I cannot stand to hear fricking Christmas music while it is still November! November, people!
As I write this, Starbucks is pumping out the crappiest, set-yer-teeth-on-edge jingley Christmas shit, and it's driving me nuts! What over-zealous moron at corporate head office is responsible for this?
Pity the poor Canadian retailers who do not have a big, overblown retail holiday sales event in November like their US counterparts. They have to artificially pump up the Xmas cheer meter a month earlier in order to try and shake us out of our complacency.
So, I complained (gently) to Lady Vee, a fellow blogger and sympathetic employee at our favourite Starbucks, and by the time I wrote this paragraph, the music mercifully switched to generic 50s crooner rock and roll, without the slightest hint of forced Xmas cheer! Yay!
No... wait, it was a fluke... just a random non-Xmas disk in the CD player I guess, because now we're back to Perry Coma or Mel Torme moaning on like a lovesick moose about chestnuts on a fire. Damn! It was too good to last...
Grrr...
November 14, 2004
November 13, 2004
What the bleep do I know?
I think this is a good question to ask myself from time to time.
Tonight, I went to see "What the bleep do we know?", a kind of info-tainment movie starring Marlee Matlin and host of physicists, theologians, biologists and spiritualists. The movie itself was not a revelation for me. I would describe it as an attempt to popularize ideas from quantum theory for a general audience. I liked the "dramatic plotline" starring Marlee Matlin as a young woman overcoming her own negative patterns and making a conscious change in the direction of her life. Otherwise, I thought the movie was too light on the science and too heavy on new age philosophy, juvenile humour and childish computer graphics. What can I say? I love educational television. I'm a bit of a geek. But "What the bleep do we know" was generally enjoyable, and did remind me that I hadn't read much physics or philosophy in a long while.
If you have read anything about quantum physics, you might be familiar with the idea that's particles can have more than one simultaneous state or position (called "superposition"), and may even have an infinite possible number of positions. The act of observing a particle causes this superposition to collapse down into one position, which is the one we perceive. This is basically, a dang trippy idea, and must be difficult for many people to accept. It's fascinating if we extend the idea of these multiple possibilities up to a human level, because it implies that the world as we know it is not permanently fixed in form and space, but is variable and constantly in flux.
The most influential teacher in my life, British Art Educator Tom Hudson, once told me that even though many people are present in this century, in terms of their education and the core concepts they believe, he felt that many are living with a 19th Century world view. I think it's fair to say that many people probably have a 19th century acceptance of physics, in terms of their everyday experience and how these ideas affect their lives. I think I'm guilty of this myself.
In the 70s and 80s, my Dad was an electronics technician at TRIUMF, the sub-atomic research facility located the University of British Columbia. TRIUMF is most well-known for it's Cyclotron, one of the largest particle accelerators in the world, which whips particles around at 75% of the speed of light and smashes then into targets so that scientists can analyze the results. Mesons and lots of other particles have been observed and measured using this massive machine.
My Dad was a technician, not a physicist, but his scientific and technical background rubbed off on me. He taught me some basic physical laws like "energy cannot be created or destroyed, just transformed from one form to another". I absorbed other ideas from popular culture - mostly TV. Along with Mickey Mouse's ears and Groucho Marks' moustache, I grew up with the motto "E equals em cee two". Of course, when I was eight years old, I didn't understand what the formula meant, nor what an exponent was, but I read and memorized the characters and learned their significance years later. Thanks to Star Trek and science fiction, I got an idea of what a black hole is.
So, maybe many of us have some appreciation for these concepts from 20th Century physicists like Einstein or Hawking. But I have to ask myself, after more than two generations since it's discovery, just how much of quantum theory has integrated itself into my culture? How much has it affected my understanding of my existence and that of the world around me.
For example, my common experience tells me that my body is distinct from the air that surrounds it. Yet I have been told that at the super-duper small, atomic level, it would be difficult to determine where the air ends and my skin begins. If I keep this idea in mind, it's easy to think of myself as being truly integrated and part of the world around me. At that level, we're all very similar. However, I have never been at this level to experience it for myself, so in order to integrate it into my view of life, I must, somewhat ironically, take it on faith.
So, while I'm immensely comforted by the idea that modern physics can provide a scientific model that reinforces, say, the Buddhist concept of interconnectedness or interdependence, it's all too easily overlooked from my human "macro" level unless I make a regular effort to remember it.
So, if I have to make a small effort to maintain this belief in atomic physics, how much more challenging will it be to keep ideas like "superposition" in mind?
I guess that faith and discipline are needed in order to keep my non-religious world view alive and developing. Doesn't that sound a little ironic?
Some links and reviews of this bleepin' movie:
Movie Review: Roger Ebert
Movie Review: Movie Magazine International
Official "What the bleep..." movie web site
Tonight, I went to see "What the bleep do we know?", a kind of info-tainment movie starring Marlee Matlin and host of physicists, theologians, biologists and spiritualists. The movie itself was not a revelation for me. I would describe it as an attempt to popularize ideas from quantum theory for a general audience. I liked the "dramatic plotline" starring Marlee Matlin as a young woman overcoming her own negative patterns and making a conscious change in the direction of her life. Otherwise, I thought the movie was too light on the science and too heavy on new age philosophy, juvenile humour and childish computer graphics. What can I say? I love educational television. I'm a bit of a geek. But "What the bleep do we know" was generally enjoyable, and did remind me that I hadn't read much physics or philosophy in a long while.
If you have read anything about quantum physics, you might be familiar with the idea that's particles can have more than one simultaneous state or position (called "superposition"), and may even have an infinite possible number of positions. The act of observing a particle causes this superposition to collapse down into one position, which is the one we perceive. This is basically, a dang trippy idea, and must be difficult for many people to accept. It's fascinating if we extend the idea of these multiple possibilities up to a human level, because it implies that the world as we know it is not permanently fixed in form and space, but is variable and constantly in flux.
The most influential teacher in my life, British Art Educator Tom Hudson, once told me that even though many people are present in this century, in terms of their education and the core concepts they believe, he felt that many are living with a 19th Century world view. I think it's fair to say that many people probably have a 19th century acceptance of physics, in terms of their everyday experience and how these ideas affect their lives. I think I'm guilty of this myself.
In the 70s and 80s, my Dad was an electronics technician at TRIUMF, the sub-atomic research facility located the University of British Columbia. TRIUMF is most well-known for it's Cyclotron, one of the largest particle accelerators in the world, which whips particles around at 75% of the speed of light and smashes then into targets so that scientists can analyze the results. Mesons and lots of other particles have been observed and measured using this massive machine.
My Dad was a technician, not a physicist, but his scientific and technical background rubbed off on me. He taught me some basic physical laws like "energy cannot be created or destroyed, just transformed from one form to another". I absorbed other ideas from popular culture - mostly TV. Along with Mickey Mouse's ears and Groucho Marks' moustache, I grew up with the motto "E equals em cee two". Of course, when I was eight years old, I didn't understand what the formula meant, nor what an exponent was, but I read and memorized the characters and learned their significance years later. Thanks to Star Trek and science fiction, I got an idea of what a black hole is.
So, maybe many of us have some appreciation for these concepts from 20th Century physicists like Einstein or Hawking. But I have to ask myself, after more than two generations since it's discovery, just how much of quantum theory has integrated itself into my culture? How much has it affected my understanding of my existence and that of the world around me.
For example, my common experience tells me that my body is distinct from the air that surrounds it. Yet I have been told that at the super-duper small, atomic level, it would be difficult to determine where the air ends and my skin begins. If I keep this idea in mind, it's easy to think of myself as being truly integrated and part of the world around me. At that level, we're all very similar. However, I have never been at this level to experience it for myself, so in order to integrate it into my view of life, I must, somewhat ironically, take it on faith.
So, while I'm immensely comforted by the idea that modern physics can provide a scientific model that reinforces, say, the Buddhist concept of interconnectedness or interdependence, it's all too easily overlooked from my human "macro" level unless I make a regular effort to remember it.
So, if I have to make a small effort to maintain this belief in atomic physics, how much more challenging will it be to keep ideas like "superposition" in mind?
I guess that faith and discipline are needed in order to keep my non-religious world view alive and developing. Doesn't that sound a little ironic?
Some links and reviews of this bleepin' movie:
Movie Review: Roger Ebert
Movie Review: Movie Magazine International
Official "What the bleep..." movie web site
November 08, 2004
My web site is is ranked #1 in Google.com
For the past week or so, my personal web site, www.ejohnlove.com has been ranked number 1 out of over 22 million results under the search term john love (no quotes)
That's just flipping amazing to me...
You never know how long these things will last... Google is always growing it's database...
...but anyway... Woo hoo!
That's just flipping amazing to me...
You never know how long these things will last... Google is always growing it's database...
...but anyway... Woo hoo!
November 07, 2004
House of Bush, House of Saud
I have been reading "House of Bush, House of Saud" by Craig Unger.
I highly recommend this book if, like me and many other people on both sides of the Canada/US border, you are wary or cynical about the actions of the Bush Administration.
It seems to me that this book had a strong influence on Michael Moore. It is cited frequently in his book "Dude - Where's my country" and the US-Saud connection is the central theme in his popular documentary "Farenheit 9/11". Moore is very adept at popularizing political and social issues, and using information from Mr. Unger's book (and other sources of course), he makes a strong case that many Americans do not know (or maybe don't want to know) about the connections between the Bush family and their associates, and the Saudi and Bin Laden families and their associates. As I recall, Unger states that the relationship between the Saudi royal family and the US Republicans (particularly the Bush family) goes back almost 40 years.
Excerpts from Unger's book and other information can be found at the "House of Bush, House of Saud" web site.
October 31, 2004
Horror: Art imitates life (sort of)...
I watched the Tim Burton film "Ed Wood" tonight. (Martin Landau's portrayal of Bela Lugosi is absolutely first-class.)
In the movie, it is Halloween, and Bela Lugosi answers the front door of his little suburban house in full Dracula costume, scaring all the little kids away, except for one little boy. "You're not Dracula", the little gaffer says cynically. "Those fangs aren't real." Bela is disappointed, but Ed Wood whips out his bridgework and says "These are!" and the little kid runs away shrieking.
Bela's signature character is too old school for the little boy, who is a product of television and the atomic age. The message here is that people in the late forties and early fifties are afraid of war, the bomb and nuclear mutations, not men with funny European accents and crazy eyes.
Bela calls Ed Wood in the middle of the night. "Eddie - help me..." Ed gets to Bela's house to find the furniture strewn around and Bela rambling drunkenly.
"Eddie. I'm broke. I can't pay my rent."
Bela is despondent and puts a small revolver to his temple, intent on ending it all. "Come with me Eddie. It will be beautiful!" Ed talks him out of it, and embraces him. Bela says he's sorry and begins to sob. In this scene, Martin Landau's Lugosi is a frail, despondent, drug addicted old man who has lost everything, including his dignity and fighting spirit. Lugosi's signature character and more importantly, Lugosi the man, have been largely forgotten and discarded. Ed Wood, practically destitute himself, still believes in his friend and is there to help him even when nobody else will. The helpless despondency of the old man, and the loving, compassionate hopefulness of the young man. Like the relationship of a son and his father.
* * * * * *
Eventually, Bela checks himself into a hospital to get help with his drug addiction. We watch Bela strapped in a hospital bed, shrieking and shaking - terrified and struggling with painful withdrawal symptoms.
A powerful scene for me; I watched my Mother go through it too. She was admitted for a hip operation and in recovery, she suffered severe withdrawal from the regime of medication given her as a long-term resident at Riverview mental hospital.
In "Ed Wood", Bela Lugosi's withdrawal screams are presented as part of the horror of the real world. We see a little old man screaming his head off, strapped to a hospital bed, as the camera watches him through a small window in the door. This resonated big time with me.
My mother, usually distant and uncommunicative from alcoholism-related brain damage (or medication or both) was strapped to a hospital bed, shaking it, her muscles and tendons rock solid, her face wide-eyed and screaming. After a few spasms like this, she would collapse back onto the mattress and rest.
"Are you scared Mum?" I didn't know what the hell else to say. I felt like an idiotic master of the obvious.
"Yes!" she yelled. She was so wound up, and god, she was terrified. That was a moment of real-world horror for me.
I love iconic horror figures like Dracula, but real life can be much more frightening.
October 30, 2004
A sense of fun...
At work, I usually tend to stay in my office a lot, working away at some web maintenance task and using deferred forms of communication such as email or ICQ to ask quick questions of my coworkers without needing actual human interaction.
I tell myself "I can't help it. I like email, and I prefer it to the telephone or face-to-face, at least for the little things". But underneath it all, I know that there is this little kid who really enjoyed being cloistered away in his bedroom listening to the radio and reading comic books for hours on end. I guess solitude has been a long-time companion of mine, if that doesn't sound too cheesy ;) (Christ - what a "drama boy")
However, every once in a while, something happens that throws that "I prefer solitude" self-model on its ear. Like today at work: I had volunteered to help the Activities Coordinators at our ESL school set up for a student Halloween party. I'm not the volunteering type, but this time I said yes, and was happy to pitch in. I figured I might be setting up chairs or hanging some lights or decorations - you know, helpy stuff like that, and then I'd be out and back to my workload in 30 or 40 minutes.
When the time came for me to pitch in, it turned out that I was asked to man a table in the "Haunted Room" (do I hear wolves howling?). This was Vancouver English Centre's version of a haunted house. The lights would be out and students could go from table to table trying out various (non)scary experiences. We had a Tarot card reading (although I thought it was supposed to be a Blackjack table), a Oiuja Board, a mysterious box thing, where you put you hand through one of six holes and maybe it gets grabbed by something inside (wooooo... creepy) and last but not least, me, with the "Goo Grab" table: a big salad bowl full of wet spaghetti and peeled grapes. (Maybe if one were blind and unprepared, you might momentarily be tricked into thinking it was a bowl of entrails with two scoops of eyeballs. Yum.)
Embedded deep in the bowels (eww) of my bowl were a number of white, red and black striped ping pong balls. If someone filched out a red ball, they got a big calculator. A black ball earned them the ultimate prize: an ESL grammar book. White balls were common, and resulted in a pick from the little candy basket.
Cut to the chase: I had a long line of students interested mainly in black balls and the resulting grammar books, and I had a blast encouraging them to submerge their mitts and try their luck. Wearing a black cape and some light-up deely-bobbers, I felt a bit like some kind of cheap Transylvanian carnival barker.
But, I had a great time, a hoot! And I don't mean getting some kind of thrill from watching people grope through cold pasta looking for small round items. (In fact, I never knew I liked that until just this afternoon. Who knew?)
I'm talking about the pure, simple joy of being social and having a small crowd of happy people to talk to and entertain with my witty banter and enthusiasm. It was fun and even a little exhilarating. I can honestly say that it brought out a side of me that I don't see as often as I should: that guy known as "extroverted, social, entertaining John". Maybe I need to see that guy more often. "Fussy, techie John" is certainly getting enough time in the spotlight. Maybe he should take five once in a while and let the other guy have a go.
I tell myself "I can't help it. I like email, and I prefer it to the telephone or face-to-face, at least for the little things". But underneath it all, I know that there is this little kid who really enjoyed being cloistered away in his bedroom listening to the radio and reading comic books for hours on end. I guess solitude has been a long-time companion of mine, if that doesn't sound too cheesy ;) (Christ - what a "drama boy")
However, every once in a while, something happens that throws that "I prefer solitude" self-model on its ear. Like today at work: I had volunteered to help the Activities Coordinators at our ESL school set up for a student Halloween party. I'm not the volunteering type, but this time I said yes, and was happy to pitch in. I figured I might be setting up chairs or hanging some lights or decorations - you know, helpy stuff like that, and then I'd be out and back to my workload in 30 or 40 minutes.
When the time came for me to pitch in, it turned out that I was asked to man a table in the "Haunted Room" (do I hear wolves howling?). This was Vancouver English Centre's version of a haunted house. The lights would be out and students could go from table to table trying out various (non)scary experiences. We had a Tarot card reading (although I thought it was supposed to be a Blackjack table), a Oiuja Board, a mysterious box thing, where you put you hand through one of six holes and maybe it gets grabbed by something inside (wooooo... creepy) and last but not least, me, with the "Goo Grab" table: a big salad bowl full of wet spaghetti and peeled grapes. (Maybe if one were blind and unprepared, you might momentarily be tricked into thinking it was a bowl of entrails with two scoops of eyeballs. Yum.)
Embedded deep in the bowels (eww) of my bowl were a number of white, red and black striped ping pong balls. If someone filched out a red ball, they got a big calculator. A black ball earned them the ultimate prize: an ESL grammar book. White balls were common, and resulted in a pick from the little candy basket.
Cut to the chase: I had a long line of students interested mainly in black balls and the resulting grammar books, and I had a blast encouraging them to submerge their mitts and try their luck. Wearing a black cape and some light-up deely-bobbers, I felt a bit like some kind of cheap Transylvanian carnival barker.
But, I had a great time, a hoot! And I don't mean getting some kind of thrill from watching people grope through cold pasta looking for small round items. (In fact, I never knew I liked that until just this afternoon. Who knew?)
I'm talking about the pure, simple joy of being social and having a small crowd of happy people to talk to and entertain with my witty banter and enthusiasm. It was fun and even a little exhilarating. I can honestly say that it brought out a side of me that I don't see as often as I should: that guy known as "extroverted, social, entertaining John". Maybe I need to see that guy more often. "Fussy, techie John" is certainly getting enough time in the spotlight. Maybe he should take five once in a while and let the other guy have a go.
October 29, 2004
A sense of family...
Lots of family and social themes came across my mind today.
I have been reminded of my parents - they're in my mind and heart daily; a sense of love, a sense of loss and sorrow, and every once in a while, an incredible moment of recognition of a pure feeling, like realizing that I used to feel safe and secure with my Dad, or how proud I was when my Mum dressed up in her finest clothes and mink coat.
These are like crystal clear musical notes that rarely resonate; strings plucked by some old, resurfaced association. I'm glad of them: they're the antidote to the sadness or bitter memories that are the flipside of my nostalgia.
Parents are frail. Parents love you and then sometimes hurt themselves or hurt you. Parents are humans who make mistakes. Now, the more I look back on the mistakes of their lives and how they affected me, I feel ever more compassion for two people who's struggles and mistakes shaped my early outlook.
I have been reminded of my parents - they're in my mind and heart daily; a sense of love, a sense of loss and sorrow, and every once in a while, an incredible moment of recognition of a pure feeling, like realizing that I used to feel safe and secure with my Dad, or how proud I was when my Mum dressed up in her finest clothes and mink coat.
These are like crystal clear musical notes that rarely resonate; strings plucked by some old, resurfaced association. I'm glad of them: they're the antidote to the sadness or bitter memories that are the flipside of my nostalgia.
Parents are frail. Parents love you and then sometimes hurt themselves or hurt you. Parents are humans who make mistakes. Now, the more I look back on the mistakes of their lives and how they affected me, I feel ever more compassion for two people who's struggles and mistakes shaped my early outlook.
October 21, 2004
We're number 12!
Wait a minute... We're number 12?
I just read in the Globe and Mail that Canada was judged the 12th least corrupt country by Transparency International, a Berlin organization that researches bribery and government corruption among public officials in 146 countries.
Finland, New Zealand, and Denmark are the top three. Haiti and Bangladesh are tied for last place. The USA is 17th. Iraq is waaaaay down there at 129.
Canada used to rank as high as fifth, but I guess we slipped a bit somewhere. (Can you say sponsorship scandal? I knew that you could.) Apparently, this is our worst ranking in 10 years.
Dang. Why can't we have high morals AND a strong dollar?
I just read in the Globe and Mail that Canada was judged the 12th least corrupt country by Transparency International, a Berlin organization that researches bribery and government corruption among public officials in 146 countries.
Finland, New Zealand, and Denmark are the top three. Haiti and Bangladesh are tied for last place. The USA is 17th. Iraq is waaaaay down there at 129.
Canada used to rank as high as fifth, but I guess we slipped a bit somewhere. (Can you say sponsorship scandal? I knew that you could.) Apparently, this is our worst ranking in 10 years.
Dang. Why can't we have high morals AND a strong dollar?
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