This is what I know…
Random Observations: May 27, 2008
“Lost Time and Inspiration”
Every now and then I stumble across a book, or an Internet site, or a television series, or a performance fesitval…. some space that I can blissfully explore/experience for hours, even days.
I lose all track of time, forgetting other things… you know… the kinds of things that are coded into lists.
To Do Today:
get milk and cereal
finish laundry
go to yoga
send Mom’s gift
make dinner
eat
blink
breathe
Yesterday it was TED.com.
For the past four days, I have been trying to think about how I can re-focus this blog. I have an idea about doing a whole series on cognition and aging, starting with all the Brain and Fitness games I have been playing since January.
(A moderately desperate attempt to keep my edge.)
In the process of postponing the hard work of piecing all my thoughts together into a coherent comment on the subject of brain and fitness games (which can be taxing enough just to play, let alone trying to analyze them with the meta-narrative of “What are my neurons doing now? “”How am I feeling?” and “Am I getting better at remembering the items on these lists, or balancing on this board?”), I gave up.
Went on an Internet hunt for what other people have said about them, instead.
Somewhere along the trail, skating from one site’s reference list to another, I ended up at TED.
When I finally I glanced from the site’s videos over to the bottom right of my monitor to check the clock, five hours had elapsed!
I figure I might as well pass on some of the inspiring videos that made me lose track of so much time, so I have posted them below. (I love TED’s philosophy of opening up their collection of Inspiring Ideas to the public, instead of charging for them. More places on the Net should emulate their values. Set Information Free, I say.)
- William McDonough’s “The Wisdom of Designing from Cradle to Cradle”. This talk focuses on how we are designing the future of our planet, whether we know it or not. McDonough is an architect who has expanded his scope, literally, to the global scale. He has focused on studying the chemicals of technology in order to find out which materials are safe and which are toxic; he has been commissioned to design factories and office campuses, cars, carpets, building materials, and even whole cities that focus on recycling and can liberate us from non-renewable fossil fuel energy and toxic waste. It would not be hyperbole to suggest that his work with China is actually desinging the future.
- Anna Deveare Smith’s “Four American Characters”. Deveare Smith is an actress/performance artist by trade… if perhaps an ethnographer at heart. She set out across America with a tape recorder some years ago, in serach of interesting interviews with “real American people”. Having spoken to her subjects and studied their habits and gestures as they told their stories, she then designed short performances of their stories. Staying true to their voice, usually following the tapes word for word, Smith’s characters for this piece range from well-known historical figures, to a Korean American woman who talks about the race riots following the 1992 Rodney King verdict in LA.
- Joshua Klein’s “The Amazing Intelligence of Crows”. Crows and ravens have long held a place of respect in First Nations and Native American legends. The birds’ cleverness and their adaptability is remarkable. Klein suggests that, instead of seeing the birds as pests, we might be able to put them to work for us. If we play our cards right and learn to live with them, they may even become as useful as the working dogs of the police, and the blind. His videos of the bird working vending machines is remarkable.
- Jill Bolte Taylor’s “My Stroke of Insight”. A neurologist who specialized in brain research, Bolte Taylor knew and could understand what was happening to her when she had a stroke eight years ago. Her story about the new insight she gained into the right versus left hemisphere, and the way the two halves of the brain perceive the world is intriguing scientifically, even as it borders on the mystical. She is also a fantastically animated speaker. After struggling 8 years to regain language and speech, she brings more than most to the act of talking.
- Chris Abani’s “Learning the Stories of Africa”. I loved many of the cultural entries on TED, but two stood out: Abani and Allende. In this video, Abani explores how a nation’s stories help to record history, as well as heal and bridge ethnic divides. His presentation is charming, his humour self-depricating, and his narrative anecdotes are filled with the wisdom of someone who is curious and willing to question identity, place, and privilege.
- Isabel Allende’s “Tales of Passion”. I gobbled up Allende’s early magic realist novels when I was at school. As the daughter of the Chilean president who was assassinated when Pinochet came to power, Isabel Allende’s life is an interesting tale in and of itself, but she uses her TED presentation to highlight other women’s stories, and to point out exactly how much work we have yet to do, in order to achieve a just, equitable world.
Okay, charged up and inspired, I’ll get back to the process of re-designing a re-focusing this blog now. There is so much to talk about….
