Sunday, February 23, 2003
A peek into the future?
I'm posting to my blog primarily as an excuse to put a picture of Olivia up on the web. And since it's my blog, I guess I don't really need an excuse. Liv was in a Girl Scout Review on Friday and her troop did a dance number to New York, New York. Although I am a parent, I had sat through enough of the show to kick my critical faculties into high gear. That being said, I still thought they were terrific. The thing I love most about this picture (and which scares the bejeezus out of me) is with all that eyeliner going on, it isn't hard for me to imagine Olivia moving to the West Village and organizing and underground art revolution. I guess that's not really a bad thing.
Jennifer @ 9:46 AM link
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Sunday: reading, writing, surfing
Google is buying Pyra??!? I can only wonder at what this will mean for the future of free blogging. Meanwhile, I am finding the web to be an hysterically funny place. Back in November, 2002, I decided to post a photo of my desk at work on a free photolog site. I have never gone back to look at the site and have never posted another picture. I received an email this morning informing me that this photolog has been viewed 41 times! It proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there are a lot of very bored people out there.
Jennifer @ 3:22 PM link
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Going retro: Make love, not war.
After two weeks of caring for sick kids, I seem to have lost the battle for my own wellbeing. Ah well. I have cans of soup, boxes of tissues, a down-filled bedroom and it's in the single digits outside. Really nothing to complain about here. I've been reading about the anti-war protests and the terrorist alerts. It is sometimes hard to tell if my chills are the result of a virus or the state of the world. And in my desultory dsl meanderings, I wandered through Rob Brezny's site. For me, he left these words by George Bernard Shaw, "You are my inspiration and my folly. You are my light across the sea, my million nameless joys, and my day's wage. You are my divinity, my madness, my selfishness, my transfiguration and purification. You are my rapscallionly fellow vagabond, my tempter and star. I want you." Let's see...kill people we've never met? or love people we already know? Hmmm.
Jennifer @ 9:42 PM link
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Fat Americans
We had our first administration meeting that was catered by the agency. H suggested the caterer. D chose the menu and arranged for the delivery of the food. C and I picked up the soda and chips. Everyone gathered and for the first 20 minutes of the meeting there was relaxed social interaction punctuated by moments of chicken salad. It's been argued that we have not functioned very well as a team and we've struggled to find a way to connect. HH suggested that a successful team problem solves together. Our meetings have little to do with problem solving and much more to do with reporting. The tenor of this meeting was very different. I have needed help locating a graphic image file that we own (I've seen the output printed as recently as last week). I mentioned it to the group and immediately I was greated by offers of assistance. Out of that discussion grew another one dealing with the way we choose our vendors, about our desire that they also 'give back' to the community. I found the whole experience much more gratifying than the 'point and shoot' meetings of old.
Afterwards, one of our group members expressed her disgust at the amount of time in salary that was spent to have that meeting. I, someone who is quite capable of pointing out the shortcomings of the agency, was surprised. She took issue with the money spent on lunch as well. I tried to explain the philosophy behind the lunch meetings this way, "When you have dinner together as a family, you do so you can reconnect with each other, to remember why you are a family. Otherwise, all you're doing is throwing food at each other." She looked at me and didn't say anything. My best guess is there is a lot of food throwing going on at her house. Later, I was talking to H about this conversation and he added, "Do you know what happens when all you are doing at a meal is eating? You get fat." Now there's something to think about.
Jennifer @ 6:27 PM link
The Present Tense
In a conversation with Mark last night, there were two things that I want to remember. First, he said, "you teach by what you allow." Secondly, "The language is driven by the verbs." Mark teaches Spanish for a living, so these two remarks have a particular meaning. Forget the classroom of language students, and suddenly I hear them very differently. When I asked him to expand on the comment about verbs, he explained that in English, we denote changes in verb tense (thus, time) but using two words. I had gone. I will go. In Spanish, the verb itself changes and without learning how to conjugate the verbs, you are left only being able to speak in the present tense. It adds subtlety to ones ability to communicate. Okay, cool. But I was wondering about something else. Verbs are the 'action words'. They convey movement. When I was first learning Spanish, or when my children were first learning English, it all began with the nouns. Cup, doll, book, dog. The world is full of objects we want, we don't want, and we have. What would happen if we could only communicate in the present tense? I'm not so sure it's a bad idea. There would be a lot less chatter, for one thing. Mental movement into the past often produces regret. Movement into the future produces anxiety. Rather than rooting for 'living meditation' (i almost typed, 'living medication'), maybe it would be more effective to learn a foreign language to the point where I could actually think in that language, but only learn the language in the present tense.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Just Thinkin'
If, onomatopoeia is the formation of a word from a sound, then is the formation of a person from a sound, humanapoeia?
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
A Brave New World
Been wresting with 1.5 sick kids and one who managed to turn her chin purple by beating her face on the surface of a frozen driveway. Here is the part where I tell you how difficult it is to care for all these young bodies and how I was trapped in my house surrounded by mountains of crumpled tissues and down-encased bodies. But in truth, it wasn’t so bad. It was a license to lay low. Alle watched movies and floated in and out of consciousness. I did the grocery shopping and laundry. I actually cooked, not only dinner and lunch for Sunday, but Monday and…I froze a meal for later in the week! Jessye made cupcakes. I finished the scarf I was knitting. I think the silver tinsel fiber optic mini Christmas tree even got put away. Okay, so nothing earth shattering happened, and that seems to be exactly what we all needed.
Next order of business: A Brave New World. Jessye is reading this book for school. She told me that she’s struggling to muster enthusiasm for the story. It seems to be devoid of any emotion which makes it hard to care about the characters to or connect with the story. The style of the book is strange as well. She explained that each paragraph is part of a alternating conversations. From paragraph to paragraph, she is forced to have her attention jump around. As the book progresses, the paragraphs get shorter and shorter until they are single sentences.
I have not read this book. Discussing the lack of emotional depth of the characters in the book reminded me of the Coen brothers’ movie, The Man Who Wasn’t There. As I told Jessye, that movie was disquieting to me when I first saw it. I had the experience of witnessing the story, but I felt uneasy, as if I were missing something. Moments after the film, I realized that the Coens didn’t just tell the story of a man who was not emotionally present in his own life, they recreated the experience of emotional disconnection for the movie audience. This, I told her, is what elevates that movie to greatness (does that mean I have to start referring to it as a film?). Huxley, I guessed, was trying to create the experience of a world without emotion, demonstrating how colorless that would be (seems the one place I shine most brightly is in a high school English class???). As for the disjointed flow of information, Jessye and I launched into a discussion about instant messaging. Both of us are aware that I am a much bigger fan of technology, particularly as a tool to enhance communication, than any of my children. It is, as I pointed out to Jess, a double-edged sword. I can communicate with people around the globe without expense or time constraints using instant message, cell phones, etc. All these interfaces also exist as layers between the closest and most intimate exchanges. They serve to hide body language, facial expression, and the million and one non-verbal cues that fans of gestalt love so well. We talked about how many of her contemporaries instant message non sequiturs. “I just got out of the shower.” “I called Nicole.” “The French homework sucked.” “Caitlin dissed her boyfriend at lunch behind his back,” Sound bytes. Give and take in these exchanges is minimal and when it does take place, it is confined to gossip (they are teenagers, so face to face interactions would hardly be any different). As an adult, I find that interactions frequently consist of the mutual flinging of information. Rather than increasing connectivity, the myriad ways to begin a connection (cell, im, voicemail, etc.) are like “pop-up video” distractions for being fully present. I am not advocating a full scale dumping of our techno-toys, God knows you’d have to rip my PDA out of my hands, but I think that the disquiet that Jessye felt in A Brave New World wasn’t simply being immersed in content that was leached of emotion. I think that the syncopated rhythm becomes too uncomfortable. It is like being pummeled with bits of data wherein the intention (information exchange? Connection?) is sublimated the final effect to the individuals (link to Shirley jones) When all that is being shared are tiny morsel of ‘fact’ I’m left starving, or worse, I feel hungry and bruised. In our conversation, I explained it this way: I think a relationship between two people is a mutual sharing. I decide what I am willing to share. And you decide what you are willing to share. When we get together, we each see what we can and want to create out of this new pool of resources. Co-creation.
. To Jessye, A Brave New World, isn’t a shocking look into future possibilities. It is a book about the world she is trying to relate to now.
