Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Spawn of sci-fi at the gym

I joined the downtown Y a few months ago and now work out regularly on all those contraptions I used to make fun of. (…It’s all part of denial – I am not getting older, I am getting better, etc etc etc.)

I’m sure it’s doing me a lot of good, although it certainly is hard work. It’s a lot easier to slouch through the neighborhoods at a leisurely pace with my terrier, or to sit around with a glass of wine dreaming of days when I could pack away thousands of calories without gaining weight. But at some point you realize that, yes, gravity doesn’t exempt anyone, and every inch of extra flesh moves inexorably toward the ground.

We denialists don’t want that. We are tits forward and head high type people, and we’ll go into the grave vertically, goddammit. So off I go, to the Y. I walk there, I change, I get on the damn machine for an aerobic workout. Usually it’s the elliptical trainer (except when I do the torture workout, i.e., weights, which involves all those nasty machines that target specific muscle groups).

Quite a few of the machines for aerobic exercise (including all the elliptical trainers) are lined up in rows facing three very big TV screens. In the first two rows are the bikes (upright and recumbent), followed by two rows of elliptical trainers, with a final row of stairmasters behind. Rowing machines and treadmills are on either side of the room.

The rows are considerably longer than the wall space for the TVs, so there are optimal spots on the machines if you’re a TV watcher. If you’re not, then you’ll move toward the other ends of the rows, from where you can still see the TV screens, albeit at an angle. The spots that provide the best views of the TVs are usually taken up faster than the spots that don’t offer clear TV screen sightlines.

I’m nearsighted, which means I need glasses to see distance clearly. But I don’t wear them at the gym: they’d slide off my face, since I really work up a sweat. When I’m at the Y, I walk around in this nearsighted fuzzy world, unable to recognize faces until they’re ~20 feet away from me. The TVs, with their closed captioning (the sound is turned off), are of no interest to me, in other words, because I really can’t see the images very clearly, and I can’t read the closed captioning at all.

But I can see the facial expressions of the other people on the machines near me. What stories they tell, what worlds they exude… What they reveal about TV…

Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t get TV at home. We have a TV (although not a flat screen, alas), and we watch DVDs and such, but we don’t have cable (and antennas don’t work here). I’m a total virgin when it comes to reality television, I’ve become completely and utterly oblivious to network news (haven’t watched for well over six years), and I never watched sports to begin with.

But it’s “reality” TV, news, and sports (including weird shows of people playing poker for sport) that are on the Y’s three screens at all times.

The “reality” shows soften up your limbic system, and you can see this so very clearly in people’s facial expressions as they watch the programs. One popular show has to do with home renovation – some “unfortunate” family is chosen (how?, why?) to receive some kind of surprise make-over, perhaps a reprieve from foreclosure, or some special help for a child with a particularly horrible disease. There are invariably segments involving lots of emotion, tears, and close-up shots of faces as the participants speak. I’m guessing they’re explaining their situation and feelings, their plight, what they’ve learned – all of this is closed captioned, but I can’t decipher it, so I never catch the rationalizing. All I see (somewhat out of focus) is the emotion on their faces – including the coaching (what else to call it?) provided by the show’s host, at times egregious when he’s talking to children. But it’s the faces of the people watching the shows that fascinate me: they absolutely mirror the emotional spectacle they’re viewing. It’s uncanny.

All this is in the middle screen. To its left are the news. If something particularly disastrous or scandalous or plain worrisome has happened, the same images and snippets appear at length, looping over and over. The news mimic in many ways the limbic stimulus dished out by the middle screen. Meanwhile, on the right screen, there’s sports, which maybe appeal a bit more to our reptilian sensibilities: cunning, strategy, skill, win!, …or defeat. And then the emotional release in the group hug, or the group despair. (I’m referring to the presentation of the sports spectacle, not to what sport is for the participants, or what it represents as an ideal.)

We’re like those monkeys deprived of their mothers, who are given surrogates (tic-toc clocks wrapped in blankets). And boy, do we respond.

On all three screens, the limbic stimulus calls the shots, except it’s the money shots. Because when push comes to shove – i.e., when it’s time for a commercial break – the ads expertly appeal to all those emotional synapses already firing away in your brain. Quite good, really. Clever. I can see it working on people’s faces. I’m sure that if I could read the texts (or hear the audio), I’d “see” the limbic/ emotional stuff far less prominently, because the words provide a rationale for the emotions, corralling them into a “place” where they can’t overflow and inundate the brain (and our perception of the world). Yet that’s where the words, our love of rationalizing, fools us – it’s clear that the emotional stuff rules completely.

You have to wonder if that’s such a good thing when it comes to news – or to making decisions about what to buy.

You also have to wonder whether the creators of The Matrix got their ideas at the gym. There we all are, pumping away like maniacs on stationary machines, producing loads of energy (where does it go?, why is it not harnessed and used?), our eyes glued to a screen “reality” that’s utterly orchestrated and manipulative of our limbic system (maybe that also produces energy?). If that’s not fertile ground for the sci-fi imagination, what is?

We are such aliens.

So much bubbling up

As we work on MetroCascade, I continue to be amazed by all the bloggers, events, and sources that we uncover (ok, that I uncover!).

One twenty-something dude told me that he didn’t think there was any value in uncovering the cool stuff in Victoria. He didn’t think there was cool stuff in Victoria.

Whatever. I’m nearly 3 decades older than he is, and I remember all the cool stuff that I enjoyed in Victoria BC when I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old: the Churchill pub (ok, I was underage/ drinking illegally: bite me), now reincarnated as the Jellyfish Lounge (and still troublesome!); Sappho’s (an early 1970s private gay bar in Victoria, unlicensed, where you could dance till 4 a.m. and then go to a 24-hour cafe – Scott’s! – for a butter tart and cup of tea, before heading home at dawn); the Quee Queg Cafe in Bastion Square (oh, scan thru this comments thread for more info on Valdy – Valdy? Jesus, I completely forgot about that darned old hippie!); amazing events at local music venues; the list goes on…

And the point is that it’s still going on. What I saw in my underage degeneracy wasn’t a fluke. It was normal for here.

You know, it’s like that Magritte painting:

Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

This is not Victoria.

(….Oh yes it is.)

(PS: I was never a Valdy fan, by the way. I wasn’t a folkie. Still don’t like the style. Just saying. I do remember that one time, when I was 14 or 15, I was hitchhiking on Hillside Avenue with my friend, and we got picked up by Mose Allison and his band. They were in town to play a concert at UVic. We told Mose in the most sage tones we could muster that UVic was out in the sticks, and that he and the band really should go downtown instead. True.)

Checking in

I’m “neglecting” my blog lately (tho’ I hate using that word, as it makes me sound like neglect is optional).

(The give-away was that for a couple of weeks running, I don’t even have a Diigo linkroll update, except for today’s single entry…)

Earlier this month, I blogged What’s my domain?, where I wondered whether I should break away from the harvard.edu brand and stake out my own. So far, I have achieved no practical progress on that front, although I did secure my domain name. In the comments thread to my post, Harvard’s Daniel Collis-Puro pointed out that I benefit from association with the Harvard brand. True, but I need to weigh benefits and negatives, which I haven’t done so far.

The problem is this: I get caught up in different projects that require my attention, and I like to have plenty of time when I’m not “on.” In total, it means I’m not sure I could maintain the kind of daily and persistent output that all things “brand” require. If I don’t bother maintaining my “brand,” however, there’s no point in starting it.

So…, still figuring this one out.

Forward spring

A forward spring would be nice right about now, because it rather feels like I fell flat on my face this week.

Being a sensitive sort, the twice-annual time change-a-palooza bullshit makes me feel like I have jet lag, albeit without the benefit of actual travel (i.e., change of location), and now that climate change is getting its fangs in, the whole thing has gotten worse because instead of going to Hawai’i, I somehow landed in Ontario last Monday.

You know? Here it is, the first Monday of the Spring Forward Fiasco, and we in Victoria BC – March flower count capital of the Canadian Universe – get …um, snow. Yes, snow.

It went downhill from there.

For one thing, I’m now almost a whole week older than I was 5 days ago, and I’m nearing the point where that sort of thing matters. I’m not getting this week back, no matter how much I resent how it went.

On the plus side: it’s warmer than it was Last Monday When It Snowed. The days are longer (yeah, right). I am very busy with several things, including of course MetroCascade and all its attendant tasks.  And I’m pleased with my March Focus article, and very pleased with the April article. I have it on my to-do list to upload the February and March articles to Scribd.com before the week is over.

As the song says, “I will survive.” At least until November, when we Fall Back….

Tough love from Lifehacker Gina Trapani

I should get the following advice embedded as a microchip in my brain…

Choose three important tasks to complete each day. Write them down on a slip of paper and keep it visible on your desk. When you have a moment, instead of checking your email, look at the slip, and work on an item. Keep the list to just three, and see how many you can complete.

Turn off your email client. Shut down Outlook, turn off new email notifications on your BlackBerry, do whatever you have to do to muffle the interruption of email. When you decide to work on one of your important tasks, give yourself an hour at least of uninterrupted time to complete it. If the web is too much of a temptation, disconnect your computer from the Internet for that hour.

Set up a weekly 20-minute meeting with yourself. Put it on your calendar, and don’t book over it — treat it with the same respect you’d treat a meeting with your boss. If you don’t have an office door or you work in an open area that’s constantly busy, book a conference room for your meeting. Go there to be alone. Bring your project list, to-do list, and calendar, and spend the time reviewing what you finished that past week, and what you want to get done the following week. This is a great time to choose your daily three important tasks. Productivity author David Allen refers to this as the “weekly review,” and it’s one of the most effective ways to be mindful about how you’re spending your time.

Source: How to Mitigate the Urgent to Focus on the Important, by Gina Trapani.

On the Blue Vote label

I found this via Kazys Varnelis’s Facebook page, and have facebooked and twittered it on already.

But it’s so good, I have to blog it, too:

(source)

Mapping my bio background

I’ve been asked to participate as a panelist tomorrow night at the Vancouver Island School of Art (VISA) Slide Room Gallery, which opened an exhibition today called “Victoria: Site Unscene.”  The exhibition showcases “over 100 photographs that reveal an interesting and unusual side of Victoria – views not portrayed in tourist brochures or other municipal promotional material,” and I’m honoured to be asked to participate.

In preparation, the organizer asked for some biographical material to help him formulate an introduction.  I wrote something that provides way too much information for his purposes, but in the process came away with an interesting arc that’s interesting to me.  It culminated with me committing in writing to my new “identity” as a Founder (of a company).  Now, there’s no pretending it’s not a real thing.

No “biography” is ever complete, and no sketch is ever just a sketch.  It’s a story.  You tell a story.  I told a story.  But in the process, I learned something about myself.  I might eventually start to figure out how I can own my story, how it can stop being a foreign thing to me.

Given the theme of “Site Unscene,” place-specificity, and my own history as an immigrant (several times over), this particular biographical note — which ended up being focused on place — gave me a better map of where I’ve been, along with some indications of where I might yet go.

Here’s what I wrote:

Ok, starting at the (Victoria) beginning: I’m an immigrant, came to Canada from Germany as a child, lived first in Winnipeg, but grew up in Victoria in the late 60s and early 70s.  (In fact, I lived right at Quadra & Bay, then on Prior St., bought licorice at the Dutch Shoe, went to S.J. Willis for Junior High — which makes me a “Quadra Village” native!  Then attended Victoria High, and graduated from Oak Bay High.)

Wanted to become a designer, but ended up at the Munich Art Academy, studying sculpture.  That (praxis) lasted for a while, until I started reading (theory!) (Benjamin, Frankfurt School).

Returned to the West Coast, eventually ended up at UBC, where I took a BA Hons in Art History (’83), and subsequently an MA in Art History (’86).  Advisor: Serge Guilbaut (who wrote about the NY School).

For personal reasons, moved to Boston in 1985; applied to Harvard, studied with T.J. Clark (who had been Guilbaut’s advisor at UCLA).  T.J. Clark was famous for writing about Courbet and the 1830 revolution in France, and subsequently writing about Manet and Haussmann’s Paris.  I also taught for Clark at Harvard, as well as for several other professors (Henri Zerner, Anna Chave).

Took my PhD in Art & Architectural History at Harvard, 1991.

Taught at MIT, Brown University, and Harvard Extension School.

My book, Reconstructing the Subject; Modernist Painting in Western Germany, 1945-1950, was published by Princeton University Press, 1995.

Had various articles published in peer-reviewed journals; was an invited speaker at symposia, etc.; and was a co-author of German Marks; Postwar Drawings and Prints Donated to the Busch-Reisinger Museum, a book about Harvard Art Museums’ collection of German art (published by Harvard University Press, 1998).

Left academia in Jan. 1999 (almost 10 years ago!), because (1) that world is too restrictive (”how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”); and (2) I began homeschooling my kids (in 2000).

Moved back to Victoria in 2002, was by then no longer an academic.  (But wasn’t quite sure what I was instead.  Still not sure; such is the hold of “professional” identity.)

Kids began taking courses through South Island Distance Education School (in Saanich).  I began to serve on that organization’s Parent Advisory Council and its School Planning Council (starting in 2003).  Did that for 4 years, during which I worked closely with the principals (there were 2) and the vice-principals, as well as some of the senior teachers, to shape South Island Distance Education School (SIDES) as a 21st century advanced distributed education provider.

I think there were some successes!

In April 2003 I became part of the blogging network started at Harvard’s Berkman Center by Dave Winer (technologist, media hacker).  Initially, I blogged about all the lefty issues that had agitated me when I left the US and moved back to Canada.  (Of course, living in Canada makes one take a more critical look at some of those beliefs, but that’s another story.)  I soon became involved with an international group of bloggers (none of them from Harvard/ Berkman, but rather from the loopy world of the Cluetrain Manifesto and Web 2.0).  Blogging has been life-changing: I wasn’t “born digital,” but as a two-time immigrant, I feel I have become a three-time immigrant who’s nearly completely naturalized online.

In early 2005, I became involved with my neighbourhood association: that year I served on the Rockland Neighbourhood Association (RNA) executive board, in Land Use and on the Newsletter.

Left RNA in Jan. 2006 and joined the CRD’s Arts Advisory Council (AAC).  The AAC is a volunteer board that adjudicates project grant and operating grant applications to the CRD’s Arts Development Office.  I still serve on the AAC  and consider what I do there really important.

For the past two years I’ve been a non-voting member of the Downtown Residents Association (DRA), and I do my best to keep up with everything that DRA deals with.

In Oct. 2006 I began writing a monthly column for FOCUS Magazine (ongoing). My articles are about urban development and urban form in Victoria.

In March 2008, I organized together with technologist Mark Lise Victoria’s first DemoCamp, where Victoria’s creative technologists came together in a downtown setting to demonstrate (”demo”) their entrepreneurial ideas. We’re holding a second DemoCamp on Oct. 30, and it’s my intention to expand DemoCamp to include creatives from other sectors.

Earlier this year, I incorporated a company called MetroCascade with my husband and another partner: we are developing a web-based local-news aggregator.  (I’ll be “demo-ing” MetroCascade at DemoCamp on Oct. 30 by the way!)  MetroCascade is a hyper-local news aggregator that lets users find out what’s going on in their locality/ their city (and we’re starting specifically with Victoria).

We think Victoria is an excellent place to launch because there are so many creatives in our city, and we think that connecting people up with other people will make everyone more awesome, more informed, and better able to kick ass.

We want you to kick ass: that’s our goal.

(Yes, I was channeling Kathy Sierra in that last bit, but I really mean it, too.  She’s one of my heroes.)

In previous biographies (told mainly to myself), I wondered how I, as the first person in my family to go to university, ended up with advanced degrees, and how I could have “failed” so badly, having opted out of an academic career.  I’ve been wrestling with that failure, not least because I never was able to make sense of the prior “success.”  Putting the story on a map like this makes both issues (failure and success) less relevant.  The places (real and virtual) and what you do there matter more.

On Creativity

I have to reblog and repost the entry I just read on CEOs for Cities.  Called In Detroit for Creative Cities Summit, Carol Colletta has this to report on what she learned about creativity and economies (emphasis added by me):

“Creativity is the only inextinguishable resource we have.”

There are 3 principles of the creative ecology from John Howkins:

1.  Everyone is creative.
2.  Creativity needs freedom.
3.  Freedom needs markets.

Creativity does not equal the arts. Creativity is not the same as innovation.

Creativity needs freedom of expression, dialogue, collaboration, education and learning, cities and clusters, and acceptance by family and society.

Creativity is not deferential.  You don’t do it (creativity) because something thinks it’s a good idea.  Otherwise, it becomes the repetitive economy.  The creative economy thrives on novelty and meaning.

The creative economy is an economy of failure.  It we skirt that truth, we are back to repetitive economy.

The creative ecology is niche where diverse individuals express themselves in systematic and adaptive ways, using ideas to produce ideas and others support this even if they don’t understand it.

It’s easy to build a building.  It’s hard to fund creativity.

Diversity -> Change -> Learning -> Adaptation

Education is only important if it enables learning.

Cities must ask, “How big is our learning capacity?”

I know there are people who will poo-poo this, but for me it strikes a chord.  Maybe because I’m all about failure, or maybe because I’m all about doing stuff that isn’t deferential. For example, you want something like a DemoCamp?  You really want a DemoCamp?  Just friggin’ hold one then. (This goes for anything worth doing. Rinse and repeat: anything worth doing!)  And don’t worry about ownership.  Who cares?

There’s a great song by Abbey Lincoln, a vocalist, composer, recording artist I admire totally.  It’s called Throw It Away.  There are often days when Lincoln’s songs provide a palimpsest for what I feel most deeply.

Throw it away / Throw it away / Give your love, live your life / Each and every day // And keep your hand wide open / Let the sun shine through / ‘Cause you can never lose a thing / If it belongs to you   (Album source)

Maybe it’s weird to go from CEOs for Cities to Abbey Lincoln, but it makes sense to me.  Creativity is the blues, but what a great shade of blue it is.  As Colletta posted (above), “The creative ecology is niche where diverse individuals express themselves in systematic and adaptive ways, using ideas to produce ideas and others support this even if they don’t understand it.”

“…even if they don’t understand it.”  Trust, keep your hand wide open.

I’ll be back (i.e., I am back)

A quick sign of life from me, the semi-absent blog owner: after another month of slacking (because I was too busy doing other stuff), I now resolve — nay, promise! — to get back to regular blogging.

Some astute readers may have noticed that I stopped posting my Daily Diigo bookmarks.  I’ll re-institute them.

And I will try to stop obsessing about how I’m doing everything wrong …and instead just do it.

Heck, at least when I “just do it,” I’m not melting down the entire continent’s friggin’ economy.  That’s some small comfort, but you take it wherever you can get it, these days.

I’ve been sick to my stomach over the various elections and political events — whether the American election (in which I can vote as an absentee voter; although, being registered in Massachusetts, my vote for Obama doesn’t matter as much as I’d like it to), or the Canadian federal election (I’m also a Canadian citizen, so I get to vote here, but people?, all I can say is “ick” to what I’m looking at on this ballot), or the Victoria municipal election (double, triple, quadruple ick!), or now the hugely ICK! revelations bubbling forth from the sleaze that ran (runs?) Wall Street.  All of that adds to smaller, more personal demons and phobias.

But, as they say, Was tun? Keep going.  Just keep going.

Sometimes it takes just a small spark (like listening to an interesting speaker at a UDI Victoria luncheon today).  Just keep going.