closing that barn door
even though the horse was gone
felt better, maybe
On Friday, June 5th, the Associated Press reported that, “Negotiators for the city of Minneapolis agree with the state to ban the use of chokeholds by police. Police would also be required to report and intervene anytime they see an unauthorized use of force by another officer.”
8 minutes, long time
sit and think for 8 minutes
long time, 8 minutes
How long is 8 minutes?
JFK and the 6 seconds in Dallas
US Army bombers and 30 seconds over Tokyo
The minute waltz by Frederic Chopin lasts one minute.
The Kentucky Derby is known as ‘The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports’
Eggs cook in three minutes.
The Miracle at Midway took 5 minutes.
The average drive across the Mackinac Bridge takes 6 minutes.
The song Hey Jude last 7 minutes.
When you think about it.
8 minutes is a long time.
What goes through your mind in 8 minutes?
If you were holding someone down, what would you be thinking of for 8 minutes.
If you couldn’t breathe, what would you be thinking of for 8 minutes.
8 minutes is a long time.
How long should 8 minutes that change the world last?
8 minutes is a long time.
8 minutes can be a life time.
emotional lives
wonderfully intricate
as music of Bach
Jim Harrison writes in his book, Sundog;
People can be truly amazing.
I got this little theory, an utterly unimportant theory, that most people never know more vaguely where they are, either in time or in the scheme of things.
People can’t read contracts or time schedules or identify countries on blank maps.
Why should they?
I don’t know.
There’s a wonderful fraudulence to literacy.
Yet these same people have emotional lives as intricate as that Bach piece.
Arlo Gutherie once said something along the lines of, “We got to remember who we are so when other people stop for a moment and wonder if its possible to get along in this world, we can be doing that for them. In a world that sucks, you don’t have to do very much at all to make a difference in this world. You can do more with just a smile, hold somebody, say hello to somebody.“
Sometimes you make a difference just by showing up.
So many of my friends and relatives are turning up these days in unexpected places.
In parks.
In downtowns.
In streets.
It cities.
In towns.
Amazing people doing amazing this things.
amazing ability
crowds have to police themselves
supporting others
In recent decades, detailed analytical research has produced ever-more sophisticated insights into crowd behavior.
“Crowds have an amazing ability to police themselves, self-regulate, and actually display a lot of pro-social behaviour, supporting others in their group,” says Anne Templeton, an academic at Edinburgh University who studies crowd psychology. She points to the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack, in which CCTV footage showed members of the public performing first aid on the wounded before emergency services arrived, and Mancunians rushed to provide food, shelter, transport and emotional support for the victims. “People provide an amazing amount of help in emergencies to people they don’t know, especially when they’re part of an in-group.”
Strange things happen to our brains when we’re in a crowd we’ve chosen to be part of, says Templeton. We don’t just feel happier and more confident, we also have a lower threshold of disgust. This is why festivalgoers will happily share drinks (and by dint of their proximity, sweat) with strangers, or Hajj pilgrims will share the sometimes bloody razors used to shave their heads. In a crowd, we feel safer from harm.
from The power of crowds by Dan Hancox.
capture the moment
Christo – behold, here then gone
create the moment
Looking at the google, it was in 1983 that I first became aware of the artist Christo, who died on May 30th.
That was when he created Surrounded Islands, in Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida.
At the time I thought, what a nut.
But I also had an apreciation for the nut who could sell such a thing.
It wasn’t until much later that I learned that Christo was actually Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
It was the team of Christo and his wife that created these works of art.
I also learned much later that they did not seek or accept government grants or funding for their projects.
All their projects were self funded through the sale of their other art.
I had to admire the couple.
Much of their art involved years of working out details with government agencies.
My Brother-in-Law Bob is a top shelf property developer.
I asked him once what was the secret to Richard Daley and Chicago.
Bob said you had one meeting.
If Daley said yes, there was no need for other meetings.
The opposite was also true in that if he said no, there was no need for another meeting.
Bob recounted had to took 17 zoning board meetings to put a K Mart in Livonia, Michigan.
So here are these local and federal government agencies.
Here comes Christo and Jeanne-Claude and they want to set up a cloth wall running for 25 miles across multiple jurisdictions.
Or they want to set up umbrellas along the coast of Japan and California.
Or they want to wrap islands in pink.
Or drape buildings in gray.
There was no Mayor Daley for art.
And yet somehow they pulled it off.
There weren’t making art for the ages but art for the moment.
Sometimes setting up a project for a few weeks.
Sometimes arguing with police to let a project blocking a road stay up for a few hours.
But taking years to develop and plan this projects.
I didn’t begin to really enjoy Christo’s work until I had a Christo moment.
Back in the late 1990’s I worked at Zondervan Publishing in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Zondervan had an art department to design the covers of the books they published.
Part of the Art Department equipment was a state of the art thermal transfer color printer.
This printer was one of the first color printers I had ever seen.
Instead of ink, the colors came in these long rolls of thick transparent plastic, much like plastic cling wrap, but thicker.
This ink roll was probably about 1000 feet long.
After each roll was used up, it would be replaced and the old roll tossed in the trash.
I happened to be in the art area one day and I noticed one these in the trash.
The art area being a corner building where at least three columns of Steelcase office cubicles came together from the the left and right.
A 1000 foot rolled up transparent rainbow of plastic wrap.
The last 3 or 4 feet was loose in the trash barrel.
I probably thought about my next move for at least, well, one second before I grabbed the old roll out of the trash.
I took the loose end and looped it several times around the handle of drawer.
I the plastic by its ends loosely in my fingers so it would unroll.
Then I took off running down the aisles and rows of cubicles yelling CHRISTO CHRISTO.
Back and forth and around I went with the rainbow row of color plastic trailing behind me.
Christo! Christo!
Soon I had wrapped the cubicles on an entire side of the building with a wide ribbon of red, yellow and blues.
Such abandon.
Such freedom.
Such joy.
No wonder Christo did these crazy things.
The Art Department went along with it.
The Editorial Department put up with it.
The Sales Department got out their scissors.
It didn’t last long.
It was before everyone had cell phone cameras so no photos exist.
It was a moment.
It was wonderful.
I take this moment to remember Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
A moment to remember and to say thank you.
No Haiku For You 