Hydrophobic

I’ve been reading a lot recently – mostly satirical fantasy from one of my favorite authors – Terry Pratchett. It’s a nice escape from this crazy present. I came across a point in his book, “The Light Fantastic”, that I thought was actually very applicable to the general feeling in the air in our country right now. This may seem very strange but stick with me!

It’s a particular part of the book where the heroes of the novel – a ‘tourist’ (which is a novel idea in a dangerous fantasy world – very American tourist overtones) and a wizard who actually can’t do magic are being retrieved from an isolated island by a disc powered by a group of ‘hydrophobe wizards’. These are people who have been raised from birth to detest water – to the point where they repel water physically. Therefore when these pour souls are strapped to a disc and put over water, a form of ‘levitation’ occurs.

But anyways, and please stick with me – we are almost there. The main character is explaining the idea to his tourist companion and the following exchange results:

“You mean they hate water?”

“No, that wouldn’t work. Hate is an attracting force, just like love. They really loathe it, the very idea revolts them. They make great weather magicians. Rain clouds just give up and go away.”

Hate is an attractive force – which is surprising but true when you think about it. It seems like everyone these days hates something, or someone. It has become a matter of course that you hear a lot of hate floating around. Hate attracts, people love to hate – and I think we need to be conscious of this. Maybe we need to focus on what we love, and what we can do to improve the world.

Hate can mobilize – but it also polarizes. For each action there is a reaction. Let’s recognize, organize, empathize and try to change things.

Nationalism

I try to steer clear of politics because it’s often an area where people’s egos are intimately tied and it’s not worth losing friends over, but sometimes maybe it’s worse to not say anything at all. I recently visited the spot where World War I began, on a street corner in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. I wanted to share my thoughts about what I’ve learned, because what happened in that city seems very relevant today.

On this street corner, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was shot by someone people describe as a Serbian nationalist, which through complicated alliances brought all of Europe and America into WWI. From what I’ve read about him, he seems to me like a 19 year old kid that was manipulated and radicalized by foreign militants. Does that sound familiar?

Nationalism is the often repeated claim by politicians that your country is the best, and must be ‘protected’ from outside influence. This protection usually consists of overt aggression and uncalled for violence and hate toward foreigners and minorities. It’s rooted in the same instinct that drives professional athletics, a sense of belonging and rallying around an invented enemy. It comes along with economic and social policies that stifle the lower class, decrease international cooperation and raise tensions and walls.

Nationalism resurfaced in Bosnia in the 1990s. There are three major populations of people there, the Bosniak Muslims, the Croatian Orthodox Christians and the Serbian Catholics. They decimated their country, killing over 100,000 people because identity and religion mattered more than their lives. The city of Sarajevo underwent a 3+ year long siege from April 1992 to Feb 1996, during which 14,000 people died.

The country is still divided into these three groups. In fact they have three presidents. You have to choose one group when you register with the government as an adult, and your choice affects your career opportunities and therefore the rest of your life. They speak three ‘different’ languages that are actually the same language. The younger generation is moving away from this outlook thankfully, but strangely enough it’s still there.

As a result of the violence in the middle east and the refugee crisis Europe has been trending towards extreme, nationalistic political groups. It seems there is a large effort throughout the world recently to draw up boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’, to build walls and to alienate others. It goes without saying that this is happening in the US as well.

We have seen what this kind of thinking results in, and it should be avoided at all costs. People want to belong to something, to work together to have a purpose, but inventing false enemies and preying on fear should not be employed by leaders for power.

*As a side note, I wanted to say that Bosnia and Croatia are both very peaceful nowadays, the people are wonderful, the landscapes are gorgeous and it’s super cheap! The past is always present, from bullet holes in walls to tough expressions on peoples’ faces, but it seems like everyone is moving on and determined to grow and enjoy the peace there today.

 

Alligators, Bathtubs and B flat.

 

This story involves french tourists, a sewing circle, a high school marching band and alligators in bathtubs. This is a story told by and experienced by Robert Krulwich, of NPR and the Radiolab podcast (highly recommended!).

Robert was a reporter for a major news organization back in the 90s, and as always was chasing his singular and peculiar passions in his work, much to the chagrin of his editor. But on this particular day he was traveling by plane from one city to another, covering some story or other. He sat next to a man, introduced himself and found himself talking about the fine art of golf ball retrieval.

In order to retrieve golf balls from a Florida golf course you would often have to wade into water holes. This was often made particularly exciting by the alligators already inhabiting those water holes, and turned a routine profession into something with a little more bite. As a direct result of this business the man on the plane, who later was discovered to be a huge name in the business, had a unique collection of freshwater alligators in his basement. The Mrs didn’t approve I’m sure.

In fact, one night a flock of Mrs’s were having a very polite sewing circle meeting on the floor above and a new woman rang the doorbell. It was her first night there and there was no doubt much hubbub and commotion over a new joining member. She set up her personal, antique, Singer sewing machine, turned it on and it started to hum a neat B flat.

The reason I know the tuning of this particular antique Singer sewing machine is that the resulting ROAR heard from the basement, from the large collection of alligators in bathtubs, definitely made an impression on the ladies. Apparently the Bb from that machine offended the animals below, and they all let loose in a resounding chorus of growls.

Now a normal person would say, “that’s a neat story”, but Robert Krulwich is no normal person. No, he had to get to the bottom of this! He put an experiment of sorts into motion, leveraged his editor and a camera crew to travel to the Florida swamps with nothing short of the local high school marching band.

They pulled up in the bus, got out with all the flair, feathers and filigree of a high school marching band and every instrument was instructed to play a resounding Bb into the swamp while on camera. All of the anticipation, excitement and feathers collectively drew a breath, played, and immediately nothing happened at all. Reality and ridiculousness became inescapable, and self-respect was ebbing.

Good thing a French family had been passing through this particular wetland area, had watched the spectacle and then got to talking to the crew because the man recognized a crucial point. The alligators, in the basement of the sewing circle’s house, had been in bathtubs! The porcelain no doubt amplified the sound, irritated the gators and caused the result.

So the whole crew, marching band and french tourists included, packed up and drove down the road to an outdoor aquarium, where several hundred alligators were kept in concrete pens. With the same flair for drama the band once again paused for breath, and played a billowing Bb, which was quickly followed by lots of bubbles.

It seemed like the whole pool was full of bubbles. (This was later discovered to be the alligators shaking and taking a deep breath of their own). Then RAAAAAAAR!!!! The landscape erupted in alligator bellows and a sense of excitement and relief flooded through all attending. A roar from the crowd and a wonderfully unique story later, there you have it. Alligators don’t like Bb. I’m not sure why, or for that matter that they should be kept in bathtubs, but that’s another story.

Here’s some people playing Tubas at alligators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOvI7zl22wQ

Here’s the Radiolab episode of this story: http://www.radiolab.org/story/happy-birthday-bobby-k/

 

Emergence: Many Thinking as One

Common knowledge and post-professional sporting event riots dictate that a crowd’s IQ is much less than that of its individual members. What if the exact opposite were true? It would certainly provide a small measure of comfort if so, considering candidates for the presidency are now comparing the size of their… hands.

I heard a great podcast by Radiolab, based out of NYC public radio (highly recommended) that talks about this, and I have to credit this podcast with many of the examples in this post. Emergence has sort of fascinated me ever since I learned about bacteria and biofilms, and started thinking of organisms like bees and ants as one big superorganism.

There’s a common Psychology 101 test that professors do where they ask a class to guess the number of jelly beans in a glass jar. No one usually gets the answer correct, but when you calculate the average number that people guessed, it’s usually extremely close to the correct answer. This is a phenomenon that has been observed time and time again. The group as a collective mind, when logically put to a task is actually very accurate.

Another way to think about it is when you’re walking through a park and you use a dirt path that cuts diagonally from one paved path to another. One person by themselves did not create this dirt path, and there’s no communication between people walking along it, but the most efficient route is found by accident by the group as a whole.

This is how ants find the most efficient path to a resource. A scent trail is left by one ant, and while others also find the resource by a different route, the first ant has the most efficient route so he gets back first, reinforcing the smell. This attracts more ants and eventually the group uses the most efficient path and the other paths are forgotten.

     

This is how your brain works as well.* When you’re learning you’re trying out a bunch of different ways to solve a problem, eventually finding the most efficient solution. Experts surgeons for example become so by trial and error, and the most efficient methods are reinforced. In fact specific motor skills are represented by physical neural connections within the brain. When you know how to do something, there’s a pattern of neural connections in your brain that represents that knowledge.

We ourselves are a network of smaller parts, and the singular “me” is actually a complicated and beautiful pattern. This pattern extends to others, who can be seen as one being when acting together. You can ask yourself, how do cities form character? Why would you say a neighborhood has a personality? It’s not because one person lives there, it’s because the individuals in that neighborhood make up a larger group’s personality.

This continuum, starting with the arrangement of atoms, extends outside of us and includes other species, plants and even inanimate objects. We’re made of the same parts that rocks and the sun are made of, just arranged in a different order.**

I don’t know about you, but this gives me some comfort when considering things like politics or climate change. That we’ll get things right eventually, even if mistakes are made in the process.

Check out the Radiolab podcast here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91500-emergence/

 

* Shoutout to Hex, the thinking machine powered by ants #TerryPratchett

** Some, however may be closer to inanimate objects than others.

 

Identifying Shells from Scotland, Spain and Massachusetts

I’ve always loved walking along the beach collecting shells, and just for the thrill of it I decided to identify these shells from three different beaches I’ve visited recently. I was struck by the differences and just wondered what the animals these shells came from looked like. The top row is from Portobello beach in Edinburgh, Scotland, the second row is from Sitges, Spain, and the bottom row is from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Most of them appear to be bivalves, which are sedentary animals that extend their siphons up to the surface of the sand for feeding and respiration during high tide, and then when the tide goes out they use their muscular “foot” to burrow into the sand in the intertidal zone. By hiding in the sand on shore they are protected from predators and dessication. So when you’re walking on a beach there are likely millions of these guys living below your feet!

Another strategy that some bivalves use (such as mussels and the common limpet) is to cement themselves to a hard surface or another shell permanently. These bivalves are more exposed to animals like lightning whelks, who drill through their shell, extend their proboscus and suck out their prey!

The top row from Edinburgh turned out to be Patella vulgata, or the “common limpet”, a common edible european sea snail. Apparently they grow on rocks and you can pry them off with a knife, and are supposedly delicious with butter and black pepper.

     

I believe the three shells in the very middle of the photo (from Spain) are Cerastoderma edule or the “common cockle”, which is found commonly on European beaches. These are the ones that burrow down into the sand below your feet. This species is also eaten widely and even farmed commercially in the UK.

Back in the neolithic age (6000 B.C.) primitive humans used these shells to create pottery decorations, the raised lines of the shell causing imprints on the clay. This type of pottery is known as “Cardial” because the old latin name for  Cerastoderma edule was Cardium edulis.

The three shells in the bottom left of the photo (from Cape Cod) appear to be in the family Pectinidae, which are also known as scallops. These guys don’t have a siphon like other bivalves, and actually catch plankton in their mouths. They have 100 bright blue eyes all around the edge of their shells that can distinguish from light and dark, and they can actually swim in short bursts by shooting water through their shells!

I believe the bottom right, spiraled shell (another from Cape Cod) is a Lightning Whelk (Busycon perversum) which is by far the coolest name. These are the predator sea snails mentioned earlier that extend their proboscis into the bivalves and suck them out like soup! The lightning whelk is so named because it’s the fastest draw’ in the west. Their sinistral (left) spiral was thought to be sacred by the Native Americans and it’s pretty unique to North America.

Here’s a video that shows you how big these snails can get, usually up to a foot long!

Summer

Procrastination can be productive. Sometimes its about finding real life hiding in the bushes, to prevent yourself from going robot. Here’s some music I recorded awhile ago that I mixed a bit today. Primarily instrumental, incorporating accoustic guitar, various noises. I also ran a few things back through a little Max MSP loop-machine project from college.

PastTime

These are a few loops I put together all the way back in ’09 for a college project, just got around to editing them. All self-recorded accoustic guitar and various noises.

G(uerrila)

Just having a bit of fun with loops and sounds in between. Everything is accoustic, recorded and mixed in garageband and Max MSP.

Fontainebleu, France, and a whirlwind of underground Paris

The forest is full of pines, sun filtering through sand at your feet and sandstone boulders exist just off the trail, like huge animals biding their time, watching. There’s nothing malicious about it though, there’s a stillness, a tranquility of nature. The boulders watch as a rabbit stops as you approach, taking you in, acknowledging your presence. You feel there is something very alive about the Fontainebleu forest. You’ve become a part of the scene, instead of just observing.

 

A group of French children perch on a nearby rock, and ask a question without pretense or introduction. You respond “Je ne parle pas francais”. “Oh! How are you! Hello! Good job!” All at once in return, not in any specific order. 

 

The routes are marked in what seems like ancient paint, color-coded circuits that have been developed over more than a century of alpinists enjoying an afternoon in the forest. Wipe the sand off your feet, and pull on the sandstone worn smooth by generations. Initial kid in a candy store turns old man, oh my back! Lunch breaks of baguettes and cheese, long summer days. 

The French countryside seems remarkably at peace in the surrounding crazy world. The news tells of middle eastern violence, and it seems a lifetime away. Enjoying the sunsets, sleeping somewhat soundly as the brain catalogs and lays down foundation. 

 

To Paris by train, a well-worn, often used vehicle shoots past sleepy villages. You get to the station, and narrowly realise you have to get off before it goes the other way. This continues to happen. A never ending maze of underground stairs, colored letters and people hurrying. 

You really wish you had paid more attention in middle school. On a train off a train, too many Charles de Gaulles, who was that guy anyways? Normally reserved, asking French strangers for help. Literally sardined, uncomfortably intimate and surprised the smell isn’t that bad. Maybe it’s the perfume. 

 

Crowds thin, an accordion plays and a child dances. You give the player some change. Peace. You emerge, walk for ages along chic, long hangers of Nespresso and baggage carts. Collapse, back to Scotland. 

 

 

 

Istanbul, a city of cats and coffee

Istanbul is a city I never really thought I would visit. After being there, I can’t imagine not seeing such a cornerstone of the modern world. It’s called the gateway between East and West, and it certainly feels that way today. Religion, culture, food, and language meet at this crossroads of tastes, smells, sights and sounds. It’s a city of millions of inhabitants from all over the world, all living under one roof.

Mornings begin with cheese, fruit and strong tea, followed by coffee. The word for ‘breakfast’ in Turkish, kahvaltı, actually means ‘before coffee’. Turkish coffee is a sandy, gritty affair, essentially unfiltered, strong espresso. Delicious but I wouldn’t drink the dregs. Honey and creamy butter on toast makes a perfect start to the day.

Water is a must in the summer heat, though everyone from adults to enterprising young children sell bottles wherever you go. One should always check the seal of the bottle is intact, to avoid slumdog millionaire water hustlers. In a city of 15 million, it’s staggering to think of how many plastic water bottles are discarded each day.

   

Street cats and dogs are in abundance, though they all seem very well taken care of. These animals walk the streets, turning corners and brushing past you like they’re late for an appointment. They’re welcome in about any establishment, from a streetside restaurant to Topkapi Palace, and lay in the shade without a care in the world.

  

There are about 150,000 strays in Istanbul. These street dogs and cats are widely accepted and fed by residents, and in the spirit of this the company Pudgeon has invented vending machines that take used plastic bottles and provide food for stray dogs.

While not solving over-population it’s certainly an original idea for improving animal welfare and perhaps for changing perspectives about these animals. The materials of the bottles make up for the cost of the dog food. Other ‘solutions’ have included a proposal to send a majority of the dogs to nearby forests, which was widely protested by animal rights activists because the animals wouldn’t likely survive outside the city.

   

Touristing is exhausting in this place. People constantly dodging in front of you, yelling their wares and inviting you into their restaurant. Exactly the opposite of strict British sensibility. The fish sandwiches are amazing and though filter feeding mussels are in abundance one risks a daily dose of mercury and/or lead toxicity with every delicious mouthful. Men line the streets and back alleys, sitting on stools and playing backgammon, while women herd the children around town.

Turkish delights, circular rolls, cigarettes and corn-on-a-stick are omnipresent as you wander between ancient mosques and palaces. The call to prayer pleasantly interrupts your evening, each singer taking their turn between nearby mosques. Before the advent of loudspeakers, the singers would climb hundreds of feet up the minarets and sing their hearts out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0E6FJxNi7I

A short ferry ride from the city, Prince’s Islands is a peaceful respite away from madness. Automobiles are banned on the islands, bicycles, horses and carriages taking their place. If you take your time and wander you might find a ‘secret’ beach to relax, passing small houses with cows, goats and sheep next to decaying Ottoman-era mansions. This was a place of monasteries and royal exiles, Byzantine empresses and Leon Trotsky, and is now a popular escape for locals.

   

A quick, early morning taxi takes you shooting through narrow, winding streets. A glimpse of a mosque and back to the midlothians. Exhausted, but a city vibrant, beautiful and very alive upon reflection.