A Bright November Day

Cloudless, rainless days in November need to be enjoyed, or rather we have a need to enjoy them.

I went to Belmont early in search of wifi, and to join a lunch meetup and share culture at Laughing Planet.

I showed some Blacksad to a young reader to be.  Blacksad is film noir style manga / comix.

Nirel:  "That's James Brown" (restaurant sound track), Me: "that's Frank Zappa" (artwork on the wall).

Passing the torch, as it were.  Plastic dinosaurs everywhere.

Some of today's writings (Nov 15):

edu-sig:
more news 'n views

math-teach:
Digital Math
STEM stuff

synergeo:
Cywars in Cyberia

Armistice Day 2012

Some have taken to calling it Armistice Day instead of Veterans Day, remembering when it was a day to celebrate the end of wars on this planet.

Since then, war racketeers have cynically puppeted their spineless DC government to return to glorifying equipment and marching men in uniform; back to dreary parades of fascist vintage.

They want their version of "Veterans Day" to serve as a recruiting device and photo op.

However, some elders still remember president Eisenhower's warning, that these Business Plot types would bring death and suffering to a post WW2 America, and that's exactly what they did.

Smedley "fighting Quaker" Butler also called it as he saw it in War is a Racket.

And they're still eagerly going about their business to this day, these war-mongering uber-cowards.

Hunting them down is a full time job for many in the intelligence community (such as there is one) as a part of its ongoing Countdown to Zero campaign.  This "world game" has lots of computer power at its disposal.

Reading Human Smoke is edifying.  Movies really do make a difference, judging from how the Nazis hated certain films and banned them.

WILPF has taken to honoring an obscure treaty that nations signed, the US included (Senate ratifying), that buried the hatchet after WW1.

That particular treaty has not been rescinded, just relegated to obscurity, but then the US, like many sovereign nations, has a habit of breaking treaties whenever it feels like it.

Veterans gathered at Pioneer Courthouse Square to wave their banners and ring their bells.  Carol joined with her oxygen tank, representing WILPF (Barbara was there too, and some others).  I took some pictures.

Later, at the Quaker meetinghouse, some vets got together to watch a fellow vet on screen, plus he was there in person for the Q&A. Wray Harris, a private in the US Army, honorable discharge etc. is not afraid to speak his mind.

I was reminded of the patriots during the Vietnam War who refused orders and packed the jails.  Thinking for yourself is more courageous then letting others do it for you.  Muhammad Ali told the DoD where to put it.  I admire his courage.

Thanks to AFSC staff for logistics / equipment.  I was out of the building after intermission for awhile, as was Wray, each handling our respective business (he said more about that during the Q&A).

I hadn't known Simeon, one of our members, was acting headmaster at Phillips Academy in Andover.  I snapped some pictures of a biographical account during intermission.

Then I took off down the block, seeing the tow truck get loaded etc.   I left Joanne & Co. to close up, after using the office computer to post to the Math Forum.

Catching Up at Meeting

Denny of Shanghai and I compared notes on antebellum Quakers, meaning pre Civil War.  He's done a lot of research as well and inherits from the Abolitionist lineage.

Many meetinghouse Quakers back then were inquisitional against abolitionists (into disownment) and protective of the rights of the KKK types to own slaves.  "They had their spies everywhere" Denny said in disgust.  He'd done some reading in the archives, at Swarthmore I think it was.

Leslie Hickcox persuaded me to see The Seven Pyschopaths, given a prominent Quaker character. I'd earlier read a review on The Mercury that perked my interest.

Had a great time yesterday, in a man cave (Broadway Cigars) watching college football (Oregon doing great).  Transfer of some gigabytes of data (no, not a dead drop).

Lew and I realized the headphone option might be used to gain more silence and no one has to know.  Bring your own ear covering studio device and borrow one of the amplifiers.

For all they know, you've turned it on.

Carol was at meeting to attend the Peace and Social Concerns committee.  Jesse, the clerk, had announced at business meeting, that we'd be surveying the meeting to uncover its concerns.

I found out today that said survey had been "dumbed down" in advance to just be about homelessness as an issue (not what I'd understood from business meeting).

That's great, but as a household I feel we're already doing more than any other household in the meeting on that score, so I'm not personally that interested.

I do support the partnership with Human Solutions, however, and have Facebooked to that effect.  The focus on families with children is complementary to what we're doing at the Blue House.

Halloween 2012

A core activity of the evening, in the upstairs apartments, was the matron of the house, resident activist extraordinaire, age 83, taking her supper in the living room, usually doubling as my office, and watching Easy Like Water, Glenn Baker's travelogue / documentary, about Bangladeshis pioneering new ways of coping with global warming, a good example to learn from then.  Carol exclaimed several times "this is wonderful!" and gave Glenn really high marks for that movie.

In the meanwhile, we kept getting knocks and / or rings of the door bell, as we were signalling the availability of treats, by means of high end decorations and a bright porch light.  The expected result, upon knocking on such a door, is wishes for a Happy Halloween and commercial brand candy.

The actual witches in the house had provided some decorations, JenQ in particular.  When I say "high end" I don't mean extravagant.  We had customized one-of-a-kind art.  I contributed the pumpkin skull at the last minute, well into the evening, debraining it in the kitchen.  Check the pictures.

Around this time of year and St. Patrick's Day, we tend to honor non-Christian or pre-Christian (post-Christian) roots. To one Friend I wrote:

A backstory re Witches is my wife's name was Dawn Wicca, and although not a practicing Wiccan (it means "wise woman" -- a chosen name to help her be one) she was quite distrustful of Christianity, but not of Jesus (whom she liked reading about -- a voracious reader).  When she felt led to become a member of our Religious Society, she did so in such a way as to leave a clear audit trail (she was a bookkeeper after all):  no, you don't have to identify as Christian to be one of "our brand" of Friend.

What do I mean by "our brand"?  I mean "Beanite", named for the Bean family that came West, escaping the sweeping evangelism of Iowa that was changing the character of the people.  Kinda scary. They founded what was called College Park Association in California.

When it comes to Christmas itself I have my Fourth King ideology (mythology).  There's an acceptance of "Festivus" which is "A Festival for the Rest of Us" i.e. not-Xmas is holy too.  From the Parliament of World Religions I learned to celebrate "days in common" i.e. it's not essential (to me) to distinguish the various winter holidays in denominational terms.  Winter can be a hard time to get through, especially in the farther northern latitudes, a tunnel with precious little light seen at the end, going in.  There's some blind faith involved, plus an inability to stop the cycle except by migrating south.

The latter is what Carol is planning when she sees a way open for an entourage (perhaps).  Could we get a posse together, for intra-Quaker visitation?  Portland Friends are always visiting faraway places but what about Greater LA?

Letting a Western Friend editor do all the work of piecing it together is too lazy for words.  We should host some serious meetings amongst ourselves that aren't always following established patterns.  Some good might come of it.

Carol's ethnic bias is anti-Halloween as she associates it with cruel taunting and worse by Protestants against Catholics.  Her dad was Irish and perhaps this lore came down through that branch.

For me, orange and black imagery, and the hexapent ball (called a "global matrix" by some), go back quite a ways.  There's the "skinning a cat" discussion of how to make a flat map from a globe, where said cat would be striped were Princeton colors involved (OSU uses those too).

Safe to say, I have owned it in my own way, but then in the traditional way as well:  as a time for "traffic between the worlds".  Not about teasing Catholics in this zip code.

Tigers feature in Glenn's movie by the way.  Bangladesh is tiger country, all the more reason to scrutinize the action.

Lindsey took off with a bike trailer to pick up her order from Peoples, long in the planning.  Our attempts at efficiency as a household might earn us the label Dymaxion in some dimension.  That doesn't mean we're without lag, slack or waste.  Just that there's some discipline.

Happy Halloween.  I think I'll sip some Jack Daniels.

Maureen came buy earlier with an article from Harper's Magazine about high school debate.  That was Tara's sport in high school and Maureen knows that and is looking for a Blue House reaction, preferably in writing.

I showed her some opening frames from Resolved, the documentary, just to acquaint her with "spreading" (which Lincoln-Douglas does not do).  By the sound of what she read to me, the author's criticisms lay elsewhere.  I may have some comments in a later journal entry.

Nirel came by earlier, eluding my sensors.  In my "landing space for jets" mythology, she's one of the stealthier, puts down and leaves, refueled and resupplied, before anyone notices.  More power to her, another "witch" in this story (or "elvynchyk" if you prefer).

Enjoy your winter scenario (if in the north).

Functionalism Versus Objectivism (again)

Yes, the title is a joke, as there's no global fixed namespace for these "isms" -- you can read whatever you like into these inkblots.

However, I have a definite Versus in mind, the semi-feud between the Haskellians, the Knights who say "Ni!" to the Objectivists, those who are object oriented, and proud of it I might add (come to our Proud to be Objects Day parade sometime).

By Haskellian, I mean the broader camp of Lambda Calculus lovers who discourage side effects and hidden state changes.  Pure functional programming keeps the expressions just saying what they mean, whereas Objects are capsules of secrecy, making proof quasi-impossible; the transparency is just not there.

Objectivists are in the "wizard with wand" school and the Actions (spells) may be redolent with side effects, especially on globals (environmental variables).  Since structured programming days, we've been discouraged from hanging ourselves with all the slack that we're given.  Perhaps too few of us took heed, and now the frustrations of end users are aimed at us, for all our bugs.  If Windows had been written in Haskell, we wouldn't be where we are today (I don't disagree by the way).

My lurking suspicion is if the compass needle had flipped the other way, and functional programming were more at an apex in power, there'd be a counter-culture of Objectivist die-hards exclaiming about the purity of their new mental model, the one with state machines passing messages around, networks of agents, like "turtles" (or was that "tractors" and miss-translated?).

In any case, I'm quite admiring of Haskell's implementation of a type safe system with a kind of inheritance or polymorphism.  I find some similarities with Python, not just differences.  I also find it charmingly steam-punky in its retro neo-Victorian-sounding metaphysics.  "Don't be afraid of Monads, they're just where we get more imperative-seeming with our do [not dot] notation and stuff."  When they need to "talk to the real world" they let the Monads come between them, and their Shangri-La of pure functionality.  "You from the real world?  Talk to the Monad, please".

I don't mind "teaching the controversy" as some Creationists used to put it, but to steer clear of computer languages in general, scared away by this feud, is just too high a price to be paying.  We're sacrificing way too many ready-to-learn-somethings.  "Better both than neither" will be my Mantra of the Day (MOTD).

Revisiting Slavery

I've been studying several books on the history of slavery in the USA including:

Fit for Freedom, Not Friendship (2009)
The Origins of Pro-Slavery Christianity (2008)
Slavery and the Meetinghouse (2007)

On my Kindle / smartphone / laptop:

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (2006)

Quaker neoliberals of the pre Civil War period were quasi-uniform in condemning slavery but not in a "right now, get rid of your slaves" sense.  Government had legitimized slaves and the rights of slave owners should be protected against religious zealots who might impose other forms of zealotry once given the reigns of power.  Quietists don't trust the shrill.  Plus the immigrant pioneer settlers had a similar solution for all social ills:  send the troublemakers elsewhere.  Recruitment into evangelist churches had much to do with preparing slaves for God's plan to send them to Haiti and Liberia.  Quakers who couldn't abide slavery moved west and north.

Slaves tended to embrace Christianity for its promise of Liberation, ala the later Catholic Liberation Theology of Central and South America.  The non-slave class needed countering pro-slavery arguments to bolster Christianity as a slavery-justifying religion.  As the Bible is but clay in the hands of a skilled minister, it comes as no surprise that both pro- and anti-slavery extremists sought comforting words from this book.  This has continued to be the way to win friends and influence people in North America:  thump the Bible like a drum, but with a characteristic beat pattern that attracts your own kind (anti-gay, white-supremacist or neoliberal or whatever).

Many settled, well off Quakers did not like the "immediatist" position, whether they held slaves or no.  In social theory, slaves should be free, but until a new homeland could be found in Africa or someplace, some "Israel" (a promised land), they'd have to put up with 2nd class treatment as guests in this New World.

True, the slavers felt a different kind of relationship to the slaves than to the native peoples (Pueblo).  The pueblo had not been "invited" as in forcibly removed from their homeland and brought to America by boat.  Anglo-Euros and Africans were both here as boat peoples.  The Christians put a lot of pressure on themselves to "convert" their guests, so they would "think as we do".  Interracial church services were the norm in many counties of Virginia, as slaves were encouraged to take in the English view of themselves.  The Pueblo, on the other hand (I'm using the term inclusively, not just for the folks near the Rio Grande), were going to be a more classic enemy to be fought with weapons.  "If they won't join you, beat 'em" was the rallying cry.

The Quakers mostly disagreed with this philosophy and were ostracized as "people lovers" i.e. "lovers of human beings".  Their "no human being is illegal" campaign typifies their belief in a universal Inner Light, whereas most North Americans have a knee-jerk impulse to criminalize the undocumented and oppressed as a source of cheap prison labor (slavery is still going strong in the USA, by these other labels (one might argue the South won)).

Dot Notation Again

I'm somewhat the short order cook or maybe Chinese chef (that'd be a stretch maybe) in that I keep hopping around twixt the same simmering pots.

Back burner becomes front burner, then back it goes, and so on.  No, not so simple as "round robin".  More "interrupt driven".

So on Math Forum, I'm back to:  "sharing 'dot notation' with K-12 is overdue."

That sounds somewhat cryptic right off the bat.

K-12 is jargon for the ethno-cultural torch passing that goes on up through "coming of age" young adulthood.  Kindergarten through 12th grade, in the USA system, with four years of college sometimes called 13-16, making K-16 a rather complete induction into adulthood, by academic means.

"Dot notation" means different things to different web pages.  The chemists have a dot notation for indicating electrons, valence patterns.

There's a "dot notation" associated with Principia Mathematica, by Russell & Whitehead (I start my thread with an allusion to their approach), borrowed from Peano according to Wolfram.

Newton used dots for his "fluxions", first, second and third derivatives.  That's considered a bit unwieldy.  Typography went for Leibniz notation dx/dy, though Spivak had some problems with that too right? (thinking Calculus on Manifolds, my text at Princeton).

However, the "dot notation" to which I refer is "none of the above".  It's the "dot notation" of the object oriented family, i.e. C-family including Java, ABC / Python, JavaScript.  Smalltalk is considered a parent as well.  I've not been comprehensive (Simula, OCAML.. FoxPro).

Plus one could argue that using a "dot" is not that conceptually critical i.e. you can use an arrow or double colon or... yes, yes, I agree.

I'm casting a net and pulling in enough fish to at least point to substantive content.

"These fish, lets share them, with loaves too, why not?" -- these languages are free and open source and replicate faithfully to the bit.

But saying the software is "free" in the Stallman sense (of four freedoms) implies an ability to read and modify source code in the first place.  "Computer literacy" we were calling it in the 1980s.  I'm just calling it "literacy" and, under STEM, I don't see the need to decide which pigeon-holes.  These memes bounce around.

The key point is to share them, not pretend we only care about Leibniz notation, or Riemann.  This bias against machine executable languages was surely overcome by Mathematica and Mathcad.

We're over that prejudice: that it can't be mathematics if it runs on a machine.  On the contrary, Mathematica had to tighten up the old notations, with yet more precision.

Machines have helped us take our mathematics to a new level.  Lets teach "dot notation" in K-12 to help share about this breakthrough.  More SQL too while we're at it (different topic).

Quakers and Racism

My initial take, when I heard the suggestion we let go of "Oversight Committee" in favor of something less slavery-oriented, was one of surprise, then suspicion.

That Anglo-Euro Quakers would flinch and drop their own ball (their heritage and nomenclature) suggested deep-seated guilt, worth probing more deeply.  These "peculiar people" might be sicker (more psycho) than I'd thought.

Jiggering with words is a typically "white and nerdy" response; to make it all better with cynical / facile word games.

Put some "English" on the cue ball, replace "Oversight" with "Member Care" (fortifying against non-member interlopers?).  I wasn't eager to leave it to "English" to be the magic puzzle solver, yet again.

Isn't this is the essence of corporate sanitization:  keeping the language innocuous, toothless, feckless?

Keep it squeaky clean on the surface by further delaying the conversations that need to happen.

Is that Quakerism in a nutshell then, or is that Mormonism or what?  If the shoe fits, right?

Actually, now that I'm reading Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, I'm seeing plenty to celebrate in this Quaker heritage.  They were into cleaning up their act early and showed it could be done.

Yes, they started out as slave owners, many of them.  Quakers were sharp at business and slaves were a part of their version of World Game.

Today, undocumented aliens (including ETs?) perform much the same role.  Prison labor as well.  The USA has always depended upon grave inequities to uphold its proud (as in "vain", verging on "ugly") living standards.  That's really not a secret.  It's OK to say so in your speaking voice.

Euro indentured were less of a good deal.

Africans could be passed on to your children in your will.  Euros would pay off their debts and not be indentured.

The economics of owning slaves were easy, at least in the short term.

I had been unaware to what level the Quakers had disowned other Quakers in droves over the slave owning issue pre 1800.  I'm not sure all those "disowned" actually agreed with their status though (still studying that question).

The current fracas with Indiana Yearly Meeting might prove instructive, as to how Friends go about disowning each other even if that only means recognizing a schism when you see one.

IYM is agonizing about marriage at the moment, whether it's Biblical (as in "OK with God") if apparently contrary to the social mores and taboos of Middle Eastern agrarians before Jesus.

What's instructive is the extent to which the Bible was used by the pro-slavery movement, i.e. Scripture has a way of arming both sides, with God playing the suckers off against each other in true divide and conquer fashion.

"Way to go God! good job managing those silly humans, barely worthy of your breath" -- this is how the angels think, say some know-it-all gnostics:  humans are just beasts, prove it every day -- actually beasts are better.

Good thing God keeps confusing them, then, in their vanity-packed Towers of Babel (pick a skyscraper, any skyscraper...).  God subverts humans and their best laid plans, is smart enough to do so (being of superior intelligence).  Or maybe we're talking about a sub-god (Theo?), tasked merely with Earth's management?  It might be heresy to even ask.

Anyway, I'm happy to see Quakers fighting their own reflex-conditioning through the ages, standing out from the crowd.

However, this succumbing to the temptation to rename Oversight, because apparently (go the apologists) some people can't be trusted to see the difference between a whip-lashing slave-driver and a Friend, is most telling, most symptomatic.

"There they go again, wallowing in guilt, a low state, spiritually banal.  Shouldn't we help them?  I'm thinking more workshops would be good."  AVP.  Alternatives to Violence.  That was one way Friends sought to better themselves.  They took the workshops into some really difficult situations, where feuds were long-lived and vengeance potent.

Working with AFSC in the 1990s was a relief, for me, from some of the more the boring forms of racism I'm not that interested in.

In LAAP, we were looking at how immigrants from South and Central America were dealing with an influx from Asia and vice versa, mostly from the Asia-Pacific region.  Hence our name:  Latin-American Asia-Pacific program (with variants).

Our scene was sort of like West Side Story but without the white juveniles.  We weren't that interested in blacks either, although respected DJs and VJs helped out at dance parties, where whites showed up too, but not as centers of attention.

To study racism and work on smoothing relations, yet not with any special interest in "whites" -- that was interesting and fun.  I'm somewhat tired of "white racism" which I find rather predictable and boring, no longer instructive.

Will they get over it?  Who cares?  Not holding my breath.  Whites are just dummies, what can I say (chuckle).  Their idiocracy is absurd.

Sometimes I enjoy not thinking about "whites" at all, either as part of the problem nor as part of the solution necessarily.  What a privilege.  I am blessed.

The Lady (movie review)

In some ways this movie reminded me of Logicomix, probably because of all the shots of Oxford, and all those famous people (e.g. Bishop Tutu), making an appearance.  My own little life is kinda "comic book" to me, ala Crumb decor at Laughing Planet (a frame in a frame), so don't think I'm "putting it down" in comparing this movie to a comic book, or "graphic novel" if you prefer.  Anime.

The meditation it inspired was again about nationalism and its failures.  I think of the patch quilt of nation states applied as a layer as an especially Anglo invention that reached its peak with the Anglo empire.  Our suspended disbelief in nations was most suspended back then.

Of course (goes the thinking) every people needs a flag, a central government, ministries, agencies, bureaucracy.  "Is Greenland a country?" I asked a member of the Yorkshireman race.  "Of course it is, want me to look it up in the CIA World Fact Book"?  Antarctica isn't a country (yet).  The Vatican is a country.

Sony (as in Sony Pictures) is a company, not a country.  Disney with Disneylands could be a country, if it wanted to be.  EPCOT shows the nations as World Expo style pavilions, facing Tomorrowland, all companies (named The Grunch by Fuller, the BuckyBall an anchoring motif).

Some companies are bigger than some countries, though their assets may be more globally dispersed.  They make alliances with nations.  East India Tea... British Petroleum -- these companies have their own diplomats and embassies so to speak, not to mention bureaucracies, but the namespaces are different (logos instead of flags, though both use decals and stencils).

Then we have these more illegal-sounding names, like "cartel".  Burma has a lot of company cartels, no doubt with their internal rivalries, but from the outside it behooves them to don the "dress of nations" and parade around on stage with the others.  It's a lot about style & fashion, and whether one carries weapons, and whether it's socially acceptable to use them.

The presentation on Zapatistas at the meetinghouse used the word "gang" and "party" (as in "political party") somewhat synonymously.  These were violent actors.  They would sweep through and seize property, vandalize with impunity.  This is how warring groups attempt to assert control and/or deny rivals the benefits of having inventory. 

As a veteran of Laughing Horse Books and Video Collective movies, I'm quite aware that "companies" and "nations" fade into the underworld pretty quickly, with few hard edges.  You get to violence, bullying, coercion, imprisoning pretty quickly.  England has as sordid a history as the rest of them.

Companies seize land from peasants at gun point, often using nation state armies to do so.  Smedley Butler wrote about this pattern in War is a Racket (just delivered to my Kindle for $2.89).

Some peoples had the good fortune to work out some agreements before the weapons got so powerful and effective.  Imagine the US Civil War with carpet bombing and long range missiles.  Submarines were only just getting going.  With the US and others exporting outward weapons to pay bills, strengthening the hand of those opposed to weapons use becomes a critical business.  Countdown to Zero is a part of that strengthening, and is popular with non-aligned nations (those without a "superpower" complex).  The intelligence community tends to be supportive, somewhat by definition.

We packed the living room:  Steve Holden, myself, Lindsey & Melody, mom, and JenQ.  Melody and I went to Freddies and stocked up on popcorn.  I projected using mom's Sony VAIO, directly on the wall.  The picture quality was sharp, the sound plenty loud.  The sound track is quite musical, featuring piano and violin music.  Pachelbel's Canon rises to the level of theme music.

Mixing It Up

Today was somewhat complicated, however the weather was beautiful:  clear, crisp, still warm, a sunny October day.

October 6, a rally point for Occupy.

October 6, date of some DC-led invasion of Afghanistan (I'm a little hazy on the details, not my area of most focus (DC's various epileptic fits, attacks of neuritus or whatever we call it -- lots of flailing and flinging explosives, lethal dorkiness (like 911))).

October 6:  Willamette Quarterly Meeting (WQM) in full swing.

The complicated part:  Carol Urner, my mom, was scheduled to address both the Occupy Rally downtown, in the park blocks, and to serve on a panel at Quakers at WQM.  Yet she was quite ill with a cold-flu and would she even be mobile?

The bright weather and Tylenol helped her back on her feet and I got her to the rally in time for her speech, but her WILPF peers, knowing of her illness, had scheduled a Code Pink woman to speak in her stead.

The Code Pink woman's talk was pretty interesting in that she mentioned that a substantial delegation of civilians were marching in Pakistan to visit areas hardest hit by the V2s er drones.  Not just Congress people get those junkets.  Authentic citizen diplomacy is more effective anyway.

I was serving as a roaming camera guy, sometimes wandering away from the event.  Most of the police, charged with ushering the subsequent march through town (a complicated route) were hanging out at Starbucks.  No one was giving them any trouble.  The horses were out as well.

Some faux police ("Occu Popo") with giant fly swatters shadowed the police, just clowning around, somewhat mocking state authority (an old theme, goes back to the Middle Ages).

At meeting, I got to meet Kathleen Burkhardt, daughter of Jeanne.  She gave me one of the '3rd Culture' pamphlets they have at Lewis & Clark for people like herself and myself, somewhat expat in outlook i.e. lonely planet types, less able to say where we're "from".

Mom's presentation went well.  Two of the panelists chose homophobia as an example of a touchy topic that their respective Quaker institutions had been dealing with.  A former NPYM clerk and current NWYM clerk shared about their multi-threaded process.  Jane's story was set in East Africa whereas Tom's was set here in Oregon.

Mom's story was about an AFSC board (which meets in Philadelphia), going from rubber stamp to more activist during the recent succession of executive directors.  She gave us some good insights into Quaker process at AFSC, which has a Quaker board of directors (of which she has been a member of for several years).

While Brian Wilson was talking (effective speaker) I swung through a regulated state liquor store for some Jack Daniels in a circuit to check the parking meter.  I used some in my coffee after all this was over and I was back at my house, blogging.  Apparently alcohol is a touchy topic among some Friends as well.

Tom thought processing around alcohol had helped his Yearly Meeting develop practices and discussion muscles which carried over when it was time to address homophobia more openly.

Speaking of homophobia, some of the standup comics at The Bagdad last night were doing their best to gross us out about sex in general.  Anything carnal (means "meat related") can be gross, I agree.  Raw unadulterated first person stories tend to be better ice breakers than teachings delivered from on high as it were.  Comedians may be more effective than preachers, when it comes to stirring the pot.

In the Middle Ages (Europe), it was more common to see meat space as ugly (they had more disease, enjoyed less sanitation that many take for granted today).  The 'body beautiful' movement that came with the Renaissance hearkened back to ancient Greece.  The idea of sexuality as 'dirty' helped protect people from STDs.

A lot of credit goes to the film industry for helping elevate carnality to a higher art -- not just talking about MA-rated skits (aka porn) that take a cultural context for granted.  Real innovation creates a new context, doesn't just piggy-back.

I've been looking at some of the characters around the time of Louis IVX, thanks to discussions with a retired musician from Italy living at Leslie's house.  She specialized in music of that period.  Ms. Jeanne Guyon was spreading the mysticism of Quietism in his court, affecting his grandson, in opposition to Catholic orthodoxy.  Quakers were having an impact in that regard.

Thanks to Melody for sharing this instructional video about how to build a self-wicking planter from pallets.

After the end of the panel discussion, I mingled with Friends.  I told Sara Michner and Chris Cradler about Drunk History on Youtube, the one about president Harrison being my favorite.

Speaking of DIY projects, Lew Scholl (with some help from his Friends) has recently installed the new sound system and was giving it a workout.  Panelists used a hand-held mic to project sound from the several ceiling mounted speakers.  Special battery-powered devices allow especially hard-of-hearing individuals to jack in with ear buds.

Sanity Check

I listened to the first of the US presidential debates on National Public Radio (NPR).

The NPR correspondents do not seem like National Forensics League judges in that they put relatively more weight on style of delivery and less on content.  Both matter of course.  But NPR's seeming to call it for Romney traced more to style than substance.

"I wonder what the conservatives will say about the 'liberal media' if we call it for Romney" one of the correspondents mused aloud.  That may have been more the point:  to show journalistic "objectivity'.  After all, Romney had just said he would cut NPR from the budget, rather than let China finance it (through borrowing).

I think the assumption is political debates take place in their own namespace, have their own logic, which is not always that connected to what's really going on.  Internally to that namespace, I thought president Obama did a better job.

The public knows, at some level, that the plans of presidents never pan out exactly, life isn't like that.  So the substance is somewhat discounted, intuitively.  The debates become more like an audition, like American Idol, for a role.  The president will be a media personality and the public is judging whether they might get used to a persona.

Governor Romney allowed his proposals to collapse without alternatives if they were seen to raise the deficit in any way, yet it seemed clear that with the tax policies and projected military spending increases, that "closing loopholes" was not going to cover expenses.

If the loopholes could be closed, then maybe some of these shareholders and executives at General Dynamics, insisting on producing more M1 tanks, even with a desert full of them, would shoulder more of the burden.  That's unlikely though.  The whole point of making those tanks is to enjoy rolling in dough while letting the public pay back the lenders, with interest.

The "closing loopholes" idea is itself a giant loophole, being used as a sound bite, to get elected.  It's more what people want to hear than it is a coherent set of policies.  As the one NPR correspondent said:  of the two, Romney seemed the more eager to get the office.  I agree.  He's willing to say whatever, no matter how mushy.

Reality can come later, once he's in.

But maybe the unreality of Romney's thinking was more a reflection of my fevered state.  I was suffering from chills and went to bed soon thereafter.

I feel better today and am working in a neighborhood coffee shop.

My thanks to Ellen Simmons, member of Multnomah Friends, for arranging for me to meet with Jeanne Burkhardt, visiting from Canada.  Her husband Jim, who has visited Wanderers, also joined us.

One fact the NPR fact checkers (interviewed after the debate) didn't check, was this idea of tax breaks for relocating a plant overseas.  President Obama claims businesses have tax incentives to export jobs.  Romney said he had no idea with the president was talking about.

That'd be something for NPR to get around to talking about I think.  What's the story there?

Disarm Day 2012

Checking back through my blog posts, I'm not finding much on the 50th anniversary of Portland's officially commemorating of the atomic bombing of two cities (authorized by some) and a commitment to healing from nuclear weapons woes more generally, with a focus on Hanford.

The poet Laurette of Washington grew up in Hanford and had a personal take on the whole scenario.  She and her charming family were a welcome part of the well-designed program.  Japan had a diplomatic presence.  Native Americans had a foot print.  Many said this was the best ever.

Polo gave the event continuity, as he has in other years, and singled out Carol Urner, my mother, for all the commitment she had demonstrated in helping get the event rolling 50 years before, the bombs having been dropped several years before that.

I'm sure I wrote about this someplace before, or did I only take pictures?

Portland is celebrating its 1st anniversary of Occupy this Saturday and I'm chauffeuring between events. The Willamette Quarter is also doing its thing, with AFSC putting its time into the Occupy side of things.  I'll be driving for AFSC, and doing photography.  Carol, my mom, is both speaking at the Occupy rally (lightning talk) and at the Meetinghouse (on a panel).

Lindsey has a map of the march route and is planning some performance art (trademark punky loud, somewhat on the rude and crude side though no worse than American Dad in that respect -- just went through Season Six I think it was).

A Birthday Party

My memories of Chris go back a long way, to my earliest boyhood, back to when we still lived around 12th and Prescott.  The Martins, Hazel Hemphill, the Jumps, the Pinneys, Iona Tanner...  these were some of the early personalities I tuned in, sitting in the back of the car, sent upstairs for First Day School, and so on.

A faction within the USG had successfully lobbied Truman for permission to detonate uber-bombs over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Contrary to Einstein's hopes, the Americans would import German scientists and use the very Nazis he'd hope to circumvent, to make the Atomic Age an horrific experience.  Portland works on healing this trauma to this day, with Hanford part of the scar.

Speaking of Hanford, mom is just back from a conference there.  These days, the USG is being vocal about having been raped by the Grunch and left in a ditch, defenseless.

You wouldn't think of Uncle Sam as broken and bust, left in a ditch, but then you probably haven't read about the Gross Universal Cash Heist, a continuation of the story in Critical Path, wherein the ever law-abiding, ever rule-changing "zombie devils" ("corporate persons" ala Voodoo Economics) work to subvert and overturn any advances on behalf of humanity made by FDR and his ilk.

The Business Plot people hoping to recruit Smedley "Fighting Quaker" Butler, never gave up on their quest to gut the government and repurpose its treasury to their own ends.  We're talking about a billions-of-dollars vitrification plant that has yet to do any useful cleanup work, budgets sucked dry.  What's the story on the Savannah Plant?

Anyway, back to Chris.  He lives across from the Stark Street Meeting House today, which is where I first met him.  However, he's a member of a different church, and actively performs in that church's rituals, which are more elaborate than Friends' (that's not saying much as Friends have it stripped down to a minimum, the name "Stark Street" apropos (as in "stark naked")).

His older brother is Craig and his younger is Doug.  Doug does a lot of database work, as I've done, mostly for unions these days.  He and Heather talked a lot.  Heather is married to a high school chemistry teacher and I couldn't resist telling her Breaking Bad should be in her queue, as worthy adult entertainment.  She's one of those brilliant and beautiful Pinney kids after all, an original founding family of our Stark Street (aka Multnomah) Meeting.

Attenders to the Spirit

Attenders are Friends who attend to the Spirit (however named) using the Friends Meeting for Worship as a vehicle for group (corporate) experience and worship.

If an attender is led by the spirit to seek membership status, she or he should write a letter to the Meeting's Oversight Committee.  This triggers a process involving a Clearness Committee wherein the attender tests this leading, a kind of peer review process.  See the Meeting's documentation for details.

However, it is not a requirement of Friends that attenders seek membership in order to fully participate in the life of the meeting.  Committee work is open to all, and the label of "Friend" is used liberally to embrace all participants in the Religious Society who wish to claim some level of affiliation.

One's level of participation, more than one's status on paper, is often a better gauge of one's degree of commitment to Friends and their testimonies.  Attenders may identify themselves as attending Friends e.g. "I attend such-and-such a meeting" whether or not they claim membership status.

Membership brings with it some new practices however.  Members should expect their Meeting to be involved in carrying out their wishes upon death.  What do you want to happen with your Flickr account, your Facebook, your email?  What should happen with your body and so forth.

Attenders usually have not taken the step of asking a Meeting for these kinds of services, though I know of exceptions.

Membership, once acquired, may be transferred from Meeting to Meeting by a recognized process (see Faith and Practice or similar documentation).  Other forms of membership, not obtained through any specific monthly meeting, may be available, either through a Yearly Meeting or perhaps FWCC.  Check manuals for the latest practices or write to the clerk of one of these bodies for more information.

The choice to not pursue membership does not mean one is a second class participant in the life of a Meeting, only that one may have made other arrangements with regard to the dying process.

The practice around weddings is similar:  one may have a Quaker wedding without being a member, or be a member yet choose to wed in a different manner, perhaps because other family would prefer to celebrate in a different tradition.

Sometimes a new Meeting will form from a worship group in such a manner that the attenders attain membership in the process of the Meeting itself becoming recognized as part of a larger group of meetings.

However, in the case of breakaway Meetings, affiliation with other Quaker organizations may come later if at all.   Not all Friends recognize one another as Friends of their own kind (the division between unprogrammed and pastoral is an old schism, however there are others as well).

Attending Friends may choose to not seek membership because their affiliations extend to other traditions, some of which may be controversial among Friends.

A given membership may collectively fear infiltration by "pagans" or "spies" or "gangs" or "ranters" or "the AFSC" or "clerics" some other persuasion judged "not Friendly enough".

Rather than rock the boat by insisting on membership, attender status may be the way to go i.e. continuing to participate as an attender may be the most "sympatico" or mutually agreeable outcome for a given special case Friend.  Ben Franklin might be considered a role model in this regard.

Note that a common practice among Friends, historically speaking, among members and attenders alike, is journaling, which these days might mean blogging.

If you're looking to adopt more Friends' practices, consider taking up journaling in some way shape or form.  More and more people are doing that anyway, which might be taken as a sign that Friends were on to something early -- which fact should probably not seem surprising given Friends attend to the leading of the spirit or zeitgeist.

Fall Equinox

I'll summarize a number of events here.

First, the Portland State Meteorite Lab held its annual fundraiser, once again featuring Brother Guy Consolmagno, astronomer for the Vatican, a sovereign nation with two disconnected properties:  at the center of Rome and Castel Gandalfo.  Then lets not forget VATT, the Mt. Graham observatory in Arizona.

During WW2, the Vatican's growing meteorite collection was preserved at Castel Gandalfo.  There was some understanding, promoted by FDR especially, that there would be no bombing of Rome or other historic sites in Italy.

Castel Gandalfo was likewise mostly spared, although an American plane did hit at least one of the buildings.

Brother Guy also talked about the tank battles of North Africa, given one of the meteor donors was also a leading Anglo surveyor of the region, and an evangelist for the idea of a new lake in the Sahara, fed by canal.  The Brits were advantaged by the surveying / mapping that had occurred as a result of this planning.

Lew was at this talk and showed me some of the pictures on his phone that he's been getting with his new telescope, which takes a camera as an attachment.  Lew has pressed ahead with researching, ordering and installing a sound system for the Friends Meetinghouse on Stark Street.  We should be testing it this week.

Lots of biking that day, including out to around 13th and Alberta, near the house where my memories of Portland begin.  I took some pictures of it.

Most of the week was devoted to getting our Portland faculty reconfigured, with a super from Illinois flying out to do some training.  We toured a bit, visiting Oaks Park.  She's a grader, like the rest of us.

Wanderers kicked off its Fall Retreat, timed with the Equinox, on Friday.  Bob and Sarah joined us.  Good seeing Alex again (he stopped by the Pauling House today and we went for lunch at Toney Bento).

Rose City Astronomers, the cosmologists' group, decided to shift their meeting to Friday and showed up just as the retreat was getting underway.  This confluence of groups resulted in some interesting cross-fertilization.  At least one cosmology buff jumped over to our group and stayed with us until Saturday.

Wanderers met for breakfast at The Roadrunner, a new cafe on Division.

Since everyone except me has been out of town, the dog has had some unsupervised time to bark up a storm.  This bothered the neighbors quite a bit.  I need to keep the windows closed when no humans are home.

Lindsey returned from her hike around the mountain, in the company of three others.  Today, the Food Not Bombs drop off was bigger than ever.

I've been plowing through Breaking Bad amidst a flurry of documentaries.

Ignite Portland 11 happened in the middle of this.  Ben, with our school, was a principal organizer.  That's appropriate given the historical roots of the Ignite franchise.

The Love Song of RBF (movie review)

This traveling exhibit of movie director + live band is a new kind of blending of film and the arts.  In the early days of film, before "talkies", a live piano or even an orchestra might provide sound track, with spoken parts inserted as readable text, usually not much of it.  Comic books were for the more literate, who could get off on lots of talk and thought balloons.

Having the director, Sam Green, narrate the movie adds to the texture of the Q&A, plus makes it the logical analog of the book tour.  Why would you tour your movie and not show it?  The show is to get into the material with an audience and go with the flow they create.  In this case, the fifth showing of the work, the audience found Fuller endearing but also easy to mock in a gentle way.  They were actually mocking a whole generation.  "Bucky meets the Hippies on Hippie Hill" is one of Sam's favorite tapes and it's obvious why.  An acid tripping hippie gives Bucky a "high David" (star sign) amidst a veritable talk balloon.  Bucky takes it all in, amused, and the TV anchor assures the audience we all had a good time (the 1960s was quite tense remember, with a break-down in town-gown relations).

This is a definite contribution to the literature.  People have been wondering about that archives.  That the Rodney King episode and near burning of Fuller's chronofile was a triggering event was news to me.  What I remember is more mundane and soap operatic, but with the same outcome:  the chronofile went to Stanford, which has this Matrix-like way of storing things.  Good outcome.  The audience is somewhat mesmerized by that image, right from the beginning, right after the helicopter does its thing.  But then all those copters were soon needed in Viet Nam and did "that thing" (lifting a geodesic dome from point A to point B) hardly at all, after that.  Domes have faded into the industrial background, the spheres back into nature, as carbon molecules and viruses, topics in STEM.

Allusions to Thinking Out Loud, another major filmic contribution, were cut through it.  We end in pretty much the same place, with memories of this quirky man in a Hawaiian shirt trying to get us to feel the world spinning round, a fool on the hill.

The Q&A was interesting, as was the venue, Washington High School, our ghostly Ministry of Education but a headquarters for PICA all along (an art colony of sorts) and producer of this TBA event, 10th year running.  A major event.  I stood in the wrong line and despaired of getting in, then found Trevor with his friend.  I felt lucky to get in, lets put it that way.  Plus I'd gotten special dispensation from the clerk of Oversight to leave our monthly committee meeting early (enough time to go over guidelines on the membership process, a process subject to attender review).

One guy in the audience told the story of how Bucky stopped by his VW bus to explain how he could enlarge its footprint, when stationary, with slanted awnings of various kinds, a well known design by this time.  We have a tea van with "wings" here in Portland.  Another announced that "tensegrity" was still important and could change the world.  Trevor and I exchanged glances, mutually amused to be immersed in such a theater.

Trevor had some souvenirs for the performers, was actually a guest of the director's.  His Synchronofile is well respected among Buckynauts.  I'd learned of this event through Tim DuRoche whom I met through Portland Center Stage during the last major Bucky-related event in Portland.  Speaking of which, one could see relationships between this performance and the D.W. Jacobs play.  The synchronization of pre-recorded media and live performance is essential to them both.  Psychedelica haunt the background.

The arc of Sam's story is the Seattle World's Fair as we know it today (Seattle Center), where there's still a "laser dome" showing synchronized sound and light.  He'd gone to "laser Gaga" and gone gaga, in part owing to the mystery of the venue.  Who had planned a "laser dome" for Seattle's youth, anyway?  Where does this story start?  That's what takes him to Stanford, and the archives.

The music was quite engaging and reminiscent of the Burning Man focused Factory Of One.  The "music video" genre has come full circle, as there's no reason a live performance can't have pre-recorded elements as well.  The extended shots of the Dymaxion Car, the dome in Montreal, and the compositions that go with, are nicely meshed.  You could hear the horn in traffic.  Bucky having his own house built, in Carbondale, is indeed endearing.  Anne's presence is muted.

The audience thought "dymaxion" sounded funny (which it does).

T.C. Howard gets credit for the laser dome, which was originally part of a Boeing exhibit.

Speaking of psychedelica, the sidebar on Stewart Brand is quite good.  "Why Haven't We Seen Any Pictures of the Whole Earth Yet?" he's asking, after yakking with Bucky (and dropping acid).  Pretty soon, we're seeing them, including on the cover of the Whole Earth Catalog.  Good to fit that in.  One could sense a torch being passed, in a way, as the old hippies communicated their lore to a 21st century audience, mostly born after Nixon, dim memories of Reagan.

Having an atmosphere of general levity, with Fuller's upbeat message still resonating, is conducive to seriousness also.  This was a Powerpoint on steroids, with lots of resources devoted thereto, and one would want it to make waves.  Even if the content becomes more cartoon-like, as we turn to Synergetics with live sound, we'll not want to let go of the serious notes.  Your quality of life somewhat hinges on what you do with those artifacts, those toys, now that you have them.  You've been well provided for, but are your reflexes too dated to make good use of the opportunity?  Are you humans too slow?  That's a perennial question, isn't it.

Wanderers 2012.9.11

Michael Hagmeier is here at the Pauling House, with Heather, and some of his didj collection.

Dick Pugh is here too, reminding us of the upcoming lecture by the Vatican astronomer, about the Vatican's meteor collection.

Since Dick and Michael have both been to Australia that made for some discussion.

Michael is selling tickets for his concert, September 29th.

The conversation continued to meander.

Discovered bombs and weapons from wars long over (a topic).

Jimmy is here talking about his experiments with ultra-light camping gear.  That discussion is apropos as Lindsey is busy configuring for an away team, leaving tomorrow.

I left her to her business in the living room as conversation would only make for further delays.

How much weight to pack is a big discussion.  Lots of parameters and tradeoffs.

This all sounds like STEM to me, and/or "girl scout math" (one of my curriculum writing projects).

More with less.  Dymaxion.

The tiny water filter Jimmy brought for show and tell was awesome.  Lindsey should meet this guy.

DjangoCon 2012

We met in Crystal City this year, adjacent Reagan Airport.  I came and went on US Airways.  Election fever was in the air, or at least lots of political theater.  I took a break from the MVP party in Steve's suite, to see what the prez had to say.  Then back up the elevator for more jocular banter.  I'd supplied the booze, though I knew my taxi driver had religious practices that forbade him to deal in alcohol.  He wasn't, these were separate transactions (cab fare versus supermarket).  Hyatt again.

I was most fortunate to reconnect with Glenn Baker, high school chum in the Philippines.  He'd been in Vienna, Virginia before Manila, in India, Turkey and Pakistan before that, another expat brat, like me.  His dad was USIS when I knew them, mine USAID, former UN, a free lancer.  My dad'd also worked for the Libyans, the Egyptians and the Swiss.  Glenn stayed with our family that time we were living in DC and I was rather newly into the Bucky stuff.  Glenn got a job with CDI, and formed better relations with Cuba.  I went on in software, developing applications in a proprietary Microsoft language (acquired, formerly FoxPro 2, another in the xBase genre), then migrated to Python, which is what brought me here, courtesy of The Open Bastion and my day job.

In supplying some drinks (including Dead Guy Ale) for this party, I was contributing as a private citizen to an event.  The Django Software Foundation (DSF) never commits funds for alcohol purchase (I think that's a bylaw) and some of its core developers have no use for the stuff.  This doesn't mean Django the product can't be used by gambling establishments that serve drinks.  The software license is one of freedom, and open source.  Coffee shops that offer games of skill and practice for charitable cause funding, are welcome to use Django.

Glenn and I checked out The Artisphere in Rosslyn, closed on Labor Day, where he spotted a friend of his in the lineup of exhibitors.  Then we found ourselves in Georgetown, almost by accident, exploring the "Exorcist steps".  This will be the topic of my presentation at our next staff Show & Tell I'm pretty sure.  These don't happen often (last one:  Bodega Bay, backdrop for Hitchcock's The Birds).  As The Story of Film remembers, The Exorcist pioneered new ground in helping audience members go crazy and faint or whatever it was (some kind of religious frenzy, as if possessed by some spirit).

I learned a lot about the limitations of current web technology.  Stuff I thought had become seamless, is far from it.  The question, from an engineering standpoint, is whether you're looking at JSON or HTTP stuff on the wire.  A Twitter or one of those will load the HTML and then just puppet with JSON, using web sockets or whatever.  That's right, up to our ears in geek speak as usual, happy to have our own language.  I sat next to such creatures at Princeton in the cafeteria, shyly with my tray, wondering what they were yammering about.  Was it English?  Maybe not quite?

At least the gender gap is closing.  Many other gaps are strongly in evidence.  PyLadies invited Steve for breakfast.  I was "slaying the Q" that morning (shop talk).  I was grateful to sit in on many of the talks.  FoxPro was SQL intensive, still is (a language for writing thick clients -- can also work server side).  I think a lot about Trucking (as in Truckology) in this context, not exclusively about medical data.

The talk on credit card industry standards, PCI, and the difference between A and D status, was enlightening.  To certify as a D, meaning you warehouse credit card info, is no easy task.  The Web offers many solutions, with more to come, whereby an A status merchant can sell to a cardholder without card numbers ever hitting her or his persistent storage devices.  This makes life much easier, should auditing happen.

I actually managed to space out my return date and lucked out, thanks to Expedia guy and US Airways.  Usually same day fares on busy flights are unavailable to exorbitant.  I was glad to help with ground control remotely by cell, when Lindsey's mom's plane came in late (LW, our visiting scholar and blog character -- and strong athlete in the "lifestyle Olympics").  I kept burners warm at the Math Forum, cooking up some steamy STEM stew (I think with a good aroma, healthful fare).

Eric Sterling proved an interesting interlocutor, one of our keynote speakers.  He joined our party at the top of the Hyatt, with our friends from Brazil, other places, and held forth on Quakers and Quaker history in an engaging manner.  His first job upon leaving college was with WILPF, where my mom works to this day.  Fascinating guy.  That's the kind you'll meet around DC if you're lucky.

Burning Man proved a theme, somewhat unexpectedly.  Ties within the Django community were somewhat anticipated (by me) but in the rear view mirror it makes sense.  "More Monty Python jokes and allusions in the literature" was one of the popularly agreed upon resolutions, at least in the circle I was lurking in.  My perspective is limited, as always.  Good hearing from Gagus (his Google name), my student in Indonesia.

Madagascar 3 (movie review)

This movie was rewarding because of personal imagery I'd concocted, wherein a tiger jumps back and forth, from perch to perch, through a ring.  This was my rendering of the Jitterbug Transformation, something talked about in Synergetics, the transcendentalist philosophy I sometimes traffic in.  I used to fill my notebooks with doodles, including of this tiger jumping between positive and negative Universe through cosmic zero.

Madagascar 3 has such a tiger.  True, this isn't a movie on Synergetics perhaps, but synergy happens nonetheless.  Also thematic (for me) is the Russian theme, as I've sounded like some exKGB guy in some of my confessions, though I'm not claiming the requisite accent.  This might be Wittgenstein's influence, hard to say.  Having this all be a circus adds a touch of Le Carré.

The characters in this animal story are pleasantly multi-ethnic, which goes with their being different species.  Their personalities were strongly sketched in the first two of this series, such that the third gets away with a lot of coasting, taking advantage of saved capital.  I don't begrudge the film makers this choice, as giving character development some R&R leaves plenty of room for world touring (we go to Rome, New York, London, Monte Carlo though not necessarily in that order).

Nor is it that we're leaving character development entirely out of it.  On the contrary, some new characters are added, including a village idiot of a circus seal, an Italian.  The naive belief of these has beens, in some Circus Americano is to some extent a self-booting fantasy, like America itself, always self-reinventing.  Now we like the Russians, a lot.  Afro, polka dots...  quite the melting pot of freedom-loving tricksters.

The Story of Film: An Odyssey (movie review)

The most obvious thing to say at the outset is:  there are lots of ways to tell the story of film and this is just one guy's account.  Such introductions should be unnecessary but not every reader is so fluent in the humanities as to remember what it means to give a work the floor:  that means you let the storyteller tell a story and don't always interrupt with the obvious thought:  but you're not the only storyteller around.  Like, duh.

And a gifted storyteller he is, this Mark Cousins, and fluent with the camera, talking about editing techniques, lighting, while building a vocabulary, an unvarnished travelogue.  He needed to go to these places, interview the directors, a few actors.  He films what might be considered mundane parts of town, amidst the more touristy, but that just adds to the realism, and helps establish a consistent background for framing, for telling the story of film.  The other glue that holds this movie together is the lilt and cadence of the narration itself.

The film is self aware and shows the tradition of film and artists manifesting self awareness through this medium.  The scope is global.  We don't just look at "international films" in some section; we keep circling the globe, coming back, updating.  Iran, Japan, Korea, Russia... we keep revisiting.  The Hollywood sign is given lots of closeup treatment, supports the reverie.  As our view keeps rolling around the planet, our vocabulary grows.  Italy, Nordic countries... China.

My own trajectory took me through Rome's English language theaters, mainly two, one far away in Trastevere and the other within walking distance, not far from Piazza Euclide (I was closer to Piazza Ungheria, on Viale Paroli).  Steve McQueen, James Coburn, the 007 films... spaghetti westerns.  I watched a lot in the Philippines too.  I was pleased when he hit films I'd seen, made me feel culturally literate, but on balance I'm more reminded of what a small fraction of these movies I've seen, and all of them are but the tip of an iceberg.  One gets the same feeling in a library or bookstore:  way too many for one lifetime, where to begin?

The focus is very much on directors and innovation.  What was cutting edge at the time, where were the most copied ideas coming from?  How do you show when two people are talking to one another, what is your angle as onlooker?  We become habituated to conventions, such that when a different approach is taken, we notice, but how well may we articulate what's different?  Films like this one, 15 hours in all, spread over five weeks of viewing, help build that shared global literacy and ability to discuss and appreciate, as well as make, films.

What I'd say The Story of Film does not have much time for is animation / cartoons (Fantasia, Yellow Submarine, The Simpsons), television and advertising, and the kind of literary ideas being bandied about in wider culture.  The TV sitcom and soap opera, news coverage, the ecosystem between Netflix, Internet and film.  He talks about the move to digital, but less in terms of what this means in terms of distribution / copying.

Thanks to Trevor, I'd seen some of that Scotsman climbing the Guggenheim, and that single 90 minute movie shot by Sakahrov in Russia.  The Stalker, I've seen it.  So pleased he gets all the way up through Avatar and Moulin Rouge.  Romeo & Juliet by Baz Lurhman. No slacker.  Tight script.  Really interesting personas.  Nothing about Mishima and Schrader's make of it, that I can remember anyway.  Nothing about Aliens, but lots on James Cameron.  Good awareness of documentaries.  No mention of the Qatsi movies.  No mention of IMAX or 3D.

I was fascinated by TV series theme songs and opening sequences, a connoisseur one might say.  Six Feet Under's was brilliant and bleak.  Advertising, and jingles, really got my attention as well.  We used to record commercials for each other, back in Rome.

Factory of One (movie review)

I've not been to the annual Burning Man Festival, which is about to start up again in a couple weeks.  I'd become peripherally involved, as "burners" (as they call themselves) had a kind of "decompression party" at Circadia, a kind of art colony (like Milepost 5).  Lindsey, new in Portland, had been attracted to that spot as a likely place to perform (which panned out).  I was her chauffeur / roadie at the time, exploring another side of Portlandia.

This movie, A Factory of One, is about the artistic seriousness of one particular individual who likes to make the large multi-purpose structures that characterize Burning Man.  People feel inspired to make prototypes and also to show off lifestyle ideas.  They do this in blazing heat, wind, terribly challenging conditions, which is its own kind of field testing.  In some ways, new generations are giving birth to themselves in this event, even though it only lasts for six days.

The film starts out months ahead of time and teases us through months of tedious welding and metal work in the garage.  Computer graphics spin around, showing the Emerald City that's planned (hexagons and pentagons, a kind of "Stockton stockade" (per global matrix)).  A story unfolds.  Not everyone who planned to go ends up going.  No keys to the city this year (spoiler?).  Free haircuts are a big hit, great idea.

This was a debut public showing of a smartly edited interestingly scored documentary.  Not only was it set in Portland, but the producer, director, main star, and musician were all on stage to answer questions afterward.  I asked if they'd considered showing more of the film-making process as a part of the film.

I've been watching The Story of Film, fifteen hour documentary, and am hip to the idea that an artist doesn't always try to paint him or herself into the canvas.  By keeping a certain psychological distance, even in intimate settings, the film becomes a parallel project with its own pattern of interfacing with the public, such as this occasion at Hollywood Theater, one of Portland's finest and an historic venue for great films.

Friend Timothy Travis was there, and also shared a statement.  He thought people could relate to the solo labor of love, the private passion, that people bring to their work.  He expected the movie would be a big success because people would resonate with the main character.

I was there with Matt, more of a skeptic and less blown over by the Burning Man culture, which was great for contrast.  We're used to getting cues from the music as to how we're supposed to feel about a scene, and sometimes those cues would seem at odds.  I got used to the style though and don't blame the craftsmanship.  This is a well designed film that makes innovative use of time lapse and speed up, to show a project progressing.

People who like Myth Busters and This Old House, other crafty DIY shows, will likely like this film.  Make: Magazine should do a rave review.

Matt's older brother's son, Nathaniel, was the producer and one of the cinematographers, also the editor (director: Sage Eaton).  Talk about a labor of love.  I hope this film gets to the viewers who would benefit most from seeing it.  There's much to learn from its simple story against a somewhat extraordinary background, like the birth of a new nation (but different).

Of Quaker Schools and Descartes

Although I resigned my membership some years ago, to bolster the position of "attender" more whole-heartedly, I've continued to serve on Oversight as well as other committees. Insofar as most branches keep the membership idea alive, it needs to be nurtured and our Meeting has been doing some of that homework.  The quality seems pretty high.

At work, we have changes in refund policies and new stresses around bottlenecks.  Then there's the enigma of such a low profile and skeletal crew.  A big contract might sink us.  I'm glad we're so small.  Having strong math skills is an interpersonal asset in many cases.  If you don't glaze over, when talking to the boss, that's a plus.

Although we're not under water (figuratively speaking, in Manila this might be more literally true), the extended family is feeling the pinch.  I was delving into Neal Stephenson's Reamde (not a typo) recently, and enjoying the long dose of family he opens with.  Were my high desert school or schools to materialize (Caldera an influence), I'd be looking to place my people, no question.  I'd be looking for good fits.

As a "director of my own movie" character (what they teach you in est, no?), of course I'm most familiar with the characters around me, many of them characters in this blog.  So of course I'm not hesitant to put them forward, where I think they might shine.  I'm not some boss with a whip though.  People aren't worried when they don't pander to my every whim, and that's how it should be.  I'm just another guy in the gym.

Like I'd always wanted to have a safe haven for Nick, full of domes, plenty of bandwidth.  He'd be the old bardic historian, the narrator, the auto-poises guy.  He didn't live to see the day.  I've felt behind schedule.

Am I talking about boarding schools then?  Where would they (the Global U students) go next?  How do all these bases link up, these campuses?  What is their purpose, whom do they serve?

These are all excellent questions, and these blogs weave in and out around some answers, giving my personal vision of how it could work (bizmos play a role).  Call me a science fiction writer -- as well as a spin doctor (complementary skill sets).

I've also been reading about Descartes' in that book I believe I first learned about from Glenn Stockton, Descartes' Secret Notebook.  I've finally finished it on my Kindle (lots of typos, I must say -- the OCR output is not double checked by a human very carefully).

Whatever Cartesianism maybe is, maybe isn't, lets circle the lifestyle, somewhat like Wittgenstein's, in terms of wandering, sometimes with a military operation, a lot of time alone, a solitary soul.  He kept wanting to escape his "friends" because, lets face it, many "friends" are really "frenemies".  The more jealous people got, the more was he their target.

He suffered some heart wrenching breakups and stupid feuds.  He died when he was about my age, trying to educate a young queen to assume her duties for Sweden.  Not an easy job, as he was surrounded by a jealous court of people this book calls "grammarians" (WTF?).

Anyway, I'm not planning to be a Descartes basher, whatever I think of "cogito ergo sum".  The fact that his skull got separated from the rest and ended up in some Museum of Hominids, representing the Sapiens, is really quite hilarious on some level.  Lets assume he'd be amused.

Adventures in Teaching and Driving

I was just coming to the Y where I-405 sweeps over the Willamette on Fremont Bridge, a high arching double decker taking traffic through downtown, a branch off of I-5.

I-205 is the other branch, feeding the east side of town, rejoining I-5 south of Oregon City.  I-405, in contrast, rejoins right on the south edge of downtown.

Branching off the Fremont Bridge though, if you don't want to circle south, is Hwy 30 to St. Helens and Astoria.

My destination:  University of Portland, on a Friday afternoon in the blaze of summer, after 3 PM.  At 4:05 my classroom would be brimming not just with my students, but their siblings, guardians, parents, grandparents... the place would be packed, and I wouldn't be there if I stuck to I-5.

That was the calculation anyway, as I veered at the Y, over the Fremont.  I-5 was hardly moving.  I'd be stuck.  I'd drive north to the St. John's Bridge, and come back south through St. John's.  The plan worked.  Hwy. 30 was relatively light, except for the queue to cross the bridge itself on a long uphill grade.

This bridge is dramatic, an historic landmark.  Next week, they'll be Bridge Pedaling  over it.

Coming back I've mostly been enjoying the parapets of Willamette Boulevard.  I've seen geodesic domes on both sides of the Willamette.  The ones on the ship are more like golf balls, radomes, or are those for natural gas of some kind.  I'm thinking radome.

The ones next to the highway are the usual fuel tank covers, a commonplace in the fuel distribution network.

Trevor once did a geocache on this theme.  I helped out by chauffeuring.

Speaking of Trevor, he's got some new Kindle ebooks out there, low priced and enticing, and suitably esoteric.  We met at Greater Trumps again, though no cigar smoking this time.

I was somewhat anxious about Tara's oral surgery early next morning, and how that would go (wisdom teeth extraction), and would I be hitting my marks at University of Portland by 10:50 AM -- an earlier start on this Friday, as we were having an open house in the afternoon.  Could be a day from hell.

The operation went smoothly (only Novocaine, no nitrous).  I read in TIME (about polygamous families) and Newsweek (about people going crazy using the Internet).  We'd switched venues because I was for the first time getting some dental coverage from insurance.

Healthnet paid big bucks on Dawn's terminal illness but we could never afford any coverage for mundane stuff under $5000 -- those were always out of pocket expenses, if affordable.

As it happened, our family had just become eligible for assistance with this medically necessary procedure after a six month waiting period.  This was new insurance.

These are the language games we had in place back then, somewhat in place when I got here, though the rules have kept changing.  People mostly only had a dim understanding of the games, with TV a weak link in not being able to explain them.

Banking was especially opaque, with the scandals around Barclay's attracting little evening news attention -- too complicated, too close to home.

My class ended at 12:35 PM and rather than wait around until 4:05 PM I elected to drive home.  That was easy enough on I-5, in the middle of the day.  Interstate, a street, not an interstate freeway, is another way to go north and south, on the east side of the river, and I'd done that the day before.  The Max (light rail) takes that route. 

Anyway, the real traffic didn't start until closer to rush hour, when I was on my way back.  I'd found Tara to be well after the procedure, resting and recovering.  I enjoyed some time with the family before skedattling back.

What was I teaching?  Martian Math and Python Programming we called it.  They ended up needing to use Notepad in Win7 as their code editor, with Python 2.7 in terminal mode.

We did have access to VPython though, on a Q: drive.

I recycled movingballs2.py and some others from the Reed College version of this class, plus added some news.  We rolled our own.  Students each had a directory in which to write, but that had to be added to the Python path, so:

>>> import sys

>>> sys.path.append("c:/users/SAstu1")

>>> import sa1   # copied from the Internet or USB memory stick

The Mandelbrot Set was more important this time, and I made the connection to the Mandelbulb, in terms of aesthetics, computer fly-throughs.

Given we could darken the room (a "lower blinds" switch) and project on a big screen, I was sure to take advantage.  During the open house, a switched the lights off several times, so they could appreciated the theater-like ambiance (the seats were also tiered).

On the Math Forum, I used the opportunity per usual, donning my lobbiest hat and strutting on stage on behalf of a STEM curriculum that's deliberately integrating, and considers TCP/IP a worthy topic for middle schoolers, why not?  We watched Warriors of the Net.

What's not to understand?  True, we didn't get into DNS and BIND, but this was just a week's course.  The goal was to become more enamored with what geekdom has to offer, in terms of toys that morph into tools as one grows older.

We talked about the Internet's history.  Thanks to Trevor, I was able to share the first picture transmitted over the WWW at CERN.  I mentioned Tim Berners Lee having some role in the Olympics.

Given this generation has little first hand experience with WW2, or even that genre of movie, Code Guardian might have seemed a little strange, as it looks like a Nazi attack on Pearl Harbor (never happened).

My point, though, was how few people were needed to make this film, given technology being what it is.

I also mentioned August 6 was coming up.

We also looked at Blender quite a bit, not hands on, but in terms of what it could do.  That included watching the movie Sintel.

When the open house was over, by 4:30 PM (some had come early, but I was there first), I drove back to St. John's.  Rather than add to the rush hour traffic, I settled in at the McMenamins there, for some beer, food and wifi.

I was actually able to catch up on the day job for a couple of hours, and catch some Olympics, before wending my way home, over the St. John's Bridge and along Hwy 30 again, a dramatic way to get back through Portland.