got rain absolutely dumped on me with lightning bolts making me jump in the air as I strided. Eventually I was running in ankle-deep water in the torrents. Another favorite run of mine was during snow. I have some YakTrax that I got to test out finally. And let me tell you: I didn’t slip once!

After runs, especially when I am training, I post to my running blog (as yet inactive as of 1/1/2010). Click over there to read my progress.

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★ Read my running blog »

Ultimately, I’m an amateur web designer. I remember being in the college library when the internet was still in its infancy and I had a Freenet email address. I somehow found myself studying HTML tags, learning how to make text bold and italicized and underlined. My first site I believe was a Tripod site. Eventually I had a Homestead account, which evolved into my first actor website. It grew sophisticated by using snippets of free code I found on the internet. My first domain name was gotten for free from Namezero.com, which was giving away domain names if you allowed a banner frame on your site. Eventually I moved to pay for my site and for my domain name. I’ve gotten better at my web design skills, slowly challenging myself with each design, using simple PHP inclusions to make changes rapidly and globally in my designs. Web design is a hobby and sometimes an obsession. I don’t allow myself to get too perfectionistic in my life, except in the realm of web design. Still, I don’t get all that picky, mostly caring about how the total design looks.

There have been about five major redesigns of http://www.benhauck.com, which I have exclusively designed from the beginning. In the beginning, the design had central scrolling headshots with menus running vertically along the sides of the headshots. Then, I got a little more sophisticated, creating a site that incorporated mouseover changes when you ran your cursor over menu items (you can get a sense by looking at this version of it or this version of it from the Internet Archive). A box design came after that, a design I was first attracted to then eventually somewhat constrained by up until the current website. The first version of the box design is here, which got a lot of compliments but I learned had major cross-browser issues. I had that site for too long of a time before revamping it into a poor redesign that was similar, then almost immediately re-revamping it into a more stylish, minimalist, and photographically de-emphasized version. My current site is an advancement for me in that it takes a more boring approach to layout, yet has some interesting features like “accordion”-style content that allows me to conceal content so as not to clutter the screen, while also making website interactivity fun. I’ve also finally found a way to include quotations I like, something I’ve wanted to do for a while but couldn’t accomplish stylistically with box designs.

People have asked me from time to time to design websites for them, or how much it would cost for me to do one. I have tended to turn people down, mostly because I didn’t want to find myself in the tricky waters of being obligated as a webmaster when I didn’t have the time or knowledge, but also because I didn’t know how to charge, finding little site updates not worth billing a lot for. That being said, eventually–partly because I wanted to test out some new web-design ideas and partly because I was humanitarianly interested–I started to offer to design people’s sites for them. I concentrated on the sites of friends I had who didn’t have a web presence but wanted one and definitely needed one. If the project intrigued me and the friend’s site wasn’t over my head, I’d offer to do it for free. I also attacked projects that would help raise the profile of the group by having a better website. Among the things that bother me is a great group or organization with a poor website. It doesn’t take a lot of money or ability to have a stylish, effective site.

Below are some of the designs I’ve created so far . . .

General Semantics
(http://www.miltondawes.com)
The Website of Milton Dawes,
Ambassador at Large for the Institute of General Semantics
Status: Online

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When I became Milton’s webmaster, I inherited a rather old web design. After years of thought about a redesign for Milton’s website, I learned Wordpress then saw a possibility in creating Milton a Wordpress-based website. Milton writes a lot about general semantics, and I thought a blog might suit his interests. I can’t take much credit for the design of Milton’s website because it is largely an unmodified free theme for Wordpress that I found online. Right when I saw the theme, I thought it would be perfect for Milton’s site since he wanted a lot of colors, and since the colors on the site–randomly generated upon each refresh–matched his shirt in an important photo. Fortunately Milton liked the theme too, and basically the rest is history. In less than 24 hours, I created a new website for Milton.

Paula Lopez
(http://www.paulayoga.com)
The Website of Paula Lopez,
Core Strengthening and Yoga Teacher
Status: Online

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Paula is a great friend of mine, and hearing that she wanted a website and knowing it wouldn’t require much information, I volunteered to create one for her. For this website, I got together with Paula and asked her a lot of questions of what she wanted on her site and how it would look and feel. The result was a very simple design with a color scheme that was exactly to her liking. As I looked over all of the points I had to hit in the design to give Paula what she wanted, I was surprised to find that I’d hit every single point! That made me feel proud. Also, with this design, I created it so I could hand it over to Paula (much as I designed Howing Vic’s site) so she could maintain it on her own with just a little HTML knowledge. She couldn’t have been happier, and has emailed me numerous times simply to say, “I love my website!!!”

The New York Society for General Semantics
(http://www.nysgs.org)
The Website of
The New York Society for General Semantics
Status: Online

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I am on the Board of Directors for the society, and the website at the time I joined was suffering. As a organization interested in general semantics, which has some interest in time and dates and keeping language relevant, its website was dated, with broken links and confusing organization. The former webmaster had gotten too busy to maintain the site, and I took it upon myself to come up with a new design. I can’t remember the exact circumstances–if I was asked to come up with some website ideas or if I just decided to do it on my own–but whatever the case, I took it upon myself to redesign the NYSGS website, and I surprised them with the website draft (which didn’t change much after that point). I think I created it pretty rapidly. I am really pleased with a number of things about the site. For one, I think it really brings the organization to the present. In my opinion, the site is stylish and pleasant to view. It gives a logo and a motto for the society. It provides my first stab at random quotations. It has a clear menu organized well. And one of my favorite inclusions is the fading background images: They add texture, beauty, and “jazz” to the site. As a result, I gladly stayed on as their new webmaster, and I update the site when I can, though sometimes a past meeting may linger on the site after it’s happened. I should say that the redesign was somewhat motivated and inspired by the Rassai mock-ups for the new website for the Institute of General Semantics; I was particularly inspired to get rotated quotations onto the NYSGS site. The cool style of the IGS site influenced the cool style of the NYSGS site, and also challenged me to try to make it even better than the IGS site–which I knew I couldn’t do, but at least I could approach the goal!

Elizabeth Cherry Online
(http://www.elizabethcherry.com)
The Website of Elizabeth Cherry,
Actress, Singer, and Spinner
Status: Online

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Liz is a longtime friend. She’d had a website designed by a past boyfriend, and as the years went on, the form of the site was deteriorating. I felt I could really help Liz out with her site. I knew her birthday was coming up, so what I did was draft a new website for her as my birthday gift to her. (Really cool, huh??) I knew it was a little risky of a move, so I prefaced the gift by saying she didn’t have to accept it. But fortunately she did! After my original version, Liz gave me some feedback to get it just right for her. The site is basically the NYSGS site design only with a different color scheme. Once added bonus to the site is
the use of a background image with quotation marks in it as the space on which is cast reviews from her shows. The reviews are displayed randomly, and this feature overall I believe adds more excitement about Liz. I think she’s got the best voice in NYC. In recent years, she’s picked up the hobby of spinning, and more recently I created a separate spinning page for her. The design was inspired by some website she liked that she sent me; I emulated them as best I could. Liz was pleased with my very rough draft for the site, so what you see now is basically what she first saw!

Victoria Libertore, aka “Howling Vic”
(http://www.howlingvic.com)
The Website of Victoria “Howling Vic” Libertore,
Performance Artist, Teacher,
and Host in the Burlesque and Performance-Art Worlds
Status: Online

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I went to college with Vic and was also on our improv group Devil’s Dancebelt from the beginning. She was really making a name for herself hosting and performing in burlesque shows, though she didn’t have a website. I had been working on the site for the New York Society for General Semantics at the time I offered to do a site for her. I was wanting to test my web-design abilities, and I was inspired by the possibility of getting Vic a great web presence. For this site, I took photos and eventually used part of a photo I have in my apartment of Vic and myself as a background for her site. That was new territory for me, using photos as backgrounds. I also incorporated interesting snippets of her photos as thumbnails in her photo gallery, another stylish web-design idea I’d seen done before. Vic even allowed me to have a little fun with the design, so you’ll notice a little Ganesha that she wanted incorporated on the site. You’ll see it pop up briefly, but what you might not know is that if you click on it, you are taken to a secret page! I’ve always wanted to have little secret pages on sites, which I might eventually do for my website. This is the only one I’ve ever done to date. Overall, Vic was pleased, and now she has taken over webmastering for the site after I trained her. This was the first website I designed knowing full well that eventually I would hand it over. As a result of this knowledge, I constructed the site to make it as simple as possible for editing, so she wouldn’t come across code she could accidentally “break.”

Damon Alfonso
(http://www.damonhair.com)
The Website of Damon Alfonso, Hairstylist
Status: Offline

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Damon has been my hairstylist for nearly a decade and has become a great friend of mine. He recently opened his own salon on Broadway and Bleecker called Damon Hair Studio, a major endeavor I was highly supportive of. The original website for his salon was fairly basic. I felt that I could help Damon out by providing a web design for him. As inspiration, I used his simple yet bold gray business card. Damon wanted minimalism, which is a style that I enjoy designing in. I created the basic design and he liked it from the start. I crafted a site the featured his first name prominently. Over the course of a month, I did tweaks here and there, but the design didn’t change much. It seemed I gave Damon just what he was looking for.

This website ultimately became more focused on his work as a hairstylist than on his salon since another web designer started to build a website expressly for his salon. For his hairstyling site, I ventured into new design territory. I found a way to make an interesting vertical menu that slides just how I wanted it to. I played with writing in columns, mimicking what I’ve found on magazines and even Damon’s original website. It was fantastic to hear Damon laughing giddily as he saw his new website take shape before his eyes.

Devil’s Dancebelt
(http://www.devilsdancebelt.com)
(link forwards to the Internet Archive)
The Website for
My Beloved Former Long-Form Improv Group
Status: Offline

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This site I was very proud of. It was inspired by a change in the Dictionary.com design, which featured words in large font quite like what you find on each page of this DD design. The design was also inspired by a photo shoot with Meghan Hickey and coordinted highly effectively by Ryan Migge. The photos added several different attitudes for DD and it also gave a great color scheme. OH! And it was also inspired by an ad that Rebecca Lupardo had brought in; it showed a multi-panel display of image slices, a design I used to inspire the Performer Bio introduction. Really cool.

I am not musically inclined, but that has never stopped me from making music. I was originally inspired by a college band called Buttered Popcorn Disaster, whose music was made with a one-string guitar and pots and pans. I never saw them live; my dorm’s RA made me a copy of their tape (they were friends of his, and I’m pretty sure I knew one of the people in the band). Most people probably would have thrown out the tape–it was just tape recordings of songs presumably made in the kitchen. Instead, I embraced it.

My first song, which is not featured here, was called “Tourette’s.” It consisted of an alarm clock’s alarm going off, and my saying “Toureeeeeette’s / Toureeeeeette’s / [etc.]” and some other lyrics I don’t remember offhand. The best song that came from that recording session was called “Come On, Grandpa,” whose lyrics were, “[Boy:] ‘Come on, Grandpa / Tell me a story / Tell me a story / before you die’ / [Grandpa:] ‘No sonny no sonny no sonny no / I’m not that desperate / [etc.]‘” At the Grammys that year, I was robbed.

And though I was robbed, I listened to that tape I made lots and was very proud of it. I learned that even if a song was bad, if you played it a number of times, it starts to become kinda good. Familiarity makes the heart grow fonder. That seemed to describe how songs I hated on the radio, played months later or in a new context, I actually found myself liking. Much to my disgruntlement, I realized I had to acknowledge some favor of the disfavored.

Eventually I spent some more time with my Casio SK-1 sampling synthesizer which I had gotten probably a decade prior. (It was cool to me then because I could record my voice and them modify my voice and even loop my voice! I never learned to play the piano aspect of it other than something like “Stand By Me.”) And eventually I got better at my music making. I got more sophisticated: I bought toy musical instruments. I started sampling from tapes on my stereo. I had more fun crafting songs. My songwriting was admittedly weird, usually odd, funny in perhaps a disturbing way, and occasionally a social commentary (as in “This Party Ain’t Got No Alcohol,” which is featured here).

Then, I reached the age of computers and got ahold of software that allowed me to stitch together loops and layer different tracks over each other. I could do on my computer much more easily what I had been doing in a lo-tech way before. My drive to create music was generated by an annoying website I was addicted to. The members there seemed to care a lot about posting milestones I would hit (I was the most prolific poster on that message board), and to “celebrate” the milstone of 4,000 posts, I had the idea of giving attention to their interest by surprising them with a song. That song, “4,000,” was a rap about things relevant at the time on that message board, with some bad beatboxing that in the song I eventually deviate from. It was a pretty cool song, though, with some nice rhymes. From that post, a tradition began, and I created songs for 5K, 6K, 7K, 7K+1, 8K, 9K, and 10K. I created a few other songs in that period, too. As each milestone approached, I kept challenging myself to create something better than before. I changed things up, upped the ante, even stirred a little controversy and pushed some buttons. Although the notion of
“posting songs” was silly, the art was actually very serious for me, and a number of those songs I still carry around on my mp3 player today, sort of as theme songs or mantras.

My more recent music-making movements have involved beatbox, “mouth improvisation,” and improvised musicals. I’ve never done an improvised musical, but I’ve taught two strains of classes on musical improv. In preparing for that class, though more specifically in researching how to develop my “mouth improvisation” idea, I took private beatboxing lessons. I learned a few basic tricks–to this day, I don’t know much and am easily blown away–but more importantly, I learned some basics on more hi-tech things. Like looping pedals: I purchased a looping pedal, then another, all in the hopes of creating improvised music just with odd sounds. I’ve gotten together with friends to play around with my looping pedals, and let me tell you, they are a party waiting to happen. These things are so fun to play with. You simply turn them on, lay down some sound like a beat, it starts looping, and you add some more sound. The result can be just astounding. It can also be annoying, but every once and awhile, you lock into a creation that is transcendental in its composition.

I should probably stop putting the term “mouth improvisation” in scare quotes. It stands for the idea of creating music with the mouth much like the way you’d create it with a looping pedal, only doing it live, with improvisers, specifically ones who are not gifted in music. The experience was unadulterated, abstract fun when I tried it with Devil’s Dancebelt originally, yet
music is violently scary for some people, and they did not want to go in that direction artistically. I incorporated some mouth improvisation in my musical improv classes. While it didn’t really show up very much other than as a little beatbox in performance, there is the potential for transcendent improvisational experiences with mouth improvisation.

Below is a link to my musical world. I’ve included songs that I’ve created over the years, some dating back to college days, others much more recent. I unabashedly don’t sing and I rejoice in this fact. Again, if you play it over and over, it sorta becomes its own kind of singing, which is an awesome way to rival more refined singing, which may ultimately be the lesser singing in its sheer uncatchiness.

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★ Listen to my songs »

Admittedly, I don’t often read blogs, though I tend to keep occasional tabs on the blogs below.

Korzybski Files
http://korzybskifiles.blogspot.com

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This is Bruce I. Kodish’s blog about Alfred Korzybski. Currently, Bruce is hard at work on a Korzybski biography, a welcome and long overdue addition to English literature!

Tractor Control
http://tractorcontrol.blogspot.com

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This blog on improv theory created by my friend Paul Foxcroft in London offers insight into improv ideology. Paul has invited me to be a contributor. Look out for postings from me there.

Below are some links to sites that I have some fondness for for whatever reason.

The Institute of General Semantics
http://www.generalsemantics.org

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In December 2009, I was elected to serve on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of General Semantics. I’ve been a member of IGS for some time if you count the time before they merged with the International Society for General Semantics. (I believe I joined ISGS around 1994-1995.) IGS is now the main general semantics organization, and the website currently features a ton of information on general semantics, including some essays of mine they’ve published. Since relaunching their new website (Fall 2008), I have served as webmaster and formerly as moderator for the General Semantics Discussion Forums (now closed).