Head First

So, I thought I was all done with Rosh Hashanah posts for 5769, but over on MySpace I reposted a poem from last year entitled Head First--that same poem was included in a post here on Blog Time Passing that I put up last year, From 9/11 to 5768. For that very reason, I didn't bother to include it with this years posts. But my MySpace friend Ami, who I mentioned at the end of my last post, Inscribed and Monitored, happens to be an artist, and very generously decided to turn my poem into a work of art, digitally speaking. And I, in turn, am very pleased to be able to share it with you. To get the full effect, or at least be able to read the words, you need to click on the picture, which will take you to a page where it appears in full size.

In this poem, I took a rather traditional theme/motif, the year and its seasons as a life cycle, and incorporated many of the Jewish holidays, in symbolic fashion. I also tried to work counter to the typical metaphor in which birth is linked to either the season of Spring (the rebirth of nature), or the Winter solstice (as the days start to get longer and longer, as in the Roman calendar's January 1st coming after the Christmas week). Thinking in terms of the Jewish calendar, it follows that birth would be associated with the end of Summer and the start of Fall, and death therefore would correspond to this transition period as well. This would make Winter the time when we come of age, Spring the season of mature adulthood, and Summer the time of old age. While this may seem counterintuitive, even to Jews who largely live by the Roman calendar, the Jewish cycle does correspond to the school year, which begins in September, usually ends in May or June, but can continue in Summer Session over June, July and August.

The title of the poem, Head First, of course is a reference to the name of the holiday, Rosh actually meaning head rather than new, so the literal translation of Rosh Hashanah is Head of the Year. And that in turn struck me as corresponding to the typical way in which we are born, and also the way we think of diving into anything.

My use of a feminine archetype is also a departure from the patriarchical character of Jewish tradition, but it is hardly unknown in Jewish mysticism (I studied a little Kabbalah when I was a teenager for my confirmation class, and this was long before it became a fad), in Chasidism which was mysticism for the masses, and in contemporary Reform Judaism. And it can be debated, but it is certainly arguable that Judaism has a powerful matriarchical bent to it.

Cycles are our natural experience of the world, perhaps not so much as a perfect circle as a spiral moving from past to future, but always swinging around and around. There is a kind of madness that we embraced in the West, especially since the advent of the printing press, in which we try to flatten everything out into a line, all straight lines and right angles, the mark of the machine! In this respect at least, the electrical circuit has had a positive effect in shocking us out of that obsession, and opening us up to the possibility of reclaiming the curvature of space and time! This poem is a celebration of the circles and cycles of life--L'Chaim!!!--and the illustration provided by Ami helps to accentuate that sensibility.

So, here it is:




I think this is absolutely gorgeous, and I want to say, again, thank you Ami.

Inscribed and Monitored

So, at Rosh Hashanah services this morning at Congregation Adas Emuno, I was particularly taken with the prayer called unetanah tokef (which means, "we shall ascribe holiness to this day," the first line of the prayer) . This is a religious poem that is only recited on the Jewish New Year and on Yom Kippur, and its origins are appropriately apocryphal--legend has it that it was composed in the 11th century by Rabbi Amon of Mainz, Germany (where four centuries later Johann Gutenberg would invent the printing press with movable type), although it probably was the product of Byzantine Jewish culture in the 8th or 9th century. The legend has it that Rabbi Amon was asked to renounce his faith, tortured, and before he died, was taken to his synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, whereupon he interrupted the regularly scheduled service, recited this poem, and died. He later appeared to one of his disciples in a dream, and asked that this prayer be recited each year.

The legend matches the apocalyptic theme of the prayer-poem--it's judgment day, after all, but in Jewish tradition that's an annual event, not something that comes just at the end of time. But it does share themes and motifs with Christian apocalyptic prayers, notably the Dies irae prayer of the requiem mass.

But that's not why I'm bringing it up here. What struck me about the prayer, today, was the way in which it described God as a writer, a scribe who painstakingly records all that occurs, and also as an accountant--it has been established for sometime now by archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat that the first writing system was developed by accountants in the ancient Sumerian palaces of Mesopotamia, and that numerals were among the first written characters (in systems such as cuneiform and hieroglyphics, as well as Chinese ideographic writing, each character stands for an entire words, in contrast to the alphabet).

I whispered the point about God being a scribe to a fellow member of the Adas Emuno Board of Trustees, Virginia Gitter, and she added, noting the references to seals, that God also seems to be a notary public. A joke of course, but a seal is the traditional means by which a written document would be validated, substituting for the author's actual presence (if he or she were there, you would know where the words came from for sure, or at least could ask). The signature became the more widely used and democratic substitute for the seal, a sign that seems to be becoming less and less significant now that we have moved from the print era (where handwriting represented the previous era) to an electronic era (where print represents the most recently passed period).

I think it altogether extraordinary to consider this concept of the divine, not as an animistic spirit or as Zeus hurling lightning down from the heavens, but as God the scribe, the author, creation being written, a work in progress that continues to this day. So, anyway, here's a translation of this prayer-poem that I got from MyJewishLearning.com that seems pretty good, although it's not exactly the same as the one we used in our prayerbook. I'll put in boldface all the writing metaphors I can identify, and related references to acoustic and mnemonic terms:

We shall ascribe holiness to this day.

For it is awesome and terrible.

Your kingship is exalted upon it.

Your throne is established in mercy.

You are enthroned upon it in truth.

In truth You are the judge,

The exhorter, the all‑knowing, the witness,

He who inscribes and seals,

Remembering all that is forgotten.

You open the book of remembrance

Which proclaims itself,

And the seal of each person is there.

The great shofar is sounded,

A still small voice is heard.

The angels are dismayed,

They are seized by fear and trembling

As they proclaim: Behold the Day of Judgment!

For all the hosts of heaven are brought for judgment.

They shall not be guiltless in Your eyes

And all creatures shall parade before You as a troop.

As a shepherd herds his flock,

Causing his sheep to pass beneath his staff,

So do You cause to pass, count, and record,

Visiting the souls of all living,

Decreeing the length of their days,

Inscribing their judgment.

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die,

Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,

Who shall perish by water and who by fire,

Who by sword and who by wild beast,

Who by famine and who by thirst,

Who by earthquake and who by plague,

Who by strangulation and who by stoning,

Who shall have rest and who shall wander,

Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued,

Who shall be at rest and who shall be tormented,

Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low,

Who shall become rich and who shall be impoverished.

But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree.

By the way, the line about the "still small voice" is very evocative, as it refers to an inner voice, the conscience, perhaps thought itself as a still, clear voice, small but nonetheless heard, if we choose to listen.

The beauty of this prayer was obviously not lost on the Jewish-Canadian musician and poet Leonard Cohen, who based his song "Who By Fire" on it. There are several compelling versions available on YouTube, and here's one that only makes use of still images, but features a particularly lovely musical arrangement from a live performance:



And here are Cohen's lyrics:

And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
Who in your merry merry month of may,
Who by very slow decay,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
And who by avalanche, who by powder,
Who for his greed, who for his hunger,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
Who in solitude, who in this mirror,
Who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains, who in power,
And who shall I say is calling?

So, returning to the original unetanah tokef prayer, what also strikes me about it is the very clear assertion that God is not only watching everything we do, but writing it all down. The parallel between this concept and the modern notion of surveillance, the panopticon, and Orwell's Big Brother, all functions of the secular State is quite interesting. But whereas the modern notion was of a loss and invasion of privacy, this medieval view comes without any real sense of privacy to begin with, privacy itself being a modern phenomenon. From a media ecology perspective, privacy develops within print culture as a consequence of widespread literacy, because reading and writing move us into an increasingly more isolated position, whereas speaking and listening are communal acts.

So, looking at it in media ecological terms, in oral cultures individuals would consider themselves to be always under observation, because all of nature is alive and imbued with spirit. Any given deity may or may not be paying attention at any given time, but it's a good bet that something supernatural has its eye on you. As we move from oral polytheism to literate monotheism, we have the one all-seeing God not only watching, but also recording everything you do. Then, in print culture we start to develop deistic notions of a God who sets things in motion and then walks away and doesn't pay much attention to what we do, coinciding with the advent of privacy. And as noted, the modern State moves in to fill the gap, or as they said on the classic British TV series The Prisoner, Be Seeing You!

And now we find ourselves moving into a time of widespread narcissism and exhibitionism, where we are training the video cameras on ourselves, revealing all in our blogs (yes I know, not all of us, but more and more we're moving that way, and more so with each generation). As the late Tony Schwartz put it, media have become the second god, and especially the internet, if the definition of a god might be something that is always watching you. And it may well be that privacy was the great anomaly, and we are by nature a species that craves attention, that wants to believe that someone is always fascinated with our every action, word uttered, and every thought that pops into our heads.

Well, ok, so much for philosphizing for tonight. So, how about I end with something for the kids? Here you go! This video was sent to me by my MySpace friend Ami:



And finally, may you all be inscribed and monitored in the Book of Life for another year, signed, sealed and delivered!

5769

So, it's Rosh Hashanah time again, so best wishes to all for a happy and healthy New Year on this, the birthday of the world, the original Earth Day!

Five thousand, seven hundred, and sixty-nine years, that is a very, very long time indeed. Tradition has it that the calendar goes back to the six days of creation, which is why Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the world, and really the whole damn universe! And why shouldn't there be a birthday for the whole kit and kaboodle? Why not celebrate the anniversary of the big bang?!?! Although, admittedly, that sounds more like the moment of conception, rather than birth. But who wants to get into a debate about when life begins? We can at least all agree to abort that topic.

Historically speaking, though, 5,769 years ago, the systems of notation used to keep accounts, presumably including an accounting of time, were evolving and being developed into the first true form of writing. This was happening over in Mesopotamia, where our troops are today (may God watch over them and keep them safe, along with all others), on the part of the Sumerians, in places like the city-state of Ur. You know Ur, as in Ur-text, and as in the birthplace of Abraham, née Abram, ancestor of the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites, as well as the Arabs.

So, 5769 does represent the anniversary of the beginning of an accounting of time, the birth of a chronology that in turn gave rise to the first full sense of history, a written narrative of events occurring in linear order over time, as can be found in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. While certainly not a factually accurate accounting, this represents a marked departure from the mythic traditions of other peoples in the ancient world, most of whom had narrative without chronology, or in the case of the few cultures to utilize writing systems such as the Sumerians and Egyptians, had chronology that was not integrated with narrative. It is only with the advent of the semitic alphabet that sufficient carrying capacity in written form was achieved to allow for the creation, transmission, and preservation of the chronological narrative we call history.

Sarah Silverman's Great Schlep for Obama

So, this video is just too good to pass up. It's funny girl Sarah Silverman exhorting her fellow Jewish-Americans to get their grandparents in Florida to vote for Obama. A warning, though--this contains political content, expletives, and lots of Jewish humor!



The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

First Act of Public Mass Debate Shun

So, it was tempting to shun it, but I broke down and watched the debate, you know, on television, like most everyone else. My cell phone was going off like crazy with text messages from all the people I follow on Twitter, almost all of whom were rooting for Obama like he was their favorite sports team. No one seemed interested in an impartial examination of the issues, it was all about scoring points. No big surprise there. That's the sophisticated, media savvy view, after all. Very depressing.

My former MA student Mike Plugh, an ardent Obama supporter, posted a thoughtful, albeit one-sided blog: What Wins a Debate. My friend and colleague Paul Levinson, who also has been cheering rather loudly for Obama posted a similar kind of assessment: Both Candidates Speak Well, But Obama Looks More Presidential in 1st Debate. But it's an old, old commonplace that viewers committed to a candidate will typically perceive that their candidate won the debate.

Loathe as I am to lower myself to the level of political analyst, I think I will say some things here because I'm not sure anyone else is saying them. I don't have a candidate myself, so I do think this is an impartial assessment. And what I have to say has nothing to do with issues or positions, just how well they did as actors in front of a camera in the Greatest Quiz Show Ever Told. And I don't think it's going to make much difference who's elected, and this was reinforced by the general lack of disagreement between the two candidates on many issues, the biggest argument being on budget and taxes that amount to the tinniest percentage of things, and over whether it was a good or bad decision to go into Iraq, which cannot be proven either way and is a moot point in any event.

So, on to the handicapped horse race.

First, and most importantly, the outcome of this debate was pretty much a draw. No one screwed up in any major way, there were no really dramatic moments, the debate was substantive and a bit dull, and I don't think that anyone who is undecided will have been moved to one side or another by what they saw in the first debate. Not much entertainment value, I bet lots of folks changed the channel after half an hour or so. This was the most even-handed debate since George H. W. Bush squared off against Mike Dukakis. So, I expect that the polls will show that the debate had little or not impact on people's voting decisions at this point.

Overall, I think McCain won on the nonverbal cues. He looked good, mostly relaxed, did not overheat, employed a conversational style reminiscent of Ronald Reagan, but also was assertive and authoritative, establishing dominance for most of the debate. Next to him, Obama looked like the smart kid who knows a lot, but thinks he knows everything, while McCain looked like the firm and confident adult, perhaps a bit of a strict disciplinarian. This was especially the case when the debate shifted from the economy to foreign policy about forty minutes into it. Of course, quite a few viewers may have changed the channel by then, negating McCain's advantage.

I think that many people who did not follow the Democratic primaries would expect Obama to be highly charismatic in the debates, based on his reputation, and they would have been disappointed with his style, which was relatively unemotional, at times wonkish. He's no grat communicator (you remember, that's what they called Reagan, who was not all that good at making speeches like Obama is, but was brilliant on camera).

On the other hand, Obama did hold his own, and as the less experienced, and more exotic of the two candidates, this helps him look acceptable as an alternative to McCain, and as someone who could indeed be president. In other words, the two candidates came across as relative equals in their presentation of self, and this could only help Obama overcome the resistance to his candidacy from voters who would be otherwise sympathetic to the kind of candidacy he represents.

So, my assessment is that overall McCain did a little better, offset by the fact that Obama held his own as the new kid on the block. The outcome: even-steven!

Respect!

I think this video says it all!

What Makes a Poet

So, last week was my birthday, and the less said about that the better, if you know what I mean. But I do want to use this blog post to say thank you to one of my MySpace friends, Simon Philbrook, who has taken a leadership role in the MySpace poetry community. Si posted a wonderful bit of poetry last week under the heading What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance), and I want to share it with you dear reader (whoever the one person reading this blog may be), and enter it into the permanent record that is this blog, however permanently ephemeral it all may be. And in case you missed it, I did make that title, What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance), a hot link, so you can click on it and go to the poem, and there I did it again. And now I'll do it one more time: What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) . Hey, you can't do it too many times, or at least I can't. What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance) What makes a poet? (a birthday poem for Lance)

There, you see!

So, who is this Simon person you well may ask, or as he is known around MySpace, circles, "Si" (may not be his real name, how the hell should I know???)???

Well, here's what he looks like:







Si is from Brighton, which is some sort of place in jolly old England. I don't know much about it, but I got this from the wikipedia entry:

In the Domesday Book, Brighton was called Bristelmestune and a rent of 4,000 herring was established. In June 1514 Brighthelmstone was burnt to the ground by French raiders during a war between England and France.

This sounds about right to me, but I think there's also something more in there, something about a beach, which perhaps is apparent from a couple of those photographs. Or is it that Brighton Beach place in Brooklyn or Russia or something? Or was that the place in The Who's Quadrophenia? Wherever it might be hiding, it shouldn't be too hard to find it, what with the 4,000 herring and all.

In any event, you can take a look at Si's MySpace profile and figure it all out for yourself, just click here:

Si

And in all seriousness, Si is an outstanding poet, and you can read his work for yourself on his blog, just click here:

Si's Blog

And that about wraps it up, except for, er, well, one more time:

What makes a poet?
(a birthday poem for Lance)

Oh, and one more time, thank you Si, my friend, thank you!

More-On Politics

So, I want to share with you a YouTube video that my friend Andrew Postman put together just recently. It's about politics, and the presidential election campaign, and I suppose I should note that I made my feelings known in a post this past February, Political Ponderings, and I don't think I need to trouble you with them again.

Andy's video is clever and well done, and expresses a sense of disillusionment with McCain, describing it as, "the story of what can happen to a man." On the Media Ecology Association listserv, Andy wrote the following:

While I honestly respect opinions on both sides of the political divide, certain behavior in the last couple of weeks finally moved me to action. Over the weekend, I taught myself iMovie and made this movie, which is now on YouTube (link below). It will take under four minutes to watch. If you think the video is of use to pass along to others or post somewhere, please do. If not, not. I realize there are people out there who will disagree with my conclusion. I respect that.

Either way, thanks for watching. I appreciate it.

Note that this does not necessarily translate into an endorsement of Obama, as it is just as easy to say, a pox on both their houses!

And now this:



And hey, please go ahead and watch it over on YouTube, leave comments for Andy, and pass the URL on to others:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlU92rN5fPc


And now for something maybe just a little different, here's a poem about politics, sort of, that I wrote in the summer of 2007. For those of you who like puzzles and puns, this could keep you busy for a little while.

Ship of Fools

the ship of state shape shifts
O shun navigation old son
the cybernetic government drifts
steering by the bull horns hun

head for safe harbor day of treason day for rest
Jack Druid's lumbering about too much to drink
what err what err everywhere dropped bawl to digest
shipwrights play their part for the prince blue plan ink

to build a vessel titanic that God could never swallow
a wailing walrus of a schooner Joe knock on wood
a major league mass hull it has Moe bedecked and all hollow
even armored call it fish mail Levi-Ethan would call it good

be he moth or be he mammoth Wally the point is she be large
the harsh ebb lows the tide in time pin oak key on the nose
pin tales on donkey Otie of nights in a shining barge
crew sadists accrue Jay on emission arose is justice Rose

set sail on disk count leave it up to freight
red tag by morning cod dish for breakfast all's ship shape
load mess cargo at a snail's pace food courts judge peaces of fate
eight royals make Spanish dough Lars be calm they risk no escape

pump galleons of guess Seline riddle me this
empty tanks giving Turkey stuffing abets money on the foe
oil czar dean of an urge Genie us don't you miss
O zone me for sun block aS UV radiates shun the embargo

shipping over seize the smug glares wearing shades in cages
contra band plays merry Archie soused of the bored doorway
him my grey shun ill eagles be low my numb mom wages
good defenses make good neigh boars horse O they say

so fools pita head Hank course away now
mock twain and beyond Gordi in knots don't hold back
row them and down boys bloat and mend the bow
ready the canon Madamme the torpedoes and attack

can we win can bling can eggnog turn the tide?
dip low ma see gumbo tsunami might work
freed traitors flooding marked cats kept tenses let it ride
unlucky role played bad break levitax newer liens done Kirk

Noah government is an ark key too much is a tear Annie
candied dates good at tacking each other as the wind blows
Mister Christian leads a mute tinny band out of tuna uncanny
playing Nero My Cod Toothy on fire roaming he goes

So we sail the seven seas of Sir Cum's ask-tell navy gay shun
1. Poli Sea: home to many herded hydra Deb baiting amongst themselves
2. Embass Sea: foreign so very rainy terror Tory's station
3. Legitima Sea: bases of author eddies prose and consent aligning the shelves

4. A B Sea: alfalfa bit soup the shoals call it Litera Sea
5. Priva Sea: in excess a bull and dream moat body heat-vaporating
6. Intima Sea: aka Six Sea, beware imp each man takes in turns liberty
7. Luna Sea: sailing by moon is shunned Armstrong race dictating

but ship of fuels spills its guts slick move Gil again
skip her two million errors his wife move he starboard
hollow wood out cries fund razors save the sea quell number ten
clean nuptials? I'll ask her pipe line laid for safe's ex harbored

famous Al G. an inconvenient bore at cause a kiss Stan
speaks truth about Emir Ricka a star is burn and bright
O beast O very weighty neigh shun great is thy span
sea to shiny C note glow bell worming at kin's diet light

so dive dive dive you boat Ben ether sea
twenty Thou sand leaks voyeur urge to the bottom of it all
form a sub come Mitty sin a Tory Al cast broadly on TV
parties sects you all congress is always greener on the mall

investdignation time a point asp ash hull persecutor
have herrings Cherry have testes moaning call witless to the stand
bring on the supreme courtesans come missionaries program the supercomputer
right it wrong Cap size it super a report in every storm we planned

so chase 'em and the arkonauts a quest shunt not aside
task Andy shall Reese even odds ask aweigh ye journey lists
press on peep holes write to no drink deep the mead Tia confide
foist amen damn meant no secretions Papa rot seamen get the jists

so answer now and swear not total that Ruth and no think butt
who takes the rap in syncs ships? loose slips of girls bad luck for sale hearse?
Did DOS boot error sport holes in the SS Lose-It-Potamia, bag dad it all, Jabba Hut?
Was it pie rates of the carob bean theEMParks emptying their purse?

was it Bermuda shorts triangles of flesh and fabric crew's ships all poise and food?
was it Po' sidin' aluminated sub fang erred three hole pointure wounds made?
try dent and scrape and airing out the contracted hull Burton but good?
did inept tunes in the keys of seas shake rattle and roll over bait oven's arcade?

or was it an iceberg let us pray in man tis folly to trust?
not burg but 'burb sub urban subversion of the engine's viscosity core?
neither burb nor burg but ball of ice at high velikovicity thrust
comet strikes coral reefer causing SS Tyrannosaurus wrecks and this means war

and can you tell a port from harbor can you tell a port away?
can you be me up Scott free enter pries my cold gun from me?
do we fish and see experts see beyond the prescient day?
can you give 'em healthcare Harry or make rudder Kennedy?

a drowning man knows nothing of the waters that engulf him
gone overboard and in too deep he cannot find his way
clinging to life rafter death to gather sticks for ferries we swim
and we fools all build our ship of state to float just one more day

Blasphemy or Blasfunny?

One of my MySpace friends, Misha, posted this on her blog, and I thought it was pretty damn, oops I mean darn, funny. It does make fun of a kind of Christian conservative mentality, and so is potentially offensive, but it clearly is not a critique of evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity, but rather of some of the popular culture manifestations of what Stephen Prothero refers to as the American Jesus. Of course, I leave the final judgment up to you, and merely provide the service of bringing this new development to your attention.







In an unrelated development, I learned from someone on Twitter that filmmaker Kevin Smith is making a new movie entitle Red State, a horror movie due out next year. You can read all about it on wikipedia. Kevin Smith is best know for his depictions of New Jersey, which is where I live, and for the most part a blue state. So we have red for blood, blue for bruises, and white for I've had enough already, make it stop, I surrender!

9/11

As a tribute and memorial, I thought I would post here two poems I've posted on my MySpace poetry blog on this theme.

long, long time

rubble, rubble
toil and trouble
jet engines scream
buildings crumble
fire burns

ashes upon ashes
dust upon dust
fire burns

shock and stumble
fire burns

autumn leaves fall
falling
falling
fire burns
fire burns
fire burns

swing me low
sweet cherry
it has been a long, long time since I been home

swing me low
sweet cherry
it has been a long, long time since I been home

what followed

following the shock and the panic
the desperate race to collect the children
and huddle together in what once was
the safety of the home
the black curtain of smoke
rising in the distance
the horror replaying replaying replaying on TV
(but cable only, the networks knocked off the air)

following the exodus, stuck in traffic
the tiny sliver of an island sealed off
like some bad sci fi movie

following the chaos and the confusion
the mad rush to the supermarket
the cries of disbelief and anger
the first of many tears

following the day of madness

came a long moment of silence
a time of stillness
a quiet never known before
in the city of cities
no cars on the road
no planes overhead
no people rushing to work, or play
the ever-present buzz was gone
the white noise replaced by black silence

and all that could be heard
was a whispered accounting:

one brother
one husband
one son

Aftermath.

PowerPoint, What's the Point?

So, people always ask me about PowerPoint presentations.

Well, no, no one asks me about PowerPoint presentations, actually, and maybe that's the point.

But maybe if they did ask me about PowerPoint presentations, I'd answer by saying, what's the point? What's the point of PowerPoint, on the one hand, and what's the point about complaining on the other, as in point of fact, I am powerless to do anything about their proliferation.

Sorry.

The point I am trying to make is that, despite the popularity of PowerPoint, many of the people I come in contact with have a powerful distaste for the medium. Some despise it, while other more moderate individuals only hold it up to ridicule.

Many of us who studied with Neil Postman recall his advice, when it comes to public speaking, never to use visual aids. Apart from the problems that often come up when some sort of technology is being used--you know, just getting it to work right--Neil felt that visual aids only serve as distractions, and that our emphasis should be on the spoken word. It is certainly true that, given a limited amount of time available to prepare a presentation, time spent on visuals will take away from time spent on writing, refining, and rehearsing the speech, which is why I tend to avoid visual aids myself.

But of course it could be argued that PowerPoint has only taken the place of older forms of lecture support such as slides and overhead projectors, and this is true enough. Still, the problem brought on by this new technology has something to do with the fact that it has become so much easier to prepare really snazzy, professional-looking visual aids via PowerPoint than it was before, so that instead of becoming an afterthought, visual aids threaten to become the main event.

Certainly, in public speaking classes in the past, instructors would indicate whether use of visual aids would be forbidden or optional for a given assignment--almost never were they required. But nowadays it is not at all unusual to find a course devoted specifically to making PowerPoint presentations, that is, preparing the PowerPoint itself, and giving your presentation with the aid of PowerPoint, or with PowerPoint being the main point.

Of course, the use of PowerPoint as a crutch is entirely understandable, when you consider that individuals tend to name public speaking as their greatest fear, death coming in a distant second.

To be fair, PowerPoint can be useful when dealing with a speaker who is difficult to understand, say because of a heavy accent, or when speaking to people who have a hard time understanding you, say to folks who are less than completely fluent in English. And of course it makes perfect sense when you need to make reference to images, for example, in a lecture about painting or architecture. From a media ecology perspective, it makes sense to allow for appropriate use of a technology, as well as arguing against inappropriate use.

But otherwise, PowerPoint seems to feed into the worst tendencies of the abstract visualism that came in with the printing press, and the more recent rise of image culture, and it seems to go hand in hand with the decline of eloquence that we have been experiencing over the past century. Perhaps nothing makes the point more powerfully than The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation.

And then there's this comedy video that Gregory Reynolds recently shared with the Media Ecology Association listserv:




And if you're interested in a more serious assessment, I do recommend Edward Tufte's essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within, which can be downloaded as a PDF file for seven samolians (that's US dollars, for those of you who unfamiliar with the old school slang). Tufte is our leading voice arguing for appropriate use of visual aids, diagrams, graphs, tables, and illustrations. A sample from the essay is available free of charge: PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports. Although it is probably impossible to say for sure, we have the argument that the space shuttle Columbia disaster may have something to do with oversimplification due to PowerPoint, and a similar argument has been made in reference to decisions made concerning our occupation of Iraq.

To invoke general semantics, the problem with PowerPoint is that it tends to be used to increase our level of abstracting. Just as the map is not the territory, and can never represent the entire territory, we might also say that

• Bullet points are not the presentation.
• Bullet points are only part of the presentation.
• Bullet points do not provide all of the reasoning and evidence being presented.
• Bullet points are oversimplifications.
• Bullet points are annoying.

That last bit is not so much general semantics or media ecology, but if you get my point, well, then more power to ya!

The Tenth Anniversary of the Media Ecology Association

So, today, September 4th, is the Tenth Anniversary of the founding of the MEDIA ECOLOGY ASSOCIATION. Ten years ago, Thom Gencarelli and Casey Man Kong Lum came to the Bronx to meet with Susan B. Barnes, who was on the faculty at Fordham University back then, and me, at our offices in Fordham University's Rose Hill campus, in Faculty Memorial Hall, which is technically off-campus, on Belmont Avenue--it's the same avenue that gave rise to Dion and the Belmonts, as in Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love:



But that is besides the point, which is that the four of us planned to meet the evening of September 4th, 1998, in our Department of Communication and Media Studies conference room (Room 433). As luck would have it, Paul Levinson, then a visiting faculty member, was hanging around, so we invited him to join us at our meeting, and the five of us talked it over and voted to form the Media Ecology Association. We decided that Sue Barnes would be the first Executive Secretary, Thom Gencarelli the first Treasurer, Casey Lum the first Vice-President, and I was given the honor of being the first president. I've continued in that office for the past ten years, and will finally be stepping down when my term ends in January.

It's been an amazing ten years, and creating and building the MEA has been a real labor of love. We've come a long way over the past decade, and I think we're all pretty proud of it. Because a Thursday night at the beginning of the school year is not exactly optimal for getting people together, we'll be celebrating with a small group going out to dinner. You can read about our Fifth Anniversary event, which was very special, and view the amazing video that was produced for that occasion, by going to one of my older blog entries: And Now This...

But for now, I have to get going or they'll be calling me late for dinner, so let me just end with...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEA!!!

Sign of the Times?

I was very taken with the short film, Historia de un Letrero, a Mexican production whose title is translated as Story of a Sign. It is a charming parable with religious overtones, or would that be undertones? In any event, this comes across as a fable with a moral about the power of words, and how changing the wording of a sign changes the reactions and responses of those who read it. It therefore serves as a nice little vignette for making a point about language, communication, persuasion, and both general semantics and semantics in general.

The religious sensibility has something to do with this being a "Latin" film, I imagine, and the young man in the film who comes to the aid of the blind beggar could be interpreted as a Jesus-like figure (and isn't Jesus typically depicted as an Italian, visually, as opposed to a Jew, owing to the long Italian tradition of religious art? (of course, in American television and film, there is a longstanding tradition of using Italian and Jewish actors interchangeably to portray Italian and Jewish characters, both having that Mediterranean quality and communicating ethnicity in contrast to the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant types)). As a savior-figure, the young man seems to provide a variation on the old saw about giving a man a fish and feeding him for a day while teaching a man to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Certainly, the blind beggar seems to treat him like some kind of messiah.

This film is not without its controversy, however, and I will admit to feeling less than comfortable with the portrayals, and some of the folks on the media ecology listserv took great offense with what they felt was a patronizing attitude on the part of the filmmakers towards the poor and the disabled. No doubt, some of the anger this film generated was due to the yuppie-like appearance of the savior, seeing him as a smug professional PR or ad exec type who did nothing significant to change the blind beggar's circumstances, and did not even donate his own money to the unfortunate man.

While I leave you to draw your own conclusions (and how interesting it is that this film leads to such disparate interpretations) I would point out that if we accept the critical view of the film, it uses images and narrative to manipulate the audience, just as the blind beggar's sign is about using word choice to influence the passersby reading it. In other words, on two different levels this film is about the same thing, the use of communication techniques, symbols, and media to achieve effects, specifically to influence and manipulate individuals.

Anyway, the film is described simply with the following: "Sometimes all it takes is a stroke of a pen. A beautiful film by Alonso Alvarez." And here it is:

Rest in Peace, Theodore C. Baker

I went to the wake for Theodore C. Baker today, well it's yesterday now. He was one of my students, in the Interactive Media class that I taught this past spring, the class that I mentioned in some of my posts a few months ago--we even had a cool little class blog, Interactive Rams, which Ted contributed to in a major way, being the most computer savvy of the group. I learned a lot from him myself, and I am so sorry that he is gone, only 22 years old, just having graduated.

I remember when I was younger and the loss of a peer reminded you of your own mortality. Nowadays, I need no reminders, I know I've lived longer than I'm going to live, and the person I identify with is Ted's mother (his father passed away less than a year ago). Losing a student is a little bit, just a little bit mind you, but a little bit like losing a child. I wish there was some way to comfort her.

But there's no way to be philosophical about losing a child, the world is turned upside down when the young die and the old live on. I can only imagine what that must feel like. All the usual clichés come to mind about the tragedy of a life cut short, much too young, a life hardly begun.

All I can say is that I'm glad that I knew you, Ted, and I thank you for all that I learned from you. Your life had an impact, your life had meaning, your life will be remembered. I hope that you have found peace.

A Footnote to Decalogue, Take Two

A footnote being a hyperlink before there were hyperlinks, I just want to add a brief post to let you know that my last post, Decalogue, Take Two!, about one of the services I was lay leader for at Congregation Adas Emuno, wound up being the topic of a post by blogger Ari Herzog, where he reflect on the power of social media. The name of the blog post is Leonard Cohen Inspires Social Media and of course that title is hyperlinked to the actual blog post, so you can go ahead and read it, and the little comment I left there. This completes the circuit, as befits this marvelous electronic medium! So what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Decalogue, Take Two!

So, in my last entry, I was talking about how I was the lay leader for Friday night services at Congregation Adas Emuno two weeks in a row, on August 8th and 15th, and gave you a run-down on what I did on the 8th. Well, as luck would have it, the parsha or Torah portion for the 15th, the second from the Book of Words, aka Devarim or Deutoronomy, is the portion that contains the second appearance of the Decalogue, aka the Ten Commandments. And as luck would really have it, I was lay leader for one Friday night last year in July when this was the exact same Torah portion. And in case you're wondering about the July/August disparity, the cycle of Torah readings follows the Hebrew calendar, which is a lunar calendar, which is why Jewish holidays sometimes come earlier or later relative to the secular calendar, or why secular holidays come earlier or later relative to the Jewish calendar, as do most Christian holidays, Easter being a notable exception.

So, anyway, the point being that I didn't have to do a whole lot of new preparation for the service, and as luck would have it (seems to be a lot of that going around), I also blogged about it. In fact, I did three blogs last year, starting by discussing the Ten Commandments, and ending with a summary of the service I led. So, for your convenience, here are the links in their correct chronological order:

The Ten Commandments

Va'etchanan

And I Prayed

There were just a couple of changes that I should note. First, this time I did read the section from Chapter 4 of Deutoronomy (in And I Prayed I explained that I had wanted to do it but decided not to because it would take too long; this time I wanted to make the point about how much repeated emphasis there is on the ban against graven images).

This time, I also added a reading before the Mourner's Kaddish, lyrics from a song by Leonard Cohen, If It Be Your Will:

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises
they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises
they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning
hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

Now of course I had heard of Leonard Cohen growing up, who back in those days didn't know the song Suzanne? But it wasn't until I started hanging with the poets on MySpace that I learned that he also has produced an extensive body of poetry, in addition to a large library of recorded music. He's kind of Canada's answer to Bob Dylan, and like Dylan, his work often draws on Jewish liturgy, themes, and sensibilities. That's certainly apparent in this song.

But what really got me hooked was the Leonard Cohen concert documentary, I'm Your Man, which features a variety of artists performing his songs, along with interviews and biographical material. And there was an amazing rendition of If It Be Your Will by a singer named Antony, reminiscent in his nonverbal kinesics of Joe Cocker, that was probably the highlight of the film, certainly of its most memorable moments. And through the miracle of YouTube, I can share this with you now:



Of course, there was no way to reproduce this kind of performance when all I did was a simple reading. But I was very pleased to learn, after services at the Oneg Shabbat (where we have wine, hallah, cake, and fruit), that two of my friends from Adas Emuno who were there that night, Michael and Fanny Fishbein, were also familiar with the documentary, and were also thinking of Antony singing this song. It was a fitting end to my two week run with the Book of Words, I think (and Michael did an excellent job of leading services this past Friday night, I should add).

The Book of Words

So, I was the lay leader for Friday night services at Congregation Adas Emuno two weeks in a row, on August 8th and 15th. So I thought I'd share with you the creative parts of the services. But maybe I'll just deal with the first week in this post.

As you no doubt know, traditionally each week a section of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, otherwise known as the Five Books of Moses, is read. And by August 8th the fourth book, Numbers had been completed, and this was the first week that we started on Deuteronomy.

So, after we completed the main part of the prayer service, I added some additional material. First, I adapted traditional gospel spiritual lyrics, and made them into a responsive reading. It went like this:

Just like the Israelites, who were Pharaoh's slaves
They suffered in bondage and they prayed for days
The Lord said, "Moses, go set them free"
"I am the Lord, thy God, and I'll go with thee"

Through the water
Through the flood
Through the fire
Through the blood
I am the Lord, thy God
And I'll be with thee

Just like old Joshua at Jericho
The Jericho walls, he wanted to overthrow
The Lord said, "Fight, and I'll give you victory"
"I am the Lord thy God, and I'll go with thee"

Through failure
Through success
I'll understand
When you done your best
I am the Lord, thy God
And I'll be with thee

In the interests of full disclosure, apart from moving things around a little, my adaptation involved deleting the first verse, which was about the prodigal son,, a Christian parable form the New Testament. And I do think there is a decided difference between that story and the rather momentous events depicted in the other two verses. I should also confess that my familiarity with the song comes from the version recorded by the Jerry Garcia Band, with Maria Muldaur and Donna Godchaux sharing lead vocals (and Jerry in the background). It's a bonus track on the version of the Cats Under the Stars album that's included in All Good Things Jerry Garcia box set. More information than you needed, no doubt, but then again, you never know, and it is my blog after all.

In any event, I explained that the events depicted in Deuteronomy fall in between the two main events in the lyrics, Moses freeing the Israelites, and Joshua bringing down the walls of Jericho.

And then I proceeded with a sermon, or Devar Torah, literally, Word of Torah, a little talk about the parsha or weekly Torah portion. I didn't have time to write it out, as my old mentor Neil Postman would insist I do, but I did make notes and will use them to tell you what I talked about.

I began by acknowledging that this week we began reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, and that Deuteronomy, like all books of the bible, was originally a single scroll, a byblos, from which Bible is derived. That's why they're called books, rather than say chapters or sections. And back in the ancient world, books didn't actually have titles, but were referred to by their opening words. The Book of Deuteronomy begins with aleh hadevarim asher diber Moshe el kol yisroel, These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel. The actual, original title of Deuteronomy was therefore Aleh HaDevarim, translated as These are the Words, but the title was abbreviated to Devarim, meaning Words. Deuteronomy is the Book of Words, which I think is a wonderful title. The Jewish people are a people of words, which suggests on the one hand that we talk a lot (that was a laugh line). But it also means that we believe in words, not images--no idols, no graven images. God is a God of words. Creation begins with words, as God says, Let there be light, and only after the words comes the act, the actual creation of light. And Creation is completed with us, with human beings, made in God's image, and we are the only form of life that really uses words.

The sages referred to Devarim as Mishneh Torah, which was translated as Second Law, and that is the basis of the Greek name for the book, from which we get Deuteronomy. A more precise translation, however, is a Review of the Law or Torah, as it goes back over some of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers--it is a review, but hardly a duplicate.

Historians believe that this book is of later origin than the first four books of the Torah, and trace it back to the reign of King Josiah in the late 7th century BCE. The book differs from the first four in tone, and traditionally it's said that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were composed by God, and transcribed by Moses, but Deuteronomy was authored by Moses on his own, in his own words. In this book, we hear a personal tone, as Moses says, "And God spoke to me," whereas previously there was a third person point of view, for example, "And God spoke to Moses."

The Book of Words consists of the words of Moses, as he addresses the Israelites. He reminds them of how, before they left Mount Sinai, he realized that they were too numerous for him to lead on his own. So, they had agreed to let him appoint a system of judges to preside over them, to mete out justice and teach the people about the Law. They then quickly traveled through the desert and reached the border of the Holy Land. The people demanded that Moses send spies in before they enter, so he sent 12, one from each tribe. And they came back in terror, reporting that the land is unconquerable. Despite Moses telling them that God would be with them and would make sure that they were successful, they were too fearful to enter. So God decided that that entire generation would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land, including Moses himself. Not too long afterward, the Israelites realized their mistake, and some of them tried to enter and take the land, even though Moses told them not to, and they were defeated and killed. And so the Israelites had to wander the dessert for almost 40 years before they could try to enter again. (The Deuteronomy version contrasts with the version in Numbers, where God not the Israelites says to send in the spies; also the reason why Moses cannot enter the land of Canaan is elsewhere explained by the fact that he had committed murder--the Egyptian overseer who was whipping a Hebrew slave--and that he struck the rock out of anger to get water).

The Book of Words begins with a rebuke from Moses. The Israelites have been punished for being cowardly, filled with doubt, lacking in faith, and obstinate. They have suffered for their failing and sins. This may seems harsh and authoritarian to modern ears, but I think there are lessons for us. For example, we should not think we have all the answers, we should understand that there is something more than us, greater than us, that we need to have faith that there is something greater than us, and through faith, to have courage.

But more than anything, I am struck by the poignancy of Devarim, the Book of Words. These are the last words of Moses, his final address to the people of Israel. He knows that he will not be allowed to enter the promised land, he can only view it in the distance. He knows that the amazing journey of his life, from an infant floating precariously on the Nile, to being raised as a prince of Egypt, to exile and the reluctant call to serve God, to his confrontation with Pharaoh and his role as liberator, leader, and law-giver, is coming to an end. In effect he is saying to the Israelites that the story goes on for all of you, but this is where it ends for me.

He speaks to them over the course of 37 days, and the book of words ends with his death. In the end, Moses, the greatest of all the prophets, was still just a man, a fallible human being, and we don't worship him, don't pray to him for help, we don't make statues of him or invoke his name, or venerate him the way many other religions do with their central figures. Moses was the greatest of us, but he was one of us, only human.

At this point in the service, I noted that this was also the Sabbath before Tisha B'Av, traditionally observed as a fast day, mourning the destruction of the first and the second Temples in Jerusalem (and the great loss of life that accompanied these events). Since Eric Fisher was leading a Havdallah Talk the next evening on the subject of whether there is room for observing Tisha B'Av in Reform Judaism, given that our movement does not have the same longing for the restoration of the Temple that has been maintained among the Orthodox. I should add that Eric's talk was excellent, highly informative, and he took the reasonable position that we should observe Tisha B'Av, not because we want to rebuild the Temple, but because it is a day of mourning for the loss of life, and because the events it represents did serve to define our religion as we know it today (the destruction of the first Temple led to the Babylonian captivity and the beginnings of Rabbinic Judaism, the destruction of the second Temple to the ascendancy of Rabbinic Judaism). So, I asked Eric to read the Haftarah (a reading selected from the other books that make up the Holy Scriptures, typically from the Prophets, that complements the Torah portion) in English, because it is meant to connect to Tisha B'Av as well as the first portion from Deuteronomy. And here's the reading, from the beginning of the Book of Isaiah:

1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken; Children I have raised and exalted, yet they have rebelled against Me. 3. An ox knows his owner and a donkey his master's crib; Israel does not know, my people does not consider. 4. Woe to a sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity, evildoing seed, corrupt children. They forsook the Lord; they provoked the Holy One of Israel; they drew backwards. 5. Why are you beaten when you still continue to rebel? Every head is [afflicted] with illness and every heart with malaise. 6. From the sole of the foot until the head there is no soundness-wounds and contusions and lacerated sores; they have not sprinkled, neither have they been bandaged, nor was it softened with oil. 7. Your land is desolate; your cities burnt with fire. Your land-in your presence, strangers devour it; and it is desolate as that turned over to strangers. 8. And the daughter of Zion shall be left like a hut in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. 9. "Had not the Lord of Hosts left us a remnant, we would soon be like Sodom; we would resemble Gomorrah." 10. Hear the word of the Lord, O rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, O people of Gomorrah! 11. Of what use are your many sacrifices to Me? says the Lord. I am sated with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle; and the blood of bulls and sheep and hegoats I do not want. 12. When you come to appear before Me, who requested this of you, to trample My courts? 13. You shall no longer bring vain meal-offerings, it is smoke of abomination to Me; New Moons and Sabbaths, calling convocations, I cannot [bear] iniquity with assembly. 14. Your New Moons and your appointed seasons My soul hates, they are a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing [them]. 15. And when you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you, even when you pray at length, I do not hear; your hands are full of blood. 16. Wash, cleanse yourselves, remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes, cease to do evil. 17. Learn to do good, seek justice, strengthen the robbed, perform justice for the orphan, plead the case of the widow. 18. Come now, let us debate, says the Lord. If your sins prove to be like crimson, they will become white as snow; if they prove to be as red as crimson dye, they shall become as wool. 19. If you be willing and obey, you shall eat the best of the land. 20. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord spoke. 21. How has she become a harlot, a faithful city; full of justice, in which righteousness would lodge, but now murderers. 22. Your silver has become dross; your wine is diluted with water. 23. Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves; everyone loves bribes and runs after payments; the orphan they do not judge, and the quarrel of the widow does not come to them. 24. "Therefore," says the Master, the Lord of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, "Oh, I will console Myself from My adversaries, and I will avenge Myself of My foes. 25. And I will return My hand upon you and purge away your dross as with lye, and remove all your tin. 26. And I will restore your judges as at first and your counsellors as in the beginning; afterwards you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City. 27. Zion shall be redeemed through justice and her penitent through righteousness.

We then returned to the regular service, with the traditional Aleinu prayer, but following that, and before starting on the Mourner's Kaddish, I added one more reading, again a responsive reading adapted from song lyrics, this time from Bob Dylan's Forever Young:

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
And may you stay forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
And may you stay forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
And may you stay forever young,
May you stay forever young.

Dylan took the opening line, May God bless and keep you always, from the priestly benediction that was traditionally made by the Cohenim (the House of Aaron, brother of Moses, who were the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, from whence the Jewish last name of Cohen and variations such as Kahn), and that first appears in The Book of Numbers:

The Eternal spoke to Moses: Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them:

The Eternal bless you and keep you!

The Eternal deal kindly and graciously with you!

The Eternal bestow favour upon you and grant you peace!

Thus they shall link my name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them. (Numbers 6:22-27)

This is a contemporary translation, but the older wording that I grew up with was more along these lines:

May God bless you and keep you;
May God shine His countenance upon you and be gracious to you;
May God turn His countenance towards you and place upon you peace.

Anyway, I've been wanting to use the Dylan lyrics in a service for some time now, and my son, who I had introduced the song to a while back, was eager for me to do so as well, so I'm happy I had the chance, and that he was there to see and take part in it.

Where We Live?

Where do we live? Well not in Connecticut, or at least I don't, maybe you do, but that's besides the point, as I recently made an appearance on Connecticut Public Radio. Well, appearance isn't the right word, after all, radio being an acoustic medium, so I guess you could say that I recently sounded off on Connecticut Public Radio, which describes itself as follows:

WNPR - Connecticut Public Radio

Hartford/New Haven: 90.5 FM
Norwich/New London: 89.1 FM
Stamford/Greenwich: 88.5 FM
Southampton, NY: 91.3 FM
Storrs: 99.5 FM (translator)

WNPR offers news, information and entertainment programming that is available to listeners both on the radio and online. The award-winning WNPR news department originates in-depth news reports on issues and events of importance to Connecticut – such as politics, technology, business, the environment and the arts – that frequently are selected for national broadcast on NPR.

The name of the program I was invited to participate in--it was originally framed as an interview, but it was a bit more like a discussion, is Where We Live, hence the title of this post, and the host is John Dankowsky, and here's what he looks like:


Not that you need to know what he looks like, since this is radio after all, but that's what the web does to radio, for good and mostly ill I would say. Not that there's anything wrong with the way this fellow looks, mind you, just that it ruins the whole mystique of radio, with its disembodied voices from the ether... but what can you do, that's the way the media environment crumbles, so they say, and ether way you look at things, there's nothing much to be done about it. So, for good measure, here's another picture for ya:


So, anyway, I do want to say that I very much liked this guy, John Dankowsky, I thought he was a bright and articulate host, and needless to say, I was very pleased to discover that he has an interest in media ecology. Very cool. So anyway, John's program, Where We Live, is described as follows:

This WNPR-produced, interactive program explores important issues and ideas that affect where, how and even why people live in Connecticut – and how Connecticut fits into a global society. Using the award-winning producers of WNPR News, Where We Live expands in-depth, original reporting, creating conversations that will draw in newsmakers, opinion leaders and engaged citizens.

Not too shabby, eh? And you can get this and more on the Where We Live website, which I've linked to here, so if you had just clicked on Where We Live you'd be home by now. But you might miss the rest of this blog post. And there really isn't that much more to it, so stick around just a little bit more, whydon'tya?

So, the program I participated in aired on Wednesday, August 13, 2008, and if you're reading this blog post soon after its posting, there will still be a link right on the Where We Live page, under the heading of Episodes, the episode bearing the title Media Ecology: Is Technology Helping? If not, you may have to go back through the archives from that page. Or... just click here to go the episode's very own page.

The episode begins with the author, Dick Meyer, talking about his recently published book, Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millenium. Dick is the editorial director of digital media at NPR, and was a longtime columnist and reporter for CBS News. His book is very much in line with other cultural critiques familiar to media ecologists, such as Daniel Boorstin's The Image, Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, and more recently Tom de Zengotita's Mediated. The critique is about the decline of civility and community, and the tendency to be divisive and argumentative, in contemporary American culture. It's basically a rant, with some sense that media play a role in what's happened--after all, he's a journalist/columnist, not a scholar's in-depth study. Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death is listed in the bibliography, but not discussed in the book itself, missing out on Neil's cogent explanation for the decline of discourse. McLuhan is mentioned, misquoted actually, but does not appear in the bibliography. Overall, Meyer provides a good overview of the symptoms, which can be useful to someone employing a media ecological framework to provide an explanation for why things have changed.

As you can tell, I actually went out and bought the book prior to the show, and read it. But as it turns out, the part of the show I was involved with, while continuing the discussion on whether technology is good or bad (a good question for generating a lot of heat, but not much light), did not directly address Dick Meyer's Why We Hate Us. Oh well, reading it certainly did no harm!

So, Meyer was on for about 15-20 minutes, and then he was gone and they turned to me, and to Alex Halavais, a professor at Quinnipiac University, who I know through communication, and media ecology circles, and they also had folks calling in. I had the pleasure of sitting in one of WFUV's studios at Fordham University--WFUV is our own outstanding public radio station. The discussion itself was quite good, I thought, given the limited time that even a public radio program affords.

On an interesting side note, I mentioned that I was getting tweets on Twitter during the program, although unfortunately no one tweeted anything worth mentioning, and not long after the program aired, several new people started following me on Twitter.

So, on the Media Ecology: Is Technology Helping? page you can listen to or download the entire program, there's an area to leave comments, they have a link for the Media Ecology Association, and a link to a page they set up for me! Check it out by clicking here! I am very pleased to be included on their website as well as their program, so I'll stop yakking here so that you can go listen to me yakking there. And why not leave a comment on their Media Ecology: Is Technology Helping? page, if you feel like it? I'm sure they'd appreciate you utilizing the technology to its fullest.

To Blog or Not To Blog?

To blog or not to blog, that is the question. It's been over a month since my last post here on Blog Time Passing. I guess it has something to do with fatigue, maybe health, maybe too many other things vying for my time and attention, maybe my interest or desire to blog has dissipated, or my inspiration's gone. No doubt, it's a combination of these and other factors.

The question before me now is, do I take this as a hiatus, not all that long in real time but seemingly so in blog years (which are akin to dog years), and pick up again? Or should I call the whole thing off? When you write a book, it has a beginning, middle, and end, the book itself, and also the process which comes to an end when the book is finally in print.

Blogs, on the other hand, are potentially a neverending story. But not necessarily so. Could you start a blog that consists of only one page, just one post? Sure! Why not? Of course, that would not be using the medium to its fullest capacity.

But that's besides the point.

Just, now, do I pick up where I left off, more or less? Do I blog on, dudes and dudettes?

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

The Creative Power of Media Ecology

It's been a busy time, preparing for the Ninth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association, which will be held next week (June 19-22) at Santa Clara University in California. The program is posted on the MEA website.

And we have been fortunate to have received some advanced publicity from an Los Angeles area periodical called Wide-Eyed. My friend, colleague, and co-conspirator in the MEA, Corey Anton of Grand Valley State University, is a regular contributor, the editor being one of his former students, and the current issue, which can be viewed or downloaded from their website, includes a couple of pieces by him, an interview with MEA Board member Doug Rushkoff, and a piece that they asked me to write. So, you can go take a look, even download the PDF, but for everyone's convenience and my own archiving purposes, I'm going to paste the short essay in below.

The
Creative
Power of
Media Ecology
BY: LANCE STRATE
Chances are, you’re reading this alone.
Even if there are other people nearby, I
doubt they are reading this along with you.
Even if they happen to be looking over your
shoulder, they aren’t reading the same
words at the exact same time as you are.
Reading is an alienating experience, turning
us into individuals.
Speaking, on the other hand, brings us
together in the simultaneity of sound, and
physical presence. Speech immediately
places us in a relationship, makes us kin,
forges tribal bonds. The reader is an
isolated individual, the audience a
collective, a group united by the experience
of listening.
In speech, we are joined in the moment,
which is fleeting. As Walter Ong said,
“sound only exists as it is going out of
existence.” Writing fixes words in a
permanent form, material and visual, so
that I can communicate to you from a
distance, and a time now past.
And as for me, I am little more than a
figment of your imagination. I am not
present for you, nor can you see or hear
me. In reading this, you are essentially
bypassing the physical, and reading my
mind, thinking my thoughts, or rather,
thinking thoughts that I once had, and set
down in writing.
Of course, to me, you are even less real, a
barely imagined fantasy, a glimmer of a
possibility, an abstract and generalized
other. I jot these words down on a pad,
addressed to no one in particular. By the
time you read this, these words will have
been typed into my computer, revised, sent
on to the editor, edited and copy-edited,
put into page layout, proofed, reproduced,
and distributed.
By the time you read these words, the me
that wrote them will be gone, replaced by a
slightly older version of myself, and I
myself will read them as if they were
written by a stranger—as Eric Havelock
put it, “writing separates the knower from
the known.” By the time you read these
words, I may not even be alive. But through
these words, a trace of me can live on.
The written word, independent of the
specific content or uses it is put to, is
fundamentally different from speech. And
a handwritten document is fundamentally
different from the impersonal technology
of print. And the printed page is fundamentally
different from text appearing on
your computer screen.
A picture is not worth a thousand words,
contrary to popular wisdom, as Susanne K.
Langer has shown us. Pictures may serve
as evidence, but they cannot present
arguments. They do not make statements,
unless we add a caption or interpretation.
They can be faked, but they are neither true
nor false, they just are. As Neil Postman
argued, the reason why the Second
Commandment forbids the use of all
imagery is that it represents an attempt to
change the way people think and view the
world, from one rooted in imagery and the
concrete, to a more abstract and literate
approach that open the door to monotheism
and ethics.
Every medium has its own bias, influencing
how and what we communicate. Artists
know that the same subject will yield
different results if they use oil paint or
watercolors, or if they sketch with charcoal,
or pastels, or if they were to form a
sculpture by chiseling stone, or carving
wood, or molding clay. Musicians can tell
you that the same melody creates a
different effect if played on violin, or
trumpet, or kazoo. This simple rule applies
to all of our media, and every one of our
technologies. And so we arrive at McLuhan’s
famous aphorism, “the medium is the
message,” by which he also meant that our
technologies and our symbol systems
influence the way that we think, feel, and
perceive, as well as our culture and
social organization. The key to understanding
media is to understand media
as environments, to understand that we
live within our words and our images,
our pages and screens, and of course
within our buildings and cars and cities.
Media ecology, the study of media as
environments, is the key to the most
creative mode of thinking imaginable. And,
it is the key to our future.

LANCE STRATE PHD.
Graduate Director of Communication
and Media Studies at Fordham University
President of The Media Ecology Association

And there you have it, minus the cool and groovy layout and graphic design. Many thanks to Wide-Eyed editor Benjamin Hunter for getting the word out about the MEA over on the west coast.