James Ensor--Still is Belgium's Famous Painter

We went to the Musee D'Orsay today and while there stumbled upon this remarkable find.
It's James Ensor's "The Lady in Distress".



What? You don't know about James Ensor? Here's a little about the artist: James Ensor was most famously an early expressionist(ic) painter from the late 1800's. He produced his most successful work s up until his 40's and declined in vivacity from there. (Is that just the way of it?) Largely this is because he'd already become famous, and he decided to move into making music. His new work was kind of a softened repetition of earlier works, with a few goodies here and there. Musically, he was gifted at improvising on the "harmonium" and performed for guests. (If you trust Wikipedia).

Some of James Ensor's works can be found here, on this Danish website, and if you're not totally impressed by this, "Meet James Ensor" kind of puts things into perspective.

Dream about Mapping the 10th Dimension

A "bad guy" was looking for someone to take over the mapping of the 10th dimension project (using a big computer) and found a British man who aparently had no credentials... a janitor of sorts. However, you and I know him as Dr. Who, the hero of our story. He, unfortunately, does not realize his own importance and goes to work for this fellow.

In working, the Dr. produces several artistic chaotic renderings and a diagram of a city. The bad guy asks how he did these so quickly (quicker, his cronies say, than any other computer tech so far), to which the Dr. explains it just came naturally. He did it entirely without the computer, which is still broken.

The bad guy looks at the papers as imaginary rubbish. [I assume the bad guy will throw him out, only to discover the true worth of the drawings later, but we'll never know, will we? 'Cause I woke up!]

"Bon soir" --good evening

First evening in Paris, I'm feeling slightly discombobulated. The streets aren't straight, and we got quite lost on the way to the apartment *home* this evening.

First impressions of Parisians-- there was graffiti everywhere on the train ride into the city (like it's not controlled much).

Parents are very allowing of children to be outspoken--the light in babies faces is very different from USA babies-- parents allow the kids to be more determined--it's very hard to describe this difference.

There are many subtle language differences as well but I don't have command of the language so I digress. It seems to express similar ideas to our language but it does so in a way that is unique to being French.

I love it here.

Digestible chunks of reality

Buzz Zap!!! We were talking about robots after being inspired by this video on you-tube. It shows a robot able to cover a variety of terrains without falling over. Wow!

Being nerdy, we all had our input into the conversation. Here are a few of the things I took from us talking:

--memory and learning are simpler than you might think--Rosenfield uses a constructivist approach to explain how memory is built. His take is that memory is made up of the connections between neurons (rather than just being a retrieval system) and is therefore constantly being created by simultaneous stimuli that create a unique pathway in your brain.

--actually the other way of dealing with learning robots makes sense too. We have instincts which are 'hard-wired' into our mind--like little subroutines that can be 'called' when they're needed

--Lego robots--modular electronic components fused with legos, that could be built lego-style into a circuit--would be pretty cool. Kids could learn how to build working robots, people could make robots based on the need of the day

This morning I was thinking back on all of this and realized that going from simultaneous stimuli like Rosenfield talks about to actual stimulus & response behavior --it's all about the coding. How can you take impressions of the big world and make them digestible for a computer brain to decide what actions to take? What is the streamline-iest way to make a robot learn? Could we make a rubber-band powered robot?

Nerdy nerdy nerdy

As for making the big world digestible, I think the next big wave is going to skip reading research articles and just reading reviews of these articles, because there's too much to go through. That's what I'm doing for now anyway.

Just a Quick Update

Blah blah blah...I've re-read my recent posts and it's way too dry. Not a lot of vivaciousness to be sure, dear reader.

Here's an update about why I haven't been posting lately. I'm doing too much!

1) I learned to bake for Bouzies Bakery and covered for Thomas who was in France for 3 weeks

2) We're re-painting the house in expectation of Kathy's birthday extravaganza

3) I'm also delivery driving for the bakery

4) and applying for teaching jobs for this fall

5) and volunteering on Mondays, tutoring on Tuesdays, and whenever possible working with my dad on the weekends

It's enough to wear me out!

All that aside, my wife Amanda and I are going to FRANCE for too weeks! (After all this house-fixing is over we're renting an apartment near the Arch du Triomph and practicing our French. Amanda's Blog is more loquacious about this adventure.)

So kind reader, I hitherforth will try to write stuff that has more vim to it, for your sake.

Illness = Creativity ?

One day I went into the art studio sick, and thus worked in an altered state throughout the day. A few days later I saw the art I had made and thought --hey that is really cool! I've since wondered if being sick had something to do with being creative.

10 minutes browsing only found two other people who think the same thing, here and here. But then I finally found some research on the subject.

In his journal article When Walls Become Doorways: Creativity, Chaos Theory, and Physical Illness, Tobi Zausner addresses the idea of the connection between illness and creativity by researching the lives of 21 visual artists. The artists fell into four categories:
"The artists studied clustered into four patterns. First, a
period of illness preceded choice of a career in art.
Second, illness transformed the creative process and
the art produced. Third, for some artists, illness became
life's focus, with negative consequences to the artists
and their art. Fourth, artists who remained creative
during an incapacitating or terminal illness produced
work in an entirely new medium."
Because the sample size in this study is only 21 people, Zausner concludes that the study is preliminary to actual research about creativity and illness.

Although the idea of creativity when you're sick is counter-intuitive, I thought of a mechanism for the correspondence: being sick activates your immune system, a great heaving part of which is your brain...so you use more of the entirety of your noggin when you're sick. Plus, if you're resting to get well, that's a lot of unused energy looking for ways to get out.

So, if you're sick today, rest up, drink lots of fluids, and play around with a new art medium. You never know what good may come of it.

Style Track

Each year a photo is taken of the high-school graduating class, and you can see the current trends in hairstyle and clothing. Ten years pass, and there is usually a reunion photo, showing the updated styles.

What gets me is when the classmates with similar hairstyles, although separated by distance, will often end up with the same hairstyle.

I suppose this could be just the overwhelming pressure of mass media, targeting a frequency I don't perceive, that affects graduates of the same age.

Pop Culture pushes our perceptions here and there, but we are the ones that make the ultimate choice as to our appearance. Or are we? Is there something even more sinister, an unknown force that already has us in its grip? ...A demonic waste-product of Popular Culture that has infiltrated our decision making processes. I call this the "style track".

If you meet up with someone from your generation, and you see the similarity, run! Fight! Flee! Change! Dig deep!