I want to be a part of it

“the urban as a psychological state inside each individual, due to the number of impressions and the physical space so populated that the senses need to adjust and adapt to the ‘nerve intense’ space. A fusion of the spatial and social that each one of us has to deal with in order to stay sane”

That quote is from a book review of Marshall Berman and “On the Town. One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square”. (264 pages, published by Random House, 2006). The review is written by Erling Dokk Holm (Norwegian academic and opinionated media personality). And it is an interesting take on how different city life is. I can feel it sitting here on the outskirts of the city proper, seeing nothing but forested hills in one direction – and the massive rail and cargo terminal, supplemented by the ever-fuming pipes of the waste recycling facility, in another. The balcony is large enough to spend a lot of time there, lost to the world as such. But the subway is quick enough to bring me into the hubbub of inner-city in 15 – 20 minutes. And even if Oslo is a small big city, there are times and places that just feel to intense.

Another reference to follow up on is “Georg Simmel”, a turn of the century (not the last one) German sociologoist who wrote on the effect of modern life and urban relations among other subjects.

"Times Square has been the space of jazz as well as porn, of music as well as poetry. This is why this urban landscape is so culturally soaked” And so it felt when I was in New York. A true mix of all the world has to offer up. Shiny brand-stores and darker alleyways side by side. Staring tourists and vigilant police officers, passing each other by like leafs on the autumn wind. It felt at once wonderful and grotesque. The highs, the lows and everything in between that our modern society has to offer.

“Berman is as believable when quoting Shakespear as Beasti Boys, Sex and the City as Karl Marx” And that is what makes NYC larger than life, yet still so familiar. It is the setting and the influence for cultural expressions from NYPD Blue to Sex and the City, from 50 Cent to Frank Sinatra. And of a whole host of things in between, from yellow cabs to pretzels, from the death of John Lennon to the trials of the Apprentice. It is the city of cities, the modern Rome and Athens, the Olympics of the urban spirit. And for the last five years, when ever you look at the skyline with the gap – it is also a reminder of the challenges we face as people, as a part of a globalized world where the boundaries between war, advertising and opinions are blurred, quite possibly beyond repair.

Khaldun on civilization

– it is good to remember that history is not filled with joyful progress, but rather with a discreet number of good times, followed by a fall or a break from the trend – either because the next “empire” is taking over, or simply because the sustainability isn’t there any more.
The Roman Empire, Alexander the Great, the Khalifs, the various Chinese empires through the ages, the British Empire, the Third Reich and perhaps now the USA and the EU – the CCCP is already fragmented and gone.
Hindsight is 20-20, and the optimism on our own behalf is over stated. We are unable to think forward into the future with any sort of accuracy. As Robert Charles Wilson, author of Spin said – there is a cognitive divide; ask people what the world will be like in 50 years, then what they will be doing in 50 years. Then try to combine those two pictures into one description… “the future looks bleak, but I’ll be in the Caribbean after retiring from a well paying job”.

• “There will perhaps be a market for five computers world wide”
  
• “ No one should need more than 64k of ram”

Things change, and it is only afterwards that we really understand what has happened – or at least what we need to do going forward.

- and here ends the backlog of post written in the sun with Word (so some funky formatting might need cleaning up) - but the stack or read books and magazines still has some good thoughts, hopefully during the week I'll get a few more completed and then review these a bit for possible links and updates


...and the sun is breaking through the clouds after solid rain most of the day...

The drive and the baby steps

In an interview (with Morgenbladet - almost rivaling Wired as my #1 source lately -at least until I pick up the notes from the last two issues) early this summer the Norwegian author and sort-of-philosopher Jostein Gaarder made some interesting comments. What follows are rough translation, preserving the intent if not the wording and nuances, followed by my reflections and links.

"The whole authorship is recognizable by an eruptive need to express oneself when it comes to the big questions"? Just do it, like the old Nike slogan said. Some times this blog feels the same way. Some articles or events are just too big to let go with just a casual discussion. The drive of reflection and the possibility of interaction drives the words from the mind, into the fingers and out to the page (be it html or paper). But not all of us want to end up translated into tens of different languages, recognized at sight (not to mention sound) in large parts of the world. The act of thinking and writing is in many ways its own reward.

"?Descartes was concerned with the relation between soul and body. That is something I'?m extremely fascinated by, but today I would discuss it with a neurologist. And the existence of God is best discussed by astrophysicists" -? the science and understanding of the mind is making leaps and bounds right behind the covers of SciAm Mind (note to self: pick up the latest issue, and finish the last couple of articles from the summer issue,? post are in the queue). We are approaching the mind from all angels; chemical, electrical, decisions and DNA. And with each understanding we uncover a whole stack of new questions and areas of research. So the amount of knowledge and specialization grows until it truly is too much for one person to grasp? and then we start looking at the stars, where the numbers are in billions, and the distances beyond our ability to truly grasp. In a way I'm glad the sky is blue during the day, so we can "forget"? the stars and go about our business, leaving the dreaming for the nighttime.

"There are fewer and fewer cultural references in my books. Previously I could walk around thinking about something Schiller had written. Today I'?m thinking about the Devon age, when the amphibians crawled out of the seas." The second I read this, one name and one book jumped up and shouted "?hey, over here"?; JG Ballard and Drowned World. A scifi masterpiece, one of the key concepts of the book is the pre-historic core memory we all possess. Normally it is hidden far down, but extreme events or prolonged exposure to the right climate (hot, humid and limiting) will bring it right back. And during the last fortnight I've felt it coming on -? the heat phasing out the need or desire to do anything other than just sit still in the sun. Leaving all things requiring mental input until the sun goes down, sometime after nine, be it making dinner or washing clothes.

Stick around or do it again

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Ever since Andy Warhold and Marcel Duchamps decided that art is what artists say it is – as long as the buyers are willing to pay, or the gallery willing to display it, there has been a (muted) debate on where the new boundary should go. The last fuel to the fire is the news of Damien Hirst and his work “The impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (basically a shark suspended in formaldehyde). Sold by Saathci two years ago for a reported $2 million, it is now so decayed and faded, that Hirst has proposed to “repair” it. How? By changing the shark and the chemicals. So out with the old, and in with a new set of components that matches the original. Does that make it into version 2.0 of the work, or into a cheap knock-off? Is it still art, and still a classic work? Or simply a product of our media-infused age?
On relevant tangent would be the Asian (Japan / China) view of history and permanence. A temple that has been rebuilt six or ten times, is still considered to be hundreds of years old – as long as the location, design and purpose remains the same. There is even one temple in Japan that exists in two instances – one being used for (???) ten years, while the next is built. Then the first is torn down and rebuilt while the second takes over as the “actual” temple in use. It is more the IDEA of the temple than the actual building that is at the core.

There will always be sunshine after rain – laughter after pain, so why try to limit expression or devotion to a (random) given set of building blocks? Why not just go with the flow and erosion of time, and let the guiding concept take center stage?

What did you expect?

Half Life 2 is a great game, at least in the opinion of the hordes of fans who waited years for it, and most of the "industry" - from retail to reviewers. But perhaps what we enjoy is the contextual change from Wolfenstein and Doom, the improvements that make sense within the FPS "paradigm" (or frame of reference).
A feature in Gamasutra; "Constraint is Design" interviews Katherine Isbister and Nicole Lazzaro, and gives the following quote
"Students who were not already fans of this genre felt really frustrated interacting with the Half-Life 2 characters. They expected even more interactivity and lifelikeness from them because of how good they looked"

So, what did you expect when you picked it up? And how did that change and mold your impression?

Burn out or fade away?

Article by D Pink in Wired (14.07) on the economist
David W. Galenson: "By examining the careers not only of great painters but also of important sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors, Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a profound new understanding of artistic creativity."

Interesting topic - at least as long as you keep it "tabloid" with "there are two types", rather than what it says inside the article;

"In his later papers, as well as in the book he published this year, he has refined his theory to make it less binary. He now talks of a continuum Â? with extreme conceptual innovators at one end, extreme experimental innovators at the other, and moderates in the middle."
apparentlyy Malcom Gladwell (of Tipping Point and Blink, the last of which I'mcurrentlyl almost done with) also wrote an article but had it rejected by the New Yorker. There is an pdf link at Galesons site, 24 pages.

But, back to the subject: is it true that some people find their "way" early, while others need time to find their inner genius? Or is it simply that we appreciate different things from (in/by) various creators - be they artists, authors or poets? Maybe we enjoy Cezanne because he doesn't try to give answers, while we celebrate Picasso (too much, some argue) for having to go beyond the norm to findchallengee and a separate voice?

What would you rather do? Find the formearlyy, then spend the rest of your days in "decline" (or dead... only the good die young) - or spend years and years refining, learning, exploring - until finally one day you had the golden touch?

Art across borders and time

An exhibition and two artist - first off there is major photo exhibit in Milan (Italy) at the Forma

Life: "till 29 August 2006 features the best in LIFE photography. 140 photographs specially selected for this show, including some of the best known pictures taken by LIFE photographers – such as Eisenstaedt, Bourke-Whitre, Mydans, Parks, W. Eugene Smith, Robert Capa."

Then in keeping with the times, perhaps a different look at Iran might be suitable; enter stage left Farhad Moshiri, a painter miing classical potteryshapes with more modern graphical design styles. Or perhaps Rokni Haeri, whos art falls somewhere between Picasso and religious drawings.

All this and a lot of other ideas and impulses come from this summers edition of Intelligent Life, a yearly dose of summer reading courtesy of the staff over at the Economist.

And so the vacation is over, the net is online again and tomorrow the small laptop will bring up a series of post from last week.

What are they fighting for?

The world as we knew it is still hobbling along. Death toll in Iraq is up; daily reported average crossed the 100 mark. Israel abducted Hamas politicians and Hezbollah took two soldiers alive.

But what really shocked me, above and beyond the excessive use of force – was a picture of three young Israeli girls. One standing in the background with her digital camera, having taken or planning to take pictures, whilst the one in the foreground is writing messages on the bombs destined for Lebanon. How can we maintain hope a peaceful co-existence when even the next generation thinks it is right to drop bombs all across a sovereign neighbor, killing UN peacekeepers and chasing out thousands of foreign nationals there on vacation?

Oh, they probably had their reasons and explanations – perhaps their parents or older brothers had been killed in fighting or by a suicide bomber. But isn’t that exactly the problem? Sticking to the Old Testament and “an eye for an eye” is not likely to solve the myriad of conflicts. Unless they truly are looking for an “ultimate solution” all parties involved need to reexamine both the rhetoric and (most importantly?) their actions. Easy? Not by a long shot. But far, far better than the alternative; insecurity, insurgents and irreplaceable losses.

Someone looking at the world through new eyes – or at least delivering their lines in a new voice is al-Qaida (the most common spelling used here in Norwegian). In early July they release a video featuring their new “dude”, the reportedly 28 years old American national Adam Gadahn. The son of a goat farmer in California, he is listed on the FBI site with a variety of aliases, but no “real” crimes as of yet. Jessica Stern of Harvard wrote in the NY Times, over here Morgenbladet picked it up and now here it is online.

The interesting thing about the speech was his focus on the American atrocities – Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, as well as the body count in Iraq. Thereby he was not just preaching to the converted masses, but linking “his” struggle with popular opinions; it is not alright to do as you please if the goal is good – for the ends do not justify the means. In a way it is the 50-ies and McCarthy all over again. You can not support and promote liberty and justice by taking away the rights and safeguards that thousands and millions have given their life to protect. It is difficult and hard to take the higher ground, but it is the only way to come out with your hands and conscience clean.

Too hot to think, too cold to care?

Starting up again after the summer… even if it is still hot enough to sit outside on the balcony on this, the last day of the holiday proper. Tomorrow is Saturday, and the last weekend before it is back to work on Monday. For all of July I’ve hardly done a thing. Some reading, a little bit of news and sports, and for the last three or four days gently getting back online. And today the laptop got booted up again, and here I am sitting outside in the shade trying to arrange and structure various thoughts and ideas from the summer.

Four main themes in the posts to come – probably mixed, but maybe a bit split up if things work out (and from an IT standpoint they’re not right now, the editor won’t start without an online connection to verify my account so this is good old MS Word doing the job for now).

1. Media and content – just finished reading Watchmen, currently almost done with volume 1 of Crying Freeman, saw Pirates of The Caribbean – Dead Mans Chest last night
2. World and politics – not to much, this is not the place for it, but some words on a picture of Israeli girls writing messages on the bombs for Lebanon and the “new” al-Qaida “dude” (Adam Gadahn)
3. Art and culture – Gaarder and Ballard, PlayMusicMagazine.com, Berman on NYC, Khaldun on civilization, Hirst redone
4. Mind and perception – Blink, SciAm Mind, some memories from the corporate retreat and NLP

So on that mixed and ambitious statement of intent – I guess it is time to get to the matters at hand and put some of my summer thoughts out there. Most likely there will be a large number of smaller post over the weekend, and then some follow-up and longer thoughts during next week.