World's Fair Exhibit this October

This October, the National Building Museum is mounting an exhibit called Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s. I can't wait to check it out, if only because I always have a good time at that Washington D.C. venue.

Back in 1999, I traveled to D.C. solely to check out my first NBM exhibit, See the USA: Automobile Travel and the American Landscape, and I had a swell time. Since my funding was modest, I decided to save a few bucks by sleeping in Reagan National Airport. That decision reaped surprising rewards.

Those two nights spent wandering around a bustling airport played a major role in inspiring me to write City Ubiquitous: Place, Communication, and the Rise of Omnitopia. After all, I was able to see first-hand how structure and perception meld in some places to create an environment stripped of locality, an all-place. And, of course, I would later find origins of omnitopia in world's fairs - especially the 1939-40 New York World's Fair.

So I feel a real connection to anything associated with the National Building Museum and hope to return this year. Who knows? This exhibit might spark my next book!

Learn more: Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s

Carl B. Mattson

Over the weekend, we traveled to Florida to commemorate the passing of Jenny's uncle, Carl B. Mattson. He was a good guy, sorta quiet but whip-smart. Indeed, as family members mentioned a few dozen times during our conversations, this guy literally was a rocket scientist.

Carl spent the latter part of his boyhood years in Largo, Florida, home after his mother relocated a family of three boys and one girl (Jean, Jenny's mother) from Wisconsin following the untimely death of the family patriarch. Carl was raised to be independent and resourceful. And though he was a shy and unassuming person, he followed his father's example by enlisting for active duty during wartime.

Starting with a tour in the Vietnam theater, Carl applied his love of aircraft to a steadily increasing range of responsibilities, from painting planes to working as an engineer for the Space Shuttle program. He was such a humble guy that we found out only after his death that he'd patented a number of innovations and had won all sorts of awards for his work to improve the operations of the NASA clean room.

I'm sure there's much else about Carl that was unknown to most of his friends and family. He was a private person who generally went his own way in life. Family members shared stories about how he'd avoid doing drudge-work on the farm by reading. Some folks would get upset, but the elders knew best: "Just leave him alone," they'd say. They knew Carl's potential, and he knew what he was doing.

Along with savings to help his mother in her later years, Carl left behind a number of photo albums, mostly black and white shots of him in the service, boating with friends, and growing older. Toward the end of his life, a slow but cruelly determined disease wasted away at his mobility. Loved ones told him to pursue traditional medical remedies, but Carl insisted on managing his body just as he managed his life, on his own terms and in his own way.

His family worried for him, but the Mattsons have always been a live-and-let-live lot. They'll offer advice and help when you need it (I know this personally, and have benefited from their kindness on many occasions). But in the end, they let people go their own way. That's why so many conversations in Jenny's grandmother's house tend to drift off to comfortable silence.

I won't attempt the trite poetry of saying that Carl drifted off with similar ease. I wasn't there, and I can't know. His final years were undoubtedly tough and sometimes lonely. But he departed in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones: those physically present and those, we can hope, waiting to take him to places where he can keep his head forever in the the clouds.

Update on Wood's Unsought Advice

Lately I've been inundated by time-crunch writing projects, and my bandwidth for blogging has taken the hit. But that doesn't mean that I'm abandoning Woodland Shoppers Paradise. Indeed, I'm pushing toward a decent first draft of a multipart series tentatively titled "Wood's Unsought Advice," which has been percolating for a few months now. Perhaps over the weekend I can make some progress and prepare to share it with you. No specific plans for when, but I'm hoping for "soon."

"Unsought Advice," is hooked on the idea that we can apply philosophical insights to contemporary workplace dilemmas. That's right, everyday stuff like how do deal with "Bungie-Bosses" or "zero-sum gamers" - or the dreaded game of salary negotiation "chicken." Oh, and how to keep a job in today's lousy economy.

Starting with Socrates (really, with Chilon), I've titled my first post, "Know Thyself." Subsequent posts are called "Seize the Mayhem," "See Things First As They Are," "Keep Secrets. Unless You Can't," "Tend Your Gardens," and "Perform Thyself." Can you guess the philosophers I chose to illustrate these topics?

I claim no uniqueness to my approach. Plenty of books out there do what I'm doing. But that's why my advice is "unsought." No one's waiting for it, But I'll share it all the same. At minimum, the series provides me an opportunity to work through a few ideas of personal interest. And if I'm lucky, maybe one reader will benefit from using ancient or modern philosophy to think through an office hassle. Worse case scenario: I'll reap some comments about just how far off the mark I am. Which is OK. I'm a sucker for helpful advice.

So keep your eyes on these space. "Wood's Unsought Advice" is coming.

How Star Trek Should Have Ended

Oh... This is good.



Can't see the video? Point your browser here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbJ-y6BWfUc&feature=player_embedded

Fall Back into Teaching

As I anticipate returning to regular classroom teaching this fall, I smile at the prospect of those "first days," the chance to meet new classroom cohorts and imagine them becoming communities of learning. My years directing the university Peer Mentor Program (wrapping up this May) have added a number of positive experiences to my life, along with plenty of useful skills to my repertoire. All the same, I am excited to get back into a more traditional classroom environment, at least for a while. Looking forward to that opportunity, I also look backward to undergraduate and graduate professors whose varied teaching styles are somehow mixed and mingled in my own professorial persona.

Back at Berry College, labeled by one of my mentors as a "little Ivy," I remember rich, polished staircases and an almost reverential hush when walking through Hermann Hall, and I recall one professor who brought an old school lecture style to his classroom. Surely I'm over-dramatizing the details, but I can still see this guy walking up to the podium and literally reading from a yellow legal pad. No videos. open-ended conversations. No class skits. Just a man reading his notes.

And his notes were scintillating. Again, this is a rosy memory distanced by more than 15 years, but I dug his classes. Listening to this fellow's recitations you could follow a complex line of thinking from point to point, concept to concept, objective to objective. There was no fluff and no razzle-dazzle. Just ideas, from his mind to yours. Some students hated the whole thing, of course, and I even made a little money running nighttime tutoring sessions for folks struggling to make sense of it all. Still, for all the classroom parties I've forgotten in other classes, I won't forget the lessons I learned by watching a professor work his ideas in front of us.

At the same time, I remember another professor, this time at Ohio University, who needn't have done more than read his published essays out loud to earn our regard. He was, and is, that well respected. Indeed, I remember one occasion when I was serving as his co-instructor (really as a glorified TA), when the professor announced, "Sorry, class, but there's no other way for me to cover this material. I'm going to have to simply lecture for the next hour..." He seemed genuinely apologetic about needing to lecture. The students didn't mind at all. His rare choice to lecture served as kind of a special occasion.

Moreover, one evening when I was taking one of his heavy theory classes, the kind in which doctoral candidates would sift through recently published essays and try to impress each other (and the prof, naturally) with down-inflected confidence, he said, "Look, I'm not sure how to make sense of these readings. We're going to have to explore this stuff together." Again, no one could doubt his gravitas, but I think I respected him even more when I saw his willingness to allow us to play inside one of his intellectual frontiers.

Striking that balance, locating myself along the continuum of knowledge-transference and knowledge-exploration, is a shifting goal, one producing an emergent persona that must adapt to the mood of the room and the objectives of the day. Sometimes I will necessarily plow through an idea; other times I'll cheerfully admit that I have no specific outcome for our interaction, that getting there will be all the fun. Both ways, and in others I can't quite anticipate, I will enjoy the adventure of teaching and learning. Honestly, I can't imagine having a better job.

Digital Publishing

Recently I was talking with a student who mentioned an interest in opening a small book store organized around one of those Espresso Book Machines. I'd heard of the concept somewhere but had to file the conversation for later research anyway. During our chat, I shared my memories of wandering Archer City, Texas a few years back, touring the town where Larry McMurtry set about building his fantasy used bookstore one decaying building at a time (see NYT article). How cool I marveled, that the writer of The Last Picture Show (scroll to bottom of link) could transform some of his hometown into a stage-set of ideas.

I returned to the Espresso Book Machine yesterday, catching a reference to the all-you-could-possibly-want book printer in a New York Review of Books article that had been moldering in my "must read" file. In that piece, Jason Epstein provides an overview of the digital publishing revolution that might be interesting to younger readers if only they could imagine a time when everything worth seeing or hearing hadn't already been transformed into pixels. While virtually nothing in Epstein's essay can be called news, the author nonetheless does a pretty fair job of conveying the sweep of change affecting the written word.

Read for yourself: Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

You, Disconnected

That cheesy seventies flick Logan's Run is proving to be a pretty good predictor of the future. I'm not referring to tacky DayGlo mumus or that whole "death after thirty" thing. I'm talking about the film's depiction of The Circuit. Remember that scene?

"Imagine a world in which you need never be alone. You touch a switch, turn a dial, and the perfect lover steps into your arms" [film trailer link].

The fantasy of instant connection, with interactive vividness and editable boundaries, is Logan's Run's promise of the 23rd century. Certainly it'll be awhile before we can shop for real live humans, inviting strangers to step into our rooms. But at least there's Chatroulette.

Check out my video of Chatroulette encounters [select HD for best quality]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-JBOtyO4tQ

The wildly popular micro-social networking site, growing so rapidly that some analysts believe it's already passed the so cool-so lame threshold, has shimmered on my mental periphery for a few weeks, but I only had time last night to play.

In case you're unfamiliar with the site, Chatroulette is a bare bones webcam network, supposedly invented by a Moscow teenager [NYT story], that lets you hook up with random strangers worldwide for Single-Serving Friendships, lightly voyeuristic displays, or disturbingly kinky encounters.

Like the looks of this person? Stick around.

Feeling mildly freaked? Or annoyed? Or bored? Click to the next one.

I messed around with Chatroulette for a few hours last night. Jenny, of course, was not impressed. She looked over my shoulder for a few minutes and then marched off to bed, announcing that the whole idea creeps her out.

The next morning, I'm flipping through screen captures I surreptitiously grabbed with my laptop (it's amazing how easy it is to sexualize human-computer interaction). The screen-grabs are souvenirs of fellow-travelers willing to share after-hours microbursts of connection with me on the Circuit (one New York Magazine author citing the "Twitter-fication of face-to-face interaction" [link]). I can still see them.

Oh, and the penises. Lots of penises. I definitely remember a few of those. I'm writing this post now with the application open, occasionally peaking at the Chatroulette page for inspiration. About one in 20 clicks yields some guy's junk, usually being furiously yanked. Sometimes the scene is less overt though: maybe an underwear-covered crotch or a set of exposed abs, flexed, waiting...

Most Chatroulette clicks produce video-snapshots of grainy faced guys sitting alone in the dark, a hand stretched out of view. Wait long enough and one will stare intently into the camera. A two-tone chirp and then a red-text "Hi" pops up in the chat window.

Where's that "Next" button?

> You disconnected.

A brief wait as the next link is made. Then -

> Connected, feel free to talk now

A hipster surveys me and renders his judgment: "a big bushy beard." It takes me a while to connect the audio, but this dude's not in the mood for difficult dialogues. He's made his evaluation and there's nothing left to say. I decide to shave a bit later, realizing that I can't schlub my way around here. Most early adopters have already learned to frame themselves memorably. Not professionally in any sense, but with some style.

Next.

Kermit the Frog is masturbating to a video of plus-sized porn stars. A woman plops a mound of stomach flesh on a guy standing on all fours; Kermit gasps in amphibian pleasure. I've quickly learned why one author has described [link] Chatroulette as "like inviting pedophiles into your home."

While the site has been active for about three months, it's only crested public consciousness over the past few weeks. And I just know a hundred local television affiliates are racing to wrap up their newest iterations of "Do You Know What Your Kids Are Doing Online?" stories, with Chatroulette serving up the tangiest sweat of moral panic.

Next.

A photo this time: a bug-eyed infant. The sign reads "T**s for hungry baby." There are a lot of those actually, men and boys trolling for flashers. One guy writes, "I'll do ANYTHING for boobs." I come across a couple women who seem willing, but I don't care enough to ask. A Guardian writer opines [link]: "we seem to spend more time in our tribes and yet [are] happier than ever to let strangers glimpse our lives." No thanks. Not that kind of glimpse.

Next.

A teenage girl twirls her hair. She creases her brow, a nanosecond judgment, and the screen goes black.

> Your partner disconnected. Press "Next" to find a new person!

I get a lot of those, which is a little depressing. But I'm no better. Lots of folks suffer the indignity of my disconnects too, and sometimes for the silliest reasons. For example, I click-diss people who lack a sense of composition. That's right: new media demand new aesthetics. Position your head in a tiny quadrant of the screen? You won't last long with me. Too much negative space weirds me out.

Next.

Another penis. Oh, and this time he's going for a money shot.

Next.

A girl at a party. She smiles and lights a joint, blowing smoke in my video-screen face. This one's much cheerier than the girl who castigated me three or four clicks back. One look and she turned to her pal, pronouncing, "This one is quite elderly," before addressing me directly: "Why are you here with us? Think of your daughters." A few clicks later and I'm at another party of teenage twinks. One squeals, "Dad! I thought I told you to stay off this thing!"

Is it my -?

Next.

Chatroulette's night rhythm is a stream of eye-blink moments. Automate the next-click option and one stranger after another peers into my life. An Internet Tough Guy menaces, "What the f*** you lookin' at, man?" Click. A girl in panties lays next to her naked boyfriend. Click. A blurry, pixelated dude, his face eerily luminescent, like he's beamed in from a 60s'-era lunar broadcast, dangles a bag of weed from his fingers. Click. An older guy nods and offers a wan thumbs-up. Click. A hottie wearing a tight leather mini-skirt -

> You disconnected.

Ooops! What did I just miss? Oh well, no time for regrets. Now some guy is hoisting a squeeze-bottle. It's brimming with a thick green substance. He's about to squeeze. He smiles.

> You disconnected.
> Looking for a random stranger...

Dont h8: Keyboard Got Me LOLing

A fullsize keyboard for folks who write in LOLs has arrived. It's called the Fast Finger Keyboard, and it offers a host of TextTalk options under the function keys, everything from ASAP to TTYL. The keyboard also allows you to switch from QWERTY to A-Z formats.

Of course, I'm waiting for Version 2, which features automatic English-to-TextTalk translation.

Learn more: Fast Finger website

Underpass Mecca

Despite hectic schedules and lousy weather, Jenny and I have been looking for opportunities to return to our light painting experiments, and finally we found time to get back on the road this past weekend. Better still, we focused on one of Jenny's photographic goals, taking pictures of overpasses. The results suggest a terrific site for future shoots.

Jenny often says how much she loves things that tower over her. That's one reason she digs our trips to Monument Valley; she's inspired by soaring expressions of natural or human power. So she recommended that we turn our camera toward San José for a reasonably close urban approximation of that feeling. For me it was an obvious choice. I too am drawn to highway overpasses as sweeping icons of omnitopia. Thus we began our trip with a sense of optimism.

Conducting no research on an ideal shooting site (a common lament for us) we nonetheless agreed that we required a place where we could safely park with plenty of compositional opportunities. In short, a cluster of overpasses twisting around each other. Beyond that, we were unsure of our specific itinerary as we cruised over the hill. Luck for us, our first stop far surpassed our ambitions: an intersection of Highway 85 and 87 that even has a no-fee lightrail station parking lot.

View Larger Map

For about four hours we took turns and practiced techniques, struggling (as ever) with long distance/low-light focus issues and the need to establish a proper white balance in a zone flooded with ugly yellow sodium lights. The results reminded me of mid-century futurism: a world of blurred cars amid urban canyons.

I can't wait to get back to that retro tomorrow.

(Photographs by Andrew and Jenny Wood)

Friday Fun Post: "I Know"

Looking forward to Sunday's delightful Valentine's Day with Jenny.

Oh, yes. There will be fondue. But no getting frozen in carbonite. I'm just not that cool.

(Image by Garrison Dean. Check out his other cards)