What it Feels Like to Fly

I can safely say that JP Auclair and I probably have little in common and I'm sure we will never meet.  Can't imagine how our paths might cross. Until today, I'd never heard of him.  But he makes my spirits soar.  

JP is a freeskier. The man has 20 videos on vimeo.  You can tell right away, he's a major ski dude.  Even has his own page on the Oakley site. That's JP on the right, catching some air.  


So why am I writing about him? Because of a 14 day collaboration with this man, Dave Mossop (Dave's on the left). 

And what you're about to see is a tour de force:  beautifully shot, edited and executed.  And also really cool.  Go Dave and JP.  


Kind of an all-time kid's fantasy.  Anyone who ever dreamed of flying knows what I mean.  So see for yourself.   Here's a link to the video "JP Auclair Street Segment."  And you can read an interview about the making of Dave's video here.  

Ice Does Eames

Making assumptions.  So automatic, you don't even know you're doing it.  So when Bob, my colleague, sent me a link to an Ice Cube video about designer Charles Eames, I thought, what's up with that?  It's true that Mr. Cube (I love calling him that) has moved very successfully from rapper to actor (shedding one set of assumptions for another). But why would a rapper/actor even know about Eames? See what I mean about assumptions?

Here's the iconic chair Eames designed in 1946.  Strong, simple lines.  An excellent example of what can be created by great design.

And this chair, created in 1953, is similar to the one that Ice is sitting in.  Of course Eames and his wife were perhaps the most influential designers of their time.  You can find out more about them here and here.  And the cool video that Ice made introduces a retrospective exhibit on Eames and his work.  The video is so creative in concept - as it juxtaposes two styles, rap and documentary - and includes Mr. Cube's  very personal homage to Eames and what he was all about.   


Well, see for yourself.

Schaible's Barber Shop in Frenchtown

Last December I found myself wandering Frenchtown, NJ and was drawn to this building.

I decided to take a closer look.  Especially at the barber shop.

The deco "smoking" sign caught my eye.  But now I think it was probably just a faded "no smoking" sign.  Schaible's was closed that day.  But a man's lifetime was locked inside.  

So I leaned up against the window and looked more closely. I've always loved how reflections seem to capture dual realities. Especially how you can see inside and outside at the same time.  It's disorienting and illuminating, like how thinking deeply about something can lead you in different directions.

And looking at all this stuff, I feel part voyeur, part anthropologist.  So much is familiar; so much unknown.  Like someone else's memories seeping into consciousness... or something you almost see out of the corner of your eye. You can almost hear them passing the time, a joke, some gossip, a proud moment.  

Seeing his tools takes me back to when I was a kid,  how it used to smell, like lemon mint.  With hairy arms, a firm grasp and snip snip snip marking time in my ear.   

Well, that's my last photo and I thought that was the end of the story.  But there's a little bit more.  I found a photo of Don Schaible.  And learned that there's been a barber shop there since 1901.  And that Don spent most of his life working there.  His shop was even featured in a book about small town barber shops.  
And I guess the reason it was closed was probably due to illness. Because two months after I took these photos, Don passed away.  You can find out more here.
   

What's Wrong With This Picture

Today there was a historic meeting between Hillary Clinton and Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.  And this photo ran in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's opposition leader, in Yangon on Thursday.

 

What I see is what seems to be a cordial meeting.  They're both smiling and seem pleased to be together.  I also notice that Hillary is wearing white and wearing her hair pulled back, as is Aung San Suu Kyi.  I take that as a sign of respect on Hillary's part.  But other than that, the photo seems very straight forward, especially given the headline in the NYT  "U.S. Will Ease Some Limits on Myanmar, Clinton Says"


When I went to the Wall Street Journal I noticed how they portrayed the event.  Here's the Photo they ran:

WSJ version

You can tell from the camera angle it was most likely taken by the same photographer.  The pose is almost identical, but compare the images and the pictures tells a different story. 

NYT/Post version

The NYT/Post picture is "warmer" with the red, yellow tones slightly more present and the whites brighter and more distinct.  This makes the picture look more lifelike and more pleasing to the eye.  My guess is that this is pretty much the way things actually looked.  I say that because Hillary's skin tones look good and the white levels seem correct.  When you work with images, if you pay attention to the skin tones and the whites, everything else usually falls into place.

WSJ version

The WSJ image is more grayed out, flatter, with a slightly greenish tinge.  Green skin is not eye appealing, it makes people look more sickly and unpleasant.  And the whites are dulled too, giving it an overall dim, muddy quality.  Not appealing at all.  

What about the captured moment?

NYT/Post version

In the NYT/Post image, Hillary is just beaming and that, in itself, says a lot. Look at how the two women are with each other and you can see they're connecting and seem happy to be together. Look at the tilt of Aung San Suu Kyi's head and you can almost see positive energy flowing between them.

WSJ version

In the WSJ image they seem to be sizing each other up.  They are certainly more formal with each other and their bodies seem more rigid, as if they're not together by choice.    


More importantly, in the NYT/Post image you see a meeting of equals and it certainly casts Hillary in a proactive, positive light. In the WSJ image, Hillary is much less attractive.  And they've made it easier to see her in a poor light - figuratively and literally. For me, that's what's wrong with this picture, it's a subtle way of shading the news.

Mass Movement with MassMotion

Isaac Asimov

When I was young I loved reading Science Fiction.  Of all the fantastic characters I encountered, one totally captured my imagination, thanks to Isaac Asimov.  And that was Hari Seldon, the inventor of PsychoHistory.  Through his genius and the science he created, he was able to predict the behavior of populations and, through that, forecast what would come.  In Asimov's Foundation series, Seldon's advance planning allowed civilization to thrive far into the future.  


I was so intrigued by this idea of predicting behavior that I ended up a Psychology major in college and even did a little graduate work in Social Psychology, before I saw that we were a long, long way away from even understanding behavior, much less predicting it.

But now we have MassMotion, software that predicts how masses of people will behave as they pass through a specific location, such as a train station or whatever.  Here's a link to a MassMotion video showing crowd behavior at Toronto's Union Station.  They expect in a few years that 70,000 people will pass through the station at rush hour.  The MassMotion video portraying people in this space is a bit eerie, to say the least.  


The software was created by this person:

His name is Erin Morrow and recently Bloomberg
Businessweek ran a profile of Erin and his software.  Now you might think that this is all about vectors and geometry.  But more than that, movement is about desire -- to get somewhere, have some coffee, go to the bathroom, meet a friend, whatever.  And that's what makes MassMotion interesting -- it's about predicting behavior.  


Here's how Businessweek describes it:


MassMotion takes 3D computer models of buildings and fills them with “agents,” virtual figures that represent people. These avatars aren’t mindless and in fact have specific personalities. Some meander. Others are busybodies in a rush. The agents will linger in front of signs and puzzle over directions, and they’ll also grab smokes together outside of exits. “They all have certain things they care about,” says Morrow.

Businessweek writes that MassMotion is also used by police to predict how crowds will disperse.  And to forecast how people will evacuate buildings.  Actual results are reported to be virtually identical with what the software showed.

Perhaps this is all benign, just a new useful tool for architects and planners.  But if you take the mountain of data that all of us generate when we make a purchase or fill out a form or join something on the Web.  And add to that a growing ability to predict behavior.  Then maybe it's not too much of a leap to wonder if predicting behavior will someday morph into controlling it.  

Krazy Kat and All the Kittens

Oh to be Cleon Throckmorton, bon vivant, artist and proprietor of the Krazy Kat Klub, a haven for artists, poets, actors, and those kool kats embracing the Bohemian life in Washington, DC.   That's "Throck" on the right.

And here he is with his pals, out back of the Krazy Kat, somewhere near DC's Thomas Circle.

I love the photos.  You can just see what a great time Throck and the gang were having in stuffy old Washington, DC, back in 1921.

Well, the Krazy Kat would have it's ups and downs.  Poor Cleon, busted for running a disorderly house amidst all those futurist and impressionist  paintings.  Oh my.  


But he'd leave DC to pursue his art, designing sets for hundreds of plays, then serving as an art director for CBS and continuing to paint the ladies.  


Some of that work graces what is now Volare restaurant in New York City.

All of this I discovered when I happened upon Shorpy.com, a site devoted to old photos, posters and art.  If you like perusing images from bygone eras, I highly recommend it. It's a chance to mingle with a wide variety of work, from the sublime to the ridiculous.  And to maybe raise a glass to Throck and his Krazy Kats and Kittens, wherever they may be.  

Louise Rosskam Rediscovered

Color photos of Washington, DC by Louise Rosskam

One of the less known Farm Security Administration photographers who documented America during the Great Depression, Louise Rosskam may enjoy greater attention with an exhibit at the American University and the publication of a book "Reviewing Documentary:  The Photographic Life of Louise Rosskam."

In their informative artist bio, The Library of Congress calls her "one of the elusive pioneers of the Golden Age of Documentary Photography", and a post on the blog Secondat gives additional insight into her work.  Although, she seemed to stay in the shadow of her photographer husband, she had great empathy for her subjects and perhaps a more creative approach to her work.  And she pursued her photography hoping it would be a catalyst for social change.  


15 photographers worked for the FSA but only 3 were women.  During her FSA years she photographed in Washington, DC, Vermont and Puerto Rico.  I like how she captures people within a sense of place.  As you meet them, you also get a feeling for how they live their lives.  As she said of her time in Washington, she would pass by areas of poverty and never know they existed.  Until she started taking photographs. 


Here's how she put it:  "With a camera it means you have to talk to the people and you suddenly see an alley dwelling. There it is, these people are alive and living in it... It's there and it becomes part of you and you can't run away from it anymore once you are actually faced with it.  And the next best thing to that is seeing it in a photograph." 


And, " But gradually as I began to see these things and feel them really, I had to react to them so that other people would feel them and see them too." 


You can read two interviews, one with her and her artist/photographer husband Edwin from 1965 and one from 2000 (after her husband had passed).  And you can find some of her images archived at the Library of Congress website American Memories.  

Louise in 2000

I've always been taken with that period in American History and the important work the FSA photographers accomplished.  They brought attention to the lives of every day Americans, capturing a sense of the desperation of the times as well as the courage and dignity of people struggling to cope with those difficult days.  And they did it with work that was eloquent, intimate and engaging.  And by doing so, they changed forever how we see ourselves and the world around us.  

Getting a Jolt from Kickstarter

Bloomberg Businessweek Oct. 2011

I wanted to write a little more about Kickstarter and what it has to offer.  For starters, the Oct. 24th issue of Bloomberg Businessweek has a neat little graphic about "The New Venture Capital" aka Kickstarter.  And its headline states that the site helped entrepreneurs raise $8.8 million in September.  That's a lot of people interacting with a lot of projects.  And many of those projects raised more than their goals.  


Here's one of their innovative concepts: you take your idea and use Kickstarter to help you find an audience.  If enough people like what you're proposing, they'll give you the money. And by contributing, they'll also hold a stake in your creative concept.  So when it's completed, you already have a supportive audience to build on.  Which makes the whole process more democratic and offers more opportunity to anyone with a great idea and a plan for making it happen.

Nora and one of the kids

An abandoned lot in Brownsville

Which brings me to Nora Painten's Brownsville Student Farm Project.  She wants to turn this empty lot into a working farm to teach city kids about food, nutrition, teamwork, farming, the discipline and benefit of work, and the joy of growing your own food.  

This is Nora's Garden Plot

She lays it all out in her video on her Kickstarter page.  Of course her concept is very appealing. Who wouldn't enjoy an urban garden, especially one run by an experienced farmer with a mission to bring her love of the land and farming to city kids.  And many years ago I taught third grade in Brownsville.  Back then, it was mostly ruin and rubble.  So her effort to reclaim the land caught my eye.  And after I saw her video, I was curious about who might support her project.  So I picked one at random on her list of backers.   

And I found that one of her backers is Katherine Ferrier, who had her own Kickstarter project, Cultivate, to bring dancers, designers and musicians together as a creative community to perform in a small New Hampshire town.  And she has her own blog about dance-making, collaboration and the creative process.  


I love how exploring this site sends you on a journey.  Starting with an innovative idea to fund the creative process, moving to introducing kids and the local community to growing their own food and moving to a dance-maker with a vision of growing her own creative enterprise.  Each reaching out, sharing their experiences and creating community via the web.  It's all about connections, and I love how one leads to the next and the next.  And before you know it, you're discovering people and ways of seeing the world and living in it that you would never encounter, save through this amazing catalyst for innovation and vision, the Internet.