Friday, December 30, 2005
John Norquist: From Detroit to Shanghai
By Carolyn Kelly / Great Lakes Bulletin News Service
John Norquist is one of the world’s leading thinkers on urban design and Smart Growth. But he’s a leading doer, too: As mayor of Milwaukee, Wis., from 1988 to 1993, he helped to change policies and minds in order to facilitate more than $200 million in downtown redevelopment that was based on New Urbanist principles.
Mr. Norquist is now president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a Chicago-based non-profit organization that works with architects, planners, developers and others to promote those principles, which include regional planning, walkable neighborhoods, and attractive, accommodating civic spaces. Many CNU members are now leading a major planning effort in Gulf Coast regions devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
As the following interview with Mr. Norquist reveals, New Urbanism’s influence is rapidly becoming worldwide. In 2005, CNU awarded six of its prestigious charter awards to projects in China, India, Australia, and Europe.
Institute: Why did so many of your awards go to projects outside of the U.S. this year?
Mr. Norquist: Part of it is that they applied for the awards. I think we’ll continue to have projects from all over the world. We really like to see where the needs of ordinary people are being met—housing, retail, offices, and things people actually use in their lives. One of my favorite prizes, from 2003, was a small neighborhood elementary school with windows facing the neighborhood and a small playground that really showed how to insert a school into a neighborhood on a very small lot.
Institute: What about New Urbanism in Africa, Latin America, or the Middle East?
Mr. Norquist: We have a few members in Latin America, especially Mexico. The ideas are starting to spread. About 300 of our 2700 members are outside the U.S. The ideas are popping up—in Brazil there was a reaction against Brasilia [the country’s federal capital, built from scratch in the 1960s], where the major streets tunnel under or bridge over each other to keep the traffic moving and so there’s no street life. They had such a stark presentation of modern form that there’s been a reaction to it. In Argentina and Chile, they tend to take their cues more from Europe. But if I had to predict, we’ll draw in more Mexicans. They have their own strong architectural traditions in Mexico: Early modernism, art-deco, and beautiful communities built in a proper way, an urban way. If you go to Mexico City, it’s one of the most sophisticated cities in the Western Hemisphere. It has over 200 miles of subway and distinct neighborhoods, including some just packed with artists, so there’s a lot to learn from Mexico. Since they know we know that, they like us.
Institute: What kinds of projects are going on in places like India and China?
Mr. Norquist: In China, they’re desperately trying to figure out how to manage their growth. They’ve experimented for the last 20 years with creating the most dysfunctional sprawl they could possibly put together. One thing about the Chinese is that, when they make a mistake, or at least an economic mistake, they change it fairly quickly. So now they’re trying to undo some of the damage. They realize that the buildings of pre-WWII Shanghai don’t have to be eliminated, that maybe there’s some traditional Chinese architecture that can be used instead of using the corporate executive park as their model. They’re very aware that they have a problem, and they’re trying to change.
In India, their exposure was to Le Corbusier [an influential 20th-century French architect], but there’s a lot of American stuff and suburban sprawl being built in India. Hopefully the Indians will catch themselves in time to stop it. They really can’t afford the waste in a country as big as that with so many mouths to feed.
Institute: So is the emergence of New Urbanism a question of the Chinese and Indians saving themselves from the American example?
Mr. Norquist: That’s what I say. I was with a delegation of Chinese people and said, “A lot of the answers can be found in your own traditions.” We advocate street networks, grids, and boulevards instead of freeways. And the Chinese don’t really have a long tradition of dealing with autos, so we can probably help teach them what to do and what not to do. But in terms of housing types, the traditional courtyard apartments of Shanghai and Beijing and Hong Kong are traditional building types that are beautiful and shouldn’t be replaced with buildings that are sterile and surrounded by parking lots that look like they’re on the outer edge of the Detroit metro area.
The Chinese are expanding public transit, although there is a disturbing trend against bikes—bike ridership has actually declined in China. I suppose that as the country becomes more affluent, people think it’s a step up to go in a car, and the streets are being taken over by cars. Maybe the Chinese should visit Copenhagen and see how you can be an affluent, well-respected person and ride a bike. The problem isn’t that there’s a resistance to transit—the problem is the street types they’re choosing. Traffic, in order to function, needs a rich network of streets and blocks, not a small number of large roads that channel the traffic and push more and more drivers out into the countryside. Right now they’re following the pattern of the U.S. during the 1950s to 1970s, trying to concentrate traffic in a few giant trenches, which is what destroyed the Detroit area.
They hollowed out Detroit with massive government investment, and it was a bi-partisan effort. And that happened across the country. Michigan has spent billions of dollars to make Detroit a disaster. You just compare it to Toronto. It was a minor city at end of WWII, compared to Detroit, and now it’s just the reverse, even though there was more investment in Detroit than in Toronto.
And there are a lot of U.S. companies that pushed road development in other countries. In the U.S., road builders think they can only make money by building roads. U.S. companies went into Mexico City and convinced the Mexican government not to put in high-speed rail to other cities, so there’s just a freight line. And they just keep building bigger roads in Mexico City. The current mayor opposes expanding the subway system. With the air problems and the population, it’s not a good move.
But even though U.S. companies have bad habits, they’re learning. Transit is not always their first choice, but if they’re hired to do it, they’ll do it.
Institute: Speaking of roads, how does parking fit into the picture?
Mr. Norquist: Parking is an amenity you need. New Urbanism deals with it in a new way—we like parking on streets, but we think it should be priced appropriately. Eighty percent of spots should be filled at any given time. Parking becomes blight if there’s too much or if it is overly emphasized or subsidized. But you do need some of it, there’s no question.
A lot of parking regulations destroyed the ability to build in an economically feasible way. For example, in Milwaukee we had a neighborhood that required seven onsite parking spots per unit, and there was a building on a narrow lot in a neighborhood where the tallest building was five stories, so to do parking?the first three floors would have been parking. So we removed that restriction. The lot had been empty for years, but almost immediately developers applied for permits.
The idea that parking has to be onsite is really entrenched, but if you build more parking, there are more cars, and it creates more dependency on the auto. Let the developer figure out how much parking they need—you should never have a minimum number of parking spaces, though you might consider maximums if they build too much. Look at Portland and Pasadena—those cities are great examples.
Institute: Do New Urbanist projects need more incentives?
Mr. Norquist: People want a sense of place, and the public is usually ahead of government in appreciating New Urbanism. Developers and architects who produce good urbanism and respect context are going to be rewarded in the marketplace.
What we need is to get rid of incentives for bad stuff. Fannie Mae has a restriction on the mix in residential areas—it can’t be more than a certain percentage commercial or retail, so it really limits what you can do, like building housing downtown. And their mortgage machine is set to suck up single-family mortgages.
Institute: I imagine that makes providing affordable housing more difficult.
Norquist: For all the benefit Fannie Mae provides in slightly lowering mortgage rates, it probably raises costs for good projects that have a lot of low cost housing with higher densities of urbanism mixed in. For example, you can put five stories of apartments on top of a Best Buy, as they did in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. And some of those apartments can be affordable. It works. But mixed use is really illegal in most communities in America.
If form-based codes are adopted and people can build above the store, we can create more affordable housing. Fannie Mae should get with it. They claim its restriction is from Congress. We can’t build enough affordable housing from subsidy and inclusionary zoning, so the market has to do it, and restrictions on urbanism make it hard to produce for the market for affordable housing.
Institute: Why are so many people from such different backgrounds attracted to New Urbanism?
Mr. Norquist: I think people are searching for equilibrium. There were thousands of years of building traditions that were deleted by modernists, who thought their rebellion was the end of history. All the other traditions, like properly terminated vistas and streets and blocks and boulevards were no longer emphasized and weren’t taught at all, and the perceived utilitarian needs of the automobile became dominant.
Carolyn Kelly, who interned at the Congress for the New Urbanism, is the Michigan Land Use Institute’s associate editor. Reach her at : carolyn@mlui.org.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
Can I just tell you how happy I am to stumble across THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS - alive and well and (what else?) podcasting!!
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Heading towards a new year --
This is from a commencement address by Senator Barack Obama. It was given on June 4th of this past year at Knox College. It is a good message with which to head into a new year as well -
So let’s dream. Instead of doing nothing or simply defending 20th century solutions, let’s imagine together what we could do to give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century.
What if we prepared every child in America with the education and skills they need to compete in the new economy? If we made sure that college was affordable for everyone who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers and we said “Your old job is not coming back, but a new job will be there because we’re going to seriously retrain you and there’s life-long education that’s waiting for you—the sorts of opportunities that Knox has created with the Strong Futures scholarship program.
What if no matter where you worked or how many times you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that stayed with you always, so you all had the flexibility to move to a better job or start a new business? What if instead of cutting budgets for research and development and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future?
Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turned corn into fuel. Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open up on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education.
All of that is possible but none of it will come easy. Every one of us is going to have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off some bad habits—like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our economy and feed our enemies abroad. Our children will have to turn off the TV set once in a while and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We’ll have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend old programs.
It won’t be easy, but it can be done. It can be our future. We have the talent and the resources and brainpower. But now we need the political will. We need a national commitment.
And we need each of you.
Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says that you should want, that you should aspire to, that you can buy.
But I hope you don’t walk away from the challenge. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
So let’s dream. Instead of doing nothing or simply defending 20th century solutions, let’s imagine together what we could do to give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century.
What if we prepared every child in America with the education and skills they need to compete in the new economy? If we made sure that college was affordable for everyone who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers and we said “Your old job is not coming back, but a new job will be there because we’re going to seriously retrain you and there’s life-long education that’s waiting for you—the sorts of opportunities that Knox has created with the Strong Futures scholarship program.
What if no matter where you worked or how many times you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that stayed with you always, so you all had the flexibility to move to a better job or start a new business? What if instead of cutting budgets for research and development and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future?
Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turned corn into fuel. Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open up on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education.
All of that is possible but none of it will come easy. Every one of us is going to have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off some bad habits—like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our economy and feed our enemies abroad. Our children will have to turn off the TV set once in a while and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We’ll have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend old programs.
It won’t be easy, but it can be done. It can be our future. We have the talent and the resources and brainpower. But now we need the political will. We need a national commitment.
And we need each of you.
Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says that you should want, that you should aspire to, that you can buy.
But I hope you don’t walk away from the challenge. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
caderno das estrelas 3/star book
For me, this wonderful image by Paula speaks to the coming of Christmas...
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
From the Toronto Star
Deal protects massive exports of Great Lakes water
Dec. 13, 2005. 03:38 PM
Dry southern U.S. states will be unable to take massive sips from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin under a deal reached today by Ontario, Quebec and other jurisdictions that border the waterways. The Ontario government called the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement an "historic" deal that will essentially prohibit massive, bulk water exports from the fresh-water lakes. Ontario signed the deal in Milwaukee alongside representatives from eight American states — Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Quebec also signed the deal since the St. Lawrence River is connected to the Great Lakes, which account for one-fifth of the world's fresh water supply. The deal, which still requires endorsement by the U.S. Congress, is meant to prevent thirsty southern American states from diverting massive amounts of water to their own jurisdictions. It's more of a theoretical risk, but Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay said the deal was key to protecting Great Lakes water from drainage over decades to come.
"Primarily the pressures come from the southwest United States, the drier part of the continent," Ramsay told reporters at the Ontario legislature in Toronto. "We hear musings from time to time (from) southern California, Arizona, New Mexico of their challenges to supply fresh, potable water to their populations," Ramsay said. "They look north and they see the Great Lakes as the largest supply of fresh water in the world . . . and sometimes they get visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, to use a seasonal analogy."
The deal is also meant to protect the water system from the environmental effects of large-scale diversions, however it does permit large amounts of water to be taken under some circumstances, including for bottled water. There were actually two agreements signed — a binding pact among the eight states and a "good-faith" agreement among the two provinces and eight states. Provinces and states are unable to sign treaties by themselves across international borders. Ramsay expected Congress would rubber-stamp the deal, saying it's ``fairly automatic" for Washington to acknowledge agreements already reached between states.
Still, each jurisdiction, including the Ontario and Quebec legislatures, will have to pass into law their commitments not to allow large-scale water diversions by jurisdictions outside the Great Lakes region. "It's our own laws that are going to keep us honest," Ramsay said. The province received applause from environmental groups. Robert Wright of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund congratulated the government for taking a "no diversions" stance rather than a position of "diversions with exceptions." "It is a victory for Ontario," Wright said, adding that while the agreement isn't perfect in protecting the Great Lakes for decades to come, "it is a good start."
Wright was particularly pleased that the deal allows for more scientific examination of Great Lakes water that will monitor and forecast its depletion from climate change and other factors. Without such agreements there's risks that resources such as water can be sold to the highest bidder without concern for the environment, said Sarah Miller of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. "While on the surface it seems to go without saying that we should be doing our best to protect 20 per cent of the world's fresh water, there are still those that feel bounty means no limits," she said.
Quebec also signed the deal since the St. Lawrence River is connected to the Great Lakes, which account for one-fifth of the world's fresh water supply. The deal, which still requires endorsement by the U.S. Congress, is meant to prevent thirsty southern American states from diverting massive amounts of water to their own jurisdictions. It's more of a theoretical risk, but Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay said the deal was key to protecting Great Lakes water from drainage over decades to come.
"Primarily the pressures come from the southwest United States, the drier part of the continent," Ramsay told reporters at the Ontario legislature in Toronto. "We hear musings from time to time (from) southern California, Arizona, New Mexico of their challenges to supply fresh, potable water to their populations," Ramsay said. "They look north and they see the Great Lakes as the largest supply of fresh water in the world . . . and sometimes they get visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, to use a seasonal analogy."
The deal is also meant to protect the water system from the environmental effects of large-scale diversions, however it does permit large amounts of water to be taken under some circumstances, including for bottled water. There were actually two agreements signed — a binding pact among the eight states and a "good-faith" agreement among the two provinces and eight states. Provinces and states are unable to sign treaties by themselves across international borders. Ramsay expected Congress would rubber-stamp the deal, saying it's ``fairly automatic" for Washington to acknowledge agreements already reached between states.
Still, each jurisdiction, including the Ontario and Quebec legislatures, will have to pass into law their commitments not to allow large-scale water diversions by jurisdictions outside the Great Lakes region. "It's our own laws that are going to keep us honest," Ramsay said. The province received applause from environmental groups. Robert Wright of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund congratulated the government for taking a "no diversions" stance rather than a position of "diversions with exceptions." "It is a victory for Ontario," Wright said, adding that while the agreement isn't perfect in protecting the Great Lakes for decades to come, "it is a good start."
Wright was particularly pleased that the deal allows for more scientific examination of Great Lakes water that will monitor and forecast its depletion from climate change and other factors. Without such agreements there's risks that resources such as water can be sold to the highest bidder without concern for the environment, said Sarah Miller of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. "While on the surface it seems to go without saying that we should be doing our best to protect 20 per cent of the world's fresh water, there are still those that feel bounty means no limits," she said.
From Tegic Reveals the Year's Most Buzzworthy Additions to T9 Dictionary: Financial News - Yahoo! FinanceThe top ten "buzz words" to be added to the T9� dictionary for 2005 include:
* Lifehack - a tool or technique that makes some aspect of one's life easier or more efficient
* Mashup - new information created by combining data from two different sources
* Placeshift - to redirect a TV signal so the viewer can watch a show on a device other than his or her television
* Playlistism - judging a person based on what songs are on the playlist of his or her digital music player
* Podjack - to plug the cord of one's digital music player into the jack of another person's player to hear what the person is listening to
* Puggle - a dog bred from a pug and a beagle
* Sideload - to transfer music or other content to a cell phone using the cell phone provider's network
* Vlog - a blog that contains mostly video content
* Vodcast - a video podcast
* Ubersexual - a heterosexual man who is masculine, confident, compassionate and stylish
Monday, December 12, 2005
Raising Chicks: Chick Christmas Tree Fun
Ben and Heather's chickens have started blogging - among all of the other adventures they are having, like getting ready for Christmas and enjoying their first Great Lakes winter. Here is how they introduce themselves on their blog.....
"We were born in Texas on October 26, 2005. Ben ordered four hens, but we decided to surprise him and mix it up a little. Actually there's eleven of us now, some roosters and some hens, but we are all chicks. Shipped straight from the egg to Milwaukee and arrived one day later...follow our blog to find out about all of our adventures."
I highly recommend you check them out!
Thursday, December 08, 2005
The many shapes of prayer
In Prayer: A History, Smith College professors Philip and Carol Zaleski take an unusually probing and thoughtful look at a topic that might otherwise seem to defy academic treatment.
The Zaleskis define prayer as "action that communicates between human and divine realms." They trace prayer across time and cultures and find it in expressions as diverse as the funerary rites of Neanderthals, the poetry of Emily Dickinson, the Sun Dance of the Cree Indians, and the admission by Alcoholic Anonymous members that they need the help of a higher power to stay sober.
They also distinguish between different types of prayers, such as those that ask for specific help ("the prayer of the refugee"), prayers that arise spontaneously at moments of crisis ("de profondis prayer"), and prayer that is part of a routine ("devotional prayer.")
The Zaleskis' treatment of their topic is sensitive. Nonbelievers will appreciate the fact that they don't argue for the efficacy of prayer. (They are, in fact, fairly negative about studies that purport to demonstrate a link between prayer and improved health.)
Those who do believe will enjoy the respectful - and occasionally even poetic - tone applied to the subject, as well as what appears to be a real understanding of the actual process. (Contemplative prayer is a "grueling enterprise," they point out, because the human mind, as capricious as a monkey "eagerly seizes any opportunity for woolgathering.")
Friday, December 02, 2005
Milwaukee Renaissance
An Urban Manifesto
A collaboration by James Godsil and Bill Sell.
First read at Timbuktu, March 17, 2004.
Copyright © 2004, William Sell, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
CLAIM. I am Milwaukee. I am the face of Milwaukee, its fellow worker, its lover, its dinner companion. I believe in neighbors, that people were evolved to live close, and work near their children. I gladly share this pen with the person I meet on the bus. He writes a phone number and so it may be that the city works for him. I gladly share my house, garden and sidewalk, my alley, county park, and freeway. I believe in public space which, enjoyed, is the guarantor of my private space, my right to speak and play.
PICNIC. I see Georges Seurat sitting in my 21st century park painting the Sunday picnic. Evenings he leaves quietly, history under his arm, without envy for families, their food, or their children. The County Parks are canvas for the art of family. Bring your children, your grill and keg, sing and dance and rouse the indolent budget slashers who would ring our parks with fences and fees.
WORK. I was founded by the worker fleeing hard times in Europe on rumors of hope. Hope — free of dictators — launched my city; and so our children remember their stories. A healthy city offers each worker bread for skills, the chance at work that causes boasting among children on the playground.
LOVE. I will. I, Milwaukee, will end fears of skin and gender. Pose and shunning will be resolved into respect. It is the black and white truth: we will talk love or die; we will teach our children what we do, not what we say. We will be proud of what we leave them. We will tune out media who hawk our fears for profit. We will listen to each other in our public spaces, on buses, in church. We will sit together and share food. We will love one another.
MARRIAGE. Our children shall pick their own partners. Marriage is the supreme act of freedom of two souls. The state shall protect your choice, your spouse and your child. We will remember how, before there was a Milwaukee, grown children were ripped from their families and shipped over seas to be slaves. Milwaukee once boasted a stop on the underground railroad. But today Milwaukee will be destination. You come; you stay; you prosper—whatever the color of your skin, your religion, or gender choice. The rainbow is the promise after the storm, and every color and marriage belongs here. Milwaukee is rainwater and rainbow, shining in the sun. I have a dream.
TRADE. The market is godless. The city divine. The marriage of market and city is a supremely human endeavor, not given to succeed if it serves a few, not condemned to fail if it serves all. This marriage works because service prospers. People talk love in their markets and by doing so restrain the hand of the blind corporation.
LEARN. Raising children is why people do cities, the act of putting our children on firm ground bathed in opportunity to explore the world. Our giants walk the campus preparing to bring the urbanity of Milwaukee to the world.
DEFEND. Though we live under the dark cloud of international crime and benighted politicians, we believe there is strength when citizens gather on sidewalks, organize in precincts, share our air waves, debate in the media. When citizens re-invent media to repair their democracy, cities wake up and there will be no trespass.
BLOOD. The blood of our children is not available to foreign adventure. We will organize, governments will listen. We demand the end to the killing, a United Nations empowering not powerful nations but all nations. We will stop the blood trade in weapons—foreign and domestic. National security is built on the security of the neighborhood, education of children, health care and work; thus will security make each citizen a stakeholder.
VISITOR. You recognize our city perhaps better than its residents and for that we prize your visit. To those who would do us harm, I invite you to share our food, sample our cheese and beer, stay and prosper with us, make your life, practice any religion or none, raise your children. As I rescued Germans, Irish, Jews, Hmong, and El Salvadorans from their wars, so do I make a place for you, as the earlier native has done for me.
CONSPIRE. When democracy gives us weak politicians, the citizen will emerge strong. One citizen empowering another citizen is the conspiracy of democracy. The lies and broken promises of politicians will not fracture the trust among their makers.
REMEMBER. Milwaukee has been roused from the lure of trendy development, asphalt, and slick suburban error. We conspire to preserve our parents' civic memories, to love our commonly held libraries, to touch old buildings with awe, and to make do with what we have. To build wealth from wealth and not from neglect. Milwaukee invests the ninth generation with the natural treasures of creation.
"Let us put our minds together, and see what life we will make for our children." (Tatanka Lotanka)
To these public values, we make a pact among ourselves to work and invite our government to follow us.
INVITE. I invite you who have left Milwaukee to return. Come back and help us remember our ethnic heritage, from Somalia to Ireland, from Mexico to Poland, from Vietnam to Serbia. Come to folk dan'''ce, to feast, to fest. To restore Folk Fair, Milwaukee's original festival, to its golden years in the public square.
Come to Milwaukee and swim in our Great Lake, and by doing so demand that it remain clean. Garden, and husband your soil to clean the water before it returns to our Great Lake.
Bring your bicycle. Ride the Oak Leaf trail through our spectacular County Parks. We lay bare our shameful failure to finish this project. With your help we will one day ride on the Hoan bridge and connect the great Bay View village to the Downtown village, to give our children a view from the top of the city.
Sit in our audiences and bask in theater, dance and music. Come to school. Milwaukee Public Schools need you: advocates, teachers, parents, neighbors, retired people to read aloud, to attend to lighthouse schools in the late afternoons while parents finish their employments. Our children will shine if their efforts are graced by the attention of many adults. The village raises its children; but children create their own village.
A collaboration by James Godsil and Bill Sell.
First read at Timbuktu, March 17, 2004.
Copyright © 2004, William Sell, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
CLAIM. I am Milwaukee. I am the face of Milwaukee, its fellow worker, its lover, its dinner companion. I believe in neighbors, that people were evolved to live close, and work near their children. I gladly share this pen with the person I meet on the bus. He writes a phone number and so it may be that the city works for him. I gladly share my house, garden and sidewalk, my alley, county park, and freeway. I believe in public space which, enjoyed, is the guarantor of my private space, my right to speak and play.
PICNIC. I see Georges Seurat sitting in my 21st century park painting the Sunday picnic. Evenings he leaves quietly, history under his arm, without envy for families, their food, or their children. The County Parks are canvas for the art of family. Bring your children, your grill and keg, sing and dance and rouse the indolent budget slashers who would ring our parks with fences and fees.
WORK. I was founded by the worker fleeing hard times in Europe on rumors of hope. Hope — free of dictators — launched my city; and so our children remember their stories. A healthy city offers each worker bread for skills, the chance at work that causes boasting among children on the playground.
LOVE. I will. I, Milwaukee, will end fears of skin and gender. Pose and shunning will be resolved into respect. It is the black and white truth: we will talk love or die; we will teach our children what we do, not what we say. We will be proud of what we leave them. We will tune out media who hawk our fears for profit. We will listen to each other in our public spaces, on buses, in church. We will sit together and share food. We will love one another.
MARRIAGE. Our children shall pick their own partners. Marriage is the supreme act of freedom of two souls. The state shall protect your choice, your spouse and your child. We will remember how, before there was a Milwaukee, grown children were ripped from their families and shipped over seas to be slaves. Milwaukee once boasted a stop on the underground railroad. But today Milwaukee will be destination. You come; you stay; you prosper—whatever the color of your skin, your religion, or gender choice. The rainbow is the promise after the storm, and every color and marriage belongs here. Milwaukee is rainwater and rainbow, shining in the sun. I have a dream.
TRADE. The market is godless. The city divine. The marriage of market and city is a supremely human endeavor, not given to succeed if it serves a few, not condemned to fail if it serves all. This marriage works because service prospers. People talk love in their markets and by doing so restrain the hand of the blind corporation.
LEARN. Raising children is why people do cities, the act of putting our children on firm ground bathed in opportunity to explore the world. Our giants walk the campus preparing to bring the urbanity of Milwaukee to the world.
DEFEND. Though we live under the dark cloud of international crime and benighted politicians, we believe there is strength when citizens gather on sidewalks, organize in precincts, share our air waves, debate in the media. When citizens re-invent media to repair their democracy, cities wake up and there will be no trespass.
BLOOD. The blood of our children is not available to foreign adventure. We will organize, governments will listen. We demand the end to the killing, a United Nations empowering not powerful nations but all nations. We will stop the blood trade in weapons—foreign and domestic. National security is built on the security of the neighborhood, education of children, health care and work; thus will security make each citizen a stakeholder.
VISITOR. You recognize our city perhaps better than its residents and for that we prize your visit. To those who would do us harm, I invite you to share our food, sample our cheese and beer, stay and prosper with us, make your life, practice any religion or none, raise your children. As I rescued Germans, Irish, Jews, Hmong, and El Salvadorans from their wars, so do I make a place for you, as the earlier native has done for me.
CONSPIRE. When democracy gives us weak politicians, the citizen will emerge strong. One citizen empowering another citizen is the conspiracy of democracy. The lies and broken promises of politicians will not fracture the trust among their makers.
REMEMBER. Milwaukee has been roused from the lure of trendy development, asphalt, and slick suburban error. We conspire to preserve our parents' civic memories, to love our commonly held libraries, to touch old buildings with awe, and to make do with what we have. To build wealth from wealth and not from neglect. Milwaukee invests the ninth generation with the natural treasures of creation.
"Let us put our minds together, and see what life we will make for our children." (Tatanka Lotanka)
To these public values, we make a pact among ourselves to work and invite our government to follow us.
INVITE. I invite you who have left Milwaukee to return. Come back and help us remember our ethnic heritage, from Somalia to Ireland, from Mexico to Poland, from Vietnam to Serbia. Come to folk dan'''ce, to feast, to fest. To restore Folk Fair, Milwaukee's original festival, to its golden years in the public square.
Come to Milwaukee and swim in our Great Lake, and by doing so demand that it remain clean. Garden, and husband your soil to clean the water before it returns to our Great Lake.
Bring your bicycle. Ride the Oak Leaf trail through our spectacular County Parks. We lay bare our shameful failure to finish this project. With your help we will one day ride on the Hoan bridge and connect the great Bay View village to the Downtown village, to give our children a view from the top of the city.
Sit in our audiences and bask in theater, dance and music. Come to school. Milwaukee Public Schools need you: advocates, teachers, parents, neighbors, retired people to read aloud, to attend to lighthouse schools in the late afternoons while parents finish their employments. Our children will shine if their efforts are graced by the attention of many adults. The village raises its children; but children create their own village.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
The first signs of Christmas
For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course......
Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-15
Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-15
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
But won't you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?
For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.
The gift is balanced by
Its total loss, and yet,
And yet the light breaks in,
Heaven seizing its moments
That are at once its own
And yours. The day ends
And is unending where
The summer tanager,
Warbler, and vireo
Sing as they move among
Illuminated leaves.
~ Wendell Berry ~
Sunday, November 27, 2005
A man goes into a bar with his little Jack Russell terrier. He puts the dog on the bar stool next to him. The bartender wanders over and the man says: "I'll have a pot thanks, mate." The dog says: "I'll have the same."
The bartender does a double- take and looks over to the dog and asks: "Did you just talk?"
"Yep," says the dog. "My God! That's incredible. This is unreal. Who would have thought: a talking dog, here in my bar? Tell me more about yourself. You must have had an amazing life as a talking dog."
The dog assumes an indifferent pose and speaks in quite a matter-of-fact manner.
"Yeah, you could say it's been a journey. I trained for a while with the US Marines. Saw a bit of action in Iraq - can't tell you more. I joined the Bolshoi Ballet for a stint. That was hard work but incredibly satisfying. I've written a few best-selling novels in my spare time. That was good fun. Of course, there have been film offers, TV shows. Wine, women and song. All that."
The bartender is now purple with excitement. He turns to the man. "We could make a fortune. We could charge people to come into this bar and hear your dog talk. How much would you charge to allow your dog to talk here?"
"About $10," the man replies.
"Why only $10 - that's madness," exclaims the bartender. The man answers: "He's a liar. He hasn't done half those things."
Monday, November 21, 2005
CAMIO: On-line Images
Testing an image database of online Art Museum Images. These are wonderful tools for teaching - in any subject - but particularly in art history and studio art/design courses. We are finding them great resources at MIAD as are many other educational institutions.
Their description (via MIAD Librarian, Cynthia Lynch):
Camio offers right-cleared, high quality art images for class projects, art history and studio art programs, course Web sites, lectures, presentations, and research resources. Access by subscription is available to universities and colleges public libraries, museums and schools.
I am counting on the fact that this blog is utilized (among other things) as a "course web site" and seeing how this works for posting images.
Your looking at:
OCTOPUS AND MELON, 1989
Michiko Kon, Japanese b. 1955
Getalin Silver Print
Cleveland Museum of Art
Lovely isn't it?
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Homespun Magixx - Downloads
There are all sorts of free downloads on this site - enough to keep anyone occupied for hours....links to other interesting places and some great paper engineering ideas.
Friday, November 18, 2005
The Midnight Special - Folk Music with a Sense of Humor
Driving back to Milwaukee on 65 through Indiana - late night, lots of trucks, big moon lighting up the fields and this music coming from the radio - wonderful, rich, grand music. It is this show - the Midnight Special. I get to my hotel room - I have to stop - it's well past midnight and I am way too tired to keep driving. I go immediately to their website - the playlists (with links). Ahhh - I love the way I can find all of this.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Book Art
Spending the week in Versailles, Kentucky making books with all of the young people at St.Leo's Elementary School. Every grade level is making a different book structure - and working with a different theme. Rose and I are organizational wizards - it is always easier with two. She doesn't have a classroom - so we prep, pack, get in, work with kids, clean-up, and get going to the next room.
Teachers of young children: truly the unsung heroes of our time. More pictures to follow.
Friday, November 11, 2005
The First Sports Post
I have been told (by those that know) that the current state of NBA basketball is a sorry one. Flaccid and boring - even people who normally get excited about such things are not happy campers. Not so last evening - when the Huskies from Michigan Tech hit the court against the (this week) Golden Eagles from Marquette University. Gritty and raw - the game was a knuckle-whitener from beginning to end.
Can too much be said about the performance of number 21? One thinks not.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005
Marjane Satrapi at Coastal Carolina University Ourmedia
The title of this post will take you to a quick-time interview with Satrapi. If you haven't read Persepolis - I really encourage you to do so. I was thinking about her this morning, as Art Spiegelman (who wrote Maus, among other things) - will be speaking at UW-Milwaukee at the end of November. In this excerpt (from the Pantheon site), she talks about writing Persepolis - which now has a sequel - as well as gives a bit of background about graphic novels.
ON WRITING PERSEPOLIS
By Marjane Satrapi, as told to Pantheon staff
Chances are that if you are an American you know very little about the 1979 Iranian Revolution. "This revolution was normal, and it had to happen," says Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, a totally unique memoir about growing up in Iran after the Shah left power. "Unfortunately, it happened in a country where people were very traditional, and other countries only saw the religious fanatics who made their response public." In her graphic novel, Satrapi, shows readers that these images do not make up the whole story about Iran. Here, she talks freely about what it was like to tell this story with both words and pictures, and why she is so proud of the result.
After I finished university, there were nine of us, all artists and friends, working in a studio together. That group finally said, "Do something with your stories." They introduced me to graphic novelists. Spiegelman was first. And when I read him, I thought "Jesus Christ, it's possible to tell a story and make a point this way." It was amazing.
Writing a Graphic Novel is Like Making a Movie
People always ask me, "Why didn't you write a book?" But that's what Persepolis is. To me, a book is pages related to something that has a cover. Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.
We learn about the world through images all the time. In the cinema we do it, but to make a film you need sponsors and money and 10,000 people to work with you. With a graphic novel, all you need is yourself and your editor.
Of course, you have to have a very visual vision of the world. You have to perceive life with images otherwise it doesn't work. Some artists are more into sound; they make music. The point is that you have to know what you want to say, and find the best way of saying it. It's hard to say how Persepolis evolved once I started writing. I had to learn how to write it as a graphic novel by doing.
What I Wanted to Say
I'm a pacifist. I believe there are ways to solve the world's problems. Instead of putting all this money to create arms, I think countries should invest in scholarships for kids to study abroad. Perhaps they could become good and knowledgeable professors in their own countries. You need time for that kind of change though.
I have been brought up open-minded. If I didn't know any people from other countries, I'd think everyone was evil based on news stories. But I know a lot of people, and know that there is no such thing as stark good and evil. Isn't it possible there is the same amount of evil everywhere?
If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It's not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the basement of a country, not on the surface. That is why I wanted people in other countries to read Persepolis, to see that I grew up just like other children.
It's so rewarding to see people at my book signings who never read graphic novels. They say that when they read mine they became more interested. If it opens these people's eyes not to believe what they hear, I feel successful.
ON WRITING PERSEPOLIS
By Marjane Satrapi, as told to Pantheon staff
Chances are that if you are an American you know very little about the 1979 Iranian Revolution. "This revolution was normal, and it had to happen," says Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, a totally unique memoir about growing up in Iran after the Shah left power. "Unfortunately, it happened in a country where people were very traditional, and other countries only saw the religious fanatics who made their response public." In her graphic novel, Satrapi, shows readers that these images do not make up the whole story about Iran. Here, she talks freely about what it was like to tell this story with both words and pictures, and why she is so proud of the result.After I finished university, there were nine of us, all artists and friends, working in a studio together. That group finally said, "Do something with your stories." They introduced me to graphic novelists. Spiegelman was first. And when I read him, I thought "Jesus Christ, it's possible to tell a story and make a point this way." It was amazing.
Writing a Graphic Novel is Like Making a Movie People always ask me, "Why didn't you write a book?" But that's what Persepolis is. To me, a book is pages related to something that has a cover. Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.
We learn about the world through images all the time. In the cinema we do it, but to make a film you need sponsors and money and 10,000 people to work with you. With a graphic novel, all you need is yourself and your editor.
Of course, you have to have a very visual vision of the world. You have to perceive life with images otherwise it doesn't work. Some artists are more into sound; they make music. The point is that you have to know what you want to say, and find the best way of saying it. It's hard to say how Persepolis evolved once I started writing. I had to learn how to write it as a graphic novel by doing.
What I Wanted to Say
I'm a pacifist. I believe there are ways to solve the world's problems. Instead of putting all this money to create arms, I think countries should invest in scholarships for kids to study abroad. Perhaps they could become good and knowledgeable professors in their own countries. You need time for that kind of change though.
I have been brought up open-minded. If I didn't know any people from other countries, I'd think everyone was evil based on news stories. But I know a lot of people, and know that there is no such thing as stark good and evil. Isn't it possible there is the same amount of evil everywhere?
If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It's not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the basement of a country, not on the surface. That is why I wanted people in other countries to read Persepolis, to see that I grew up just like other children.
It's so rewarding to see people at my book signings who never read graphic novels. They say that when they read mine they became more interested. If it opens these people's eyes not to believe what they hear, I feel successful.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
A Daily Dose of Architecture: Follow-up #1: Water Tanks
Chicago Architecture Club has recently announced the winners of Chicago Prize for 2005: Water Tanks, a competition that challenged entrants to salvage a part of Chicago's urban fabric, the industrial water tank, through creative reuse and preservation.
First prize went to Rahman Polk who had imagined to turn Chicago's water tanks into a network of electricity-generating wind turbines...water tanks around Chicago would be transformed into a network of electrical generators that would create a citywide, publicly accessible WiFi network and use LED displays to broadcast Webcasts, cultural exhibits, Amber alerts, weather warnings and other public service announcements."
Another interesting design, "Sanctuary," won an honorable mention for its vision of the water tanks as UN-administered refuges for people seeking political asylum or those fleeing detention by the U.S. government.
(Originally seen on "WE MAKE MONEY-NOT ART")
Thursday, November 03, 2005
about del.icio.us
This is from: Joho the Blog: [berkman] Joshua's news.
If you aren't using del.icio.us yet - I really encourage you to check it out.
Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us is giving a lunchtime talk. His presence has sold out the small conference room at the Berkman Center so we've moved to a bigger room.
What follows are paraphrases of what he said; I am certain not only to have omitted much but to have gotten stuff wrong, so before you get pissed at Joshua for saying x, you might want to check that he in fact didn't say y and I said he said x.
He built delicious in 2003 to manage his own links. He had been using a text file, but twenty entries into it he had already introduced a tag into it.
Currently at delicious: 5M links, about 10M posts, on average about two tags per item. About 500,000 unique tags. Growth in tags is slow.
The Chinese firewall blocks delicious now.
Hard core tech pages have gone from 25% to 17% over the course of this year. "So interests are starting to broaden."
Q: How would you describe delicious to a layperson?
A: It's a way to remember stuff. Links initially but we're adding some new types.
Q: Delicious is aggressively without a user interface, so I think of it as a pipe instead of as a consumer destination...
A: I've finally hired people who have a different sense of user design than I do. We've done a round of UI testing — the one-way mirror, etc. That was an entirely terrifying day. Once they figured out the point and got through the URL, people like the interface. It does what it does without a lot of jokey stuff, etc.
The API: People do get value out of it, but it's also a political statement that it's your data. Plus I'm lazy.
Q: What's the financial model?
A: The same as any other advertising-backed discovery engine, like Google. The people who are using it are paying us with information. Ten times the number of people are on the site but not signed in than those who are signed in.
Q (me): Which are you going to push, the individual or social uses?
A: You won't use it if it's not useful to you. But we'll put in more social structure. Group tags are coming — tags that are lightly permissioned. You'd tag it as for a group, e.g., "groupname: tag." (Example: nptech, a tag used by people in the non-profit tech field.) In the case of people collectively organizing around a tag, I think you want to amplify that. We're trying to put in privacy now; it's a little bit of a challenge to do and keep it fast.
I worry about systems that stay in stealth mode. There's stuff you're not learning. We generally push code out to the live site 2-3/week.
Q: Say more about group tags and privacy...
A: Items can be private. If it's tagged for you or your group you'll be able to see them. The items won't be visible (in order to avoid problems with totalitarian governments.)
There are 8 people at Joshua's company now.
Q: Why "tags" instead of "keywords" in coming up with the terminology?
A: It was inadvertently clever. I wish I could say I did it intentionally. Typically, when keywords are used, you don't see a list of the aggregated keywords. Maybe it is a slightly new thing.
Q: (me) Will we see typed tags, e.g., for events you get a field for time and a field for place?
A: I would like to store more rich datat types but that won't happen immediately, e.g. contacts and events. You can make a date tag now: "date._____" There's stuff about the url, stuff about the post, stuff that belongs to you. E.g., if you bookmark an Amazon url. I could go get the bookcover, the price, etc. Then how do you represent them. We have to figure out how to do that once we've got performance up.
Q: As delicious scales, certain tags become meaningless. E.g., the "china" feed is pretty useless. But if I could specify subsets or groups...
A: You'd create a group and let people in. It will be implemented as a tag, so you could get a feed of (say) "berkman" and "china." (With your inbox you can map tags, i.e., this person's "china" is that person's "asia.") We have something called "the nework" coming; I originally called it "friends" but that was somewhat creepy. You identify people as being in your network and get feeds from them. [A group will be an established set of people who opt in. A network is a set of people you designate; they will not know they're a member of your network. I point out that flickr tells you. Joshua says that every time he gets a notice from some random person that he's been added as a contact "I want to rip my face off."]
I'm not trying to build up the delicious community. There are plenty of communities.
Almost no one subscribes to a person/tag. Most subscribe either to a person or a tag. So, if you bookmark something and someone else has notes (nee "extended") on that thing, you'll be able to see them in your inbox. ("Inbox" is badly named, Joshua says.)
About a third of people who create accounts never come back.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
from WOID: a journal of visual language
III)
When Matisse was an old, old man, a bit before his death, he went on a walk. As he tottered down the street the waiters in each cafÈ, one after the other, came out to stand in homage. When Verdi was an old man, as he went on a drive in the country the peasants came up by the side of the road and sang the ExileÃs Chorus from Nabucco. There is a god, wrote Arthur Rimbaud, who falls asleep amongst perfumed hosannas, and wakes up for the elderly and frail. If there Ãs such a god, he has his heaven, which is art, and his hell: the New York art scene.
Paul Werner
Monday, October 17, 2005
Woodland Pattern Book Center
I am teaching a workshop at Woodland Pattern this Thursday. Here is the title and the description:
Text/Image/Memory
It is easy to write about the 'loss of one's childhood' or the 'loss of a parent.' We have heard these phrases often enough to think we know what they mean. But I suspect that the reality of our life experiences is far more complicated than we often care to reflect on. Those realities include joy and pain, wonder and confusion. Often we struggle for words that will do justice to these feelings. In this workshop we will examine strategies for re-visioning experiences that have been formative in ways (both positive and negative) that we struggle to understand. We will look at the work of others as a starting point for visualizing how we see the world. The process of making, a mystery in itself, often gives us the gift of memory with new understanding.
It has been a pleasure to prepare for - and it is a pleasure to return again to Woodland Pattern - a place that I have so much affection for - and has been so meaningful in my own development as an artist while I have been in Milwaukee.
They have a wonderful archive of people who have read their work and exhibited in the gallery that is really worth checking out. One of the pieces that is a favorite of mine is the following by my friend Mark Anderson. It is from MANUAL.
You start small and expand as much as you desire, in the course of your life, but language is something that is often taken for granted, and over time, expediency will replace curiosity, and of the thousands of words available to learn and use, you'll probably settle on a small handful that serves your needs.
At some point, perhaps, you will travel to a foreign country and if you are a standard American with nothing like a second language you will be reminded of that early stage in your life when the range of your vocabulary was really really narrow. It's probably something you won't think about too often, but in the beginning, you had one word—[gurgle, sounding like hi, why and I]. Then you split that into two, then a third came along, then more and so on, but eventually you may forget what it was like to have only as many words as you had teeth.
Eating is something that gets underway at the beginning, and it grows and changes as you do, into more advanced and particular behaviors which eventually relate to your response to hunger more as a metaphor than prime manifestation.
From the initial urge to suck—a desire that never really leaves you—the things you will do to appease your appetite as you step beyond the world of the crib multiply in manifold forms, dodging and weaving around your ability to control and understand them.
Confusion ensues when hunger leaves the realm of the stomach, and mashed peaches gives way to cigarettes, coffee, bigger toys, new clothes, ,more this, better that; better job, bigger hat; greater power, wealth, knowledge; more money, more time; more me.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Hive
into a light most unexpected the glass hives
executed labors whose writings in a darkness are lost
meanwhile they exhaust the city's supplies
and live only in the midst however abundant
inaudible to them the murmur that comes to us
song of abundance psalms of grief
an entire absence of hesitation
whereby they break with the past as though with an enemy
it is not without prescience their summoning
as though nothing is happening will come back
to live as long as the world itself in those who come after
too vast to be seen too alien to be understood
prefers what is not yet visible to that which is
as a society organizes itself and rises so does a shrinkage enter
so crowded does the too prosperous city become
the era of revolutions may close and work become the barricade
suddenly abandoning generations to come
the abode of the future wrapped in a shroud
a door standing not now where once it stood
we are so made that nothing contents us
Carolyn Forche
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Sunday, October 09, 2005
MESSENGER: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging
The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft captured several stunning images of Earth during a gravity assist swingby of its home planet on Aug. 2, 2005. Several hundred images, taken with the wide-angle camera in MESSENGER’s Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth.
Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometers) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometers) away from Earth – farther than the Moon’s orbit – when it snapped the last image on Aug. 3.
[link through post title]
Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometers) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometers) away from Earth – farther than the Moon’s orbit – when it snapped the last image on Aug. 3.
[link through post title]
Zero Church
John and I saw Maggie and Suzy Roche perform ZERO CHURCH last night at Alverno. The first concert in what is looking to be an impressive season of offerings.
They (the Roche Sisters) were quick to point out that this was not really "a concert" as Zero Church is, if you will, the result of research into how people pray.
From their website: "This collection of prayers is a result of work we began at the Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue founded by Anna Deavere Smith at Harvard University. "The Institute focuses on artistic collaboration and discovery while exploring issues of race, identity, diversity and community."
We spoke in depth to many people from different cultural and religious backgrounds about their thoughts and feelings about prayers. We were not focused on an academic or historical study of prayer, we were simply interested in working with anyone who wished to share a prayer with us. Many of these prayers were written by folks we spoke to in and around the IACD community. Some are more traditional. However, this project is not affiliated with any organized religion, and by no means do we intend to represent religions of the world. It is an exploration of faith and belief and how it has affected individuals' lives."
I was totally moved by this work when I first heard it a couple of years back - went out and bought copies of the CD for several people immediately. The opportunity to hear it performed live was a real gift.
This concert is a part of the year long initiative ART/FAITH/SOCIAL JUSTICE being held throughout the city this year. Kudos in particular to David and Phylis Ravel and Polly Morris for their work on this project.
My favorite of the "prayers" is the following:
Anyway
People are often unreasonable, illogical,
and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, People may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone
could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
1972 Weekend
Satuday, May 19, 1972
A good rest - from 11pm (Matt & Tom) – Dad was up to 12 reading Horgon’s “White Water.” He locked a wayward deer mouse in the front room & left a trap for him. In a.m., Mr. Mouse was in the trap! Number 3 so far. 63 degrees outdoors at 7 am and 65 degrees indoors. Flock of Canada honkers swim in the pack ice and hymn us an early compline! Our buckets of ice only 1/2 melted in refrig. Girls down for more to chill wine and root beer for arrival of Mom, etc. & Vizanko’s for cookout. Hot chocolate and donuts for breakfast.
Later:
The canoe was hauled down the beach at noon – at the behest of Muriel Anne & son John. They promptly took off 1/4 mile out to pack ice – where “weird and spooky noises” abounded – but no flies –from our 80 degree shore-side temp. They saw a very large fish – rise, roll a hunk of ice and flash the 18” end of a gray tail fin that impressed them. John thought of sturgeon, Muriel of whale. Later Dad made same run with Mom – but no repeat – except for ice and Canada Honker noises - way out. The Vizanko’s brought “again as much” food – Ethel consumed 1/2 gallon on Chablis while Tom and Dad silently abstained (Christians!) A good time had by all. Tom is champ stone skipper – claiming unique Pole and Finn physiology--- Dad is horseshoe champ --- claiming unique luck at short stakes! Dad stays on with six kids – Bart, Matt, Shelagh & Mary Pavolvich –Carrie and Annie --- overnight!! Ma may come out with Mary to canoe tomorrow.
Sunday, May 20, 1972
Up at 7am- after Jiffy Pop bed at 11pm — Dad reversed windows. Bart bashed tree 7x on new Tarzan swing Dad & John hung in ravine yesterday. Dad & 6 had jolly breakfast – then unwintered the big boat & went trolling among 1,000 ice floes – on hearsay that coaster Salmon, Browns, Lakers & Rainbows are being taken off Black River Breakwall. Annie & Carrie tried, Bart, Mary, Shelagh, Matt & Dad tried – no takers. Mom & Kate came out – followed later by Wayne Smiths & daughters & dog. We cooked out on beach – dragged boat over snow and mounted it for summer. Later the Vizanko’s, 2 daughters & their Detroit fisherman guest (Bill Alexander) came for another go at horseshoe. Those two took Dad and Wayne Smith 3 games to 2. They added beer to our wine list – a good afternoon for all. Mom & gang home at 6 --- we clean up & go at 7 p.m. Weather lovely most of day – some cold and drafts off Lake ice – but 60 – 75 degree holds and mostly sun with little wind.
A good rest - from 11pm (Matt & Tom) – Dad was up to 12 reading Horgon’s “White Water.” He locked a wayward deer mouse in the front room & left a trap for him. In a.m., Mr. Mouse was in the trap! Number 3 so far. 63 degrees outdoors at 7 am and 65 degrees indoors. Flock of Canada honkers swim in the pack ice and hymn us an early compline! Our buckets of ice only 1/2 melted in refrig. Girls down for more to chill wine and root beer for arrival of Mom, etc. & Vizanko’s for cookout. Hot chocolate and donuts for breakfast.
Later:
The canoe was hauled down the beach at noon – at the behest of Muriel Anne & son John. They promptly took off 1/4 mile out to pack ice – where “weird and spooky noises” abounded – but no flies –from our 80 degree shore-side temp. They saw a very large fish – rise, roll a hunk of ice and flash the 18” end of a gray tail fin that impressed them. John thought of sturgeon, Muriel of whale. Later Dad made same run with Mom – but no repeat – except for ice and Canada Honker noises - way out. The Vizanko’s brought “again as much” food – Ethel consumed 1/2 gallon on Chablis while Tom and Dad silently abstained (Christians!) A good time had by all. Tom is champ stone skipper – claiming unique Pole and Finn physiology--- Dad is horseshoe champ --- claiming unique luck at short stakes! Dad stays on with six kids – Bart, Matt, Shelagh & Mary Pavolvich –Carrie and Annie --- overnight!! Ma may come out with Mary to canoe tomorrow.
Sunday, May 20, 1972
Up at 7am- after Jiffy Pop bed at 11pm — Dad reversed windows. Bart bashed tree 7x on new Tarzan swing Dad & John hung in ravine yesterday. Dad & 6 had jolly breakfast – then unwintered the big boat & went trolling among 1,000 ice floes – on hearsay that coaster Salmon, Browns, Lakers & Rainbows are being taken off Black River Breakwall. Annie & Carrie tried, Bart, Mary, Shelagh, Matt & Dad tried – no takers. Mom & Kate came out – followed later by Wayne Smiths & daughters & dog. We cooked out on beach – dragged boat over snow and mounted it for summer. Later the Vizanko’s, 2 daughters & their Detroit fisherman guest (Bill Alexander) came for another go at horseshoe. Those two took Dad and Wayne Smith 3 games to 2. They added beer to our wine list – a good afternoon for all. Mom & gang home at 6 --- we clean up & go at 7 p.m. Weather lovely most of day – some cold and drafts off Lake ice – but 60 – 75 degree holds and mostly sun with little wind.
JENNY HOLZER: FOR THE CITY
So - about as far away from where I am right now (see picture) are these interesting installations/performances by Jenny Holzer who's work I have always appreciated. The skyline as pallette....Here is how she describes herself on her web-site:
For more than twenty-five years, Jenny Holzer has presented her astringent ideas, arguments, and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, the Reichstag, and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. Her medium, whether formulated as a t-shirt, as a plaque, or as an LED sign, is writing, and the public dimension is integral to the delivery of her work. Starting in the late 1970s with the New York City posters, and up to her recent projections on landscape and architecture, her practice has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor, kindness, and moral courage. Holzer received the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and the Public Art Network Award in 2004. She holds honorary degrees from Ohio University, Williams College, the Rhode Island School of Design, and The New School. The artist lives and works in Hoosick, New York.
I/O Brush: The World as the Palette
I found this today on Rocketboom.
From the site: The idea of I/O Brush is to let the kids build their own ink. They can take any colors, textures, and movements they want to experiment with from their own environment and paint with their personal and unique ink
Aside from wanting one for myself - I'd like to get one for all of the littlest people in my life: Elijah, Claire, Cameron, George and Audrey, Robin, Julian...what a great thing!! Link through the title and take a look. (Make sure you watch the movie...)
Friday, September 30, 2005
Finally today the pages of "Potter's Field" seem to be coming together. I have printed a variety of mock-ups and sent them off to poet/pal - David Martin to see what he thinks. Such a strange transition - holding an image in your hands after seeing it on screen in so many permutations.... now looking at it again on the blog-o-screen - where I don't think it really holds up it's end of the bargain (probably has much to do with my neophyte abilities with technology). This changing dynamic (physical object/ephemeral screen) is of great interest to me. It is always (of late) a underlying narrative of any studio work. This book (when finished) will be about 10-12 pages. The poem speaks to the "Potter's Field" that is on the county grounds outside of Milwaukee.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Mind Work
So much of working on any new project involves time for reflecting. These early fall days it involves getting the dog in the car and getting lost on the logging trails that go through the forest (Hiawatha National). We drive and drive and park and walk until I start worrying about where I parked and have to back-track.
These days the issue is how to bind a book that is in process. I have been trying to stay in relationship with the project - not letting it spin our of control - remembering that I have the tools (inner and outer) needed to complete it. Most times if I drive far enough, walk long enough - the solution is right there.
The other day I heard writer Louise Erdrich being interviewed on KCRW's BookWorm. She said (talking about her practice of writing) that anything that takes up your mind and heart is a life quest. Yes. This is something I know to be true.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Small World Stuff - Missing Home
The chief city of modern Wisconsin, Milwaukee, was once in Michigan Territory, although it was then but a small trading post. Wisconsin Territory was separated from Michigan in 1836. However the name Milwaukee survives in Michigan, on Milwaukee Lake in Marquette County, Milwaukee Creek, St. Clair County, Milwaukee Junction, a postal station in Detroit and , in corrupted form, Zilwaukee, Saginaw County. There was once a village of Milwaukie in St. Clair Couty (1837 – 1858), named for Milwaukie Creek (presently Milwaukee); it is now Lakeport.
About ten interpretations of this name are in print, although it is not a difficult one to analyze. There can be little doubt that the correct meaning is “good land.” From Potawatomi meno or mino, “good,” and aki, “land.” The l sound it now has is the result of misunderstanding by whites. [From Indian Names in Michigan by V. Vogel]
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Sweet Water
Susan Brind Morrow wrote a piece in the NYTimes on August 31 - a fine little essay about her childhood summers on Lake Ontario. She broadens her thinking to include all of the area around the Great Lakes, saying, "Beyond Chicago and Buffalo and Detroit, this territory of the great freshwater reserves of the world is for the most part unsettled, and unsought, like a secret treasure long ago forgotten."
Sitting in the Bayliss Public Library in Sault Ste. Marie, I wonder if the residents of these small towns and communities feel like their towns are unsettled and unsought? My guess is their answers would show different POV on the subject. Some people are here because the area is "unsought" and others see the ebb and flow of tourists and other seasonal residents as an important part of how the areas define themselves. Either way - the treasure part is absolutely right.
She goes on to write about the history of the lakes, finishes with a question and then poses an answer: "Why is it necessary - all this diversity - why do you need it at this point in the evolution of life on earth?"
How she answers the question is a a long sentence - but almost a prayer - and certainly something that I feel everyday that I spend in proximity to the Lakes - from the smallest hamlet to the largest metropolis.
"The lakes and everything affected by them, the heavy blanketing of winter snow, the following slow thaw and mild growing season in a pervasively moist atmosphere, seem integrally involved in what becomes now at the end of summer, the production of all of the delightful and delicious things of this world: from the fish and the fruit to the vast migrations of breeding water birds to the bees that pollinate the vineyards and the orchards - their eerily acute sense of geometry and time translating into sweetness as it insistently flows forth throughout nature in this familiar yet rare landscape formed not long ago by huge bodies of sudden deep blue water, freshwater, the one thing needed to sustain, in all its wildness and diversity, life on this earth."
Morrow is the author of "Wolves and Honey: A Hidden History of the Natural World." The entire article is linked through the post title - and well worth the time it will take you to sign up for the free NYTimes subscription.....
Sitting in the Bayliss Public Library in Sault Ste. Marie, I wonder if the residents of these small towns and communities feel like their towns are unsettled and unsought? My guess is their answers would show different POV on the subject. Some people are here because the area is "unsought" and others see the ebb and flow of tourists and other seasonal residents as an important part of how the areas define themselves. Either way - the treasure part is absolutely right.
She goes on to write about the history of the lakes, finishes with a question and then poses an answer: "Why is it necessary - all this diversity - why do you need it at this point in the evolution of life on earth?"
How she answers the question is a a long sentence - but almost a prayer - and certainly something that I feel everyday that I spend in proximity to the Lakes - from the smallest hamlet to the largest metropolis.
"The lakes and everything affected by them, the heavy blanketing of winter snow, the following slow thaw and mild growing season in a pervasively moist atmosphere, seem integrally involved in what becomes now at the end of summer, the production of all of the delightful and delicious things of this world: from the fish and the fruit to the vast migrations of breeding water birds to the bees that pollinate the vineyards and the orchards - their eerily acute sense of geometry and time translating into sweetness as it insistently flows forth throughout nature in this familiar yet rare landscape formed not long ago by huge bodies of sudden deep blue water, freshwater, the one thing needed to sustain, in all its wildness and diversity, life on this earth."
Morrow is the author of "Wolves and Honey: A Hidden History of the Natural World." The entire article is linked through the post title - and well worth the time it will take you to sign up for the free NYTimes subscription.....
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Bay Mills Community College Home Page
Spent the day doing research at the wonderful little library at Bay Mills Community College on the Bay Mills Reservation in northern Michigan. Of particular interest - and once again proving the oppression of privilege (mine) - I learned that the college is a part of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. Founded in 1972 by six tribally controlled community colleges to mobilize a concerted effort to deal with common challenges, AIHEC is now a cooperatively sponsored effort on the part of 36 member institutions in the United States and Canada. Today, tribal colleges and universities, also known as TCU's, serve over 30,000 students from more than 250 tribal nations.
The place was packed the entire time I was there. It is a large log building with confortable chairs and an interesting collection of native artifacts on the upper level. Beautiful bead and quill work, tools, and carvings. I was able to look at some contemporary work that is being done by young artists - If you are interested, check out the Institute for American Indian Arts.
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