Monkey See, Monkey Do

arrived at dawn this morning, a truly beautiful time to get here. the first glimpses of blue were in the sky as we pulled up, and i reached our camp site with rich reds and oranges.

it’s so hard to adjust to the environment here, the temperature, the dryness, the altitude. i’ve developed some tricks and so far so good. forced myself to eat more than i want and drinking much much more than i think i need has helped me acclimate pretty quickly this year. i’ve setup my tent, organized myself somewhat, helped other folks get setup and taken a couple spins around to see some art. right now the sun has gone down and a big dust storm rose. but it’s not slowing anyone down, the place is crazy and everyone is out in the storm.

hope you’re all having a good day!

i’m leaving today, as soon as i can finish packing. if you’d like to follow along this year there is an online broadcast each day produced and hosted by current.tv.

i’m torn about the concept of telecasting from the playa. seems like it really violates the concept of the container there. but i may experiment with that boundary myself, and bring my camcorder with me this time.

this touching scene with a cnn reporter left oprah in tears, explaining her major philanthropic efforts to build a school in south africa. i keep hearing it over and over, if you want to be happy, help others. if you want to suffer, think only of yourself.

spent the weekend on cape cod, for a surprise 50th wedding anniversary party for my uncle jim and aunt peg. soooo much fun to see them with a hundred friends and family they weren’t expecting. cousins molly and peggy led the charge it sounds like, with todd and chuck and many others helping to pull off the major event.

my cousin heidi put the screws to me, “when are you going to have kids?” then turning to gaggle of the youngest cousins playing on the swings, she added “aren’t they gorgeous!? you have great genes. definitely a good gene pool here. go find a younger woman and get to it!”

i often forget now how buddhism has made me morbid. but i now joke about death, toss off casually that i may not survive the night, and actually contemplate what i’d like to do this week just in case i don’t make it to the next. makes for many awkward moments in conversation. i’m not suicidal or particularly risky in my behavior. i’d don’t want to take my life for granted.

i received this quote from the tibetan master gyalse rinpoche via rigpa’s glimpse of the day email today. so typical of buddhist contemplations:

Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch;
Nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions.
If you have got to think about something -
Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death.

i’m preparing to head to the desert for art and chaos again in a couple weeks. not participating with any large projects this year, though a group of folks are borrowing my moroccan tent as part of their space. so i guess i’m delegating instead. i’m endlessly amazed at what people build out there. one group is collecting pants to distribute them in a medieval manner - by trebuchet. not sure if their trying to make the worlds largest pants cannon (and deter the shirt without pants look), but here is a vw commercial that features the aforementioned trebuchet in action. (thanks allyn!)

yesterday i found myself sitting across from deep on the train to work. it was fun chatting with him, and telling him how much fun i had at his flash dance mob last week. we talked about apple, where he works now on the itunes project. deep is good people.

on a related note, there is a zombie flash mob planned for this saturday somewhere. i’ll be out of town unfortunately, or i would get my limping, oozing self out for some randomness…

this clip of nyc bike messengers navigating insane city traffic, reminds me of high tech skate boarders of the future in the novel snow crash by neal stephenson. and if you try this yourself, make sure to get it on film.

i’ve been really curious about “sms” and “im” as a communications tool, perhaps in part because i haven’t been a big user of either. i’m trying to use them more just to understand the use models and advantages. researcher stefana broadbent published an ethnology study of mobile phone, sms, and im uses in switzerland recently that had some super interesting findings, namely:

• sms is “for intimacy, emotions, and efficiency. Only the most intimate sphere of friends and family are contacted by SMS, and the content of the messages is often related to ‘grooming’ and emotional exchanges.”
• im and voip are “the continuous channels”, “users open an instant messaging channel for the day and then just keep it open in the background while they do other activities; they multitask — and step in and out of a conversation.”
• 80% of mobile phone conversations are only with four or five people.

four or five people? i guess if you’re generally coordinating with family or friends it is a small circle, but wow that seems like a small number. and i’m starting to see how im chats can be left open all day and become a short dialog of questions and answers and ongoing conversations, but that’s new for me. i used to think there had to be a specific purpose for each message and response and rarely thought of one. they seemed more interruptive.

i think the xanga (and now myspace) ‘comments’ feature need to be considered a separate form of communication to this study. because they’re persistent like a blog but short and conversational like im. they form a new class of im-like communication but one that peers in a social group can see as well. like hallway conversations that others can at least partially gather to whom one is talking with. that’s a really useful piece of social information that you don’t get with point to point communications like im or a phone. comments in blogs are perhaps similar in that they tell you who is reading and relating to the person publishing, but comments on xanga and myspace seem much more conversational.

all this is really interesting to me. communication in person, like at school or at work, allows peers to see who is hanging out with and maintaining connections with whom. most of our online communication lacks that, except for blog comments and now myspace comments. but are there other examples of online communication that helps people exchange or share that important social information?

i’m sure they’re not going to play this sierra mist ad anymore:

at the rate we’re going, everyone is going to have to fly naked soon. i’m fine with that, as long as they turn up the heat on those darn iceboxes they call planes.