Grock! I got this from my twitter stream but can't remember who linked to it. This is pure frigging awesome win 
Design
LOST: Faux opening credits produced in 1967
What I learned in Philly's 14th Ward about language, class and the interfaces of political power
This is cross-posted at TechPresident
Yesterday I wrote about getting Lost In Hillaryland while driving down to Philadelphia to volunteer for the Obama campaign. In that post at Kenneth Cole’s Awearness Blog, I write about how after the mini-adventure of the day, my oldest came to the same conclusion as Joe Trippi : that Obama was going to lose.
My son’s observation was the most interesting part of the whole trip because it lent credit to my recent thinking of “politics as interfaceâ€.
Let’s look quickly at the definition of interface :
in·ter·face
(Än'tÉ™r-fÄs') Pronunciation Key
n.
1. A surface forming a common boundary between adjacent regions, bodies, substances, or phases.2. A point at which independent systems or diverse groups interact: "the interface between crime and politics where much of our reality is to be found" (Jack Kroll).
3. Computer Science
1. The point of interaction or communication between a computer and any other entity, such as a printer or human operator.
2. The layout of an application's graphic or textual controls in conjunction with the way the application responds to user activity: an interface whose icons were hard to remember.
An interface is a “surface forming a common boundaryâ€, a space that is not only a common space but a mesh of space and communication. As the Java handbook to object-oriented programming explains rather well, an interface is not just the end result of a design process. Interfaces don’t come from the outside of the software process. It is part of the process itself.
So the surface that creates a common boundary is not outside two distinctive people or two distinctive groups. An interface is not something that is given to a “userâ€. An interface is a meshing of actions or simply put, it’s a two way street.
“Politics as interface†would be the meshing of actions, states of beings and phases between individuals, groups or even systems negotiating power. As a space of communication and as a meshing of actions, states of beings, wills and desires for power, politics as interface is developed all the time.
Politics as interface in Hillaryland is in the box of buckshot lighters gracing the gas station attendant’s counter. Politics as interface in Hillaryland is certainly the senior women holding posters saying “Honk for Hillaryâ€.
Yet Politics as interface in Hillaryland was the absence of sidewalks down Cedar Road, the expansive manicured front lawns with their mansions in the background and the “Hillary†signs cleaving the dirt in the foreground. It was the absence of white people in the small crowds waiting with exhausted looks on their faces for the bus to come. And it was certainly the meshing sights on the road to Philly of million dollar mansions, to quaint family homes to the “We buy ugly houses†signs next to boarded up brownstones and row after row after row of broken down and abandoned buildings on North Broad Street.
When we got lost in Hillaryland, my son was very keen and very much aware of who had the upper hand in expressing power. And it became even more obvious to him when we went canvassing on the 14th Ward.
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Education IS Democratic Engagement
Famously opposed educators come together:
"Our macro-level differences do not interfere with our mutual respect for each other’s work.
That itself is something we hope our schools can help teach young people.
Our differences helped us consider ways to rethink our ideas and find places where those holding different views might compromise, and perhaps learn to live under one umbrella.
What we hope to model is the idea of democratic engagement, the notion that citizens need to think about and debate their beliefs and values with others who do not necessarily share all of them.
We want the issues connected to schooling to be a matter for discussion among all people who care.
We don’t have it in our power to solve the problems that confront American education—not those that take place within the schoolhouse, much less those that have a direct impact on children’s ability to learn, such as their unequal access to health care, housing, and myriad other life necessities.
But we hope that we have it in our power to provoke the thinking that must precede, accompany, and follow any attempt
The Circle of Sur-Real Life
There's nothing like it! The old, the new, the coming-soon and the never-was blend seamlessly. Multidiscipline, multicultural and lingual, multieverything. I think Cirque du Soleil shows are incomparable even to each other, though the NYTimes review of "Corteo" opening last night suggests it's the only comparison we should even attempt.
[quote=John Rockwell]Drawing, like other major circuses, from the same international pool of small traveling circuses and circus schools, augmented by fresh talent from Eastern Europe and Asia, Cirque du Soleil has elevated the once marginal and innovative "new circus" experiments of Europe into an international brand name.
The Cirque format has surpassed the older-fashioned. . .
This is another exercise in slightly fey Cirque fantasizing
. . . accompanied by the sort of music mimes would make if mimes made music.[/quote]
I saw their resort show at DisneyWorld's Pleasure Island a few years ago, from the equivalent of center court, only three rows from the stage -- at any moment I was sure the tower of 50 chairs would fall directly on my head or a careening vehicle would drive off the lipless edge into my lap. And performers did come into the seats from all directions, you never quite knew what was coming or what it meant. Talk about live!
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