Hypotyposis on a Good Day

Jack of all trades and master of none

When talking to my Dad, he would, on occasion, exhort me with a Chinese proverb. The one that rings in my ears these days is that of the man "who has a drawerful of knives, none of which is sharp". I am such a man in his estimation.

Ever since I was a grade school student, Dad would say to me that I was trying to learn too many things and I was interested in more than I can handle. At that time, I was the best student around in every academic subject -- and I was into everything from English to math to history. As the years went by, I gradually met people who were superior specialists in areas of interest to me. Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding rather full of myself (which I likely am), I have skills and a disposition that allow me to function quite well in the various roles I play.

My Dad and I would have a running discussion all these years about my lack of focus. Though I mostly agreed with his characterization of me as a dilettante, neither did I want to confine my interests into a specialty that did not really capture my passions.

In the last year, I have been on a simplifying/re-examine-my-life phase. I now keep coming back to how unfocused I have felt. I have spread myself out into many areas -- and I have been feeling deeply dissatisfied with the results. I have been a good and diligent member of various boards over the last 7 years -- but I feel that I haven't been a truly excellent board member. I have made small-scale contributions to promoting justice issues at my church -- but there is so much more that can be done. I have been a good friend to many, but an excellent one? I am a good programmer but have not put enough energy to becoming a brilliant one. And so on....

So what am I going to do? I am trying to figure that out now. Writing has certainly helped.

A little sidenote. Because I have no formal education in Chinese culture, it delights me now to find others' talking or writing about what I have experienced. So I jumped onto google this morning to look for the proverb about the dull knives and found the following quote from RMHI| Improving Chinese herbology education

It is difficult to become expert in many disciplines. No one can do everything and one risks becoming a dilettante if one does not choose a few subjects to study thoroughly. A Chinese proverb admonishes the person who "has many knives, but none of them are sharp."

Studying how Asian Americans interpret the Bible differently

I'm curious about GTU professor Kah-Jin (Jeffrey) Kuan, a specialist in Old Testament studies, because of his interest in "Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics". By the time I learned that he was teaching a summer course this year on the subject, it was already too late to attend. Hmmm....do I interpret the Bible differently from my non-Asian friends because of my ethnic background (yes, I know, as a Canadian, I'm not Asian-American).

Time out on "vulnerable" self-revelation?

Over the last week or so, as I've started to writing in much greater detail about my life, I've felt both exhilarated and worried. I've kept a private personal journal (off and on) since my early teens in which I have poured out my heart and processed my doubts and deep heart questions. I continue to value that private space -- and no one should think that my blog is exactly the same as my journal! But the problem with my journal writing is that it was sometimes terribly lazy. I'd write about the same thing over and over again; I make commitments that I soon forget and to which no one could hold me accountable -- since no one knew of my self-promises.

I've known for a while that there is really no substitute for writing for an external audience. Hence, over a year ago, I started a mailing list that I was planning to send to willing friends and family -- but not to the general public. The plan was to write something interesting every day. I chose the mailing list format to limit dissemination to select folks. I figure that I would get the advantages of writing for others while protecting my privacy. Before I launched the mailing list, I practiced to see how whether I could write something interesting every day. I ran out of steam during my practice run, and the mailing list was never launched.

Similar ambitions lie behind Hypotyposis, this weblog. Note, however, the differences: the blog is public available but I'm not sending ("pushing") the content out to my friends. I've told some friends about my blog but have made it clear that I don't expect them to read it. (Well, that comment is possibly disingenuous since if I had no expectations that they would read it, why would I even bring it up?) I am primarily writing this blog for myself, for me to "to work out (some of) [my] issues concerning Bach, the Web, life with God, politics, philosophy, art, justice, love, friendship, the church, books, etc." as the byline of the blog says. In contrast to my mailing list, I've been jazzed by the writing of this blog -- it has been exhilarating. I'm writing about matters of great significance to myself (if not to others). But since I'm writing to be read by others, I'm writing with the care and focus that are usually missing in my journaling.

Writing in the open has sparked serendipitous human connections, true gifts of grace. Two recent examples: First, my listing of my own life roles sparked Mark Sentell's list of life roles -- and a new connection across the country. In all the years since I first came across this concept, I never had opportunity to share a key conceptual framework with others, even among any of wonderful, close friends or family. (Isn't it odd that those closest to us should not know things so dear to us?) The list I wrote wasn't a secret; I would have gladly shared it with anyone who wanted to know. I suppose what was key is that the sharing had to happen in the right context. I needed to be able to set that context -- and there weren't too many opportunities to talk at this level with friends.)

The second example is Scot Hacker's pointing me to a relevant Salon piece on transportation in response to my post on biking. Scot was not a stranger to me since he and I both spoke on a panel on RSS on the Berkeley campus. I didn't know, however, that he was an avid bicyclist. I had read the Salon piece to which Scot had referred but had chosen not to link to it since it was not openly available to non-Salon subscribers. When I made that point to Scot, as well as despair at ever being able effect positive change in transportation reform, he made two points that impresed me: that we should be pointing to Salon since it was worth reading and deserved subscribers and that we should ride our bikes with relish and not despair. His email made my day, changed my mind, and lifted my spirit.

Let me now turn from the exhilaration of self-revealing blogging to the misgivings I've felt about my blogging. I've hinted about my concerns, most clearly with my post "Honest, open, and foolish?" but also in the context of posting my life roles and outlining a rough chronology of my life. My uneasiness has been the subject of two conversations I had yesterday and today -- last night with my friend Peter, who is a regular reader of my blog, and over lunch today with Chris. Peter was very surpised with how self-disclosing I've been recently. I shared with him my own doubts about what I've been doing but told him more about why I'm doing what I'm doing. (I have yet to explain some of those ideas here.) Chris asked me whether there was something specific that I'm worried about. Though I'm concerned about a lot of potential bad things that can come from blogging -- government data-mining/surveillance, cyber-stalking, rubbing some anonymous nut the wrong way, discrimination by some future job employer, giving plenty of information about myself to someone who wants to hurt me in some way ("knowledge is power") -- I've not been able to nail down any concrete worries. And though I've started to be more revealing of who I am, what I have disclosed is still rather tame and limited compared to a lot of other stuff out there.

So what to do? I don't want to spend too much time on "meta-blogging", blogging about blogging -- which is what I'm doing here right now. But I need to deal with the issue of what to say and how much to say before I forge ahead. I am looking for insight in this matter. It's probably a good time to look at some of the blogging books for wisdom. Google has already revealed a couple of interesting pointers [1, 2]. (Whenver I look at other blogs for discussion along these lines, I sense that I'm going through a common stage in blogging -- there must be a FAQ on this topic.)

While I sort out the question of what I am comfortable writing about, I'll probably blog on topics about which I feel less vulnerable. There's lot that I want to write about without putting myself out too far.

Have we (I) been massively deceived?

Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq was reviewed in today's SF Chronicle. The article caught my eye since I have been having a sinking feeling that the techniques that I have been using to come to a putatively well-considered consideration of political issues are not up to the task of countering the culture and sophistication of spin (i.e., propaganda) practiced in this world. I haven't come to any conclusions yet about WMDs, the war in Iraq -- that is, what the heck is really going on, whom can I trust, am I just being paranoid.

The book goes on my "maybe read" list -- not because I don't think it will useful to read -- but because I need to figure out what I need to focus on right now. I'm not sure I should invest the effort it will take to get to the bottom of these issues right now. (It pains me to say that because American foreign policy, not to mention just the core issues of war, life, death, and justice, are so important for us as a society to wrestle with.)

"New Memoir"

From Joyce Carol Oates' recent review (in the TLS) of Alice Sebold's Lucky: A Memoir:

Ours is the age of what might be called the New Memoir: the memoir of sharply focused events, very often traumatic, in distinction to the traditional life-memoir. The New Memoir is frequently written by the young or relatively young, the traditional memoir is usually the province of the older. In this sub-genre, the motive isn't to write a memoir because one is an individual of stature or accomplishment, in whom presumably readers might be interested, but to set forth out of relative anonymity the terms of one's physical/psychological ordeal; in most cases, the ordeal is survived, so that the memoirist moves through trauma into coping and eventual recovery. Though the literary structure may sound formulaic, exemplary memoirs like Lucky break the formula with their originality of insight and expression. Like most good prose works, Lucky is far from un-ambiguous: the memoir can be read as an alarming and depressing document, and it can be read as genuinely "uplifting". The pivotal point in Sebold's recovery doesn't occur until years after the rape when, ironically, she comes upon her own case discussed in Dr Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery in terms of "post traumatic stress disorder".

It seems to me that Joyce Carol Oates has a gift for coinages. Last year I noted her explication of what she calls memoirist-reportage in the New York Review.

Chronology: Another Way to Slice the Pie

Two days ago, in hope of ultimately connecting the disparate ramblings of my blog, I presented a list of my "life roles" that I use to conceptualize my life. I set the expectation that I would come back to this list often, unpacking the elements of the list. Before I jump into that task, however, I will offer a chronological presentation of my life. Just like the list of life roles, this chronological list will be sketchy. However, I hope that it provides a simple framework to contextualize the things I write about on this blog.

(As I write this list, I have a nagging doubt that I feel the need to acknowledge, if not fully address. I keep thinking, "Who cares about the chronology of my life? In fact, who cares about the life roles?" It's interesting that I should be nagged by this issue now since the "who cares?" question should have come up long ago when I started blogging. Who cares that I love Bach and computers?

But the "who cares" question wasn't an issue then because, maybe, I wasn't trying to be more systematic and had presented no grand pretensions about my blog. But now, making formal lists somehow raises the level of seriousness of my humble blog. Am I now writing my memoirs? Why would anyone care to read that? Again, I come back to the thought that my blog is first and foremost for me, to help focus my life -- and if the product of the process is "useful" to others, all the better. In the meantime, I shouldn't let these nags keep me from continuing....[This tangent reminds me of what Chris wrote a while back and the article by Tom Coates ("My obligation to you") to which I referred Chris.])

I was born on March 10, 1967, making me 36 years of age at this very moment. Major phases in my life so far map (not surprisingly) to the three cities in which I have lived:

1. Timmins, Canada (1967-1986)
   I was born in Timmins, a small city of 45,000 residents located 400 miles northeast of Toronto. My parents, Wayne and Joanne, came from China and arrived in Timmins in the mid-fifties and mid-sixties, respectively. My younger sisters, Janice and Shirley, were also born in Timmins. I grew up in Timmins and left when I was nineteen to attend university in Toronto.
   
2. Toronto, Canada (1986-1990)
   I studied Engineering Science (physics option) at the University of Toronto, where I lived at New College. The single most significant event of those years -- and there were many -- was my conversion to Christianity during the late summer of 1988 (a story both complex and simple).
   
3. Berkeley, USA (1990- present)
   I moved to Berkeley to start a Ph.D. program in Biophysics, which I completed in1997. (I studied electron transfer in photosynthetic reaction complexes under the guidance of the theoretical chemist David Chandler.) I spent four years living at the International House, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was booted from the House in 1994 so that I could get a life. Fortunately, I then moved into the Regent/Lorina House community of which I have been a part for the last nine years. After finishing my graduate work, I decide that instead of pursuing a career in biophysics, I would worked as staff at UC Berkeley, first in the Statistics Computing Facility and then at the Interactive University Project (where I am still happily ensconced).
   
   Since the last thirteen years of my life -- basically all of my "adult" life -- has been spent in Berkeley, this period has been profoundly formative.

How true

Lynn wrote: "Raymond's list of life roles is so diverse. He's a very very busy man!" Yes, so busy that I can write nothing on my personal blog today other than an acknowledgement of my own busyness! I hope to be more articulate tomorrow.

cogent theological musings

Lloyd wrote about Pepe's blog entry:

Cogent indeed! That's simply the densest weblog entry I've scanned in a long while... not the sort of writing one typically encounters in this medium, but it's great. Finally... a philosopher/theologian weblogger! :-) Raymond Yee, take note!

I read the post and concur with Lloyd -- it was bursting forth with thought after thought. I'd really like to hear a bit more background before attempting to engage the writing (and writer!) What lies behind the questions and analysis? (These days, when I turn to a new blog, I look for an "About" -- speaking of which, I need to put in a link to mine....)

Role-Mapping out my life

On Saturday, I wrote about the intense soul-searching that took place during my plane ride back to Berkeley:

I pondered and prayed a lot on the plane -- because there was much to ponder and pray about. In the months to come, I hope to share some of what I thought about. As I become more and more into blogging, one of the filters I apply in guiding my reflection is whether and how I might write about that matter. Using such a filter may seem strange (especially to non-bloggers and non-writers) -- but it's a handy filter for me. My mind is typically racing in too many different directions, leading to diffuseness of thought and action. Writing with enough clarity and background to make my thoughts and feelings comprehensible to anyone who cannot read my mind limits me in a good way.

I'm purposefully trying to come back to the seven pages of notes I compiled last weekend. Saturday wasn't the first time I brainstormed ideas, questions, feelings one after the other. However, I rarely came back to what I wrote -- hence not focusing myself on some key matters. I want to change that behavior.

There was a lot of shorthand in the notes, phrases loaded with meaning waiting to be unpacked and elucidated. So let me dive in today and see how far I get. Expect for me to come back to this thread of blogging.

For the last six or seven years, since coming across Stephen Covey's First Things First, I conceptualized my life in terms of about 7-10 "life roles" that I play. (I'd like to dig up the book, find a rigorous reference for the concept -- maybe in some other post). I won't attempt a definition here but rather write specifically about the roles that I list for myself (as a way of explaining myself but also to illustrate the concept). In some ways, the notion of "life roles" should be obvious. However, it hadn't been obvious to me and its introduction to me changed an important set of mental boxes I used to organize my life. These days, I wonder a lot about the limitations of this conceptual framework, the ways it might be holding me back. That's not to deny the framework's usefulness, however.

Enough generalities for now. Here is my list of current roles:

1. follower of God/disciple of Jesus
2. son and brother (member of my family)
3. friend
4. member of the Lorina House community (my living arrangement)
5. technology architect for the Interactive University Project (work)
6. member and elder of the First Presbyterian Church Berkeley; member of the Justice Task Force at FPCB; board member of Radix and member of the New College Berkeley community; former Westminster House board member (Christian community life)
7. TeleCare volunteer
8. intellectual/writer/educator/artist/creative person/Bach lover/restless person/encyclopedist
9. "saw-sharpener"

So there....I feel a bit exposed laying out such a list. (There are plenty of problems with this list, some of which I see but many I'm sure that are hidden from me but obvious to my readers!) And this list certainly cries out for explanation (probably lots of it for those of you who would care to hear it). But I think that from how I've already blogged and from what I will want to write, you'll start to see the connections between the various, seemingly random, pieces of writing to the larger framework of how I order different parts of my life.

Memorable words of disappointment

From David Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (p. 71) -- Astrov says to Vanya:

Oh stop it! (Pause.) Listen to me. People who live after us. In one hundred or in two hundred years, you know? Do you know what they'll feel? They will despise us for our stupid and insipid lives. And perhaps they will know how to be happy. We, however, but for you and I, there is but one hope. And that hope is this. That when we are dead, lying in our graves, visions may visit us, and that they are of peace. Oh, yes. My friend, we've said, in this district we find but two decent cultivated men. And we spoke of ourselves. But the last decade has undone us. Life has sucked us in--this foul, Philistine life--and has corrupted us. What a shocking surprise; we've turned out like the rest! But we have changed the subject. Give me what you took.

Timmins on my mind

Snow is mostly a distant memory. But I daydream often about winter nights in Timmins, when the mercury drops way below zero. There is no snow falling from the sky but there is a lot of it under my feet. It crunches as I trudge down the street, around the block, sometimes on my way to a destination, other times just out for a walk. The smoke rises gently from neighbourhood houses, people gathered warmly around a television. It's hockey night in Canada, and most minds are focused on the match. I don't play hockey myself -- the snow is much more interesting. Snow is where I find peace. Even if the wind howls and my face grimaces in response, I find myself in that pure white. Of course there is joy as I come back in, my glasses fogging up. The snow does not go away though.

Honest, open, and foolish?

As I share more and more of myself on the Web, I often wonder about the wisdom of being open in this forum. Is it ironic that I should be so concerned about projects like Total Information Awareness (TIA) when I'm basically feeding information about myself to the open Web that TIA would probably not be able to find on its own? How can I get upset at advertisers, telemarketers, and the like who pay good money to learn about my buying habits when I write on the Web about books I read, talk about where I live, gadgets I have bought, magazines that I look at, friends I have -- perhaps a more vivid description of my life than my credit card statement? And who knows what a future employer or prospective date think about me after reading my blog? What I consider honesty, they might consider self-indulgence.

More questions than answers at this point. Some things that I think might be pieces of the puzzle are: notions of the transparent society (time to read the book?), in which there can be "freedom through accountability"; images of heaven in which we will all be transparently known (to God and to others) -- nothing that we have done or said will be secret any longer (Luke 12:2-3); openess as a way of encouraging others to be likewise (or not!)

Testing Trackback 1,2,3...

Trackback has been implemented for Manila -- but I'm still trying to get it to work. This entry is to see whether I can get trackback communication going both ways between my two blogs. If I can, then cross-referencing will be much easier to manage.

Finding My Roots at the SF Asian Art Musuem

While Deborah and I were hanging out that the SF Asian Art Musuem yesterday, she asked me why I had chosen to become a member of the museum. Since I don't remember anyone ever asking me that question and because I hadn't completely thought through the reasons myself, I struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer. Certainly, the museum has an excellent collection of Asian art, perhaps the best place to get an overview. And I do have a thing for museums and for sharing the experience with others. (I invested in a contributing membership level, allowing me to bring up to 3 adults with me.) But why this museum and why now?

My hope is that over the course of this next year (or couple of years), I'll be able to immerse myself in the study of Asian, particularly Chinese, art. Quite honestly, I don't know the best way to do so, especially with the contraints I have of time, energy, knowledge, and motivation. I pictured reading about Chinese art and then going to the musuem to view real-life examples. I know that it takes discipline and planning to get beyond the dilettante level of engagement that I can easily settle into. So one or two visits ain't going to cut it for any serious study -- and hence the membership. Beyond the vague notion of studying Chinese art through visiting the SFAAM a number of times and attempting to read books like Art in China (Oxford History of Art) (which I never did get through, alas), I had no plan.

Now I do have the good fortunate to work with Chris who is passionate and knowledgeable about the visual arts (among other things!). In his recounting of a visit he made to the museum, Chris wrote about an exercise I'd love to do -- if only the musuem could be designed to facilitate it:

I have a suggestion, just one example, to bring objects alive, to encourage closer looking, to breakdown a bit the experience of discrete cultural sampling. Because, as the many wall labels keep pointing out, these many cultures did have various influences on each over over the years, especially through Buddhism, I would've loved, for example, to see a display of Buddhas from many regions and periods. What if one could explore Buddhas from India, Thailand, and Japan in the same room, and to note the similiarities and differences, rather than reading and trying to remember wall labels and history from galleries on different floors? How about comparative studies of pottery or textiles? How about some way of stimulating some critical thinking and close looking by not treating objects that they have only one context - the specific culture in which they're created - and then treating each object that within that specific culture the object stands on its own, too? I had this feeling during some very difficult parts of the museum, for example in the Tibetan galleries.

Chris mentioned the museum's website, which I hope will grow in depth. What one might not be able to do in a physical gallery might be possible with a virtual one. I'd love to be able to pull up an electronic catalog of the works in the museum, make my own theme collection, annotate the pieces....(Oops, that's the Raymond, IU Technology Architect talking about the Scholar's Box...)

Now that I've told you more about how I plan to use the Museum, I need to get to the question that I had set out to answer originally: why Asian Art? Becoming a member of the SFAAM is one (perhaps misguided) strategy in "finding my roots", a goal to which I've alluded but have never written at great length. I look back at my childhood or my teen years -- or even to the events of yesterday -- and I see so often how I don't really understand the "whys" or the context of my family, why we behave the way we do, and more fundamentally who we are or who I am. Clearly, there must be more direct ways to learn about my heritage than looking at a bunch of scrolls or musing on the origin of a particular Ming vase. There are --and I'm pursuing some of those avenues too (the subject of future posts, I'm sure....) But still, as a Chinese-Canadian man highly educated in North American countries, I feel this gaping hole in my background. I can tell you about the intricacies of Christian theology, quantum mechanics, human rights issues, how to dress for a wedding, what forks to use at a formal dinner -- but am hard-pressed to tell you the significance of red in a Chinese restaurant, why my family loved orange trees, and why Chinese calligraphy is such a big deal. It's not unusual for me to think back on my childhood days and wonder why did we do the things we did. When I was a kid, I just thought it was odd behavior, probably particular to my own family. Now I think why I didn't ask more questions to figure out why.

The Art Musuem seems to be more than any other institution in the area friendly to people like me: educated (according to North American standards), but more or less ignorant of the traditions that are represented in the musuem. The rigid pedagogy of the Musuem to which Chris refers is probably a reflection of the low level of knowledge of the musuem's typical visitors. Yet the SFAAm also has depths to be plumbed, with opportunities for serious group study as well as fun outings with hip young people (will definitely unhip people like me fit?). Somehow, I imagine that as I learn about the art of China, I'll start drawing in other threads --history, language, cultural customs -- that will in concert fill in some of the gaps in my own background, bringing wholeness and balance and wellness to my being.

The joy of cycling

After I skimmed Krista's Visceral Appeal of Public Transit...? , I gave her a call -- I had been away for couple of weeks but had been following her blog from afar. We talked about various issues about blogging, and I encouraged her (as I hope to here) to keep up the writing. Although I won't be able to respond thoughtfully to everything she's writing, I'm reading her blog. Much of what she is sharing might not elicit an immediate response; some piece might judge lodge in my mind until weeks or months later only to come together with a disparate observation or idea. But what Krista is writing will help us immersed in our car-dependence to see into the personal angle of living in a different and free way.

I do, however, want to jot a make a few points in response to Krista's post -- some of which arose during my own bike ride to and from church today. First, a quote from Krista:

The fact is, public transit actually does appeal to me on a visceral level (as do bicycling and walking)--and that's something that I wish I could convey better to others. The absolute luxury of having someone else deal with the driving and traffic (not to mention maintenance and liability) while I read, write, sleep, pay bills, or talk to a friend--sometimes seems like a kind of miracle. My survival instinct also kicks in here--I feel a lot safer in a train, on a track, than amidst hundreds of unpredictable independently moving high-speed vehicles (not to mention my own car's mechanical unpredictability)--and statistics bear out this instinct. The exhiliration of riding a bicycle, the relaxed pace of walking--these things also appeal to me on a deep emotional and physical level.

Today is another glorious summer day in Berkeley, an absolutely lovely time to bike. As I pedaled my way home today, felt the soft breeze on my face, watched a young couple holding hands on the street, I wondered whether I had ever seen TV commercials that tried to capture what I was feeling right then. Perhaps car fanatics will disagree -- but I find biking a much more connecting experience than driving -- joining me to the elements and to other human beings. All those car ads (I have in mind images of a SUV serenely rounding the bend on a country road, absolutely alone) seem much more farfetched than an ad I can imagine celebrating the joy of cycling. (Imagine this: Happy cyclist in moderate physical condition with broad smile, soaking in the sunshine, pedling past gardens, trees, other happy people, little contented children -- bonded together in a great human community. Cuts to cyclist arriving at home, "glowing" from the ride and from the knowledge that he or she has not only gotten good exercise without adding any noxious fumes to the air. OK -- I would make a terrible ad man....) Why aren't there more ads that touch on the visceral appeal of cycling? (How does BART advertise? Does Critical Mass advertise? How?)

And we haven't even talked about walking yet....

Ads on personal blogs: to resist or accept?

Lloyd on google ads in Phil's blog:

So it's a terrible conundrum, my friend. You are in need of funds for your life as a college undergrad, and yet... if what you've done becomes the start of a trend in weblogging space, then it'll ruin weblogging for me (and perhaps others) in a fundamental way. All of us are assaulted on every side by ads and commercials already, that I think it's important to keep some space sacrosanct. For me, that would be weblogs.

Or maybe I'm being awfully curmudgeonly in this regard. Why shouldn't commercialism penetrate every inch of virtual real estate on the internet and on the web? I feel like I'm sticking my neck out on a silly ideal and at the same time trying to walk through quicksand here.

I don't have as strong of a negative feeling against ads in blogs as Lloyd does. The fact that Lloyd reacted strongly against the ads does make me wonder whether I've acquiesced when I should not have to the commercialization of our lives. I'm not inclined to stick ads on my own blogs or websites (though if I ever use the Amazon associates functionality to let people buy books on my blog -- something I've thought about doing -- then my site will also be explicitly commercial). Then again, I wasn't planning to make money blogging. Now, that doesn't mean that blogging might not have longer range economic benefits for me -- by enhancing my reputation, by getting my name out there, by getting me my next job. Those prospects have certainly crossed my mind. Hence, because we're thoroughly economic beings, I suppose I just think of myself as a sophisticated navigator of the medium -- and just overlook ads (or click on them, knowing full well that by doing so, I'm participating in some economic exchange. I also don't feel the obligation to click on links just to help out students (but then again, they're not my students....).

All this sounds fine and well until the thought crossed my mind: how would I feel if I started to wear logos and banners paid for on my sports jacket the next time I give a talk at a national forum? It's certainly done right now, and I would be a bit taken aback if speakers somehow started doing that. One might ask, "well, why not? Professional athletes wear logos all the time...." So what's the difference between my being upset at an academic speaker saying "hey, I'm sponsored by XYZ Computing" and Phil's google ads? (I'm sure there is a difference but I can't tease it out yet....)

It's Bach's fault

I still hope to make it to the 10:45 service of First Presbyterian Church on time....If I don't make it on time, it will not have been the first time that I'm late on the account of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier or Mass in B Minor or one of his cantatas. I know that corporate worship is important, and all of my upbringing should keep me from being late. Nevertheless....

I'm back in Berkeley

I flew in from Toronto last night to a lovely summer evening at SFO. My absence of two weeks feels longer than that -- which I take as a wonderful sign of some rest at least. I probably don't know what real rest means -- but at least being in three different cities that are not where I normally live (Montreal, Cambridge/Boston, Toronto) helps get me out of my rut.

I pondered and prayed a lot on the plane -- because there was much to ponder and pray about. In the months to come, I hope to share some of what I thought about. As I become more and more into blogging, one of the filters I apply in guiding my reflection is whether and how I might write about that matter. Using such a filter may seem strange (especially to non-bloggers and non-writers) -- but it's a handy filter for me. My mind is typically racing in too many different directions, leading to diffuseness of thought and action. Writing with enough clarity and background to make my thoughts and feelings comprehensible to anyone who cannot read my mind limits me in a good way.

Let me give an example of this filter in action. I was up before 6am this morning because I'm still on east coast time. A sweet way to get back into my Berkeley life is my morning breakfast ritual. Having been away for two weeks meant that my current periodicals pile now contains one issue of The New York Review of Books, two issues of The Times Literary Supplement, two issues of The New Yorker, and the latest issue of Books and Culture -- not to mention today's San Francisco Chronicle. The suspicion that I have been subscribing to too many magazines came to the forefront this morning as I wondered how taking a few hours to read all this stuff was going to help me. Undoubtedly it would be a pleasurable experience for me, lots of mind candy, lots of provocative ideas, great prose, etc. At this point, I don't want to stop reading these and other sources -- otherwise, I won't be in dialog with others. At the same time, I don't want to spend too much of my time just trying to absorb the unabsorbable mass of media (good and bad) out there. How to strike the balance?

OK -- this has been a long-winded way to say "hi, I'm back." In a few more minutes, I must be off to make calls at one of my favorite organizations, Alta Bates TeleCare, something I will write about at length "any time now".

Women and Men and Blogging

Ginny made the following observation several weeks ago :

Here you bring up a question I've wondered about for a long time: why, at best, my journal-keeping workshops draw only one-third men, when on the evaluation everyone writes that yes, they'd recommend the workshop to men as well as women. I've thought about starting a blog but then wondered to what extent I'd want to "go public" with what's on my mind. This is always a concern of women in my workshop (say, even about reading aloud something they've written). But aren't most bloggers men? I've read only a few, but I now have Rebecca Blood's book. (So many books, so little time.)

I don't know whether more bloggers are men....I suspect so since I guess that most bloggers are those who have easy access to networked computers -- and aren't there more men than women who fit this description? A relevant article is Lisa Guernsey's "Telling All Online: It's a Man's World (Isn't It?)" in the NY Times (November 28, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final; Section G; Page 1; Column 1; Circuits), which is archived on Lisa Rein's blog.

My personal experience with blogging has not made think that blogging is a male-dominated medium. Of course, maybe what I really mean is that it is not any more male-dominated than other forms of media, and that I have encountered very significant female voices in the blogging world -- first and foremost in my own immediate blogging community and then also in the blogosphere at large. I hadn't heard any comments from women bloggers about particularly gender differences in blogging -- but then again, I might not have been listening carefully (or I may not have been privileged to hear them).

I'm very curious to hear the perspective of other bloggers, especially women on this topic.

BTW, a piece on writing differences between men and women (as uncovered by computer analysis and manifest in the use of pronouns) that Catherine found has possible ties here.

Public transportation and the reptilian brain

As I noted briefly last week, I've been avidly following my friend Krista's new blog (My Transportation Diary). I've learned a lot from Krista about the "problem of car-dependency in our culture", the central theme of her blog, and admire how she has been living out life in the East Bay without owning a car, while making the best use of her bicycle and public transit options. I myself am fortunate to live less than 2 miles from the Berkeley campus where I work, enabling me to bike most days. Still, I own a car but have been wondering whether to sell it (to free myself first and foremost from the financial burden of car-ownership.) Krista is someone I look to to help me figure out whether I really need my car; I hope that she continues to report on her experiences because a lot of us do need help.

So when I saw "The Thrill Of The SUV", a segment on 60 Minutes last Sunday, I thought of Krista and a specific question I have for her. The most intriguing part of the show was an interview with Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, the most famous of the "car shrinks" who help car manufacturers to sell cars to us by tapping into the deepest recesses of our subconscious minds. Whether you believe Rapaille, you have to admit that he's a good salesman for his ideas. Here are some quotes from the transcript:

“Why do you buy a car that doesn't even make 10 miles per gallon, doesn't fit into your garage? Do you really need that? And you don't need that intellectually,” he says. “But at the reptilian level, what I call the reptilian level, the reptilian brain, the deepest part of you, the gut level if you want, you feel like you need that.”

“We are at war. You don't go to war in a Pinto or in a little Volkswagen. You want a tank, you want, you know, and I told the people there in Detroit, you know, SUVs - you put a machine gun on the top, you're going to sell them better, you know”

“Why? Taller. Stronger. I mean, the elephant, the bigger you are, the more chance you have to survive. Now, we know that the higher you are, more chance you have to roll over. And we know that SUVs have a higher rate of accident for rollover than other cars. I mean a Porsche is a lot less chance to roll over than an SUV. That's at the cortex, which means people know it but they don't refer to it because there's something stronger which is the reptilian- the bigger, the tallest, and more chance to survive.”

If Rapaille is right, then what can be done to reduce our dependency on cars, let alone big gas-guzzling vehicles? Is stopping Americans from driving SUVs like trying to stop them from eating, drinking, and having sex? (Not quite, of course) What part of the reptilian brain does public transit tap into? Is the appeal to public transit always a "higher brain" appeal or one to the more visceral side?

Now what is that supposed to mean?

From a blurb for an upcoming public lecture on Bach's cantatas at UC Riverside:

Bach's creative life stretched from the early 1700s till his death in 1750, a time known as the Baroque period in European classical music. Contrary to his somewhat undeserved ultra-religious image, Bach only devoted relatively short periods of this half century to the composition of church music, according to Bach scholar Jan Koster. [emphasis mine] Bach lived in Leipzig, Germany from 1723 until his death in 1750. Bach was a prolific cantata composer, writing more-than 300 cantatas, many in only the first five of years of his time in Leipzig, according to Koster. Many of Bach's cantatas were subsequently lost.

Third and last leg of my trip...coming up

I'm about to board Air Canada 827 from Boston to Toronto. Yeah! This last week in Cambridge has been a wonderfully rich one. The goal was to blog during the course of the week-- but I never managed to fit it in the busy schedule. Moreover, I tried to work and keep (some) tabs on what was happening in Berkeley while I was in Cambridge. During the meetings, I paid attention to the speaker and to the non-verbal dynamics of the participants. I noticed that many folks were physically at MIT but mentally back home.

More when I get to Toronto. My last day in Cambridge was a rainy one -- a marked contrast to the heat and humidity of the early part of this week. I wanted to see Boston; I walked most of the Freedom Trail but gave up near the end because of time constraints and because I had developed a blister that made walking a bit painful. So I treated to the Harvard Coop, read excerpts from a few books, trank some earl gray tea at a nearby cafe and then rushed back to catch a shuttle that brought me to where I am now.

(Wish me a safe flight -- I hope my luggage doesn't get lost!)

TV as escape

Even when I'm tired, I am usually able to write something coherent on my blog. But I'm really struggling to get something down tonight. Maybe I'm distracted by the latest "reality tv show" that I stumbled upon while channel surfing: Cupid . After thinking about educational technology interoperability all day, my mind has been reduced to the mush that can contemplate interoperability only of a more primal nature.

A good day in Cambridge

This is one of those days in which I just check in, dear blog, to say that I'm ok. Dear blog, I had a wonderful dinner last night -- wish you could have been there at Casa Portugal. Nothing like hanging out with cool, smart people who get what you are doing from around the world (places like Australia, Sarajevo, Berkeley, the UK, and Canada). The duck was good too, though the lack of vegetables made me long for those big salads you get in Berkeley.

Today was full. I didn't have my notebook computer on during many of the sessions -- so dear blog, I was not in touch with you. Sorry. I felt that I needed to pay attention to my fellow human beings. Dinner with Ken and Lisa was the highlight for me, however. First Harvard Square; then Davis Square -- I love this city already. Cambridge is one cool place.

Goodnight dear blog. Sleep tight.

I'm here at MIT

As I noted on The Architecture Lodge, I'm here at MIT now. It's already 12:15pm my time -- and though I'd love to tell you about how I learned to find the local mall so that I can buy clothes to hold me over because of lost luggage; the rediscoverd pleasures of hot weather; the splendor of the mix of people at the conference; the joy of recoverd luggage (Jesus talked about searching high and low for a lost coin); how thrilled I am that my friend Krista has started a new blog focused on transportation; how I finally did something I've putting off for a long time -- too long.

But I must hit the sack and blog tomorrow!

I'll be offline for a few days

Bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm flying to Montreal to attend my sister Shirley's wedding. I don't anticipate having any network connectivity until I arrive at The University Park Hotel @ MIT on Sunday evening to attend the alt-i-lab meeting all next week.

I need to get packing rather than blogging....

Happy Canada Day, eh?

Happy Canada Day! I'm going to be in Montreal in a couple of days for my sister's wedding. Truly exciting. Until then, there's so much to do that it's easy to lose sight of the most important things in life. (I'm very grateful to have been born in Canada. I'm also very pleased to be living in the U.S. Any contradiction in that?)

Robbed and Mugged

Lynn, I'm sorry about Dan's car being stolen. You recounted being attacked in daylight in Berkeley some years ago. My former housemate Christo and I were also mugged in Berkeley. In our case, it was around 9pm and we were walking along Benvenue. Frankly, we weren't terribly alert during our walk; we were distracted by the topic of our conversation: women. The price of inattention was being accosted by a man who jumped out from the bushes. Luckily, he seemed to know what he was doing, displaying little nervousness at all (beats a jumpy robber any day). He just discreetly held his gun (or what appeared to be a gun) to his side -- but it was obvious enough to the two of us. We handed over our wallets. He then ordered us to turn around and run. The thought did cross my mind that he was then going to shoot us. Instead, we heard the engine of his accomplice's car roar away.

That incident shook us up, naturally. It's sad that the language of self-blame creeps back into how I described the situation. Yes, we could have been more alert. But I shouldn't be blaming the victim (namely, ourselves)! And it can happen again, no doubt, with worse consequences. But is there a truly safe place? Maybe. I certainly behave as though there are safer and less safe places.