up-up-and-away-susan-roberts

A new car you say? You are environmentalists, non-materialists! How did that come about?

Well, we had been thinking about it for a long time. Although our 20 year old CRX si (the last of its make) had served us well, it had seen better times. As well, we were beginning to creak, just like the CRX, so it was harder and harder to take advantage of its sporty appurtenances. Nonetheless, we procrastinated, not wanting to let go of the happy memories and associations that our CRX evoked. As importantly, negotiating a car deal is intimidating; much as in the case of birthing a baby, we had to wait until the pain of the previous experience had subsided before trying again.

We had to wait until the pain of the previous experience subsided, before trying again

What helped to overcome our inertia was our desire to bring all our stuff with us on our vacation to Hawthorne Lake. No doubt, it would take two cars. Did we really need all this paraphernalia? Most likely not! But, as one might well imagine, even though we could not possibly read all the books, wear all the cloths, nor listen to all the CDs that we had packed, together they comprised a web of connections and affordances, which made it easier for us to carry out our routine away from home.

so many choices

Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton’s perspective on the role of things is quite unique. Unlike most sociologists, they are not focused on the relationship between things and status. Nor do they take an especially critical perspective of things, bemoaning the evils of consumerism. As significant, the authors rise above the technology determinism vs. social constructivism debate. Instead, grounded in the symbolic interactionism of George Herbert Mead, and the philosophical pragmatism of John Dewey, they view the interactions/transactions between people and and things as a two-way street.

Generations of Things

Our home at the lake epitomizes the narrative that Csikszentmihayli and Rochberg-Halton lay out. As they point out:

One of the most important psychological purposes of the home is that those objects that have shaped one’s personality and which are needed to express concretely those aspects of the self that one values are kept within it. Thus the home is not only a material shelter but also a shelter for those things that make life meaningful.

Crossepatch

On Technorati: Eugene Rochberg-Halton, Ford Focus, George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, New Jersey Highlands, philosophical pragmatism, Sesame Street, social constructivism, symbolic interactionism, t, technology determinism, The Lake, The meaning of things, things

my mother (left) preparing-the-beans

Worse still, as a youngster, I wasn’t sure my mother was presentable: knock on our door and you would fine a handsome women, wearing her red plaid flannel work shirt atop a pair of well-worn jeans, a pencil behind her ear, and the remains of paint and printers ink lodged under her nails. If that wasn’t enough! Just consider what was, perhaps, my most embarrassing moment, when I brought a school friend home for lunch, only to find my mother “cooking” her etchings on the kitchen stove.

I wasn’t sure my mother was presentable. 

Given my mother’s interest in art, one can understand why, as children, we spent a lot of time in museums, as well as browsing through the numerous art books that my mother collected. Whereas most parents spend a lot of time reading to their children, my mother spent much of our quality time sharing her thoughts about paintings and art.

The World Turned Upside Down (Jan Steen ca 1660)

One of these paintings is still vivid in my mind–The World Turned Upside Down, painted by the Dutch Master Jan Steen sometime around 1669. Relating it to my own family life, and envisioning my world falling apart, I was horrified by it, so much so that the painting is still engraved in my memory. Of course, I now know that I needn’t have worried. As with most of Steen’s works, this painting not only characterized daily life in Holland; as importantly, it employed humor and allusions to proverbs, symbols, and myths so as to depict a moral parable. In fact, this particular painting became a trope in Dutch life, as burgers came to describe a lively, untidy home–such as the one I had been raised in–as a “Jan Steen Household.”  Still very young at the time, I was too innocent to appreciate the duality in Steen’s painting: I saw the chaos, but I failed to see the spirited activities that gave rise to it.

The World Turned Upside Down

The World Turned Upside Down

Network Economy Dinner (courtesy of Isaac Pacheco

Having become far more cosmopolitan over the years, I can now see the world in complex terms. What to earlier generations was considered a world upside down, now looks to me like a phase transition. Fortunately, for me, growing up in a bohemian household has helped me to deal with ambiguity, such as is depicted in the paintings and tropes I have mentioned. Better still–although there is no paint or printers ink under my nails–the way of life I learned from my mother has prepared me to follow in her footsteps, and enjoy complexity to the fullest.

On Technorati: artists, Battle of Yorktown, childhood, Christopher Hill, diggers, English Revolution, Jan Steen, Jan Steen household, Melanie Phillips, most embarrassing moments, my mother, Network Economy Class, Pieter Breughel the younger, The World Turned Upside Down

Spills (from jahn)

Let me regress. When my father was a boy, a movie experience was a far cry from what it is today. Imagine a world without television, movies on-demand, CDs, NETFLIX, and Utube! Fortunately for my father, there was a local movie house in his hometown, Newark, New Jersey. To attract customers, the theater offered live entertainment along with the film. Even more important, from my father’s point of view, was the prize that the movie house awarded to the patron whose ticket stub had a number matching that on the ticket from a drawing.

Ice Skates and Snowflakes ( from Sublime Stitching)

The prize my father hankered for was a pair of skates. Daydreaming about them, he could imagine himself wearing those skates and gliding across Hawthorne Lake, the place where his family vacationed in northern New Jersey. (The place where, in fact, he taught me to ice skate many years later). The day finally came when the prize was a pair of skates. On hearing the news, my father dashed to the movie theater, perhaps not even knowing what film was being featured. Full of anticipation, he was primed in his seat, clutching his ticket stub and paying little attention to the action on the screen. Finally the show was over, and the drawing about to begin. My father sat forward in his seat, certain that his lucky day had arrived.

My father sat forward in his seat, certain that his lucky day had arrived.

Then the number was called out, and–believe it or not–it was his! He raced to the stage, grasping the ticket in his hand. But, when the manager of the theater inspected the ticket, he stood dumbfounded: there is no number on this ticket, he said. So preoccupied had my father been with winning, he inadvertently rubbed off the ticket number as he squirmed restlessly in his chair. That night, my father went home crestfallen, and without skates.

My father’s story came to mind the other day, when I opened my weblog, only to find a major mishap. All of the comments on my blog posts had disappeared–even the ones I treasured most, ie. those from the Provost. In fact, much to my horror, I realized that the comments had been PERMANENTLY DELETED. How could this happen? I soon found out. As was the case with my father’s skates–it had to do with excess zeal. While I love getting comments, I hate getting spam. Yet, everyday, like clockwork, I find entries from the same annoying spammers, who go by such names of Heel, Dominic, Jane, Hero, Bill, etc. Arg**/# So I went on a rampage, and tried to wipe them out. Unfortunately, there was collateral damage, and along with the spam, I destroyed all my comments. My apologies to all who took the time and thought to provide me this feedback.

Keep your eye on the ball (www.flickr.com/photos/karen)

On Technorati: lessons from time, self full filling prophecies, the main ball, zeal

Happy New Year from Lake.Sider

While this is an annual event for us, I was struck on this occasion by the passage of time.

I was struck by the passage of time. 

The old song, “
Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New,” came to mind, and hearing the words resound in my brain, I was taken aback. The tune goes like this:

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Perhaps my surprise reflected my feelings about aging and the totality of life. For unlike Father Time, I am not prepared at my ripening age to take my leave as yet .  In this, I am reminded of my mother who–especially as she got older–would recite Lewis Carroll’s poem from Alice in Wonderland, “You Are Old Father Williams.”, as if to mock her fate and give herself permission to simply be herself.  As each day passes, I come to appreciate the poem’s significance–as well as my mother–more and more.

You are old, Father William’, the young man said,
   ‘And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
   Do you think, at your age, it is right?’

‘In my youth’, Father William replied to his son,
   ‘I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
   Why, I do it again and again.

Nonsense poems are no longer in vogue. So I wonder, what might my mother say, were she here today. How would she phrase her pleasure in being alive.? Assuming that she had read all about complex systems, she might have taken great pleasure referencing all the non-linearities that such systems afford. As well, she might have pointed to the works of Brian Arthur and Stuart Kauffman, recalling that life is full of synergies and increasing returns, And, of course, she would have mentioned fat tails–that is to say how the richer get richer, and the elders have more fun!

So before lifting my glass and having another sip of champagne, I will take a brief respite. The first thing I will do is to stand on my head. Then I will ride down the fat tail slide. Want to come along? All Aboard!

On Technorati: aging, Btian Arthur, complexity science, fat tails, increasing returns, Lewis Carroll, network economics, network externalities, New Years, nonlinearity, You Are Old Father Williams

Let’s just say I’ve been missing in action.

Hmm…. Looking back–many years now–I am reminded just how chaotic the pre-Christmas season has always been. As a graduate student at Columbia University, for example, I viewed the Christmas break as a time to complete those last, nagging term papers. Late Christmas Eve day, I would pack my books, and race from my apartment on 113th Street down to Fifth Avenue, where the stores were all decked out in their dazzling holiday fare. Inside Bergdof Goodman‘s, I was one of the few, remaining customers, scurrying from aisle to isle to take advantage of last minute sales.

Bergdorf Goodman courtesy of Wikipedia

Going home for the holidays became, for me, a yearly event, that is, until 22 years ago, when my mother died–believe it or not, on Christmas Eve. (One might say, she knew how to make an exit!) But some holiday occasions and trips home were more memorable than others.

I vividly recall, for example, the ride home on Christmas Eve, when my son Stephen was about five years old. It was a cold night, with snow and sleet intermittently falling as we made our way to the 168th street bus terminal–a dingy, dirty place that reeked of a distinctly unpleasant odor. It was around 6 PM when we boarded the bus to Glen Rock, New Jersey the town where I had spent my teen age years. We were about half way there, when the bus suddenly broke down. The cold wind blew into the bus, as the driver paced in and out, trying to determine the nature of the problem. All the while the little heat that was left in the bus began to dissipate. Looking for a way to entertain my son during this unfortunate hiatus, I pulled out a book. It was Farley Mowat‘s The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float, an uproarious and often touching account of the author’s valiant–but more often than not unsuccessful– efforts to refurbish a boat and sail it from the shores of Newfoundland to Montreal.

Ignoring the ironic parallels between the book’s plot and our own situation, I began to read. I had heard that Mowat’s stories appealed to both children and adults alike, an observation that certainly proved true in this instance. So compelling was the story, others began to gather round to hear the tale. As the riders became engaged not only in the story, but also with each other, time flew by. We quickly forgot about the chill, and long before I had finished reading, a new transit bus came to our rescue. Luckily we arrived home in time for dinner. Relaxing afterwards, I reflected on what a warm and heartfelt Christmas Eve it had been indeed.

This year was no different, except that instead of visiting my parents in Glen Rock, we spent time with my son Steve, his wife Haley, and my two grandkids, Ben and Sophie, at their home in Millburn New Jersey. Hoping to arrive in time for Christmas Eve dinner, provided this time by my sister Anne, we calculated for traffic and set out early that morning–my husband Brock, my dog Sparky, and me. However, we could never–in our furthest imagination–have anticipated the traffic situation on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was bumper to bumper all the way, with cars creeping along in tandem much as slime mold moves across the forest floor. With cars climbing up our tail, and our dog breathing down our necks, we tried to make the best of the situation.

With cars climbing up our tail, and our dogs breathing down our necks, we tried to make the best of the situation.

So, having chattered about every subject under the sun, we pulled out and played our tapes of the Christmas Revels. Reminiscing about each delightful production, we suddenly found ourselves in Millburn, where we enjoyed what my husband Brock describes as a Norman Rockwell Christmas.

Perhaps it is only normal that my memories of Christmas Past should focus in part on the journey home. After all, as it is written, the first Christmas entailed Mary and Joseph’s difficult journey to Joseph’s birthplace in Bethlehem, as well as the three wise men’s arduous travels, following the star, to find them there. So, looking back, and keeping the Christmas story in mind, I suspect that all that hustle and bustle entailed in preparing for and journeying home for the holidays, not only enhances the value of achieving the end goal–if only a spaghetti dinner; sometimes, it can have its own inadvertent rewards.

With that said, I wish you many delightful journeys in the New Year!

On Technorati: Bergdorf Goodman, children and grandchildren, Christmas dinner, family, Farley Mowat, Glen Rock New Jersey, holiday season, Millburn, New Jersey, New Jersey Turnpike, on-line shopping, The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

come with me on a Magic carpet...from Lollygagging

Only a few weeks ago, I travelled across the globe from New York to Beijing in half a day. I felt like I was on a magic carpet–here one minute, and there the next. To be sure, this was not the first time I had engaged in flights of fancy. In my childhood, such experiences were commonplace. You see, my home on Lafayette Avenue, in Hawthorne New Jersey, was literally just a hop, skip, and jump from our local library. So it was there that I spent many afternoons, transporting myself to far away places via the books on the library’s shelf.

Three books, in particular, inspired my Wander Lust as well as my life long interest in learning about other cultures. All about China, they included Oil for the Lamps of China by Alice Tibert Holbart, and Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth and The Imperial Woman. The latter book, which recounted the story of how a concubine became the Dowager Empress, raised the librarians’ eyebrows, who then reported to my father that I was reading books far too advanced  for my years.

the librarians reported to my father that I was reading books far too advanced for my years. 

But it was not my father who brought an end to my China fantasies. Always supportive of any efforts on my part to learn, my father assured the librarians that I could handle emotionally any book that I could read.  The damper on my literary choices resulted, instead, from the political reaction in the United States to the Yalta Conference, Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare.  China was no longer an acceptable agenda.

It was only in the late 1980s that I finally got to go to Asia–in this instance to Taiwan. Having recently completed the OTA study, Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Information, I was asked to join a group of lawyers from The Asia Foundation, to speak to the justices of the Taiwanese Supreme Court about intellectual property rights. No matter that OTA’s position was in opposition to those of the other lawyers; for the Agency’s report was, in fact, strongly opposed to copyrighting software. Before taking off, I asked my son what he wanted me to bring home from Taiwan–imagining, of course, some kind of inspiring cultural object. I’d like a counterfeit Rolex watch, he said, in all sincerity. At a loss to explain how this might belie the purpose of my trip, I was resigned to disappointing my 13 year old son.

I’d like a counterfeit Rolex watch, he said, in all sincerity. 

Arriving in Taipei, I was in for a shock. Where was the China of Pearl Buck, I asked myself? Lit up in neon lights, Taipei rustled and bustled like 42nd street. But this was not my only surprise; although I failed to convince my colleagues and the Supreme Court Justices that copyright protection was inappropriate for software, I did achieve my secondary objective. I managed to purchase not one, but two, counterfeit rolex watches–one for my son and one for me! How, you might ask, did this happen? It was out of the blue. Walking back to the hotel one day, a man accosted me: “Lady, do you want to buy a Rolex watch,” he asked? I hesitated in disbelief, but, before I could reply, he gracefully guided me inside a doorway, and then through another, into a room where counterfeit watches, including all the name brands, were neatly laid out, one next to the other, across the entire room. That night our group went out to dinner. To my surprise, we were accompanied by an Asian representative of the US Chamber of Commerce, Worse yet, I was wearing my counterfeit Rolex, and –of all things–he sat right next to me. I managed to eat my dinner with my right hand and the watch hidden in my lap, while keeping a conversation going, even as my food spattered every which way. The axiom is true; Crime doesn’t pay.

Years after my Rolex had petered out, I had the good fortune to return to China, this time to speak to the Global Forum, on the subject of the digital divide. My colleague and friend Tonya accompanied me. We both were eager to wander the streets and engage directly in the local life. And so we did, far more than we had anticipated. One evening, we went for a stroll in search of a ‘bar’ where we might get a beer. As we sat there, drinking our beers, we noticed that most of the clients were male.

“Sorry, no money, no honey.” 

Naive as we were, we did not realize that we were in a red light enterprise until one of the bar maids, who had been playing cards with a young man across the bar, told him most emphatically: “Sorry, no money, no honey.” Not long after, Tonya and I strolled back to our hotel, but not before we got a photo of the bar door, a signal we had missed when entering, in our eagerness to find a bar. So much for local culture.

Three weeks ago I returned to China; this time to Beijing to make a presentation on the challenges of global standard setting. Fortunately, I was able to mix business and pleasure–for my student Ming, who had taken a semester off, met me at the airport, and guided me around the city, chatting all the while, to places and back streets I might never have otherwise seen. But best of all was the evening I spent with Ming’s  family, which was–to say the least–true quality time.  After so many years, I was grateful to engage in an authentic and intense dialogue with a real Chinese family, each member so delightful and fascinating.   It was a dialogue that I hope will go on for many years to come. As you might imagine, after such a special time, there were tears in our eyes when we said goodbye.

Flying home I reflected on my life-long fascination with China. As I visit China, and engage with my Chinese students, I am struck by the many similarities among our peoples. Pearl Buck seems but a shadow in the past. Could it be that it is the remembrance of me, at age 11, sitting on the floor in the library on Lafayette Avenue in Hawthorne New Jersey, the tantalizing books arrayed on the shelves above, that is today what is so long ago and far away.

On Technorati: air travel, China, Hawthorne, intellectual property rights, Joseph McCarthy, New Jersey, Oil for the Lamps of China, Pearl Buck, public libraries, Red Scare, Taiwan, The Asia Foundation, The Good Earth, The Imperial Women, Yalta

Lifehack from manu contreras

Having assembled together at Lake Hawthorne on the Forth of July to welcome in the summer, so too we gathered in early September, along with the katydids, to bid it goodbye. As in all such comings and goings, there were rituals involved–in this case, rituals designed to build social capital and hold the community together over the long winter months.

As in all such comings and goings, there were rituals involved.

The weekend was chockfull, to say the least. An evening cocktail party mellowed us before the annual business meeting on the following day, when we joined in a circle on the meadow to discuss and debate the thorny issues entailed in jointly managing a 450 acre commons. A community picnic followed, along with the raffling of prizes, boat races, and more. But, for me, the main event was the treasure hunt!

Let me emphasize, this was no ordinary treasure hunt. The groundwork was laid the evening we arrived, when my son Steve greeted us by quickly ushering us out the door. Armed with a chest of jewels (or so they seemed to the innocent eye), he explained the plan: on the next day, the lake children would search for the treasure by following clues, written by Steve in elaborate verse, and deposited in significant sites around and in the lake–Sunset Rock, The Ice House, Table Rock, etc. As we followed Steve into the woods, we came to the point where four trails converged. Depositing a clue on the branch of a nearby tree, Steve then paced out forty steps to the right, where he buried the chest, marking the spot with crisscrossed deer bones shaped as a cross. Brock and I, feeling depleted after our long drive, headed back to the house for a swim and a cocktail, while Steve traipsed on, depositing the rest of the clues.

The real fun began the following day, when the children, escorted by a few adults, set out together in search of the buried treasure. They were not alone. Along the route were a few of Steve’s friends who, dressed in unbelievable costumes, helped interpret the clues.

Fortune Teller in the Attic from Brock Evans

It is times like these that make farewells so bitter sweet. The more enjoyable the experiences, the harder it is to bring them to a close.

Wrangler Jeans From Way Out Texas

On Technorati: Brock Evans, Commons, community building, endings, Lake Hawthorne, new beginnings, saying goodbye, social capital, treasure hunt

Day of Reckoning courtesy of Erik Kolstad

Driving to the airport to catch a plane to Utah, where my husband Brock was scheduled to have his semi-annual multiple myeloma check-up at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, I was reminded of Shakespeare’s famous quote:

A coward dies a thousand deaths a hero dies but one.

Perhaps then, I am a coward: for although we have been undergoing tests for almost seven years, each time we do so, my heart is in my throat.

for although we have been undergoing tests for almost seven years, each time we do so, my heart is in my throat.

Arriving in Salt Lake City, we settled into our hotel, our headquarters for the three-day evaluation procedures. The staff of the Cancer Institute inspires confidence. My husband–a former Marine–compares it to an elite military unit. I concur; but I would add that the people at the Huntsman center are as caring as they are competent. Clearly, they are accustomed to working with people on the precipice of death.

Day one is devoted to tests–urine collection, a pet scan, a bone marrow aspiration and extraction (ouch!), as well as a series of blood draws. Even though some of the procedures cause considerable pain and discomfort, our anxiety is kept in check by our efforts to adhere to the tight schedule. Over the day, patients move–as if playing a game of musical chairs–from one medical station to another. Reflecting the various stages of the disease, some are in wheel chairs; some wear protective masks; while others don a variety of headdresses. As we repeatedly encounter each other, we begin to bond, becoming distracted by conversation and gaining confidence and support from our shared, death-defying stories. Meeting others who are in the same boat, we are reminded that we are not alone. Never again can we say, why did this happen to us? Touched not only by the situation at hand, but also by the openness and intimacy with which we engage each other, I sense I am in a holy place, experiencing something sacred.

Raising the Roof At Ely Cathedral, from antonychammond

On the second day, however, our fears surge, driving our blood pressures to new highs.

On the second day our fears surge, driving our blood pressure to new highs.

While grateful that the day of poking, pricking, and prying is behind us, we feel helpless in the void. All we can do is wait, asking ourselves what if? and trying not to let our imaginations run away with us. Afraid of only exacerbating each others concerns, we deny our worries, turning to television for distraction. By evening, mounting tension shatters the silence. Holding hands, and lying side by side on the king-sized bed, we let go, sharing, yet one more time, our thoughts about life and death. Through tearful eyes, I describe to Brock my feeling that I am a prisoner in a room filled with echos of death, from which there is no escape. He reassures me, noting how we have transcended this situation before and will do so again. As he says, whatever happens, in whatever time we have left, we will spend it painting a beautiful mural on Death’s chamber wall, depicting our truly wonderful lives. With that thought in mind, I fall asleep.

Finally, the day of reckoning arrives. We meet our doctor, Guido Tricot, to learn our fate. Much like Heinrich Schliemann searching for the lost city of Troy, Dr. Tricot has been vigilant in his search for a cure for the dread disease, multiple myeloma, considered only seven years ago to be fatal. Over the past few years, he has changed this prognosis. Employing a protocol that entails carefully timed tandem stem cell transplants, together with a variety of mysterious chemo potions, Dr. Tricot has saved any number of lives. What about us? Reviewing the data from our medical tests, he turns to us, and in his gentle, dignified manner, announces the results. “Perfect, couldn’t be better, we are very pleased,” he said. Brock and I are also elated, as well as very grateful.

Red Canyon, Utah: The Land of the Gods, from Linda Garcia

What next? How to celebrate? Having paid our due to the doctors, we are off to Utah’s canyon country to pay our respect to, and play with, the Gods.

On Technorati: Brock Evans, complexity, Guido Tricot, Huntsman Cancer Institute, multiple myeloma, playing with the Gods, Romanticism, Salt Lake City, surviving cancer, Utah canyons

Grandson Kaydon Playing Around (by Sarah Moffett)

In today’s scandal-ridden environment, one might think that the title of my blog refers to the recent tales of our politicians’ sexual machinations, which reporters and bloggers have so voraciously been fleshing out (no pun intended). In fact, the inspiration was wholly otherwise. 

It so happened that this adorable picture of my youngest grandson, Kaydon, arrived just as I was reading Johan Huizinga‘s Homo Ludens (1971). In this book, Huizinga makes the case that play is not a reflection of culture, but rather culture is the outcome of play. As evidence, he points out that all animals play, even though no one teaches them the rules of the game: to the contrary, the rules–that is to say cultures–evolve in the course of the play.

Playing elephant calves

An interesting argument–but for me, the picture of Kaydon, with the spoon affixed with oatmeal to the end of his nose, was more telling. I could imagine his mother Sarah laughing at the silliness of it all, which made me wonder, what is this game? Don’t all children play it? How was it invented? As well, who in this situation is making up the rules–Kaydon or his mother? Don’t you suspect it was both?

I had to wonder, where did this game come from; who is making up these rules?

It wasn’t much later that my grandson Ben tramped through the woods to our porch, clenching a water pistol in his fist, and looking suspiciously all around. What’s up, I asked? “Nothing much,” he said. “We are playing Cops and Robbers.” Having fun, I continued? Oh, it’s okay, he said. The problem is that Brody is breaking the rules. He’s supposed to be a Cop, but he is playing on the Robbers’ team. Hm, I thought–what rules? Where did they come from–culture? Which comes first, the culture or the game? The truth be told, they must emerge, co-evolving together.

Light reading. The lightest of them....(courtesy jamwithsand)

As one might deduce from the content of my blog, as well as the previous one, I continue to play around with my colleague Garrison Le Masters trying to find a good way to relate standards to play and virtual worlds. For my part, it requires testing the waters of cultural studies, reading outside my field, and translating an entirely new vocabulary into something that I am familiar with. So far Garrison and I seem to be converging around some of Durkheim’s ideas: For Garrison, it’s the notion of wholeness, integration, what he calls the sacred. For me, its quite similar. I am drawn to the concept of emergent holism–the outcome of symbolic interaction (R. Keith Sawyer)

For now, we are still thinking it through–book by book. In the meantime, thank goodness that I have my grandchildren to help me sort out what play is really all about! .

On Technorati: animals at play, books about play, coevolution, Durkheim, grandson Kaydon, holism, Homo Ludens, Huizinga, play, R. Keith Sawyer, sexual politics, standards, virtual worlds

View from my chair in the corner of the porch (D. Linda Garcia)

One can never forget E.B White’s essay “Once More to the Lake,” written for The New Yorker” in 1929. In this essay, White describes in a most eloquent, and detailed fashion, the pleasures he experienced as a child, making an annual retreat with his father to a lake in the woods of Maine. Equally compelling is his account of bringing his own son to this special place. As he notes, the joyfulness of the place was enhanced with each new iteration, as he relives his own childhood experiences through the eyes and delights of his son.

I know the feeling well.  As I described in my earliest blogs, I have had the good fortune of inheriting a cottage at Lake Hawthorne, situated in 450 acres of woods, in Northern New Jersey.  It has been in my family now for five generations, so I have had a chance to witness a number of traditions being reenacted and reinforced over time.  With each new crop of children I, too, was able to fondly reminisce and relive some powerful experiences not only with respect to my own childhood but also that of my son.

It was, therefore, with great anticipation that I set out for the New Jersey Highlands on the Thursday before the Fourth of July. Never mind the two and a half days of preparation–cleaning, laundry, planting the few pots of daisies that had yet to be put in the ground. Never mind the relentless traffic along the way–the endless New Jersey Turnpike, with police cars stationed behind every turn, the roaring trucks racing along Route 287, and the crawling cascade of cars on Route 80, all leaving the city, seeking solace, and heading for destinations such as mine.  As I neared the turnoff on Route 517 in Sparta, I could once again smell the flowers–so to speak. So could my dog Sparky, who extended his nose as far as he could out the car window, and then sniffed and sniffed and sniffed.

Arrival (D. Linda Garcia)

We were hardly there more than an hour, when my grandson Ben arrived full of pressing news. “Remember,” he said, “when my Dad and Uncle Bret had a fake marriage with their cousins Jenny and Tara. Well, tomorrow we are going to keep up the tradition; I am marrying Olivia (Jenny’s daughter and his third cousin), and Sophie (my grand daughter) is going to marry Brody (her godmother’s son).” It was all settled: they had been planning the event for a week.

The next day, in between claps of thunder and streaks of lightning, the wedding took place–best men, maids of honor, flowers and all. My husband Brock and I supplied the cakes–one chocolate, one vanilla. The children were serious, but a bit tenuous–as well they should have been. When asked if he took his Cousin Olivia for his wife, Ben replied: “Well sort of.” In response, Olivia replied, “Well kinda.”

Mock Wedding--Second Time Around (D. Linda Garcia)

You can imagine why sometimes when I am at the lake, I am–like E.B. White–not sure whether I am coming or going. At times like these,  I like to remember that my son Stephen did not ever marry his cousin Jenny.  However, he  did marry his lake playmate Haley–the girl next door.  

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