12.14.11: "You 'Da Boss?" Collective Creation

There are many forms of collective creation that run the whole spectrum, from merely coloring in someone else’s existing drawing to the actual creation of a thing from scratch. Often this spectrum of distinction is lost in the rush to embrace the amazing and wondrous, collectively created works like Wikipedia and, um, Zagat guides—these being held up as models for the possibility of collective creation of all and every kind of activity—from politics to newspapers.  I’ve maintained a fair amount of skepticism about the idea of crowd sourced creative works for some time, which is not to say some of them don’t work incredibly well. But, they’re not all the same. To me, even though Wikipedia is indeed an example of the wisdom of crowds producing an amazing work—one that is possibly better than those that are top down in their inception—it seems that the claims made for this kind of creative process are often a little misleading. Each Wikipedia entry is not vetted or added to by everyone—by the lumped masses—but by self-appointed experts on each subject. Then, after these experts have had their say, we, the masses, tend to accept on faith that they have haggled amongst themselves over a particular subject to determine what will be included and the accuracy of what is in the entry. Of course, everyone considers themselves an expert on some subjects…

I’m not going to claim that only folks nominated as experts should be trusted to manage our world and create the things we enjoy and consume. I’d be the last person to believe that a college degree or experience in a field gives one a guaranteed wise perspective—would you trust a Rumsfeld? Often, it’s the perspective of amateurs that is more accurate than the professionals who are embedded and entrenched within their field of work. That said, nature seems to have found that some level of specialization is proven to work on some level. Though it seems clear that certain ants are designated as “experts,” and are deferred to as such, I admit that I have a bias against deferring to experts. Despite the sound social management system of ants that is responsible for their long survival—a system that we often believe that we might do well to emulate—I refuse to believe that the bankers who got us into our current economic mess are the best minds to get us out of it. Similarly, I sense that one maybe shouldn’t trust the military in evaluating and establishing their own budgets. It happens over and over—the police have proven they can’t be trusted amongst themselves. Economists? Oh, forget it.

The popular hive analogy, which compares insect societies to human interactions and creation, is often applied to the idea of many doing and creating what one alone cannot. Even in the hive though, there are “experts”—worker bees are given right of way to accomplish their tasks by the other bees because it seems that everyone recognizes no one can do their job as well as they can—there is not a mass consensus meeting or discussion amongst the entire hive about the role of these worker bees. For example, it is assumed they know best how to forage for food. Like the worker bee, the area of expertise of Wikipedia contributors may vary widely, potentially covering topics from Glee to String Theory. When one of these experts writes an entry, and then annotates and/or expands on it, we (in some sense) assume they are wise and perceptive in their particular field. Also, we assume these contributions have been vetted by that expert’s peers—not by everyone. So we, the non-expert readers, give respect.

With ants it is similar. Certain worker ants (all of whom are female) have designated tasks. A quick smell, via an antennae brush, identifies what a specific worker is best at doing—foraging, cleaning debris elimination, guarding­—and no one tries to “tell them” how to do their jobs. There are no bosses. It is possible for the worker ant to switch jobs, but usually, as with humans, that opportunity arises when the colony is relatively young. After that, the job pool, one’s career, is more or less set. Though, there are always reserves of other ants underground that are recruited if a new food source suddenly becomes available (Thank you Deborah Gordon’s TED talk 2003).

One of the ways an ant figures out what is going on is oddly similar to the Google search algorithm—it “counts” how many encounters it has with a specific kind of worker.  Based on these encounters, the ant can deduce that there is, for example, a major clean up in progress. Instructions and situations in progress are not “described,” but are inferred by the aggregate of encounters.

The consensus “rules” of OWS were (are?) possibly a more accurate example of real crowd (or democratic) decision-making. How did the OWS group, who struggled to maintain their leaderless and self-organized identity, ever make decisions? They endorsed the idea of consensus as opposed to voting. The word consensus comes from a Latin word meaning, “feel together”. Consensus means everyone (eventually) arrives at a place where they will give consent, although they might not be in 100% agreement. The distinction seems a little vague to me.

The well-reported use of hand signals, as a means of reaching this consensus, was adopted (microphones weren’t allowed due to noise restrictions) by the movement. One would be very tempted to ask who exactly decided that consensus would be the mode for decision-making? Who and how was that decision made?

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Many of the participants found the assembly and consensus reaching process a bit tedious and boring—some would wander off from lack of interest.

Maybe the ants are on to something. They too have no leader (the queen lays eggs but doesn’t manage the colony via smell, as used to be thought) nor do they have a central control. On the surface, this sounds very democratic—even anarchistic. A completely leaderless society—that works! Although it might appear this way to us when viewed from a distance, you, as an individual ant, are very much programmed by your evolved instincts and your innate reaction to smells and behaviors. While having no leader might imply absolute freedom, there are other restrictions among insects. The leader, the guide, the rules, are not external, but are built into you as an individual.

Therefore, it statistically appears as if there is no free will in the ant colony. Each individual seems to go about their task without questioning things or stopping to ponder why or what for. But, maybe on the individual level, to each ant, they feel like there is, in fact, free will. Maybe they do agonize and make specific decisions. Maybe they have simply “learned” that following the aggregate tends to give the best results for the colony as a whole. They may feel that they have made a personal decision to join along with everyone else; they may also feel that they have acted of their own free will and are not forced into joining a specific program or activity. They’re acting in consort because, from their point of view, they want to…. or so they may be telling themselves. Maybe, their “government” is internalized.

According to Gordon, when you look inside of ant colonies, the behavior seems pretty haphazard. They’re not the well-oiled, smoothly functioning machines we might expect from a species that has survived for millions of years. As in human society, the behavior of individuals is not predictable. We all, as individuals, appear to be acting on our own—but just as it is with the ants, there is a kind of decision-making based around aggregate behavior. I’m not sure how this translates exactly—how this process works with people. Does it mean that if everyone is “drinking the Kool-Aid,” I intuitively “decide” that I should too? If everyone watches Kim Kardashian, then I better join the bandwagon and do what everyone else does? If the ants appear to have some sort of free will on an individual level, but in actuality it is mostly an illusion, does the same apply to us?

How Does Anything New Come Into Existence?

I’m curious as to whether or not what we call creative works can come into fruition as a result of the contributions of countless individuals. Must a creative work inevitably be guided by the tyranny of one person’s vision—or at least a very small group (Pixar films, for example)? Can the crowd write a great novel? A symphony, or pop song? A feature film? (Hollywood films are notoriously made by a committee—and the results speak for themselves).  Do we all have a kind of innate (possibly unconscious) wisdom that can profitably guide us to influence and direct the track and arc of a creative work? Do these deep instincts, if trusted and tapped into accurately, and without bias, result in a work that is inevitably true? Is this why we feel cheated when a Hollywood movie has an obviously happy ending tacked on? Do we sense that the instinctively “true” ending was abandoned? Or, is this why the happy ending was tacked on in the first place? Is the happy ending what we instinctively want in a narrative? (Is this making any sense?). If, to some extent, a sense and structure of narrative is innate, then are authorship and writing skill overrated? Superfluous?

A parallel to the question of how new works come into being are some ideas that seem to be related to collective creation, but that might not really be the same at all. Are open-ended works (e.g. video games in which the players determine details of the story) and self-generating works—such music and visual programs that accept outside input but are designed to endlessly generate content on their own—truly collectively created works?

There is an established tradition of what are called indeterminacy in music—a not so new idea that has now migrated to digitally programmed works (musical and otherwise). In these earlier musical works, used by John Cage and many others, the player was allowed to determine how long to hold a note—and sometimes, what note to play from a set of given choices. Terry Riley’s “In C” is like this, as is Cornelius Cardew’s “The Great Learning.” These are all works that almost always end up sounding wonderful, despite being as open ended as they are. The marvel is why they don’t go off the tracks. We expect that, given free reign, chaos will inevitably result. Though, it doesn’t seem to—not always, anyway.

Maybe what is key is that the overall shape of the work has been cleverly pre-determined. There is free will involved in the choices the players are given, but within very severe limitations. One might say that this process is a way of fostering the illusion of free will. Maybe it proves that these compositions and social mechanisms, when cleverly “designed” can appear as though they allow for free will but, in actuality, they involve lots of restrictions—which have the effect of guiding the structure and the finished work to be something beautiful.

Cage used other devices to introduce chance and randomness into the “decision-making” process, but the “programmer” was always lurking. More recently in music, this process has been moved into the digital realm—with algorithms that do their best to randomize the choice of notes, along with other aspects of a composition. The Buddha Machine is a good example of this—a transistor radio sized device that plays endlessly changing sounds, chosen by the program, from a given set of notes and sounds. There is, as one would expect, no arc to these compositions—no beginning, middle and/or end. They are merely states of being, not substitutes for narrative.

These indeterminate scores can be viewed a bit like the literature that emerges out of oral traditions—the great epics and sagas. The process is not so different than what occurs in a lot of folk music as well—blues songs that get passed from area to area and subtly altered each time someone new sings them… but the main thrust of the story and the song tends to remain consistent. Everyone recognizes the song despite every interpretation being absolutely distinct.

There was a text version of this process called Consequences. It’s a bit like Mad Libs, though it originated much earlier (pre-1918). One creates a sentence by filling in the following blanks (from Wikipedia, of course):

1. A Man's name
2. A Woman's name
3. A Place name
4. He said to her…
5. She said to him
6. The consequence was… (A description of what happened after)
7. An outcome

Then the resulting “story” is read (for example):

Scary Bob met voluptuous Alice at the zoo. He said, "This is delicious.", she said, "Hit me baby one more time." He gave her a red rose, she gave him cholera. The consequence was that they eloped to Mexico. The world said, "the femme fatale will always win".

Could one write a whole book this way? William S. Burroughs used an aleatory (chance) literary technique that he and Brion Gysin popularized, called cut-ups. Cut-ups are created in two steps: by cutting a finished text into pieces and rearranging the words and then, by folding the linear text and looking for resonant bits of text when overlapped and placed next to one another.

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There is the visual equivalent—collectively produced artwork like the Exquisite Corpse drawings. The Surrealists created these images based on an old parlor game. The idea is that 3 or more people contribute to a “body” by drawing on a folded piece of paper and then passing it around without knowing what the next person will contribute below the fold. Restricted by the rule that one is obliged to draw either the upper, middle or lower portions of the body the resulting monsters are, yes, beautiful and strange things whose authorship we could say belongs to an invisible 4^th entity.

Here is a Chimera collectively drawn by Joan Miro, Man Ray and Yves Tanguy. They sort of didn’t adhere to the normal rules (in which you are to add normal body parts appropriate to your segment):

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I’d argue that all of these forms are in fact authored. The programmer that sets the ball in motion, the one who determines the set of simple rules is, in these cases, the author. While you often get marvelous things through these algorithms, I’d be inclined to think that what you don’t get is a coherent story arc, complex characters or even a consistent vision—musical, lyrical or visual. That is, unless the framework has already been provided by a “programmer.” Follow a framework modified with embellishments, modification, additions, etc.—as in the oral tradition of storytelling—and, as a result, you get a coherent form.

Some of our most resonant works of literature have emerged out of the tradition of oral storytelling and do not have a single author credited. The tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights, for example, is composed of stories that have all been embellished, edited, written and molded by an unknown multitude of individuals over a long period of time. The stories hold up, and continue to move us today, as do the folk tales collected by the brothers Grimm. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana epics are similarly composed by a host of unknowns, as is the Bible. These all were all derived from oral traditions—in which each storyteller would add subtle embellishments and refinements to suit the local culture, time and place. The basic story arc would tend to be maintained and serve as a skeletal framework—though, in many cases, we can see where successive refinements over time completely altered the “message” of the tales. We know this because people wrote down some of these tales at different stages of their evolution and transformation.

The Old Testament tales are, in many cases, embellished versions of stories that were told (sometimes even written down) for hundreds of years. Though, by the time the stories came to exist as they do today, they had already morphed into tales that emphasized the overthrow of the older matriarchal society and spirituality by a more rigid patriarchal one. (There’s a very nice analysis of this in the back of the Crumb comic version!)

Even though these particular tales changed their emphasis in a majority of cases, usually not too much fundamentally changed in the narrative framework. The embellishments were mostly superficial… until the cumulative effect of the changes became something more profound. When reading these works, one can often sense the fragmentary nature of the chapters and episodes—many of which contradict one another. At other times a plot point or explanation is dropped for political reasons, leaving one wondering why there was a sudden shift in tone of a story or the behavior of a character.  A single author would be less likely to contradict him or her self. But often, if we take each single episode—such as a single Grimm’s tale or one of the tales out of the Arabian Nights—it is often consistent, incredibly well constructed, efficient and resonant—like a tool honed by use over centuries.

These stories behave like living creatures that have evolved over time—adapting themselves, over and over again, to the psychological needs of the listeners and the creative embellishments of the narrators and their audiences. They’re not, and never were, fixed stories with an Ur version—there never was a primal text. They survive and maintain their resonance by mutating, changing and adapting to the world around them. As soon as they become fixed, they die (in a sense). They become a work that is somewhat ossified—rooted in a specific time and place. Then, the core narrative quickly resurfaces in another form—a film, TV show or popular novel.

Folk, blues, house music, pop, hip hop and lots of other musical genres might be viewed the same way—not so much as individual songs or acts of unique creativity, but as the cumulative result of many creative narrators pitching in to tweak a form that already has a given and collectively accepted shape and framework. The equivalent of the narrative arc of a story is already there in these song forms, and we songwriters, producers and singers are the storytellers in our own oral tradition—putting our own spin on an existing form, but not making substantial changes in the form itself. The point is, a lot of music that we think of as being individual acts of creation might actually be narrators contributing to what might be viewed as a larger epic work.

Though I am not a griot or epic bard, I am in my home studio making subtle adjustments and contributions to a form that came before me, and will later be picked up by others. I have the illusion of free will, of creating work and forms from scratch, but I am merely embellishing. Of course, successive embellishing will eventually lead one far from home…

That said—I believe I lean towards work that has a consistent vision. Don’t we want to feel that the version of a song, movie or narrative we have just spent time listening to, reading or absorbing is consistent—that every part was considered by its author, so as to adhere to a coherent vision? We assume that collective works don’t have the same intention as authored works. This view doesn’t totally exclude the author as a creative contributor to an ongoing epic storytelling effort though, as one still might hope for consistency from a narrator, songwriter or storyteller, even if the individual works that result are essentially modifications of something recurring and familiar.

Authorless Architecture

Architecture Without Architects is the title of a wonderful picture book, by Bernard Rudofsky, that came out in 1964. The pictures are presented as evidence that exquisite, “authorless,” architecture has existed for thousands of years—and that, despite not being designed by one person, it rivals individually designed works in beauty and, above all, practicality. One might view the simple and elegant furniture of the Shakers the same way. The buildings Rudovsky chose evolved much in the same way folk stories and oral narratives did—to best meet the demands of each place and society, while also maintaining an aesthetic and spiritual appeal.

Was the latter aspect an unintended consequence of meeting local and practical needs? Could one say that these entities that have evolved over time tend to be beautiful because we recognize that some deep parts of ourselves are expressed and manifest in them? Is the beauty a layer that is, in fact, serving another equally practical function that is as important to human beings as keeping out the cold or ventilation? Is the need for beauty and elegance also something practical?

It seems that the beauty these buildings possess is not an aspect added on, an appliqué, but an integral consequence of every other aspect of these kinds of works. When every other aspect is true and integrated, maybe you automatically get beauty. These buildings and houses have evolved so that they have a spirit of life deeply ingrained in them. By recognizing this, by sensing that these qualities are in there, we find the resulting structures beautiful.

In his book Rudovsky includes single-family homes, as well as monumental works.. All of them were molded over time by a kind of collective will and impulse; none were built by just one designer. The design is not open to anyone-—it’s clear that not everyone in the community would have voted on where the chimneys go—there are folks who know how to thatch a roof, for example, better than others.  But, it’s the evolutionary process that tells the community, and the specialized workers within it, that maybe there is, indeed, a best place for a chimney or a best size for eaves—and that this wisdom shouldn’t be ignored.

Here is a vernacular plantation house in Hawaii and the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu:

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There are other types of architecture, not designed by “individuals,” and these are not so different from the mosque above—like these giant termite mounds in Australia (near Darwin):

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Here’s a cross section—they’re not just mounds of dirt or refuse from the tunnels:

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The chimneys and air vents from underground allow the hot air, in the parts of the world where these things are built, to escape—so that the precious nurseries deep inside can maintain a constant temperature. It’s a fairly sophisticated bit of building and HVAC for a creature whose brain is the size of a pinhead. However, one might say that if you combine all of those pinheads, you get a more substantial mental capacity.

However, I’m not sure size is what matters. Heh heh. A fairly simple algorithm—rules and behavior that don’t require a lot of brain cells—can set in motion what, in retrospect, seems like a very complex bit of creation. So if over time evolution arrived at a structural solution by adapting to the situation at hand, and by using just a few rules, When these rules are set, the mental capacity of each individual doesn’t have to be so “big” at all. Everyone (or all of the workers anyway) can, and does build these incredible things instinctually.

Recently, there was a short film posted on the web of some scientists who poured concrete into an anthill to see what the network of nurseries and tunnels might look like. After the concrete (10 tons of it!) set, they painstakingly dug away the surrounding dirt to reveal an entire (miniature) futuristic city.

Here’s a blurry still:

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And a blurry close-up of passageways and chambers:

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And a link to the video (it’s short):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFg21x2sj-M

It’s easy to see how incredibly impressive the city is that these little things constructed. Overlap this town over a medieval city in Europe, in the Maghreb or in the Middle East, and one might see an almost an identical layout. It makes one think that: (A) we haven’t come so far, and (B) maybe the “hive mind” concept is more literal than metaphorical. Maybe we have retained elements of the insect mind, and we use and are guided by that, to order, build and organize our own cities. Like storytellers and songwriters, maybe in urban planning, we are merely embellishers too—we are reworking the same forms over and over, making slight adjustments to fit our own needs.

Others have preferred to view the social insects, not as social cities composed of individuals, but as single super organisms—more like one being made up of millions of semi-autonomous crawling “cells.” This would mean that these towering termite mounds and the tunnels of the ant colonies might represent the clothing or shell that belongs to a collective whole being. The mound is like the skeleton and the skin of a large creature. This view makes the cooperation of the little critters seem more like the cooperation and symbiosis of the cells and bacteria that make up our own bodies. The chambers are like the organs in our own bodies—each with its specific function and specialized job functionaries.

If we make that leap, then we too can be seen as sophisticated works of “soft” architecture. Just like the cities of the ants, bees and termites, one would never imagine that our little cells would be able to individually make and organize a structure as complex as we are. If we reorient our viewpoint, and can see ourselves as a kind of ant colony, we get a frightening insight that maybe our sense of free will is not much more than that of the ants and termites. Our most beautiful cities, and maybe we too, are not much more sophisticated than those of the social insects.

12.13.11: Odyshape

I recently read an article about a group of Swedish neuroscientists: Björn van der Hoort, Arvid Guterstam and Professor H. Henrik Ehrsson, who conducted an experiment called, “Being Barbie.” Their findings explain how our perception of our bodies determines our perception of the world. Here’s a summary of what they did:

They built a rig that allows them to substitute other body images for your own. Their experiment was based on two models—a tiny sized Barbie (or Ken) and a 16-foot tall giant sized model. You lie on a table, wear a video helmet and when you look down at “yourself," you see not your own torso and legs but these models as if they were your own body. They encourage this belief by having a stick touch your leg while another stick touches your virtual body. You see the padded stick touch the Barbie body and at the same time you feel something—another padded stick—touching your own leg. This really locks the illusion into place.

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So far, this might seem merely like a nifty parlor trick—albeit one I’d love to participate in. But there’s more to it than simply fooling the eye.

What the scientists point out is that their “trick” emphasizes that your perception of the whole world is affected by the size of your body image. If you perceive your body as Barbie size then the chair across the room now seems both giant and incredibly far away. That hand that touches your leg, in that instance, appears to be that of a giant. Like Alice after she drank from the vial, you believe that you have shrunken (or grown in the case of the giant body model they built).

What you see in the room doesn’t change. Your eyes, with their stereoscopic vision and depth perception, should tell you that the room and its furniture are normal. Wouldn’t one think that our eyes would at least tell us the “truth”—that the chair is still where it was and is a normal size chair? Wouldn’t you think that our eyes would counteract this trickery? That we’d instinctively realize that the doll body was a Barbie torso and that the chair is not miles away and giant? We assume that it is our eyes that transmit to us a kind of objective visual truth—but it seems these other factors can and do influence how we interpret what we see.  They can override that “objective” truth. It seems that our “vision,” or at least how we interpret it, is quite malleable, and our body image has an unexpectedly huge influence on how we see the rest of the world. One can only imagine what an anorexic or bulimic young woman sees! Maybe these women would benefit, or at least get a measure or relief, from wearing the rig and experiencing their body image in the form of little Barbies?

This experiment is evidence that our vision, our image of the world around us, is even more subjective than we might have thought it was. What we believe is our “true” version of the world around us, a vision we assume matches that of everyone else, is merely the one (among many) that accommodates and is modified by our particular body image. Who knows how many other factors might similarly affect our image of the world?

It was then a small leap from discussing this experiment with some friends to a conversation regarding our current situation in which we are continually confronted with unreal body images in magazines and ads. Surgically enhanced, photoshopped and artificially tanned bodies are nothing new.  For decades, Playboy centerfolds have been a mash up of drawings and cartoons aimed at men and photographs of what are purported to be real women. The visual clues that trigger a man’s lust, along with other factors that would make a woman desirable, seemed, in these images, fairly easy to exaggerate and emphasize. With digital and other image manipulation techniques, combined with surgical modification, we now have a whole race or super people parading in front of our eyeballs. Not just in centerfolds, but on TV, newspapers, tabloids, fashion magazines and yes… in real life. I recall sitting at on outdoor café in West LA marveling at the new heightened version of the female species that paraded in front of me. Now, the poor male who has evolved over millennia to respond instinctively to such clues is continually manipulated and completely helpless. For example, one might “know” that what they are looking at is photoshopped but, as in the Swedish experiment, one’s gut responds, as it will, despite any rational cognitive dissonance.

Likewise, women who view similar types of images—for example, the surgically and digitally enhanced images of celebrities and models—are also subject to succumbing to the power of these new bodies. Maybe not necessarily as objects of lust (as some men might instinctively to the centerfolds), but as body images they might emulate and aspire to. They too believe that what they are seeing is “real,” despite intellectually knowing that a picture has been doctored or an actress, reality star or celebrity wife surgically enhanced. These visual buttons and triggers that are being pressed are deeply ingrained in us as a species—mere rational thinking is powerless as a way of discounting them. Ordinary women (and men) naturally then hold up these doctored images of an ideal humanity as something to be strived for. Despite knowing better, they believe that this look can (and should) be achieved through a mostly simple and prolonged effort. Stick to one’s exercise regimen and maintain one’s diet and then, you too will look like the folks in the magazines. Sure, some surgery wouldn’t hurt either. This, we know, is a recipe for heartbreak… or even worse, a kind of insanity—as no amount of exercise and diet will ever make a human being look like the images being dangled in front of us. 

We instinctively want to believe that a merit-based world exists—that with some hard work, focus, time, effort and perseverance, you too will be rewarded with the body you see on the billboard. The same also applies to our notions of economic well-being. As a result, you have Bill O’Reilly and Newt Gingrich (among many others) implying that poor people are poor simply because they aren’t trying hard enough (note the clever segue from Barbie to politics and economics). The implication is that poor people, or anyone who isn’t successful, just aren’t applying themselves or trying hard enough. Also, that less than fabulously attractive people similarly aren’t going to the gym enough. The corollary is that Bill and Newt are as wealthy as they are because they worked hard. This, excuse me, is bullshit. Donald Trump definitely received a few handouts from his father.

Sadly, this dissonance between what is possible image wise, and what is being aimed for by many normal women, is making many of them nutso. They exercise like crazy but still don’t quite match the girl on the red carpet. What gives? Must one need eat even less or switch to a new exercise regimen?

I was told recently that fashion designers and retailers now have to alter the cut of women’s garments to accommodate the extreme diets and surgically enhanced bodies that prevail among certain classes and in specific regions of the US. This swath of enhanced and altered bods runs from southern California across the southwest to Florida and Georgia. The silicone belt, one might say. Clothes cut to fit unenhanced, naturally evolved women’s bodies don’t fit these gals anymore… or at least they tend to look weird in them because they need clothing that accommodates a disproportionately bigger top and a smaller bottom.

Spent author and evolutionary psychologist, Geoffrey Miller suggests that these new body images are short-circuiting the criteria of evaluation for mate selection that has evolved over eons. Sexual selection is the other aspect of Darwin’s theory. Darwin proposes that how and with whom we mate with is at least equally as important to our “survival” and determines the course of evolution. For example, it used to be that a woman with perky breasts probably indicated that she is under a certain age. The same could be said for indicators such as lack of wrinkles, thin waists and non-grey hair. From a Darwinian point of view, these clues point to these women as prime candidates for mates—they appear both healthy and of prime child bearing and rearing age. According to Miller, these, along with similar markers, no longer can be guaranteed to signify what they have for eons. These days our rational sense might tell us that a woman or man is of a certain age, but now quite often the visual cues don’t match—there is a weird conflict between what we see and what we “know.” Which are we to believe? Will we be like the participants in the Being Barbie experiments and the men ogling centerfolds? Will our instincts override our “knowledge?” It seems they usually do. Advertisers and fashion magazines know this, and use it to their advantage.

One might read all this as a criticism (and probably some of it is) of these increasingly ubiquitous body modifications and enhancements. Although, one could equally say that if God didn’t want us to use the tools at our disposal—be they scalpels or pixels—then he wouldn’t have invented plastic surgery or Photoshop. Like “dressing to impress,” maybe these tools are just medical and digital extensions of our natural tendencies to put our best foot forward. In which case, we’ll collectively just have to adapt to this new wrinkle (sorry for the pun).

 

 

10.26.2011: Bogota Part 1

I was recently asked to do a conversation/talk with Janette Sadik-Kahn, our commissioner of transportation, at the  AIA New York Center for Architecture Center (American Institute of Architects).  Since I imagined there might be some architects or designers in the audience, I took some time to share some of my notes and photographs from my summer Latin American bikes and cities tour. I also took this opportunity to finally organize some of the notes I had taken and post them. So here it is, many months late.

Flashback to July 23, 2011—Oscar Diaz is my host here in Bogota. He worked closely with Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of the city (from 1998-2001 and currently running this year with the Green Party), on various projects to improve Bogota’s system of parks, bike paths, road construction, and mass transit system. He suggested we take a field trip so he could show some of the projects they had initiated. A few of us piled in a van in the morning and headed towards the outskirts of town, to the Kennedy District. In this district there are several small neighborhoods like El Tintal, Bellavista, and El Recreo. Bellavista is a small community that was formerly illegal. It was a place of dirt streets, no sewage, no water, or electricity. There was no property ownership or the various rights that go along with that. Much of that has changed, for the better, since that administration implemented a number of interrelated schemes.

There are lots of these illegal communities around Bogota and other cities here. Invasiones ilegales or piratas (illegal or pirate invasions) are what these communities are called when they begin forming—as they’re completely illegal. They’re called favelas in Brazil, townships in South Africa. They don’t hook up to city water, sewage, or electricity (not legally anyway), but there are still entrepreneurs who will develop real estate in these settlements, if you can call it that.

This is the way they used to look (Oscar took this in 1997):

One might call this old view of this community an example of crowd-sourced architecture—as there are no regulations or governmental guides. The patterns—streets and basic infrastructure—that comes into being could be considered to be emergent. But without sewage or water it’s pretty sad. Maybe that crowd principal can’t really be applied in all areas? Or maybe it needs a framework and set of principals and then it can form and grow around those?

This is the way it looks now (I took this July 2011):

We biked along these bike/ped paths that have been built here. We passed many improvised bike repair stations that have sprung up—a guy with a set of flat fix gear and other tools sets himself up as a pop-up business. Little shops have appeared on the ground floors of many of the buildings since the paths have been built. Needless to say in the intervening years this area got electricity and sewage, streetlights and schools.

Unfortunately, because of the current administration, the neighborhood has gone back to being a tough and dangerous area though it didn’t look it—I was advised to slip my big camera into my bag rather than letting it hang on my neck. Whenever I went off a little on my own, someone from the group would appear close to me, watching out. But now, at least there are possibilities for the residents—the local schools, the library and other centers provide educational services, and the TransMilenio buses that now reach here can connect these folks to employment in town—all of which didn't exist until the bus system (BRT) was created under Peñalosa’s administration.

The bike and pedestrian passages that former Mayor Peñalosa and Oscar instigated go through these communities and provide a network—they give the communities a street-type focus. Also, the “roads” serve as a link to other communities and to the TransMilenio—the rapid bus network that goes to, among other places, the center of the city.

The TransMilenio system, was begun some years ago as a cheaper and less socially and ecologically damaging alternative to the 600 million dollar highway scheme that was ready to go. The buses run really fast and, because you buy the tickets before getting on, there is no time wasted doing ticket business after you board the buses—which pull up to specially built stations along the existing highways as well as inside the city. They pull up, exchange passengers, and then zoom off. Only a masochist would decide to drive his or her own car to work... but there are plenty of those.

In the Americas terminal the station has indoor bike parking, as the inhabitants of that zone get around mainly by bike or by walking.

Would this kind of bus system work in some place like Atlanta, Georgia, where people spend hours and hours stuck in their cars getting from one side of the sprawl to the other?

It was pointed out that the improvements in Kennedy (schools and the bike/ped paths), and those in other barrios, were funded by the savings that accrued after the decision to build the TransMilenio system—a much more cost-effective solution than building the massive highway that had previously been proposed. There are 84km of exclusive corridors in the TransMilenio system. 1.7 million people are transported every day. 7 million people live in Bogota.

Many of the inhabitants of these squatter towns had never been outside of those places. These bike/ped "roads" coupled with the bus system allowed them to get out, get jobs in town, go to school, university etc. The storefront businesses that sprung up along the paths changed the communities in other ways, not only by creating jobs—people began to be more motivated, feel better about their situation, and about the future chances for their kids. My point to the architects was that here were fairly cheap and simple improvements that (coupled with some other changes described below) radically transformed people’s lives.

In order for these "townships" to receive basic city services—sewage, city water, electricity, schools, etc.—the settlements had to be legalized. Usually, previous city administrations would legalize about 12 of them a year but under Peñalosa and Oscar, they legalized 600. To kick the process off, the city would buy some of the vacant land and sell it to developers, as well as putting in some infrastructure such as the bike paths, pedestrian walkways, and public parks—all the stuff the “developers” in those zones would not ordinarily put in but made the areas attractive and more livable. The developers, seeing that clients were drawn to those amenities, began to advertise their future developments as having those features. Here is a developers’ billboard—their advertising features apartments with public spaces and green zones:

The public education in these areas was terrible. According to Oscar, that was partly due to the unions, who were mainly interested in holding onto their positions and increasing their benefits. The city took an initiative and began to build schools and then open them up to bids for private management at the same cost allocated per kid in a public school. In other words, if a kid were allocated $500 a year for a normal public school education, that was what the bidders would receive—but often under private management they could accomplish a lot more for the same amount of money.

It was a way of getting around the unions, and it was very successful. Some of the management of these schools was by Catholic schools that do not really aim to make a profit on their schools the way others might—breaking even is considered OK by the religious schools. The grade results and SAT scores are now equal those in the established private schools.

Critics say this system is privatizing education—a dangerous precedent, but Oscar counters that the parents don't have to pay tuition as they would in a real private school. It has brought a vast improvement in the quality of education to these poor neighborhoods. My friend Sally wrote me: “The education stuff sounds dangerously close to arguments made here for charter schools and the evils of the teachers' unions; I would say [to you] to be careful and be specific, but then again I am wary of such semi-private endeavors in education and you may not be...” I too am wary of the privatizing of education—it could turn into something driven by profits, like prisons are in the US. Can you imagine if a basic service like water were privatized—as is being discussed in some places? Scary. However, Oscar claims in this situation it worked because the education remains public for the children and the city pays the same per student.  What changes is the administration, teachers and program—all managed by the private schools and universities that won the public bid.

Next we toured Biblioteca El Tintal—which is a library, auditorium, meeting rooms and cafeteria complex that was built on the site of former garbage dump. In the past, the trucks would go up the ramp and dump their loads, and the resulting heap was eventually carried off to the distant landfill. It was an unsightly dump, and certainly didn’t make the area attractive. These new library complexes—and quite a few were built based on this model—are usually located near a bus transit hub and surrounded by green. They were built by respected local architects and were the sort of eye-catching buildings any city would be happy to have downtown, but here, they were being built in the poorest neighborhoods. Needless to say, besides being a social, educational and cultural center, these places became sources of pride.

Here is an aerial view—the library complex has now been there for a while, and as a result the shanties that used to sprawl out in the area have been replaced by apartment blocks and row houses—all still linked by bike paths and pedestrian walkways:

(Image Source: Oscar Diaz)

Peñalosa fought to keep the former garbage truck ramp as a reminder of what it once was. When it was built there was not much around here—the illegal communities were springing up all around in a kind of squatter anarchy. The parents in those days would plop their kids in front of the TV. Now, the kids are going to schools and can use computers at this center—and teach their parents how to use computers as well.

Here’s an inside view:

Here is one of the other libraries in another outlying area:

(Image Source)

This concept of the library as community hub, and as a transformative catalyst in a community was also picked up by the former Mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo. His realized version was even more spectacular looking, though the effect was similar.

(Image Source)

He brought in Giancarlo Mazzantito as an architect to build Biblioteca España on the edge of a hill, as part of a funky barrio, Santo Domingo, that had been dangerous and was considered a sort of dead-end for its citizens. The newly created plaza soon became a place for folks to meet, mingle and shop in the kiosks that sprung up—a focal point the barrio didn't previously have. The library became both a local and international architectural landmark, and is an example of both how architecture can transform a community, as well as being an example of serious architecture being introduced into a poor neighborhood, as opposed to where it usually is—in city centers where the well-to-do are entertained.

Fajardo did something similar to the BRT bus system connection as well—he linked this formerly isolated community to the main city by public transportation. Though in this case, it wasn’t possible to tag a bus line onto existing roads because the way up that hill is too twisty. So, instead, they made a gondola that takes folks to and from town.

(Image Source)

From Judith Ryser’s Urban Thinker blog:

Fajardo managed to transform Medellin from a place of squalor and despair into a liveable open city. He resorted to architects and urbanists, many of them Colombian (Rogelio Salmona, Giancarlo Mazzanti who designed the Parque Biblioteca Espana, Alejandro Echeverri who was responsible for the spatial development strategy, Sergio Gomez for the Botanial Garden), to realise “our most beautiful buildings in our poorest areas.”

His strategy was to begin in the most deprived areas, gain the trust of the poorest with the lowest chances of succeeding in life. Santo Domingo Savio which houses some 170,000 people was the starting point of the regeneration of Medellin from where it has spread elsewhere. Places for learning, schools, a library were deliberately designed as landmarks to signal a brighter future. Parks (of Wishes, of Bare Feet), internet facilities, an art gallery and a day care centre form part of the public realm open to all, together with new connections to the city at large. Converting dilapidated spaces into places where people can meet without fear and the very young population can play triggered improvements to the precarious abodes.

Openness and, most importantly, beauty was brought to these areas, for which the inhabitants started to feel civic pride.

The locals participated actively in these transformations. Youngsters and the unemployed were given the opportunity to learn building trades. Not only were they able to improve their own abodes, but their skills provided them with jobs and a new lifestyle.

Oscar and I had lunch with Alexandra Rojas, former Deputy Secretary of Finance, who is involved in a program of national accident prevention. She was also involved in a big campaign (Fondo de Prevención Vial—FPV) to reduce road, pedestrian, bike and car accidents. She said that the prevailing attitude is that accidents are destiny—that they come upon us at random and unexpectedly—black swan events that we can’t predict. There is a feeling that you, therefore, can’t do anything about them. Their program, fronted by a very well known TV presenter, was called Epidemic of Excuses. Interesting that when they tested they found that this presenter had a credibility rating of 80%—so she was perfect for getting this difficult message across.

Rojas says all studies show the opposite to the prevailing perception of accidents as random or fate—it showed that traffic accidents, and especially those involving pedestrians, are indeed mostly avoidable, and therefore preventable. However, to prevent them, there would need to be some compromises for drivers such as driving slower (which may mean more traffic jams, though), along with additional crossing stations, more lights, etc. The number of lives that would be saved is not random—it’s completely predictable. Janette Sadik-Khan is figuring out how to do a similar program here in NY to get drivers to slow down. In Colombia, as in the US, it’s an uphill battle. In Colombia, 80% of the population does not have cars, but, as in the US, most of the infrastructure budget goes to accommodate the other 20% who do own cars. As Peñalosa and others have pointed out, these fiscal policies are counter democratic—they privilege a minority, a wealthy minority, of course, over the bulk of citizens. It would be as if sections of public parks were lopped off to create helipads for wealthy businessmen, or as if hire cars were allowed to stop and park wherever they wish. As in many parts of the U.S., lots of roads in Colombia have no place for pedestrians—there is no sidewalk. If you don’t have a car, tough luck.  When the largest part of a nations funds go to accommodate a small, wealthy portion of citizens (the drivers, in the case of Columbia), democracy and the rights of the citizens are being subverted in the most profound way—at the level of the pocketbook.

Back in the U.S.A.

In a similar effort to those that Peñalosa, Salas, and Fajardo have done, an organization named Studio H has been active in North Carolina. I read a piece the other day that Alice Rawsthorn wrote for the NY Times in which the organizers were quoted as saying that, similar to Fajardo’s scheme, they focused on young folks becoming involved in the building effort. Many of these folks were around 17 years old and had never made anything in their lives—never held a hammer or sawed wood. So this was a big step that not all of them wanted to take, but for those who did their sense of self was radically changed.

Here is a farmers market they made:

(Image Source)

05.20.11: The Glamorous Life

Will Oldham and I wrote songs for director and writer Paolo Sorrentino’s new film­ This Must Be The Place. Needless to say, that Talking Heads song is in the film as well, in various versions, one of which is a live performance by my band and me. The film stars Sean Penn as a version of present-day Robert Smith of The Cure—an aging rock star who still wears makeup and dresses all in black.

They had a screening in NY recently, but I didn’t want to see the film in rough form, as I figured they’d eventually want me to be present for some public screening when it was done. I offered that they could pick a later screening for me to attend. They picked Cannes—whoa.

I flew Thursday night, arriving the day of the screening. Took a nap, got up and showered, dressed all in white (they said it was OK) and headed towards a rendezvous with the rest of the film people. In the hotel elevator on my way to meet up, two guys entered that looked like private security, but something was off. Their outfits were impeccable, perfectly tailored to their trim physiques—a little odd for cops. Their patches, upon closer inspection, said Beverly Hills Police. I thought to myself “this is probably a precursor of the unreality to come.” I walked to the hotel down the road and in a room were the sound editor, the picture editor, the DP the American line producer, the many Italian, French and Irish producers, Paolo the director, some LA agents and of course some of the actors.

The sound editor advised me that he had been asked to make the live performance of the song “bigger,” and he hoped I wouldn’t be shocked by what they’d done. I’m glad he prepared me! When the song started during the screening, it was more or less as I remembered us playing and recording it in Detroit, but then, as the camera pulled back and you saw more of the “audience,” the sound got bigger and you could hear audience members shouting and some singing along. I bought into it. I believed the crowd was actually that excited and rambunctious, though I knew they were not. They did a good job with the mix to create that illusion, but I wondered how he did it, as none of the extras sang along during the filming.

The sound editor said he was working on another film in London and had about 35 actor/performers on hand in a recording studio, so he threw up a karaoke version of the song and asked them all to sing along. He’s from Sarajevo, and said he was a refugee during the war. His family was totally mixed—Serb, Croat, Muslim—and thus didn’t fit into the emerging post-war situation there, where each of these ethnic groups are now more or less assigned to their own region. What was beautiful about that place before it fell apart was that families like his weren’t uncommon—families in which all the ethnic groups were represented and were cool with one another. Now he’s pretty much permanently relocated to London.

The other songs, the ones Will and I wrote, were meant to be demos that a young character, a singer, hands to Sean’s character, who listens to the CD sporadically as the movie progresses. This conceit wasn’t all that apparent, or so it seemed to me, but the songs did get heard, in bits and pieces, providing a kind of emotional commentary along the way—which was what Paolo intended.

Anyway, back to the screening ritual. There were about 20 town cars lined up at a side door of the hotel, and we were assigned specific cars—Paolo in #1, Sean in #2, me in # 3… These cars drove the 10 blocks or so along the seaside promenade up to the festival building, where crowds, a red carpet and security awaited us. There were no quickie interviews on the red carpet as one sees at the Oscars. This red carpet was carefully managed by a couple of men in formal suits. As if we were being choreographed or conducted by these guys, they directed us using hand signals to face one bevy of photographers, and then, by making a turning motion with their hands, let it be known that we were now to turn to face the photographers on the other side of the runway. Then they used other gestures to herd us a few meters further down the runway, where the same dance would be repeated. Eventually this conducted procession was led up the stairs, and we were directed to stop at various levels and once again turn and face the photographers. Then we entered the theater where there was applause for Sean and Paolo, as a voice of God spoke their names and the title of the movie for all to hear.

Our names were on our seats, so no confusion there. In the row in front of us was Pedro Almodovar, who has a new film in the festival, and we all said hi.

After the film, the lights came up and the applause started—and didn’t stop. The audience stood, as did we all, and a man with a video camera appeared in front of me, shooting Paolo and Sean receiving the applause. It went on and on…is that common here? Does it mean they REALLY liked the movie? On and on it went. I look around, beginning to fidget. Oh, there’s Rosario Dawson in the row in front of Pedro—wow, she’s gorgeous—and oh, that’s Jane Fonda, and there’s some Hollywood exec whose face looks familiar. A publicist motioned for me to go congratulate Paolo, which I did and then I tried to invisibly step to the side so the attention can go back to him.

Eventually the applause died out, and we began the parade back to the waiting cars. Inside the theater women in matching brown outfits confine the audience to their seats while we filed out into aisle. They did this by standing along the sides of the aisle, all holding hands with one another—like some strange feminine cult. They said nothing, smiling, but only a little.

Outside the security was more robust—burly men in gray suits formed a phalanx between us and the photographers, who were no longer confined behind the barriers. As we slowly advanced (and the sound system segues from Saint-Saen’s mysterioso Aquarium movement from The Carnival of the Animals—we were the animals, I suspect—into the Talking Heads version of the title song), this human barrier advanced in front of us, physically pushing the photographers back. The photographers were used to this I guess, but inevitably one or two tried to squeeze in one more snap, and the pushing became a little more forceful. At one point I was distracted as one photographer was somewhat violently shoved back in with his own kind. He slipped to safety behind a barrier.

How did all this feel? Umm, slightly surreal to be sure. Not to be taken too seriously. Flattering, yes—the ovation, of course—but even that might be taken with a grain of salt. This is show business after all, and even the audience is a willing participant in the show. That might sound cynical—their enjoyment and appreciation of the film was largely genuine—wasn’t it? But the cars and the security and the red carpet—it’s all engineered to pump up the glamour and distance the “creators” from the “consumers.” The latter is something I’m a little uncomfortable with.

One works on these things (movies, songs, whatever) often alone, or with relatively small groups. The cast and crew that were present during the couple of scenes I was on set in Detroit was small, and there’s almost no glamour during that creative production phase. The contrast with what happens here is simply hard to imagine, though who would deny that it isn’t flattering? Seductive too, I’d imagine—it’s easy to see how this monster could get a grip on one’s sense of reality.

Onward. Into the cars again and down to a large tent set up down the beach. The entire beach was covered with these white tent things. You can’t see the sand in this town—there’s the promenade, the tents and then the water with its luxury yachts floating nearby. The tents are all party spaces, clubs and restaurants, aligned one after another. A security gal at the tent asked who I was, and looked for my name on her list. I told her my name, and one of the producers jumped in and told her I’m “OK.” Inside girls in VERY short skirts offered everyone champagne. The same group as before gathered in the tent, but we were supplemented by even more invitees. I chatted with a few folks—the head of the Venice Film Festival, whom I met just recently—and then headed to the back area where I was told we folks from the movie are to go. I chatted with Judd Hirsch and his agent. He plays a Nazi hunter in the movie. The women in skirts brought out raw oysters. I heard that Luca, the film’s DP, and some of the crew (production design, costume, etc) are shooting a low budget movie in Napoli, so they would go back to work the next day, just like me. He did an amazing job on this film.

Many American directors and DPs have a habit of covering a scene to death, shooting every angle and approach as a hedge, since they often don’t have a preconceived concept of how each scene will look. I’m generalizing of course, but I think the factory approach of much American filmmaking encourages this, as do the producers who can then have scenes re-cut if they don’t get a good test result. Luca and Paolo didn’t do that. They pretty much knew how each scenes shots would piece together, so, although there was certainly coverage, it wasn’t excessive. Their approach is generally cheaper too, and though I heard the budget bloomed a bit, I suspect it was still done fairly efficiently.

I made my way to the back room, behind the back room, where Sean and some others were sitting around a giant low table chatting. He was engaged in conversation with a tall woman with bleach blonde hair—a singer, I think. She said hi to me after a bit, but I didn’t catch her name. I sat next to some business guys, and we slurped more oysters. Someone ordered a cheeseburger and fries! Courtney Love waltzed in and plunked herself close to Sean, who was at the far end of this massive lounge table, but he didn’t seem to pay much attention. She spotted me and shouted something about “I wish it went for more money!” I didn’t know what she was talking about at first, but then realized she was referring to some of her late husband’s LPs that she donated to Creative Time, an NY arts organization, for a benefit auction—among them were some Talking Heads LPs, I was told. She moved to our end of the table and began to engage with an agent sitting on the other side of me, as well as some other folks—carrying on about 3 conversations at once, all at high speed. She mentioned to the agent that she was clean, except for sleeping pills sometimes and something else—cigarettes? Wine?

She doesn’t look as botoxed and surgically enhanced as I suspected, at least based on recent photos, but when she put her hand on my knee (we’ve never met before), I figured I’d better go. So, when she was fully engaged with the agent, I slipped off, saying I needed the toilet.

I walked back to my hotel along the Croisette (the promenade), which was packed with people. On the other side of the street were luxury shops and soon another screening would be letting out. Some people in the hotel lobby recognized me from the live video feed from the festival screening and shouted “bravo.” In my room I read a New Yorker article on my Kindle about the crazy expansion of the NSA post 9/11, which I think I blogged about at one point, and then I fell asleep. It was a little after midnight, and I wondered if the party would be getting more interesting now.

02.5.11: The House as Idea

Rented a bike from Mike’s Bikes in Berkeley—an 8 speed city bike, perfectly adequate for getting around the East Bay. Went for a ride from my hotel in Berkeley down the bike “avenue” (Channing), to a jogging/biking trail that runs along the edge of the East Bay. It was gorgeous, warm day—admiring the California bungalows that increased in number as I got into the low-lying flatland area.

There was also the occasional Victorian house that still stands on this side of the Bay. It’s an easy area for biking, as it’s relatively flat throughout Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, and Piedmont.

I always loved the way these bungalows looked—the protecting and sheltering eaves (it rains here fairly often), the slightly Asian aspect, the cozy scale and the windows with chunky divided frames. This one looks like the “porch” was an addition, nicely done to match the rest of the house. Should I presume, based on the car in this driveway, that these houses, though modest in scale, are not cheap?

Wikipedia says they are indeed of Asian origin—a British adaptation of common houses in the Indian province of Bengal. They are not big enough to house servants; though I imagine the larger Victorian houses out here were. That would have been a significant change—that people without servants could now afford their own homes. Next stop, mortgage crisis!

Leslie Freudenheim, in her book Building With Nature, posits that the influential Arts and Crafts movement, which took root in California and spread from there, was begun by a Reverend Joseph Worcester—the minister of a Swedenborgian church across the bay in San Francisco. It seems appropriate that this Arts and Crafts style, though not exactly austere by today’s standards, might have emerged out of a religious—particularly a Northern European—ethos (What about those Bengal cottages, though?).

The Arts and Crafts movement actually began in England, spearheaded by James Ruskin and William Morris, and had Protestant overtones of moral and honest work—often produced by hand (being good in God’s eyes). Mass-produced machine made work was after all, well, evil. Though much of Morris’ wallpaper designs look frilly to us now, at the time (1880’s) the work was considered simple—almost austere. The craftsman and the artist were viewed as equals. It was hoped that hand-in-hand they would create surroundings that had integrity and would add to the richness of living. Interesting that the school my daughter goes to in Oakland used to be called California College of Arts and Crafts—a holdover from this ideal, I guess.

A British Arts and Crafts plaque:

Source

The creation of the Swendenborgian church in San Francisco was influenced by a group of big names at the time: the painter William Keith, naturalist John Muir (Muir Woods), architect A. Page Brown, draftsman Bernard Maybeck (who built a lot of the larger more impressive Arts and Crafts buildings) and most particularly by the Reverend Joseph Worcester, its first minister. The spirit of the church arose from an appreciation of the beauty of nature, and a will to express that beauty as divinity itself. I see a little of the later Frank Lloyd Wright prairie house style here, and some of the nature-based spirituality maybe carried over as well. I can sense that spiritual aim being realized in these little bungalows—no joke. Maybe that’s why I like them—not that I agree with all those Luddite aims of the movement, but I can sense that these houses are not just houses—they’re expressions of an idea.

From BerkeleyHeritage.com:

Between August and October 1882, shortly after Oscar Wilde had spoken in San Francisco, Worcester presented a series of lectures in which he subtly attacked Wilde and the whole concept of art for art’s sake espoused by Wilde and his friend, the painter James McNeil Whistler.

Swedenborgian Church, San Francisco (photo: Jim Karageorge)

Joseph Worcester, was not only the clergyman responsible for building the Swedenborgian Church, an icon of the Arts & Crafts Movement (1892–95); he was also an amateur architect and the man most responsible for the design of: 1) what may well be the first American bungalow (it was constructed as his own home atop a hillside in Piedmont in 1878); 2) four unpainted, brown-shingle Arts & Crafts houses on Russian Hill erected between 1887 and 1889 (two are still standing); 3) at least one of painter William Keith’s three studios; and 4) the Stratton house in Berkeley, about which the Strattons wrote:

If our house was not planned in the fear of the Lord, it surely was planned in fear of the late Joseph Worcester [...]. Worcester’s quiet disapproval or clear acceptance of any feature proposed had in it for us something of a pope’s finality.

The Stratton house, 67 Canyon Road (The House Beautiful, May 1916)

According to Charles Keeler, a poet, ornithologist and advocate of the Arts & Crafts style for Berkeley homes, Worcester’s “...word was law in the select group of connoisseurs of which he was the center.” 

Rev. Worcester’s Piedmont cottage (detail from a painting by William Keith)

Yale Evelev, from Luaka Bop adds: "There was a concurrent east coast Arts and Crafts movement that started in Buffalo." 

And here's a nice quote from that Wikipedia article that highlights the moral and spiritual underpinnings of the movement:

A quotation from John Ruskin formed the Roycroft "creed":

"A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness".

 

 

07.26.10: Smarter Than Us

I mused about all this before, in a previous blog post, so this is a return to and extension of that one.

I recently read a long article in Archaeology called “Should We Clone Neanderthals?” It’s serious — various bone fragments and other bits have been found in recent years, and as gene sequencing and cloning technology have gotten faster and cheaper, it’s not pure science fiction anymore.

When I saw that headline online, I thought to myself, “Didn’t they already make that movie?” (No, I think that was about a frozen caveman.) And then I remembered, “Hey, didn’t Neanderthals have a larger brain capacity than us?” They did — not by much, but they did have bigger brains. Some scientists discount this, saying they had more body mass as well, but that was largely made up of muscle mass — in other words, they were stronger than us too. It goes on — their bones were thicker, too. One theory is that those muscles and strong bones were crucial because in their world, the taking down of game was often hands-on, with only the aid of stone tools, which were used at fairly close range. I would maintain, though the scientists don’t say it, that they might have been more quick-witted and clever than us too…in order to be able to survive in the harsh, dog eat dog conditions of the time.

Though we have always portrayed “cavemen” as lumbering dimwitted brutes, that might just be an expression of our own species-specific xenophobia; the survivor in any situation always thinks that they are superior, and their survival is the proof. But many very smart species, not to mention large chunks of human civilization, have died out, been overrun, failed to adapt or persisted in habits that were against their own best interests. We’re not the first ones to foul our own nests — we’re just not gone…yet. Evolution is not the same as progress — we’re not “getting better” as we’d like to believe, or improving along some giant timeline. We just happen to be well adapted and lucky at this particular moment. Some of our inessential abilities will wither, and others will emerge and evolve as time goes by. But better or not better is not the right way to judge what we are.

The Neanderthals did interbreed a little with Homo sapiens, the other branch of the human tree — but for the most part, their numbers started dwindling about 30,000 years ago. Maybe the environment was changing, or maybe Homo sapiens were more social, and in unity lay strength. Maybe they became too good at hunting, and depleted their own food resources; hunters require plentiful game, and wide areas of wilderness to allow that game to flourish. Maybe some of those animals disappeared or moved to other parts of the continent. Whatever happened, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Neanderthals were stupid — or at least stupider than us, which is the point.

Other abilities and traits of these folks: they could talk. They almost certainly had a language. They had religion, and ceremonies for their dead. Paleontologists surmise that their broad, projecting noses allowed them to breathe more easily when chasing prey, and also in cold weather. Total athletes, except they had short legs.

They developed more rapidly than we do. Puberty came early, and by age 15 they were fully matured. Most scientists now think they had red hair.

[Source]

Most likely, they didn’t live as long as we do — though one might question if what some of our own elderly citizens go through is really living. They were probably lactose intolerant — except as babies — as that adaptation in humans didn’t occur until recently, and even then mostly in zones of intense dairy farming. They lived in small groups or clans, and though they weren’t as social as some other proto-humans, they weren’t complete loners either. They may have had symbiotic relations with animals prevalent at that time. And like Native Americans, the Inuit and indigenous Australians, they would get drunk easily and intensely.

So, how likely is this cloning?

According to the Archaeology article, cows and goats have been cloned successfully numerous times. Dolly, the cloned sheep, was a famous precursor. But it’s not easy. The last ibex (a kind of small goat) in the Pyrenean area was felled by a tree branch in 2000, and the genetic sequence gang and clone club all made attempts to bring it back. They used her DNA to reconstruct 439 eggs. Only 57 of those developed into embryos, and most of those didn’t develop further — the one that did died of lung failure hours after being “born.” So there are no guarantees, but scientists keep trying. Given the focus and intense interest in cloning, many assume all of this will be possible and less risky before too long. A clone of a woolly mammoth is under way.

[Source]

But should we do it?

As outlined briefly above I think it’s clear that should a successful Neanderthal be “brought back,” he or she might be smarter than us. Do we want to introduce a human that is smarter (and stronger!) than the rest of us into our world? Imagine the body of Mike Tyson mixed with the devious smarts of Kenneth Lay (Enron) with maybe some Einstein thrown in. Who’s working on this movie? Someone should be. I’m scared already.

It was pointed out in the article that Neanderthals would have human rights. Here’s a great story: Stuart Newman tried in 1997 to patent a genetic sequence that mixed attributes of humans and chimpanzees — in an attempt, he said, to prevent anyone from ever creating such a creature. The US patent office denied him, claiming that it would be against the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery. Not animal rights, but slavery. (Of course, this means that the nightmare hybrid possibility is still legally possible.)

Having human rights, a cloned Neanderthal would be able to freely walk out of the lab as soon as it felt the urge. No one could legally stop it.

To make the story even more intriguing, many of the scientists, viewing the Neanderthals as social beings, claim that it would be cruel, sad and unethical to bring back just one — a single being without its family, mates and some similar beings to interact with who might also have some identical social and sexual tendencies and drives. However, creating a whole little clan of these critters, who have the right to go off and live their own lives — and presumably reproduce — and, it seems, are smarter and stronger than us…well, skip ahead a few years, and I see where this movie is going.

[Source]

Didn’t this guy used to play in a Norwegian metal band in the ’80s?

I see the little clan emigrating from the lab to a part of our planet that is still suitable for their inbuilt propensities — Siberia maybe, or parts of Canada. They might request to be left alone, and to have their own “nation.” Over time they will multiply and maybe figure out how our world works — after all, they made quantum leaps in tool making, amongst other things, in their own time. Should they then realize, or come to believe, that they are indeed better than us, they might wonder why it is that we are in control. It wouldn’t seem fair to have us, the weaker dummies, running the world, would it? They might decide to assert themselves. Fred and Barney, Wilma, Betty and Bamm Bamm — no joke.

05.17.09: Art is good for you?

That’s certainly what Canon Samuel Barnett and his wife Henrietta thought in 1881 when they established what would become the original Whitechapel Gallery. “The finest art of the world for the people of the East End.” The gallery has recently expanded and reopened, having usurped what once was a public library next door. The Whitechapel and the public library were both, in their time, efforts to bring culture to the poor masses of East London, a working class area that has been regularly inhabited by waves of recent immigrants.

Pictures “raise blessed thoughts in me — why not in you, my brother? Believe it, toil-worn worker, in spite of thy foul alley, thy crowded lodging, thy ill-fed children, thy thin, pale wife, believe it, thou too, and thine, will some day have your share of beauty.” -Charles Kingsley, Victorian Christian socialist, as quoted by Tom Lubbock in The Independent. [Link to article]

Those damned Christians — always on their evangelizing missions. Always bringing what is right, proper, and by implication, morally good to the poor heathen or unwashed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Art is the path of the creator to his work.” Emerson also said that art existed to make men better.

Edward C. Banfield, a Harvard government professor, writes: "The art museum was founded soon after the Civil War as part of a long struggle by the Protestant elite, which ran the large cities, to moralize their populations by eliminating vice and inculcating the domestic and civic virtues." [Link to article]

According to John Ruskin, the English writer and painter who was widely read and hugely influential in the 19th century, “Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth. All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.”

Ruskin paraphrased: Art is the expression of delight in God's work. From that, he glides to: “All great Art is praise; and, Art is the exponent of ethical life.”

And paraphrased again by art historian Kenneth Clark: The greatest artists and schools of art have believed it their duty to impart vital truths, not only about the facts of vision, but about religion and the conduct of life. [Source]

What mystifies me is the “morally good” part — that a leap is made from simply enjoying or being inspired, to being “improved” as a person by viewing pictures. These guys imply that art that is good (according to whom?) contains vital truths… and therefore functions as a signpost — a guide — for correct and better living. This is the part where I become very skeptical. If being educated at the best schools Western education has to offer doesn’t cultivate morality (look at all the white-collar criminals, and crimes against humanity committed by Harvard and Yale graduates), then what hope does looking at a picture have?

On the foundation of the National Gallery (in 1824, initially a banker’s picture collection), Sir Robert Peel said, “In the present times of political excitement, the exacerbation of angry and unsocial feelings might be much softened by the effects which the fine arts had ever produced upon the minds of men.” [Link] The Gallery, on Trafalgar Square, is located there because at that spot, the rich of West London could visit on their carriages and the poor from the East End could walk — thin pale wife and ill-fed children both. Significantly, admission would be free, further emphasizing that exposure to art could benefit all. Peel trusted that “the edifice would not only contribute to the cultivation of the arts, but also to the cementing of those bonds of union between the richer and the poorer orders of the State...” [Link]

It was thought that by exposing the poor and often uneducated to “culture,” their minds and hearts would be stimulated to deeper, more profound and noble thoughts. That exposure to culture is somehow morally uplifting, a bit like a church sermon, but presumably slightly less tedious. It also seems that culture was thought of as a kind of protective security device — from the angry and unsocial feelings mentioned above — and that exposure to it would alleviate the anger of the lower classes and thereby buffer the upper classes from their wrath. It was also thought that learning to appreciate culture would keep the rabble out of pubs and from pursuing other dubious activities.

In two senses this seems ridiculous — the first being that the modern art the Whitechapel was aiming to show was and is simply baffling to ordinary people, though in the UK arts current, shock and tabloid value is certainly a draw to many. Ordinary folks — and this is not a criticism — tend to like pictures that show evidence of skill and time spent in their production. Most folks also like to recognize what it is they’re looking at, be it a landscape, a face, a spear or an abstract pattern on a rug — across cultures, the forms may vary greatly. For poor English folks to be told back in the day that looking at wacky pictures would make them better people must have seemed like some sort of cruel joke — or that there was something profound in the pictures they didn’t yet understand.

The second absurdity is that this art, and the serious books that the library would deem to make available (libraries don’t usually stock porn or pulp fiction), were deemed worthy primarily by one’s “betters.” The higher, more educated classes naturally decided what pictures and books were good and capable of moral uplift. Given that the higher, especially the upper, classes of English society by nature had more spare time on their hands, there is at least some rationale that they would have had ample time to read and gaze upon pictures… and therefore might have some favorites to recommend — a service which might save those with less free time some precious hours, should they grow curious about those pictures or books.

Whether the lower and immigrant classes would be interested in the same pictures or books as their “betters” is never questioned — it is just assumed that the more “refined” taste of the higher classes is better and therefore more worthy. Why this should be so is not explained. For example, I find the machinations surrounding Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy amusing but somewhat disgusting as well — the lives of the rich and bored are often overrated, it seems to me. (However as a witty soap opera the book is hilarious.)

Likewise, the novel and convoluted new ways of interpreting the world, and the investigation into modes of visual perception and into art itself that modernism focused on, might also seem a trifle irrelevant to those struggling to stay afloat — unless some of those strugglers aimed to someday pass themselves off as being from a higher class. Good luck with that in the UK!

However, I myself can testify that being from an upper lower-class background in Glasgow, with parents who had immigrated and then worked and saved themselves into the middle class in suburban Baltimore, the local public library was invaluable. It was the Internet in a building — a building located down the road, under a bridge, past the train tracks, on a slight rise.

For example, in the late 60s, when I was in high school, I fell upon a copy of Naked Lunch, among many other strange and unusual books. I found it innovative, weird and slightly disgusting — though not in the same way as Pride and Prejudice. Even the book cover seemed to refer to some mysterious universe — the shadows and objects depicted are unclear. Maybe they are a junkie’s “works,” but I’m still not sure.

[Source]

I also borrowed vinyl from the library — Folkways records of gospel, blues and Bahamian singers, Nonesuch recordings of Xenakis, Indian classical music and Balinese gamelan. There were also albums of pop music that weren’t getting played on the local rock station — The Kinks and Buffalo Springfield and many others. So, while some might have represented a rarefied academic and presumably more refined world — Xenakis, Varèse, Ives and Stockhausen, for example — even the academic composers were pretty trippy, and not all that different than what some of the pop musicians were doing, just less accessible. It was all a gateway into a host of new worlds. Lowlifes, highlifes and weirdness beyond anything I could imagine.

So, in a sense, the public library did do partially what the Victorians claimed — it made available to me a whole world I never knew existed. On the other hand, it opened my mind to realms of debauchery, experimentation and craziness that was like nothing else in suburban Baltimore. Nothing I’d seen, anyway… though I did go camping with some gal pals once, and their biker friends shot up a watermelon with vodka. That was pretty wild — and tasty.

I also took a liking to the visual arts at the time, stimulated at the outset mainly by album covers, psychedelic posters and underground comics. That was what was available to me. I was aware that some of those images and artists overlapped with what was deemed to be fine art, but that was not what made things interesting. I’m not sure if I went to an art museum more than once during high school — though I remember the Walters Art Gallery downtown had a very cool, small ancient carving of a man that seemed to be half tree. There was no modern or contemporary art there.

However, one thing led to another and connections, sometimes bizarre, were made. I painted a picture in high school of a phalanx of identical businessmen (who may have resembled my dad a bit), in a style reminiscent of George Tooker (I realize now) — standing against a wall of brightly colored, abstract empty picture frames and on a floor decorated with Northwest Indian tribal images, with hook-beaked creatures and densely packed biomorphic forms. It could have been a psychedelic record cover, and it referenced, or maybe simply imitated, everything visually available to me in suburban Baltimore that seemed wild and cool.

 

The big downtown art museum, with its Cone Collection of Matisses was, of course, a repository of high quality art — it had to be if it was housed in such a temple. I knew I was supposed to be impressed, but it was, at the time, nowhere near as inspiring as the counter-culture stuff that was exploding everywhere.

[Danielle adds: "Given these examples, another interesting question to pose would be, how has art changed — how have the values changed? And even if they have, has the role of art in social hierarchy changed or not? Because in fact you can now go Harvard on the basis of your Burroughs scholarship; counter-cultural art can give entrée into the privileged strata of society. There’s some interesting inversion that’s taken place where the avant-garde has been re-assimilated and the relationship between high and low has become infinitely more nuanced. Sotheby’s sold some of Manzoni’s shit for a couple hundred thousand dollars not so long ago."]

So, was art good for me? It got me out of gym class, that’s for sure. Working on these detailed and obsessive pictures took a lot of time, and the high school art teacher kindly sent a slip excusing me from gym. I made a bunch more of these pictures, and at some point they were “exhibited” in a display case in the school hallway. Probably due to their resemblance to record covers, they were deemed OK and even hip by some of the students, and I was cool for a day — which was pretty great for someone as shy as I, who managed to make this, and later music, a way to be in the world. So in this sense, art was certainly “good” for me at the time.

I think discovering and making stuff was good for me in another way too. Not only did making stuff give me, a painfully shy person, a way to communicate, but in the process I got myself sorted as well — at least a little bit. Expressing myself became a process of self-discovery and healing, casting out demons and finding joy. (Not that I’m done now, by any means.) The process was far from conscious — only in retrospect can I see what was happening. And it doesn’t mean the things I was making were all explosions and expressions of angst, terror, fear or guilt — though occasionally, yes, those things would surface. Making stuff gives someone like me a reason for going on, a focus, a pride in oneself. I’m not saying one has to be damaged to benefit from this kind of activity — but we all need a little sorting here and there. I’m not sure the creative process works for everyone — in fact, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. And I’m not saying that “everyone is an artist,” though I suspect many people have creative urges that go unacknowledged. I’m not sure everyone needs to make arty stuff as a path to self-discovery — home improvement, software development, getting dressed up and general problem solving are all immensely satisfying.

But back to the question as to whether art is morally uplifting. If idle hands are the devil’s playground then doing this stuff indeed kept the devil away — for a while. But what about looking at pictures, as opposed to making them? I love doing it — my house and office are plastered with stuff — but I don’t see how it can be uplifting, though I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. My friend C says that pictures are indeed a place, a forum, a venue for ideas, deeply felt emotions and radically new ways of looking at and being in the world. They are, she says, stimulating and inspiring — when they connect, at least. It’s certainly true for those of us who are part of that world. It seems to me that more consistently, it is the act of making stuff that changes a person, although with books, just reading them can certainly open new worlds. Looking at a Jackson Pollock is about as innately stimulating as looking at gum on the sidewalk — but that is not meant as a criticism. Reading about Pollock, his world, why and how he made his stuff and what kind of life he and his contemporaries had, might indeed be stimulating. Then one might see his picture as a kind of corollary — an adjunct piece of evidence connected to his story and those of his peers.

So, interesting that the Whitechapel displaced a public library. When I was there a month ago the crowds were immense, with a line to get in, and the galleries were chockablock. The work, mainly a show by Isa Genzken, was pretty kooky, and not at all “easy.” All the papers had run lengthy pieces on the re-opening. Everyone was making a pilgrimage to see the revived and improved space — one had to say one had been there and seen it with their own eyes. I’m not sure all these folks are experiencing self-improvement, and I’m certainly not sure they emerge or soon become capable of greater and sounder moral judgment. But they’re hell-bent on having the experience.

But where did the books go? Reading, the part of the Victorian outreach that involved more interaction and could actually be brought into one’s house for a while, is gone.

Maybe, with the sheer volume of text on the Internet, it isn’t deemed as important to make books available for free to the poor and newly arrived in the East End. Art you have to visit and see, for the most part, and books you can buy, browse at bookstores or now download. Maybe part of the museum or gallery’s attraction is the social aspect — reading is solitary. The Whitechapel was crowded, and people would presumably discuss their visit later over dinner, or at the office the next day. Picture viewing is also fast, while on the other hand, it takes many hours to read a book — which is another reason the literary experience has such a profound effect. Viewing an exhibition can be done in an afternoon or much less, and if you don’t like it you just walk out. The speed of the visit doesn’t make it less deep — a short experience can also be profound — and visual experiences can imprint if we are receptive enough. (Movies and music, I’ve noticed, are like books — you have to commit a sizable block of time to the experience.)

I can see that if exposure to culture brings the lower classes and immigrants into contact — indirectly and incrementally — with the world of the accepted and dominant classes, and thereby into the world of their values and morals, then yes, that exposure helps society to become more harmonious. Most moral values, in my opinion, are not absolute. They vary depending on the culture, and vary from place to place (though some moral commandments, like not having kids with your sister or mother, could be considered absolute — for humans anyway). Morals are rules that allow a society to function smoothly, or smoothly enough. By assimilating the implied values inherent in pictures, viewers are subtly brought into line with what has become accepted and dominant in a society. Although one might complain that what is acceptable and moral has been determined only by a portion of society — the portion in power — if harmony can be achieved without force, terror or fear, then maybe that’s nothing to sneeze at. Survival is better than pure chaos and destruction, though we seem to like those things too. Funny how things that may have once been attempts to overthrow the apple cart of power and dominance are now taught as fine literature or art at major universities. Some might say that this kind of harmony is like living ignorantly inside the Matrix — that it’s not “real” — but maybe that’s another rant.

05.08.09: The Best

While on tour in Italy a few weeks ago, our new friend Giorgio invited us to lunch at a restaurant in Modena, where we were playing in a beautiful old theater.

Little did we know this would be a culinary experience of a lifetime. The restaurant, Osteria Francescana, had been voted number 13 of S.Pellegrino’s top 50 restaurants in the world just the day before — which also made it the top restaurant in Italy. That’s saying something.

The whole band was invited to this incredible lunch, which featured Lambrusco, an amazing sparkling red wine. Sometimes touring isn’t so bad… well, actually, this tour has been a lot of fun so far. Massimo, the chef, uses local Emilia-Romagna ingredients, processed with the techniques of molecular gastronomy. This region is famous for its Parmesan cheese (as well as its balsamic vinegar), so one memorable dish had the cheese prepared 4 or 5 different ways — as a foam, a pudding, a sauce and a solid. It was a carnival ride for the mouth. There was also a dish that featured another specialty of the region, bologna, turned into something that looked like a dollop of whippy ice cream, speckled pink. Haute hillbilly food.

I glanced at the 50 best list online and saw that I had been to a small number of these establishments. A couple of them in NY, one in London and one in San Francisco. Yes, the food at all of them was amazing, surprising and innovative. But most of the winners are fairly “haute”… and while not necessarily fussy, they’re not what you would call casual. None are cheap (duh). Some are slightly more relaxed than others and forgo the elaborate serving rituals. Some do less as far as presenting food as geometrically arranged art objects. But in general these establishments are of a type. They are the kinds of places that stay more or less within a given range.

The chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adrià (whose restaurant was voted best in the world five times, including this year), was invited to participate in documenta in 2007, the curated art event held in Germany every few years. I don’t think they went so far as to christen his dishes "works of art" — but why not? I’ve never eaten there, but I have perused one of the large art books he publishes, illustrating the dishes and techniques invented over the preceding years. It’s art, all right — edible and ephemeral — I don’t know what else you’d call it.

Beet strips:

Some foam concoction:

[Source]

And black sesame sponge:

[Source]

After all that, I wondered, who decides that the "best" is all more or less of a related type? It’s almost always true, isn’t it — not just for food, but books, films, you name it.

While C and I were wandering around Barrio Alto in Lisboa a few days after the amazing meal in Modena, we stopped to eat at a nondescript lunch counter filled with locals on their lunch break. One outside window looked on to a flat grill, typical of any diner — though on this one, fish were grilling.

By the cash register, under the counter where the donuts might be in a NY diner, there was an array of fresh merluza, dorada and some of the famous Portuguese sardines. The special of the day was octopus stew, so we ordered that along with a couple of draft beers, and a fish. (These came with simple salads.) Here’s the point: the fish, simply grilled and served with olive oil and lemon, was one of the best I’d tasted in a while. The stews weren’t bad either. The beer was cold and delicious. I’d rate the place, on the strength of the fish alone, as one of the best I’ve eaten at — but of course the S.Pellegrino judges won’t give it a glance.

In Melbourne, Australia C and I joined some friends at Cumulus — sort of an unpretentious foodie lunch place.

We sat on stools and had plates to share. Here is the cauliflower, roasted with pine nuts on a bed of goat’s curd with fresh herbs, that had a surprising mix of flavors.

In Kyoto, Noriko Fuku arranged for us all to dine at a place near the university where she teaches. It’s not a highfalutin kaiseki place — the expense account restaurants that offer set menus of a series of tiny, super-refined dishes — but was maybe just as delicious. Here is an appetizer of preserved fish eggs in a slightly thick broth.

In Wellington, NZ their famous green-lipped mussels could be ordered almost anywhere — and they were both larger and more succulent than any of the ones imported to fancy NY restaurants. This plateful was from the local brewpub/restaurant.

C and I went to a fancier seafood restaurant for lunch one afternoon, Martin Bosley’s. Quite a bit fussier than the brewpub — which is saying something for NZ. Here is an example of some clam porn.

When the dishes are as fresh as they were at these places, sometimes there isn’t really any point in making the presentation or preparation too complicated or fancy — it would merely cover up the actual taste of the item.

There are New Yorkers (and Italians) who rate certain pizza places as favorites — and that doesn’t mean the pizza is arranged in a tower, foamed, frozen or gelled. Massimo from Osteria Francescana often goes out for pizza at the end of the day. Even high-end chefs love simple, fresh food that’s well made. In Japan there are fierce discussions over which soba and ramen joints are “za besto.” One could easily say that some of those places also qualify as being “best in the world,” but they’re not in the running for the S.Pellegrino list. One would need a huge number of categories in order to list all these places.

Maybe that’s OK. Maybe we have to take all these ratings and lists with a grain of salt (oops), or at least accept that there’s some implicit category and limitation being discussed in each one that’s not always mentioned outright. Everybody knows that certain genres of film will never be nominated for Oscars, and the books that win prizes are equally of a type — complex, weighty and “important.” Every “best of” list may be the best within a limited category, but not simply the “best” in all categories. We’re supposed to know, for example, that Oscar-winning films are often serious, and therefore somehow morally uplifting, which doesn’t always mean feel-good. Who determines what is morally uplifting, well… that’s another question.

01.03.09: North and South

In the late morning C and I walk around, buy CDs at a local shop, and stroll down a street selling wallpaper and fake wood floor coverings until we reach Cidade Baixa, the lower city. This area, which used to be called Commerciao, is a strange lifeless zone on a Saturday. It used to be filled with warehouses, trading companies, mercantile banks, and all the other businesses that had to do with the nearby port, but now it is mostly filled with charmless modern office buildings that house banks.

There are remnants of the old commercial spaces and buildings on some streets, scattered here and there, some in good shape but many decrepit and falling into disrepair.

At Caetano’s house C flips through a book of Pierre Verger’s photos of Bahia and Salvador from mid 20th century, and I am taken by a shot of this commercial district taken from Cidade Alta (the upper city). In this shot one can see the same grid of commercial buildings, but when the picture was taken they were all of moderate height, and all beautiful colonial edifices. “What a shame what has happened here,” I say.

Caetano agrees, and says that this legacy of incredible architecture — which existed in numerous places all over Latin America — should have been treated “like a European City.” I think he means that many European cities — London, Milano, Torino, Brussels, Lyon — also have what were once commercial centers that emerged during a historical era, but no one would have dreamt of razing those centers and replacing them with steel, glass and concrete office towers. But in the Americas, North and South, that’s what mostly happened — except in a few isolated spots.

I’ve been reading a book, “The Brazilian People,” by Darcy Ribeiro. He points out that while history may be written by the victors, and therefore what is often taught might contradict what he says, the fact is that most North American cities were slight and impermanent during the initial settlement, while Latin American colonial cities were substantial, grand, ostentatious, and built to last; for example, the churches that dot Salvador, its Pelorinho district, Old Cartajena in Columbia, the Zocalo and surroundings of Mexico City, Old San Juan, and Havana. Compare those with the clapboard houses, lean-to structures and log cabins of many of the early North American settlements. The Latins, though they may have claimed otherwise, were there to stay. They made mirrors of their European capitals in the New World while the Puritans were eking by in pathetic villages of wooden houses.

It would have appeared that the North Americans weren’t planning on putting down permanent roots. They didn’t build cities — not at first — but settlements. Except for a few exceptions — New York and Chicago come to mind — this impermanent way of building continued and continues in North America. There was apparently no need to build cities that announced “now, you are in it,” as Caetano put it. LA might be the apogee of that attitude, but all over North America you find cities and settlements so spaced out that you have little sense of being located — being in — anywhere.

Racism and Rainbows

C and I go for a ride on rented bikes heading north up the beach from the Ameralina neighborhood. There is a dedicated bike path along the beach that goes for at least 10km. We pass a zone of little cabanas in the sand with plastic chairs in front; later, a grassy area with massage tables dotted here and there; then an area where big men are flying little kites (competitively, I suspect); and, further on, larger cabanas that bordered on being actual restaurants (they take credit cards). There are kiosks with men pressing sugar cane, adolescents playing football (soccer), joggers and folks out for a Saturday early evening stroll.

C comments on the difference between the ride along this beach and the bike rides we took in Miami — one ride there took us from South Beach, with its bars, restaurants, boutique hotels and hotties, further up past the towering condos of Miami Beach proper. Mile after mile of almost identical, immense beachfront condos. There, as she said, one tended to presume that the joggers were all fairly well-to-do and probably lived in the nearby glittering edifices, whereas here the folks jogging or at the cabanas were middle class at very best, while the vast majority seemed fairly poor. They might be from the surrounding neighborhoods, but just as many may have walked or come by bus. It’s beautifully funky, relaxed and casual. People don’t consider the beach a luxury holiday spot here — it’s a place to meet friends, hang out, socialize, get a massage, eat, drink, kick a ball around, take a sunset stroll or get some exercise. In some ways it’s an outdoor living room or a communal backyard.

Most of the joggers, casual strollers and folks hanging out are black, as Afro-Brazilians make up the vast majority of this town. The rest feature a mixture of skin tones, which is typical of Brazil. Racism here is not exactly like it is up north. Everyone here is fairly comfortable with folks with lighter or darker skin tones than their own. Miscegenation has been going on so long and is so ingrained here that everyone, just about, by US standards, would be considered black. Here they might not consider Colin Powell black, for example. He’s way too light.

Here there are a myriad of words and phrases for the many gradations of skin color. Caboclo means a mix of European and Indian; Mamelucas are the 1st generation of this mixture. Mulattoes are a mixture of African and European, and pardo means brown, preto means black and branco means white. Moreno can mean simply mixed. There are pure Africans and of course remnants of the myriad Indian tribes who once covered the continent. There are pure Italians and Germans; and, in São Paulo, the largest settlement of Japanese outside of Japan. It’s definitely not just black or white. In some ways — like at the beach, on the street of the jogging path — everyone is comfortable mixing together, though it’s not exactly the post-racism utopia that some claim.

The racism is there, in other ways. In politics and on TV, for example, almost everyone is white, or very light. There is definitely a hierarchy based on color — a “light” person very often will act superior to a person with slightly darker skin. A branco might have a mulatta for a girlfriend, for example, but more than likely he wouldn’t marry her. Most “help” have darker skin tones. Nonetheless, the difference in attitude from the States is palpable. Since slavery was abolished here there was no legacy of overtly racist laws, as there continued to be in the States.

At Paulinha’s party and at Gilberto Gil's the next day the full rainbow of folks were present — dancing, drinking and chatting. C mentioned that she would make eye contact and say "hi" and "welcome" to guests of every hue and they smiled and responded in kind. Sad to say, this is not the usual situation in the States. Here everyone is just a little more relaxed around everyone else, whereas in the States when races meet there is always a slight tension, some fear, suspicion; and, from the Afro-American side, anger, envy, and resentment that colors everything. I’m generalizing, of course. We musicians don’t behave that way — at least in my dreams we don’t. The separation of worlds and the ghetto-ization of peoples — distinct music, food and culture — that exists up North and that poisons everything, is to a large extent much less prevalent here — but the racism still can’t be denied.

Here in Salvador there is also Afro-tourism. This city is so known for its strong African culture and its pride in that culture that it draws people from all over the world who savor a taste of that affirmation and positive outlook. Up North there are celebrations of sports heroes and great musicians, but here everything is celebrated, the whole culture. That acceptance and pride in Afro-Brazilian culture is evident everywhere — statues of the Orixas (Afro Atlantic deities) in the city park fountain, the Pelorinho paintings (as tacky as they are) the tourist ads that focus on Afro-Atlantic culture — the blocos, afoxes, the Baianas, and the syncretized Candomble rituals — all say that this city is more than proud of this element in its culture — this is its culture. For some Afro-Americans this might come as a bit of a shock — not being forced to the outside of society might be initially traumatic if one has, for one’s whole life, defined oneself and one’s identity as oppositional. Maybe Obama will help us Northerners edge away from that just a bit. A visit here reveals what is possible.

Why is it different? I gather it’s not exactly an accident. When the first Europeans arrived they were hell-bent on making money and getting rich quick, but they also felt that heaven had sent them to enlighten the local savages. Their interests may have been in gold and lumber, but they justified it by claiming that they were bringing the heathens to God and to Civilization (substitute “democracy and freedom” and you have the last 8 years in a nutshell).

The early European settlers found that if they married a local Amerindian they immediately had a large set of kinship relationships. They might acquire 80 relatives all of a sudden — many of which were extremely willing and able to help and assist their new relative, due to the elaborate and strong kinship rules among the tribespeople. The Europeans took full economic, practical and financial advantage of this — they could get their new relatives to help them hauling lumber and everything else. It became evident that there was a huge financial incentive to intermarry, and intermarry they did, unlike the Protestants up North.

So, within a generation or so the racial boundaries were already blurring and becoming fuzzy. It would be little harder to be racist towards one’s own children, for example. A few more generations and you have the rainbow in formation — though the Indians were fast dying off from European diseases.

Schopenhauer and the Tropics

In the evening a small group heads over to Gilberto Gil’s house where his daughter is having a birthday party. Gil and Caetano and I are talking and Caetano goes off on one of his riffs — this one about how the German philosopher Schopenhauer made some surprising statements about the tropics and race. According to Cae, the philosopher claimed that humanity was originally black — as we emerged from the tropics in Africa. This is hard to dispute. Of course we were. Schopes continued to follow this line of reasoning, saying that black is therefore our default skin color, the “true” color of humanity, and that other colors or non-colors are therefore marginal — notably, and especially, white. He claimed that from a global perspective whites, especially blonde blue-eyed ones, are a fringe group that somehow managed to survive in the chilly and forbidding Northern climate. This didn’t go down all that well at the time with his countrymen.

Not sure if it was Schopes or Cae doing the extrapolating from there — moving on, it was reasoned that such a harsh Northern clime would therefore foster an ethos that would necessarily evolve strict rules and behavior limitations. To stray from the norm — to be lax regarding time, sloppy, relaxed, indecisive or simply to be too flexible — would mean either death or turbulence in the social pond, which would be seriously frowned on. The inference is that the Northern ethos and character is what it is because it’s a survival mechanism.

This all came up because I asked Gil (and Caetano) where they wrote. (I didn’t see what one might call a music writing or project room at Caetano’s house). They both say they write anywhere — sporadically, every now and then, the place doesn’t matter. Caetano says he’s even written during a party such as the one we’re at. He’ll pick up his guitar and quietly work out some bits — with the party going on all around him — sometimes a whole song will get written, so he says.

This would maybe not be impossible but would be pretty unlikely for me. I offer that my “Protestant” character makes me more disciplined — I “go to work” in a specifically designated writing space (a room in my loft)… but of course that discipline and formality comes with drawbacks and limitations as well. I don’t write songs on the road, for example. “Pros and cons” says Gil.

However, I did write this.

11.9.08: Philadelphia

The dancers are in the venue early, working on accumulating ideas for the two encore songs that currently serve as our finale. At present they aren’t dancing in those songs, and it seems a shame for them to essentially drop out of the show at that point — so that will change after our Thanksgiving break. Some of their ideas are based on the movements I’ve been doing during those songs, but both their movements and mine will probably get expanded, tweaked and organized during some dance rehearsals we have scheduled over the break.

It’s a rainy day here, and, as sometimes (but rarely on this tour) happens, we’re stuck at a hotel in the middle of nowhere because everything in town was booked many months ago for some massive convention. I wake up on the bus and look out the windows and see an expanse of highways, parking lots and identical building blocks. We’re 6 miles from the center of town and at least 4 miles from the venue. I inquire about whether there is any mass transit into town nearby — PHART (Philadelphia area rapid transit), as Paul Frazier refers to it — but it’s not close by, either. I hitch a taxi ride into town with Jenni and Steven, who are going to the Mütter Museum, a wonderful wunderkabinett of gross-outs and medical curiosities. I’ve seen it before, so I head to the Philadelphia Museum of Art where there is an exhibition of Gee’s Bend quilts and a retrospective of work by a man named James Castle, whom I suspect not many have heard of.

At the top of the steps to the art museum tourists strike Rocky Balboa poses, their fists up in the air. There are lots of Rockys today, as it’s a weekend — a black-suited Chinese man, a young black kid from a school group and a large white man all assume the position simultaneously.

The Gee’s Bend quilts are something special. They were previously shown at the Whitney in NY, and one can see why. They are made by a small community descended from former slaves on a river near Selma, Alabama. The website states:

After the Civil War, the freed slaves [almost all from one plantation] took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.

From Seattle PI:

New York Times senior art critic Michael Kimmelman called the quilts "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced. Imagine Matisse and Klee arising not from rarefied Europe, but from the caramel soil of the rural South.

Thelma Golden, chief curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, took a contrary view. She wrote in Artforum that she loved the quilts but hated the exhibition, "which, with its shockingly politically correct tone, under the transparent cover of high/low intervention and demolished media categories, was the most culturally repugnant, retrograde moment I have ever experienced, perhaps in my entire professional life."

Kimmelman's reaction was widely shared. Golden stood alone, or nearly so, at least in public. The subtext of her argument seemed to be that she recoiled at the sight of white people exclaiming over black craft. Their admiration struck her as patronizing. For the same reason, some black people do not want to listen to black blues artists playing in clubs filled with white people "getting down," because white joy of that sort saps a black experience of its legitimacy, creating a chasm between the art and its original audience.

Kimmelman and Thelma’s reactions raise a whole world of questions. Does it matter where these objects — or others exhibited, recorded or written — come from? Does context and history determine the meaning of what we look at and see? In other words, are these quilts amazing because they are made by women unschooled in art history or are they incredible for what they are? Is a song by an unschooled self-taught musician any less moving, deep and wonderful that something by an academic composer? (There’s an amazing record of spiritual songs recorded at Gee’s Bend.) Is there any way to hear or see things free of history, class or context? Probably not. Does it matter? All of this sort of applies to James Castle’s work — and to lots of other stuff as well. We’re not just talking about some quilt makers here.

Here’s one made with leftover blue jeans:

When we see these quilts, do we see them through our knowledge and experience of Klee and Matisse? (I’d add Rauschenberg and Sigmar Polke to that, too.)

Here’s one made out of football jerseys:

And another that incorporates images and text “panels”:

Have we learned to experience these disrupted and “musical” patterns though our experience of fine art? Is that similarity what makes us stop in our tracks when we see these quilts? That certainly must have had something to do with why they have been exhibited in a series of high art institutions. But I would argue that’s not the whole story. The inventiveness, the mixture of African rhythm and Amish austerity, the humor and creativity visible in these quilts is not something only students of art history can experience. Those qualities, I maintain, are human, and they cross race, class and social barriers. I think that the erasing of those lines is part of what we’re seeing and experiencing as well, and it feels good. It doesn’t lessen the work’s context, the specific nature of the history of Gee’s Bend or of each artist in the collective, to feel that either.

Though part of the picture painted here is of an isolated community, separate from the contamination of the marketplace and the art world, that’s not entirely true, at least not the first part. Some of the Gee’s bend quilters were contracted by Sears, the giant mail order dept store, to make pillowcases in mass quantitites that were informed by their tradition. The remnants from the pillowcase material, particularly an avocado green fabric popular for one decade, found its way into the quilts as well. So they’re not “pure” in that sense, though we might wish they were in certain ways. But that lack of purity is often where the joy and creativity lie, and the obsessive need for authenticity and purity are often what saps the life out of a tradition or out of a person’s creative impulse.

James Castle was a deaf man born at the turn of the 20th century on a farm in Idaho. He refused to learn to read, write or sign, but he made lots of art. The work I’d seen previously were “drawings” of banal farm scenes — a barn with a fence, a shed with a chair — made out of soot and spit. This show, a retrospective, shows that he made a lot more than that, in a variety of styles and mediums. As with the Gee’s Bend crew, one can’t help but be shocked at the uncanny parallels to works by Warhol, Ruscha and a whole mess of others. Once again one wonders if those parallels make Castle’s work more incredible. Once again it would be hard to deny that those parallels are probably why his work is being shown here in a giant art museum.

Here’s one of the shack interiors. Completely banal and schematic. There are lots of shack drawings, as if he was cataloging a typology of shack interiors and exteriors. His world, maybe?

A kaleidoscopic rendering of matchbox labels:

And a similar kaleidoscopic rendering of a photo of businessmen:

In these works and in some of the quilts there is what is now called appropriation — using recognizable labels, texts, and images — grabbing them, re-working them, re-presenting them. It’s a recognition that the glut of reproduced images, photos, logos, typefaces and texts that makes up our world and that of the 20th century is indeed our environment….even that of rural Idaho.

Now, one of the qualities that is often brought up to separate Castle or the Gee’s bend artists from those who more regularly show in fine art galleries, auction houses and museums is intention. It is assumed that there is an awareness and intention in a work by Warhol, Ruscha, Betcher, Polke, whomever, that is not there in someone like Castle. I would suggest that his work proves that this is just not true. His intentions may not be geared towards the same marketplace, collectors and trade publications, but aesthetically it’s all there. The response to the world, a way of looking, a seriousness, and an investigation of phenomena, thoroughly done and from multiple angles — it’s all right there. I would argue that his work and that of the quilters proves that, well, nutty as it might sound, some part of the visual and material response to our world is innate — and like myths, a similar response might occur and recur across time and space — unconnected yet uncannily similar.