Identity and media

Mary is a little worried about Alexander’s presentation at next month's conference.
...
Mary: You’re going to talk about what?

Alexander: Identity.

Mary: But it’s a media conference. Bit off-topic, wouldn’t you think? What’s identity got to do with media?

Alexander: Well, some people who are not normally aggressive, get quite insulting when they’re emailing or texting someone they don’t know, never met before. Others make up multiple identities, and seem to gain confidence. Media changes the concept of identity.

Mary: Hmm.

Alexander: And it might lead to a book. Even a documentary film. “Talk. We can all do it better.”

Mary: Use media and find a new you?

Alexander: I think you are making fun of the idea.

Mary (peels into peals of laughter): Oh, no. Oh no. Alexander, never.
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Voiceover

Topics for discussion at conferences often cover a broad range of subjects. Perspectives from scholars in slightly removed fields of study can throw light in dark corners. Putting it another way, burrow too deeply into a subject, and you can end up not being able to see the wood for the trees.

But Mary, who writes a popular geek blog, doesn’t quite appreciate Alexander’s poetic approach.
…

Sounds of silence

Amber finds the city noisy, Mike is exhausted after shopping.

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Amber: She was attacked when she politely asked some youngsters to turn down their karaoke amplifier.

Mike: Technology can amplify the useful, & the good. But it can also amplify nonsense and thuggish behavior.

Amber: Noise can drive people to desperate measures. I read in the Post that a doctor in Songkhla was among 7 people shot dead when they were drinking & playing music loudly after midnight.

Mike: And it can cause anything from ringing in the ears to mental breakdown.

Amber: It’s nice we agree about this at least. Silence is good. Pity there aren't places to go where it is quiet instead of you having to buy me noise canceling headphones.

_____________

Voiceover

Mike’s point about technology amplifying both good and bad behavior strikes a chord. A music system that can broadcast Bach is equally capable of generating a woofer-driven boom to houses a kilometer away.

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Football and politics

Gordon and Tony make small talk before the cabinet meeting.

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Tony: You look a bit wrecked. Up all night?

Gordon: Spurs won! Bit of celebrating.

Tony: I know. Nice penalty straight ahead in the final minute.

Gordon: Best way to do it. Goalies are 25% more likely to dive right or left than stay in the middle.

Tony: Message in that maybe? Put the reshuffle on the top of the agenda and don't hide it in a corner?

Gordon: Let's get this meeting over with. Manchester United are on at 2 o'clock.

__________

Voiceover

You’ve got to be one of the boys. To do a good job from the office you have to get the respect of those on the shop floor. And you can’t fake it. That’s a betrayal and will do you a lot of harm. Tony can relate what happened but Gordon was right inside that goalie's head.

…

Metal fatigue

Miguel asks Lance about his thoughts on aluminum frames.

Miguel: I know aluminum is good. That’s not an issue. But I was reading the manual and it said that the frame should last at least two years. And yet they give a lifetime guarantee.

Lance: Probably just covering themselves from legal action. Maybe serious racers put more stress on the frames.

Miguel: But does lifetime guarantee cover accidents?

Lance: Not accidents. Faulty workmanship, yes. But if they see truck tire marks over a crushed frame they won’t give you a free new one.

Miguel: So then I asked about fatigue, metal fatigue, and there was some humming and hawing.

Lance: Yeah?

Miguel: And they said under fair use, fatigue wouldn’t set in for many years.

Lance: Avoiding the issue, eh? Anyway, the only way to check for fatigue is to cut up the frame, dye the metal and examine under a microscope. Best thing is, you should do a regular visual check on the frame, especially around the bottom bracket and the steering head.

Miguel: Steering head? I was talking about sunglass frames.

Wherewhere and Erewhon

Hoo has just driven over the Taihape to Napier Road and is pretty pleased with himself.

…

Hoo: I’d never done it before.

Wat: You sixty and you never been Taihape Napier?

Hoo: My father say people go missing. They start at Taihape but they never arrive in Napier. Now I know why.

Wat: You know why?

Hoo: They all went off down Wherewhere Road. No Exit. Massive graveyard at end.

Wat: I heard it because they all end up at Erewhon.

Hoo: Erewhon.

Wat: 20 ks further on. Nowhere spelled backwards. Well, half backwards.

Hoo (shrugging): Who knows?

__________

Voiceover

Although Samuel Butler (1835-1902) did not farm Erewhon Station (he was a sheep farmer on Mesopotamia Station in Canterbury), out here on the Napier-Taihape Road the old New Zealand exists much as he might have viewed it in the 1860s. Ah the old New Zealand. Everything that Modern Auckland (Sodom and Gomorrah?) is not. Sky, hills, rivers, some sheep, overpowering emptiness. Here, it is hard to believe as Butler prophesied that machines will eventually replace man in ruling the planet and such concerns are hardly the stuff of farmers’ conversations. The farmers might seem to have had a bit of fun with place names in the area but the Wherewhere Road is likely a Maori name.

Corrugated iron gumboot

Entering Taihape, Enid is struck by a gumboot.

...
Enid: Is that a...?
Nobby: A gumboot, yes. What else could it be?
Enid: It's made of ...?
Nobby: Corrugated iron.
Enid: It's a symbol!
Nobby: Dead right. It's Taihape's identity. Everything is made of corrugated iron and everyone gets around in gumboots.
Enid: Don't they, well, care?
Nobby: About how they look? The impression they make? They're proud of it. Rome has its Collosseum, Sydney has its opera house, and Taihape, well, Taihape has its corrugated iron gumboot.

_________

Voiceover

Cultural identity may arise from historical events, people, activities, or artifacts. Taihape, in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand, doesn’t have such a long history, being established in 1894, and a current population of about 2000 people. Despite being a pretty country town set in picturesque scenery, the name "Taihape" has connotations of being the archetypal remote, rural New Zealand community. Some citizens decided not to react defensively to such attitudes, rather in fact to glorify its identity which is now enshrined in gumboot “sculptures” and an annual “Gumboot Day” being held since 1985 on the first Tuesday after Easter.

Gumboots as identity? The chorus of Fred Dagg’s Gumboot song still reverberates in my head from the 1970s:

“If it weren't for your gumboots, where would ya be?

You'd be in the hospital or infirmary

'coz you would have a dose of the 'flu, or even pleurisy

If ya didn't have yer feet in yer gumboots.”

...

Indicator bars for rating conversation

AlainP, a wine analyst, is telling DenisD, a conversation analyst, about a rating system for wine involving indicator bars.

...

AlainP: It’s a five point scale. Runs from light bodied through medium bodied to full bodied. It’s on the label at the back of the bottle.

Light bodied

Medium bodied

Full bodied

DenisD: I could use that idea. Couple the Likert scale to a rating system for conversation as art.

AlainP: And what would body equal?

DenisD: Body could be like information. Running from something already known through clarified facts to new and startling new insight.

Already known

Clarified facts

Startling new insight

But wine has other rating categories besides body?

AlainP: Of course. There is a scale for palatability, taste, ranging from sweet to dry.

DenisD: And I think for conversation I need other categories too. Perhaps attitude, running from attack to empathy, shall we say?

AlainP: And style, do not forget style.

DenisD: Yes, yes. We could go from wooden or formulaic through amusing to highly original and/or witty.
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Storytelling by mobile phone

Going up the Damascus elevator, Benoit has a revelation.

...

Benoit (talking to himself, looking up at the advertisement): Nokia N82: Storytelling rediscovered. Well, well.

Man wearing Dubai hat: Excuse me.

Benoit: Sorry.

Man wearing Dubai hat: Shukran.

Benoit (continuing to voiceover himself): Story telling was an oral tradition once. People told stories. Then we had drama, then we had movies, now we have telephones telling a story. Huh. What sort of stories can telephones tell? Jokes like "Ring, ring, Who's there?" Who do they tell the story to? Other telephones? Will humans soon be out of the loop?

...

Songs of street peddlers

Joel records the songs and chants street peddlers perform.

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Kristina: Why do you do this? They are hardly high art.

Joel: Oh, but some of them come close. They've evolved over hundreds of years many of them. There's the steamed sweet potato chant I particuarly like. [sings] Imo. Mushi yaki imo.

Kristina. Nice. Almost like a lament.

Joel: Everyone knows it. OK, that's a Japanese one but the Chinese have a lot too.

Kristina: You only record their sounds? You don't videotape them?

Joel: Next step. Find the performers, get permission, set up a location, performance.

Kristina: And pay them?

_________

Voiceover

Joel, on a dockside, is explaining the selling side of street theater to Kristina and the need to record examples of these before they disappear. Historically, outdoor advertising chants, in Japan, China, or anywhere, were and often are brushed aside as being associated with merchants or hawking, yet in comparative hindsight, these might have been often a gentler, more humane and artistic performance art than the amplified jingles of contemporary commercialism. There is a need to separate antecedents from modern progenitors. Or, ancestors may sometimes be worthier than then their descendants.

...

Chris Pirillo chat

Chris Pirillo tries out some new speakers on his webcammed show.

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Chris: I'm back, speakers are working now

nick: who let the dogs out!!

fred: chair looks good, hey chris, wot UR chair?

boohoo: battlestar galactica opening scene

Chris: It’s a Grahl Synchron 8.

Vee12: U type fast

Nick: play who let the dogs out!!!!!

Chris: Tempur foam available at an upcharge. I type fast.

burmese29: does anyone know to change a nickname?

Nick: good sub test: play who let the dogs out!!!!!

GoblinAce: You may change your nick by typing /nick followed by the nickname you want, and hitting enter. Example: /nick newnickgoeshere

___________

Voiceover

Will exchanges like these change the way rules of F2F spoken conversation? I have to say Chris Pirillo is a master multitasker.
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Where are you going?

Driving up the dirt road, with her friend Casey, Rachel suddenly sees a very old bent lady walking with a stick. She stops and pushes the old lady into the car.

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Rachel: Where are you going?

Old lady: [points towards the shops]

Rachel: I’ll drop you at the supermarket. OK?

Old lady: Thank you, thank you.

Later...

Casey: That was a beautiful thing to do.

Rachel: It’s not difficult. She was walking up the road, we were driving up the road, so you stop and put her in the car and take her where she’s going.

Casey: Not everyone would stop.

Rachel: Keep your eyes open. There’s a lot going on we are usually too busy to think about.

___________

Voiceover

Sometimes we are too shy to offer help, or worry that it might cause problems. Casey might be such a person. Hence her admiration for someone like Rachel who acts spontaneously and gets stuck in even when it brings problems. As Rachel says, she tries to help everyone, and even though she gets taken advantage of sometimes, she learns a lot from constantly coming into contact with new people.

Perhaps speaking styles reflect this. There are those who guard what they say, are constantly editing out content. Then there are others who plunge ahead and take care of problems as they arise. Maybe it depends who you are speaking to. It probably pays to be careful of your phrasing when dealing with the police or insurance companies (the former are just waiting for a chance to slam you, and the latter are just waiting for you to slip in an ambiguity so they can slam the door). However, in the conversational arena there’s a lot to be learned when you bump up against people.

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Bear out of hibernation

Jake, an acquaintance of Boris and Leonid, has been killed in a bear attack. In January.

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Boris: He was just taking a two-day holiday!

Leonid: We know that much. And that he was killed by bear. What is puzzling is how he came to be where he was, in a forest, and what a bear was doing out of hibernation in January.

Boris: According to the lodge owner, Jake goes skiing the first day. Then he goes back in the evening and says, “I’m getting too old for all this downhill speed. And these skifields are not very ecologically friendly. They cut down the trees and run those lifts. Isn’t there a gentler winter sport?” And the lodge-owner says, “I’m sixty, like you. Let me suggest an eco-friendly activity. Snowshoeing.”

Leonid: And that’s what he was doing when the bear jumped him?

Boris: Right. So he sets off snowshoeing through the forest on the second day. The winter is warmer than usual and a bear comes out of hibernation. But this is January. Never been seen before. The bear is hungry and jumps him.

Leonid: Bears run fast, even through snow. And Jake couldn’t run away on snowshoes.

Boris: Double punch. He's trying to do his bit to reduce levels of CO2 and gets caught by one of the results of global warming.

_______

Voiceover

Irony, in this case, signifies the incongruity of actions and results. Jake was trying to avoid non-green activities. What he was struggling to put right set off a chain of events which was his undoing. We feel for the victim but this lends a satisfying symmetry to the story’s causal chain.

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Company names

Aminata and Mariam continue their discussion about what to call Aminata’s company.

...

Mariam: So what’s it going to be?

Aminata: Well, since I’m going to sell telephones so I thought of The Telephone Company.

Mariam: Bit ordinary, trifle generic. How about 1-2 CALL?

Aminata: Another company already got that. Naming is not easy. You know, a lot are just named after their founder, like Ford.

Mariam: Lots are acronyms like IBM.

Aminata: And many are just plain misleading. Boots don’t make shoes, Apple doesn’t sell fruit, Caterpillar doesn’t run butterfly shops.

_________

Voiceover

Thinking of a name, for babies or companies, requires time. “Microsoft” and “Berkshire-Hathaway” have acquired authority as time has made them two of the wealthiest and successful companies in the U.S. But if they weren’t, we might notice novel names like Apple and Xerox instead.

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Published

The author meets the editor to pick up advance copies.

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Editor: Here. They do look good. Black cover and all.

Author: Yes.

Editor: You gave us an idea. We could put the conversations up on the Internet as podcasts.

Author: That’s way it’s going. The book is just becoming a gateway. An entry ticket.

"The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed."

Editor: Who said that?

Author: William Gibson. It's in the book.

_______

Voiceover

The blog that morphed into a book. An editor who has a an idea of linking print to podcasts. An author who wants to do the next book as a book as a multimedia package (a book with a DVD of the conversations inside the back cover). Perhaps the future is arriving earlier than we expected.

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