Urban Camping

K.I.S.S.

2007-10-20T17:48:00.000+03:00

In a recent BBC interview with the no-impact family, Michelle Conlin noticed that life had a different pace as a result of their one-year experiment, a project that seems to both complicate and simplify their lives.

David Elliot Cohen captured the sense of complication that might accompany an attempt to engage in a city lifestyle while only leaving a minimal impact on the environment, when he said about his own venture,

“Disengaging from your normal routine and establishing an entirely new way of life is a full-time job for months on end.”

And yet there's a sense of simplification because, like other examples I’ve found, the Conlins cut back on striving to increase their comfort level.

If I’m allowed to illustrate this idea by sharing a passage from Bill Bryson's, The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid, it follows:

"By the closing years of the 1950s most people - certainly most middle-class people - had pretty much everything they had ever dreamed of, so increasingly there was nothing much to do with their wealth but buy more and bigger versions of things they didn't truly require: second cars, lawn tractors, double-width fridges, hi-fis with bigger speakers and more knobs to twiddle, extra phones and televisions, room intercoms, gas grills, kitchen gadgets, snowblowers, you name it. Having more things of course also meant having more complexity in one's life, more running costs, more things to look after, more things to clean, more things to break down." p. 330

[I’m about to type out a description of my urban camping nostalgia on my laptop from work because my computer screen at home shorted itself out yesterday, two months after the warranty expired.]

My urban camping nostalgia includes learning that I could move from business trip to artists residency, from house-sitting to couchsurfing to camping in my atelier with very little stuff.

While I was learning how very few 'things' I actually needed, I was simultaneously growing accustomed to the freedom of movement, a feeling of being unburdened.

With this nomadic movement, I noticed a different engagement level with the people and projects in my ever-changing surroundings. My interaction was more 'in the moment' because I was not pre-occupied with the maintenance of a set routine somewhere else.

Living in an ever changing context nurtured my sensitivity to different outlooks and approaches. I refer to this exposure to different viewing points as open-sourcing my life.

As I try to decide if I should postpone my return to school so that I can replace my broken washing machine and my breaking fridge, not to mention my broken computer screen, I sense the growing nostalgia, simply my preference for ‘experience’ over ‘ownership’.

Crossing the Couch Pool

2007-10-13T20:59:00.000+03:00

Wednesday I had dinner with Aldo. He was born and bred in Rotterdam, a true Rotterdammer. He still lives here.

I remembered from the first time we met two years ago that Aldo was the first European to sign up to Couchsurfing.com.

This week I learned that he was also the first person to actually surf a couch via the group's interface.

From this angle, Rotterdam holds an important place in the Couchsurfing.com history books.

In my limited scope, I still see couchsurfing as one type of urban camping. For me, it's like carpooling.

In the urban jungle, you can share houses in much the same way that you can share cars.

I dearly love my experience of this concept, but I told Aldo that I don't see the point of the monthly meetings held in Rotterdam.

[I don't (yet) attend. It's nothing personal. I probably wouldn't go to monthly meetings about carpooling either.]

He replied that they are weekly meetings. He explained that a lot of people want more than couchsurfing. They want community.

Our dinner discussion also covered the argumentation block I'd just taught using Jared Diamond's book.

For this reason, more than once, our conversation came back around to history's record of the human need to band together through the development of organizing systems.

At the beginning of her article, Penelope wrote,

"'It’s a lifestyle and a commitment,' Mr. Medel said. He and his fellow New York hosts meet at least one night a week at a bar in Union Square, new surfers in tow. They throw birthday parties for one another and mount what they call invasions of other cities, as 30 or so New York surfers did last summer in Boston, strewing themselves on the couches of 30 or so Bostonians for three days."

First, I wondered if anyone would call carpooling a lifestyle and a commitment. Maybe.

Then, back at home, I did a search at Couchsurfing.com and saw that we have 300 registered couchsurfers in Rotterdam.

[I proudly thought that if we used the weekly meetings to get organized and invade other cities, there's no doubt the odds would be in our favor! Our place in the history books would be secure.]

The day after dinner, an email from Kate arrived in my inbox. She said, "I caught another bookcrossing book and its been really invigorating. I really like it and have plans to release a lot of my read books when I get a minute."

When I was teaching the argumentation block last month, I saw a clearly marked bookcrossing book in the Utrecht train station. The title didn't grab me so I left it for someone else.

Now I'm wondering if my behavior fits in with a bookcrossing lifestyle and commitment. I have a feeling that I could probably find out at the meetings: http://bookcrossing.meetup.com/

Headstart

2007-10-06T06:24:00.000+03:00

Penelope said, you must have read Bruce Chatwin? I hadn't. She told me that I really should read his ideas about our nomadic natures. My friend Kate had also pointed me towards his book Songlines during my first urban camping trip. I haven't read him. I will.

After mentioning my urban camping, Penelope writes, "A state of near ceaseless traveling puts the couch surfer in a transnational zone, an idea dear to Pico Iyer, the travel writer and novelist who has been chewing over notions of home and nomadism for 25 years."

Her article was published three days after I started teaching a three-week university course in which we were asked to apply argumentation theory to Professor Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel.

The author of this Pulitzer Prize winning book makes a case for the geographically favorable environmental conditions of the past causing the differences between first and third world countries of the present.

People in regions with geographically favorable environmental conditions were able to make a switch, earlier than other regions, from nomadic hunter gatherer practices to sedentary agrarian societies.

The switch from nomad to farmer causes large interacting societies, which leads to the development of technology, writing, immunization and organizing systems.

Societies that made the switch faster than others had the headstart on today's balance of power.

Urban Nomad Bag Project

2007-09-29T14:48:00.000+03:00

In preparation for the New York Times article, Penelope Green and I discussed urban camping for a couple hours on the phone.

I love the article and the way it shifted to the couchsurfing community. Not only because I'm very fond of Casey's work, but also because I believe the things we build shouldn't always match the blueprints: artwork, articles, life.

I told her that I really see her as a sort of documentary film maker in a way, collecting lots and lots of material and then nurturing a story as it emerges.

When we emailed briefly after the article was published, she said, "... your pack! that's what i miss most..."

In our discussions, I had emailed her a link to a photo of one version of my nomad pack where I had carried tiny bits of lots of items, things you might need from your office, kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom.

She asked for a list that included these items plus an outline of the versatile wardrobe housed in my Karrimor (airport 70L) suitcase (that converts into a backpack).

The pack is always under construction. I find smaller or better products or I wear out perfect items of clothing and have to try to find replacements.

I was inspired along the way by Doug Dyment's 'one bag' site, where he shows you how to travel pretty much anywhere - for an indefinite length of time - with a single (carry-on-sized) bag.

Recently, I've come across Deborah Tan, who developed The Urban Nomad Bag Project (see pictures and read more) as part of her senior thesis with which she graduated from Parsons last year. The theme of her senior thesis was ‘A Good Life - design for social change’.

"The Urban Nomad collection consists of three convertible bags, all designed with the Hmong philosophy of never furnishing one’s home with anything that couldn’t be carried on one’s back."
‘The Office’: a messenger bag that unfolds into a work-station

‘The Closet’: a backpack that unfolds into wall-hanging storage for your wardrobe

‘The Toilette’: a shoulder bag that unfolds into a 2-sided unit that hangs over the bathroom door. One side holds toiletries, and the other, towels and a change of clothing.

Describing a Life

2007-09-27T21:47:00.000+03:00

I was thinking of what I might say if I'd gone back in the summer for my 20-year high school reunion...

I've grown RICH
(in conversation)
and FAMOUS
(in small circles).
I've got a LARGE FAMILY
(of friends)
and I feel at home
anywhere (that's
a VERY BIG HOUSE
to live in).

Published in the New York Times

2007-09-26T20:57:00.000+03:00

Well, this post is for blog subscribers who don't yet know that my urban camping 'stuff' was mentioned in Penelope Green's "Surfing the Worldwide Couch" for the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/garden/20couch.html

It's an experience to see yourself squeezed in amongst others with similar interests, to be part of a zeitgeist or a phenomenon. I received an email from Amanda Deutch who also marveled at this experience.

House-sitting in Paris at the moment, she said she found my blog by getting distracted while reading the NY Times online. She exclaimed, "So there are others like me out there!"

She is a poet and left the States a year ago for a three-month writer's residency in Acores. She's been traveling ever since, making new families and becoming a part of new communities as she goes.

She left a comment on the Where do you live? post and later shared a story of how, in the house where she is currently house-sitting, she came across a book of haiku and essays/journals from Buson, Basho and Issa. She said, "What I hadn't known before is that there were 'itinerant poets' in Japan in those days. Issa was one for several years. I didn't realize until I saw 'The List' how many other writers live like this, like me."

We exchanged emails, both mentioning how challenging but amazing the experience can be. She said,

I never intended to choose a radical lifestyle, but somehow by following my heart and taking a big dive into life, I did and now there is no turning back. Really. My life has quite clearly changed. And most people who surround me now have no idea how very radically this kind of travel alters everything. I set out from America looking to see different philosophies and approaches to living and how other artists lived elsewhere. I expected I would find it directly from people, but soon realized I have become the very thing I was looking for by trusting myself and the world and letting go.

Thanks for sharing Amanda (and come visit me via www.couchsurfing.com ... Rotterdam is only a 4 hour train from Paris!)

A House as Big as a Mountain

2007-09-02T10:00:00.000+03:00

Rotterdam is having its year of architecture in 2007. In the train station is a huge poster of the shanty towns of Caracas in Venezuela.

The picture looks exactly like the favellas I have toured in Rio, where the side of the mountain is covered with cube upon cube. Each little house is wedged between two more and stacked upon the others. The surface is haphazardly dotted with doors and windows.

The caption to this photo says,

"DIT IS GEEN BERG
VOL HUIZEN, HET IS
EEN HUIS ZO GROOT
ALS EEN BERG"

My translation follows:

"This is not a mountain
full of houses, it is
a house as big
as a mountain."

Kept

2007-08-21T20:43:00.000+03:00

My friend Ella had dinner at my house last week and asked for tips on getting rid of things. She said, "You have no clutter in your house."

I told her that I love to throw things away, but I'm also someone who's kept just about every letter (on paper) or card I've ever received. My silverware belonged to my great grandmother. My pencil holder was given to me 18 years ago by my best friend in college. My candle stick holders were made by my grandfather. And some of my favorite pieces of clothing I've had for over 10 years.

There is a poem by Lucille Clifton sticking out of the picture frame of our family photo we had taken last year. If I'm allowed to quote it, it follows:

Things don't fall apart.
Things hold. Lines connect
in thin ways that last and
last and lives become
generations made out of
pictures and words just kept.

Attachment

2007-08-19T21:58:00.000+03:00

A couple months after moving back into my house, I started reading a book that I had had for several years. Someone left it with me and I'm not sure if it was Jason or Mary or someone else, but it was a good time to read my first ever pages on Buddhism.

Now, many months after reading it, I am often aware of a particular passage. If I'm allowed to quote it, it follows:

"We are absolutely fascinated with the whole idea of remembering and recording. When there is a gathering of people, they say, 'This is great. It's a pity somebody didn't bring a camera.'

But in recording a thing there is both a gain and a loss. That's why some people say things should be photographed, while others prefer to look at them and then let them go.

I had some experience of this phenomenon while touring in Japan. My students brought cameras and were constantly photographing things, and I had a camera as well and was also constantly photographing, but at the same time I felt that so long as I had a camera with me I would be distracted from actuality by it.

I had a little box with which I went around grabbing life. Of course, it was great to come back and look at the photographs, but there is something about a photograph that is inferior to the actual experience that is being photographed.

There is something immensely fascinating about photography and painting. They are forms of reproduction, which is also true of sexuality. They are like sexual reproduction in that they say you are here, you are alive, and they resonate with life.

One school of religion says, 'Let it all go. Don't be attached. Live in the moment.'Krishnamurti used to say, 'Stop trying to remember everything.'

"You may need a kind of factual memory for your name and address and telephone number and things like that, but do not linger over memories, treasuring them, thinking, 'I'm going to keep my girlfriend's lock of hair and take it out every now and then and look at it and it will make me feel wonderful.' That is a clinging to memory, which holds you to the past and to death.

"The other school of thought, quite opposite to this, goes along with the title of one of Henry Miller's books, Remember to Remember. This school says, 'Hold on to it all. Get involved. Keep your girlfriend's hair; keep all the photographs.'

You know how in some houses the piano is completely covered with photographs and reminiscences. I went to visit Gloria Swanson once, and had never before seen such a house full of memories. Everything in all directions was of Gloria Swanson, photographed on this occasion, signed on that occasion, and receiving various presentations.

I also once went to visit the wife of the former archbishop of Canterbury, and the whole house was memorials, a complete clutter of tombstone furniture with little brass plates on it, 'Presented on the occasion' of this, that, and the other.

Now, you might say, 'That person isn't really living. They are stuck in the past.' But on the other hand, what is life without memory, resonance, echo?

"I scarcely need to point out the duality of all this. If you are a wise man you do not take sides in this issue, you occupy both sides. That is the meaning of the unity of samsara and nirvana.

On the one hand, you let go of everything and live in the eternal now because that is all there is. Memory is an illusion; it is all gone. That is the meaning of maya, or illusion. There is only the eternal now, the present moment, and there never will be anything else. All remembering occurs in the present; memory exists in the eternal now.

"On the other hand, what fun to drag life out and make it echo and get involved with it, and to fall in love and become attached.

"R. H. Blyth once wrote me a letter in which he said, 'What are you doing these days? As for me, I am abandoning all kinds of satori and enlightenment and am trying to become as deeply attached to as many people and as many things as possible.'

"It is a balancing trick, like riding a bicycle. You find yourself falling over one way and you turn in that direction and stay up. In the same way, when you find yourself becoming too attached to life, you correct that excessive attachment with the realization that nothing exists except the eternal now.

And then, when you feel you are safe again, because the eternal now is the only thing that exists, you go off and get involved with some kind of social, political, amorous, familial, scholarly, or artistic enterprise. The two always go together."

pp. 85 - 87 Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion by Alan Watts

Another Tent in the City

2007-07-22T08:27:00.000+03:00

It's been awhile since I did a Google search on Urban Camping. Here's a new great find from the West Virginia Surf Report by Jeff Kay:

http://www.thewvsr.com/urbancamping.htm

Let Met Stay for a Day

2007-07-17T04:34:00.000+03:00

Oh, what a blog lull that was. I was busy graduating, couchsurfing in Ghent and Venice, working a million bazillion hours, etc. etc.

This week I saw a book in the trainstation bookstore called, Let Me Stay For A Day by Ramon Stoppelenburg. I saw there was a website and looked it up when I got home: www.letmestayforaday.com. If I may show you the intro verbatim, it follows:

Ramon Stoppelenburg (30)
When I was 24 I left my house in The Netherlands, on May 1, 2001, with a backpack filled with clothing, a digital camera, a laptop, and a mobile phone.

From May 2001 to July 2003 I travelled the world WITHOUT ANY MONEY, visiting people who invited me over through this website. I crossed distance with my thumb or with help of sponsors and supporters. In return for all support I wrote about this all in my daily reports on this website.

In July 2003 I arrived back home after a 22-weeks trip through Canada. It was then when I decided to quit.

I once quit my journalism study to travel the world. Thanks to global media support and helpful sponsors I could travel to other countries and stay with people who invited me over.

Most of the times it was all part of a media circus and I knew I couldn't travel without it.

I shared popcorn with Geri Halliwell and shook hands with Steve 'The Crocodile Hunter' Irwin. Britney Spears was published next to me in an American newspaper and even in The Netherlands many magazines wrote about me and my adventures.

American television networks followed this website about the 'notorious Dutch freeloader who travelled the world since May 2001'. Every month millions of people from all over the world read my reports. When I arrived in Oslo, Sydney or Vancouver, I would already have a full mailbox of media requests.

In the last two years I have travelled through 18 countries, personally met some 10,000 people on the road, slept in 500 different beds, ate some 1,500 meals and had some 600 showers. I have always wanted to travel because of the cultures, the flavors, the scents, the people. I visited people in Africa, Australia and North America, where I got all the way to the icey north of Canada.

People had the strangest reasons to invite me over at their place. Out of simple hospitality, or because they have travelled around themselves, or because they loved to meet a Dutch person.

Of course it flattered me a lot when a tv-crew would follow me around for a day (or more). And it was always interesting to tell people where my hometown Zwolle can be found. "East of Amsterdam," I'd say. "Oh yes, Amsterdam!"

Of every single day on the road I took loads of photos and at night I sat down behind my host's computers (later behind my own laptop) to write a throrough daily report. The next day it was up and go again. And it was the same thing everywhere again.

I continued for almost two years: moving from one place to another, meeting strangers and updating this website for the online audience that would express themselve on guestbooks and forums. This resulted in 7,000 photos and over 550 reports and two years of weekly columns for a Dutch newspaper.

You might understand now that I sometimes felt trapped in a cage that I had created mysefl. When I wanted to get out, I knew I simply couldn't. It was like having a full time job and the website was the family I had to support. If I didn't do my thing well enough, my kids would complain.

The only way to get out was to go home and say: I quit. Just like that.

I know some people can be very happy with one job in a lifetime, but I didn't see me travel the way I did for a very long time. I am even surprised that it took me so long!

When I just finished this project in August 2003 I was very bitter about it all. I did not want to think about it and for once not care about a website.

Fortunately things went better with me. Nowadays I look back much more happier about the amazing feat I have accomplished.

I decided to do something else: to spend a period to write the book Letmestayforaday.com about my travels. Something that's not virtual but real and where stories don' t have to keep a website alive, only memory. You will enjoy it, I know.

You can check out more about the book on my personal homepage www.ramonstoppelenburg.com.

Another one for the list.

Another One Year Nomadic Lifestyle Experiment

2007-05-29T22:28:00.000+03:00

I recently finished Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat Pray Love. Then, I gave a copy to three people, so far. It is delightful.

She's in her early 30s, at the end of her marriage. If I'm allowed to quote two paragraphs that I love, they follow:

"So, I stopped trying to choose - Italy? India? or Indonesia? - and eventually just admitted that I wanted to travel to all of them. Four months in each place. A year in total. Of course this was a slightly more ambitious dream than 'I want to buy myself a new pencil box.' But this is what I wanted. And I knew that I wanted to write about it. It wasn't so much that I wanted to thoroughly explore the countries themselves; this has been done. It was more that I wanted to thoroughly explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country, in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well. I wanted to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two. It was only later, after admitting this dream, that I noticed the happy coincidence that all these countries begin with the letter I. A fairly auspicious sign, it seemed, on a voyage of self-discovery.

"Imagine now, if you will, all the opportunities for mockery this idea unleashed in my wise-ass friends. I wanted to go to the Three I's, did I? Then why not spend the year in Iran, Ivory Coast and Iceland? Or even better - why not go on a pilgrimage to the Great Tri-State 'I' Triumvirate of Islip, I-95 and Ikea? My friend Susan suggested that perhaps I should establish a not-for-profit relief organization called "Divorcees Without Borders.'"

pp. 30-31

I'm going to add her to the list.

A Desire for Borders

2007-05-06T12:22:00.000+03:00

When Marty Neumeier explained the evolution of marketing and advertising in his book, The Brand Gap, he said that corporate messages have been designed and directed to particular tribes since around the year 2000.

He said that Marshall McLuhan’s 1960s vision of a global village, where technology was supposed to dissolve all national, economic and cultural barriers, will never be achieved.

Neumeier said that what exists now instead is “a global communication network, an electronic layer on top of the old divisions that influences [barriers] and adds to them, but doesn’t replace them.”

He argued that humans actually need barriers to feel safe.

He wrote, “The faster globalism removes barriers, the faster people erect new ones. They create intimate worlds they can understand, and where they can be somebody and feel as if they belong. They create tribes."

Crossing Borders

2007-05-05T08:12:00.000+03:00

After a visit a few years ago, my good friend Tricia gave me a card with this quote:

She crossed borders recklessly,
refusing to recognize limits,
saying bonjour and buon giorno as though
she owned both france and italy
and the day itself.

It is from www.compendiuminc.com

Closed Borders

2007-05-04T01:02:00.000+03:00

The founder of Pandora.com sent me this email yesterday:

Dear Pandora listener,

Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S.

It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.

We show your IP address is 'XXXXXXXXXX', which indicates you are listening from Netherlands. If you believe you are seeing this by mistake, we offer our sincere apologies and ask that you please reply to this email.

Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music - we have always believed in honoring the guidelines as determined by legislators and regulators, artists and songwriters, and the labels and publishers they work with. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world. Other than in the U.K., we have not yet been able to make significant progress in our efforts to obtain a sufficient number of international licenses at terms that would enable us to run a viable business. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.

Until now, we have not been able to tell where a listener is based, relying only on zip code information provided upon registration. We are now able to recognize a listener's country of origin based on the IP address from which they are accessing the service. Consequently, on May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We will be posting updates on our blog regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding.

-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

Environmentalist Urban Campers

2007-04-22T11:16:00.000+03:00

My friend, Lesa, sent me another type: A family conducting a 12-month lifestyle experiment called No Impact.

The 'camping' nature of the experiment is clearly indicated by the title of the article that Penelope Green wrote about this family: "The Year Without Toilet Paper."

This type of urban camper is very urban, although not at all nomadic. And even though they are practicing simplification in a very home-based context, I am still adding them to THE LIST.

The 22 March 2007 New York Times article explains, "Thoreau left home for the woods to make his point (and secure his own book deal); Mr. Beavan and Ms. Conlin and others like them aren't budging from their bricks-and-mortar, haut-bourgeois nests."

The family lives on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The 43-year-old father, Colin Beavan, has a Ph.D. in applied physics and is a historical non-fiction writer. The 39-year-old mother, Michelle Conlin, is a senior writer at Business Week. The writers have a two-year-old daughter.

Their environmental urban camping rules are:

eat only food organically grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan (the longest distance a farmer can drive in and out of the city in one day)
do not shop for anything new except food
produce no trash except compost
use no paper (including toilet paper)
use no carbon-fueled transportation (including elevators)

The article describes the very urban and very people-focused new wave of environmentalism:

"Andrew Kirk, an environmental history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, paints a contrasting picture to environmentalism's last big bubble, in the 1970s, long before Ronald Reagan pulled federal funding for alternative fuel technologies (and his speechwriters made fun of the spotted owl and its liberal protectors, a deft feat of propaganda that set the movement back decades)."

[Did you notice the speechwriters ... designing effects?]

When they got rid of their TV, they started playing Saturday night charades instead. The article says, "Mr. Beavan likes to talk about social glue -- community building -- as a natural byproduct of No Impact."

Instead of 'getting rid of', they turned off the dishwasher, microwave, coffee machine and food processor. However, they still use the washing machine and let the maid use the vacuum cleaner. They scooter to work, take the stairs, and pack organic greens and homemade bread for lunch.

There was a big shopping binge before 'the year' started. When she runs out of make-up they plan to create 'rules-based' substitutes. However, the toilet paper will only ever be replaced by lots of water and air drying.

Read more at Beavan's blog: www.noimpactman.com

Little Urban Campers

2007-04-06T08:45:00.000+03:00

My friend, Martijn, spotted a different kind of urban camper. The 27-year-old "slinkachu" has made:

Little People - A Tiny Street Art Project

Little Handpainted People,
Left in London to Fend for Themselves

Here are the urban campers:

http://little-people.blogspot.com/2007/04/urban-camping.html

I've added them to the list.

We Are Our Context

2007-03-31T09:51:00.000+03:00

My friend, Hikmet, gave me a book to read called, On Bullshit by moral philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University.

The book explores the difference between 'lying' and what might be considered 'bullshit'.

He concludes by discussing 'sincerity' and how it might not be possible. He says,

"As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them.

Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know.

Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution.

Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial - notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things.

And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit."
p. 66

Ugh.

No core self? No genuineness? We need our things?

Music Making Sense

2007-03-23T21:56:00.000+02:00

My friend, Rod, sent me an article by Denis Dutton from the NY Times called, "Shoot the Piano Player." (26 Feb 07)

It is about Joyce Hatto, an elderly British pianist who received critical acclaim for the diversity of classical music recordings she made from the 1950s - 1970; in total 120 CDs.

The article says, "Her recordings, CDs made when she was in her late 60s and 70s, are staggering, showing a masterful technique, a preternatural ability to adapt to different styles and a depth of musical insight hardly seen elsewhere."

She once told the Boston Globe, "Our job is to communicate the spiritual content of life as it is presented in the music. Nothing belongs to us; all you can do is pass it along."

She meant this literally, as it became known after her death that her "preternatural ability to adapt to different styles" was the result of stealing the recordings of lesser known musicians and selling them as her own.

The interesting aspect of this escapade is the critical acclaim she received. The lesser known artists remain obscure, even though the critics sang their praises, when they thought it was Joyce, the "prodigy of old age" playing.

Dutton's conclusion discusses how music critics mediate the environment.

I find it an interesting example of how we 'make sense' or 'attach meaning' based on our context.

It supports my belief in the importance of averting this natural tendency by remaining curious and developing a practice of crunching contexts together.

(It also reminds me of how experiences can be designed, of how effects can be created.)

Dutton says,

"Yet the Joyce Hatto episode is a stern reminder of the importance of framing and background in criticism.
Music isn't just about sound; it is about achievement in a larger human sense.
If you think an interpretation is by a 74-year-old pianist at the end of her life, it won't sound quite the same to you as if you think it's by a 24-year-old piano-competition winner who is just starting out.
Beyond all the pretty notes, we want creative engagement and communication from music, we want music to be a bridge to another personality.
Otherwise, we might as well feed Chopin scores into a computer.

This makes instrumental criticism a tricky business.
I'm personally convinced that there is an authentic, objective maturity that I can hear in the later recordings of Rubinstein.
This special quality of his is actually in the music, and is not just subjectively derived from seeing the wrinkles in the old man's face.
But the Joyce Hatto episode shows that our expectations, our knowledge of a back story, can subtly, or perhaps even crudely, affect our aesthetic response."

Doing Time

2007-03-18T20:20:00.000+02:00

I had dinner with my friends, Marion and Sarah, last week. Marion said she had once known a couple who had been traveling around for 2 or 3 years.

They said they insisted on NOT staying in hotels while traveling and one of their frequent alternatives was to stay in empty jail cells.

They would go to the local sheriff's office in a town and ask if there were any vacant cells they could sleep in.

Apparently this was often a successful way to urban camp.

Embodied Energy

2007-03-09T22:34:00.000+02:00

My friend, Lesa, said 'embodied energy' is kind of like how "you traded ownership for experience" last year.

She said, "I thought you'd love the concept of embodied energy, because it doesn't just look at the NOW...it asks, where did all this stuff come from, and where will it go when it's dismantled?"

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/technical/fs31.htm
"Embodied energy is the energy consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building, from the acquisition of natural resources to product delivery.

This includes the mining and manufacturing of materials and equipment, the transport of the materials and the administrative functions. Embodied energy is a significant component of the lifecycle impact of a home."

Einstein Said Be Curious

2007-03-08T00:26:00.000+02:00

"The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.

Never lose a holy curiosity."

Stuff Happens

2007-02-25T14:06:00.000+02:00

I found another person getting rid of her stuff.

The fall/winter 2006 'special issue' of Vogue Living has an article by Joan Juliet Buck called "Stuff Happens."

She has several ideas about why she bonds fiercely with her things.

Firstly, she is an only child without children. So, she develops relationships with things as if they were companions and she is loyal to them.

Secondly, we use things to develop identity. She says we are born naked and people shop for us. Then we grow up and shop for things that tell us who we are. She says, "This was called developing an eye, cultivating my taste, becoming a person. The stuff I bought was proof." p. 52

Lastly, she enjoyed reliving memories through things. But when surrounded by so many souvenirs, she came to say, "I was one step away from talking only about myself and entirely in the past tense, just like my house." p. 56

Also, "The clothes you buy at seventeen tell you who you are going to be, but the clothes you own at 50 had better not tell you who you once were. I hauled myself into the present with boxes and boxes of donations." p. 64

So many beautiful passages in this article. If I am allowed to share three paragraphs I find especially meaningful, they follow:

"I thought it would be easy, and also fashionable. Nostalgia is so yesterday, and the past is aging.

Discrimination and purity are to the Zeitgeist what sex and drugs were to my adolescence.

Everyone knows how to make a void in their head. All I had to do was make a void in my house, then sell it, and move back to a real city with very, very, very little.

My brilliant East Indian friend once told me that at 50, it was correct to give everything away and go out alone with a begging bowl.

If I had any American Indian friends they would tell me there isn't much at home to begin with.

I would honor both sets of Indians." p. 56

"Moving is like peeling an onion. You remove one layer to find another, but each layer has its own meaning.

As you let go of the shells of the past, you should close in on some essential truth, but it seemed, as persona followed persona out the door, that I was going with them, shrinking, vanishing.

I could almost hear the minimalists asking: 'Do you feel it yet? Do you get it now? Are you there?'

After the twentieth box went out the door, I felt a little giddy, but couldn't tell if it was freedom, or fear.

The joy that others claim to have when divesting themselves of old things felt, to me, like criminal recklessness.

Who was going to archive and tend everyone else's leftovers now? Who would know what went with what, when my story and the stories of those I loved had been dismantled?

And if I no longer had anything to watch over, who or what would watch over me?

It's all gone now. The house, most of the stuff.

As I emptied the place after the sale, people materialized who wanted to buy things, and I gleefully sold whatever caught someone's eye.

Triage is such an interesting word.

There's a storage unit full of linens, glassware, china. None of it seems important anymore.

I think I have walked through the door." p. 64

Her last insight ends the article: private property is an illusion.

Good Design

2007-02-11T16:58:00.000+02:00

I worked in an advertising agency for 1 and 1/2 years.

There was a poster in someone's office that said, "Design is more than fancy layout. Design is transporting an idea from one person's head to another."

Learning Curiosity

2007-02-10T14:39:00.000+02:00

Richard Dreyfuss: "TV is part of the problem. We discuss serious issues by image instead of text."

Richard Dreyfuss: "That's the constancy you can learn. You can actually learn the constancy of curiosity and the constancy of outrage. You can learn that it's OK to keep asking the questions and to be dissenters and if you don't, if you're not taught it, then you don't know it."

Where Am I Going?

2007-02-06T22:51:00.000+02:00

From my friend Rod:

Milton Glaser: "None of us has the ability to understand our path until its over."

Milton Glaser: "My idea about graphic designers and social commentary is that that is part of the practice.

I've always believed that because you have access to people's minds, and you can communicate to people, that there is a corresponding responsibility, the responsibility of being a good citizen and also recognizing that you have the ability to transfer ideas from one point to another that those should be ideas that cause no harm.

So, it doesn't matter so much whether the graphic designer is an effective vehicle as much as, for personal reasons, you want to be operating within the life of your time.

I mean, you want to do things that have some relationship to your community, to your family, to your city, to your country, and to the world."

Drafting a Third Urban Camping Motto

2007-01-21T13:32:00.000+02:00

My friend Hikmet said,

"hey jen, like the tv series that change direction in style and content after a certain point, your blog seems no longer to be very much about urban camping or the philosophy behind it. keep it up anyway."

For me, the blog is still about urban camping. My experience this year is to host urban campers through the CouchSurfing Project.

I am working on my third urban camping motto, which has something to do with open sourcing.

Open Sourcing

Still resonating with me from last year's road trip is the memory of slipping in and out of environmental contexts and how that experience shakes me loose from old perspectives, forcing me to take a different look.

I recognize this again with the couchsurfers. My routine or life pattern is sliced open by complete strangers coming into my life (based on a reputation/recommendation interface).

The ideas we discuss under my roof stay with me long after the couchsurfers leave. These conversations are a unique mix of the foreign and the familiar.

On the one hand, a home environment has metaphorical and universal qualities of trust, safety and comfort. It is a place where thoughts on life flow easily.

On the other hand, we have no shared history together. There is no past to predict whether we are of the same 'tribe.' We do not know if we share the same 'niche.'

I have to pay a special kind of attention to a person when I have had no previous chance to make sense of him or her.

Making Sense

We make sense by forming patterns, grouping similar things together and crafting labels. But, apart from their online profiles, I have no idea where these couchsurfers are coming from, where to put them.

We find ourselves discussing all sorts of life topics such as careers, relationships, families, politics, religions, movies and music. Everything is coming from everywhere and is connected to nothing.

I think open sourcing provides solutions by cracking open perspectives. All of us are having an experience with our environment and we are all attempting to make sense of it, to mediate it.

While it is very satisfying to find 'my people,' those who mediate the experience in a similar way, my experience tells me that it is also very satisfying to browse outside my niche.

We all form patterns of sense-making. Each pattern is one attempt to fit all the pieces together into a unified theory. We operate under these models. We must.

Perspective Test

Open sourcing forces our patterns to collide, shakes them loose. We see that we are allowed to graft other variables into our theories about how the world works.

I have a new job. When I met the CEO, he asked me why I kept setting out on new study programs. I told him that I was interested in different viewpoints.

He told me to come back to him with my observations of the company within three to six months. Any longer than that and, he said, I would be engulfed in the culture, unable to notice anything.

The back of Thomas De Zengotita's book asks,

"Surrounded by an increasingly pervasive, powerful deluge of media representations, could we be losing our access to 'natural' or original thoughts, feelings, and experiences?"

At the moment, frequently changing my environmental context is the only way I know of to maintain life choices about things, issues and people that speak to me personally.

Besides this type of open sourcing experience, I know of no other way to discover the perspectives, values, delights, definitions, possessions, relationships that speak to me in an individual way.

I think I find uniquely useful and beautiful elements for my life model by the continual contrast that open sourcing provides.

Which is Which

So, I would really like to hear other people's ideas. Maybe you will leave a comment on the blog?

How do you recognize the things you chose to be in your life because they made sense to you in a unique individual way?

How satisfying is it to have fake fruit in our house? Why do presidents have speech writers? One is a representation of something desirable. The other is designing an experience for us.

How do you recognize the things that are a part of your life because you are engulfed in a context? How do you know when things are speaking to you because someone has designed them to speak to you, to represent something desirable?

This is an open source question. How do you know which things in your life are which?

Is Pandora's Box Half Full or Half Empty?

2007-01-12T08:29:00.000+02:00

Our profiles in The CouchSurfing Project ask for, "One Amazing Thing I've Seen or Done."

Mine says, "Seeing river dolphins suddenly jump out of the water in Brazil."

The profile of my seventh couchsurfer, Lokesh, says "I saw a Tiger at 10 feet distance...it was the most amazing and overwhelming experience."

He is from New Delhi and is doing his MBA in Spain.

He couchsurfed around the Netherlands when his wait-listed flight back to India did not come through.

When I asked him to type one of his favorite songs into Pandora.com, he said that nothing Hindi was coming up.

I said, "Not even Punjabi MC?" He is the only Indian musician of which I know. I learned of him when I was in India and heard him again on the radio when I was back in Europe.

"Nope," he said. "Not even Punjabi MC."

Technorati tag: urban camping, couch surfing, punjabi mc, india

Raw Experience

2007-01-09T23:22:00.000+02:00

Designed to Affect You Part Three

In 2001, I made a painting called "A Color and a Field."

On first glance, it looks like one canvas painted red above another canvas painted black.

But within a few seconds, most people notice the subtle string of red lip prints going across the top of the black canvas.

When they come in closer to investigate, they usually notice the large black vinyl letters on the bottom side of the red canvas that say,

"She bought lipstick for the funeral from the new Unspeakable Grief line guaranteed not to fade for up to eight hours."

I was thinking about the idea of 'decorated grief.'

The seed of the idea came from the weekend when JFK Jr. died.

The plane he was flying with his wife and sister-in-law disappeared over the ocean but no one knew for sure if they were dead or alive.
During the weekend I occasionally turned on the TV to see if they had been found.

At one point, CNN was playing dramatic music that made me feel like I was watching a film and they had the words 'unspeakable grief' on the screen.

The word 'unspeakable' was written in a fancy flowing script and the word 'grief' was written in block letters.

The sadness was not raw.

The sadness was decorated.

I was aware that people had made conscious artistic decisions.

Technorati tag: urban camping, design

The Effect is Effective

2007-01-07T10:24:00.000+02:00

Designed to Affect You Part Two

In his 1988 statement Full Fathom Five, artist, Jeff Koons, describes how the advertising and entertainment industries have effectively adapted these 'design' tools:

Artists somehow develop this moral crisis where we are fearful of being effective in the world.

We set up these inside games; we develop all these aesthetics and all this formalism.

It's a totally ineffective structure which participates not at all in the outside world.

We were the great seducers, we were the great manipulators, and we have given up these intrinsic powers of art - its effectiveness.

The entertainment industry, the advertising industry have taken these tools from the art world and made themselves much more politically potent.

We are really devastated and very impotent right now.

A photographer just working for an advertising company has a platform to be much more politically effective in the world than an artist.

Technorati tag: urban camping, jeff koons, entertainment industry, advertising industry, art

Footnotes Are Not Designed to Affect You

2007-01-05T21:19:00.000+02:00

Designed to Affect You Part One

My opponents in the debate argued that adding footnotes does not 'kill the whole thing' as Steiner suggested.

I argued (and still argue) that footnoting does not destroy the artwork; it destroys the EFFECT that the artist created.

Art communicates through effect. We 'experience' artwork.

Roncevaux was a symbol that Hemmingway used to slowly create the effect of deceit and betrayal.

It would not be ART if the writer simply said, "This man, who is going to betray his friend later in the story ..."

A person achieves a certain effect by directly 'explaining' something to his audience.

BUT, there is a completely different effect generated when artists use symbols to slowly reveal the picture they are painting.

Another example:

I went to Igor Stravinsky's opera, the "Rake's Progress."

At the intermission, we were commenting on two scenes in the first half that took place on rooftops.

The first scene, between the young man and his girlfriend, took place on her home's rooftop.

A few scenes later, the young man danced around the top of a building in London.

Realizing this was probably not coincidence, we were curiously watching for rooftops in the second half.

Well, there weren't any.

So we completely forgot about the roofs and got caught up in the story which was: young foolish man gets seduced away from his 'true love' by money, power, prestige and in the end he loses everything and is insane and alone.

The story was well told, with humor and beautiful music, but it wasn't until walking home after the show that I 'got' the rooftops.

The story was about the 'fall' of a young man.

The rooftops were a sort of subconscious symbol off of which he would fall, during the second half, to his demise.

I would hesitate to say that the rooftops were the 'genius' of the story, as Steiner said of Hemmingway, but symbols are often part of the artist's craft and I would not like the 'rooftops' effect to have been 'footnoted' in my program.

Technorati tag: urban camping, hemmingway, steiner, Roncevaux, Stravinsky

Deaf to the Most Moving Literature

2007-01-03T21:52:00.000+02:00

I once heard Wim Kayzer interview George Steiner for the Dutch TV series entitled 'Van de Schoonheid en de Troost'['Of Beauty and Consolation']).

During that time, a friend and I were debating whether or not artwork exists when there is no audience, a question that always sounds to me like, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it still make a sound?"

Steiner said, "And one of the great passages which illustrates all my worries about people no longer recognizing great references, people becoming deaf to the most moving literature, is in one little passage from the novel: The Sun Also Rises....

Two very close friends are on a bus and they think they love each other. They think they are really, totally true to each other."

(and then he read the passage from Hemmingway):

We went through the forest and the road came out and turned along a rise of land and out ahead of us was a rolling green plane and the dark mountains beyond it.

These were not like the brown heat-baked mountains we'd left behind.

These were wooded and there were clouds coming down from them. The green planes stretched off.

It was cut by fences and the white of the road showed through the trunks of a double line of trees that crossed the plane towards the North.

As we came to the edge of the rise we saw the red roofs and white houses of Burguete ahead strung out on the plane and away off on the shoulder of the first dark mountain was the gray metal sheath roof of the monastery of Roncevaux.

'There's Roncevaux,' I said.

'Where?'

'Way off there where the mountains start.'

'It's cold up here,' Bill said.

'It's high,' I said, 'Must be 1200 meters.'

'It's awful cold,' Bill said."

After reading the passage, Steiner finished his commentary by explaining that Roncevaux was the place in the great medieval epic of Roland where someone within their group betrayed Roland and his friends.

They were butchered in an ambush of the Saracens.

Steiner explains, "The genius of Hemmingway is not to say so.

Only the word Roncevaux tells us that these two friends are going to betray each other.

That they are on the edge of the end of their relationship and then the repetitions, 'It's cold up here,' Bill said, 'It's awful cold.'

And of course it is the cold of the heart and only a very great artist can say everything without saying anything."

Steiner explained that no one recognizes the symbol of Roncevaux any longer, not even his students from Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard.

He said that our next editions will have to have a footnote, which "kills the whole thing."

He explained that during Hemmingway's time, he had written this 'success novel' to the 'pop' audience and he could assume that the word Roncevaux was all that was needed.

Steiner expressed dismay with the idea that soon other symbols such as 'Elsinore' and 'La Mancha' will have to be footnoted.

Technorati tag: urban camping, hemmingway, steiner, roncevaux, wim kayzer, The Sun Also Rises

Speaking to Me

2007-01-01T22:20:00.000+02:00

Oh, Missy, thank you! Pandora.com is wonderful! I now have over 25 stations.

When I typed in Cat Empire, the message said, "Searching the Music Genome Project..."

Then, "We're now creating a station that will explore songs and artists that have musical qualities similar to Cat Empire."

"To start things off, we'll play a song that exemplifies the musical style of Cat Empire which features mild rhythmic syncopation, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, a busy horn section, major key tonality, classical rhodes sound and many other similarities identified in the Music Genome Project."

I considered memorizing this to use as an answer the next time someone asks me, "What kind of music do you like?"

I started plugging in the musicians from the list that Ashley, my sixth couchsurfer, left me.

Ashley is a ballerina who used the CouchSurfing Project as she traveled around Europe trying out for dance companies.

Ashley wrote on my list, "Sigur Ros," saying that they were Icelandic.

She said, "If fairies could have bands, it would be like this."

I wonder how this will be represented in the Music Genome Project, if they have enough songs and artists with this quality to create a whole station.

She had let me listen to Arcade Fire's song, Bell Orchestre, on her MP3 player.

As I enter the name, I hope the typewriter they play in that song shows up as a musical gene.

Instead of busy horn section, I want them to say mellow office machines, but they don't.

I love Pandora.com. I listen to it all the time and have friends type in a favorite artist when they're here.

As I listen, I am still wondering what it is exactly that speaks to me in a song? Will I like all of the music with similar gene patterns? Or are there other unrepresented qualities that might resonate with me?

Technorati tag: urban camping, pandora, sigur ros, music, arcade fire

A Strict Journalistic Standard

2006-12-30T09:31:00.000+02:00

A Representation of an Experience Part 3.

I have been a foreigner for nine years. I am an American living in the Netherlands.

A few weeks ago I spoke with my friend, Constanza, about this experience. She is from Chile and has been a foreigner for one year.

A foreigner is out of place.

Our experience with our surroundings often does not match the expectations we carry in our heads.

These mis-matched issues often become matters of identity because what we identify with is in question.

In the very beginning, we related our experiences back to friends and family in our native countries.

And then we both stopped, in part because we realized we were limited in what we could communicate.

If you don't know the experience, words won't transport it from my head to yours.

Constanza said that at a certain point she was disappointed because what she said sounded fake. She said it just became a story.

I agreed and also added that I think we are always doing this. We make choices regarding how we represent our primary experiences.

We do this because we are trying to make sense of our context, for our own sanity, but also because we want to communicate in a sensible way with the other people in our lives.

Our representation is an expression of one version, our chosen version, of an experience or an event.

This idea is touched upon by the 25 December 2006 issue of the European Time Magazine by James Poniewozik (with reporting by Karen Tumulty).

The article contrasts journalists with the citizen journalists of the web saying, "Journalists are trained to make sense, to frame stories and order facts, smoothing over random happenings and odd twists." p. 47

But a portal of citizen journalists collects many many versions of an event in an unorganized and somewhat chaotic manner. Their many perspectives also represent the random happenings and odd twists.

Although I will not be able to, nor would I choose to, be present at every life happening, I want to build a life full of experiential knowledge.

But if I don't have a primary experience with an event, then I want the cognitive knowledge I build up to come from as many different sources as possible.

One version is not enough, no matter how strict the "journalistic standard" might be.

How many versions is enough? Are there ever enough sides of the story told? How do we process multiple sides of the story? How do we come to make sense of this? To allow this?

Technorati tag: urban camping, zengotita, media, experience, representation

History Is Written by the Winners

2006-12-28T10:15:00.000+02:00

A Representation of an Experience Part 2

Another book I ate on the train was A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.

Maybe the foreward has something to do with De Zengotita's ideas of what is representational?

"A Million Little Pieces is about my memories of my time in a drug and alcohol treatment center.

As has been accurately revealed by two journalists at an Internet Web site, and subsequently acknowledged by me, during the process of writing the book, I embellished many details about my past experiences, and altered others in order to serve what I felt was the greater purpose of the book.

I sincerely apologize to those readers who have been disappointed by my actions....

I didn't initially think of what I was writing as nonfiction or fiction, memoir or autobiography.

I wanted to use my experiences to tell my story about addiction and alcoholism, about recovery, about family and friends and faith and love, about redemption and hope.

I wanted to write, in the best-case scenario, a book that would change lives, would help people who were struggling, would inspire them in some way....

As I wrote, I worked primarily from memory.

I also used supporting documents, such as medical records, therapists' notes, and personal journals, when I had them, and when they were relevant.

I wanted the stories in the book to ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension that all great stories require.

I altered events and details all the way through the book....

My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience.

There is much debate now about the respective natures of works of memoir, nonfiction, and fiction.

That debate will likely continue for some time.

I believe, and I understand others strongly disagree, that memoir allows the writer to work from memory instead of from a strict journalistic or historical standard.

It is about impression and feeling, about individual recollection.

This memoir is a combination of facts about my life and certain embellishments.

It is a subjective truth, altered by the mind of a recovering drug addict and alcoholic.

Ultimately, it's a story, and one that I could not have written without having lived the life I've lived." pp. v-vi

Technorati tag: urban camping, zengotita, media, experience, james frey, fiction, a million little pieces, representation

Nomadic with the Truth

2006-12-26T18:39:00.000+02:00

A Representation of an Experience Part 1.

I have a daily commute of three or four hours. So, I am eating books on the train.

I recently read Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated, winner of the Guardian First Book Award in 2002.

Half of the book is meant to be written by the author who goes to the Ukraine to find the woman who saved his Grandfather from the Nazis.

The other half of the book is meant to be written by Alex, the young Ukrainian translator who guides Jonathan on the trip.

Their stories are inter-twined and they share their perspectives on each other's writings.

Jonathan is writing a fictional account of the story of his relatives and Alex is writing a story about his and Jonathan's trip through the Ukraine.

I love a passage written by Alex to Jonathan.

It might relate to De Zengotita's idea of representations?

Alex asks Jonathan in a letter, "We are being very nomadic with the truth, yes? The both of us? Do you think it is acceptable when we are writing about things that occurred?"

Alex says that if the answer is "no" then he wants to know why Jonathan is writing in such in a fictional, almost fantasy-like manner about his Grandfather and the town they visited.

And he wants to know why they have to leave out parts. It seems, to him, untruthful to make these choices.

Alex says that if the answer to the question is "yes" then this creates another question.

If they feel it's OK to be "such nomads with the truth," then Alex wants to know why don't they just go ahead and make the story even better than real life?

Alex gives examples of ways to improve the story and says they could make it "perfect and beautiful, and funny, and usefully sad, as you say."

He concludes with, "I do not think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem." p. 179 - 180

Technorati tag: urban camping, zengotita, media, experience, jonathan safran foer, fiction, everything is illuminated, representation

Designed for Me to Experience

2006-12-24T11:17:00.000+02:00

I've been considering de Zengotita's ideas and wondering.

What exactly does he mean by representational? That which represents the primary experience I might potentially have with an environment or context?

Is a representational experience always designed to carry a message? Designed to create an effect?

Is the mediated experience referring to a mediator as in a go-between, a middle man, as in some person or group that stands between us and what might be our primary experience with an environment or context?

Or is the mediated experience talking about media, where some person or group arranges random elements from an environment or context with the intention to create a communicative experience?

How many of our options are representational and how many are real?

He says that if we remove the representational options from our choices, our real options are limited. What, then, are our limited options?

A bit heavy, no?

I need to finish the book, but on a lighter note, my friend, Missy, emailed me to say,

"I've been thinking a lot about your current open-sourcing project with music. Music moves my life in so many ways, so I wanted to share a couple of things with you.

First is www.pandora.com - created by the Music Genome Project to help people find music that they love.

And some suggestions to try once you get into Pandora (especially based on the list you have just created of new music you like):
Sam Phillips

Vienna Teng

I would have said Damien Rice, but I see you have discovered him on your own.

Counting Crows
These are people who speak to me with their melodies and their words."

The Music Genome Project started on 6 January 2000 with musicians and music-loving technologists analyzing the individual components of over 10,000 songs by popular and obscure artists.

Each song comprises unique 'genes' in areas of melody, harmony and rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, vocal harmony, etc.

So, if you enter your favorite song into their gorgeous interface, these people give you a list of songs with similar gene patterns.

They say, "... now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe."

This is a mediated experience in both senses of the word.

In the mediator sense, The Music Genome people are my middle men designing a customized experience just for me.

In the media sense, music is an expression formed when some person or group arranges random sounds.

I don't know of what these might be representations.

In terms of my 'real' options, I guess a non-mediated experience might be to listen to the raw noise of the universe on my own, maybe hum along, make my own instruments, make my own arrangement of whatever sounds I could gather.

And not share that with anyone, lest I mediate them, stand between them and their own 'real' experience with their context or environment.

In open source terms, Missy, is one of the "thousand tour guides" I am seeking in refreshing and developing my perspective on life, in this case music.

Technorati tag: urban camping, zengotita, media, experience, music genome project, options, art, mediation, music, sam phillips, vienna teng, damien rice, counting crows

Revisiting Options - As Good As It Gets

2006-12-22T12:08:00.000+02:00

When I went to visit my family this summer, I bought a book at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.

It's called, Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live In It by Thomas de Zengotita.

It caught my eye because of my desire for seeing the real world instead of cocooning at home and watching the world through TV.

He says, "We are most free of mediation, we are most real, when we are at the disposal of accident and necessity." p. 14

Sounding very much like Dan Ho, De Zengotita says, "But mediated people everywhere know that identity and lifestyle are constructs, something to have." p. 14

It also caught my eye because he talks, in a way that contrasts Thoreau's time-period and concept, about the post-modern idea that we have all these 'options'.

De Zengotita claims that the opposite of reality is not "phony" or "illusional" or "fiction."

He says that the concept of "options" is the opposite of reality.

Uh oh. How can that be?

Simplicity

He says that if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you have no connections or gadgetry, nothing to listen to or to read while you wait, then eventually you will start to notice your surroundings and notice that none of it was designed to affect you.

Everything around you is just there and you are just there. No one arranged it for you to experience.

There is no brochure, or entrance or tour guide. There are no paths or viewing platforms with historical information under plexiglass.

He says that an experience like this will lead you to understand how very small your place in life really is and that your options are limited.

(This explanation of) this experience is meant to be the baseline for comparison to the experience we have in a mediated world.

He says that most people will recognize that culture has always filtered reality, that the things in our lives have always carried messages, represented categories of rank and affiliation.

De Zengotita says, "But being aware of that is new. This crucial point must be grasped and retained."

Options

He explains that because many of the "objects" and "places" and "mannerisms" in our life-world are all each designed to "represent" something, we browse among these options, picking out components to build up an identity and lifestyle that means something larger to us than our "real" place in the scheme of things.

He goes on to say, "What cultures traditionally provided was taken-for-granted custom, a form of necessity -- hence reality."

We no longer grow up with a taken-for-granted reality imposed on us.

We learn that we can create our own reality by living among and through options that never before existed.

He says the slang expression "whatever" sums up our necessary and dialectical attitude in the field of options.

On the one hand, we can have whatever we want or imagine.

We can see whatever, eat whatever, hear whatever, or be whatever.

On the other hand, because all of these objects, places and mannerisms are "representational," we have built our identities and lifestyles out of a world of effects.

Because they are representations, these components have a surface quality.

Again sounding like Dan Ho, who said that unstudied style is primarily visual, De Zengotita gives examples,

"Everything has the edgeless flowing feel of computer graphics, like the lobby of a high-end Marriott/Ramada/Sheraton -- the sculptured flower arrangements, that glowy, woody, marbly, purply, cushioned-air quality.

Every gadget aspires to that iPod look -- even automobiles.

The feel of the virtual is over-flowing the screens, as if the plasma were leaking into the physical world." pp.15-16

Mobility

De Zengotita says we need mobility among the options because they are only representations, "And that means they are no more than they appear to be. And so they are never enough. And that's why more is on the way. Always." p. 17

These representations are appealing because they are designed to address us. In that design, we are the center of attention.

But as reality and representation come together, there are always two opposing sides to the experience.

De Zengotita claims that while half of our being is acknowledging, I can experience whatever I want, the other half is feeling, What difference does it make?

He says, "This moment, the moment of the shrug, is essential to our mobility among the options."

While we are free to keep browsing the options, we need to keep moving among them because they are only representations.

We are always left with wanting something more and we are always getting more of the same.

He says the irony is, "You are completely free to choose because it doesn't matter what you choose."

Technorati tag: urban camping, Zengotita, media, experience, simplicity, options, art, mobility

The Long Tail

2006-12-13T21:49:00.000+02:00

When my friend, Hikmet, told me that Nelly Furtado's brother had been in his college band, I said, "Who's Nelly Furtado?"

He is patient with my deficiency.

The reason I cringe every time I hear the question, "What kind of music do you like?" is because I have very good rhythm but know very little about what kind of music I like.

I just finished Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail.

Talking about movies, books and music, he promises that, "Increasingly, the mass market is turning into a mass of niches."

He says that people are using a number of filtering devices, such as recommendation lists at Rhapsody, to find their musical niche.

I am excited to hear this although I fear I may have no musical niche to discover. I fear I may have been deaf in a past life.

Now I am grateful for everything I can hear, but any level of sophistication will not come until the next lifetime.

And then something nice happened.

Because my education is in the visual arts, sometimes people ask me what they should be looking for in art.

I tell them to look for something that speaks to them.

If challenged on this approach, that it does not sound 'educated,' I ask them what kind of experience they want to have with art.

You can be moved by something about which you 'know' very little.

So, last month a group of friends was celebrating Hikmet's birthday at a nice bar, when I clearly noticed a song.

This is unusual for me. I could not understand the words, but the voice and the melody caught my attention.

So I asked who it was. It was John Mayer. I did not know him.

Back at home, I YouTubed every song of his I could find.

Then the Yahoo Music site confirmed that I might have a musical niche afterall.

When I clicked the link to find "similar artists," I saw that I already like five of the 16 musicians:

Dave Matthews
David Gray
Ben Harper
Jack Johnson
Norah Jones

Unfortunately they do not tell me the name of this niche or I would use it to answer the question, "What kind of music do you like?"

But I am happy to have 11 more musicians to YouTube:

Keane
Train
Five For Fighting
Ben Folds Five
Ben Folds
Guster
Gavin DeGraw
Jason Mraz
Damien Rice
Josh Kelley
Vertical Horizon

Technorati tag: urban camping, john mayer, youtube, experience, the long tail, chris anderson, art, Nelly Furtado, dave matthews, david gray, ben harper, jack johnson, norah jones

Walden and Prada

2006-12-08T09:56:00.000+02:00

Apparently, another CouchSurfer lives right down the street from me. My second CouchSurfer, Lana, had been camping there before she arrived.

Originally from New Zealand, she finds jobs in England to make money to travel around Europe.

When the money runs out, she goes back to England to wait tables until she's ready to embark on another trip.

She camped with me for about a week while waiting to catch the ferry back to England.

We were both pinching pennies so we used an old movie card of mine that had two free tickets to see The Devil Wears Prada.

Now I'm reading the book, which is a very different version of the same story, different events, different characters, and more celebrities.

It opens with a Walden quote:

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden 1854

I wonder what Thoreau would think of people going off to the woods to read his book (and the 79 others that would fit) on their Sony Reader.

Technorati tag: urban camping, walden, sony reader, nomad, ebooks, prada, art, couchsurfing

The New Sony Reader

2006-12-06T23:53:00.000+02:00

So, if you download Nietzsche from Gutenberg.com, you could read it on-the-go with the new Sony Reader, which was reviewed in The New York Times on 24 November 2006 by Charles McGrath.

McGrath points out its strong points, but is not overly excited about the device.

I think the $350 device should be tested and reviewed by a booklover with nomadic tendencies.

Otherwise, why bother really? How hard is it to lug a book to the beach? Or on the daily train commute to work?

You take a book with you to read on your way and then you bring it back home at the end of the day, perhaps pick out a different one to take with you the next day.

BUT, what if you put all of your books into the Sony Reader before taking a 55-week nomadic trip? Perfect application. Your whole library at your traveling fingertips.

So, according to McGrath, here are the good qualities:

battery charge can last for a week or more

it can hold about 80 books or even more if you use a memory card

you can skip from book to book while you're out and about

light weight and compact

Courier typeface is very readable

has a bookmark feature

at the beach, you don't have to worry about dampness, sand or wind blown pages

you can put any of Project Gutenberg's (www.gutenberg.org) 19,000 books on the Reader

you can get books cheap from Sony Connect eBooks store (ebooks.connect.com, which has 10,000 titles)

And, here are his complaints:

lacks iPod elegance

clunky controls are hard to operate for people with big fingers

screen is not backlit so can't read in the dark

when blown up to 3 times its size, Courier typeface sometimes has awkward spaces and line breaks

every book looks exactly the same on the Reader

the icon may tell you that you're on page 312 of 716, but you can't feel with your fingers how many pages you have left

you can't skim or flip through easily

you can't search

you can't make notes

so light weight and compact that you can easily lose it

Project Gutenberg books can have bizarre line breaks when downloaded into the Sony Reader

the inventory of the Sony Connect eBooks store is spotty and not as browser friendly as Amazon and you cannot use a Mac to access the store's program

'look-it-up' reference books don't work well on the reader

Well, I definitely want to be able to search and make notes in an ebook. Those features should be added to future versions.

But, I'm so excited about the idea of nomads with traveling libraries, that I plan to try the Sony Reader just the way it is.

Technorati tag: urban camping, Nietzsche, sony reader, nomad, ebooks, gutenberg project, art

Opposites Come Together

2006-12-03T11:02:00.000+02:00

My curiosity was piqued when, in September 2006, I heard the BBC radio program called A Brief History of Infinity: Space and the Universe.

Although there may be no actual relationship between the material they covered and the questions I have from previous posts, (we at least both pointed to Groundhog Day and) I couldn't help but consider:

polarized differences of opinion ceasing to exist at the level of infinity

or, differences of opinion never getting resolved at the level of infinity, only forever repeated

making linear plans while living in a circular system

the lost hiker seeing the same tree over and over again and Nietzsche's 'eternal recurrence'

From the program:

They say that at the level of infinity, opposites come together or contradictions cease to occur.

They gave the following example: If a straight line is the opposite of a curved line or a circle, then it is said that a circle with an infinite radius actually becomes a straight line.

The philosopher Nietzsche said there is a very interesting implication if we believe that time is infinite which is if time really is infinite and if all possible events, though very large, are probably finite, that it logically follows that everything repeats.

Every event in the universe returns again and again and again over infinite time.

The BBC also mentions that this was an idea that was captured in Hollywood's Groundhog Day.

I Googled this and Nietzsche explores 'eternal recurrence' in his work Thus Spake Zarathustra (download it free from gutenberg.org).

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy has the following entry under 'eternal recurrence':

An ancient cosmological idea, seized upon by Nietzsche, to the effect that everything that happens is part of an endlessly repeating cycle or sequence of events.

While Nietzsche entertained this idea as an actual cosmological hypothesis, he first introduced it and chiefly employed it hypothetically as a kind of test.

One who is able to affirm life even on this supposition will have what it takes to endure and flourish in the aftermath of all disillusionment.

Talk about 'perspective'...

Technorati tag: urban camping, Nietzsche, Zarathustra, BBC, opposites, cycles, contradictions, circles, opposites, time, infinity

Difference of Opinion

2006-12-01T13:28:00.000+02:00

Steve had to leave because, the next day, I was teaching 50 university freshman how to argue.

He couldn't stay at my house because I had planned to stay over at the house of my friend, Marion.

She lived in Utrecht, which meant I would only have to make a short trip across town to teach my morning class at 8.45.

Before he left, I practiced my material on Canadian Steve, the third CouchSurfer. My opening line was, "Why do we have differences of opinion?"

"Because no two people on the face of the earth ever experience life in the same way."

So far so good. "So, what do we do with difference of opinion?"

Steve replied, "Well, it makes me feel uncomfortable. I tend to let people do their thing and I do my thing."

I said, "But I love difference of opinion. For me it's not about arguing, it's about exploring. When I meet someone with a different point of view, I think I might have a chance to discover something new."

A few weeks later, another Canadian CouchSurfer was on the verge of leaving. She asked for my contact details.

As I spelled out my email address, I stalled on the last letter of my name, "m-e-t.....zed, zee. Wait a second. You say, 'zed', right?"

For a moment, I couldn't remember which one of us used which pronunciation.

Because I think it's less distracting, my practice is to adapt to the conversation by using audience-specific words.

It's less distracting for non-Americans to hear, "football" instead of "soccer."

It's less distracting for Americans to hear "cell phone" instead of "mobile phone."

When talking to Canadians, I say "zed" instead of "zee."

Ashley, my sixth CouchSurfer smiled and said, "Have you seen the rant?"

I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about. So she showed it to me on YouTube:

Technorati tag: urban camping, couchsurfing, argumentation, travel, nomad, point of view, art, canada, rant, canadian

From Stonehenge to My Living Room

2006-11-30T00:57:00.000+02:00

My third CouchSurfer, Steve, arrived at 1:00 am in the morning.

He had called several hours earlier from a payphone to let me know that he had missed the ferry from England and would be on the next one.

When he arrived I asked him what he needed, a glass of water, a shower?

He said, "A shower would be great. I camped at Stonehenge last night."

"You can camp at Stonehenge?" I asked.

"Well, I had to climb a fence. I wanted to see if those stones gave off energy. But they don't. I didn't feel anything."

Zapped from Stonehenge to my living room, I was in awe. Steve was the real thing, a real nomad.

This 30-year-old Canadian roofer had been traveling for three straight years through Europe and Asia.

When he returned to chat after his shower, I watched him like he was a rare breed in the zoo.

He had nomadic characteristics:

He seemed to feel immediately at home.
He was completely real, no pretenses.
Thoughts broke out naturally into conversation.
He was here in this moment, not distracted by where he'd been or where he was going.
He was streamlined. All of his possessions for the past three years were in one 28-pound pack.

When he sat down, I asked him, "How have you done this for three years? Financially? Emotionally?"

He said, "I'm really glad I took the time to travel. I made a lot of money when I was in Norway. I sent it to Spain, so I would have to go back there. Sometimes I ran out of money and had to beg. I discovered that when you don't have a place to sleep, you can just walk through the city instead of sleeping. I've seen amazing views on cities at night that other people don't see."

He said he recently decided to head back home, which meant he had developed a seven-month plan to finish traveling.

It just hit him one day, but he couldn't tell if he was tired of traveling or just tired of Europe.

I told him that when he did get home, it would probably feel nice, but stifling.

I explained my mixed emotions about 'coming home' and how doing 'home' things like sweeping the floor felt wasteful of life.

He listened and nodded, trying to picture that future place in time.

Then it was late. We stopped talking and constructed the futon bed for him in the dining room.

The next day, open sourcing my musical development with Steve went poorly.

While I worked on the computer, he asked, "Do you have a tape player?"

I replied, "Yes."

"Do you want a tape of Queen's greatest hits? I found this on the ground."

"Well, I already have a CD of Queen's greatest hits, from someone else who also didn't want it."

"Oh, OK."

Steve stayed only one night due to a mis-communication.

I had made plans to stay in Utrecht the next night since I thought his plans were to leave for Belgium.

As we briefly explored the misunderstanding, I told him that my first CouchSurfer had had a phone and a laptop with WiFi and I forget that not all CouchSurfers can make arrangements so easily.

When he explained that he had communicated as best he could, but it was impossible, for instance, to check his email at Stonehenge, I noted that in his reply he said, "We don't usually have daily access to telephones or Internet."

I took comfort in the "we," knowing that I too was part of this rare nomadic breed, even though I was becoming more and more domesticated with each day that I lived in only one home.

But Steve simply used my internet connection to contact another CouchSurfer in Rotterdam and arranged to stay at her house.

He gave me a North American hug and he was gone.

Technorati tag: urban camping, couchsurfing, queen, travel, nomad, home, art

The Guest House

2006-11-28T10:12:00.000+02:00

Rumi's poem, "The Guest House," metaphorically considers the boundaries of our lives and the tour guides we encounter.

Personally it made me think of the endless explorations in my house dreams and how I feel when I go nomadic, that my house is me.

I am thankful to my friend, Colleen, for recently giving me a copy:

This being human is a guest-house,
every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you
out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Technorati tag: urban camping, rumi, guest house, poetry, lifestyle, boundaries, guides, travel, art

Material World

2006-11-27T09:27:00.000+02:00

When I went to visit my family in Chicago, I saw a (permanent?) photography exhibit in O'Hare airport called Material World.

Here is the text from their card describing the show: "

Welcome to Material World.

In an unprecedented effort, 16 of the world's foremost photographers traveled to 30 nations around the globe to live for a week with families that are statistically average for that nation.

At the end of each visit, photographers and subjects collaborated on a remarkable portrait of the family outside its home, surrounded by all of its possessions.

A few jars for some, an explosion of electronic gadgetry for others.

Vividly portraying the look and feel of the human condition everywhere on Earth like nothing before.

Material World illuminates the pivotal question facing our species today.

Can all 5 billion of us have all the things we want?"

Technorati tag: urban camping, possessions, belongings, nomad, lifestyle, chicago, o'hare, travel, photography, art, culture, family

Your Interests Will Change

2006-11-26T18:36:00.000+02:00

The night before I moved back into my house, I was at Karen's house watching Dutch actress Anneke Blok, from the Dutch film Zus & Zo, being interviewed on TV.

(I think it was her. It could also have been Monic Hendrickx, Annet Nieuwenhuyzen, Sylvia Poorta, Halina Reijn, who are also in the film.)

She told the story of how she got burned out and decided to take an acting workshop in the States, just to get away from it all and to find back what she loved about the craft of acting.

She cut loose all of her ties and lived in a town where no one knew her.

She said it became very clear how we think we are the sum total of our career, our possessions, our relationships, etc.

But she experienced a certain core self separate from what had been her surroundings.

This is my experience with the shifting viewing points of urban camping. It feels to me that I live more with who I really am.

In line with this thought, today I came across a quote that my friend, Tricia , gave me in university. It says,

"Follow what you love!

Don't feign to ask what 'they' are looking for out there. Ask what you have inside.

Follow not your interests, which change, but what you are and what you love, which will and should not change."

Technorati tag: urban camping, curiosity, genuineness, individuality, courage, humor, independence, creativity, equilibrium, community, passion, playfulness, equality, empowerment, resourcefulness, energy, challenge

A Box by Any Other Name Is Still Just a Box

2006-11-25T02:09:00.000+02:00

My friend, Lesa, sent me a link to the NY Times 19 October 2006 article titled, "The Imperfectionist" by Ginia Bellafante.

It's about Dan Ho.

At age 40, after a divorce, he decided to reduce his possessions down to 55 items.

The article says he is "motivated neither by debt nor by environmentalism but simply by a compulsion to unburden himself...".

At first glance, he seems to match up with the profile of the one laid out in the urban dictionary's definition of urban camping, where one unburdens himself as a sort of penance at the end of a long-term relationship.

But under the surface, this man's unique path runs from being a homeless nine-year-old in Guam, as a result of a typhoon, to being a successful Michigan restaurant owner who built a big Prairie School style house.

He acquired things and added on to the house until one day he suffered a seizure and his whole viewpoint changed.

There were no lasting physical effects from the attack. He simply blacked out for 20 minutes, woke up and lost interest in his lifestyle.

He came to think that style is over-rated and he detests the cultural phenomenon of trade-up-manship.

The man who now only owns 47 items of clothing and a backpack, suitcase, television, computer, bath towel, single set of sheets, toothbrush and bottle of witch hazel said,

"You build a house, then you put in a pool," he said. "Then you need a peony garden. Then you watch Martha Stewart and you realize a peony garden needs a fence. Then you think, I should also have a rose garden, too, and if I'm going to have a rose garden, I have to have 30 varieties. I once bought a $3,600 cedar tree because, you know, I needed something for the corner to create a transition from the oak tree to the anemone because the sedum on the brick walk just wasn't going to cut it. People think like that, and I did."

He wrote a book called Rescue From Domestic Perfection and he has a TV program on the Discovery channel where he talks people out of "needless redecorating."

His core philosophy, described in the article, resonates with me.

He says that no one seems to be happy with the house they have. If he says of someone's new place, "Wow, this is great," then they say, "Well, it's O.K. for now."

He says that the attention paid to renovating, reorganizing, building and rebuilding "distracts us from the more demanding work of becoming better partners, caretakers and friends."

I like it when he complains that style is unstudied, but I don't like it when he says, "We abide by all of these prescriptions that are essentially visual."

Yikes. For a person who defines her individuality by playing among the visual elements of the world, I'm not so excited by his suggestion to set my table with newspaper, or place a rubber ducky on a plain wooden table, or hang a loop of twine from the bathroom sink to hold the toilet paper.

He says that, "Candles don't set a mood, people do." But I think that candles AND people set the mood. I live alone and I light candles every evening.

I think it rather comes down to the idea that we each have a core identity and that we are not the sum total of our things, or our relationships, or our careers, etc.

Shouldn't our 'style' be how we genuinely express ourselves in each of those contexts?

Maybe we crave the disconnect when we find a fatal flaw with our ability to express our identity in those arenas?

Does something trigger a panicky waking moment where we realize that we need to cut loose the connections to rediscover our core identity, to find ourselves back again?

I wonder if it is possible to never have that moment? To be blinded by routine? To check off all the boxes? To not worry about expressing our unique individuality because we keep ourselves busy? To not engage because we keep ourselves comfortable?

The appeal of this nomadic "being at home anywhere" idea is that the expression of our personal style doesn't change when the context changes.

It's the practice of knowing ourselves, trimmings or no trimmings.

Technorati tags: urban camping, travel, dan ho, urban jungle, nomad, lifestyle, art, domestic imperfection

Open Sourcing My Life

2006-11-24T11:27:00.000+02:00

Under the CouchSurfing profile section called "Music, Movies, Books," I wrote:

Love reading creative non-fiction, am a sucker for 'based on a true story' movies ... for some reason that I don't fully understand, I'm almost a moron when it comes to music ...

I am a 'visual-ite' not an 'auditory-type'. I notice visual details and completely miss sounds. I discovered my deficiency when dating a noticably auditory-type.

As soon as a movie finished, he'd say, "I have to get that soundtrack," while I sat there stunned by the realization that I couldn't remember a single song that we'd just heard.

We'd walk through a store and he'd say, "I love this song." But I literally didn't even HEAR music until he pointed it out.

During the past summer, I decided that this will be my year of musical growth. It is pathetic. I will put it off no longer.

I will apply to music everything I've ever learned about achieving as many viewing points as possible (while proofreading this post, I see I've used visual terminology for an auditory subject ... sigh).

So, when Iain, the first CouchSurfer, said, "Is it always so quiet here?" I said, "Well, actually, I think the neighbors are often quite loud."

He said, "No, I mean, do you not play music?" I explained my deficiency and he said, "Well, let's see if I have something here you might like."

I realized then that I was going to open source my musical development, share my limited musical source code to be freely modified by everyone.

I explain this to every CouchSurfer who shares my space.

Ashley, my sixth CouchSurfer, very kindly furthered the cause by giving me a Coldplay CD (A Rush of Blood to the Head) and pointing me to KT Tunstall's Black Horse And The Cherry Tree on YouTube:

Technorati tags: urban camping, travel, couchsurfing, music, KT Tunstall, share, urban jungle, nomad, lifestyle, art, open source

The First CouchSurfer

2006-11-23T01:06:00.000+02:00

Rotterdam is not a tourist city, so Iain's email surprised me:

I'm an Aussie whose been traveling around Europe for the past 2 months and ended up in Rotterdam.

I'll be here for a few more days, and was hoping to CouchSurf (I found the website today); usually I sleep in my car, but a couch would be so much better.

I'm friendly, sociable and occasionally amusing, I like to juggle and like all sorts of music.

I thought CouchSurfers would contact me only during peak travel times, when Amsterdam was saturated.

But Iain contacted me almost immediately after I altered my profile.

He was in Rotterdam for a week waiting to catch the ferry to England where he would start a new job.

After quitting his tech job in Norway, he'd been traveling around Europe living out of his huge van:

In every city, he got a new SIM card for his phone.
He had WiFi access on his laptop.
He usually parked on the outskirts of a city where he could cook and wash up.

CouchSurfers build up reputations as good guests by interlinking their profiles and leaving references on the network interface.

But Iain had only just discovered the site so I suggested that we meet first to see if we were comfortable sharing space.

When I was new to the network, I learned this approach from Antony, the Amsterdam CouchSurfer I stayed with last year.

Iain turned out to be a polite guy who was easy to talk to and a great first CouchSurfer.

I'm grateful that we could use his van to move the stuff out of my studio.

The one time we cooked dinner together, we discovered that he carried around more spices in his van than I had in my kitchen.

He's a member of juggling clubs. I can juggle three balls or pins, but I learned from Iain that when you juggle four items, they no longer cross-over. You just keep rotating the same two in each hand.

And he had lots of music on his i-Pod. I am musically deficient. I don't even have an i-Pod so he left The Cat Empire on my computer.

I thought The Cat Empire's song "Hello" was kind of fun:

Technorati tags: urban camping, travel, couchsurfing, cat empire, music, juggling, share, urban jungle, nomad, lifestyle, art

Roadtrip Nation

2006-11-22T00:38:00.000+02:00

I heard of Roadtrip Nation on the radio while I was sweeping the floor.

Their's is another story of how people 'think outside the box by getting out of their box'. I added them to my list of urban camper types.

Mike Marriner and Nathan Gebhard had no idea what to do with their lives after college graduation so they traveled across the USA in a huge green camper vehicle "to see what else was out there."

They introduce their book, Finding the Open Road: A Guide to Self Construction Rather Than Mass Production by saying:

"You should be a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, a consultant, blah, blah, blah.

Everywhere you turn people try to tell you who to be and what to do with your life.

We call that the noise. Block it. Shed it. Leave it for the conformists.

As a generation, we need to get back to focusing on individuality. Self-construction rather than mass production.

Define your own road in life instead of traveling down someone else's. Listen to yourself. Your road is the open road. Find it."

On their roadtrip, they sought out people who had "successfully defined their own paths in life."

Through cold-calling, they managed to meet and hear the stories of 140 people including:

the chairman of Starbucks
a lobsterman from Maine
the director of Saturday Night Live
the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic
the first female Supreme Court Justice of the United States
the head stylist for Madonna
the scientist who decoded the human genome
the CEO of National Geographic Ventures

Read more about their project in the Princeton Review.

Technorati tags: urban camping, travel, individuality, discovery

Urban Camping in Reverse

2006-11-19T13:55:00.000+02:00

I thought there should be some pomp and circumstance to mark the end of 55 nomadic weeks, but the road home was a relatively uneventful one.

As my friend, Karen, drove me from my last house-sitting assignment, she mentioned that she had thought about simplicity on her recent travels.

We began a nice discussion about how refreshingly uncomplicated decisions can be during the times when our lives are lived out of one bag.

Then the moment came to step back into my house.

I could feel the presence of elapsed time, but simultaneously, I seemed to be arriving the day after I left, as if nothing had happened.

I was HAPPY to be back. I love my house. I ordered pizza and got my books out of their boxes.

I started settling in. I unpacked, put cozy sheets on the bed and thought about how there was no date set for when I had to move out.

I was UNHAPPY to be back. I was stuck in my house. I could feel identity creep happening again. The energy I had kept close to me was sprawling out to the edges of my home.

I spent time on stupid tasks like buying toilet paper, sweeping floors, changing lightbulbs, activities that added up to nothing.

But I took things one day at a time and wondered what would happen next.

I emailed my friend, David, who had quit his job to embark on a 4-month sailing course in South Africa.

I told him I was jealous that his journey was just starting while mine was just ending and I told him that I thought he should write down his thoughts.

In my head, I was replaying footage from the road. Still resonating with me were the prioritized characteristics of the ways I wanted to engage with life.

I felt certain that these moments of clarity would have gotten lost if I had not written them down.

I had always viewed this living area as an art project. I came back to see the "undesigned spaces" of my house with new eyes.

I imagined building it up during the coming year, a hammock on the balcony, a Japanese bathtub in the shower, an internet kiosk in the living room.

And after a busy school year, I was getting much needed rest. But being HOME six days a week was driving me mad.

I got a computer with internet access so I could keep connected with friends and family. I got Skype.

I started having friends over for dinner and when we discussed the nomadic experience, I listened to them repeatedly say, "I just couldn't do that."

But suddenly, "the people who could do that" started showing up.

I had reversed my profile on the CouchSurfing Project site, saying that after a year on the road, I was opening up my home to weary travelers who needed an oasis on their way.

Now it's a bit like living in a hostel but, happily, the urban camping continues.

Technorati tag: urban camping, camping, urban jungle, urban, nomad, home, travel, art, identity

July Urban Camping Spots

2006-08-01T01:37:00.000+03:00

I've finished my second nomadic urban camping trip. Over the course of 12 months (and 3 weeks), I stayed in 30 places: my artist's studio, houses of friends, and an airplane.

July's urban camping spots were as follows:

My friends, Maggie and Steven, invited me to stay at their house for 10 days.

I stayed one night at the house of my friend Tricia, whom I met when we were 5-years-old.

I stayed 15 nights at my parents' house.

And I stayed 5 nights at my sister Lisa's house, the house where five generations of my family have lived.

Well, I've used up all of my travel-sized products. I've given all the house-keys back to my friends. I'm headed back to the base.

For awhile I'm going to use massive bath towels, establish daily rituals for waking up, and plan dinner parties for 10.

I might design a fourth iteration of the nomad pack. I might go nomadic again. I might come back to this spot and pick up my story where I left off.

In the meantime, I hope you'll look me up on CouchSurfing.com. Drop by. Stay for dinner. Swap stories. I want to know about the people and places you've seen.

Or leave part of your life on WhyWaitForFame.com. I like biographies. You don't have to be famous to have an interesting story. I hope to read about you there.

Wishing you a delightful mix of care and chaos,
Jennifer

Technorati tag: urban camping

Life Hired a Thousand Tour Guides

2006-07-22T14:28:00.000+03:00

Some people choose to urban camp. There are nomadic urges. The globe can be navigated by networks and resources outside the tourist track.

Using a TV to watch and listen is not the same as real-life contact with the people and places of the world.

Shifting points of view is an active form of channel surfing. The experience might be addictive. It might be a source of innovation.

Using other people's stories to refresh our viewing points can allow for 'open source' development in our lives.

Some people do not choose to urban camp. There are homeless people. There are survivors.

People often need less than is realized. How much is enough? How much can we share?

Some people do not choose to urban camp. People have homes and things and boundaries.

The difference between living and surviving can be a matter of comfort. It can also be a matter of engagement.

Routines can block the view.

We all need shelter. We all need room. These take many forms.

In every case, you need a place to sleep at night, but it is not necessarily where you LIVE.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Urban Camper Types

2006-07-21T07:00:00.000+03:00

This urban camping trip was a practice in mobility, simplicity and perspective (read more).

In my last urban camping trip I experimented with chic minimalism while exploring the symbiotic relationship of house-sitting (read more).

My first urban camping thoughts hit me in Chicago where I had a tiny studio apartment in a fantastic neighborhood. It was like sleeping in the walk-in closet of this great house of a neighborhood. I realized that the place where you sleep is not the place where you live (read more).

Here is a recap of the various urban camper types I've found:

Anarchist Urban Camper: 'ambi'

Associated with Homes Not Jails group. Camps in places where owners are unaware of his/her presence. Discovered 'ambi' through Google search in 2003: Did not try to contact ...

Artists: Ulay & Abramovic

Art Vital motto included no fixed living place, permanent movement and mobile energy. Camped in van for years, traveling Europe like nomads. Learned of Ulay & Abramovic at art school in 1999: Did not try to contact ...

Couch Surfer: Casey Fenton

Founded CouchSurfing project in 2003 so travel addicts could camp worldwide for free at each others' houses. Version 2.0 being built after fatal database crash on 27 June 2006 disrupted 90,000 members. Heard of website via friend in 2005: stayed with five Amsterdam members and met Casey in Rotterdam during the same year.

Creative Housesitter: SARK

Put ad in paper, "incredible housesitter seeks incredible house," which resulted in camping two years rent free in 4-bedroom mansion in San Francisco. Read SARK's A Creative Companion in 1995: Emailed her ...

Designer Camping in Office

Photos of designers in sleeping bags camping under whiteboards in their office. Found through Technorati.com search in 2005: Left message on his photo log ...

Domestic Imperfectionist: Dan Ho

Spent last eight years getting rid of stuff. After a failed marriage at age of 40, reduced his possessions down to about 55 things. "Motivated neither by debt nor by environmentalism but simply by a compulsion to unburden himself..." He has 47 items of clothing and a backpack, suitcase, television, computer, bath towel, single set of sheets, toothbrush and bottle of witch hazel. Wrote book: Rescue From Domestic Perfection, and has TV program on the Discovery Health channel: “The Dan Ho Show” where he talks people out of needless redecorating.

Modern Nomad: Rita Golden Gelman

Sold all possessions after divorce at age 48 in 1986. No permenant address since. Writes children's books. Camps and cooks with families all over the world. Featured on Starbuck's cup in 2005. Learned of her in 2003 when spotted girl at train station in Munich reading Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World: Emailed her ...

No Impact family: Colin Beavan, Michelle Conlin, & two-year-old daughter Isabella

Family living in Manhattan conduct year-long environmental lifestyle experiment. They do not buy anything except food, and only eat food organically grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan (the longest distance a farmer can drive in and out of the city in one day); do not create trash except for compost; do not use paper or carbon-fueled transportation. See also, www.noimpactman.com

Nomadic Writer: Elizabeth Gilbert

Concept for her book came when she was divorcing at the beginning of her 30s. She wanted to explore a part of herself in the context of three different places. In her book, Eat Pray Love, she examines 'pleasure' in Italy, explores 'devotion' in India and then looks at the art of 'balancing' the two in Indonesia. Four months in each place.

Nomadic Writer: Ramon Stoppelenburg

Set up a website to chronicle his travels. Traveled the world without money from May 2001 to July 2003. Traveled through hitchhiking or help from sponsors. Stayed with people who invited him via his website www.letmestayforaday.com In return, he wrote daily reports on his website.

Roadtrip Nation: Nathan Gebhard, Brian McAlliste, and Mike Marriner

Three college graduates learn what to do with their lives by touring U.S. in neon green RV. Interview more than 80 professionals including Starbucks chairman, Saturday Night Live director, Boston Philharmonic conductor, first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Madonna's head stylist, etc. Princeton Review article says, "The roadtrip confirmed the recent grads' beliefs that exploration alleviates the ambiguity associated with defining one's own road in life." See also: www.roadtripnation.com. Heard of them on 2006 BBC World Service interview: Emailed them ...

Rotterdam Motel Mozaique Festival

Local yearly event since 2000. Offers three days of pop music, dance, theatre and visual arts at 13 locations. Visitors camp at hotels created by artists for the festival. Discovered flyers in 2003: have not yet attended.

Rotterdam Camping Festival

Local yearly event since 2004. Part of city turned into kitsch camping ground for six days. Tents rented out. Corny activities planned. Friend gave me flyer in 2004: have not yet attended.

Slinkachu's Little People

The artist leaves hand-painted miniature people around London "to fend for themselves." Some of his little people were urban campers.

Squatters: Freegans

Name comes from combination of free and vegan. Mainly focus on wasted food. However, also believe poor people have rights to camp in empty city buildings. Heard BBC World Service interview with a Freegan in 2006: Briefly joined their discussion group (mostly about free food) in the same year.

Tempe's Homeless Community

Community in Arizona protested for the poor in 2003. Asked, "Why should sleep be criminalized? Protest the urban camping ordinance! Creative Resistance Welcome!" Discovered by Google search in 2005: Did not try to contact ...

Times Square Tents: Zach, Paul, Amit

Pitched tents on sidewalks in Manhatten. Discovered photos via Google search in 2005: Emailed back and forth with Amit about our experiences in same year. Both of our stories featured in Ariel Brewster's 20 April 2006 Cape Cod Times article on urban camping.

Urban Camping Definitions

UrbanDicionary.com collects definitions of urban phenomenon from readers. Best rated of five urban camping definitions describes a form of penance after ending a long-term relationship in late twenties or early thirties: Must aquire small sparsely equipped apartment until guilt subsides, then add material possessions to impress others. Discovered through friend in 2005: Tried to add new definition, but never appeared.

Urban Camping Family: Peter and Andrea Tombrowski (and kids)

Sold their car in 1998 to simplify their lives. Walked everywhere ever since. Said, "We like to call what we do 'urban camping' because we consider our life to be like a camping trip..." Found online text ad for their book in 2006: Emailed each other about our experiences ...

Urban Camper Musician: Jane Siberry

Canadian musician has worked with KD Lang, Peter Gabriel, Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno. Became addicted to nomadic lifestyle after two years of renting out her house and couchsurfing to pay for recording of Shushan. Sold house and all possessions in 2006 at age 50. Two newspaper articles on her titled Imagine no possessions and Wander Women. Discovered her site through friend in 2006: Emailed her and she replied with one word, Sisters ...

Urban Camper Musician: Jason Schadt

Owns urbancamping.com URL. Hip Hop emcee, producer, video artist and traveller. Defines urban camping as "... a state of mind. It is the exploration of culture in an urban setting, reflecting on nature as it is manifested in the city environment. Urban Camping is collaboration and experience on a global scale. It is inspiration and focus for all Nomadic Addicts on a musical, spiritual and cultural quest." Discovered site in 2005 via Google: Emailed each other about our experiences ...

Urban Camper Photographer: Mike Calabro

Owns urbancamper.com URL. Photographer doing also web and print work. Portfolio site begins with, "I suffered from the dot-bomb environment years ago and have not 'worked' a day since. Life is great. I eat, drink, take photos, write stories and travel for money." Discovered site in 2005 via Google: Emailed him ...

Wandering Scribe: Anya Peters

Woman with law degree, but no family, not comfortable asking friends for help. Camped in car at edge of woods outside London for nine months. Started blog in library for last four months. BBC wrote two articles on her. In late May, earned enough money from readership (PayPal) and book deal to move into rental room. Saw her site in Blogger's Blogs of Note list end of May 2006: Emailed her ... Fake Wandering Scribe left comment on 2 June 2006.

Technorati tag: urban camping

You Already Know People Are Sharing Bases

2006-07-18T05:54:00.000+03:00

Thank you to all of my friends for sharing your space with me this year!

There are lots of people out there sharing their homes (or home bases) through the following organizations:

Caretaker Gazette: House-sit

Published since 1983, each issue of the Caretaker Gazette provides subscribers with about 150 caretaking and housesitting jobs throughout the 50 US States and approximately 20 foreign countries.

Subscribers can live rent-free as property caretakers in estates, mansions, farms, ranches, resort homes, retreat centers, camps, hunting and fishing lodges, vacation homes, private islands, and any other kind of property imaginable.

CouchSurfing: House Share

Casey Fenton launched the CouchSurfing Project in January 2004 after the concept evolved through some of his unique traveling experiences. After a near-fatal crash, Version 2.0 was launched in July 2006.

At the time of this post, 92,451 members in 202 countries are enrolled in the CouchSurfing system. Members use the network to meet other members and then go surf their couches.

The host provides the guest with some sort of accommodation, a penthouse apartment or maybe a back yard to pitch a tent in. Stays can be as short as a cup of coffee, a night or two, or even a few months or more.

The project is about signing up for a free couch and ending up with amazing adventures and a global family.

Digsville: House Swap

Members of this home exchange club take vacations locally or abroad by swapping their primary or vacation houses instead of paying for hotels.

Anyone can search and contact favorite listings, but the anual fee to post a listing is 44.95 USD.

Global Freeloaders: House Share

Apparently started by Adam Staines in December 2000 as a network where members accommodate travelers in their home free of charge.

By staying with a local, travelers gain the inside knowledge of a culture that is not provided by staying in a hostel or hotel.

Registration means becoming both a guest and a host. Members are asked to accommodate other travelers, completely free of charge, whenever it is convenient for them.

If a member visits 20 other members, then s/he is expected to accommodate 20 other members, over whatever time period s/he is comfortable with.

Holiday Link: House-sit (Dutch-language)

This Dutch-language site facilitates a symbiotic relationship between two types of vacationers.

One group goes on vacation and wants someone to stay in their house to care for plants and pets as well as prevent their house becoming an empty target for thieves while they are away.

The other group, the house sitters, are mostly active senior citizens from Holland and Belgium who have the 'retired life' schedule that doesn't require them to plan too far in advance.

In some cases, they have emigrated and Holiday Link provides a low-cost opportunity for a vacation in their native country.

Some of the housesitters simply use Holiday Link to find a temporary dwelling while in between the buying and selling of their own homes or while their house is under construction.

Hospitality Club: House Share

Veit Kuhne founded the non-commercial club in 2000 because he believed it possible to increase intercultural understanding and strengthen world peace by bringing travelers in touch with people in the place they visit and by giving locals a chance to meet people from other cultures.

Since 2002, he has been hitchhiking around the world trying to fascinate one million people with the idea of hospitality exchange.
At the time of this post, there are 168,895 members in 205 countries helping each other when they are traveling - be it with a roof for the night or a guided tour through town.

Intervac: House Swap

This organization started in 1953 in Europe. Boasts the largest database of home exchange offers in over 50 countries.

Servas UN NGO: House Share

Founded in 1949 by Bob Luitweiler as a peace movement, Servas International is a non-profit organization working to build understanding, tolerance and world peace.

Travelers are encouraged to experience other societies more deeply and with more understanding than they would be likely to do as just plain tourists.

Over 13,000 Servas open doors in almost every country give travelers the opportunity to meet hosts, their families and friends and join in their everyday life.

Where convenient, hosts may offer two nights' accommodation and invite travelers to share a meal.

Names and addresses of hosts appear in annually produced lists which are made available to approved travelers.

Women Welcome Women Worldwide (5W): House Share

To encourage international friendship by enabling women to visit one another in their own homes, 5W was founded in 1984 by Frances Alexander in High Wycombe, UK.

After being publicized in the EEC bulletin "Women of Europe," 5W grew to the point of now having members in every continent except Antarctica.

Members do not pay a fee, but when possible, they donate to the Trust Fund.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Viewpoint: Share

2006-07-10T12:32:00.000+03:00

Everybody shares. Our lives overlap. Sometimes we can choose the nature of the seams.

Once when Hidde was working in the studio, I told him how much I liked the family that ran the laundromat down the street.

Their 3-year-old boy often sat next to me while I read. He smiled a lot. His mother offered me tea.

Hidde replied, Yes. Why do we all need to have all our own stuff? Why do we all have to have our own washing machine?

Another time, at the business school where I worked, I heard a graduation speech given by a physicist recruited into marketing research.

His agency had hired scientists to ensure scientific research.

He reminded graduates that Darwinian survival of the fittest is not the only model. Mutually symbiotic relationships also occur.

Nature is cooperative as well as competitive.

Did you know that people are sharing cars and planes?

International Association of Air Travel Couriers

Founded in 1989 for individuals wanting to fly as casual couriers to foreign destinations. Couriers take the seat while the company takes the luggage space.

Craigs List Ride Share

First started by Craig Newmark in 1995 so people could tell each other about cool events in San Francisco. Now people can exchange info on how to share rides in their own city.

Flexcar

Since 1999, this growing network of vehicles in US allows 28,000+ members (at the time of this post) to have instant access to a car wherever and whenever needed.

Green Wheels (Dutch-language site)

Started in 1995 with three cars in three locations in Rotterdam. Members access cars day or night, paying based on usage. Now cars available at nearly all intercity train stations in 40 largest Dutch cities.

Hitchhikers Organization

Free service developed in 1999 by enthusiastic hitchhikers. Drivers submit their journey if looking for company or a fee. Hitchhikers search the rides. Site serves all continents in 10 languages.

Zip Car

Started in 2000 when founders decided to bring Berlin concept to US. At the time of this post, members have cars when they need them in Washington DC, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chapel Hill, Toronto, Boston, NYC.

Did you know that people are sharing books and baths?

Book Crossing

Created by Ron Hornbaker in 2001. He says, "Sharing books with your friends and neighbors is a natural instinct." At the time of this post, 478,626 members releasing books into the wild and tracking their journeys.

Gutenberg Organization

Michael Hart invented eBooks in 1971. Once copyrighted works enter the public domain, Project Gutenberg offers them for free. At the time of this post, 18,000 eBooks available.

Novel Action

Family owned and operated book exchange with low flat rate shipping. Select books online and send an equal number of books.

Japanese Public Bath

Public baths in Japan are a popular way of relaxing.

Roman Public Baths

Roman baths were like our leisure centers. They were big buildings with swimming pools, changing rooms and toilets. They also had hot and cold rooms more like modern Turkish baths.

Turkish Public Baths

The public bath was not merely a place where believers could fulfill the Islamic precept of cleanliness. It was a place in which to mingle, socialize and gossip.

Did you know that people are sharing ideas and things?

Ecyclebin

A new recycling program via internet. They say, "In our fast moving society we dispose of a huge number of items that end up either incinerated or in land fill sites. Many of these items could have a new lease of life in the right hands."

FreeCycle

Started in May 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson's downtown and help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills. At the time of this post, 2,412,676 members in 3,724 communities use the electronic forum to recycle unwanted possessions within their group for free.

Complementary Currencies

With a focus on local trading of talents and resources, community currency programs try to strengthen the local economy and build community.

LETS

Members trade goods and services through their LETS community accounting system. James Taris became a member in 1994 and started promoting the group internationally.

Bartercard

Corporate barter system founded in 1991 by Wayne Sharpe, Andrew Federowsky and Brian Hall. At the time of this post, 75,000 Card Holders in 16 Countries are trading 1.3 billion in Trade Pounds annually.

Active

Corporate barter system established in 1984 helps companies trade underperforming assets. Operations in 16 countries have created over $1.5 billion in cash savings for clients.

The Power of Us

BusinessWeek article (20 June 2005) By Robert D. Hof detailing how people are using the Net to share information, knowledge, media and goods.

BBC Unveils Radical Revamp of Website

BBC article (25 April 2006) by Mark Sweney explaining rebuild of its website to focus digital output on three concepts: share, find and play. User-generated content includes blogs and home videos.

Creative Commons

Enables legal sharing and reuse of cultural, educational, and scientific works. Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. They build on the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach.

Under New Management

New York Times article (26 March 2006) by William C. Taylor about creating innovation by sharing ideas. "According to Tim O'Reilly, the founder and chief executive of O'Reilly Media, the computer book publisher, and an evangelist for open source technologies, creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but who has the most compelling 'architecture of participation.' That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products?"

Technorati tag: urban camping, share, barter, courier flights, hitchhiking, architecture of participation, cooperation, symbiotic relationship, LETS, freecycle, greenwheels, craigs list ride share, flex car, zip car, book crossing, gutenberg organization, calgary dollars, community currencies, corporate barter, active barter, bartercard, novel action

Viewpoint: Boundaries

2006-07-08T14:20:00.000+03:00

Text artist, Jenny Holzer, is known for her list of Truisms.

They include:

a solid home base builds a sense of self

confusing yourself is a way to stay honest

if you live simply there is nothing to worry about

There is also a place where the Truisms can be altered. Edits are made by use of the link, "Please change beliefs."

One of my favorite modified Truisms reads: "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space."

In my last month of urban camping, I'm wondering about the nature of boundaries.

I'm wondering where the edges are. How much space do we take?

Conceptually, a nomad does not use the same boundaries as other members of the planet.

"Good fences make good neighbors," says the guy next door in Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall.

Frost's reply is, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" and

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out

Even if I can accurately separate things into two piles labeled things to keep in and things to keep out, how do I allow for change or evolution?

Where is the spot of equilibrium between setting boundaries and testing limits?

How do I view boundaries?

How much are they about structure and order, a division of space and time?

How much are they about protection and care, a management of our natural resources?

Soon my life will have a new structure. Do I want a place for everything and everything in its place?

What kind of time/space - protection/care system cultivates happy accidents?

One of my all-time favorite passages is at the beginning of Nathalie Goldberg's Wild Mind book.

She notices people who strive to order the flowers in their garden. But, the same people love to go to the forest, where they experience peace, even though everything is growing chaotically there.

In my year of wondering and wandering, I've come to believe that we need chaos in our lives just as much as we need care ... and that too much care is just as destructive as too much chaos.

Maybe, for me, a boundary is the wall between chaos and care. On one side is our garden and on the other side is the forest.

Perhaps we develop a sense of timing for when we need to switch from one side to the other.

Could it be the switching that gives our life momentum?

Technorati tag: urban camping

Alternative Lodgings

2006-07-07T11:24:00.000+03:00

Where do people find you?

How much of your address is actual and how much is virtual?

How many shared spaces do you need?

How many private places do you inhabit?

Where do you invite people in? Where do you keep people out?

Do you have a habitat? Is it where you keep your things? Is it where you sleep?

Is it where you live? Who lives with you?

Do you have a home or a home base? Do you feel at home anywhere?

What is the shape of your shelter?

Apartment? Bungalow? Cabin? Castle? Condo? Cottage? Dormitory? Farm? Flat? Hut? Manor? Mansion? Palace? Shanty? Trailer? Villa?

Is it the shape of your oasis?

Does it cost you?

Are you a citizen of the world? Are you sheltered?

Could you stay there? For how long?

Do you have a room of your own? A room with a view?

Do you have room to move?

What are the alternatives? Do you have options?

Go Nomad List -- Cedar Creek Tree House -- Forest Fire Lookouts -- Hotel Sidi Driss -- Ice Hotel -- Jules Undersea Lodge -- Kokopelli Cave Hotel -- Royal Tents of Rajasthan -- Sleeping in Airports -- Squatting -- Jail Cells

Technorati tag: urban camping

Urban Camper Family

2006-07-06T09:05:00.000+03:00

I recently came across an online text ad for a book called Urban Camping.

The book is about Peter and Andrea Tombrowski (and kids) who sold their car in 1998 to simplify their lives.

Now they walk everywhere. They live in Calgary. Most places are within five kilometers of their house.

They say,

"We like to call what we do 'urban camping' because we consider our life to be like a camping trip:

we need to be resourceful, creative, and exhibit mental and physical hardiness to get the most out of the experience.

And like camping, our life is an adventure.

Who needs mountains for escape and challenge?

We just open our door and head out for groceries with our kids."

I live in the Netherlands and we all bike everywhere. It's faster than walking.

Technorati tag: urban camping

June Urban Camping Spots

2006-07-05T08:02:00.000+03:00

I kind of get a kick out of seeing that the archive on my blog now has all 12 months listed under the heading!

The warmer months mean a lot of people are on vacation. My friend, Johan, was in the Philippines and my friend, Maggie, was in Croatia.

Thank you to both of them for letting me camp in their houses!

June's urban camping spots were: 14 nights at Johan's house, 1 night at Mei's house, 14 nights at Maggie's house, and 1 night in the empty student dorm room next to the room of my friend, Mika. (The student had moved out the night before.)

Technorati tag: urban camping

My People

2006-07-04T23:20:00.000+03:00

Although I keep in regular contact with my family, I haven't actually stood next to them in two years!

Starting on 11 July 2006, I will see them, hug them, dine with them for four weeks!

In my mind I keep hearing Oleta Adams's song Get Here:

You can reach me by railway, you can reach me by trailway

You can reach me on an airplane, you can reach me with your mind

You can reach me by caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man

I don't care how you get here, just - get here if you can

You can reach me by sail boat, climb a tree and swing rope to rope

Take a sled and slide down the slope, into these arms of mine

You can jump on a speedy colt, cross the border in a blaze of hope

I don't care how you get here, just - get here if you can

There are hills and mountains between us

Always something to get over

If I had my way, surely you would be closer

I need you closer

You can windsurf into my life, take me up on a carpet ride

You can make it in a big balloon, but you better make it soon

You can reach me by caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man

I don't care how you get here, just -- get here if - you can

Technorati tag: urban camping

Coming Home to Say Goodbye

2006-07-03T14:23:00.000+03:00

I'm still watching the DVDs of my friend, Maggie.

She has all 10 episodes of Steven Spielberg's mini-series, Taken.

The narrator introduces one episode with the following:

People come home for a lot of reasons.

They come home to remember.

They come home because they've got no place else to go.

They come home when they're beaten.

They come home when they're proud.

They come home looking for a door out into their past.

Or a road out into their future.

They come home for a lot of reasons, but they always come home to say goodbye.

My friend, Isaac just emailed me a link to an article by Michael Arrington titled, CouchSurfing Deletes Itself, Shuts Down.

From the article:

Three year old CouchSurfing, a beloved service used by some 90,000 members, had multiple database crashes, critical parts of the software and data were irretrievably lost, and the backups weren’t performed properly.

They are not rebuilding the service.

They literally put themselves out of business.

Sigh. Those were supposed to be my people ...

Technorati tag: urban camping

Contradiction

2006-06-27T10:47:00.000+03:00

Maybe I got the context wrong?

My friend Steven says,

"I do not exactly recognize my experience in this, because seeing the same tree over and over while hiking equals getting lost for me. The same undercurrent gives me quiet and peace, and the reassurance that there is actually only one way we have to follow without having to worry what it should look like."

I associated recognizing familiar undercurrents with getting lost.

The first recognition gives a feeling of quiet and peace while the second gives a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty.

Maybe I incorrectly make the connection because I like the concept of introducing uncertainty.

I like Aristotle's concept of Aporia, that a good argument will give you confusion because confusion leads to reflection.

I like paths that lead to reflection.

I like the idea of getting a bit lost while curiously and genuinely setting out to explore unknown territory.

For these reasons, the moment of seeing the same tree again brings a twinge of delight.

When I'm a bit lost, I get curious and think, "OK. I wonder what happens next?"

My interpretation of the re-occurring house dream is that it parallels my 'explorer' approach to life. I feel sheltered.

So long as I'm carrying the things I really want with me, I'm prepared.

I'm still wondering about the difference between the cycles of the seasons and the circles of the lost hikers.

On the one hand, because I think I can experience both peace and uncertainty at the same time, I like certain aspects of the lost hikers in terms of a logo:

No matter how disoriented I feel, it's OK. Getting lost is not the same experience as falling off a cliff or getting eaten by a bear.

I am only temporarily lost. I have a good chance of figuring out how to leave the circle.

Circling the same path is like a meditation. I get a chance to reflect on things and when I'm done, I leave the circle.

On the other hand, I don't always like the seasons as a metaphor:

There's only one path we have to follow because there is no other path.

The earth will always be round. The day will always follow night. We'll always have the seasons.

The greatest minds could reflect on the most intriguing issues, but no one's ever leaving that circle. It's terribly claustrophobic.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Viewpoint: Circles or Cycles

2006-06-26T09:33:00.000+03:00

I heard that lost hikers automatically start to walk in circles.

I once saw a blindfolded person put one foot in front of the other as she tried to walk a straight yellow line on the pavement.

After a few steps, she veered off and started walking a circle.

I recently had dinner with my friend, Nienke, who discussed the success of a mutual friend.

Our friend reported that she expected things in her life to turn around nicely because she trusted in the cycles of life.

Years ago, I drew a dancer. Along the hem of her skirt I wrote, "Dance with life. Trust its lead. Spin a lot."

Right now, I have a lot of questions about the circles.

Circles, as symbols, have positive connotations: unity, wholeness, eternity.

We have some natural tendency to walk a circle.

But, when you're lost, why would you want to end up right back where you started?

Like in the movie Groundhog Day, do we just keep setting out again until we eventually find our way?

Is it even possible to get stuck in a circle? Or do we actually find ourselves in upward and downward spirals?

Is the circle the only form of transport in life? How do notions of linear paths fit into a seasonal system?

Is there a clear line between spinning out of control and dancing with life?

A friend of mine is a DJ, neurologist and mountain climber.

When he said he started to notice familiar undercurrents in the new areas he set out to explore (computers, languages, art, travel, humor), I thought of the hiker who notices the same tree again and says, "I think I've been here before."

Sometimes I'm not sure how to view my life. Are these the cycles of the seasons? Or are these the circles of the lost hiker?

Sometimes I wonder if there is much of a difference.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Viewpoint: Oasis

2006-06-22T14:51:00.000+03:00

I have experienced oasis. It is not always a place.

Sometimes a conversation takes on a life of its own and stays aloft for hours. I have found oasis in those hours.

Sometimes I think I see a kindred spirit. And if that person recognizes me back, I find oasis in that moment.

I have so often found oasis in laughter that sometimes I think I laugh at the wrong times just because I expect to encounter oasis again.

I am grateful for my friends, who provide great depths of oasis. Carol is one of those friends.

Besides being full of encouragement, she has generously invited me to stay at her house about 87 times this year. I finally ended up paying rent because I couldn’t find enough to barter.

I cooked, I cleaned, I doctored the plants, but it didn’t seem to balance out. I was losing my grip on a feeling of equilibrium.

When she protested against the amount I wanted to pay, I insisted that my dignity was at stake.

She smiled and said it was pretty difficult to find an argument against that. I said, “Yep, dignity is the trump card.”

At the moment I am watching all of my friend Maggie’s DVDs. This morning I watched Dogville for the first time.

Granted, I am focused on the concept at the moment, but I swear this film is about oasis: The town simply gave this lady shelter.

But then, she slowly starts losing her dignity. Either the town takes it from her. Or she gives it away. The audience has to decide.

In any case, by the end of the movie, she’s pretty much the town slave.

When her gangster father shows up, they sit in the back of his car debating the nature of arrogance and judgment.

They talk about who has the power to decide how to make the world a better place.

Finally, her patience runs out. She claims her source of power and has the town removed from the map.

Great film. Kind of exhausting though.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Out of Place

2006-06-21T19:39:00.000+03:00

I really love urban camping.

The first 11-month trip happened by accident and it was not always easy, but when it was over, I appreciated the experience so much that I hoped I could do it again sometime.

Last summer when I told my Mom that I was going to rent out my house for the school year and urban camp again, she said, “Oh no. I remember how stressed out you were the first time you did it!”

To be honest, being constantly out of place is not always good for your concentration or memory.

This year I lost my telephone, my bankcard, my thermos, and 50 euros.

I am grateful to the good people who returned my telephone and bankcard.

The thermos I left on the train and the 50 euros I left sticking out of the cash machine.

My GPA is quite good but it would have been better if I had focused only on my schoolwork.

And sometimes I was tired and thought, “Am I running my life or is it running me?”

But I showed up everyday and I can tell you that the life fatigue I felt last year at this time is gone.

I received closure in a few areas of my life and I’ve been reminded of how much I thrive in a community of kindred spirits.

I think I see a common denominator in my work: “point of view.”

The mosaic realism of my artwork can be about holding onto incomplete viewpoints.

Getting out of my box with urban camping creates shifting viewing points.

My masters degree addresses how to use reason to verbally resolve difference of opinion between parties holding different viewpoints.

I think this theme will continue to be important to me. The joy of discovery is only possible because there are different viewing points.

My surroundings … hmmm … I love my house and can’t wait to settle back in for a while!

I think of my house as an art project where I can hold dinner parties. I have a 3-meter long table where 10 people can sit and share their stories over a meal.

It’s a place where I can create an oasis for me and other travelers.

And I still deeply love living in Europe!

But, although I enjoy living in the harbor, I’m a big city girl and think I should try to migrate to Amsterdam when I can.

Or maybe I will just plan my next nomadic year to be only house-sitting in Amsterdam?

Or maybe there is someone living in Amsterdam that just got a job in Rotterdam and is interested in a house swap?

Or maybe I can share my apartment half the week with a friend in Rotterdam while sharing an apartment with friends in Amsterdam half the week?

There are options. There are always options.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Living vs. Surviving

2006-06-20T12:39:00.000+03:00

In Rachel Naomi Remen’s book there was another story called Attached or Committed Part 2 in which she describes an older woman with a cancerous lump on the side of her face.

When the doctors met her at the hospital, they were sure they could help her. In the process of removing the cancer, they would take her lower jaw. She would make a full recovery.

Even though her chances of survival were very high, she chose not to have medical treatment.

The doctors were surprised and angry that she would not let them save her life.

But she signed a release form in the presence of her supportive family and left the hospital.

This story is supposed to be different from the first story of attachment where the young man was “married to his leg.”

This story is one of an older woman who was perhaps committed to living her later years with dignity.

Maybe I am looking too deeply for a parallel here, but it seems to me that both in this story, and in the story of the Masai, there are people who are not willing to compromise what it means to live life on their own terms.

These are stories of people who do not want to survive. They want to live. They know the difference.

But these are stories of people reacting to big life happenings. What about making the same decision every day with smaller life happenings?

In this year of nomadic wandering I am searching to know for myself, on the day-to-day level, what is the difference between living and surviving?

Answers can deal with level of comfort. But I want answers that deal with level of engagement.

What do I really want from my work, my relationships, my environment? What is useful and meaningful in my life? What stuff only just gets me by?

I simplified my life. I traded in a predictable routine, for one year, because I wanted to see if I could stay in the moment with every new thought and experience I encountered.

I was curious to see where I would end up if I tried to confront each thought and experience in a genuine way.

Sometimes it’s shakey. I’ve sighed on the phone asking my parents, “But what if my decisions were wrong?”

Sometimes it’s reassuring. My friend Hikmet has told me several times, “I like the way you ask questions in class. You are not trying to show off or disagree. You can tell that you just really want to know.”

Technorati tag: urban camping

Live Now

2006-06-19T20:51:00.000+03:00

Last week, I was chatting with my friend, Marjolijn, who is back visiting from South Africa. She discussed her love for the Out of Africa film.

This week, I am house-sitting for my friend, Maggie, who is in Croatia. She has the Out of Africa DVD.

The first time I saw the film, years ago, I was impressed by Karen’s story-telling craft.

I wanted to live where real people would sit across the dinner table and entertain each other with their stories.

Watching the film again this week, I am struck by the conversation where, because he once had an assistant who was half Masai, Denys starts describing the Masai people:

Denys: “They’re like nobody else. We think we’ll tame them but we won’t. If you put them in prison, they die.”

Karen: “Why?”

Denys: “Because they live now. They don’t think about the future. They can’t grasp the idea that they’ll be let out one day. They think it’s permanent. So, they die. They’re the only ones out here that don’t care about us and that will finish them.”

Karen: “What did the two of you ever find to talk about?”

Denys: “Nothing.”

Karen: (pause) “So you knew I would come.”

Denys: (pause) “It’s an early day tomorrow, why don’t you get some sleep?”

Karen: “What happens tomorrow?”

Denys: “I have no idea.”

I’m trying to figure out if Denys’s description of the Masai way of living now is different than my understanding of staying in the moment.

Are the Masai impatient? Or are they authentic? Are they foolish? Or are they very real?

If I live more in the present and think less about the future, how could I possibly build something that might last a long time? Does it then happen by accident, rather than by planning?

If I live more in the future and think less about the present, how do I not compromise my reactions to all the moments that happen in between? How do I not lose myself on the journey?

Is there a perfect balance to be struck? Or is it another oil and water construct?

I can imagine the future in my mind, but I will never experience it.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Staying in the Moment

2006-06-16T15:21:00.000+03:00

Discussing cognitive and experiential knowledge has little to do with reason vs. emotion.

The cognitive and experiential elements of life have more to do with how actors learn to stay in the moment.

Actors know all the lines. They know what happens next. They know the conclusion from the beginning. They memorize it all.

The challenge of their craft is to create a believable experience based on all the cognitive information they store in their heads for a performance.

They do this by learning to stay in the moment.

After a few acting lessons in Chicago, I figured out that we would not be learning how to act.

The little school used the Sanford Meisner approach to teach us how to be very real in a scene, how to not pretend.

At the time, all that vulnerability scared me and I eventually stopped taking lessons.

However, today I still value what I learned about the practice of staying in the moment because it seems to be a good way to live a life.

My teacher told me, "The other person in the scene is your life preserver, your flotation device. Observe him. React honestly to what happens, not to what you think should happen."

We once watched two advanced students practice an exercise where they stood facing each other until one could make an honest observation of the other.

The students then had to use that observation as a line four or more times before they could move on to another honest observation.

It might go like this:

First student: "You look scared."

Second student (maybe surprised to hear this): "I look scared???"

First student (maybe nods to confirm): "You look scared."

Second student (maybe furrows brow, contemplating why this appears so): "I look scared."

In this way, the lines got really tied to honest experience. It was not possible to give priority to the cognitive.

Our teacher explained that this practice had come in handy when one of her classes had recently performed Tennessee William's Streetcar Named Desire.

In one scene (Was it with Blanche and Stan?), the woman is supposed to remove a lampshade in an effort to become more visible, illuminated by the light.

The man is supposed to be a bit bored with the game at that point, and half-heartedly replies, "Why did you do that?"

However, during one of the performances, when she removed the lampshade, the light bulb unexpectedly EXPLODED.

Trained to stay in the moment, his eyes grew large and he gasped incredulously, "Why did you do that?!?!"

Our teacher was pleased to see the scene go in a direction it never had gone before.

It sort of took on a life of its own because both actors reacted honestly to what was happening, not what was supposed to be happening, or what they had expected to happen.

The experience was very genuine and believable.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Different Ways of Knowing

2006-06-15T16:04:00.000+03:00

Art museums started me thinking about two different ways of knowing the world: cognitive vs. experiential.

I was fed up with reading about art, so, I decided I would take museums and galleries in two rounds.

Because I wanted to experience the work, I would first walk through and see which pieces moved me, which pieces spoke to me, touched me, made me reflect or consider something.

Then, I would walk through a second time and read the artist's statements or curator's comments on the background, history, context, etc.

Sometimes the info was enlightening. Sometimes it added nothing to the experience.

It seems there is the stuff inside our heads, what we know, the theories we think, the stories we discuss, the labels we use.

Then there is the practice of what we do, what we observe when we try things out, what we sense when we encounter the world around us.

I don't see how they can possibly be disconnected, but sometimes I think the cognitive and experiential mix like oil and water.

Sometimes I think we try to smash the two together, subjugating the experiential under the cognitive by forcing labels on what happens.

Or, maybe we just don't know how to pay equal attention to both channels as they feed us information.

I've had a couple of experiences that will never enter my thoughts.

When I went tandem sky-diving, my teacher explained sensory overload, common for first-time jumpers.

To jump out of a plane at 50,000 feet is so overwhelming that often you cannot process it.

Not only was it not cognitive, I even slipped temporarily out of the experiential.

Even though I was there the whole time, I remember very little of the 40-second free-fall before the shoot opened.

Later, when I went with 40 artists to Porto, a friend wanted visitors to take turns wearing her dresses through the club / exhibition space.

The floor-length, bright, canary-yellow period pieces had high necks, long sleeves, 40 buttons down the back and huge derrieres.

I volunteered to get the trend going even though I hate to be conspicuous.

The fluorescent yellow material seemed to be glowing.

Walking to the bar to order a beer took forever as I could feel every drawn-out second.

My movements began to feel forced and mechanical under the weight of every eye in the room.

When my friend later asked me how it went, I told her that I was most surprised by my post-Porto experience.

Whenever I had an awkward moment in the few weeks after the event, a strong feeling came over me that I was wearing the dress.

But the memory wasn't in my head. It was more like a body memory.

More than once, when I felt out-of-place, I felt enveloped by the damn yellow dress.

Thinking outside of the box is cognitive. Getting outside of the box is experiential.

I'm really curious about how urban camping will resonate with me next year after I land back at home base.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Loose Ends

2006-06-14T17:16:00.000+03:00

A few thoughts on recent posts:

Thinking more about the "buildings are temporary" reminded me of Andrew Postman's article on why we accumulate things.

His conclusion: We are not our stuff. (So, can I say, "We are not the buildings? We are the way we build.")

I went back to check Rachel Naomi Remen's conclusion on "attachment vs. commitment."

She says that they may both feel constricting, but the way you tell the difference between the two in your life is that attachment leads to entrapment while commitment leads to freedom.

My friend, Frank, wrote me after my "no movement" post:
While you've been 'running through the world with your arms wide open', nice sentence, I have hardly looked over the fence of our little village on the riverside.

Suddenly I feel poor inside my mind for not having traveled and 'pressure-cooked developed' as you must have....

But on my rooted feet, no movement, there is this body with arms wide open and round my rooted feet some nice things are starting to blossom.

I'd like to show you some time soon.

And my Mom gave her viewpoint: "The expression 'Hang in There' just means be patient."

Technorati tag: urban camping

Process Over Product

2006-06-13T18:59:00.000+03:00

I said artists are more committed to the process of how to build than they are attached to the product of any particular building.

I learned this from one of my art teachers in Chicago when he asked if he could have two or three of my pieces to put on display during the summer.

I was very happy about this since our teachers hung the best work in the big glass cases lining the hallways.

When I returned in the fall, I went to my teacher to collect my drawings and paintings.

My teacher looked everywhere but could not find my work.

He explained that when he removed the work from the cases, he had put the whole stack on top of the cupboard.

He guessed the cleaning lady must have thrown them out a few weeks earlier.

I was so disappointed. These had been favorite pieces that I was proud of.

They showed what I was capable of and how I had progressed over the year.

As I listened and looked at him blurrily through small tears, he took a stoic face.

He raised his eyebrows and said, "You'll just have to make some more."

I remember the strange experience of being hurt at his lack of carefulness and compassion, while simultaneously realizing that he was absolutely right.

This was what it was really all about. There are no guarantees in life.

It's not wise to try to hold on tightly to the things we have to let go of.

The buildings are temporary. But it's always possible to build.

Even when the things we build get knocked down, we can start to build again or build in a new way.

I would like to build something that could last a long time, but there is no way for me to know if that is what will happen.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Viewpoint: Patience

2006-06-12T18:56:00.000+03:00

Thoughts from the weekend:

I often say I am not a patient person because ...

Sometimes patience is judgmental: bigger people putting up with shortcomings of smaller people. But I want to be curious: discovering where others are coming from.

Sometimes patience is fear: avoiding confrontation. But I want to be brave: taking risks to reach out and connect.

Sometimes patience is dishonest: pretending not to mind. But I want to be genuine: knowing myself well enough to say how I feel and where my boundaries lie.

Sometimes patience is lazy: waiting for something to happen. But I want to be energetic: passionate about living life fully.

Sometimes patience is unbalanced: better to give than to receive. But I want to be equal: trying to cultivate equilibrium between people.

Sometimes patience is fickle: kindness runs out. But I want to be consistent: no surprises.

Maybe I am patient. But maybe I am something else.

Technorati tag: urban camping

What Fits in My Pocket

2006-06-09T11:45:00.000+03:00

People find ways to survive. They do so by the use of creativity.

Artists take the innately human practice of creativity and cultivate it. They don't hide from life. They seek out ideas and experiences. They fill up on them and let them simmer.

This process lets art emerge in its own time through the artist's chosen craft of expression. Sometimes the product satisfies many people besides the artist.

I've heard musicians and poets talk about 'the one' that just came to them. I've heard Sarah McLachlan say this was the case with Hold On. I've heard that this was Allen Ginsberg's experience with Howl.

This is not magic. Their product is still a result of process and practice.

Artists build, but the building does not always match the blueprint.

Sometimes first ideas meet with catalytic events while 'simmering', causing the building to become better than the blueprint. The building may seem to appear from nowhere.

But if the building is not satisfying, no matter how perfect the blueprint seemed to be, artists let it go because they are more committed to the process of how to build than attached to the product of any particular building.

Artists build by showing up and making contributions at the building site. They are present. They stay in the moment. They are waiting. They are listening. They are watching. Like little kids, their contributions are honest and curious.

I think building a life must be a similar practice. We create expressions through a practice of living the qualities for which our hearts beat loudly.

My heart beats loudly for:

curiosity
genuineness
individuality
courage
humor
independence
creativity
equilibrium
community
passion
empowerment
playfulness
equality
resourcefulness
energy
challenge

I'm still watching the product emerge and hoping it will be satisfying for many people besides me.

Technorati tag: urban camping, curiosity, genuineness, individuality, courage, humor, independence, creativity, equilibrium, community, passion, playfulness, equality, empowerment, resourcefulness, energy, challenge,

Attachment or Commitment

2006-06-08T11:44:00.000+03:00

I bought Healing and the Mind because I am a big fan of Bill Moyers's interviews.

The book ends with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen discussing the importance of community in the power of healing vs. curing.

It was so insightful and holistic and almost poetic that when I heard she had a whole book of essays coming out, I immediately went to find it.

I found myself standing next to Robert Downey Jr. in the health section of the Borders bookstore on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

We stood side-by-side, silently scanning titles until I found Kitchen Table Wisdom and left.

As I've read it for the third time, my nomadic mood dwells on her story of attachment vs. commitment where a young man refused to have his foot amputated after frostbite had led to gangrene.

It was threatening his life but he couldn't let it go until his desperate fiancee placed her engagement ring on his blackened toe. Terribly distraught, she asked him what he really wanted.

Because attachment seems to come so naturally, I believe that leads to two consequences:

First, it means that it's so difficult to let go of things.

Second, it also means that it's so easy to get used to things.

I think attachment will naturally happen. We always start to adapt to our environment.

I was struck by this when reading Anya Peters's blog.

She'd been very unhappily living in her car for nine months on a laneway by the woods outside of London. She had not chosen her lifestyle.

Even though she told the BBC, "I don't ever want it to happen again," she also said in her 23 feb. 06 entry "I imagine ties to place can be as strong as family ones sometimes. I feel that about the laneway a bit already, will miss it when I go."

A friend asked me about my blog, "By the way, what are you attached to? I read a lot about what you can do without, but wonder what you have discovered to be essential?"

While I think that attachment will always naturally occur - we will always adapt to our environment - commitment will never just happen.

Maybe commitment is always deliberate choice?

Maybe commitments are values, the things that we have decided to always deliberately choose no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in?

No matter how difficult it is to make that choice?

My answers included qualities of curiosity and genuineness.

I am curious because I want to understand as much as possible about how the world works and I am genuine because to not be genuine would be a waste of a life.

I will always shake off everything that gets in the way of my being able to practice those two characteristics.

Technorati tag: urban camping

No Movement

2006-06-07T15:30:00.000+03:00

The school year has come to an end and I feel a huge void as I no longer see my classmates in our natural habitat.

Our schedule is finished. No more routine on that front.

Although my current house-sitting gig is also coming to an end, I've been stationed there for several weeks, so movement in that area of my life has, for the moment, stopped as well.

There is suddenly a lot of silence.

There is no pace. There is no travel.

Soon, the urban camping adventure will be over and I will settle into a new routine.

I feel like I've been around the world without going very far from home.

I've traveled through new ideas in my studies.

I've found myself in unexpected conversations with people I didn't know at this time last year.

By seeing new angles, I've been reminded of what is important to me.

I feel refreshed and tired at the same time.

There is peace and rest. There is also restlessness.

Half of me wants to keep exploring new things, running through the world with my arms wide open.

Half of me wants to 'go home' and focus on familiar people and places, tuning out any distractions.

Now I need to find the balance.

At the core of it all is the desire to build something.

I know that creativity is impossible without taking time and risks to get out and explore the new, but I am starting to crave a focus on the familiar so that I can find back the old places, places where I want the building to occur.

Technorati tag: urban camping

More Freegans

2006-06-06T16:21:00.000+03:00

On the CouchSurfing.com site, I am a member of the "Alternative ways of living, consuming ..." community. Someone just sent through a link to ...

http://freegan.info/

"A Site Dedicated to Revealing Human Over-Consumption and Waste"

The site contains a lot of content on freeganism.

(Their huge list of resources even includes a site dedicated to "Dumpster Diving for eBay Profits.")

I have also recently found BBC articles on Freegans:

Freegans 25 May 2006

Freegans 4 May 2006 (presenter Miriam O'Reilly)

Technorati tag: urban camping

Wandering Scribe

2006-06-02T15:15:00.000+03:00

At the beginning of April, my friend Karen wrote me an email that said,

"In your last couple of blogs you sound really down and getting fed up with urban camping - I nearly cried when I read that you were sleeping in a 'storage room' (think of the semiotics of your use of the word).

Remember, you are trying to urban camp and hold down an increasingly challenging educational programme; others just urban camp for the fun of it without having to do anything else."

I wrote back to her that it was really not so bad at all!

The storage room was quite cozy after I straightened it up and turned on the little electric heater.

There had been a few times when I had problems going to sleep in my studio or the storage room because I was too cold, but I just put on more clothes or bought another sleeping bag.

There were also times when I was doing homework in my studio while my toes were cold or I could see my breath or my face became a bit chapped.

I was not loving those moments, but I was OK!

I already know from experience that without these moments, I won't get the feeling of "delicious luxury" when settling back into my house.

Those who enjoy camping often also enjoy the contrast of getting back to the comforts of home.

Yesterday, I discovered a very different experience of nomadically coping with the winter.

I discovered Anya Peters's Wandering Scribe blog.

Until last weekend, she has been urban camping in her car in the woods on the edge of London.

She had been doing this for nine months.

Four months ago, she started writing a blog from the library as some way to re-connect with the world.

She has a law degree but no family.

As some things started to fall apart in her life, she was too embarrassed to go to friends.

So she started cutting herself off from them, just until she could pull things back together.

She tried to keep up appearances but kept slipping further and further into homelessness.

There are two BBC articles written about her:

24 April 2006 Park and Write

31 May 2006 Parked up

Just last weekend she was able to move back into rented accommodation as she was recently offered a book deal.

One person commented that she had written her own escape story.

I have just finished reading the February chapter on her blog ...

Technorati tag: urban camping

Do Nomads Have Books?

2006-06-01T13:59:00.000+03:00

During my first nomadic venture, one of the most difficult life-style issues, that I never did resolve was, what do I do with my books?

I seemed to be able to streamline all of my possessions except my books.

I considered dividing them up by category and sheltering them with friends.

Should my cooking books stay with Kate, who loves to cook, and never makes the same meal twice?

Would Nienke, an art school friend, take my art books?

Could I house my biographies with Mary, a storyteller?

I thought this might work as a symbiotic relationship.

My friends could enjoy my books while I could have visitation rights.

I experimented with audible.com, but I didn't know how to highlight special audio passages for future reference.

I'm still considering this.

Google has been working on scanning in all of the world's books to create a universal library.

'All the world's books at my fingertips' would mean that I could easily find back all of my favorite passages on an iPod.

But what about the experience of reading a book for the first time? Do I want to read a book on my laptop?

If these screens (version one & version two) provide a better reading experience, could I write notes in the margins?

I can't yet work out all of the details on how to be a nomad with books, but I still think there might be a way.

Perhaps this is why MUSIC is the Nomad's seed. It's much easier to move around with music.

--> UPDATE: Just saw the the Sony Reader advertised.

Technorati tag: urban camping

May Urban Camping Spots

2006-05-31T12:37:00.000+03:00

May's urban camping spots involved a lot of house-sitting, which is my favorite way to be nomadic.

I even like it better than couch-surfing and sleeping in airports!

When my friend, Iris, urban camped in Canada, she said she found it difficult to get used to the energy of each new house.

I, however, love that process!

If I could have lined up the perfect 12-month urban camping spree, it would have been to have had 12 of my friends each pick a different month to go on vacation and then let me stay in their houses while they were away.

This month I stayed 4 nights at my friend Aden's house; 7 nights at Frans' and Phia's house while they were in France; and 20 nights at Johan's house while he was in the Philippines.

Two more months to go!

Technorati tag: urban camping

Music is the Nomad's Seed

2006-05-26T16:32:00.000+03:00

When I was in Rotterdam just over a week ago, my friend, Mary, called and excitedly said, "You have to come over and see the new sculpture we just had delivered from Ingrid!"

Ingrid was an art student Mary met over 20 years ago.

After art school, Ingrid went to law school to study international law, specifically the rights of nomadic people.

The sculpture's title is, "Music is the Nomad's Seed."

Sitting on top of a stone pillar taken from a demolished church is a bronze sculpture of a nomadic instrument.

When Mary said that she bought it 12 years ago, I pictured the sculpture traveling around for the past 12 years, but it was actually the logistics of delivery (it's about 300 pounds) that created delays.

The guy who owns the urbancamping.com URL is Jason Schadt. He is a hip hop emcee, producer, video artist and traveler.

From his site, he says,

" What is Urban camping? Well, it is a state of mind.

It is the exploration of culture in an urban setting, reflecting on nature as it is manifested in the city environment.

Urban Camping is collaboration and experience on a global scale.

It is inspiration and focus for all Nomadic Addicts on a musical, spiritual and cultural quest.

It is a place for us to exist in and to build together on a worldwide level."

Visit Jason's MySpace.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Which Version

2006-05-24T17:22:00.000+03:00

A version is a description or account from one point of view, especially as opposed to another.

I saw The Da Vinci Code on Friday. The film version is slightly different than the book version.

In the book, she finds her brother at the end of the film and the man who was supposedly her grandfather, really is her grandfather.

We were trying to figure out why the changes occurred between the different tellings of the story.

One of the friends in our movie group, Mika, recently gave a presentation at our research colloquium on how Matthew's account of the gospel differs from John's account of the gospel.

Our friend argued that Matthew made use of literary devices in his version that consistently convey the authority aspect of Christ's persona, while John made different choices to describe events.

As our movie group had dinner after the film, I told Mika that it would be a fun artistic device, or trend, if stories were always told in different versions, not just two versions (e.g. book vs. movie), but maybe a minimum of four versions (e.g. the gospels).

I was thinking of many things.

Since the movie and Mika's research were both of a religious nature, my mind went to how many different paintings I had seen of the Apocryphal Judith with Holofernes's head. (versions: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.)

I was also thinking of the Lomo camera that my friend, Adi, told me about years ago.

It has four lenses so when you aim at your subject, you never end up with one photo of that moment.

When you take your shot, you always end up with four sequential frames in your picture.

I was thinking about the Geisha Movie installation that I made a few years back.

During the second weekend of the showing, I invited an opera singer, storyteller, comedian and performance artist to use their own medium to improvise on the subject matter of the installation.

Maybe we could have something called 'version art'.

Wait, let me Google that ... nope, no trace of it on Google ... still room for it to become a trend or movement ...

Technorati tag: urban camping

I Made Houses For Them

2006-05-23T15:11:00.000+03:00

Last week, I jokingly remarked to my friend, Lotte, that the two well-dressed, very petite women rushing past us looked somewhat like dolls.

Lotte laughed a bit and asked me if I had played with Barbie dolls as a kid.

I said that I had.

She said, "What did you do with them? I made clothes for them."

I said, "I made houses for them. We had a stack of carpet squares, each the size of a doormat. I would lay out about 10 of them and use whatever doll furniture we had to design a huge house for them."

As soon as I said this, I wondered if the not-so-philosophical-message that 'the universe was trying to tell me' from the whole house-sitting, house-dreaming, doll-house making experience is simply that maybe I should have gone into interior decorating.

Technorati tag: urban camping

What You See --> Not What You Think You See

2006-05-19T13:13:00.000+03:00

I had a high school art teacher that raised her voice when she said, "Why are some of you painting mountains? We don't live by mountains. How do you know what they look like?"

I come from Illinois, also known as 'The Prairie State,' the same state about which I heard the following joke, "This land is so flat, you can watch your dog run away for days."

My friend, Aden, recently asked me how one learns to draw.

I told him that when I teach beginners, the first lesson is my attempt to get them to draw what they see and not what they think they see.

To do this, I cut up a black and white face into squares so that they cannot see the whole picture.

I only show them one piece at a time and try to get them to notice the relationships between the shapes and values within each piece.
Each piece is simply a combination of white, gray and black shapes.

A large part of drawing is mastering the skill of accurately measuring the shapes and values seen within the object one is drawing.

After they finish each piece, I secretly tape them together.

It is always a thrill to watch their faces when I show them the finished picture they have drawn of Salvador Dali.

They were so busy learning to see shapes and shades of values, their mind could never think, "I don't know how to draw faces."

Even those of us who have quite a bit of practice in drawing will often look at our drawings upside down or in a mirror to get another perspective on how well we are measuring the relationships between the shapes and shades in our drawing.

It takes a lot of practice to accurately draw what we are seeing before us.

Our eyes 'know' that the face before us can be expressed in a combination of two-dimensional shapes and shades, but our mind 'knows' that the face before us is three-dimensional.

So, part of the practice of being an artist (at least when we are trying to draw a likeness of the face before us) can be the struggle to stay out of the world of what our mind tells us is true and stay in the world of what we are observing to be true.

Technorati tag: urban camping

I'm Finally Reading Walden

2006-05-18T14:16:00.000+03:00

I downloaded a copy from www.gutenberg.org. Thoreau didn't live during a time when mobility was much of an option, but he's certainly interested in simplicity and perspective.

Some of my favorite quotes so far:

"When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turnout to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields ...

... Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me ...

... Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! -- I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be ...

... I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do ...

... So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant."

--> UPDATE:

When I went to visit my family this summer, I bought a book at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.

It's called, Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live In It by Thomas de Zengotita.

It caught my eye because of my desire for seeing the real world instead of cocooning at home and watching the world through TV.

He says, "We are most free of mediation, we are most real, when we are at the disposal of accident and necessity." p. 14

It also caught my eye because he talks about the post-modern idea that we have all these 'options'. It's a nice contrast to Thoreau's time-period and concept.

De Zengotita says,

"But mediated people everywhere know that identity and lifestyle are constructs, something to have.

The objects and places and mannerisms that constitute our life-world are intentionally representational.

What cultures traditionally provided was taken-for-granted custom, a form of necessity -- hence of reality.

Options are profoundly, if subtly, different, and so are the people who live among and through them.

And this holds even if you never exercise those options, even if you cling to some tradition.

You know you could be different, and so, perhaps, you cling more desperately.

Fanaticisms flourish in an atmosphere of unlimited choice.

But most people are cool with it. At least in the blue states. And Europe.

The slang expression 'whatever' distills the essential situation into a single gesture.

It arose and caught on because it captures so precisely, yet so flexibly, the Janus-faced attitude we assume as we negotiate the field of options that so incessantly solicit our attention and allegiance.

On the one hand, it's a party, a feast, an array of possible experiences more fabulous than monarchs of the past could even dream of -- it's 'whatever,' as in yippee!, as in whatever you want, whatever you can imagine; you can eat whatever, see whatever, hear whatever, read whatever, even be whatever.

'No limits,' as the SUV and the Internet ads all promise.

On the other hand, an environment of representations yields an aura of surface -- as in 'surf.'

It is a world of effects.

This is another existential consequence of the fact that representations address us by design.

We are at the center of all the attention, but there is a thinness to things, a smoothness, a muffled quality -- it's all insulational, as if the deities of Dreamworks were laboring invisibly around us, touching up the canvas of reality with digital airbrushes.

Everything has the edgeless flowing feel of computer graphics, like the lobby of a high-end Marriott/Ramada/Sheraton -- the sculptured flower arrangements, that glowy, woody, marbly, purply, cushioned-air quality.

Every gadget aspires to that iPod look -- even automobiles.

The feel of the virtual is over-flowing the screens, as if the plasma were leaking into the physical world.

Whole neighborhoods feel like that now, even when you're standing in the street.

Especially 'historic neighborhoods.'

It's as if the famous ones -- like Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Quincy Market, parts of York and Canterbury -- have all been subjected to the renovating ministrations of the same giant company with one idea, the Red Brick, Gray Stone, and Iron Filigree Restoration Corporation.

And as for little towns and villages with some claim -- any claim -- on our attention, well, I wish I had the copyright for those signs, painted in Ralph Lauren green or blue with the gold trim and the gold inlay of Gothic script.

I mean, how did so many people in so many places decide to hang those out at the same time?

Was that Martha Stewart's fault too?

Even what's left of the wilderness can have this virtual feel (see chapter 6).

It's as if nature was succumbing to all the times it has been depicted in travel tales and adventure movies and nature shows, to all the times it has been toured and photographed and otherwise used -- not, in this case, for raw material, but to provide an experience.

Here's a measure of how far into the natural realm virtualization has penetrated -- one of my favorites, cross-indexed under Subtle.

At the little zoo in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, one building is given over to a sequence of exhibits that illustrate the concept of an ecological niche -- you know, flora and fauna from a rain forest, an Alpine meadow, a desert, a wetland, etc.

Very educational. Perfect place for bio students on a field trip.

And guess what the Prospect Park Zoo calls the building that houses this exhibit?

'The Hall of Animal Lifestyles.'

I just love that one. Options everywhere -- even animals have options.

And that's why, like so many expressions of mediation, the 'whatever' gesture is a dialectic.

As reality and representation fuse into a field of options, opposing tendencies arise like shadows.

Haunting the moment of 'I can experience whatever I want' is the moment of 'What difference does it make,' because this moment, the moment of the shrug, is essential to our mobility among the options.

We need mobility among the options because they are only representations.

And that means they are no more than they appear to be.

And so they are never enough.

And that's why more is on the way. Always.

That's why trailers are better than movies.

That's why you are always already ready for the next show, even before this one is over.

That's why, in the midst of a fabulous array of historically unprecedented and utterly mind-boggling stimuli -- whatever.

So mobility among the options in a virtualized environment gives to human freedom a new ironic character.

You are completely free to choose because it doesn't matter what you choose.

That's why you are so free.

Because it doesn't matter.

How cool is that?" pp.14-17

Technorati tag: urban camping

Aporia

2006-05-11T15:09:00.000+03:00

I am completing a Masters degree in Discourse and Argumentation Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

I am attracted to the topic partly because I am interested in the meeting ground between different viewpoints.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to take a closer look at the history, theory and practice of how this is accomplished.

Yesterday, G. Thomas Goodnight was our guest lecturer.

He talked about introducing uncertainty when he explained Plato's ancient concept of 'aporia'.

He said that a good argument will give you 'confusion' because confusion leads to reflection.

Post-modern terms from A-D defines aporia as,

"Wonder and amazement before the confusing puzzles and paradoxes of our lives and of the universe. Socrates and the other ancient philosophers tried to evoke the philosophic spirit in young men by awakening their aporia, not by simply providing answers to these puzzles."

Technorati tag: urban camping

Mosaic Realism

2006-05-10T14:51:00.000+03:00

My interest in options, deconstructing and reconstructing, and fragmentation are all related.

I've explored this in my artwork through the use of 'pattern', 'pieces', 'layers', and 'focus'.

The following was a text I made for an exhibit called Extra Parts:

PATTERN is more than just decorative repetition ... life is full of patterns ... weather patterns ... speech patterns ... behavior patterns ... whenever something happens over and over again there is pattern ... pattern is repetition ... or pattern is structure like DNA ... the design that holds fragments or pieces together ...

... everything in life is made up of smaller PIECES ... the cells of the body ... the individuals of a community ... the abstract elements of an idea or memory ... there is a type of mosaic realism where pieces shift ... deconstruct ... reconstruct ... regroup ...

...pieces shift or are stacked up in LAYERS ... viewing the pieces means experiencing a temporary realism ...

... looking at the way things 'really are', it is only possible to FOCUS on one spot ... one piece or one grouping of the pieces ... if one continues to look she sees the peripheral issues ... the connecting pieces ... the related groupings ... no one piece or group is complete ... every grouping of the pieces is temporary ... if the pieces continue to be grouped in the same manner there is pattern ...

My belief in this sort of mosaic realism is why I like to try to be so aware of the perspective I am holding.

The urban camping experience always ensures I am not taking my viewpoint for granted.

Even though it is sometimes uncomfortable, I find that 'introducing uncertainty' is the first step to moving on to another outlook post.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Published in the Cape Cod Times

2006-05-09T20:57:00.000+03:00

Just heard today that Ariel Brewster's article on urban camping was published in the Cape Cod Times sports section on 20 April 2006.

The "Outside" section editor published it and said he got a very positive response from the readership; people were interested.

He gave it almost a two-page spread. Yahoo! Maybe we will hatch more urban nomads!

Technorati tag: urban camping

Deconstruct / Reconstruct

2006-05-08T14:35:00.000+03:00

Last week, my friend Hikmet told me that he was curious about why I was complaining about the uncertainty that I had introduced into my life this year.

That struck me as a good question. My answer has something to do with wanting to deconstruct my life and then reconstruct it again.

You can take a watch apart to see how it works, but if you want to use it, you have to put it back together again.

I always find the deconstruction phase refreshing, but if it goes on for too long, it's just confusing.

As this year comes to a close, the desire to re-group is getting stronger.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Experience

2006-05-03T10:34:00.000+03:00

A friend of mine teaches organizational behavior to graduate students.

One of his challenges is to get the engineers in his class to wrap their minds around the 'soft science' he is teaching because they are so used to viewing work problems, issues, and maybe the world from a very different, analytical perspective.

Recently he told me that he was going to introduce the story of my urban camping experience into his lesson as an example of how it's possible for someone to 'examine their script' without needing to give up 'their viewpoint'.

He is going to tell them about how I have been examining by housing script this year and reached a point where I was ready to go back to my 'perfect little house'.

As I listened to how he was going to relate the story of my experience to his students, I was struck by how impossible it is for me to put my nomadic experience into words.

I write about it. I talk about it. But I can't completely explain how it feels.

It's something you will only 'know' by doing. The knowledge is in the experience.

Technorati tag: urban camping

April Urban Camping Spots

2006-05-02T12:13:00.000+03:00

3 more months to go! April urban camping spots were as follows:

1 night at Maggie's house

1 night at Bill's house

1 night at Frans' and Phia's house

4 nights at the bungalow in France over Easter vacation with classmates Hikmet, Lotte, Gino, Roosmarijn, Leon & Anna

12 nights at the storage room

11 nights at the studio

Technorati tag: urban camping

Jane Siberry Simplifies

2006-04-27T19:54:00.000+03:00

My friend, Bill, recently emailed to say he'd discovered the musician, Jane Siberry, who "has done a couple interesting things lately that I thought you might like."

He said that when she left on her latest tour she decided to sell everything (home, car, most of her clothes, etc.) and live out of a suitcase on tour (in fact she auctioned off her guitar and uses one provided by the clubs where she is playing).

I found most of this recounted in the 11 March 2006 article, Imagine no possessions, by Andrew Eaton, at Living Scotsman.

If I'm allowed to quote a paragraph on simplification that I love, it follows:

"Since the yard sale, she says, 'sometimes I feel pretty shaky.

A lot of people say, oh gosh, I'd be terrified to do what you did, and that makes me nervous.'

But, she adds, 'there's a recognition that it's brewing somewhere in their consciousness. I feel like a barometer of what's in the air.'

She believes people have too much 'material baggage', and know it.

At first, she says, 'I kept one letter from each person I love, and one or two photos, then I thought maybe I should let go of that too.

I threw out thousands of photos.

It's odd with photos, you think, here's 20 of this little girl I adore, let's reduce it to two, and then one, and then I think, well, why do I need any?

I can just go to her mother's house and look at them.'"

I also found a 28 November 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article titled Wander Woman by Sam Hurwitt that says she had two years previously "rented her home out and started couch-surfing to pay for the recording of 'Shushan,' ... and in the meantime Siberry has gotten used to her nomadic lifestyle and is trying to sell her house."

There is a quote in the article from Siberry:

"I stare at homeless people, and I try to see what the least is that you can live with," she says.

"I try to imagine how people I know would be homeless: Some people would be messy, with their shopping carts; some people would be really organized and have really nice signs."

Technorati tag: urban camping

BBC Is About to Share

2006-04-26T20:09:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, the BBC announced its plans to rebuild its website around user-generated content, including blogs and home videos.

As part of his 'Creative Future' review of programming and content, BBC director of new media and technology, Ashley Highfield, introduced the plan "to refocus all future BBC digital output and services around three concepts - share, find and play."

The article quotes Highfield as saying, "... the philosophy of 'share' would be at the heart of what he dubbed bbc.co.uk 2.0."

Another symbiotic relationship?

Technorati tag: urban camping

March Urban Camping Spots

2006-04-24T14:50:00.000+03:00

Here in the Netherlands, 'they' said spring would arrive four weeks late, but even at the end of March I could 'smell' spring in the air.

Yeah! I made it through the winter!

A nomadic lifestyle is much easier when the weather is warmer.

Last Friday, I believe I even caught a whiff of summer ...

March's urban camping spots were as follows:

1 night at Frans' and Phia's house

1 night at Maggie's house

1 night at Gino's house

2 nights at Johan's house

8 nights at the storage room

18 nights at Carol's house

Technorati tag: urban camping

Big Bucks in the Basements

2006-04-20T18:09:00.000+03:00

Last week I heard on the BBC World Service radio program that there is an estimated 20 billion euros (or was it pounds or dollars) worth of stuff in people's basements in Germany.

If Kyle MacDonald can trade a red paperclip for one year's rent in a Phoenix duplex, just think what we could barter our basement clutter for!

Technorati tag: urban camping

Bartering a Paperclip for a House

2006-04-19T19:42:00.000+03:00

When I titled a previous post, "Bartering: Think Big," I never imagined the concept of trading a paperclip for a house.

Kyle MacDonald did and his story makes me want to barter bigger and better.

Ten progressively bigger trades have led him from the one big red paperclip on 12 July 2005 to the one year's free rent in a Phoenix house.

But this is not THE house he is trading for.

He is working towards owning his own house through upwardly mobile trading.

It all started with an advertisement in the barter section of Craigslist.org.

Then it went like this:

paperclip for fish-shaped pen

pen for small ceramic doorknob with a smiley face

doorknob for a Coleman camping stove

stove for a generator

generator for an "instant party package" — an empty beer keg, a neon Budweiser sign and a promise to fill the keg

party package for a snowmobile

snowmobile for an expense-paid trip to Yahk

trip for a 1995 Cintas van

van for a recording contract, with studio time and a promise to pitch the finished product to music executives

recording contract for one year living rent-free in a Phoenix duplex

When asked what he's learned from this experience, he said,

"If you say you're going to do something and you start to do it, and people enjoy it or respect it or are entertained by it, people will step up and help you."

His attitude reminds me a tiny bit of Tony Hawks's outlook in Round Ireland with a Fridge.

---> UPDATE

On 11 July 2006, Luisa sent me an article from BBC saying that he had done it.

He traded one year living rent-free in a Phoenix duplex for an afternoon with Alice Cooper.

The afternoon with Alice Cooper got traded for a snow globe featuring the rockband Kiss.

The snow globe was traded for a Hollywood movie role, which was traded for a house on Main Street in the tiny town of Kipling in Saskatchewan province.

The last paragraph from the BBC article:

"The project has demonstrated the power of the internet and won an army of fans, including Heather and Dan who left a comment on Kyle's website saying: "Hey, what a neat planet. We're thinking of staying to see what happens next."

Technorati tag: urban camping

Our Walden

2006-04-13T18:24:00.000+03:00

The article mentioned one of the parts of urban camping that I most enjoy, my "uncluttered life."

Part of the motto for this urban camping journey is simplification.

When I saw the Live Simple site by John December, I had another one of those "my people" experiences.

(Just a note to Mary, who emailed me with concern after my last blog post on freeganism.

No, I'm not living in the dumpster behind Loos cafe.

Dumpster divers aren't my people at this point.

I was simply amazed that someone could live for five years without buying food.)

December says that the site is his e-book, his Walden.

You can download a free copy of Walden from www.gutenberg.org.

If you have a copy of Walden and you'd like to share it, you can launch it via Book Crossing.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Freeganism

2006-04-12T12:43:00.000+03:00

Yesterday the BBC World Service radio program interviewed a guy who hasn't bought food in five years because he practices 'freeganism'.

You can read the whole definition from The Free Dictionary but the general idea is, "Freeganism is the practice of minimising one's adverse impact on the environment, animals, and human lives by limiting participation in the capitalist economy."

The guy in the interview gets all of his food from dumpsters and says he eats better than he did before he quit his job and turned freegan.

It seems he gets most of his food from restaurant or grocery store dumpsters where food is discarded after the 'sell-by-date' and before the 'consume-by-date'.

The Free Dictionary says that many associate freeganism with food, but actually the concept is a "broad-based lifestyle ethic encompassing food, housing, transportation, clothing, and all other necessities of daily life."

One of their concerns involves the "enormous volume of waste generated by a society that produces more than it actually uses."

One last bit from the definition:

"Freegans place a high value on community, sharing, and mutual aid.

They tend to reject the concept of private property, reflecting a school of thought common to anarchism and popularized by the anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon.

Freegans see the pressure to maintain employment in order to purchase commodities and pay for necessities like food and shelter as a form of oppression.

They view the advertising-driven push to constantly purchase new commodities as a form of manipulation for profit."

I'm not a freegan ... I still very much like holding down a job and participating in capitalism ... but some of their ideas overlap mine.

Technorati tag: urban camping

Article on Urban Camping Trend

2006-04-11T18:46:00.000+03:00

At the end of March, I received an email from Ariel Brewster, New York City-based reporter for the Columbia News Service, a features wire syndicated by the New York Times Company to over 400 different newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

Friends-of-friends of hers, Zach Klein along with Paul and Amit, blogged about an urban camping experience they had last summer in Times Square.

She wanted to write about the phenomenon for the feature wire.

Her email said she wanted to interview all of us and, "It seems like you know something about this trend, and have great personal experiences."

So, we had a phone interview and this is the resulting article.

Overall, I'm happy with the way I'm represented.

Maybe it would have been better not to have been interviewed during the 'homesick' part of my journey.

It's realistic, but not really representative of the whole experience.

Unfortunately, my reference to the CouchSurfing Project in the interview showed up in the article as what I am doing, when it's only part of what I'm doing.

Also, www.couchsurfing.com is where "thousands of people in thousands of cities" are sharing home bases around the world.

I'm not sure why the organization was left out of the article ... but ... in any case ... it's very exciting to be at the forefront of a trend!

--> UPDATE

Published in the Cape Cod Times sports section on 20 April 2006!

Technorati tag: urban camping