Understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing

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"Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing." - Rollo May

A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.

...Churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples;
Granges, dance halls and nightclubs;
Cafes, restaurants, and bars;
Co-working spaces and libraries;
Front porches, parks, and plazas...

As this week's lede story says, shared public spaces allow people of differing backgrounds to cross paths — to develop bridging ties. And research shows that bridging social networks to relate with people who have different identities, social and economic backgrounds can be good for our head, heart and soul.

It's summertime. Let's get outside.

Happy Solstice. Happy Friday

Civics, Third Places
You don’t need to take on the Herculean task of making new friends to be less lonely. You may just need a third place.

HONK! Fest 2010: Parade from Davis Square to Harvard Square. Studies have shown that just having a diversity of folks in your life can be really protective for health and well-being. Photo by Chris Devers via CC

"If one of the many crises that befall our society is loneliness, third places offer a solution. These environments are where the community gathers, where you can be either actively engaged in conversation or passively taking in the bustle around you. At their very best, third places allow people of differing backgrounds to cross paths — to develop what are known as bridging ties. As opposed to our closest connections, bridging social networks encompass people who have varying identities, social and economic resources, and knowledge. 'Studies have shown that just having a diversity of folks in your life … more informal and infrequent and unplanned, can be really protective for health and well-being,' says Jessica Finlay, an assistant professor in the Institute of Behavioral Science and the department of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder. 'Classically, third places were sites where you could build up these bridging ties.'” - Allie Volpe

Article: If You Want to Belong, Find a Third Place

Related Book: Finding Your Third Place: Building Happier Communities (and Making Great Friends Along the Way)

Habitat, Libraries
"A place inside for study and a place above for play."

"The site chosen for this small addition of a children’s library within a school in rural Maharashtra, was a sliver between existing buildings and the school boundary, a site that almost implied a linear building footprint to adjust the program for the chosen site. Alluding to the impetus that children have towards landscape over a building we imagined the library building to be a formal extension of the ground plane. A place inside for study and a place above for play. With the limited teaching resources available in the larger vicinity we needed the inspiring spatial experience to be a magnet to attract students and hopefully other residents from the nearby settlements after school hours." - Text description provided by the architects, Sameep Padora & Associates

Article: Maya Somaiya Library, Sharda School

Habitat, Transportation
“The car is not only a monstrous land-eater itself: it abets that other insatiable land-eater—endless, strung-out suburbanization.”

Portraits of Jane Jacobs from the early 1960s show her cycling around her West Village neighborhood. Her husband Jim Jacobs recalled their groceries being delivered by cargo bike every Saturday afternoon.

"In the 1950s, in the glory days of the American automobile industry, when Jane and Bob Jacobs moved to Greenwich Village and their contemporaries were acquiring tail-fined cars and moving to the suburbs, she went to work and got around Manhattan by bike. Cycling was a daily activity. Although she could take the subway, Jane regularly rode to work at Rockefeller Center for her job at the Time Incorporated magazine Architectural Forum, parking her bike in the Rockefeller Center garage. Cycling was then still common in Greenwich Village and other parts of New York, and Jim Jacobs recalled their groceries being delivered by cargo bike every Saturday afternoon. Portraits of Jane from the early 1960s show her cycling around the West Village to promote West Village Houses, an affordable housing development that she spearheaded and helped design, which was finally completed in 1975. But in her last book, Dark Age Ahead (2004), published when she was 88, Jacobs reflected on car-dependency as a serious impediment to a sustainable society. 'In cities that underwent urban renewal in the 1950s and later and in new suburbs, stores and working places were segregated from residences, without feasible, much less enjoyable, walking or bicycling routes,' she wrote. 'By the mid-1960s, simply to get to a job, or to find a job in the first place, or to buy provisions, or to get a child to school or a playground or a playmate, a car became a necessity.'” - Peter L. Laurence

Article: Jane Jacobs, Cyclist

Learning, Creative Process
A handbook of useful exercises for unblocking creative drives and stretching creative muscles

"In recent years, (cartoonist, author and teacher Lynda) Barry has taken a deep dive into research into images and human cognition, designing and teaching a multi-disciplinary course at UW-Madison called “Writing the Unthinkable.” What It Is came from these deep explorations into images, writing and memory. It’s an illustrated book for adults, about plumbing the depth of your own memory, and using writing and images to better understand your own life. What It Is is presented as a richly layered multi-media art-journal, that reads as a do-it-yourself guide to inquiry into the self. Barry raises the deep questions she has pondered and researched: What is an idea made of? What is an image? Where do images come from? What is the difference between remembering and imagining? In exploring these questions, Barry offers not only personal observations about imagination, but also precise insights into memory and cognition." - Rebecca Ahl

Book Review: What It Is, by Lynda Barry

Learning, Science
Breaking is a dance that celebrates athleticism, creativity, and a variety of scientific principles.

Film still from La Haine, 1995. Director: Mathieu Kassovitz. Director of Photography: Pierre Aïm

"Breaking, also known as breakdancing, originated in the late 1970s in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Debuting as an Olympic sport in the 2024 Summer Olympics, breaking will showcase its dynamic moves on a global stage. This urban dance style combines hip-hop culture, acrobatic moves and expressive footwork.

"Since its inception, breaking has evolved into a competitive art form. An MC narrates the movements, while a DJ mixes songs to create a dynamic atmosphere. The Olympics will feature two events: one for men, called B-boys, and one for women, called B-girls. In these events, athletes will face off in dance battles.

"Athletes earn points for creativity, personality, technique, variety, performativity and musicality. Success in this sport requires combining dance moves from three basic categories: top rock, down rock and freeze." - Amy Pope

Article: Paris 2024 Olympics to Debut High-Level Breakdancing – And Physics in Action

Communication, Visual Identity
An eco-friendly Brazilian skater brand has partnered with a streetwear designer to create Olympic skateboarding uniforms.

"In 2020, skateboarding became an official Olympic sport. And at the Paris Olympics in July, the eco-friendly sneaker brand Cariuma wants to tap into the sport’s fashion-forward history.

"Cariuma, a six-year-old Brazilian startup, will create the uniforms for the skateboarding teams from The Netherlands, Slovakia, and Portugal. Cariuma has a lot of experience creating skating sneakers, but it has brought on the São Paulo-born fashion designer Pedro Andrade to create the garments. And while fashion is a big part of the design process, Cariuma has also focused on making the uniforms as sustainable as possible." - Elizabeth Segran

Article: These Skateboarding Uniforms Are Bringing Street Style to the Olympics

Communication, Visual Identity
The history, art, and design of LSD blotter paper

9 hits of Eye of Horus blotter acid issued circa 1982

Blotter art are the designs printed, hand-stamped, or hand drawn on paper before sheets are dipped in a liquid LSD solution to absorb the drug. A single sheet of blotter paper, typically a 7.5 inch square, is divided into hundreds of pinky-nail sized squares for distribution, which users dissolve on their tongues. The writer and cultural historian, Erik Davis, in collaboration with collector Mark McCloud, who has the world’s largest archive of blotter art, has written a new book, Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. This week The Microdose spoke with Davis about the history of blotter art and how it’s evolved over the last four decades.

Interview: Acid Blotter Paper Art: 5 Questions for Author Erik Davis

Book: Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium

Online Archive: Blotter Barn

One-liners

Abstract: Green space could be even better for young brains than we realized.

Link: What does a city that has spurned cars look like? Olympics visitors to Paris will get a look.

Article: Can cohousing solve the housing crisis and loneliness epidemic?

Article: Coffee shop finds ingenious way to teach customers politeness.

Article: Companies that scored higher in an independent job-quality assessment financially outperformed lower-scoring ones by a significant margin.

Playlist

On June 9, 2010 Jeff Beck recorded a live album at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City. A tribute to the legendary guitarist Les Paul, he chose the club because Paul played the same room almost every week until his death less than a year earlier.

The songs played were all popular hits from the 50s and 60s, including many on which Paul had played himself. Beck was joined onstage by singer Imelda May and her band, as well as Jason Rebello, Brian Setzer, Trombone Shorty and Gary U.S. Bonds.

The recording of the concert was released as an album, Rock 'n' Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul), and a DVD, from which this video is clipped. By November 2011 the DVD had been certified gold in Canada.

What Jeff Beck can do with this fingers and a whammy bar (no pick!) is nothing short of magical. What Imelda May can do with her voice is otherworldly. Enchanting.

Video: Jeff Beck & Imelda May - Remember (Walking In The Sand) - Live at Iridium Jazz Club N.Y.C.

Weekly Mixtape
It's a good day for the blues.

Playlist: Remember

Image of the Week

Roy Lichtenstein: I Know How you Must Feel, Brad…, 1963. 169 x 96 cm, Oil, acrylic and pencil on canvas

"On the occasion of his 100th birthday, the ALBERTINA Museum is celebrating the master of Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997, New York), with a comprehensive retrospective that brings together over 90 paintings, sculptures and prints. Alongside Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein is one of the founding figures of Pop Art and the one who combined Low Art and High Art."

"...Roy Lichtenstein is known for his stereotyped blondes, war heroes, and comic book figures with speech balloons. His cartoon-like aesthetic, employing brashly luminous colors, clear lines, and characteristic Ben Day dots in imitation of cheap comic book printing techniques, was hugely influential in the American art scene of the 1960s."

On view until 14 July 2024 at the ALBERTINA museum in Vienna.

Website: ALBERTINA

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