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Idea Log 15012012

Watched it on TCM the other day on TCM!

Brief Synopsis

A rebellious teacher moves to Rome and finds love.

Librarian Prudence Bell, reprimanded for allowing a student to read a classified book on love, quits her job to go to Italy in order to learn about love and romance herself. En route by ship, she meets Roberto Orlandi, a sophisticated Italian whose offers to teach her all she wants to know are rejected. Arriving in Rome, Prudence finds a job in a bookstore and moves into a boardinghouse where American architecture student Don Porter is also staying. Lyda, Don's wealthy and spoiled girl friend, returns to the States, and he consoles himself by dating Prudence. They spend the August holidays together on a tour of Italy, and Prudence falls in love with Don. When they return to Rome, however, the glamorous Lyda is waiting to reclaim her man. Heartsick because she is still too inexperienced to compete, Prudence puts on her most alluring dress and visits Roberto, who declines her advances and advises her not to imitate Lyda. Prudence decides to return to the United States, and when her ship docks in New York, Don is there waiting for her.

<http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/26642/Rome-Adventure/>

Idea Log 11012012

>>Homepage: http://learn.utoronto.ca/

2121 Principles of Operations Management
Course Details

By offering an overview of operations management, this introductory course will interest students wishing to embark on middle-management careers. Topics include: operations strategy, project management, process measurement and analysis, facility capacity and location decisions, forecasting quality control and operations planning.

Learner Outcomes

Explain the concept of "added value" in terms of the transformation process

Illustrate how effective operations strategy can translate into a competitive advantage

Learn the Critical Path Method in planning and controlling projects

Learn how organizations measure their performance

Identify critical factors that must be considered in determining plant location and its capacity

Understanding of the methods businesses use in forecasting product-service demand

Appreciation for the various dimensions of quality and how such dimensions can be used as a competitive advantage.

>> http://2learn.utoronto.ca/uoft/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&cms=true&courseId=1711790



Idea Log 10012012

Job skills aren’t everything when it comes to the right hire - Mark Murphy

Special to Globe and Mail; Published Friday, Jan. 06, 2012 7:00AM EST

The following book excerpt is from Hiring For Attitude by Mark Murphy.

If your organization is going to excel, it needs the right people. But virtually every one of the standard approaches to selecting those right people is dead wrong. And here’s why: whenever managers talk about hiring the right people, they usually mean “highly skilled people.” For lots of executives, the war for talent is a war for the most technically competent people. But that’s really the wrong war to be fighting.

Most new hires do not fail on the job due to a lack of skill. My company, Leadership IQ, tracked 20,000 new hires over a three-year period. Within their first 18 months, 46 per cent of them failed (got fired, received poor performance reviews, or were written up). And as bad as that sounds, it’s pretty consistent with other studies over the years and thus not too shocking.

What is shocking, though, is why those people failed. We categorized and distilled the top five reasons why new hires failed and found these results:

1. Coachability (26%): The ability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers, and others.

2. Emotional Intelligence (23%): The ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and accurately assess others’ emotions.

3. Motivation (17%): Sufficient drive to achieve one’s full potential and excel in the job.

4. Temperament (15%): Attitude and personality suited to the particular job and work environment.

5. Technical Competence (11%): Functional or technical skills required to do the job.

You’ll notice that a lack of skills or technical competence only accounted for 11 per cent of new-hire failures. When a new hire was wrong for a company it was due to attitude, not a lack of skills.

ATTITUDE IS A BIGGER ISSUE THAN SKILLS

Our study showed that somebody was a bad hire for attitudinal reasons 89 per cent of the time. In some cases, these new hires just weren’t coachable, or they didn’t have sufficient emotional intelligence or motivation, or they just didn’t sync with the organization. But whatever the particulars, having the wrong attitude is what defined the wrong person in the majority of cases.

If you want more proof, do this little exercise. Make a quick list of the characteristics that define the low performers who work for you. These are the people that you regret hiring, the ones who cost you time, energy, and emotional pain—the kind of people who make you happy to hit some morning rush hour traffic because it’s a welcome respite from them. Don’t think about it too hard; you’re going to be doing plenty of that in later chapters. Just jot down the first four, five, or six things that come into your mind when you think about what makes these folks low performers.

I happen to have just conducted this exercise with a client who was happy to have me share his results. Here’s the list of the low performer characteristics this CEO came up with:

Top Characteristics of Low Performers

Are negative

Blame others

Feel entitled

Don’t take initiative

Procrastinate

Resist change

Create drama for attention

I’ve done this exercise with countless clients, and while the low performer characteristics I hear tend to vary widely, one factor remains consistent: I rarely hear anything skill related. Overwhelmingly, the characteristics that define mishires (low performers) are attitudinal. In fact, whenever I’ve probed for more feedback, I’ve generally been told that a good number of those negative, entitled, blaming, change-resistant low performers have really good skills. That, of course, only makes the whole low performer situation even more painful. (Parenthetically, most companies are currently paying people they regret hiring because it’s usually harder to fire someone than it was to hire them, especially if they have decent skills but a lousy attitude. This is all the more reason to learn how to Hire for Attitude.)

The same exercise can be done with your high performers. And again, you’ll likely find that what makes these folks so great is all about their attitudes and not their skills. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that skills don’t matter—they do. But I’m also saying that the biggest challenge in hiring is not determining skill but rather determining whether or not someone has the right attitude to be a good fit in your organization. Besides, figuring out if someone has the right skills, or enough raw IQ points, is actually pretty easy. Virtually every profession has some kind of a test to assess skill. If you want to be a board certified neurosurgeon, you have to pass a test. If you want to be a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (considered perhaps the toughest networking certification), you have to pass a written and a lab test. If you want to be a nurse, pharmacist, engineer, nuclear physicist, car mechanic, or whatever, there’s a test to assess if you have the skills and horsepower to do so.

And even though I personally lack the skills to pass the tests for any of those jobs, I could easily proctor the exam. And if I buy the scoring key, guess what? I could grade those tests as well. And so could you. If you’re looking for a Java programmer, give her a page of code with bugs and have her debug and rewrite the code. Google holds a Code Jam that they describe as “a programming competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve increasingly complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time.” Some hospitals hold competency fairs to test clinical knowledge. (“You say you know about infection control, chest tubes, and insulin protocols, so show me.”) There’s really no excuse for hiring somebody who lacks the skills to do the job, which no doubt is a contributing factor to why only 11 per cent of new hires fail because of skill.

So when you see your colleagues get fixated on hiring people who can “do the job” and who have the “right skills” and enough “talent,” you’ll want to explain to them that attitude, not skill, is the top predictor of a new hire’s success or failure. Because even the best skills don’t really matter if an employee isn’t open to improving or consistently alienates co-workers, lacks drive, or simply lacks the right personality to succeed in that culture. Skills still count, but the data overwhelmingly tell us that attitude is the hiring issue that should demand the most focus.

Reprinted with permission from The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Source :http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/job-skills-arent-everything-when-it-comes-to-the-right-hire/article2293527/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2293527

Idea Log 09012012

Want better employees? Ask better questions in job interviews

WALLACE IMMEN

Last updated Friday, Jan. 06, 2012 9:18AM EST

 

Tell me about … your biggest weakness ... your favourite colour ... the superhero you most admire.

At least 70 per cent of employers still ask lame, predictable questions such as these in job interviews. That’s why they often miss clues that a candidate is destined to be a flop as an employee, leadership coach Mark Murphy found in a study his company did, which became the basis for his new book, Hiring for Attitude. Click here to read an excerpt posted in the globe and mail or my next post tomorrow

The study tracked 20,000 newly hired employees in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, and found that 46 per cent of them had either been dismissed or received poor performance reviews or written reprimands over the course of the past three years.

“Most new hires don’t fail for lack of skill. Rather, their underlying personalities and attitudes aren’t a good match for the job and the organization,” Mr. Murphy concluded.

Their employers didn’t probe enough into the attitude behind their skills and their well-rehearsed answers in the job interview, said Mr. Murphy, chief executive officer of Washington, D.C.-based Leadership IQ.

“I’m regularly told by employers that their low performers have really good job skills, but other factors such as being negative, feeling entitled, blaming or being change-resistant turned out to be the reason they didn’t work out,” he said in an interview.

The right attitude for a job is a blend of the candidate’s personality and how they will fit with the culture and values of the organization, he said. “You can have a great personal attitude that’s upbeat and positive, but if you are an individualist and like to work alone you may not fit in a collaborative work environment.”

Mr. Murphy found five main issues that led to failure:

Coachability: In 26 per cent of failures, the employees were unable to accept and use feedback from bosses, colleagues or customers.

Emotional intelligence: In 23 per cent, the issue was inability to manage their emotions and accurately assess others’ reactions or expectations.

Motivation: For 17 per cent, the issue was lack of sufficient drive to reach their potential and excel in the job.

Temperament: In 15 per cent of the cases, their personality didn’t suit their job or their team.

Technical competence: In only 11 per cent of cases, the person’s functional skills weren’t up to the job.

Given these findings, Mr. Murphy said employers have to know what attitudes they’re looking for in an employee and ask probing questions to make sure candidates are right for the organization,

A good example, he said, is the Toronto-based Four Seasons Hotels chain. “In their interviews, they treat candidates like they treat their guests, and they expect that candidates will reciprocate,” he said. For example, “even when candidates are waiting for the interview, do they greet each other? Are they polite and make eye contact? And their interview questions are designed to reveal underlying personality and attitudes.”

Interviewing for attitude will become increasingly important as organizations realize they can’t hire as many people as they did in the past and they want to ensure they get people with the right fit, Mr. Murphy said.

“When you only have 60 minutes or so in an interview, it makes no sense to ask questions that people can prepare for in advance and don’t tell much about underlying attitudes.”

He said his suggested “coachability questions” for getting at underlying attitudes may sound somewhat stern, but they are effective. For example, he recommends that the interviewer start by asking about the applicant’s previous boss: “Make them believe you’re going to talk to the former boss, even if that’s not the case.”

Rather than asking what the applicant sees as strengths and achievements, questions should ask what he thinks the former boss or co-workers would say were his strengths and weaknesses. Even if you’re not planning to contact the former employer, simply giving the impression there’s going to be a full review will get people to open up, he said.

Also, “Avoid questions that lead toward hypothetical situations. You want to know how people actually responded in historic moments rather than wax philosophical.”

Another signal about good attitude is how people phrase their answers, so listen carefully. “It’s not so much specific words, but the way people use them that are tip-offs to potentially weak performers.” He has found that high performers tend to answer questions in the past tense, saying: “I did this and I made that happen.” By contrast, people who are low performers tend to use the present or future tense: “When something like that happens, I do this.”

Hearing someone use abstract descriptions could be a signal that he or she might not have the necessary experience or attitude you’re looking for, Mr. Murphy said.

Another finding from his study is that low performers tend to use more adverbs in describing themselves. “High-performing candidates are more comfortable talking about their performance without dressing it up with superlatives. Rather than talking about how exceptional their work was, they let their record speak for them.”

TIPS FOR INTERVIEWERS

Common questions to avoid:

“Tell me about yourself.” This usually elicits a recitation about how the person always works hard and is good at collaborating. It tells you very little.

“What are your weaknesses?” How many ways are there to say you work too hard and tend to be a perfectionist?

“Tell me about …” Asking for a specific example of how the person resolved a conflict won’t tell you about issues he or she has trouble resolving.

“What would you do if …” Hypothetical questions bring idealized answers that rarely reflect reality.

“What kind of animal would you be?” Not surprisingly, most people say lion rather than parrot. Does this give you any real insight?

Coachability questions that reveal underlying attitude:

“What was your boss’s name? Please spell the full name for me.”

“Tell me about your former boss.”

“What is something you could have done differently to enhance your working relationship with your former boss?”

“When I talk to your former boss, what will they tell me your strengths are? What will they say you would need to improve?”

Source: http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/management-advice/want-better-employees-ask-better-questions-in-job-interviews/article2293001/?service=mobile

Idea Log 04012011

I woke up at midnight and was flipping through this book 'Ten Steps Ahead by Erik Calonius' when I came across the story of Mr. Douglas Prasher; pg. 132-134. Below is a little bite taken out of the book:

"In the late 1980s, a biochemist named Douglas Prasher received a three-year, $200,000 grant from the American Cancer Society to try to clone the gene for green fluorescent protein from Aequorea victoria, a species of Pacific Ocean jellyfish that glows bright green under ultraviolet light. The fluorescent material, it was believed, could be injected into other cells so that one might watch events that hitherto had been invisible-like the development of nerve cells in the brain or the spread of cancer cells.

... Like any good scientist, he shared his findings, passed his results and some of the cloned material to Martin Chalfie, a geneticist at Columbia University.

Prasher was set to do more when he was informed that he had failed to attain tenure at Woods Hole and would have to leave...While Prasher was bouncing from job to job, leaving him no time for Aequorea victoria, Chalfie at Columbia was making steady progress: He had been able to splice the material into E.coli and then into the roundworm C. elegans. Sure enough, the protein inside glowed green, proving that it could be used as a tag in a variety of ways.

... Things got progressively worse for Prasher. Funding was cut short at the Beltsville, Maryland, lab. Bravely, Prasher bounced from there to AZ Technology in Huntsville, Alabama. Then he lost that job in another round of cuts.

...

The climax came in October 2008, when Chalfie, along with Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biology Laboratory and Boston Medical School, and Roger Y. Tsien of the University of California at San Diego, won the Nobel Prize "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP".

But there as no mention of Douglas Prasher... When interviewed by National Public Radio's Inside Edition, Prasher said that he had been unable to find a job in science, his life savings had run out, and he was now working as a courtesy shuttle-bus driver for Bill Penney Toyota in Huntsville, Alabama.

In their Nobel speeches in Stockholm that winter, all three men thanked Prasher profusely.

"I'm really happy for them," replied Prasher, adding that in the face of his tough circumstances withholding the glowing material from Chalfie would not have been the right thing to do.

An honest and talented man, Douglas Prasher. He could have been a contender. He just ran out of luck.

Go to his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher

Idea Log 02012012

Proverb: Pears for your heirs*

Meaning: An adage to encourage us to think long-term and look after future generations.

Origin

Pear trees, especially the old English varieties that would have been the subject of this proverb, take many years to mature and give fruit. You don't plant them for yourself but for your heirs.The full version of the phrase, which is a 17th century English proverb, is:

*Walnuts and pears you plant for your heirs.

The sense of the altruistic nature of tree planting was also expressed by Thomas Fuller in his work Gnomologia, 1732:

"He that plants trees loves others beside himself."

Source:  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/280500.html

Idea Log 19122011

A Film I wanted to watch! May be later. I am interested in the Gestalt Therapy & some of his other theories as well.

 

Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd (1960) and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement. He is less remembered as a co-founder of Gestalt Therapy in the 1940s and '50s.

"It is by losing ourselves in inquiry, creation & craft that we become something. Civilization is a continual gift of spirit: inventions, discoveries, insight, art. We are citizens, as Socrates would have said, & we have it available as our own. " - Paul Goodman

"The issue is not whether people are 'good enough' for a particular type of society; rather it is a matter of developing the kind of social institutions that are most conducive to expanding the potentialities we have for intelligence, grace, sociability and freedom." - Paul Goodman (1964)

Idea Log 14122011

In his book Starbucked, Taylor Clark says there's a woman who goes to a Seattle Starbucks every morning and orders a "decaf single grande extra vanilla two-percent extra caramel 185-degrees with whipped cream caramel macchiato."

Maybe her request seems overly fussy and demanding, but it could be a good act for you to mimic. Try this: For a given time, say 12 days, be equally as exacting in asking for what you want. Assume that you have a poetic license to be extremely specific as you go about your quest for fulfillment.
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/horo-archive.html (Dec 15,2011)

Idea Log 13122011

Anita and Me is a British comedy-drama film released in 2002 based on the book Anita and Me by Meera Syal.

Meena, a 12-year-old living in a mining village in the English Midlands in 1972, is the daughter of Indian parents who've come to England to give her a better life. This idyllic existence is upset by the arrival in the village of Anita Rutter and her dysfunctional family. Anita is 14, blonde and beautiful - exactly what Meena thinks she wants to be. She becomes part of Anita's world, but events do not run smoothly. Meena's growing up - and that brings plenty of changes. Written by Phil Reynolds

Idea Log 11122011

World War II Airmail letter from Lucknow to Philadelphia (1940s)

Lucknow cds of 6 Mar 1941 (R). Victoria / Hong Kong transit cds of 24 Mar 41 (R). Censored in Delhi and closed with brown tape. Triangular passed by censor A14 of Delhi (R) in black. Violet rectangular not opened by censor (R) at Hong Kong. Pale violet AV2 (R). Postage ** 2 R 11½ A (inc airmail for ≤ ½ oz)

Note** From Boyle (p794) the rate paid applied from Jul – 15 Oct 40. From then until mid July 41 the new rate was 3 R 10½ A by the transit route below. With the closure of the Empire route due the Italian entry into the war, only the route via Hong Kong was then available for mail from India.

Transit route
Lucknow to Delhi by rail. BOAC to Rangoon (p788). CNAC to Hong Kong via Lashio, Kunming, Kweiyang & Kweilio (p755) (see map below). AV2 cachet added in Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Manila then FAM-14 to USA with Pan-Am. Finally by train to Philadelphia.

From October 1940 all mail to Hong Kong went by the above route via China, due presumably to Indo-China being Vichy Government controlled and thus safety could not be guaranteed overflying. Also Saigon could not be used as a refuelling stop anymore.

*The study of routes during WW2 is well listed by Thomas Boyle Jnr in Air Mail Operations During World War II, A Study of Routes, Rates and Markings. Routes for items shown only will be discussed.

For more go to: http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/great-britain/onward-air-transmission/

Idea Log 10122011

 

Olympia & York (also spelled as Olympia and York, abbreviated as O&Y) was once a major international property development firm based in Canada. The firm built major financial office complexes like Canary Wharf in London, the World Financial Center in New York City and First Canadian Place in Toronto. It went bankrupt in the early 1990s and was recreated to eventually become Olympia & York Properties.

Portfolio

A list of notable O&Y current and previous ownership properties:

• Canary Wharf, London
• World Financial Center, NYC (entire complex)
• First Canadian Place, Toronto - including Exchange Tower, First Bank Tower.
• Maritime Life Building, Toronto
• Rogers-AT&T Centre, Toronto
• Oakwood Apartments, Portland OR
• Commerce Place, Edmonton AB
• 425 Lexington Avenue, NYC
• Olympia Centre, Chicago, IL
• KOIN Center, Portland OR
• Blanchard Plaza, Seattle, WA
• University of Lethbridge Building, Lethbridge AB
• York Centre, Toronto
• 150 Ferrand Drive Ferrand Towers, Toronto
• Toronto Star Building, Toronto
• Global House, Toronto
• 40 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto
• 2 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto
• Queen's Quay Terminal, Toronto
• 237 Park Avenue, NYC
• Flemingdon Park Condominiums, Toronto (5 Vicora Linkway, 15 Vicora Linkway, 60 Pavane Linkway.)
• Glen Valley, Toronto (including 715 Don Mills Road, 725 Don Mills Road, 735 Don Mills Road)
• Place de Ville, Ottawa (including Phase III Place de Ville Tower E, Place de Ville Tower D)
• 55 Water Street, NYC

Olympia & York Properties Corporation owns 18 properties in 6 Canadian cities.

Pg. 268

"What was most striking about the Reichmanns' dealings in Olympia & York's embryonic stage was not that they invariably lived up to their end of a bargain but that they did not always hold their clients to the same standard. Often, *their word was not only their bond but an all-purpose warranty. Once Sirlin (Morley Sirlin - O&Y's early architect) was reviewing a plan for Delta Electronics, a local retail chain, with its president who insisted that he had been quoted a price that included a fieldstone lobby. Sirlinm who had designed a conventional lobby, telephoned Paul Reichmann. "I don't remmeber it that way," Reichmann replied, "but if he says I said he could have stone, then give him stone." Similarly, Wos (Frank Wos- O&Y's first construction supervisor) once was dispatched to make repairs to a long-completed building that had been flooded through no fault of Olympia & York's. "I didn't like it because I knew it was caused by the tenant's bad maintenance," Wos recalled. "I told Albert it was not our responsibility. He said, 'No, it's not, but it is my money. So go back and fix it.'"

*"Their edge was their integrity," he said. "They put themselves on the line and they lived on the line." "The Reichmanns very early on developed a lot of business just on that basis. If they shook on a deal, that was it. Their word was their bond."

Idea Log 08122011

another Tangier/ Tangiers reference ...

Guinevere van Seenus, Glenham Hall, Suffolk, England, 2006, British Vogue

Tim Walker was not the first Vogue photographer to gain inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Princess and the Pea. In the 1950s, while staying with the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in her Moroccan palace, John Deakin came across a room piled with mattresses, which gave him an idea for a picture. He ran into a lunch party in full swing: 'All those mattresses – the princess and the pea! The princess and the pea!' he exclaimed. There was a gasp from the hostess, who had loathed Deakin on sight but was too polite to banish him. The guests made their excuses and left. It was explained to Deakin that had not Miss Hutton once been the Princess Mdivani? And that 'pea' to American ears meant something altogether different… Deakin was asked to leave Tangiers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3673468/.html?image=1

Idea Log 07122011

 

Reading 'The Reichmanns' today piqued my interest in city of Tangier/ Tangiers! About 1/3 of the book is about their life in this city in the 1940s. So interesting.

A painting by Louis Comfort Tiffany depicting a market outside of the walls of Tangier. 1873

Gallery: Smithsonian American Art Museum

 Picture of Old 1940s Tangier posted in http://www.topix.com/album/detail/tangier-va/7IEO81Q7R39EDRG8

 

4 old postcards Morocco Tanger Tangier Ca 1940-1950 from http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-old-postcards-Morocco-Tanger-Tangier-Ca-1940-1950-/370380172370

 

Idea Log 04122011

Cecil Beaton in New York

By JOSEPH BERGER: Published: December 2, 2011 for New York Times

Almost anyone would have hankered to have a personal portrait shot by Cecil Beaton. He made his subjects, many of them distinguished or celebrated to begin with, seem impeccably elegant and disarmingly good-looking, seldom employing any of the irony or social commentary that other photographers often used.

Now comes a coffee-table book, accompanying an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, that contains some of the finest photographs Beaton took during his many sojourns in New York, as well as sketches, designs and caricatures that this aesthetically versatile artist drew for the movies, theater, opera and fashion. It is a pleasure to leaf through the thick ­pages of ­CECIL BEATON: The New York Years (­Museum of the City of New York/Skira/­Rizzoli, $65) and see Greta Garbo at her mysterious peak and Marilyn Monroe at her most luscious. Brando, Astaire, Warhol, Capote, Callas, Coco, Liz — people recognizable by a single name — flocked to Beaton or were lobbied by him.

Like Capote, Beaton was not well-born but became a high-society favorite, and he paid his patrons back with opulent portraits — the ones of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Lee Radziwill and her daughter, Anna Christina, are dazzling. The book also reminds us that it was Beaton who designed the lavish Edwardian gowns for both the play and the film “My Fair Lady,” the belle époque excess of “Gigi” and the lushly feathered tutus for Balanchine’s “Swan Lake.”

As the concise text by Donald Albrecht, the museum’s curator of architecture and design, points out, Beaton, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, turned himself into a dandy like Oscar Wilde, with a highly cultivated Old World style and manner and an exaggerated accent. In 1928, at age 24, he sailed into New York Harbor, and a playful, acrobatic self-portrait taken on the Brooklyn Bridge a year or so later suggests why he charmed everyone he met. Everyone, of course, meant the wealthy and famous, since Beaton, as Albrecht says, had “a snobbish obsession with class and status.”

“I only photograph those I know and admire,” he said, in an unguarded statement.

Ambitious and a canny networker, but possessed of a penetrating eye for stylishness, he impressed tastemakers. His photographs were soon gracing Vogue and Vanity Fair — in time helping to generate the glamour that Depression-era New York needed, just as it needed the lift of a flamboyant Busby Berkeley movie. An anti-Semitic joke that he included in the margins of an illustration a year before World War II lost him the Vogue account, but he regained his stature with a famous photograph of a young girl with a bandaged head clutching a doll and sitting up in a hospital bed in the days of the London blitz. Today it seems highly romanticized, possibly even staged, in the manner of a Norman Rockwell painting, but it landed on the cover of Life and became a powerful symbol of what Britain was enduring.

Cecil Beaton's Wikipedia page here

Idea Log 02122011

*Picked this report up from the Japan Foundation yesterday; download condensed version of "The Three Cities within Toronto" report here
Printed copies might be available for purchase at the Cities centre for $4.95

go to: Cities Centre homepage

 

Presented in part by

Cities Centre is a multi-disciplinary research institute established February 2007 in response to one of the five major research priorities defined in the University's "Stepping Up" plan. The mandate of the Centre is broad: to encourage and facilitate research, both scholarly and applied, on cities and on a wide range of urban policy issues, both in Canada and abroad, and to provide a gateway for communication between the University and the broader urban community.

The Centre exists to:

- Bring together faculty, professionals, and graduate students interested in urban development, policy issues and the quality of life in cities;

- Encourage interdisciplinary scholarly research on urban issues;

- Support research by providing academic staff and students with space, access to services and information, opportunities for collaboration, seminars and conferences, and graduate research internships;

- Disseminate ideas related to urban and community studies to other researchers and to agencies and organizations interested in urban matters by publishing books, reports, bibliographies, and research bulletins;

- Improve communications among researchers and between researchers and the broader urban community. The Centre's activities are intended to contribute to scholarship on questions relating to the social and economic well-being of people who live and work in urban areas large and small, in Canada and around the world. 

Idea Log 01122011

Finally made it to the exhibit!!!

Struggling Cities from Japanese Urban Projects in the 1960s 

by Naohiko Hino, Architect and Supervisor of the exhibition

What is a city? There can be no single answer to this question. For over 5,000 years cities have developed all over the world. In each, a unique material culture and lifestyle has formed to reflect local conditions and history. For example, there was a fortress of a city surrounded with walls in preparation for foreign invasion, a market of a city where various people met on trade routes, a city developed by industry, and a city where all the power of the government was concentrated. Thus, cities have been built in various ways.

In the 20th Century, influenced by modernization, cities changed themselves by rather stylized methods. A mesh of modern urban planning covered cities. As if to replace their local culture, cities were rationalized to fit the modern social system, planned according to an ideal based on an archetypal European city.

In the mid-20th Century, only 25 percent of the world's population lived in cities, in 50 years this figure rose to 50 percent. In light of the fact that it took 5,000 years for the urban population grew in the latter-20th century.

This rapid urbanization caused drastic change to cities and forced governments and cities to adapt to new conditions. Modern urban planning is less effective in larger-scale cities because of the difficulty of maintaining organic consistency while overcoming urban problems caused by modernization. Megacities are at the forefront of this problem.

In the 1960s Tokyo became a megacity. The population reached 20 million and continued growing rapidly. Newspapers were filled with articles about the problems caused by modernization: traffic congestion, pollution, housing shortages and sinking ground. In order to find a way out of these critical situations and to renovate the city, Japan mobilized industrial productivity during a high-growth period of its economy. In response to this increase in momentum, architects announced quite ambitious urban projects through mass media such as TV programs, newspapers and magazines. The project aroused the interests of a public caught in the waning mood of the times, a people that still believed modernization's promise of a brilliant future.

Representative examples are Kenzo Tange's "A Plan for Tokyo - 1960", projects proposed by the Metabolists, a group that included the four architects Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Ohtaka, Fumihiko Maki and Kisho Kurokawa, and Arata Isozaki's "Cities in the Air". Although they were announced in tandem, in their details these projects have different meanings. Tange made a rational and systematic response to the problems. The Metabolists used fear of crisis as a springboard for proposing  progressive images of future cities. Isozaki thought that an essential problem existed in the fact that cities came to refuse urban planning itself. The differences between these projects emphasize the changing consensus from the modern to the contemporary age. The times steadily moved toward skepticism about modernism.

While none of these projects were realized in Japan, globally many urban plans by architects were implemented and modern cities emerged such as Brasilia by Locio Costa, the capital cities of Nigeria and Macedonia by Kenzo Tange, and Chandigarh by Le Corbusier. In most cases the architect's intentions were not fully realized. Part of a given city would be built to plan only to be surrounded by chaotic areas. As such it's ambitious city planning was unstable and failed to keep its consistency. This reality reveals the essential difficulty in modern urban planning, which Isozaki pointed out; it's extremely difficult to set visions for idealized cities and share the visions with people, and then realized them consistently.

Rather than difficult, urban planning may simply be unnecessary. Tokyo serves as a good example. Thinking back to the critical atmosphere of the 1960s, it's significant that today few of its citizens are aware of Tokyo as the largest megacity in the world. They merely feel inconvenience with that huge Tokyo. There is no vision of an ideal shape or consistency for Tokyo, it looks like an impromptu patchwork. The reality of Tokyo shows that expanded megacities can be functional.

So far as these megacities are concerned, why does ideal vision or consistency matter?

In some sense, cities resemble living things. Figuratively speaking, Tokyo is a self-indulgent creature tending towards schizophrenia. Why did this happen? It's hard to tell where Tokyo's unique characteristics end and where general characteristics of megacities begin. As stated above, other megacities continue to grow according to their own characteristic identities. We can at least recognize that like Tokyo, many megacities have a patchy structure in which old cities overlap new ones, and planned areas are adjacent to unplanned.These patchy structures exhibit a flexibility suggesting that development aimed at meeting practical needs is more efficient thatn building cities to strictly rational plans. It may sound strange, but it seems to be a natural fact that megacities themselves are irrational.

It's not easy to plan new city blocks to have true organic relationships which existing urban context. If new blocks are only planned to be in harmony which the rest of the city, cities as a whole would fall into things of the past. To keep cities active, it's necessary to have projects that can continually revitalize the context of a city. In this regard, Tokyo has few good examples to show. Even if we recognize Tokyo as a self-networking system with multiple variables, we are still searching for a way to lead and support the system. Facing the reality that many megacities are shifting to patchwork-like structures, it's clearly nonsense to consider cities as extensions of tree structures. A new vision for cities is needed, one which can connect unrelated things and create a new organism. This is a big and challenging problem for us.

Our understanding of architecture and cities has been depressed by Globalism and Neo-Liberalism. We need a vision that can release us from this depression and allow us to take the next step. We need to build momentum in order to develop cities with identify out from under of these banners of universalism.

Idea Log 25112011

 Fragrant hills

by Chitralekha Basu

This is Kiran Desai country. Early on a wintry morning in Kalimpong, if you manage to drag yourself out from under layers of duvets, blankets, and quilts and stand beside the bay window (most hotels, either refurbished old-style colonial bungalows, or modelled on them, have a room with a view), you would get a feel of what Desai meant when she described the Himalayan range as bathed in “pornographic pink”. The sprinkling of fuchsia on the contours of the mighty Kanchendzonga at daybreak might well make a silver citizen feel like a young colt, eager to explore what lies beyond the next range.

Although no travel agent seems to have thought of starting an Inheritance of Loss-inspired theme tour across Kalimpong yet, you could customise your own itinerary around Desai’s Booker-winning project. The English cottage with an unkempt garden where the Afghan princesses who came holidaying got stuck forever when their father went back home to find that he had been dethroned is easy to locate at a turning, as you go up East Main Road. And if you are looking for relics from insurgency-induced skirmishes in the 1980s, walk down Atisha Road to stop at the now-defunct art school established by Rathindranath, the elder son of Rabindranath Tagore>> continue reading

 

 Kalimpong Calling

by Jayaditya Gupta

The fun begins with the drive up from the plains; much of the journey is alongside the Teesta. Vast and flat on first sighting, it turns fast and furious as it skirts the mountains; the actual drive uphill—commencing from the Teesta bridge, where you can halt for the first of many momos—is only a dozen-odd kilometres but the river is a constant companion, just one wrong turn away on the twisting road. Eventually you reach Dambar Chowk; to your right, the police station and the road leading uptown; to your left, downtown Kalimpong, the market, haat et al.

We always took a right turn, and within minutes we’d be home. It would be mid-morning, we’d be ravenous and the smell of lunch cooking would drive us mad. First, though, we had to go through our rituals; kids having a bath, elders inspecting the garden or the house, the housekeeper updating us on the status of her family. Finally, lunch: Rice, dal, a good curry or fried meat, vegetables. For pudding, fruit from the garden, stewed, with cream. Easy to see what we focussed on. Lunch over, it was time to play. My best friend was Padam, the sweeper’s son; he would teach me the latest Hindi film songs, I’d teach him cricket. We were out till dark, unfettered by the demands of urban society, unburdened by holiday homework.

Turn left from Dambar Chowk and you hit the crowds. Himalayan Stores, where Noni and Lola would buy their daily newspapers; the Apollo (Deaf) Tailors; Gompus, where Sai and Gyan ate and drank when not feasting on new love. Take the road up, to your left is the church and college (from where a teacher was dragged out and beheaded during the agitation); opposite, Kashi Nath the booksellers, still stocking the magazines and comics you don’t find in urban bookstores; further up, Lark’s the provision store, which saw a run on its stocks ahead of any bandh, the silversmith (haggling is a must), and on past the cinema, the Tibetan shops, through 10th mile (10 miles from Teesta) and eventually out of town, though a fork delivers you to Dr Graham’s Homes.

It wasn’t all sweetness and light. It was my misfortune to be the only exception to a family of very enthusiastic walkers. Our friends’ houses were scattered around town, and the only way of getting there was walking. One such walk was the Military Round, the “long cut” to town: Uphill for what seemed like an eternity to the military camp, passing the road where live the Afghan princesses and which to Bonami, home to the aunt of the BBC’s Nisha Pillai (not Mon Ami, home to Lola, mother of BBC anchor Piyali Banerjee), then cut across the ridge, past the golf course and the Metal Box guest house (Ringkingpong Farm), where the watchman breakfasted on a fried egg each day, past the tourist lodge where I’d yearn for a halt and maybe a plate of sandwiches, past the house where Tagore stayed, then a sudden steep descent into town. Longer walks, to Father Booty’s Swiss Dairy; steeper climbs, such as the one to Copston, where we used to stay earlier.

Ghosts! They are everywhere, as in any hill town> continue reading 'Kalimpong Calling'

 Kalimpong in 50s- Life was Like that

by Col (Retd) Mani K Gahatraj

The wheel of time moves slowly but surely churning events and people across the labyrinth of past, present and future. Ever since the begning of time itself, as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and centuries roll on and move continuously, towards infinity, beyond the barriers of space and time, the past keeps moving away further and further, getting dimmer and dimmer from the rusty and faded memories of humans; when finally a point is reached when zillions of single events that would have occurred in some person’s life, alive and kicking at a time and place, would be memories or stories years later, albeit in distorted version. These memories perhaps blink for one last time in the rusty and fading grey cells of old and infirm before it is consigned into the dustbin of life when the life itself is extinguished forever. However, chronicles of events written in the begning of known and unknown civilizations have stayed on defying the vagaries of change and have lived to tell its tale to a future generation unknown and unconceived >> continue reading

A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER WORLD 

by F. BAILEY VANDERHOEF, JR.

There I stood looking out of the window of one of the upper rooms of a house in Kalimpong, a small border town in Northern Bengal. How I came there must wait, for it is more important that I explain why. Perhaps, if I just describe what I saw through that window, it will in some measure explain what had drawn me half way around the world, for to me there were many things beckoning: mystery, beauty, adventure; but there is no point in just saying so. I must describe it all.

I remember it was a large window, running all across one end of the room, and before this window stood a table bearing a shallow bowl of spring flowers. The thin curtains stirred in the fresh night air and billowed inwards. Outside, the world was flooded with moonlight. Twinkling and immeasurably high and calm against the stars was the white peak of Kangchenjunga, between withdrawn ghostly clouds. Beside me, the crystal pennants of a candlestick stirred in the breeze and tinkled against each other, as though to give voice to the cold vision of the snows. Behind that snowy rampart I knew was Tibet, strange and dark with its veil of mystery stretching far into the north across barren plateau and guardian mountains. It seemed the greatest human presumption to think of venturing beyond those snows>> continue reading

Kalimpong, India

Photographer:	James Burke
Size:	827 x 1280 pixels (11.5 x 17.8 inches)

More pictures of Kalimpong published in LIFE MAGAZINE here

Idea Log 24112011

A book that has been around our house for many years but today finally decided to go through the entire book. Discuss it with my dad. Tired to understand our family history a little better. A book worth saving. I am not exactly in a position to praise Bhutan (given our history) but this is a good book with some priceless photographs and is very insightful.  

 

 

The hereditary monarchy of the Wangchuk dynasty was established in 1907 in the independent Himalayan state of Bhutan, thus introducing one of the world's most recent experiments in kingship. The new order quickly replaced a theocracy founded in the seventeenth century by the first of the "Dharma Rajas", a lineage of reincarnating lamas known by the title of Shabdrung. The first king of the new dynasty, Ugyen Wangchuk (1862-1926), was a charismatic figure who came to power against a turbulent background of incessant and complex feuding. He adopted as the unique symbol of his authority a crown surmounted by the head of a raven. The bird represents a form of Mahakala, Bhutan's guardian deity. The prototype of the founding monarch's Raven Crown had first been devised as a battle helmet for his father, Jigme Namgyel (1825-81). Known as the Black Regent, he had worn it in bloody struggles against his many rivals within the country and against the British who tried, unsuccessfully, to subdue him. The story of the Wangchuk dynasty's rise and triumph moves from a picture of turmoil and chaos to one of relative peace and stability. In contrast with earlier published ac- counts based solely on the colonial records of British India, here the narrative is founded on the Bhutanese chronicles which offer a new perspective and bring many new details to light. The ethnic and historical context is outlined before recounting the turbulent career of the Black Regent, followed by the lives and achievements of the first two kings. The book is copiously illustrated with rare historical photographs that have come to light in private and public collections in the United Kingdom. Most of these vivid images have never previously been published. They provide a lively depth and focus to the unfolding narrative.

Idea Log 23112011

My most memorable photograph from yesterday's book >

Suit by Digby Morton. Vogue (British Edition), September 1941.  This picture pretty much summarizes why I've loved the Second World War fashion. Actually it instantly brought to mind what my mum said when we were watching a documentary of the WWII a long time ago - that women in those days even when there was disaster and rubble all around they still wore their high heels and were always perfectly dressed. I truly admire them.

Idea Log 22112011

Started reading today ... VOGUE FASHION! One of the best books on fashion! Loved it. Highly recommended! Very neat, tidy and to the point.

 

Idea Log 17112011

FOLLOW YOUR BLISS

"You must be willing to get rid of the life you've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." - Joseph Campbell

The scholar, writer and teacher Joseph Campbell gained international fame by deconstructing the great mythologies of mankind and revealing the simple truths and profound themes behind history's great tales and legends. He drew parallels between classical mythology, modern pop culture and everyday lives. In his view, each life is a hero's journey through which we all are seeking some distant reward, only to discover in the end that we had it in our hands all along. From Odysseus to the Wizard of Oz, it always ends up the same way.

Despite the breath and scope of his life's work, he is perhaps best known for one simple phrase: "Follow your bliss." The premise is a tantalizingly simple one. If you allow yourself to gravitate toward and pursue that which brings you the greatest pleasure, you will be on the road to achieving personal satisfaction , true happiness and your ultimate calling in life. The idea is to trust your instincts and be aware of when you are happiest and most fully engaged. In doing so, your natural talents will emerge and slowly you will become the person you were ended to be.

In the book The Power of Myth, Campbell point s out tat "If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you and the life you  ought to be living is the one you are living ... I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open for you where you didn't know they were going to be."

(Flocker, Pg 100-101)

Idea Log 16112011

WANT >> Too Big to Fail: Olympia & York: The Story Behind the Headlines!!!! but I've tracked the second best The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York ~ going to pick up my book later today ^__^

 

Idea Log 15112011

Adversity and the route to success

Source: Seth Godin's Blog

Resource-rich regions often fall behind in developing significant industrial and cultural capabilities. Japan does well despite having very few resources at all.

Well-rounded and popular people rarely change the world. The one voted most likely to succeed probably won't.

Genuine success is scarce, and the scarcity comes from the barriers that keep everyone from having it. If it weren't for the scarcity, it wouldn't be valuable, after all.

It's difficult to change an industry, set a world record, land big clients, or do art that influences others. When faced with this difficulty, those with other, seemingly better options see the barrier and walk away.

Why bother? The thinking is that we can just pump some more oil or smile and gladhand our way to an acceptably happy outcome.

On the other hand, people who believe they have fewer options take a look at the barrier and realize that even though it will be difficult to cross, it's the single best option they've got.

This is one of the dangers of overfunded/undertested startup companies. Without an astute CEO in charge, they begin to worry more about not losing what they've already got than the real reason they started the project in the first place.

Idea Log 12112011

http://www.blogto.com/

Arts

A tribute to the Montreal Metro, right here in Toronto

Posted by Derek Flack / November 10, 2011

The first thought that came to mind when I arrived at INabstracto for the launch of John Martins-Mantiega's latest book, Métro: Design in Motion, was why hasn't anybody given the TTC such a lovely and thorough treatment? Spread over 450 pages, Mantiega's new book is more that just a love letter to the Montreal subway and the remarkable people who made it possible — it's a tribute to modern design and the pragmatic spaces we often take for granted. I'd love to read — or perhaps even write — something similar about the Toronto subway, even if the story isn't as compelling or Canadian in its design history.

Needless to say, this isn't an easy task. It took over three years for Martins-Mantiega to write Metro. Part of this has to do with the amount of research and documentation that went into the book, but it also has to with funding. It's a challenge to publish books of this nature, and the journey wasn't always a smooth one — but here's the book, and it's fantastic.

So too are the photographs on display. As much as I enjoy viewing (and posting) archival photographs, there's something about seeing larger versions in person that really get me enthusiastic. But perhaps even more cool than the photographs is the model subway train and orange seat in the window of INabstraco. Seeing them displayed this way really drives home the degree to which they're design objects, something that's all too easy to forget.

"That little train is probably the most important piece of industrial design that Canada ever produced," Martins-Manteiga declared at last night's launch. That might be overstating it, but it was still a remarkable accomplishment, particularly given the timelines the designers had to work with. 20 of the original stations were completed in just four years to coincide with Expo 67.

At the media preview for the new TTC streetcars I attended earlier today, it was revealed that full incorporation of the vehicles isn't expected until 2018. And that's just vehicles — no stations. That gives a bit of perspective into just how quickly the Montreal system came together. It's also interesting to note that Toronto's new streetcars will be built by Bombardier, which blossomed into the large-scale company it is today on account of their construction of Montreal's subway cars.

It may not be the Toronto subway book I'm hoping for, but Metro: Design in Motion is well worth the read for design buffs and transit history fans. And even if you don't fall into either of these categories, having a look at the exhibit is still highly recommended.

Metro: Design in Motion will be up at INabstracto until November 27th. The book can be purchased there or at Swipe Books.

Idea Log 11112011

“His Libraries, 12,000 So Far, Change Lives"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/opinion/sunday/kristof-his-libraries-12000-so-far-change-lives.html?ref=nicholasdkristof

“Girls Just Want to Go to School"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/opinion/kristof-girls-just-want-to-go-to-school.html?ref=nicholasdkristof

Room to Read New York Times page
http://www.roomtoread.org/NYTimes

Dear Friends,

As valued Room to Read supporters, we want to make you aware and share our excitement about two columns that featured Room to Read in The New York Times this past week by acclaimed journalist Nicholas Kristof. We were honored to have Mr. Kristof visit our projects in Vietnam two weeks ago and are thrilled that he was inspired to share his experience with his readers.

If you have not already seen Mr. Kristof’s columns, please have a look at “His Libraries, 12,000 So Far, Change Lives” which celebrates Room to Read’s immense achievements—including our 10 millionth book milestone, unique history and astronomical rise in growth since our founding—and  “Girls Just Want to Go to School,” where Mr. Kristof introduces us to Phung, an incredible girl enrolled in our Girls’ Education program in Vietnam who, with the support of her father, goes to great lengths in pursuit of her education.

You can find additional information related to the column on a special page we created on our website. Also included on the site is information on a matching gift fund that we were able to establish thanks to the generosity of several anonymous donors. The fund will be used to help the children in Vietnam that Mr. Kristof met along with the countless others we reach across Asia and Africa who want to discover a better future for themselves and their families.

We hope you enjoy the columns and we thank you for the amazing role you have played in helping us get to where we are today – we couldn’t have done it without you!

Warm regards,

The Room to Read Team

Idea Log 06112011

Finished reading! 

"My aim in writing [this book] is to offer a richer vision of human ability and creativity and of the benefits to us all of connecting properly with our indivisual talents and passions. This book is about issues that are of fundamental importancein our lives and in the lives of our children, our students, and the people we work with. I use the term the Element to describe the place where the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together. I believe it is essential that each of us find his or her Element, not simply because it will make us more fulfilled but because, as the world evolves, the very future of our communities and institutions will depend on it.

The world is changing faster than ever in our history. Our best hope for the future is to develop a new paradigm of human capacity to meet a new era of human existance. We need to evolve a new appreciation of the importance of nurturing human talent along with an understanding of how talent expresses itself differently in every individual. We need to create environments- in our schools, in our workplace, and in our public offices- every person is inspired to grow creatively" (above taken from the INTRODUCTION chapter; pg. xiii)

The Element has two main features, and there are two conditions for being in it. The features are aptitude and passion. The conditions are attitude and opportunity. The sequence goes something like this: I get it; I love it; I want it; Where is it? (Robinson, pg.22) These ephiphanies utterly [change] lives, giving them direction and purpose and sweeping them up in a way that nothing else had; they tend to involve some level of revelation, a way of dividing the world into before and after (Robinson, pg. 8)

 

Idea Log 25102011

Accessioning at the Archives

Once archives make the decision to acquire a collection of records, the next step in the management process is for the archival institution to accession the records. Accessioning is the procedure through which an archival repository takes administrative, legal, and physical custody of a group of records. The means by which archives acquire administrative and legal control of records is slightly different for institutional archival programs than it is for collection repositories. Within institutional archives, records are generally transferred by means of a transmittal form, in which the office that created the records grants custody to the archival program of the same institution. For collecting repositories, which acquire records not from a parent organization but from private donors or external institutions, a deed of gift is the primary instrument by which the archives gain legal and administrative control over the records.

During accessioning, the archivist collects basic information about the records on the basis of a preliminary examination. Generally, an accession form is created, which includes data such as the creator of the records, the quantity, condition, and current location of the records, any restrictions on the records, a list of contents and brief descriptions of the records. The information that is gathered during the accessioning process provides essential information about the newly acquired records and later serves as the basis for the arrangement and description functions.

Importance of Archival Materials and Archival Institutions

Archival institutions select, preserve, and make their records accessible for a number of reasons, including legal, financial, and administrative purposes. Government archives (at the federal, state or local level) that administer public records, for example, maintain records as evidence of the government’s policies and operations. Thus, public archives help ensure that the government is held accountable to the public by preserving records that enable citizens to monitor the conduct of government agencies and public servants. In addition, the records that are held by public archives document the rights of citizens, such as entitlement to social security benefits or ownership of property. Private organizations, such as businesses, churches, universities, and museums, also establish institutional archives to care for their records. The archival records that are maintained by these repositories document the organizations’ origins, structures, policies, programs, functions, and vital information over time.

In addition to the legal, fiscal, and administrative purposes for which records are originally created and used, archival records are useful for historical or research purposes. Archives provide a key with which to examine past and present events. In addition to the administrative users of archives, a variety of researchers take advantage of archival sources. These researchers may include scholars, genealogists, students at all levels, local historians, biographers, independent writers, and documentary filmmakers. Since archival documents can be used for many purposes by diverse audiences, the records of organizations that do not have their own institutional archives, as well as the personal papers of individuals, are often actively sought by archival programs such as collecting repositories or historical societies. These types of institutions, rather than documenting the activities of a parent organization, focus on collecting records that document a particular topic (e.g., a person, subject, or geographical area).

Read more: Archives, Public Records, and Records Management - Importance of Archival Materials and Archival Institutions, Archival Management, Appraisal, Accessioning, Arrangement and Description, Preservation, Access - JRank Articles http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6422/Archives-Public-Records-and-Records-Management.html#ixzz1bro1OTLo

Idea Log 22102011

(took this book out of the library on Thursday & couldn't recognize this place!)

MISSION FOR TODAY: Find this place!!

Found it!!

Commerce Court North @ 25 King St. W :

The first building, now known as Commerce Court North, was built in 1930 as the headquarters of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, a precursor bank to the current main tenant. Designed by the Canadian firm Pearson and Darling with the American bank specialists York and Sawyer as consulting architects, the 34-storey limestone clad tower was the tallest building in the British Empire/Commonwealth for roughly three decades, until 1962. At the time of its construction, the building was one of the most opulent corporate headquarters in Canada, and featured a public observation deck (since closed to the public due to safety and liability concerns).

Commerce Court North held the title of tallest building in Toronto between 1931–1967

Idea Log 21202011

Started reading today!

'When John Whitehead [chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was established in the fall of 2011 by the governor of New York to oversee reconstruction of the trade-center site] began his remarks- scheduled to start at 10:00 A.M. and conclude by 10:30- he tried to set an August tone, opening the proceedings not as if he was introducing a bunch of architects presenting some models but more as if he were addressing the United Nations.

"The original World Trade Center was more than a set of buildings. It stood for global commerce over global conflict," he said. "These teams have produced world-class work that embraces and extends the ethos of the original World Trade Centre. Underlying these diverse plans is the common theme of rebirth. Beyond the powerful aesthetic statement that these designs make, they also convey powerful messages- they must speak to our children and our children's children about who we are and what we stand for."'

- Goldberger, UP FROM ZERO pg. 6

Idea Log 12102011

Currently reading...

-Taken from the Preface of the book

ONTARIO HYDRO WAS, for nearly a century, one of the most successful public utilities in the world. The company always hired talented people to undertake its ambitious ventures.

...

If you make your way to the stacks of a library in Ontario and search out the shelf where they keep the books on Ontario Hydro, you will notice that most of the titles play on a single word. The People's Power (Merrill Denison's book). The Politics of Power. Delusions of Power. Public Power. Power at Cost. Power at What Cost? There is at least one case, too, in which the writer and publisher did not choose a wordplay on the intimate, even incestuous, relationship between electrical energy and political  and economic power in the province. That book bears the simple but suggestive title Electric Empire.



HYDRO-The Decline and Fall of Ontario's Electric Empire

Idea Log 09102011

Travel breeds curiosity. On the road, we find ourselves waking early, wandering unfamiliar streets, watching foreign cities creak to life as the sun rises. We poke around corners, eat exotic dishes and pour over maps. We are alive to the possibilities of the world around us.

Yet the more I travel, the more I chide myself for not maintaining such curiosity at home, a point made clear by a recent obsession: swimming the rivers and creeks right outside my back door.

-- Was reading this article, A wild chase for bull trout in my own backyard,  in the Globe and Mail and it reminded me of something I had read in an earlier mentioned book "TORONTO, no mean city" under 'The Origin of Street Names in TOronto'. Below are the Streets/ intersections I have lived next to during my past 8 years in Toronto -

Augusta Avenue- A female member of the Denison family (see Denison) or Charlotte Augusta, only daughter of George IV (see Charlotte)

Bathurst Street - Henry, third earl Bathurst, secretary for War and the Colonies 1812- 27. The name applied to the present street south of Queen (then Lot) when given in 1837. The northern section was known as Crookshank's Lane, after the Hon George Crookshank, who owned a large estate there.

Bloor Street - Joseph Bloor, 1788- 1862, a brewer who lived at 100 Bloor Street. Bloor and Sheriff Jarvis laid out the village plots for the town of Yorkville, just north of Bloor. For many years Bloor was the northern limit of the city proper. It was formerly known as St Paul's Road, Sydenham Road, and Toll-Gate Road, the latter after the toll-gate that stood at the corner of Yonge Street.

Carr Street - Probably John Carr, city councillor, alderman, clerk and commissioner, 1847-73. Carr Street was originally Elizabeth Street, part of Belleuve Estate owned by Colonel George Denison. The name was changed in 1870. John Carr resided at 21 Denison Ave.

Denison Avenue - The street was one of the roads to the Denison house at Denison Square owned by George Taylor Denison and, after his decease, by his son Lt.-Col. Robert Brittain Denison (1821-1900). See Augusta, Bedford, Bellevue, Borden, Brookfield, Churchill, Dewson, Dovercourt, Esther, Fennings, Lippincott, Major, Ossington, Robert, Rolyat, Rusholme.

Dufferin Street - The marqis of Dufferin and Ava, governor general of Canada 1872-8.

Dundas Street - Sir Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, Home Secretary 1791-4. Like Yonge Street, Dundas Street was laid out by Gov Simcoe, who intended that it join the provincial capital at York with the Thames River on the west and the mouth of the River Trent on Lake Ontario on the east. Within Toronto's boundaries, Dundas Street today is formed from a series of earlier streets, including St Patrick, Anderson, and Agnes Streets west of Yonge; Crookshank Street, Wilton Avenue, Wilton Crescent, and Beech Street between Yonge Street and the Don River.

Dupont Avenue - George Dupont Wells (1814- 54), son of Col the Hon J. Wells of Davenport, County York.

Keele Street - William Keele, solicitor, who owned property in Toronto Junction.

Queen Street - Queen Victoria (1819 - 1901). So named about 1843. Queen Street was formerly Lot Street because of the 'park lots' abutting it and extending north to Bloor Street. Lot became the northern limit of the town in 1797, as it grew beyond the original boundary of Duchess.

Salem Avenue - Salem, Massachusetts

Spadina Avenue - Spadina, the country home if Dr W. W. Baldwin, to which it was the approach. The name is derived from Espadinong, an Indian word meaning a little hill.

Wolseley Avenue - Col Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833-1913), later Viscount Wolseley, who came to Canada in 1861 as assistant quartermaster-general. In 1970 he commanded the force sent west to the Red River to quell the Riel insurrection. Wolseley Street was formerly Monck Street.

Idea Log 04102011

Finding the right fit in an employer

wallace immen; Globe and Mail; Published Friday, Jun. 10, 2011

The job-hunting client phoned Jim Beqaj expecting to be congratulated for having landed a lucrative new position. Instead, the veteran career adviser warned the man to reconsider.

“I told him flat out, ‘I don’t think that’s the right fit for you,’” said the president of Toronto-based career consulting firm Beqaj International Inc. and author of How to Hire the Perfect Employer

The client was an executive had worked for 15 years with a company that gave him carte blanche, provided great support, let him make decisions on his own and hire as many people as he needed. By contrast, the new organization was very bureaucratic and didn’t absorb outsiders well, and he would have to go through a chain of approvals even to hire a secretary.

“I warned him, ‘You’ll be made ineffective and you will fail because you are not able in this new job to use the tools that made you successful in your last job,’” Mr. Beqaj said

It proved a prescient statement: The executive decided to throw in the towel and leave the new post a few months later.

“It’s truly remarkable how many people ... interview for jobs that are 100 per cent wrong for them. If they are hired, they struggle to make themselves fit into organizations at jobs they are unlikely to be satisfied doing,” Mr. Beqaj said.

Even in the most competitive job market, even if it would feel better to get on any payroll, he advises job seekers to hire on only at a company that matches their work style and personality. “Otherwise they risk being back on the market soon.”

While it may seem counterintuitive, Mr. Beqaj said the best strategy is to limit your options right from the start. “Conventional wisdom says that when you are looking for a new job, you should network widely and get your CV seen by as many eyes as possible. But that shotgun approach is often a complete waste of time.”

The options become clearer if, rather than looking for any possible job, you target only employers who are likely to have an affinity for you, Mr. Beqaj advises. To do this, take it step by step:

Interview yourself

Be as specific as possible in answering these questions: What are you really good at? What do you most enjoy doing? What kinds of people do you like to work with?

Choose your targets

Make a list of companies, whether in your region or elsewhere in the country (or even the world), who might need someone like you. Narrow the list to about three or four top prospects by doing serious homework on the Internet and through networking contacts. Aim to find out how these companies tick and why they might need to add your specific skills to their teams.

Create an infomercial

From your results, write an elevator speech with statements that define the skills that make you unique and why they matter to the employer. For example: “If you need a good judge of character who has hired more than 900 people and has 20 years experience, I’m the person to do the job.” In a single sentence, people can see what value you provide. Mr. Beqaj said.

Look at people as much as product

The job may be right, but are the people and their work styles compatible with the way you like to work? “Many job candidates are often too focused on the potential job to notice that the place is micromanaged, or that the team has habits that irritate them. But look around; you can feel it in your stomach if something doesn’t seem right,” he said.

You shouldn’t only be interviewing for a job you should be looking for a personal fit. “No matter how good the job is, you are just not going to function well and grow in a poor environment.”

Don’t fool yourself

You may find yourself being tempted by a company that has a particular problem or challenge on its hands. You can fool yourself into thinking you can turn around a situation that is a mess, but keep in mind that it’s often just wishful thinking, Mr. Beqaj said. “There are times when an organization is looking for someone who is different enough to be a game changer. But you have to make sure that they will give you the support and resources you need to actually make the changes.”

Trust your gut

“Don’t be afraid to tell them exactly who you are,” Mr. Beqaj said. And if you have concerns, don’t let anyone else persuade you that a job is great. “It has to be your decision that it’s right, otherwise you’ll always be doing something that is not you,” he said.

“If you are trying to win a job by contorting yourself into something you’re not, to become what you think they are looking for, you are soon going to find yourself unhappy and not likely to be very successful.

KNOW THYSELF

The first step to finding the perfect employer is to be sure you understand your own work style and goals. Do a thorough interview with yourself:

What makes you unique? Write out not only what you think you are really good at, but evidence from experience that backs up your beliefs.

What’s your best day? Look back at what you were doing on days in your work life when you felt most enthusiastic and came home and said, “If I could just do this every day of my life I’d be happy.” What are the worst experiences you want to avoid at all costs?

Who works with you? Create a list of people in your life who have worked effectively with you. What were the common characteristics of these people in terms of mindset, background, habits and personality traits?

How do you resolve conflicts? Do you compromise, accommodate, compete with or hide from people? Organizations can have a variety of way of sorting out issues and if you have a different style, you’re unlikely to be seen as a team player.

What’s your work style? Do you like juggling multiple problems or the ability to complete one task before moving on to the next? Would you like to be on the road or in an office? Compromise in this area and every day could become a nightmare or a slog.

Who needs you? Build a list of employers that have the kinds of jobs and work that are most compatible with your work style. These should not only need your skills but also be likely to want you as a person. Make them your priority targets.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/on-the-job/article2056378.ece

Idea Log 17092011

My early morning garage sale purchase! Illustrated with the etchings of Piranesi.

Front cover of Volume I of 'The fall and decline of the Roman Empire' published 1946

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (7 vols)

by Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon & originally published in six quarto volumes. Volume 1 was published in 1776, going thru six printings; 2-3 in 1781; 4-6 in 1788-89. It was a major literary achievement of the 18th century, adopted as a model for the methodologies of historians.
The books cover the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from 180 to 1590. They take as their material the behavior & decisions that led to the eventual fall of the Empire in East & West, offering explanations.
Gibbon is called the 1st modern historian of ancient Rome. By virtue of its mostly objective approach & accurate use of reference material, his work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19-20th century historians. His pessimism & detached irony was common to the historical genre of his era.

Paul rated it  · 

Recommends it for: fans of perfect English prose

Well, it's not actually the last word on the Empire. Gibbon hated the Byzantines, thought they were appallingly religious and ineluctably corrupt. So he didn't have a good word to day on the Eastern Empire which lasted 1000 years after the fall of the Western Empire. Modern historians have rehabilitated the Byzantines to a great extent.
I only read vols 1-3 but intend to finish the whole thing one day. Hey, half of Gibbon is still twice as long as anyone else.

 

Lee rated it   

If I could only have one book for the rest of my life, it would be this one. (And its extreme length is only part of the reason). A true epic that combines stunning scholarship, storytelling, and philosophical insight. If this were all fiction, it would still be one of the great masterpieces of English literature. That fact that this is history is stunning beyond words. In a typical chapter, Edward Gibbon will make you feel like you're standing on the walls of Rome as the Goths lay siege; then he'll make you understand the motivation and human character of Aleric, the Gothic warlord; then he'll lead you on a profound and freethinking exploration of the universal truths behnd war and humman suffering. Absolutely spell-binding, and life-changing in its philosophical insight.

It took me over 18 months to finish all 6 volumes, so it's an epic read, but I'm already looking forward to experiencing it again.

 

Zachary rated it   

Unreviewable (in the sense of priceless). I only read it in abridgement, as I figure the full six volumes can wait for my doddering old age. If you read it, in full or in abridgement, get the latest Penguin edition! It preserves Gibbon's original sentence structure, unlike the Everyman edition which chops his flowing prose into more digestible chunks.

 

Kendra rated it  · 

I read the abridged version as I wasn't up to reading 10 volumes. Gibbon has an odd way of writing direct criticism (he's a philosophical historian rather than a just-the-facts historian) but interspersing it with elliptical references. Fun to try to find out what he means in some of his more obtuse references. But you have to know your ancient geography, however, to visualize the action. Quick Summary: Analysis of the Emperors of Rome, religious quarrels between Rome and Constantinople (The Great Schism), barbarian attacks and internal rot in Rome, the Crusades, the ultimate sack of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks due to lack of assistance from Rome, and finally, the coalescing of religious power in Rome.

 

René rated it   

Wow ! A true masterpiece, free of dogmatism. It not only chronicles the pitfalls Governments may go through, but also wonderfully shows how a religious doctrine evolves and is really made. Tolerance of religious opinions was one of the main factors which allowed the Roman Empire to grow and foster civilization. Monotheism and intolerance of the slightest "articles of faith" weakened its social fabric, and religious/civil wars did more to destroy Rome and Constantinople than the so-called Barbarians, who are looked upon by Gibbon in a refreshing, objective point of view. Such philosophers/authors, unfortunately, are nowhere to be found nowadays. It makes me regret not having bought the complete, unedited version.

 for more reviews go to: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19400.The_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire

Idea Log 16092011

~ Published in 1996 ~ in the book The Pig and the Python' by David Cork; Pg. 67- 70

THE CRAFT OF LIFE

"Did you know that there are two groups of boomers, what demographers call two cohorts?" she continued.

"Cohorts! Sounds like people who commit crimes together," I said.

"Partly right, actually. Cohorts do things together. For demographers, a cohort is a group of people born during a defined time period. They share a slice of history and many of the same life experiences, tastes and preferences. In my lectures I quote a writer named Frederick Buechner. They have come from the same beginning. They have seen the same sights along the way. They are bound for the same end and they will get there about the same time. They are your compagnons de voyage.' I love that expression. Think about it- you can probably rememeber where you were when you heard that JFK was shot," she said.

"Just barely," I replied. "I remember my mother watching the TV and crying her eyes out."

"That's a memory that you share with all the others in your cohort. The cohort that follows you can't know what you know. You and your compagnons de voyage were shaped by that experience."

"But how does the baby boom divide into two groups? I thought it was one gigantic group," I said.

"Partly right again. It's one gigantic generation. Generations are measured in the time it takes a person to grow up and have children - that's about 20 to 25 years. But within the baby boom generation, there are two distinct cohorts. The front cohort was born between 1947 and the mid-1950s. The second are those born in the second half of the 1950s and the first half of the '60s. The cohort chasm that divides the two is the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the Watergate era. The first group of boomers came of age in the 1960s. In Canada, they share the positive slice of history that our Centennial celebrations bought this country. They thought they could change the world. The second group knew that wouldn't happen. They came of age watching their world unravel at the Watergate hearings, the economy losing its lustre, the rise of separatism. Their slice of history wasn't nearly as optimistic as that experienced by the older boomers. In fact, I'd argue that the younger boomer cohort resents the older one, sort of like you'd resent an older sibling - the older one gets everything and you're left with hand-me-downs. You could say that the first cohort was out to change the world, whereas the second cohort saw its role as saving the world from the first."

"Interesting you should say that," I commented. "I've got five brothers and sisters. I've always envied my older brothers. Everything seemed so easy for them - jobs, buying a house, you name it. But when I look at my youngest sister, I see someone who is very concerned about her future. Even though she's younger, she's by far the most conservative of us all."

"That's not surprising," replied Ruth. "There's a lot of diversity in this generation. But the power of the two cohorts of the boomer generation comes from looking at all of them together. And there are many things that everyone does, despite our view of the world. I believe we're on the brink of seeing some interesting new developments as the first cohort moves into solid middle age. They're starting to turn 50 and they have 50-year-old problems. Their health isn't as good as it once was, they've got to think about retirement, and their kids have left home. These are fundamental lifestyle changes. How is this affecting them and their view of the world? I'd suggest they've realized that perhaps they can't change the world." We both laughed at that.

"But that realization doesn't mean they'll become like their mothers and fathers before them. Although they'll do many of the same things, a 50-year-old today won't be exactly like a 50-year-old of his parents' generation. That's the importance of understanding cohorts. Even though the cohort grows older, it can never shed the core values it acquired while it was growing up.'

Idea Log 15092011

The Rational Optimist>Chapter 1> A better today>> Saving Time (pg. 22- 24) 

TIME: that is the key. Forget dollars, cowrie shells or gold. The true measure of something's worth is the hours it takes to acquire it. If you have to acquire it yourself, it usually takes longer than if you get it ready-made by other people. And if you can get it made efficiently by others, then you can afford more of it.

...

This is what prosperity is: the increase in the amount of goods or services you can earn with the same amount of work.

...

Even the most notorious of capitalists, the robber barons of the late nineteenth century, usually got rich by making things cheaper. Cornelius Vanderbilt is the man for whom the New York Times first used the word 'robber baron'. He is the very epitome of the phrase. Yet observe what Harper's Weekly had to say about his railways in 1859:

The results in every case of the establishment of opposition lines by Vanderbilt has been the permanent reduction of fares. Wherever he 'laid on' on opposition line, the fares were instantly reduced, and however the contest terminated, whether he bought out his opponents, as he often did, or they bought him out, the fares were never again raised to the old standard. This great boon - cheap travel - this community owes mainly to Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Rail freight charges fell by 90 per cent between 1870 and 1900. Likewise, Andrew Carnegie, while enormously enriching himself, cut the price of steel rail by 75 per cent in the same period; John D. Rockerfeller cut the price of old by 80 per cent. During those thirty years, the per capita GDP of Americans rose by 66 per cent. They were enricher-barons, too.

Henry Ford got rich by making cars cheap. His first Model T sold for $825, unpresedentedly cheap at the time, and four years later he had cut the price to $575.

Falling consumer prices is what enriches people... If Cornelius Vanderbilt or Henry Ford not only moves you faster to where you want to go, but requires you to work fewer hours to earn the ticket price, then he has enriched you by granting you a dollop of free time. If you choose to spend that spare time consuming somebody else's production then you can enrich him in turn; if you choose to spend it producing for his consumption then you have also further enriched yourself.

 Visit the official website : http://www.rationaloptimist.com/

Idea Log 10092011

 

"This book dares the human race to embrace change to be rationally optimistic and thereby to strive for the betterment of humankind and the world it inhabits." (pg. 8)

 

 

Idea Log 01092011

RESILIENCE

You will fail at this. Often. Why is that a problem? In fact, this is a boon. It's a boon because when others fail to be remarkable or make a difference or share their art or have an impact, they will give up. But you won't, you'll persist, pushing through the dip. Which means that few people will walk in the door with your background, experience, or persistence.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does not postpone his life but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. poet, essayist and lecturer

[*entire passage taken out of Seth Godin's book - Linchpin, pg. 208]

 

Idea Log 31082011

NOSTALGIA FOR THE FUTURE

For many of us, the happiest future is one that's precisely like the past, except a little better.

We all enjoy nostalgia (the real kind, nostalgia for the past). We gladly suffer from that bittersweet feeling we get about events that we loved, but can't relive. Nostalgia for the way we felt that day in high school, or for the bonhomie of a great team, or for a particular family event.

We'd love to do it again, but we can't.

Nostalgia for the future is that very same feeling about things that haven't happened yet. We are prepared for them to happen, but if something comes along to change our future, those things won't happen and we'll be disappointed.

If your company lays you off, you may very well get another job, but it won't be the job that one day was going to get you the promotion you were imagining that led to the event that you were hoping for in that office you were visualizing.

We're good at visualizing this future, and if we think it's not going to happen, we get nostalgic for it. This isn't positive visualization, it's attachment of the worst sort. We're attached to an outcome, often one we can't control.

If you had a chance to remake your life with a wish, what would you wish for? Would you leave behind your family, your town, your appearance? Most people would merely change the fabric on their sofa or make their job a little better (and their salary will go up).

Some people, though, have an itch for a different future, one with radically different rules. Those people are emotionally connected to the sort of drive and visionary leadership that organizations look for in a linchpin. It's not a skill or even a talent. It's a choice.

...

The linchpin is able to invent a future, fall in love with it, live in it - and then abandon it on a moment's notice.

(Taken out of Seth Godin's book LINCHPIN, pg. 203-204)

Idea Log 30082011

[Jeffrey Fox, How to land your dream job, Pg 163]

XLII: Don't Ask for Directions

Companies hire people to solve problems, to prevent problems, to make issues go away, to reduce pressures, to improve financially, to free up talent to use their talents. Companies hire people to take things off their collective to-do list. They do not want employees who add problems, bring unwanted baggage, who require unnecessary maintenance.

Employers want people who hit the road running; who are resourceful, self-reliant, able.

also see: Idea log 08082011 

 

Idea Log 29082011

Post-war Toronto was creative and dynamic. It was a hotbed of industrial and artistic activity. Toronto had attitude, it was brash and confident. It not only reinvented art and architecture but re-engineered it.

It all came together like one beautiful storm, brewing an intoxicating wind of change, a system that would remake and retool Canadian industry and establish Canada's manufacturing infracture, thereby creating bot a middle class and an artistic class that would redesign the city, realising some of the very best and most uncompromising examples of art and architecture this country has ever seen.

The end of the war was seen as a new beginning. We built the Victory Soya Mills on the Toronto waterfront, a colossal structure of concrete silos with "VICTORY" written in bright red sans-serif across its superstructure to annpounce Canada's triumph in Europe and reiterate Canada's modern aesthetic heritage all in one bold stroke.

In the days after the war, young men and women in Canada, with dreams in their veins pubped up by victory, believed anything was possible. Immigrants disembarking in Halifax and Montreal had left behind the devastation of the Old World and were determined to build a new one, one which would lead to lives and new careers.

And into the midst of this came architect Peter Dickinson, fresh off the boat in Halifax and building up a storm in  a manner most Dickinson. John C. Parkin and Macklin L. Hancock, newly graduated from Harvard, were full of piss and vinegar, looking to roll up their sleeves and execute the never-before-imagined.

...

From the igloo to concrete silos to prairie grain elevators to Canadian Pacific's Empress liner series to wartime housing - Canada's aesthetic is simple, clean and functional. Modern is our national form and our inherent design language.

Toronto was a city like no other. We were Hogtown, and loving it! We had a style and a forward, get-out-of-my-way attitude. At the same time, we were a city of outstanding cultural depth and vision. Ours was a modern city that carried weight and gravity in art, design and architecture. We believed in our young, we nurtured them and we believed the future was bright.

Toronto was [at] the most, a cultural and industrial revolution, an artistic explosion. It was breathtaking. Toronto. We are the citizens of no mean city.

*taken from the Introduction pages of Mean City: From Architecture to Design: How Toronto Went Boom by John Martins Manteiga

 

 Just coming out of mourning for Jack Layton and I believe this should be a starting off point for all Torontonians who have been inspired to work for this city. I think I am back in the game. This is me pledging my involvement in City Politics after my 2 year hibernation!!! I am totally psyched! I love Toronto. Toronto IS my city and I hope to see you rise again.

 

Idea Log 21082011

Went home this weekend and this 'NY Times' insert from last week's Sunday Star was lying around. THINK ABOUT IT.

Article link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-elusive-big-idea.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

 
 
Ideas just aren’t what they used to be. Once upon a time, they could ignite fires of debate, stimulate other thoughts, incite revolutions and fundamentally change the ways we look at and think about the world.

They could penetrate the general culture and make celebrities out of thinkers — notably Albert Einstein, but also Reinhold Niebuhr, Daniel Bell, Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, to name a few. The ideas themselves could even be made famous: for instance, for “the end of ideology,” “the medium is the message,” “the feminine mystique,” “the Big Bang theory,” “the end of history.” A big idea could capture the cover of Time — “Is God Dead?” — and intellectuals like Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal would even occasionally be invited to the couches of late-night talk shows. How long ago that was.

If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé.

It is no secret, especially here in America, that we live in a post-Enlightenment age in which rationality, science, evidence, logical argument and debate have lost the battle in many sectors, and perhaps even in society generally, to superstition, faith, opinion and orthodoxy. While we continue to make giant technological advances, we may be the first generation to have turned back the epochal clock — to have gone backward intellectually from advanced modes of thinking into old modes of belief. But post-Enlightenment and post-idea, while related, are not exactly the same.

Post-Enlightenment refers to a style of thinking that no longer deploys the techniques of rational thought. Post-idea refers to thinking that is no longer done, regardless of the style.

The post-idea world has been a long time coming, and many factors have contributed to it. There is the retreat in universities from the real world, and an encouragement of and reward for the narrowest specialization rather than for daring — for tending potted plants rather than planting forests.

There is the eclipse of the public intellectual in the general media by the pundit who substitutes outrageousness for thoughtfulness, and the concomitant decline of the essay in general-interest magazines. And there is the rise of an increasingly visual culture, especially among the young — a form in which ideas are more difficult to express.

But these factors, which began decades ago, were more likely harbingers of an approaching post-idea world than the chief causes of it. The real cause may be information itself. It may seem counterintuitive that at a time when we know more than we have ever known, we think about it less.

We live in the much vaunted Age of Information. Courtesy of the Internet, we seem to have immediate access to anything that anyone could ever want to know. We are certainly the most informed generation in history, at least quantitatively. There are trillions upon trillions of bytes out there in the ether — so much to gather and to think about.

And that’s just the point. In the past, we collected information not simply to know things. That was only the beginning. We also collected information to convert it into something larger than facts and ultimately more useful — into ideas that made sense of the information. We sought not just to apprehend the world but to truly comprehend it, which is the primary function of ideas. Great ideas explain the world and one another to us.

Marx pointed out the relationship between the means of production and our social and political systems. Freud taught us to explore our minds as a way of understanding our emotions and behaviors. Einstein rewrote physics. More recently, McLuhan theorized about the nature of modern communication and its effect on modern life. These ideas enabled us to get our minds around our existence and attempt to answer the big, daunting questions of our lives.

But if information was once grist for ideas, over the last decade it has become competition for them. We are like the farmer who has too much wheat to make flour. We are inundated with so much information that we wouldn’t have time to process it even if we wanted to, and most of us don’t want to.

The collection itself is exhausting: what each of our friends is doing at that particular moment and then the next moment and the next one; who Jennifer Aniston is dating right now; which video is going viral on YouTube this hour; what Princess Letizia or Kate Middleton is wearing that day. In effect, we are living within the nimbus of an informational Gresham’s law in which trivial information pushes out significant information, but it is also an ideational Gresham’s law in which information, trivial or not, pushes out ideas.

We prefer knowing to thinking because knowing has more immediate value. It keeps us in the loop, keeps us connected to our friends and our cohort. Ideas are too airy, too impractical, too much work for too little reward. Few talk ideas. Everyone talks information, usually personal information. Where are you going? What are you doing? Whom are you seeing? These are today’s big questions.

It is certainly no accident that the post-idea world has sprung up alongside the social networking world. Even though there are sites and blogs dedicated to ideas, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, etc., the most popular sites on the Web, are basically information exchanges, designed to feed the insatiable information hunger, though this is hardly the kind of information that generates ideas. It is largely useless except insofar as it makes the possessor of the information feel, well, informed. Of course, one could argue that these sites are no different than conversation was for previous generations, and that conversation seldom generated big ideas either, and one would be right.

BUT the analogy isn’t perfect. For one thing, social networking sites are the primary form of communication among young people, and they are supplanting print, which is where ideas have typically gestated. For another, social networking sites engender habits of mind that are inimical to the kind of deliberate discourse that gives rise to ideas. Instead of theories, hypotheses and grand arguments, we get instant 140-character tweets about eating a sandwich or watching a TV show. While social networking may enlarge one’s circle and even introduce one to strangers, this is not the same thing as enlarging one’s intellectual universe. Indeed, the gab of social networking tends to shrink one’s universe to oneself and one’s friends, while thoughts organized in words, whether online or on the page, enlarge one’s focus.

To paraphrase the famous dictum, often attributed to Yogi Berra, that you can’t think and hit at the same time, you can’t think and tweet at the same time either, not because it is impossible to multitask but because tweeting, which is largely a burst of either brief, unsupported opinions or brief descriptions of your own prosaic activities, is a form of distraction or anti-thinking.

The implications of a society that no longer thinks big are enormous. Ideas aren’t just intellectual playthings. They have practical effects.

An artist friend of mine recently lamented that he felt the art world was adrift because there were no longer great critics like Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg to provide theories of art that could fructify the art and energize it. Another friend made a similar argument about politics. While the parties debate how much to cut the budget, he wondered where were the John Rawlses and Robert Nozicks who could elevate our politics.

One could certainly make the same argument about economics, where John Maynard Keynes remains the center of debate nearly 80 years after propounding his theory of government pump priming. This isn’t to say that the successors of Rosenberg, Rawls and Keynes don’t exist, only that if they do, they are not likely to get traction in a culture that has so little use for ideas, especially big, exciting, dangerous ones, and that’s true whether the ideas come from academics or others who are not part of elite organizations and who challenge the conventional wisdom. All thinkers are victims of information glut, and the ideas of today’s thinkers are also victims of that glut.

But it is especially true of big thinkers in the social sciences like the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, who has theorized on everything from the source of language to the role of genetics in human nature, or the biologist Richard Dawkins, who has had big and controversial ideas on everything from selfishness to God, or the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has been analyzing different moral systems and drawing fascinating conclusions about the relationship of morality to political beliefs. But because they are scientists and empiricists rather than generalists in the humanities, the place from which ideas were customarily popularized, they suffer a double whammy: not only the whammy against ideas generally but the whammy against science, which is typically regarded in the media as mystifying at best, incomprehensible at worst. A generation ago, these men would have made their way into popular magazines and onto television screens. Now they are crowded out by informational effluvium.

No doubt there will be those who say that the big ideas have migrated to the marketplace, but there is a vast difference between profit-making inventions and intellectually challenging thoughts. Entrepreneurs have plenty of ideas, and some, like Steven P. Jobs of Apple, have come up with some brilliant ideas in the “inventional” sense of the word.

Still, while these ideas may change the way we live, they rarely transform the way we think. They are material, not ideational. It is thinkers who are in short supply, and the situation probably isn’t going to change anytime soon.

We have become information narcissists, so uninterested in anything outside ourselves and our friendship circles or in any tidbit we cannot share with those friends that if a Marx or a Nietzsche were suddenly to appear, blasting his ideas, no one would pay the slightest attention, certainly not the general media, which have learned to service our narcissism.

What the future portends is more and more information — Everests of it. There won’t be anything we won’t know. But there will be no one thinking about it.

Think about that.

Idea Log 20082011

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Dezeen was launched at the end of November 2006 and has grown rapidly to become one of the most popular and influential architecture and design blogs on the internet. We now get over two million visits a month, and traffic is doubling every year.

Dezeen was included in Time magazine’s Design 100 list of the most influential forces in global design (below), and in Design Week magazine’s Hot 50 list of key figures in design.

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The Dezeen story: Dezeen was started as a simple blog in 2006 by Marcus Fairs, author of Twenty-First Century Design (published October 2006 and republished in June 2009) and Green Design (published March 2009) and former founding editor of icon magazine.

In 2007 he was joined by Rupinder Bhogal and together they set up Dezeen Limited, which they now run as co-directors. They launched the recruitment site Dezeenjobs in 2008, followed by Dezeen Watch Store in 2010.

http://www.dezeenjobs.com/ ; well since I may not ever work as an Architect thought someone else might be looking. They have some pretty good posting here. Below is only photo clipping. You will not be able to access it here. You will have to go to the 'dezeenjobs' website; it is only a snap shot for those interested.

 

Idea Log 19082011

Like TiVos and Game Boys, iPods have rapidly gained popularity, but is an entire generation shutting itself off from the rest of the world? Maybe it's a cultural revolution, on the level of Douglas Coupland’s Generation X. Maybe it's the iGeneration. On the cutting edge of this phenomenon, Jason Logan has created a series of poignant illustrations and captions chronicling his observations of this revolutionary culture.

You can usually find Jason Logan 's illustrations in the Globe and Mail's Life section; generally last page  and that is how I discovered him.

Idea Log 18082011

Empress Myeongseong (19 October 1851 – 8 October 1895), also known as Queen Min, was the first official wife of King Gojong, the twenty-sixth king of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. In 1902 she received the posthumous name Hyoja Wonseong Jeonghwa Hapcheon Honggong Seongdeok Myeongseong Taehwanghu often abbreviated as Myeongseong Hwanghu (Hangul: 명성황후, Hanja: 明成皇后), meaning Empress Myeongseong.

The Japanese considered her an obstacle against its overseas expansion. Efforts to remove her from the political arena, orchestrated through failed rebellions prompted by the father of King Gojong, Heungseon Daewongun (an influential regent working with the Japanese), compelled the Empress to take a harsher stand against Japanese influence.

After Japan's victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, Queen Min advocated stronger ties between Korea and Russia in an attempt to block Japanese influence in Korea, which was represented by Daewongun. Miura Gorō, the Japanese Minister to Korea at that time and a retired army lieutenant-general, backed the faction headed by the Daewongun, whom he considered to be more sympathetic to Japanese interests.

In the early morning of October 8, 1895, sword-bearing assassins, allegedly under orders from Miura Gorō, entered Gyeongbok Palace. Upon entering the Queen's Quarters (Okhoru Pavilion), the assassins "killed three court [women] suspected of being Empress Myeongseong. When they confirmed that one of them was the Empress, they burned the corpse in a pine forest in front of the Okhoru Pavilion, and then dispersed the ashes." She was 43 years old. 

In South Korea, there is renewed interest in her life because of recent novels, TV drama (the above video): "Empress Myeongseong" with 124 episodes and musical: The Last Empress; movie> The Sword With No Name is also said to be based on the life of the empress but heard the love story is fictional.

 *I was going through my items from Korea when I found a couple of leaflets from the National Palace Museum and found  a picture of the Gold Seal of the Empress Myeong Seong and decided to google it. I found so much about her. She truly is an inspiration and she was so strong. I know about the history and it is so painful and no matter what I don't think anyone deserves to die like she did. I was thinking of watching the drama but just 10mins of the video made me cry non-stop. I would highly recommend you read the entire article on Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Myeongseong and I'd love to read the book on her. To add, it was during her reign that Ehwa Womans' University (I talk about in last month's post) was set up.

Idea Log 16082011

What It Means to Ship

The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship. Shipping means hitting the publish button on your blog, showing a presentation to the sales team, answering the phone, selling the muffins, sending out your references. Shipping is the collision between your work and the outside world. The French refer to esprit d'escalier, the clever comeback that you think of a few minutes after the moment has passed. this is unshipped insight, and it doesn't count for much.

The Contradiction Between Shipping and Changing the World

Sometimes, shipping feels like a compromise. You set out to make a huge difference, to create art that matters and to do your best work.

Then a deadline arrives and you have to cut it short. Is shipping that important?

I think it is. I think the discipline of shipping is essential in the long-term path to becoming the indispensable. While some artists manage to work for years or decades and actually ship something important, far more often we find the dreams of art shattered for the resistance. We give in to the fear and our art ends up lying in a box somewhere, unseen.

When you first adopt the discipline of shipping, your work will appear to suffer. There's no doubt that another hour, day, or week would have added some needed polish. But over time- rather quickly, actually- you'll see that shipping becomes part of the art and shipping makes it work. Saturday Night Live goes on each week, ready or not. The show is live, and it's on Saturday. No screwing around about shipping. There are no do-overs, no stalls, no delays. Sometimes the show suffers, of course, but on balance, it's the shipping (built right into the name) tht actually makes the show work.

Not shipping on behalf of your goal of changing the world is often a symptom of the resistance. Call its bluff, ship always, and then change the world.

(Seth Godin, Linchpin; pg. 102-103) 

also read: http://governmentgirl1943lp.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/idea-log-07082011

Idea Log 12082011

 
Architect Allyn E. Morris' gorgeous and compact Silver Lake home and studio, which is situated on the architecturally impressive Silver Ridge Street, is for sale.

Morris, who was an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, fused his own aesthetic from training as an engineer with the more organic principles of his famous teacher. He also worked with Calvin C. Straub, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr., decades after he had become famous in his own right, according to Crosby Doe Associates, who is listing the Silver Lake property. While Morris did not receive as much attention as some of his peers during his lifetime, he is still recognized as an extremely talented architect, as evidenced by this article in The Architect's Newspaper. His Silver Lake home has been published in six different journals, books, and magazines, including Architectural Digest and An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles.*

The Silver Lake property, built in 1958, has been lovingly preserved by its current owner in order to maintain the architect's original vision. The one-bedroom, one-and-three-fourths-bath studio home has numerous large windows that offer beautiful views of Mount Baldy and the San Gabriel Mountains. The lush foliage of these surrounding hills delicately balances out the warm hues of the brick structure. The house has an airy two-story living room and open kitchen and dining area, as well as a lower ground-floor office.

The 1,026 square-foot home is currently listed for $668,000 on Redfin. You can learn more about the home at its website, designed by Scott Mayoral.

Photos provided courtesy of Michael D. Phillips of Crosby Doe Associates.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/architect-allyn-morris-mo_n_876393.html#s291466

*I was gifted a coffee table book on my return from Korea and this house by Allyn  Morris was in it. It caught my eye and thought of researching it online and I can't believe it has just been put on the market. According to the book it is owned by film-maker Stephen Chin, originally from Toronto, and is featured in pages 18-23 of the book:

Idea Log 10082011

from •MIDLIFE CRISIS AT 30 by Lia Macko & Kerry Rubin• pg 213-235
CHAPTER 9: Changing Direction

When developing his theory of inertia, Galileo found that an object in motion must stop - however briefly - before it can change direction. We are no different. Many women feel that they are stuck, charging along in the wrong jobs or relationships, or are frustrated that their personal or professional lives are not moving forward as they had planned.

[In this chapter]

These members of the New Girls' Club have mastered the art of deliberate living by hitting "pause" and taking the time to identify areas of their lives they would like to change. Their inspiring stories prove that personal or professional reinvention is easier than you might imagine and that engaging in strategic thought about change can produce swift, clear results.

[Personalities mentioned: Ali Wentworth, Karen Hilyard, Susan Love, Lisa Gersh Hall, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lori Nelson, Chaka Khan]

Idea Log 08082011

YOU ARE A BOX of CEREAL

You are a stamping press, a gearbox, a software package, a cebtrifuge, or an electric motor. You are a box of cornflakes competing with every other cereal to catch the eye of the customer, to get plucked off the shelf, to get purchased.
You are a product.
When companies hire, they make an investment. Hiring someone is precisely like buying any productivity-improving product. Just as the hiring company wants its investment in a new retail store design to increase sales, so too it wants its investment in people to increase sales. Just as the hiring company expects its investment in new CAD/CAM software to reduce production costs, it wants its investment in new people to eliminate scrap and waste.
You are a product and the employer is the customer, the buyer. You are a product the customer will buy if the customer feels good about you, and if you solve a problem. As with a box of cereal, the customer will feel good about you if he or she likes your packaging. And your packaging, because you are you, is how you look, listen, learn, laugh. The customer will feel good about you if you fit the organization's culture, if you have "chemistry," and if you ask thoughtful questions. The customer will feel good about you if you have done your homework, and if you are enthusiastic about betting some of your life on the hiring company. More importantly, however, the customer-the hiring organization-will only hire you if they think you can solve their problem, if you will their need. You are a product the customer will buy if you are afforable, and if in solving his problem the customer will earn more from your work than the amount of money you will be paid for that work.
You are not a robot, but you will be purchased as if you were a robotic assembly machine.

(Taken from How to Land your Dream Job by Jeffrey J. Fox; pg 26-27)

Idea Log 07082011

I am currently reading Seth Godin's Linchpin and I found this chapter to relate quite closely to my yesterday's topic of www.nycgarbage.com by creator Justin Gignac.

WHO IS It [art] FOR?  (pg. 94- 95)

Some artists work to change themselves. The process of making the art and the results produced are solely aimed at the creator. Whistling as you walk through the woods is a form of art, but you're not doing it hoping a squirrel will applaud.

Most of us, though, most of the time, make our art for an audience. We want to change someone else. We're seeking to make them happier, or more engaged, or a customer.

There are two reasons why it's vital to know whom you are working for. The first is that understanding your audience allows you to target your work and to get feedback that will help you do it better next time.

The other reason? Because it tells you whom to ignore.

It's impossible to make art for everyone. There are too manyconflicting goals and there's far too much noise. Art for everyone is mediocre, bland, and ineffective.

If you don't pinpoint your audience, you end up making your art for the loudest, crankiest critics. And that's a  waste. Instead, focus on the audience that you choose, and listen to them, to the exclusion of all others. Go ahead and make this sort of customer happy, and the other guys can go pound sand.

In the words of Ev Willams, founder of Blogger and Twitter,

The core thing would be just do something awesome. Try not to get caught up in the echo chamber. That is probably the toughest thing when you are trying to break out and do something original.

A lot of things are evolutionary, and it is easy to get caught up in what the geek subculture thinks. There's lots of valuable businesses that can be bought there, but I think that is where a lot of peiple tend to spin their wheels, and I've been caught up there before. When I've had more successful things, I've thought, "Back to basics. What do I want? What do I want to see in the world?" And create that.

Ev and Twitter didn't succeed at first. People didn't get it. What's the point? Where's the business model? And then, once the word spread, Twitter became the fastest-growing communications medium in history. Not because it followed a model, but because it broke one.

Some artists create.

Some artists seek a patron, someone who will help them pay the bills while they do their work.

Some artists think they need a boss. Someone who will not only pay them, but also tell them what to do. The moment this happens, the artist is no longer an artist.

An artist's job is to change us. When you have a boss, your job is to please the boss, not to change her. It's okay to have someone you work for, someone who watches over you, like someone in charge of your movements and your output, you are a cog, not an artist.

 

Idea Log 24072011

MORNING> SEOUL MUSEUM of ART

Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) is one of the most representative public museums in Seoul. The museum is a place for culture and art, which plans exhibitions that draw the interests from both professionals and the general public. Located in the heart of Jeongdong Street next to Duksugung Palace, SeMA is a cultural space that people can always enjoy the pleasure of art at the center of the busy city of Seoul.

SeMA has grown to be the representative museum of Seoul with various and high quality exhibitions. In addition to special exhibitions such as “Millet”, “Chagall” “Picasso”, “Monet”, “Van Gogh”, "Pompidou", "Renoir" and "Andy Warhol", SeMA has held diversified and quality planned exhibitions such as "International Media Art Biennale" which is drawing more attentions as a global exhibition, "City_net Asia", "SeMA Exhibition" and "Spring Outing Exhibition" and "the Korean Artists' Abstract Painting Exhibition" which captures the trend of art making SeMA as a representational museum in Seoul. 

 

2,800 pieces including the donations from Chun Kyung-Ja, Park Nosu, Kwon Young-Woo and Oh Seung-Woo are the basis for the our unique "SeMA Collection Exhibition". Every year, SeMA conducts systematic analysis and diagnosis to contribute to strengthening the competitive edge and identification of the museum with specialized and differentiated collection power.

Address  61, Deoksugung-gil (37, Seosomun-dong), Jung-gu, Seoul (zip code: 100-813)

 Telephone  (02) 120

 Email  [email protected] / http://seoulmoa.seoul.go.kr/global/eindex.jsp 

AFTERNOON> Deoksugung Palace

Introduction to DEOKSUGUNG (palace)

Located at the corner of Seoul's busiest downtown intersection, Deoksugung Palace is famous for its elegant stone-wall road. It is also the only palace that sits alongside a series of western style buildings that add to the uniqueness of the surrounding scenery. Deoksugung Palace originally belonged to Wolsandaegun (1454~1488), the older brother of King Seongjong (1469~1494) of the Joseon Dynasty. It became a proper palace when Gwanghaegun (1575~1641) ascended the throne and gave the palace the name Gyeongungung in 1611. Afterwards, the name was then changed back to its orginal title of Deoksugung. Upon entering Deoksugung Palace and Daehanmun, visitors will cross the wide bridge of Geumcheon. The king's carriage would pass over this bridge during ancient times. The Beopjeon Building Junghwajeon is very stately, revealing of its long history. The Jeukjodang Building received its name from Gwanghaegun and In-Jo both ascended to the throne here. The front sign on Jeukjodang was written personally by Go Jong in 1905 after he became king. Hamnyeongjeon was where Go Jong slept, and Hamnyeong was named so to wish Go Jong lasting peace. The East Wing served as the King’s room, and the west wing was for the Queen. Jeonggwanheon was the first western style building built in the palace in 1900. Go Jong enjoyed drinking coffee and spending his free time here. The back of the building had secret passageways to the Russian Emissary, which still exist today. Seokjojeon is the other western-style building that still remains in Deoksugung, and it was in the process of being built by a British man for his company when in 1905 the property rights were transferred to Japan. It was finally completed in 1910. After Gojong’s death, Seokjojeon became a Japanese art gallery open to the public. After the Korean Declaration of Independence, the American-Russian joint commission was held here as well in May 1946. The east wing of Seokjogwan building now serves as a Palace Treasure exhibition, and the west wing is used as part of National Modern Arts Center. The Junghwajeon (Junghwa Hall) was the center of politics during the period of Daehanjeguk (the Great Korean Empire) and served as the backdrop to critical discussions on national affairs among the country’s great leaders. The elaborateness of the hall’s interior is said to reflect the confidence of King Gojong (26th king of the Joseon Dynasty, reigning 1863-1907) in his ability to effectual lead the country into the 20th century. One of the most striking parts of the building is the pair of dragons that decorates the canopy above the throne of the king. These dragons can be also seen on the ceiling of Junghwajeon and were representative designs of the Deoksugung (Palace), the imperial palace at that time. Though the Junghwajeon was originally built in 1902 as a multi-roofed building, it was redesigned as a single-roofed building in 1906 after it caught on fire in 1904. The Junghwa Hall is one of the historical centers of Deoksugung (Palace), which stands proudly alongside other notable buildings at the palace, such as: Seokeodang, Junmyeongdang, Jeukjodang, Jeonggwanheon, Deokhongjeon, Borugak, and Jagyeokru. http://visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=264316

EVENING> NEW SEOUL CITY HALL (will expand later)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_City_Hall

http://english.seoul.go.kr/gtk/news/news_view.php?idx=6681

NIGHT> Cheonggyecheon Stream

Cheonggyecheon Stream used to exist merely as an overpass neglected in 1970 until it was restored in 2005, becoming a haven of natural beauty amidst the bustle of city life. Narae Bridge, expressing a butterfly in flight, and Gwanggyo Bridge, symbolizing the harmony of the past and future, are just two of the more than twenty beautiful bridges featured along the path of the stream. The ‘Rhythmic Wall Stream’, lined with fine marble, various sculptures, and Korea’s 8th stone building, Palseokdam, adorn the Cheonggyecheon Stream. Cheonggyecheon Stream offers many beautiful sights to see and enjoy: l The grand fountain, located in Cheonggye Plaza l Dapgyonori on the Gwangtong Bridge - a ritual of crossing the bridge on the first full moon of the new year to ensure that for one year, the one who crosses will not have any leg ailments. l A ceramic mural of a king making a grand voyage to Hwaseong, Jeongjobanchando l A colorful cloth wall made of fabrics from Dongdaemun’s fashion district l A cultural wall painting by 5 local artists l A reproduction of an area where folk woman used to do their laundry l A wishing wall, where more than 20,000 people have written their deepest desires l A tunnel fountain l Jonchigyogak, an angle of intersection left behind when the Cheonggye overpass was removed l The aquatic life dwelling among the willows Furthermore, the Deoksugung Palace, Seoul Plaza, the Sejong Center, Insa-dong Street, the Changdeokgung Palace, and the Changgyeonggung Palace all lie adjacent to the Cheonggyecheon Stream, allowing visitors to easily visit the tourism sites after a leisurely stroll along the stream. http://visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=264625