On the Binding Biases of Time

Okay, time for the big announcement.  I have a new book out now.  It's called On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology.  It's published by the Institute of General Semantics, and all of the royalties are being donated to the IGS.  Here's the cool looking cover, designed by Peter Darnell of Visible Works Design, and incorporating a cartoon image created by David Arshawsky especially for this book.

The book is available in both cloth and softcover, by the way.  As for the contents, here they are:

Introduction
Chapter One            Alfred Korzybski and General Semantics
Chapter Two            Quandaries, Quarrels, Quagmires, and Questions
Chapter Three         A Systems View of Semantic Environments and Media Environments
Chapter Four           On the Binding Biases of Time
Chapter Five            Post(modern)man
Chapter Six              Defender of the Word
Chapter Seven         Paradox Lost
Chapter Eight          The Ten Commandments and the Semantic Environment
Chapter Nine           Tolkiens of My Affection
Chapter Ten             Poetry Ring
Chapter Eleven        Be(a)Very Afraid
Chapter Twelve        The Supreme Identification of Corporations and Persons
Chapter Thirteen     Healthy Media Choices
Chapter Fourteen    The Future of Consciousness
References
Index

 And here's the write up:

On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology consists of a series of explorations into our use of symbols, language, and media to relate to our environment, and how our different modes of perception and communication influence human consciousness, culture, and social organization.  These essays draw upon and integrate the perspectives of general semantics, systems theory, and media ecology, bringing them to bear upon a diversity of topics that include the future of consciousness, identity and meaning, the Ten Commandments, media literacy, The Lord of the Rings, and our relationship to time.  Throughout this volume, Strate grapples with the question of what it means to be human, and what the prospects may be for humanity's continued survival.  As he concludes in the title essay of this book:  "As a species, we are binders of time, bound up by our biases of time; we are moved by our consciousness of time, as we tell time, and as we tell ourselves that only time will tell; as we play for time, and as we pray, as we pray for time."

And as for blurbs, well, got some of those too:

A collection of essays that reads like a picaresque novel, On the Binding Biases of Time takes the reader on a journey into the heart of ecological thinking.  Lance Strate—an artist at the process of abstracting—delivers on his promise in the Introduction:  for people unfamiliar with the fields he deals with, he provides a very good summary and explanation.  But he does much more:  for readers well versed in these fields, he provides a GPS—not a map but an entire navigational system—connecting between general semantics and media ecology; between Korzybski, Johnson, McLuhan and Postman; the Ten Commandments and Tolkien; Groucho Marx, Goldilocks and Pete Seger; Heraclitus and postmodernism; World War I and 9/11; consciousness and the self; space and time. And he does this in his usual lucid prose, with a deeply touching poetic streak and wonderful sense of humor. If Neil Postman whom he quotes was right and "clarity is courage," Lance Strate gets the Medal of Honor.
—Dr. Eva Berger, Dean of the School of Media Studies, College of Management and Academic Studies, Israel


What a wonderfully compelling and utterly inviting entry point to one of the most significant conceptual frameworks of modern times. Lance Strate should be applauded for bringing Alfred Korzybski and general semantics into the contemporary conversation as never before.
—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed, and Life Inc.


On the Binding Biases of Time is a very humane book authored by a thoughtful and insightful writer. Lance Strate brings to life the central concepts of general semantics, systems theory, and media ecology in brief, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious essays. This volume provides a better, more engaging discussion of these complex topics than anything else published in the past quarter century. It is packed with important insights about communication, media, and living in today’s world. It also happens to be great fun to read.
—Michael Cole, Dr. Sanford I. Berman Chair in General Semantics at the University of California, San Diego


Aristotle was wrong. A thing CAN be both A and not-A—and this collection of essays, combining scholarly rigor and compulsive readability, is proof positive.  Highly recommended for discerning meaning-makers of every stripe: from the specialist to the student to the simply curious.
—Susan Maushart, author of The Winter of Our Disconnect


Anyone who has had the pleasure of hearing Lance Strate deliver one of his keenly illuminating addresses will know what to expect in this volume:  daringly original extrapolations of the work of McLuhan, Korzybski, Tolkien (that's right), and a flurry of thinkers familiar and perhaps not yet familiar to you.  If you're in search of some intellectual stimulation, coming upon this book is your lucky day."
—Paul Levinson, author of New New Media, The Plot to Save Socrates, and Twice Upon a Rhyme


This intelligent and well-crafted collection of essays by Professor Strate provides an essential, complete and accessible context for understanding the contemporary intersection of general semantics, media ecology and the broad array of disciplines that fall under the umbrella of communication studies. On the Binding Biases of Time is a “must read” not just for those interested in the historical and conceptual evolution of these fields of study, but for all who want to understand how and why these disciplines are enjoying a theoretical and practical resurgence in importance and popularity for scholars and the general public nearly 90 years after some of these ideas were first introduced.  
—Ed Tywoniak, Professor of Communication, Saint Mary’s College of California

So, you can order it directly from the Institute of General Semantics, or through online booksellers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the like.  Here are the links for Amazon:

So, that's pretty much it.  I hope you like it, but more importantly, I hope you order a copy.  And don't forget to ask your college library to order it too.  And if it's not too much trouble, some favorable comments and "likes" over at Amazon would be welcome as well.    That seems to be the thing nowadays.  New media, social media, you know the drill.  But nothing beats actually buying the book.  Except maybe reading it.  One or the other, well, preferably both.  It would make a great gift too.  Or required text for a class.  Just saying...

Media and Formal Cause in Effect!

And now this.  To follow up on my previous post, Media and Formal Cause, which provides extensive information about this important new book by Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan, and which provided information about preordering the book, I'm happy to share with you the fact that it is now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble online, and elsewhere on the old interwebs.  Here's the link for Amazon:

No good media ecology scholar should be without one!

Selections from Science and Sanity

So, I don't know if you've noticed that I haven't been posting all that much lately.  I know we tend to not notice things that are absent to the same degree that we pay attention to things that are present.  And I don't imagine that all that many people are waiting for my next post with bated breath (what does "bated" mean, after all you may be thinking if you have the kind of mind that goes off on tangents a lot, and if you have the kind of mind that is a bit on the dirty side, then no, it's not what you're thinking, it's short for abated).

So maybe you think I owe you an explanation, maybe not.  And maybe I think I owe you an explanation, and maybe not.  And maybe I actually do.  Owe you.  An explanation.  Or maybe not.  But here goes.

One reason I've been less active with blogging and other new media for the past several months is that I've been involved with several book projects.  One of them was the subject of my previous post, Media and Formal Cause.  And I'll have an update on that soon, by the way.  Another will be the topic of a separate post in the near future, and a rather exciting one at that.  But this post is devoted to a book that I worked on quite extensively, as Editor of the Second Edition of Alfred Korzybski's Selections from Science and Sanity:  An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.   With the unabridged version coming in at over 800 pages, this authorized abridgment first published in 1948 has been sorely needed, and especially prepared for classroom use.  Here is what the cover looks like:

Pretty snazzy, huh?  Special thanks to Peter Darnell and Visible Works Design on that.  

This book represents the launching of the New Non-Aristotelian Library series, for which Corey Anton is the General Editor, and this new edition includes forewords from Corey and myself, a new introduction from Korzybski biographer Bruce Kodish, and the addition of an abridged version of the preface Robert P. Pula wrote for the Fifth Edition of the unabridged work (yes, there have been five editions of Science and Sanity, which means that Selections needs three more to catch up!).


And here's a bit more about the book:

Selections from Science and Sanity represents Alfred Korzybski's authorized abridgement of his magnum opus, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. This second edition, published in response to the recent Korzybski revival, adds new introductory material and a revised index, providing an accessible introduction to Korzybski's arguments concerning the need for a non-Aristotelian approach to knowledge, thought, perception, and language, to coincide with our non-Newtonian physics and non-Euclidean geometries, to Korzybski's practical philosophy, applied psychology, pragmatics of human communication, and educational program. Selections from Science and Sanity serves as an excellent introduction to general semantics as a system intended to aid the individual's adjustment to reality, enhance intellectual and creative activities, and alleviate the many social ills that have plagued humanity throughout our history.

As for ordering a copy, you can get it from the Institute of General Semantics Store, or online from any major bookseller.  Below are direct links to get the book from Amazon, if you care to:

It's quite a selection, indeed, if I do say so myself.

Media and Formal Cause

I am very pleased to share with you the happy news that a book I've helped to usher into existence, working in an editorial capacity in conjunction with NeoPoiesis Press, is now in print and available for preorder (see below for the info).

Here's the scoop:  The title of the book is (drum roll please)...

Media and Formal Cause 

and the authors are (and this is very cool indeed, so another drum roll if you please)...

Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan

So, check out the very cool cover as well:

And, to top it all off, I was privileged to have been asked to write a Foreword for the book, which I did.  Here's an excerpt from it:

On behalf of NeoPoiesis Press, I would like to express our great pleasure at being able to publish this important little book.  It is indeed quite fitting that our first venture outside of the realm of poetry and creative writing is a work that concerns itself with poetics and aesthetics, with the creative process, with poiesis both new and old.  Moreover, many have commented on the poetic nature of Marshall McLuhan’s probes and commentary, and this work, co-authored by Eric McLuhan, is no exception. . . .  as Buber indicates, there is a spiritual dimension to formal causality, as there is to all acts of creation.  But for those who prefer a more scientific outlook, let me simply note that formal cause corresponds to the systems view of Gregory Bateson, to the dissipative structures of physicist Ilya Prigogine, to the fractal geometry of Benoit Mandelbrot and the metapatterns of Tyler Volk, to the autopoietic systems of biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, and in general to the systems concept of emergence.

McLuhan, along with other media ecology scholars, has been accused of being a technological determinist.  And while technological determinism has largely been used as a straw man argument to dismiss McLuhan and others without due consideration, the deterministic language of cause-and-effect is easy enough to slip into, by force of habit, and for wont of easily accessible alternatives. Thus, we may end up with statements like, the stirrup caused feudalism as a shorthand, in the same way that we might say that evolution caused us to walk erect.  For media ecologists and biologists alike, we understand that that kind of language is a form of shorthand, and a kind of poetry, used to represent much more complex processes.  That complexity can be better represented by the concept of formal cause, rather than cause-and-effect (otherwise known as efficient cause); formal cause is the causality of emergent properties, the causality that media ecologists often have in mind when we consider the impact of technological change on individuals and societies, on communication, consciousness, and culture.  

Of course, what counts are the words that come afterward, and they include Eric McLuhan's Introduction, "The Relation of Environment to Anti-Environment" by Marshall McLuhan, "Causality in the Electric World" by Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt, with responses by Joseph Owens and Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, "Formal Causality in Chesterton" by Marshall McLuhan, and Eric McLuhan's extended essay "On Formal Cause" (not to mention a bibliography and index, if such things matter to you, they do out in the world of librarians and scholars).

That's all well and fine, you might be saying, but what about the blurbs?  After all, that is what McLuhan said would be the future of the book, and this book certainly does have a future, so here are some advance reviews for you:

A sage and perceptive quartet of essays which capture and extend a still quintessentially unique way of thinking about media, via patterns and connections that harken to the ancient world and redound to our present and future.
- Paul Levinson, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University; author of Digital McLuhan, and  New New Media

No one understood causality, whether Aristotelian or electric, like Marshall McLuhan. Now, in Media and Formal Cause, no one reveals understanding of formal cause in the digital environment better than McLuhan’s protégé son, Eric. In the foreword, Lance Strate writes that M. McLuhan’s Understanding Media was one of the most important books of the 20th century. For anyone who wishes to understand how things truly work, Media and Formal Cause is one of the most important books of the 21st. Arguably formal cause has been the least understood but and the most intellectually important of all of Aristotle’s four agents or processes of causation. This small volume proffers a large understanding of this formative, previously mysterious level of invisible creation. Three essays by Marshall (one with co-author Barry Nevitt) and a powerful new essay by Eric give new meaning to ye olde cliché, “like father, like son”. While reading writing that is engaging, encyclopedic, and electric, we discover that formal cause is not what you think... but it is vital to how you think.

- Thomas Cooper, Professor of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College; author of Fast Media/Media Fast



In Media and Formal Cause Eric McLuhan updates an important part of his father’s work that is often overlooked, the quixotic role of causality in making sense of how new media change the way we construct our environment and our communication. How does novelty cause antiquity? When do effects precede causes? Read on, and you shall find out.

- David Rothenberg, Professor of Philosophy and Music, New Jersey Institute of Technology; author of Why Birds Sing and Thousand Mile Song



Like his mentor, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Marshall McLuhan was often accused of indulging in mere paradox. But Media and Formal Cause demonstrates the profound understanding that underlies the work of both Chesterton and McLuhan, the understanding that we live in a paradoxical world. Both McLuhan and Chesterton attempted to jar readers loose from what Cardinal Newman called "paper logic" into a recognition of the total situation in which we find ourselves. This very readable and accessible volume should greatly assist new readers of McLuhan and remind long time students of just how challenging and exhilarating his explorations were.

- Philip Marchand, author, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger



This insightful book entices the reader to engage the legacy of McLuhan. The paradox of formal cause resonates with our post-literate environment. The reader who truly wishes to understand media will recognize the value of these essays.

- Catherine Waite Phelan, Chair and Professor of Communication, Hamilton College; author of Mediation and the Communication Matrix



This well-chosen collection of essays is essential reading for anyone who wants to think critically about how to understand the pervasive role of media in our world. A provocative and highly innovative perspective on modernity is provided by the use of the notion of formal causation, while new light is also shed on the Aristotelian tradition in which the notion was first developed. This neglected conception of causality remains of profound importance today.
- Paul Franks, Senator Jerahmiel S. and Carole S. Grafstein Chair in Jewish Philosophy, University of Toronto



Questions about the nature of causality have puzzled philosophers for a very long time. In this collection of papers by and about Marshall McLuhan, we see how these issues can gain new and wider relevance in today's media-focused age. The book illustrates and elucidates McLuhan's thoughts on formal cause, a concept that he believed could help us to grasp the complex relations between media and their effects. In addition to three of McLuhan's own characteristically challenging papers, the associated commentary from Eric McLuhan and Lance Strate help to clarify and contextualize these vital ideas for scholars, artists, and anyone else interested in the fundamental issues of human communication.

- Gerald Erion, Professor of Philosophy, Medaille College 

And if you, for some strange reason, find yourself asking who are these McLuhan fellows, well, here's a little something to tide you over before you go off making with the Google:

Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980) attended the University of Manitoba and there earned a B.A. and M.A. in English (1934). He then attended Cambridge University and received the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in English (1944). 

He taught at the University of Wisconsin, the Saint Louis University, Assumption University (Windsor, 1944) and St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto (Toronto, 1946-1980), where he headed the interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Technology. Besides many hundreds of articles in a broad variety of magazines and journals, he has written over twenty books. These include The Mechanical Bride: The Folklore of Industrial Man; Alfred Lord Tennyson: Selected Poetry; The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man; Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man; The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of his Time; Voices of Literature (three volumes; with Richard Schoeck); Verbi-Voco-Visual Explorations; The Medium is the Massage; War and Peace in the Global Village; Through the Vanishing Point: Space in Poetry and Painting (with Harley Parker); The Interior Landscape: The Literary Criticism of Marshall McLuhan, 1943-1962; Counterblast (designed by Harley Parker); Mutations 1990; Culture is Our Business; From Cliché to Archetype (with Wilfred Watson); Take Today: The Executive as Drop Out (with Barry Nevitt); City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media (with Kathryn Hutchon and Eric McLuhan); D’oeil a Oreille, Autre homme autre chretien a l’age electronique (with Pierre Babin).

Posthumous publications include the following: Letters of Marshall McLuhan; Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan); The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century (with Bruce Powers); Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message; Essential McLuhan; Forward Through the Rear View Mirror: Reflections on and by Marshall McLuhan; The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion and Media; The Book of Probes; Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews; McLuhan Unbound; Theories of Communication (with Eric McLuhan); and the present volume, Media and Formal Cause (with Eric McLuhan).

Marshall McLuhan is recognized as the inventor of the field of media study. In Laws of Media, he showed the seamless relation between literary criticism and understanding new media and artifacts, and he demonstrated that the new tools for media study had dissolved the long-held division between the arts and the sciences. This book concerns one of the principal such tools.



Eric McLuhan received his B. Sc. in Communication from Wisconsin State University in 1972. He got the M. A. and Ph. D. in English Literature from the University of Dallas in 1980 and 1982. An internationally-known lecturer on communication and media, he has over forty years’ teaching experience in subjects ranging from highspeed reading techniques to English literature, media, and communication theory, and has taught at many colleges and universities in both the United States and Canada. 

He has published articles in magazines and professional journals since 1964 on media, perception, and literature, and assisted Marshall McLuhan with the research and writing of The Medium is the Massage, War and Peace in the Global Village, Culture is Our Business, From Cliché to Archetype, and Take Today: The Executive as Drop-Out. He is co-author: with Marshall McLuhan and Kathryn Hutchon, of City as Classroom (Irwin, 1977); with Marshall McLuhan, of Laws of Media: The New Science (University of Toronto Press, 1988); and with Wayne Constantineau, of The Human Equation (Toronto: BPS Books, 2010).

Eric McLuhan is the author of The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake (University of Toronto Press, 1997); Electric Language: Understanding the Present (Stoddart, 1998); and Theories of Communication (New York: Peter Lang, 2010). He is the co-editor of Essential McLuhan (Stoddart, 1995), and Who Was Marshall McLuhan? (1994; Stoddart, 1995), and the editor of The Medium and the Light (Stoddart, 1999); the academic journal, McLuhan Studies; and editor, for Gingko Press, of Understanding Media, Critical Edition (2003); McLuhan Unbound (2004); and The Book of Probes (2004), and was consulting editor for Voyager/Southam’s “McLuhan Project,” which produced Understanding McLuhan (1997), a CD on Marshall McLuhan and his work. 

So, where can I get a hold of this book, because I have to have a copy, you are no doubt asking at this moment.  And the answer is quite simple.  Media and Formal Cause will be available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major online distributors in the near future.


But I can't wait that long!, I have to have it now!, you might well be saying.  And who could blame you.  So, if you want to be the first on your block (or faculty office suite) to own a copy, you can do a preorder on the NeoPoiesisPress site on a link on the Media and Formal Cause page at the following URL:  http://neopoiesispress.com/58044.html


So head on over right now, and tell 'em I sent ya!

Two Views

With the memorial for Christine Nystrom still fresh in our minds, my colleague Janet Sternberg shared a couple of photographs that I thought I would share with you all here.  The first, in glorious black and white, is from the first Media Ecology Association convention in 2000.  I'm on the left, Chris Nystrom in the middle, and yes, that's Camille Paglia on the right:

 

And traveling further back in time, this shot is from an annual meeting of the New York State Communication Association, back in 1991.  Actually, back then it was the New York State Speech Communication Association.  We changed the name, on my suggestion, back in 1997.  Anyway, here we are:

Of course, that's Chris seated on the left, with Neil Postman to the right of her, and me (man do I look young) to the right of him, and Bill Petkanas seated all the way on the right.  Standing, from left to right, are Bob Albrecht, Paul Thaler, Gene Secunda, Janet Sternberg, Sal Fallica, Missy Alexander, Thom Gencarelli, and Casey Lum. 

Those were the days, my friend...

My Eulogy for Christine Nystrom

We had a beautiful memorial service today at St. George's Chapel in Manhattan, with eulogies delivered by Chris's friend and neighbor Anne Garfinkel, her colleague from the media ecology program Terry Moran, fellow students Janet Sternberg (who read a message from another former New York University colleague Henry Perkinson as well as making her own remarks) and Susan Maushart, and myself. 

So, I thought I'd share the eulogy I delivered here, even though there is some overlap with the previous entry I posted here, Christine Nystrom 1941-2010.  I think there's enough here that's different to make it worth posting, and anyway it's my blog, and I'll post it if I want to.

I'm also grateful to my MA student Mariusz Han, SJ, for recording the service, and if it's possible, I'll share that as well at a future. date.  Until then, here is what I had to say:


Each one of us remembers Christine Nystrom in our own way, according to our own unique experiences.  And that means that each one of us has brought our own small portion of her memory with us here today.  And in bringing all of these bits and pieces of her life together today, in remembrance and commemoration, we gain a sense of her presence, here and now.  We can hear her voice as we speak to one another, and we can see her light reflected when we look into each other's eyes.

Many of us remember her as part of a trinity of Chris Nystrom, Neil Postman, and Terry Moran— they were the media ecology program for many, many years.  And gathered together here at St. George's as we are, I don't think it out of place to say that they constituted the Camelot of media ecology.

Those of you that remember our little Camelot may recall how Neil had the charm, and Terry had the authority, and how Chris, Chris was the deep thinker. I remember many times when we would be in the midst of conversation or discussion, and Chris would suddenly stop to ponder some question or concept.  We would wait for her to continue what she was saying, but the silence would only grow longer and longer, and longer.  Inevitably so much time would pass that someone else would start talking, only to be interrupted a short while later, when Chris had returned from her reverie and was ready to share her insights with the rest of us.  And it didn't matter that the other person was in the middle of saying something, Chris's train of thought could not be derailed.

Chris had a brilliant mind, and she was the first true theorist of media ecology, developing hypotheses, models, and methodologies.  Chris brought structure, order, and coherence to the media ecology program because that was the kind of person she was, structured, orderly, and coherent, but also because that was what the program needed, and Chris was the kind of person who did what needed to be done.

Chris was a dedicated and demanding teacher, insisting on scholarly rigor, unwilling to accept anything less than our best efforts.  And she always gave us her best efforts, she paid attention to what we had to say, really read what we wrote, and critiqued both form and content in fine detail.  She could be intimidating, and she didn't win any popularity contests, but she pushed us to be better, to be the best that we could be.  Chris was my teacher, mentor, and advisor, and I credit her with making me a better writer, and teaching me how to be a scholar.

Chris did not care for the spotlight, she preferred to remain behind the scenes, supporting her colleagues and her students, as a critic, editor, and often unsung collaborator on their work. Chris did not measure success by the number of publications she had, or the frequency of their citations, but by the hearts and minds that she touched and she moved.  And perhaps more than scholarship, and intellect, and education, Chris was devoted to service.  She was a team player, and she was dedicated to serving her students and her colleagues, and her community and her church.  Christine Nystrom provided the kind of intangible contributions that are all too often overlooked, but absolutely essential to the wellbeing of any endeavor.  Her contributions to the field of media ecology will influence scholars for generations to come, and we in the Media Ecology Association have added an award in Christine Nystrom's name, for service to the field of media ecology.

Chris was a woman of great humor and imagination.  I recall one time when she became irritated by a colleague's insistence on providing evidence to support any statements that were being made.  Chris responded by pointing out that there is no real evidence that anyone actually spoke before 1877, the year that sound recording was invented. 

She understood that every code and mode of communication has its biases, its strengths and limitations.  In other words, Christine Nystrom was a media ecologist.  She recognized that different symbol systems each are equally valid in their own way.  Chris understood the importance of myth and ritual, of religion and spirituality, of the experience of sacred time and space, how they operate in a different universe of discourse than that of testable hypotheses, and rationalism and empiricism. She understood the message of this medium, how it functions in the realm of feeling and form.  And so, it is only fitting that we gather together here at Chris's house of worhsip, to remember Chris in a language and setting transcending the form of everyday life.

Chris and I first bonded over our mutual love of Tolkien.   And when we met for the last time, she mentioned the song Bilbo sang in The Lord of the Rings, and I would like to read it to you now:

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

And so we sit and think, and remember and commemorate, and celebrate the life of Christine Nystrom, with gratitude for her intelligence and her wit, her service and her dedication, and her faith and her caring.

The EPIC Journey for Autism

One of the parents at my daughter's school, Jodi Wiseman, created a video about the school for a fundraiser that was held at the Montclair Art Museum last month, and has now uploaded it to Vimeo, so I thought I'd share it with you here on Blog Time Passing.  As you may know, my daughter has moderate autism, and goes to a special school that specializes in helping children with autism, EPIC School.  She's the only member of our family to appear in this video, but some other parents give their testimonials about the school.

Kudos to the filmmakers for an excellent production!

EPIC stands for Educational Partnership for Instructing Children, in case you were wondering, and you can take a look at the school's website at http://www.epicschool.org.  It's a wonderful place, and all of us parents are really very, very grateful for it.

Christine Nystrom 1941-2010

It is with great sadness that I relate, here on Blog Time Passing, that Christine Nystrom passed away last week, on Wednesday, December 22. Chris was born on March 23, 1941, earned a BA and PhD from New York University, attending Columbia University's Teachers College in between for her MA.  


She was a mentor and a friend to me, and to many others in the media ecology community.  As Neil Postman's student, she produced the first doctoral dissertation in New York University's Media Ecology program that dealt with media ecology as a coherent theoretical framework, completed in 1973, two years after the program began.  As his colleague, Chris gave structure to the Media Ecology graduate program.  


For most of the history of the program, she was one of the three principle faculty members, with Neil and Terry Moran.  And for much of that time, certainly for the time I was there, she team-taught most of her classes with Neil, and they really were an awesome combination, Neil providing charm and wit, and excelling at eliciting discussion, and Chris providing structure, rigor, and intellectual depth.

Chris was a dedicated educator, served on hundreds of dissertation committees--she was the chair of mine, and also mentored Joshua Meyrowitz's thesis, No Sense of Place, Robert Albrecht's dissertation on music, and many more.  And for many of us she went above and beyond in editing dissertations (sometimes to the point of rewriting them) in support of her students.  


She was absolutely brilliant, and a gifted writer much like Neil, but she did not direct her energies to publishing, did not care for the spotlight, and instead focused on teaching, on the success of her students, and supporting her peers, Neil Postman, Terry Moran, and Henry Perkinson (she continually provided Postman with invaluable feedback, editing, and suggestions on his work).  But the few articles that she did publish were absolute gems..  


She was in many ways an unsung hero of media ecology, dedicated to serving the needs of the field in many different ways.

I credit Chris with helping me to improve my writing in very significantcways, and with teaching me how to be a scholar.  She was demanding of her students, and some found that quite intimidating, but her insistence on rigor in scholarship put her in the same camp as Walter Ong and James Carey.  She was a true intellectual, a pure intellectual, but also a woman who had an off-beat sense of humor and imagination.

The loss is a personal one for me, a loss felt keenly by all of her students, and others who knew her professionally, and as a friend.  Many more in the media ecology community know her through her writing, and her reputation as a pioneer in our field.  


I last saw her in September, she asked if I would meet her for lunch before she departed to Iowa to spend her last days with her family, and so we did.  The conversation we had was rambling, we could have talked about so many different things, it seemed as if what we did talk about was almost random.  But it wasn't about the content, it was about the medium, the relationship, one last time together.

And before we parted she looked back on the time she devoted to the media ecology program, and the students that came through it, and said that she thought that she, and Neil, had accomplished something worthwhile, something important.  And of course I said that it certainly was very important, very influential, that media ecology is not something that is going to fade away, that the effects of what they had set in motion will continue to be felt into the future, serving to make the world a better place.

Chris and I first bonded over our mutual love of Tolkien.  When she emailed me asking to meet one last time, she spoke of leaving New York City to head west towards the Gray Havens (the passage to the next world in Tolkien's mythos).  And when we met for the last time, she mentioned the song Bilbo sang in The Fellowship of the Ring:

I sit beside the fire and think

of all that I have seen,

of meadow-flowers and butterflies

in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer

in autumns that there were,

with morning mist and silver sun

and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think

of how the world will be

when winter comes without a spring

that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things

that I have never seen:

in every wood in every spring

there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think

of people long ago,

and people who will see a world

that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think

of times there were before,

I listen for returning feet

and voices at the door.

For Chris, there are no more sounds of returning feet, no more voices at the door, but the messages she has sent to a time she will not see can still be heard, loud and clear and true.



I have been in touch with Christine Nystrom's friend, Anne Garfinkel, who was contacted by the Pastor at the Church that Chris attended, and he has graciously offered to host a memorial service in their chapel, a location that held special significance for Chris.  Anne is organizing the memorial, for which we all are very grateful, and I am doing whatever I can to help her.  Please share the following information with anyone you think might want or need to know:

A memorial service for Christine Nystrom will be held on Monday January 17, at 11 AM, at The Chapel at St. George’s Church at 7 Rutherford Place (E. 3rd Ave. between 16th & 17th Streets), New York, New York.  It will be an opportunity to pay our respects, share our memories, and celebrate her life.

Anne has asked that you RSVP if you intend to come, to help in the
preparations (of course if you don't RSVP and decide at the last minute that you do want to come, please do join us). Also, if you would like to come up and say a few words at the memorial, we ask that you let us know in advance as well, to aid in the organization of the memorial program.  Please RSVP via email to NystromMemorial@gmail.com.

Also, there have been some inquiries about sending donations in Chris's memory.  Chris's niece, Jenny, has indicated that they can be made to New York University's Cancer Institute, The Smile Train, Hiefer International, or Hospice of Central Iowa.


And here are a couple of pictures taken last year, no captions necessary...






Rest in peace, Christine Nystrom, rest in peace.

Digital Damage Control

So, last month I appeared on a local TV news segment about "Digital Damage Control," to use the dramatic title they gave to the story.  It's all about what to do when something negative pops up in the search results for your name, or organization, or product for that matter.  How do you address the problem of bad Google publicity?

You would think that if it's something false, or blatantly offensive, you could just appeal to the better natures of the site owner, or blogger, or internet provider for that matter, but no, that doesn't work very well.  Often you'll get no response whatsoever, or maybe a shrug of the shoulders.  So, what can you do, who can you call?  Not Roto-Rooter, that's for sure.

Well, why don't you check out the segment, which originally aired on the 11:00 PM news on November 11th (that's 11/11 at 11, but who's counting?).  And note that the sound is a little on the low side, so you may have to turn your volume up a bit.  After you're done, meet me back here so I can correct a few errors.

So, yes, I confess, somewhere on the internet there is a listing for Sex Vixens from Outer Space, and my name is attached to it as the author.  But it is not in fact a movie, which would be a more serious matter, what it is, is a Commodore 64 text adventure game from the 80s.  And frankly, I wish I had the programming skills to create a game like that, I really wanted to make my own text adventures back in those early days of the personal computer revolution, but I never got past the basics of BASIC.  Anyway, I had an Atari 800, not a Commodore, and let me tell you, that Atari was a great little machine.  But I digress.  The point is, whoever the author was, it wasn't me.

And in case you're wondering if there might be someone else out there with the same name as me, well, it's highly unlikely, as that is the only listing that has ever come up on any search engine under my name that is not me.  As far as I know, I am the only Lance Strate on the planet.  It's interesting to think about that sort of thing, by the way, that is maybe, in the future, people will be given or create for themselves unique names, perhaps by using one or more middle names, and maybe titles, to make it possible to find them without confusion on search engines.

So anyway, what I figure happened is that, back in the 80s, someone used my name as a pseudonym in this one instance.  My guess is that it wasn't someone that I knew very well, although I could be wrong, but I don't recall knowing anyone who knew how to write code for the Commodore, and I think it more likely that it was somebody not too close, maybe even one degree of separation removed, who heard my name and liked the sound of it, or thought it would be funny to use.

Hey, if anyone out there has any idea of who the actual author of Sex Vixens from Outer Space might be, or if the real author is out there, let me know.  I bear no grudges, I'm just curious at this point.

When I first started to check up on myself via search engines (back before google was a verb), this item came up in the first ten rankings, at one point even as the first!  And I admit to being taken aback, feeling uncomfortable, both for the association with this kind of content (obviously, the real author did as well, which is why a pseudonym was used), and for the fact that it is, essentially, a false attribution.  A me that is not me.

I was uncomfortable, but the news report is incorrect in saying that I deliberately tried to bury it with all of my digital activity.  First of all, while feeling uncomfortable, it just didn't bother me all that much.  Second, I had no idea what to do about it, so I just ignored it.  And as more and more pages listing my name appeared on the web, e.g., my online publications, citations of my work in other publications, listings on various sites, sites selling my books, web pages at Fordham and elsewhere, and eventually social media profiles, my blog posts, etc., it just naturally got pushed further down and down and out of awareness.

And I had no intention of ever bringing it up, until Andrew Siff contacted me about doing this story, explaining that a friend of his (Alan Gottlob I presume) had developed this sort of search engine problem.  So we met at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus for the interview.  Andrew was interested in seeing my own Google search results, so I decided to share this example with him, which proved to be a very useful illustration.  But obviously, it's more dramatic to say that I used a deliberate strategy, rather than to say that it just happened naturally, as a result of being active online.

But hey, I got some really good face time on this story, don't you think?  Name time as well, but well, that I take for granted.  But it was also great to see Fordham University get some good publicity out of it.

Anyway, there's also a text version of the story online, under the title of Undoing Digital Damage: How To Write Your Way Out Of Trouble, filed by Andrew Siff on the station's website.  And I got a Google alert last month that pointed to the same story appearing on the MSNBC website, I'm not sure if that means it also aired on that cable news channel or not, but it's since disappeared from there.  Anyway, the story has a tag line, "The keyboard may be mightier than the sword -- If used properly."  And then it begins,

Fordham University Technology Professor Lance Strate couldn't help but laugh when he googled himself -- and saw a surprising hit.

And let me stop right there, I can't help but laugh, and note that I'm not a Technology Professor, as you probably know, I'm a Professor of Communication and Media Studies.  Okay, continue please,

"Somebody claimed I'd written this soft-core film for a Commodore 64," said Strate, who pointed to the link on projection screen inside a classroom on the school's Manhattan campus. The film he supposedly wrote was called Sex Vixens From Space. But the professor never wrote such a script, and never even owned a Commodore 64. Strate laughed it off, assuming some mischievous blogger had co-opted his name for some reason. Then, he happened on a pretty good strategy to abolish the fictional shout-out.

He wrote some real stuff.

Okay, you remember from a few paragraphs above, it was a text adventure, not a film.  Not as sexy as they made it out to be, no.  And there were no bloggers back in the 80s.  But, hey, details, details.  Let's move on,

His blog, Lance Strate's Blog Time Passing, advises the young, the old, and the in-between to write, write, and write some more. And by keeping it clean you'll gradually earn a good reputation, impervious to any search engine. After all, Google and other navigators tend to rank searches by the age of a post. And recent writings register higher. So, you can also tweet your way to a clean rep.

Check it out, dear friends.  Blog Time Passing has made the news!!!!  We are the story!!!  And so what if I never actually advised anyone "to write, write, and write some more" before.  By quoting this here and now in Blog Time Passing, I've made it so!  A self-fulfilling professy, don't you know?  So get to it, boys and girls.  Write away!  And yes, keep it clean!  And thank you so much, Andrew, for the great publicity!

But wait, there's more,

Of course, it's not always so easy. Financial advisor Alan Gottlob was horrified to see the words "insurance scam" only a few hits from the top when he entered his name into Google. The phrase came from an article he insists was totally false. But his attempts to reach the author, the editor, and Google itself have proven unsuccessful.

"Makes you feel angry," said Gottlob. "Makes you feel like you can't get the truth out there."

And let's get some more Fordham in there, if you don't mind,

The truth, say young Web-surfers, is that the Internet tends to be written in permanent ink. Rebecca Bates, a student at Fordham said it's all about knowing the risks before you even log on for the night.

"You're putting yourself out there," she said. "You should have the knowledge that anything you put out there, anyone can see."

But wait, what about me, me, me? 

Professor Strate offered other advice. Use an alias, or alternate screen name, if you plan to post anything too controversial. That way, it won't show up in a search for your name.

Yes!  I get the last word in, sort of.  Use an alias.  Like the author of Sex Vixens from Outer Space did, ha ha.  Ah, the irony of it all!

So, all in all, this was a good story, and great fun, and maybe did somebody some good somewhere.  And you can go check out the video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A80eS9qA26w and like it or comment or whatever it is that people are doing nowadays.

Or just go google yourself.  I mean it.

Oh, and stay tuned for more on this subject later on, including something big coming up a few months from now.  No, I can't tell you now, you'll just have to wait.  But when the time comes, I may call upon you to do a service for me...  And I'm not talking google here.

Chanukah By Candlelight

So, last night my son showed me this video, which I very much enjoyed, and said I'll have to post it over on the Congregation Adas Emuno website (which I'll do tomorrow, but Blog Time Passing gets it first!).  

And today I saw it mentioned online via The Chronicle of Higher Education's e-mail newsletter, which directed me to a short item entitled, ‘Candlelight,’ the Viral Video From the Maccabeats.  The Chronicle introduces it by saying, "A Hanukkah treat from the Maccabeats, an a cappella group at Yeshiva University. It’s viral, folks, so apologies if you’ve already seen it."  So this is officially an academic topic now, as well.

And over on the video's YouTube page, the Maccabeats write

Buy this song on itunes! http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cand...

HELP GET THE MACCABEATS ON COLBERT! http://forums.colbertnation.com/?page...

Based on Mike Tompkins' a cappella version of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite". Video created by Uri Westrich

And I think they deserve our support.  So, anyway, okay, here's the video:

And all that's left to say is, Well Done, Gentlemen!  And Happy Chanukah to all, and to all a good night!

Continental Airlines Takes a Nosedive

So, a blog's reach must exceed its grasp, or what's it good for?  And one of the functions of blogging, and I might go so far as to say that one of the duties of a practicing blogist, is to report to the public on problems related to the consumer goods and services that dominate our culture and environment.  To that end, this post is about Continental Airlines, which is in the process of merging with United Airlines, and turning into one of the largest, if not the largest in the industry.

Living in New Jersey as I do, I usually use Newark-Liberty Airport, where Continental is king of the hill, and that is the airline that I most often use.  At least, that was the airline that I most often used.

And last week I traveled from Newark to San Francisco for the annual meeting of the National Communication Association.  The return flight boarded at 11:00 AM west coast time, and landed after 8:00 PM east coast time.  In other words, we were in the air during at least one meal time, and arguably two.

Now, as you may know, the new policy is not to offer free meals on these flights.  They say no free meals on flights under 6 hours, which sounds rational but conveniently cuts out most transcontinental travel in the United States.  So they offer a menu and food for sale, hamburgers, salads, sandwiches, and snacks.

That's bad, but that's not what motivated this post.  We're all getting the treatment from airlines, like paying a fee for checking your bags, that's old news.  And I noticed Continental now offers seats with extra leg room in coach for an extra $69!!!  Maybe they'll start to offer better quality air for passengers willing to pay a fee?

But no, what motivated this post is the fact that on the flight from San Francisco to Newark they not only charged for lunch, but didn't have enough food to go around.  And of course, you get no information about what's going on before you leave, it's not until you're imprisoned up in the air that you're informed of the situation.

Look, it's bad enough that Continental Airlines offers not so much as a complimentary peanut to eat anymore.  That's more of an insult than an injury.  But to represent that they have lunch items for sale, and then not to have them available, well, what do we call that?  False advertising?  Bait and switch?

You see, when the flight attendant with the food cart got to my row, she informed me that all she had was snacks.  This included two kinds of snack boxes.  And you might say, Lance, the snack boxes are not very good, but they're something, right?  And I'd say, sure, that's true, but wouldn't you expect to be informed of what's in the snack boxes before purchasing them?  Well, it seems that whoever prepared the flight for take off neglected to provide menus in the seat pockets, not a one.  And the flight attendant did not know what was in the box, and wouldn't open one up so I could see what was in it before purchasing it.  Pig in a poke?

So, all of this is pretty bad, but corporate malfeasance is nothing new, right?  But what was over the top is that this flight attendant was angry!  She was angry with Continental about the situation, and made that clear enough, but she directed that anger at me, as I was, I gather, asking the same questions and expressing the same complaints as a couple dozen people had already done in the rows ahead of me.  I'm sure the situation was very unpleasant for her, but she was rude and nasty to me, and when I pay good money for a seat on a cramped and uncomfortable flight, I expect a little better.  Talk about insult to injury, this was just too much. 

I won't go into the specifics of our exchange, they're not important.  And I'm sure she was stressed, tired, etc.  But for me, the bottom line is that when you are taking a paycheck from a company, then you have to take responsibility for what the company does.  You are that company's representative, period.

So, I wound up purchasing one of the two types of snack boxes sight unseen, as I had no alternative.  And to be honest, I felt pretty nauseous afterward.  

I did complain about the flight attendant's behavior to the head flight attendant, a fellow named Don, and while he had already heard her side of the story, he listened to me, acknowledged that her behavior is not always the best, was entirely polite and friendly, and bought me a drink to make up for the way she acted.  Thank you Don, you really salvaged a bad experience for me!

Now, don't get me wrong.  The flight attendant with the food cart may have been a bad apple, but the source of her irritability and anger was Continental Airlines.  Continental Airlines created a situation where it was impossible to satisfy its customers, and where its employees had to bear the brunt of consumer dissatisfaction in a context that they were unprepared to deal with.

The bottom line is information.  Tell me what the situation is.  If you're not going to offer us anything, say so, say it in large letters on the boarding pass, have your personnel announce it at the gate, make it clear, spell it out, so we have a chance to prepare.  If you don't have enough for everyone and may run out, say so, print it on the ticket and boarding pass, send me an email, call me up, announce it at the gate, let us know what the situation is.  We have a right to know, and YOU have an obligation to tell us.

That's the bare minimum, of course.  And with merger mania, the fact is that we do not have all that much of a choice in airlines.  But after hearing folks rave about JetBlue, I really have to rethink my travel preferences.

I should add that my flight home was delayed due to high winds in New Jersey, something we've been experiencing in the New York Metropolitan Area with increasing frequency in the last couple of years.  It's downright scary to see such climate change, and what with strange weather, volcano eruptions and the like, air travel is becoming not only less pleasant and less reliable, but less possible!

My tip for the future, therefore, is invest in high-speed railways!  As I read in a comic book as a kid, good old terra firma, the more firmer, the less terror!