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Go See Mike Daisey's New Show

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Technology Thursday

Many of us love our gadgets. However, as with many first-world consumption patterns, they don't come free of guilt. There are ongoing questions and challenges regarding the environmental impact of manufacturing computers and electronic gadgetry. And there are also concerns about the sheer amount of energy required to power these wonderful Intarwebz and all the geegaws connected to them. There's a reason big companies like to place datacenters near rivers (hint: hydroelectric power).

So, while we can all feel a smidge of anxiety knowing that every Google search we do and every email we send kinda' sorta' maybe sends a little puff of carbon dioxide into an atmosphere, that, in the immortal words of engineer Montgomery Scott CANNA TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS, CAP'n, another guilt-inducer is labor. Specifically, the labor practices used in the places that manufacture our pretty, pretty iPads.

Mike Daisey is an amazing monologuist, story teller, and solo performer. Last year I saw his show "The Last Cargo Cult" at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in D.C. and it was amazing. I have been remiss all these years in not seeing his earlier work. I also read the book he wrote about working at Amazon in the 90s called 21 Dog Years: A Cube Dweller's Tale. His most recent effort is a show called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." Here's a snippet of a review:

In this freewheeling theatrical essay, he doesn't just hold Apple CEO Steve Jobs' feet to the fire. He doesn't just question the morality of capitalism. He forces theatergoers to take a hard look at the glowing screens in their pockets and ask where they came from and at what cost.

Only a true believer, a man who fieldstrips his MacBook Pro down to its 43 components parts to unwind, could be this shocked and heartbroken to find that the gadgets he adores, those glossy pieces of electronic sculpture known as the iPad and the iPhone, might have been produced under brutal working conditions in China. Eager to investigate for himself, Daisey traveled to Shenzhen, a city of 14 million people crammed together under a "poisoned silver sky," at a time when workers were hurling themselves off the roof at Foxconn, one of Apple's key manufacturers.

Another, explaining why Apple Fanboys should see the show: (I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt this time and let's all assume Apple Fangirls should, too)

Instagram is Lightweight and Fun

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr and Instagram

Technology Thursday

A few years back I did a Project 365 photography project that was supposed to be a self-portrait every day. I managed to take a whole bunch of self-portraits, although not quite every day. Unfortunately, I stopped being creative rather quickly and started to just snap a washed out looking Photobooth picture of myself every day with my iMac. It was still an interesting project (for me), but hardly the creative challenge I'd thought I'd try to make for myself. Similarly, I've declared 2011 to be another Project365 year, although I'm not restricting myself to any particular subjects.

I was pretty pleased with my Day 1 photo, but since then it has sort of devolved into snapshots taken with my phone when I remember I haven't taken any pictures yet, or snapshots of the kiddo. Meanwhile, the 3 photography books I've bought for inspiration over the last couple of years sit on my desk collecting dust because if I have time, I don't have energy to dive into them, and if I have energy, I don't have time. And I'm just talking about time to read the book, to say nothing of actually carrying my camera around all day and making a real effort to take more pictures. Oh well, maybe I'll be able to squeeze more time out for this later in the year.

When it comes to sharing photos, though, one thing I've found to be surprisingly fun is the little social media app Instagram.

Old Fashioned (Sort of) Holiday Cards

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

Technology Thursday

This time of year often brings discussion of whether technology has eliminated or will eliminate paper holiday cards. But I also remember hearing similar discussions 10, 15 years ago. And, of course, we have been lamenting the death of the personal letter for decades.

I send paper holiday cards in the mail. I may have skipped a year or two here and there, but I try to send them every year. My list of recipients is a bit long, and eclectic. It includes my childhood pastor's wife (even though I think I'm considered, accurately, pretty much an apostate), an elementary schoolteacher, college professors, a couple of ex-bosses, the usual assortment of friends from various ages and stages, a lot of extended family (if I skip one, they'll all find out, so I might as well keep the list complete!) and, in recent years, some friendly professional contacts, and so on.

There seem to be some competing forces (also known as... sources of guilt) about whether you do or don't, should or shouldn't send them. On the one hand, as is well-documented, women tend to do more than their share of relationship maintenance and so the burden of personal household correspondence typically falls to them. But who has the time? On the other hand, we all know (and lament) the increasing isolation imposed by the constraints of modern society. Reaching out at the holidays seems at least one way to maintain connections. There's also there's this weird trend, which I come across now and then and have decided to just treat as utterly alien, that somehow if you don't hand address and write a long personal note in every card, then you've committed a massive etiquette faux pas. Sigh. Who has time for that? (On this, I think holiday cards are different from thank you notes - haven't checked to see whether Miss Manners agrees.)

So I keep doing it, so far, for a few reasons.

Fear of a Purple Crayon

Work Wednesday

When I'm not writing status reports, managing projects, reading The Three Bears for the millionth time, or re-washing clothes that sat damp in the washing machine a little too long, I'm an artist. Sort of. I think.

That’s what I went to college for, anyway. I studied painting. Not something useful, like graphic design or video production or architecture—painting. While other students were learning statistics and chemistry and political science, I was learning how to seal a canvas with rabbit-skin glue. After college, I found jobs that paid the bills and got further and further away from art as I advanced in my “other” career. But a few years ago I made a commitment to start making art again, and rented a studio space shared with several other artists. I get there when I can.

Looking back on it now, I wonder what my parents were thinking, encouraging me to pursue this crazy dream in the first place. I imagine my son, now a toddler, coming to me in 15 years and saying “Mommy, I want to go to art school. Like Prometheus, I shall bring the divine fire to humanity only to have the ungrateful world chain me up and tear me to shreds.” I must admit that when I see him carefully positioning his jumbo purple crayon before dramatically sweeping it across the paper, I feel a little spike of fear inside.

Halloween Fright 2: Scary Parenting Fears

Work Wednesday

Just around this time one year ago, I blogged about my Halloween fright at the amount of time, money, and energy Halloween now consumes. Not just in America at large (where, even in our troubled economy, the average person will spend $66 on Halloween stuff – similar to 2008 – and total holiday spending will reach nearly $6 billion) but in my own small corner of the world.  Last year, I decorated the house, outfitted the kids in costumes, frequented numerous pumpkin festivals, and participated in no less than three Halloween parades/parties. And took the kids trick-or-treating, too.  They, of course, loved it all.

This year, Halloween is shaping up to be even scarier. I've discarded my  "do as little as possible" approach to the holiday and plunged into the frightening frenzy. I've not only purchased ready-made Halloween decorations at my four-year-old son's urging but actually "crafted" some of our own decorations. (See the spooky spider tree in the picture.)  I allowed my small -for-her age seven-year-old daughter to purchase a tween-sized lady bug costume that might look mildly trashy if it weren't too big for her. And, in perhaps the biggest pumpkin-headed move of all, I volunteered to coordinate said seven-year-old's class party.  I've now spent more than a few hours poring over magazines and web sites for Halloween-themed (but healthy and nut-free) snacks, coming up with first grade-friendly creepy craft projects, and recruiting and directing a posse of parent volunteers. 

Of course, fearsome as all this Halloween folly is (and, yes, you're right, there is a part of me that enjoys it), there are much spookier things going on this Halloween season.  (And I'm not thinking about Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's witchcraft horror show although, I have to admit that I find the electoral mood ominous.) I'm not sure why, but, as a parent, I've been finding the world more than a little scary lately.

There's bullying (and cyberbullying), which has received a lot of attention this month after a slew of truly heinous incidents involving teens including the suicides of Tyler Clementi and Phoebe Prince. Just yesterday, a group in Los Angeles released a large scale national study of high school students indicating that half of high school students have bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half have been the victim of bullying. And now it turns out that bullying (and other mean girl stuff) is showing up in younger and younger groups of kids.  Although I try to put these reports in perspective and recognize that bullying may not be any more extreme or prevalent than it was fifty years ago, the idea that my child could be a victim, a bully, or even a passive bystander fills me with fear.

And then, there's childhood obesity, which also received a lot of press during last month's first-ever National Childhood Obesity Awareness month focused on this American epidemic.  Over 23 million children and teenagers in the United States ages 2 to 19 are obese or overweight, putting nearly one third of them at early risk for Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease and even stroke.  The numbers are particularly scary for low-income and minority kids.  While I'm not particularly concerned that my own (underweight) kids will become obese (at least not unless they overdose on Halloween candy), I'm alarmed by the prevalence of this problem.

And, of course, there are even more terrible things. Physical and sexual child abuse. Drug and alcohol addiction. Natural disasters. Terrorist attacks. Wars. The list is endless. I'm not an alarmist, and I loathe fear-mongering, but sometimes I do feel afraid. How do I deal with my own fears and help my children, particularly as they grow older, cope with really scary things in the world?  How can I enable them to be confident and resilient in the face of truly frightening things?

I'm not sure I know all the answers, but I do know that it's important to keep my fears in perspective. And to help my children feel safe personally by providing them with love, communicating with them about real concerns and threats in a honest and age-appropriate way, and empowering them to be self-confident.

On Halloween, though, I plan to frighten my kids with those plastic spiders and bloody eyeballs.  After all, there just may be something to laughing in the face of fear!