Words Into Bytes

The objects of the present remind me of objects in the past. As such, they take on a depth unseen by other people. Every object has two natures. An object is simultaneously itself and a symbol of something else, an association made by the person perceiving the object.

If I expand the concept to include events as well as objects in this discussion, then it explains why I often experience the world on multiple levels. I experience the past and present simultaneously. The past intrudes verbally as an echo or visually as ghost image. These shadows of the past provide dimension, give a greater depth to experience than when I perceive it on the singular plane of the present.

Does my layered worldview create multiplicity and fragmentation? No. What it does is provide a connection with the past so that I am more whole. The scope of my experience is not just the present moment but a larger moment, where the past, present, and future are interwoven.

If you are sensual, then you might experience this echo on many different levels. The moisture in the air, the smell of the cedar smoke, the dampness of the fog against your cheek, the texture of a lover’s hair, all recall certain memories and allow them to mingle with the present.

In modern life, sadly, we are out of touch with our natural cycles. We keep clock time and live in artificial environments. I think this is why we feel cut off from things, although we don’t know exactly what we are cut off from. We search for a tradition that will restore our sense of connectedness. We cultivate habits to create our comfort zone. We look inside ourselves and develop our own lexicon of symbols.

Perception is a strange word because it means both observation and the translation of observation into useful conclusion. In the first sense I am perceptive. I notice things, everything.

A mesmerizing clock from Yugo Nakamura, of Business Architects, a leading web design firm in Japan: Industrious 2001.

The May 30, 2005 issue of The New Yorker contains Arthur Krystal’s rather scathing book review of A. Roger Ekirch’s At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. In fact, I might have never read the part of the article I found interesting, the last few paragraphs which touch on sleep patterns. Luckily I always read the New Yorker from the back, like I do all magazines, so I started with the end of the article, skipped to the beginning and then read on until I met myself in the middle.

Ekirch’s asserts that “until the close of the early modern era, Western Europeans on most evenings experienced two major intervals of sleep bridged by up to an hour or more of wakefulness.” Around midnight, they woke up, and instead of tossing and turning restlessly trying to get back to sleep, used the time to meditate, study, or talk.

In test subjects denied artificial light, their sleep patterns reverted to what was believe to be the pre-industrial pattern of broken slumber: “the subjects first lay awake in bed for two hours, slept for four, awakened again for two or three hours of quiet rest and reflection, and fell back asleep for four hours before finally awakening for good.” The researcher Dr. Thomas Wehr “likened this period of wakefulness to something approaching an altered state of consciousness not unlike meditation.”

Ekirch then theorizes that by replacing a 14-hour segmented sleep with an 8-hour seamless sleep, “we have lot touch with that deeper, more primal aspect of ourselves which emerges during moments after the first sleep.” Krystal thinks Ekirch’s stance that “segmented sleep is essential to some deeper understanding of who we are.” twists the evidence a bit too neatly.

I’ve long recognized that my own sleep/wake cycles are out of step with modern times. I used to think my ideal work day would be to work from 6AM to 11AM, rest from 11AM to 4PM and then work from 4PM to 8PM. In those days I usually slept through the night unless I was frantic about some deadline, when I’d wake up at 4AM. I wrote many a long email trying to explain some part of a project to my coworkers at 4AM.

Now that I have no schedule to keep, I tend to go to sleep around 11:30PM, wake up at 2:30AM, write or study until 4:30AM and then have a second sleep from 4:30AM to 7:30. I no longer lie in bed trying to sleep, because 1) it’s pointless, and 2) I don’t have to get up and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for anyone. So I’ve come to terms with my odd sleeping habits. Now here comes the Mr. Ekirch saying I’m normal; it’s the rest of you who are weird.

Apparently I hum to myself when I’m totally immersed in my writing. AJM had to keep kicking me under the desk because I was derailing his train of thought. So we both put on our headphones and pressed on. Usually when I’m writing I can’t listen to music with words in it as they distract me. But I decided I could try “Diamonds and Rust” because that was the song I was humming so it was playing in my head anyway.

Well I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call.
 
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall.

Despite my high tolerance for listening to the same piece of music over and over (or even just the same few phrases of a piece of music), eventually I decided to try something else. I settled on “Der Himmel Uber Berlin”, the main theme from “Wings of Desire“. Then I was called away to dinner.

When I finally got back to work, I realized that I’d left iTunes running. The song was still playing.

“It’s played 64 times!” I mentioned to AJM and then was silent.

He could not see my face behind my monitor. He peeked around to look at me. “I don’t think there’s a way you can reset it.”

I looked up startled. “How did you know I was thinking that?”

AJM laughed. “You just can’t stand for the stats to be wrong. It blows your whole system. ‘Panic! iTunes will think I like this song more than I do’!”

Well! It’s nice to be so understood.

I was trying to find a blue cotton yukata for AJM when I came across this kimono. The cream and peachy-red colors are atypical of what I usually find at the antique kimono shops in Nihon-machi (Japantown). The design is very understated and I like how the little red bells get larger and smaller and create a secondary pattern. The fabric is a cream on cream brocade, with subtle raised circles that aren’t obvious at first glance. In Japan, I would be considered far too old to wear these colors. And I have so many fabrics, yukata, and kimono at home–rarely used and most packed away. No, I didn’t need another kimono.

I bought AJM’s yukata and returned to the hotel. But I kept thinking about the kimono. That night at dinner. The next day while bike riding. The following day eating lunch at a brew pub. So, on Saturday, we walked from the Haight to Japantown and I bought it. Bonus: it was on sale–only $40. Less than what I paid for dinner at Ponzu the night before.

Impulsively I also bought these little plates. The only time I’ve ever enjoyed shopping for dinnerware was when I lived in Japan. There it was practically a passion. We’ve been looking for dinnerware to replace some a cheap set I bought 15 years with no success. These plates, like my other Japanese plates, don’t solve that problem. They are only four inches across. I was attracted to the design which echoes old-fashioned Japanese indigo prints.

The set of four was only $13.50. (I saw them in an upmarket shop at the Ferry Building later for $18 and felt smug indeed.) The one thing I thought was really strange is that these plates came in sets of four, an unlucky number in Japan where plates are always sold in sets of two or five. This set must be strictly for export.

Looking through the Marble Arch in Knutsford aka Cranford.

Beginning this month PBS is playing the BBC version of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford on Masterpiece Theater. Based on seeing the just the first episode so far, I think this adaptation captures the tone of the short stories perfectly: sweet and funny and a bit poignant. If you missed the first episode, you can catch up by watching it online.

Of course, I’m prejudiced in favor of Cranford; the village is a thinly-veiled Knutsford where Elizabeth Gaskell was raised. Knutsford is also where AJM was raised. (Technically he is from the small village three miles down the road which has little more than a post office and a convenience store.) I like to ramble through Knutsford and marvel at how Gaskell captured it and those wonderful “old ladies”.

Cranford is in possession of the Amazons, all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.

So begins the little book (really a series of short stories) that is at once nostalgic, for certain kind of genteel English parish life, and radical. I don’t mean that there’s an overt feminist message; I’m remembering only that Virginia Woolf considered a book entirely about women’s friendships radical 70 years after Cranford was published. But I digress. The best reason to read Cranford is because it’s funny. You do think a cow dressed in gray flannel waistcoat and drawers funny, don’t you?

Behind the humor, Mrs. Gaskell’s social conscience is still in evidence. The humorous stories do not ignore problems with poverty and class differences or the homogenization of place brought about by new technologies. Cranford does not want to be modernized and lose what distinguishes it from other places. These issues seem much more present, more a part of the narrative, than they are in Jane Austen’s books. Not that Cranford ever sounds preachy.

Minshull St connects King St and Princess St.

Even today, Knutsford is mainly a two street town and very picturesque. You can follow this map of Knutsford that explains the links between the real and fictional towns and their inhabitants.

Last year when I was in Knutsford, I experienced rather the same emotion that the Cranford characters felt when they were threatened with the building of the railroad. A Starbucks had been installed. A Starbucks in a town of antique shops, tearooms, and wine bars. It seemed so, as Miss Deborah would say, vulgar.

Cross Keys Hotel on King’s Street, Knutsford. The original Cross Keys Inn was demolished on 1909.

Selected Quotes

This is only a small list of my favorites from the first couple of stories. There is more, more, more. I’ll add to this list in time.

[The Cranford ladies'] dress is very independent of fashion; as they observe, “What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford where everybody knows us?” And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent: “What does it signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us?” – p 2

“Elegant economy!” How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford! There, economy was always “elegant,” and money-spending always “vulgar and ostentatious,” a sort of sour-grapeism, which made us very peaceful and satisfied. I shall never forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his being poor–not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously closed; but in the public street! in a loud military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house. – p 4

[Captain Brown, contradicting his hostess, says that he finds Dickens superior to Dr. Johnson, and reads a scene to the company.] Some of us laughted heartily. I did not dare, because I was staying in the house. – p 9

[Mr. Holbrook] took me all around the place and showed me his six-and-twenty cows, named after different letters of the alphabet. – p 32

When we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the poems he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of which she had boasted; but afterwards said it was becase she had got to a difficult part of her crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without having to talk. – p 35

“There were many old ladies living here then; we are principally ladies now, I know; but we are not so old as the ladies used to be when I was a girl.” – p 50

Good technology makes a task easier. It adapts to us and provides a tool that simplifies what we already do. Great technology redefines a task so completely that we change our behavior, not because we are forced to adapt to the technology but because the technology provides us with new ways to interact with the world and to do things we never imagined doing before. The iPhone is in the latter category. I’ve had mine for only a few days and I’ve been so constantly delighted that I can’t imagine how I lived without it.

When I bought my first Mac (Classic 512K) in 1985, my father couldn’t understand why I spent over $2,000 for “a glorified typewriter” especially when my refrigerator didn’t even work properly. And yet having a computer changed the way I wrote, changed what I wrote, and led me down a new career path to technical writing and finally programming. I might even say that had it not been for my first Mac, I’d never have been working as a course developer at ETI, never met AJM, and never bought this house or gotten married. That purchase did change my life. Now, nearly the same age as my father was in 1985, I find myself wondering why I should spend $500 for a phone. I hardly use my phone. I don’t have it on me when I’m working in the garden and I never remember to look to see if I have messages when I come in.

I had to spend a lot of time justifying the purchase of the iPhone. 1) It is my Christmas present and AJM wants me to have it. 2) My original iPod has been broken for half a year and so with the iPhone I’m replacing both my broken iPod and my old cell phone. 3) I’ve only ever had one cell phone and it is so old that I’ve had it before the old AT&T was bought out by Cingular who was then bought out by the new AT&T. My plan is so old, the new AT&T can’t even figure out how to upgrade me. 4) JQS has a new job which will be providing him with an phone thereby allowing me to drop his coverage from my plan and using the savings to pay for the extra coverage required by the iPhone. 5) AJM, JQS, and SAM all have video-enabled iPods and, although I initially thought watching movies on an itty-bitty screen was ridiculous, after seeing it, I’m sold. So after dragging my feet for six weeks, I went into the Apple Store in the Domain last Tuesday and bought an iPhone. Procrastination paid off. The very day I decided to make my purchased Apple came out with the new 16GB iPhones.

My First Day with an iPhone

7:31. Morning coffee. Each winter morning AJM makes me latte and brings it in to me before he dashes off to work. I gave up coffee several years ago so this latte is decaffeinated and mostly just foamy milk. I only drink it in the winter to warm up in the morning. After giving up coffee, I find the taste rather stale and nasty. Also, I’m not always such a lay-about. Probably half the nights my nose wakes me up and I get up early and go huddle on the couch and trying to sleep sitting up.

8:45. This morning, however, AJM has to testify in court for a coworker whose ex-husband has been stalking her. I offer to drop him off at the court house and pick him up afterwards. While he’s at court, I drive over to the AT&T store on 5th St in order to try to cancel my old phone number. Unfortunately they don’t open until 9AM. So I’m left with 45 minutes to waste and spend it trying to learn the settings on the iPhone and figure out some of the features. I’ve just changed the ringtone and decided to head back to the store when AJM calls. He’s finished his testimony. I pick him up and we go back to the AT&T store (because the old account is his name) and we cut off the service (I hope). As it turns out, we did the entire operation over the phone and they didn’t ask for AJM’s confirmation at all. So it seems I could have done it from home and without wasting either of our time.

9:34. I need to spend some time this morning reorganizing the house. I’m currently cleaning out every closet. As a result, every room is in upheaval with piles of things to be sorted through. Keep. Goodwill. Trash. The house looks like we’ve just moved in with boxes stacked everywhere. I decided to forego one of my other Christmas presents, a metal filing cabinet, because we don’t have any place to put it and it would be difficult to move around. So for about a tenth of the cost of the filing cabinet, I bought some plastic file bins. I used to have cardboard ones but both mice and bugs get into those and shred the papers. When going through my papers, I’m being very harsh. I try to imagine someone else having to sort it all out when I’m dead. Some articles I keep because of they have a historical interest that is also personal: like the 1977 article where I first read about videodiscs, or the 1983 article about the difficulties of wordprocessing Chinese characters. But I manage to put bags of other magazines and articles into the recycling bin. The question remains. What to do with all these back issues of the New Yorker? We pack each year’s issues into a box and put that box in the garage. Seeing it all laid out, even AJM thought we should dispose of them. And yet, now that we’ve thrown out so much other stuff, I’m dragging my feet and thinking we have room for them–at least for another year.

9:35. Why do housework when I can be playing around with my new toy? I’ve wanted a camera phone for a long time. When I travel, I use the timestamps on my digital photographs to record the diary of the trip. It’s faster and more convenient that writing it down. I haven’t figured out how to take a good photo with the iPhone yet. I have trouble holding it steady and the photo turns out blurry. Nor is the picture quality what I’m used to with my CoolPix. It’s especially poor in any light but bright sunlight.

11:43. Lunch with JQS. This is our last Wednesday lunch together because this is his last week at DPS. On Monday, he starts a new job with Vyke Communication and will be working way up north in Cedar Park. After he gets settled in his new job, we’ll have to start a new tradition. Maybe dinner and a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse. We ate at Banzai because it’s faster and cheaper than Mikado where we went last week. JQS always gets the chicken curry lunch special and I always get the unagi bento. This week, we were stymied because chicken curry is no long included in the lunch specials. We’ll probably never eat here again–not because of the chicken currry. But I wonder if they’ll think that’s the reason. “Only two days ’til retirement,” we joke as I drop JQS off at DPS for the last time. Sounds like a set-up for a Lethal Weapon movie.

12:40. Stuck in Austin traffic, southbound on Lamar at 6th St. on the way home. In my Miata, everyone else’s SUV looms over me. Usually I avoid this intersection by cutting over to Guadalupe around 15th St. Usually I run a bunch of errands that I’ve saved for my Wednesday out. This intersection is so much nicer now with the Flagship Whole Foods Market than in was in the 1980s when it was just a used car lot.

14:27. I’m on my way to the dentist when I do a double take at South 5th and West Mary. The old post office which is going to become the new Twin Oaks library is being torn down. Just last Saturday on the way to Central Market, AJM asked me if they were going to demolish it. I thought not. I stop and take a photo to email to AJM. The photo quality might not be great on the iPhone but the ease with which one can snap a shot and email it is fantastic. Although I’m very impressed with the keyboard on the iPhone, emailing a photo is even easier. I see myself sending photo updates rather than typing out email, especially, for instance, when I’m on a trip. This is one of the examples of how technology can change behavior by making it dead simple to do something I never even thought of doing before.

16:18. On my way home from the dentist I swing by Barton Creek Square Mall to buy a protective cover and holster for my iPhone. I want to be able to use it in the garden, both so that I can listen to music and so that I can be more connected to people trying to get in touch with me. Coming down the big hill on Loop 360 near Barton Creek, the phone rings and I realize I haven’t learned yet how to answer it. This distracts me just a moment, just long enough for me to almost hit the car in front of me which has slowed down for the light at the bottom of the hill. Whew! All day I’ve been so happy. It wouldn’t do to have a wreck now, especially given that I just got the car out of the shop yesterday.

I take almost half an hour trying to decide on the cover that’s going to work for me. One of the great improvements of the iPhone over the iPod is that the volume control is a physical button on the side. You don’t have to go through any screens to turn the volume up or down. There is also a button on the top to put the iPhone to sleep and another button to turn it on. I don’t want a cover that will block the access to any of these features.

16:43. When I arrive home, I IM AJM to tell him I got the iPhone holster and cover. He asks me to describe it and then thinks better of it. “Why don’t you take a photo of it and email it to me?” So I do.

iPhone Impressions

I love my iPhone so far. I keep it on all the time just like a communicator on Star Trek. Actually it is vastly superior to a communicator, as that was just a wearable walkie-talkie. I use the timer feature when watering plants while I’m working in the garden. (I’ve discovered that I can use my nose to work the timer when my hands are too muddy to touch the screen; that’s how simple the controls are!) I like having my calendar, address book, and email all integrated. The map feature is fascinating, especially how it knows where you are…even though it doesn’t use GPS.

I was disappointed with the Notes feature. I thought I’d be able to upload Notes and carry them with me…like my book and wine lists which I use when I’m shopping so that I don’t buy something I already have. But no. You can only take notes and then email them to yourself. No way do I want to laboriously type out a note on the iPhone keyboard. In this instance, old technology is still better. And for some reason, the To Do list on the calendar doesn’t work either. So if you want to keep a To Do list or any other kind of list with you, there is no elegant way…yet.

The iPhone is very intuitive. When I looked up a restaurant to get the phone number for takeout, I tapped on the number on the screen and it went immediately into phone mode and asked it I’d like to call the number. Wow! When you are listening to iTunes and a call comes in, your song pauses and then starts up again at the same point when you’re finished talking. However, if you go into other modes that don’t require sound, the song continues playing. Having a physical button for sound control is great, so much better than the iPod. And the fact that the font on the screen is large is fantastic. I could never see any of the controls on my iPod without my glasses but can do almost everything on the iPhone without them. The calendar display is better than the calendar on my computer.

Yes We Can

Making up my movie list for 2007, I realized that I just don’t see enough movies anymore. So on the first cold, rainy day of the year, I headed to the Alamo Drafthouse for a movie and lunch. Sitting in the darkness of the almost empty theater, I felt that familiar thrill, the anticipation of entering into an alternate landscape and timescape.

Sometimes I find myself secretly rooting for a movie while watching it, hoping that it is going to live up to its promise and not make a wrong turn or embarrass itself. Despite the generally good press, initially I had my doubts about Juno. It took ten minutes or so for me to be drawn into the movie. In those early scenes the soundtrack is less accompaniment for the visuals than the other way around. I felt Juno wasn’t so much a movie as a big-screen music video. The opening credits and scenes scream indy coolness as does perky Juno herself. It was trying too hard. Also, in these early scenes, Juno is all wisecracks and insouciance. Getting pregnant is a bummer but she has a handle on it. No biggie. However, when the dialog comes to the forefront and the characters begin to reveal themselves, the movie engaged me. As it turns out this is how it should be. Juno’s not the kind of girl to reveal her inner self to anyone immediately. Over time we see beneath her facade. As she tells her father, “I’m trying to handle things beyond my maturity level.”

Much has been written about Ellen Page and she is a delight as Juno. But had the movie relied on her alone it would have been one-dimensional. The supporting cast, especially Juno’s dad, J.K. Simmons, and her step-mother, the always wonderful Allison Janney bring depth to the movie. They’re brilliant! Movie parents are so often caricatures, especially parents of pregnant teens. These parents are disappointed with Juno’s news but they are not hysterical. And when Juno is out of the room the roll their eyes and talk about her the way parents of teenagers really do. “Did you see this coming?” “Yeah, but I’d hoped she’d be into drugs or expelled from school.” Watching the interplay between Juno and her parents it is easy to understand where she gets her frankness and her earnestness. Most appealing to me was the matter-of-fact practicality with which all three characters faced the situation. What’s done is done; now what’s the plan?

I was reminded of last year’s Little Miss Sunshine. That movie really played up the family as a collection of mismatched eccentrics. Despite some very poignant and serious family issues, ultimately Little Miss Sunshine was played for laughs, a celebration of the dysfunctional family. Juno shows more restraint. It is more real and more genuinely sweet, and at its foundation it is a celebration of the functional family without any sticky sentiment. Juno always respects its characters, all of them, not just the protaganist. In Juno the resolution of the story rings perfectly true because it grows naturally from all that comes before. And yet, it was not a pat ending, or even a predictable one.

I disagree with Roger Ebert assessment of Juno as the best movie of 2007. However, I’ve only seen it once and many movies grow on me with repeated viewings, so I may yet change my mind. Ebert also says that Juno has “no wrong scenes and no extra scenes”. Not so. The scene with the women’s clinic punk receptionist was played too much for comedy and did not ring true to my own experience as so many other scenes did. Did Jason Reitman feel it necessary to villify the women’s clinic so that Juno could have some clear cut motivation to flee it? Most of the film is so nuanced that the scene seemed out of place. Also if Juno is so smart, I have to ask (along with her Dad) how did she get pregnant? Where was the condom? All of Juno’s moves are so calculated. This was by her own admission “premeditated sex”. I don’t think it’s in her character to be that dumb even raised in these times of watered-down sex education.

The movie Juno most reminds me of is Ghost World. That would make an interesting double-feature. Perhaps I’m imagining a similarity because there are so few movies about thoughtful teenage girls.

Myers-Briggs

Especially appealing to TJs.

Bottom line: Recommended