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PechaKucha Waterville volume 9 - 10/26/2012

10/28/2012

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I have been watching news of PechaKucha online, via Facebook, for quite a while.  I watched one or two presentations online and was intrigued.  Then I came to know Tammy Rabideau, orchestrator-in-chief, through our mutual involvement with Common Street Arts.  Her passion for  PKN (as it is abbreviated to avoid the awkwardness and insecurity of pronouncing it) convinced me to take her invitation deeper to heart than many invitations I receive.  Thus, I overcame the fatigue of a Friday night after a hell of a disjointed week, and the gravity of one daughter to be picked up from a school dance, and two other exhausted family members cozily schlumping out at home.  Much as I longed for a recliner, I installed myself in my car and ventured forth, up the long hill to Colby College, to try to find, in the dark, a venue I've not previously been to up there - Ostrove Auditorium.

After researching the campus map online and planning my route and parking location based on landmarks I do know, I found the building readily enough.  I had to park a good distance away, but the weather was kind and so the stroll to the building was comfortable enough.  The lobby of the Diamond Building was very full, and I recognized only a handful of the other attendees.  I stood still a bit and gauged the scene.  There was a nice blend of elderly, middle-age, and college age people.  Some snacks and synapse-lubricating alcohol were available.  I myself eschewed the hooch, since I was still on a steady diet of cold medications from the Acadian Death Cold that had been plaguing me for 20 days.  In fact, during my solo stroll to the building I engaged in some vigorous half-intentional power-coughing in an attempt to clear my lungs to sit silently and not be the most annoying man in the auditorium (which I probably only half-succeeded at).  Anyway, while a beer sounded good, I didn't want to risk the paranoid delusions I once experienced in college due to an unwise combination of otherwise innocuous cold remedies and alcohol.


After perusing the informational table, which only made partial sense without the benefit of the  upcoming presentations, I entered and selected a seat.  Ostrove is a fine, modern, comfortable venue.  Plenty of legroom I was delighted to find.  There's a lot of negativity and contrariness in the air of this nation and town due to election-season.  PechaKucha provided a much-needed antidote.

I was in for a night of inspiration and celebration of the human spirit.  As follows:

Inspiration #1:  The 180-seat Ostrove Auditorium was filled - in fact, there were people standing - for an event that is described by Tammy as "a symphony of ideas."  Smart people with open and creative minds.  Heartening to say the list.

Inspiration #2:  Izzy Labbe, the 14-year old emcee, was dynamite.  Her age would suggest she be referred to as a girl.  Her poise at the podium, her command of the crowd, and her sense of humor demand she be called a young lady.  I would easily have believed she was a college freshman rather than a high school freshman.

Inspiration #3:  The format.  Each speaker was well-rehearsed to keep their presentation in line with the 20 images they were permitted, each displayed for 20 seconds.  Really.  20 seconds.  The speaker could not control it.  This format is awesome because it keeps the momentum rolling, ensures people are concise, protects the audience against tedium and tangents (though I assure you I detected no such trends), and gives a fantastic rhythm to the event.

Inspiration #4:  Margy Burns Knight's (mother of Emilie Knight of Common Street Arts fame) germinating idea for a project examining statues of famous women throughout the country in conjunction with the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment.  I was astonished when she displayed a statue of a Native American woman from the Yavapai tribe in my hometown of Prescott, Arizona.  What are the odds?

Inspiration #5:  Gift Ntuli, an unassuming, kind, and genuine Colby student from Zimbabwe, who matter-of-factly described how he is bettering the lives of orphaned children in his homeland by coordinating the acquisition and delivery to them of solar lanterns so they can study after dark.  Their days are consumed with school and survival, since most of their parents have died from HIV/AIDS.  The lanterns permit them to study and perform additional chores after night falls.  I was moved nearly to tears at how this young man happily described how he has put this project together, and how he intends to continue it and expand it.

Inspiration #6:  The friendly, warm, beverage-sipping speech of James Chute describing his project of making drawings while interviewing over 50 female artists.  His drawings were juxtaposed with images of representative works by the interviewees.

Inspiration #7:  The whimsical-yet-questioning relief and installation art of Barbara Sullivan.  She called them frescoes, but to me it was more relief-like in nature.  All of it insightful and tinged with humor, her work reminded me of why I've come back to seeking art after a couple of decades out of touch with it.

Inspiration #8:  Chatting with librarian Sarah Sugden about the so-called "creative economy" in Waterville and it's potential to invigorate Waterville, during which we got that delightful fervent head-nodding "you're so right" kind of effect going.

Inspiration #9:  Tammy Rabideau publicizing and talking up Common Street Arts and, when she asked how many people in the audience had visited the gallery/studio, seeing half the hands in the place go up.

Inspiration #10:  Laura Lessing's presentation of the mysteries confronting a curator at Colby Museum of Art.

Inspiration #11:  The humble, revelation-packed enthusiasm of Rurik Spence for beekeeping.

With that, I had to reluctantly break away before the last presentation to drive across town and pick up my daughter from the junior high dance.  But on my way, I replayed the creative and positive displays of the night in my head and was infused with the warmth of hope, and the conviction that, yes, I would really like to do one of these myself one day.  In the meantime, I hope to attend again.  And should you attend PechaKucha?  Yes.  I firmly believe you'd find the presenters interesting, illuminating, and thought-provoking.  And even if there is a dud, it'll pass in 400 seconds.  

PechaKucha Waterville on the web


PechaKucha Waterville on Facebook
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We Fear The Freedom Of Others

10/28/2012

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Postulate:  We fear the freedom of others.  Apply to topic of your choice, and I think it explains a lot of human behavior.  It sounds like a great quote to me.  I Googled it and find no first page hit.  So I'm claiming it and adding to my favorite quotes, ascribed to...yours truly.  Feel free to quote me.  As in, "Well, Tom McCowan once said, 'We fear the freedom of others.'  And that explains that."  Or, "Well, Tom McCowan believes we fear the freedom of others."  Paraphrase as, "Freedom is all good and wonderful, until someone is doing something you don't like, something that threatens you, or something you don't understand.  Then, of course, you fear it, and seek to gather like-minded people to make it stop."

This thought came to me reading the morning news.  While I was writing, a friend reported on Facebook an incident which evidenced this very instinct.  Google revealed a quote that, “Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom,” by someone named Marilyn Ferguson, and a few paraphrased expressions of the same.

There are the free, and those who fear them.  The fearful will seek to ban or restrict the free.  The free will seek to persist in the exercise of their freedoms.  Sometimes abuse of a freedom increases the ranks of the fearful until the free are constrained due to their flagrancy in use of their freedom.

Americans are by now very familiar with the expression, "Freedom Isn't Free."  I also suggest that, "Freedom Isn't Fear."  Corollary:  "Fear Isn't Freedom."  (adding those to my quote page, too; and wouldn't they make great T-shirts?)  And I note that most political campaigning seems to focus on telling us to fear, what to fear, and how much to fear.  Most political spin control involves tortured explanations of why not to fear, or more often, "Yes, yes, but you should fear the alternative MORE."

I, for one, am tired of being told to fear.  In fact, I'm a bit pissed.  It start with September 11.  With the President, the government as a whole, and the media, explicitly telling us to fear.  They even established a color coded system for fear.  Maybe DHS called it a threat level.  But if the nature of the threat is unclear, and you can't take any action to avoid it, then what good is the warning - it's basically just a fear level indicator.  "Experience Fear Level Orange, Now!"  Fear was used as a justification for invading countries and infringing our liberties with the Patriot Act.  And now fear has become such common parlance, that political expression really seems to have forgotten how to inspire us with positive statements, or articulate comprehensible plans to establish defined objectives.

Fear is powerful because it overwhelms our capacity for logic and critical thinking, and our curiosity.  It appeals to the panic centers of our old mammal brains and inspires us to fight or flee, or to herd-like unquestioning behavior.  It moves us to tribal formation - teams and political parties - and de-personification of others.

Whenever you're confronted with a message, I implore you to analyze it and ask, "Is this trying to appeal to my sense of fear."  And if the answer is yes, I suggest the thing to be feared most may be the proponent of the message.
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Where To Now?

10/23/2012

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Well, political discourse has sure gotten to be an absolutist, scorched-Earth, take no prisoners affair.  I can't get too terribly excited about the Presidential race due to the conclusions I reached in my post, The Puppet Presidency.  I have my choice about who I'm going to vote for, but it doesn't matter much, and I don't expect a lot to change regardless of who wins.

First, to pretend you even know who you're voting for is a philosophical fiction.  Politicians (at least at the federal level) are such idea whores and chameleons that they have no true beliefs.  They'll say anything and be anything to get elected.  They get in trouble for this, as Romney did, when their remarks to one group they're speaking to get leaked to another group they're pandering to that happens to hold diametrically opposed values.  Embarrassing, but it usually passes into the past faster than a Facebook post.


Nevertheless, a lot of people have been making remarks and Facebook comments and memes that leave no room to really accept the fact that you're living on a planet, and in the same community, and even the same neighborhood, church, and workplace, with people who are going to vote for the other guy.  When you equate the other candidate with Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Satan, etc., if you really believe that, then you should be very uneasy walking around town with people who are voting for them.  I know you're thinking, "I am very uneasy."  But no, I'm dead serious.  VERY uneasy.  Like psycho stocked up on water and food and guns and ammunition, and garlic and wooden stakes, and barricaded doors and armor-plating in a kind of I Am Legend/Mad Max sort of way.  So, since I don't see much of that behavior going on, I have to believe that those who speak such rhetoric, or Share it, or Like it, don't really believe it so much as say it for the relief and release of it.  Sometimes things get so confusing and frustrating it feels nice to make simplified radical remarks and damn the consequences or counterarguments.  I get that.  But, most likely, everybody whose candidate does not win will just get up the next day and go back to work, or maybe buy one of those "Don't Blame Me..." bumper stickers or something expressing a percentage.


I know some people, dear to my heart, who actually espouse the belief the Obama is in fact a Muslim terrorist with secret police who are going to take over after the election.  What I can't figure out is why this wasn't accomplished during his first term.  Is he just inept at that?  When he asks for four more years to "finish the job" are you telling me he's actually referring to his secret Muslim plot to take over America?   If so, well, he's a pretty lousy Muslim despot.  That should've been accomplished in the infamous "First Hundred Days."   It's said that that Presidents reserve their more radical initiatives for their second term.  They play  it safe the first four years so they don't alienate too many folks.  They want to get re-elected.  But does that strategy really matter if you're a dictator?  If you can't set yourself up as a totalitarian overlord in your first term, I say you're a wuss.  You're probably a wuss if you had to be elected in the first place.  I'll bet down at the Dictator's Club they laugh at the dude who got into office by election.  Military coup - that's the way the big boys play.  The only reason I can think of to wait till the second term - to keep the sheep's clothing on until you're sworn in and THEN reveal your true wolfy self - would be if you're toying with all of America in some kind of sadistic James Bond villain style, where you just want to draw out the misery, explain your plan at great length, and maybe rub in the fact that you convinced everyone to vote for Satan not just once, but TWICE.  Now that's really something.  And then you end the world.


I would also love to see a debate between different conspiracy theorists about whose theory is right.  I mean, we've got the secret Muslim terrorist theory vs. the judge in Texas who recently espoused the belief that Obama will let U.N. troops into America to take over.  So it's like secret police vs. U.N. troops.  Sounds like some kind of Marvel head-to-head issue.  And then there are those who think the IRS will fulfill that role just by enforcing healthcare "taxes."


For me, while I may disagree with other people's choices, I can understand and imagine lines of reasoning that justify, for them, their decision.  Sometimes I think their facts are faulty, or that they are reacting emotionally instead of logically - but believe me, I've made plenty of emotional decisions (and mistakes).  It's the frailty of human nature.


In the good old days, when the whole country seemed to have gone to pot, and everyone seemed crazy and seemed to disagree with you, you loaded up a ship with like-minded folks, had a little sail, found a new chunk of land, conquered the poor natives, and set things up just the way you liked it.  Unfortunately, everywhere you go these days, the natives have at least AK-47s, and at least some immunity to whatever diseases your crew is harboring, and they just fight and fight and fight and fight and....taking over new turf  just ain't as easy as it used to be.


So I read with interest all the science articles about extra-solar planetary systems, and about recent physics theories postulating that faster-than-light travel and warp drive engines might actually be possible.  For that is about the only way out of our current predicament I can see.  Then, woe unto extraterrestrials, because here we come with about a hundred different religions and government styles, a bad track record, and not much tolerance.


All I know is, the day after the election, and every future election, I've gotta get up and work and live with ALL the winners and ALL the losers - my friends, neighbors, and countrymen - to continue trying to solve the actual problems of my community - all without any discernible help from the guy who divided us and won.
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The Recovery of the Dreamer

10/13/2012

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With a bad cold and a broken-down car, and a generous helping of other chaos, my dreamer's mind has been shut down for a while.  Well, maybe I'm feeling a little better today, because, while downloading a free album of songs by Maine musicians, sponsored by Bangor Savings Bank, I stumbled across the story of St. Lawrence Arts, in Portland, which rescued and old church from ruin and turned it into a performing arts venue, just like my Gymnopedie fantasy.  Cause for optimism?  Sounds like their building was in even worse shape than Gymnopedie by far.  Cause for pragmatism?  Looks like the efforts to get where they are have taken about 20 years; and Portland has a larger population and is artsy-fartsier.   Here's the link to the history of St. Lawrence Arts.  Next up, they have a plan to add on a second larger theater to the complex. 
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...a four hour tour.

10/2/2012

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So today I had four hours to thank my wonderful sister-in-law, Nikki, and her endurance driver friend, Amy, for driving my new (used) car out from Ohio to Maine. I wanted to show Amy, who had never been to Maine before, a small sampling of the best of Waterville and Winslow, and create a little fun for Nikki before we had to have them back to Portland Jetport for their flight.

So I picked them up at 9:00 AM, and KennebecTom's tour service proceeded to hustle to Fort Halifax Park. We parked, hopped out, and viewed the 1754 blockhouse and the nice new informational display. Then sauntered into the park far enough to see the beautiful lawn, trees, picnic tables, and Kennebec River. After a Ferris Bueller style contemplative silence, it was back to the car. I was spewing factoids about the river and the Fort. We drove back up Halifax Street, which I pointed out appears on maps from the late 1700s, and past the ancient headstones of Fort Hill Cemetery.

Then we crossed back over the Kennebec, discussing the Hathaway mill and stopped at Head of Falls, where we walked out onto the Two Cent Bridge, while I gave amateur tour guide info on the former paper mill, the bridge, and City Hall and the Waterville Opera House. Then it was back in the car and to our breakfast destination, Selah Tea Cafe.  Good coffee and a delicious scone for me.  Nikki, a tea lover, had something off the lengthy tea roster.  I eyed the pleasant surroundings as a possible Atlantic Music Festival venue.

Then I decided to show them Barrels Market, so we started walking down Main Street in the cool fall air, but Holy Cannoli caught our eye.  The ladies had never had cannoli, so we stopped in and got them three to sample.  I chatted with the proprietor and made note of the ready-to-heat stromboli in the display case.  Future lunch?  Oh yes.

We stopped outside the Maine Made shop for a photo op with the giant stuffed moose.  While that picture was being taken I was peering through the glass into the REM Forum, again thinking how the space might work for a chamber music performance.  Then we made it across the street to Barrels.  Something delicious must have been cooking because it smelled GREAT in there.  Nikki loved the place, proclaiming that she'd shop there all the time if she could.  I told her they'd love for her to move to Maine.  Amy picked up a teeny-tiny jar of blueberry honey (that will comply with airline rules).  I had never noticed, and was impressed by the hand-crafted soap that is sliced and sold by weight on the spot.    Mostly, I reminded myself to come back soon for more Maine tinned herring.

Next, it was back in the car for more road-touring.  Down Water Street so I could show them the Hathaway Creative Center building.  Beyond that, I pointed out my demarcation line for the beginning of the "bad part of town", which is quaint compared to the bad parts of...say...Phoenix, Arizona.  They were treated to a dual appearance of Shirtless Bob and Shirtless Rob, and I mentioned John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitt.  Well, they really lucked out, because after we wended our way back up to Silver Street, past my office, who should we see, but Die Ubersturmfuhrer himself, walking jauntily with his cane and pseudo East German military garb.  Sort of military casual.  

Back across the Carter Bridge, we took the back road to Augusta just to see the rolling countryside, some farms, trees changing color, historic houses, and the former Coburn Classical Institute building standing on the hill like a castle.

In Augusta, I swung them by Fort Western and around the State Capitol building.  Then it was back to the turnpike, but just for a short bit.  I wanted to stop and see something I've passed for the last 11 years.  The Center for Maine Craft at the Gardiner Travel Plaza.  I had always skipped it, thinking "craft" meant country hearts and angels motifs that I loath, and other JoAnn Fabrics kinds of nicky-nack stuff.  I was disabused of this notion when I had a discussion with...well...either the director or an assistant director of the Center during an event at Common Street Arts.  

It's not exactly salient, but in the travel plaza, nestled beside the Starbucks and Quiznos and Burger King, and through a glass door, is an amazing collection of the output of Maine's best artists and craftsmen (used in the Star Trekky non-gender specific sense).  I couldn't really soak it all in in the limited time we had.  Usually, I'd whip out my iPhone and photograph everything to share with you and to inspect more slowly later.  But there were several signs saying no photography, so I respected that and tried to rely on my lousy 42-year old memory apparatus.  



There was woodwork and furniture, and glasswork, and glassware, and textiles, and weavings, and clocks, and lamps, and paintings  and photography, and jewelry and lots of beautiful stuff.  Truly a wonderful collection, I thought, hmmm...wouldn't it be cool if a satellite branch was opened in downtown Waterville.  The formula is already worked out and the contacts established.  It could be located close to Common Street Arts to help build the much-sought-after critical mass.

I filed this place away as a viable Christmas shopping location and a gem to recommend to visitors, since they have to pass it to get to my house anyway, AND it's in the same building as a Starbuck's.  Hello?!

But, back in the car and on to Portland it was, where I treated my benefactor drivers to Chinese food at my family's favorite Chinese restaurant in Portland - near the Mall and the airport - Imperial China.  Mongolian Beef and hot tea for me.  Nikki praised them for being the rare example of a place that, when she requests spicy, really makes it spicy.

And that was the end of the fateful four hour tour.  I dropped the ladies curbside at the jetport and bid them the fondest of farewells - well, au revoir really, since we'll be seeing them in December. 

On the drive back I communed with my new (used) Camry and we began forming that oh-so-important car-owner bond (probably like mountain men used  to have with their horses - except you can't eat a car in a pinch). I reminded myself that I should repeat certain elements of this tour more frequently myself.  And perhaps you should check them out on a more leisurely basis.
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Hoodwinked

10/2/2012

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What's the world coming to?  First, clothes manufacturers convinced women to buy two or three inadequate garments and wear them layered to generate an ensemble that can be worn in public without embarrassment or arrest.  Said thin and flimsy garments also wear out quicker and are more prone to destruction in the washer and dryer.

Then, the world's retailers, who were already giving us crappy service, installed self-checkout aisles and shoved off all the labor of scanning and bagging our purchases on us, while prices remained the same and a bunch of checkers presumably lost their jobs.  Except for the one harried clerk who is perpetually assisting customers with all the errors that occur during the self-scan process.  I'd rather shoot myself (albeit only in the foot and with a .22) than go through self-checkout.

And now, drink manufacturers have convinced the public that it's trendy and cool to buy little powder and liquid flavor packets and mix your own drinks instead of just buying the end product.

Grr.
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    Tom lives on the east side of the Kennebec River and works on the west.  He relocated from Arizona to Maine, by pure choice,  in 2001 and loves music and history.  He may change any viewpoint expressed on this site at will and without warning.

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