Category Archives: Psychological Musings

Ask for Adenium obesum; Google will give you about 12,600 results in 0.12 seconds

Americana, Current Affairs, Evolution, Psychological Musings, Science

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Or Dorstenia foedita in 0.17 seconds with about 7,830 results*. We truly live in an an age of wonder.

My grandmother was born in the late 1880s – about 16 years, give or take 5, before Wilbur and Orville first flew the Flyer – and she died after John Glen orbited the earth.  I used to marvel at the change she went though, but it is nothing compared to the change we are going through.

True, from horse and buggy to orbit seems like a big jump.  But very, very, few people will ever go into orbit; it just isn't part of our life. But everybody – OK, maybe not everybody, but everybody with a small rounding error – has a computer and access to the World Wide Web. Really, access to an almost infinite well of knowledge.

With a smart phone – and we will all have smart phones soon – we have access everywhere, anytime. All the time.  Astounding! A huge percentage of the world's knowledge – maybe not knowledge, but facts, at least –  is at our fingertips. Literally, as Joe Biden would say. What do walruses eat? When was Hypatia murdered by religious fanatics? How far is the airport from a hotel – any hotel you want – in the downtown section of the capital of Paraguay?

We are living in a time of wonders that were inconceivable 20 years ago.

 * somehow I find it very amusing that Google can come up with results in 0.17 seconds but – apparently – doesn't have time to count the exact number of results

Pixar at the Oakland Museum

Photography, Psychological Musings, ,

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Michele and I went to the Oakland Museum for our anniversary. What I like about the Oakland Museum is that the design – by Kevin Roche – is sixties superb and what I like even better is that it is about California art. Most museums – at least most US museums – aren't local or regional, they are aspiring to be national or international. So, when I go to a museum in a strange city, I don't see great local art, I see a second rate Jasper Johns or or third rate Amedeo Modigliani. 

But, at the Oakland Museum of California, I see first rate California art. The museum has recently been remodeled and it was pretty busy when we were there. Maybe because of the remod but probably because of an excellent show – put together by René de Guzman – on Pixar. 

For me, the Pixar show was especially interesting because I feel there is a similarity between Pixar's art and my photography. Not a similarity in quality so much as a similarity in style. Looking at the Pixar individual pictures, none seems like what I would call great stand alone art. It is story telling art. It is art because of it's context.

Standing alone, the Pixar pictures are fun but in a That would be great in a kids room. That would be great in the kitchen.  sort of way.  The pictures work best when they push the story.

When I look at photographs of a place that I have been or am going to and then look at my photographs of the same place; mine usually don't have that calendar punch. For a couple of reasons:  most published photographers shoot at the golden hour which makes anything look good – including traffic – and photographers tend to shoot the same shots and use the same tricks, over and over again because they work. Like Pixar, my photographs usually work best when they are pushing a story.

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I like to think that I have lots of photographs that stand by themselves, but I have always been a better slide show photographer than a calendar photographer. I think that is why this blog works best when it is telling a story – especially about a trip.

Juan Williams, NPR, and the risk of telling the truth

Americana, Current Affairs, Psychological Musings

There is something about the public psyche of the united States – and probably every where else too – that loves an obvious, agreed upon, lie.  And punishes anybody who has the nerve – or momentary lapse of caution – to not tell it. I notice this all the time and now – unfortunately – I can't recall very many examples. Jimmy Carter saying he had lusted in his heart was one. Juan Williams saying when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried is another.

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Who doesn't.

When Michele and I flew back from Italy just after 9/11, we were waiting for the flight with a group of Orthodox Jews wearing – if that is the right word – Tefillin (Hebrew: תפילין‎) (shown here on Barbie[s]).

Tefillin_barbies

Just as they started to load the plane, the Orthodox guy next to us, dressed completely in black,    wrapped a leather strap around his arm and started praying in Hebrew while rocking back and forth. Michele leaned over and said Now, this really creeps me out. Me, too, it was very disconcerting. 

I'm not saying that either one of us was proud of our reaction but I am totally certain that we were not the only ones. And Juan Williams is far from the only one nervous when a Muslim in full regalia – or, for that matter, in mufti – gets on a plane. That is just reality. It's not logical, duh! But why do we have to pretend it isn't true?       

Getting a new computer

Psychological Musings, Web/Tech

My trusty old Sony  PCV-1154 has been on it's deathbed for a while: getting slower and slower, jamming, sometimes starting with out the mouse or keyboard working – requiring a re-start or a re-restart – sometimes going into hibernation without warning, or, just, jamming.  In shopping for a new computer, I am struck by two things. How quickly everything changes and how unsatisfactory just upgrading something like a computer is.

When I bought the Sony, it was state of the art. It was so state of the art and so powerful that it had to have a glycol cooling system. Now it is hopelessly out of date with inadequate storage and almost no memory (2 GB after three upgrades); our cheap diningroom table, "why don't you look it up", laptop is more powerful. It is hard to find a desktop, now. Most computers are laptops or copies of Apple's all in one screen-only idea.

And, I really lust after a MacBook Air but it is not powerful enough to be my only computer and way too expensive to be a "use only on trip" toy. I lust after a MacBook Pro but the screen is too small and it is even more expensive than a MacBook Air. All I need is a desktop – and why do they call it a desktop when people put them under the desk, anyway? – and a HP PC desktop with a fast processor, 8 gigs of memory, and a terra bite of storage is only $700.

It is not a very satisfactory transaction, however. $700 lighter and two days of Windows Easy Transfer later, it feels like I am back where I started.  If I had spent the $700 on art or – say – twenty coffee table books, I could see the great improvement of my life. True, it is better than buying a new camera in which – after unwrapping everything and taking several pictures of nothing in particular – seems like money just pissed away until the next vacation. But still…..

There is some upside, I have to admit. The Windows Easy Transfer was*; Windows 7 is much better than my old Windows XP; and I am now processing pictures at 64 something which makes for clearer more vibrant pictures with no bad breath. See

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*easy, that is.

 

The New Canon.

Americana, Current Affairs, Film, Psychological Musings

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In the comments section on my post on being in the Oakland Museum  – and the New York Times – Tracy Grubbs wrote Your layout reminds me of that scene in Blade Runner. If you keep zooming in you'll find those fake snake scales on her sweater, really. About two weeks ago, an economist from the Obama Whitehouse referenced the Matrix.

Both comments sort of surprised me. And neither one should have. Blade Runner and Matrix are part of the New Canon.  They have become larger than they were when they were just movies. They are part of our culture, like Casablanca or Anne Hall. They somehow exemplify the new zeitgeist.