Convergences
Over my lifetime, I have collected images that have informed me about the way life has been lived. … In a way, art taught me how to look at life, and life has taught me to look more closely at art.
Joel Meyerowitz on Open Source
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
When Chris was watching the 1960 Godard film Breathless recently, he came to a sudden, shocking realization: that the tanned, reckless, handsome, windswept leading man, Jean-Paul Belmondo, was JFK… that he oozed the same golden boy ethos as Jack and Bobby, referencing Sinatra and anticipating JFK Jr… that there was such thing as a zeitgeist, and this was it.
A windswept JFK [Round Hill Jamaica]
Belmondo in Breathless [Girl Hattan / Flickr]
If you take an unlikely, striking pair of images (or events or characters or historical moments) that in some way resonate or relate or come together, you have what author Lawrence Weschler calls a convergence. Weschler is a writer who draws upon a vast store of visual, political, historic, and cultural knowledge in his well-crafted books and essays, on subjects ranging from the painter David Hockney to the Iraqi expat Kanan Makiya. Now he’s made a study and practice of finding convergences, and waxing philosophic on their varied meanings.
He takes Mark Rothko’s desolate abstracted landscapes and contemplates their eerie similarity to images broadcast back from the 1969 moon landing. It’s not just that they look the same. It’s that one suggests the other, and that we can see the emptiness and loneliness of these now-historic images through the eyes of a suicidal man. “A convergence can start like that with a simple visual rhyme,” Weschler says. “But it doesn’t become a convergence until the rhyme starts to generate a surrounding poem of filigreed associations.”
More often than not the seed is visual, but it doesn’t have to be. Weschler’s grandfather was “the Austrian emigré Weimar modernist” composer Ernst Toch, and in his grandfather’s music and his own writing he finds many moments of convergence.
When I’m alone, typing at my keyboard, I often hear music in my head — especially as my pieces approach their climaxes — and almost invariably the music in question (when I stop to think about it) turns out to be my grandfather’s. In fact, in retrospect, there are passages of my own prose that turn out, in pacing and melody and formfulness, to be virtual transcriptions of passages from his quartets or symphonies. As I say, it can get to be a bit disquieting.
Lawrence Weschler, Transom, 8/04
Bear with us here, because this is something of a high-concept show. We’re going to talk about convergences, and we want to hear yours – your own moments of sudden shock when two seemingly disparate moments, images, figures, phrases of music or text come together in a way that’s eerily prophetic and almost poetic. We’ll have a list of our own – and Lawrence Weschler’s – to draw upon as well. McSweeny’s, which is publishing Weschler’s book, sponsored a competition for the best convergences, which is worth checking out. We’ve started a Convergences Group on flickr, where you can go and enjoy the fun of pairing unlikely images and drawing connections between the two. Greta and I have both posted some of our own. We’d love to see yours. (You can post your images and leave a note in the comment thread with links to the pictures.)
Lawrence Weschler
-
Author, Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences
Writer for The New Yorker
Joel Meyerowitz
Richard Taylor
-
Physicist, University of Oregon
Writes about the convergence between fractal geometry and abstract expressionism
Thanks to cheesechowmain for pointing us in Taylor’s direction!
John Berger
free viagra
buy viagra online
generic viagra
how does viagra work
cheap viagra
buy viagra
buy viagra online inurl
viagra 6 free samples
viagra online
viagra for women
viagra side effects
female viagra
natural viagra
online viagra
cheapest viagra prices
herbal viagra
alternative to viagra
buy generic viagra
purchase viagra online
free viagra without prescription
viagra attorneys
free viagra samples before buying
buy generic viagra cheap
viagra uk
generic viagra online
try viagra for free
generic viagra from india
fda approves viagra
free viagra sample
what is better viagra or levitra
discount generic viagra online
viagra cialis levitra
viagra dosage
viagra cheap
viagra on line
best price for viagra
free sample pack of viagra
viagra generic
viagra without prescription
discount viagra
gay viagra
mail order viagra
viagra inurl
generic viagra online paypal
generic viagra overnight
generic viagra online pharmacy
generic viagra uk
buy cheap viagra online uk
suppliers of viagra
how long does viagra last
viagra sex
generic viagra soft tabs
generic viagra 100mg
buy viagra onli
generic viagra online without prescription
viagra energy drink
cheapest uk supplier viagra
viagra cialis
generic viagra safe
viagra professional
viagra sales
viagra free trial pack
viagra lawyers
over the counter viagra
best price for generic viagra
viagra jokes
buying viagra
viagra samples
viagra sample
cialis
generic cialis
cheapest cialis
buy cialis online
buying generic cialis
cialis for order
what are the side effects of cialis
buy generic cialis
what is the generic name for cialis
cheap cialis
cialis online
buy cialis
cialis side effects
how long does cialis last
cialis forum
cialis lawyer ohio
cialis attorneys
cialis attorney columbus
cialis injury lawyer ohio
cialis injury attorney ohio
cialis injury lawyer columbus
prices cialis
cialis lawyers
viagra cialis levitra
cialis lawyer columbus
online generic cialis
daily cialis
cialis injury attorney columbus
cialis attorney ohio
cialis cost
cialis professional
cialis super active
how does cialis work
what does cialis look like
cialis drug
viagra cialis
cialis to buy new zealand
cialis without prescription
free cialis
cialis soft tabs
discount cialis
cialis generic
generic cialis from india
cheap cialis sale online
cialis daily
cialis reviews
cialis generico
how can i take cialis
cheap cialis si
cialis vs viagra
levitra
generic levitra
levitra attorneys
what is better viagra or levitra
viagra cialis levitra
levitra side effects
buy levitra
levitra online
levitra dangers
how does levitra work
levitra lawyers
what is the difference between levitra and viagra
levitra versus viagra
which works better viagra or levitra
buy levitra and overnight shipping
levitra vs viagra
canidan pharmacies levitra
how long does levitra last
viagra cialis levitra
levitra acheter
comprare levitra
levitra ohne rezept
levitra 20mg
levitra senza ricetta
cheapest generic levitra
levitra compra
cheap levitra
levitra overnight
levitra generika
levitra kaufen
March 8th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
I’m not sure if these qualify, perhaps they’re happy accidents, odd coincidences, or derivations… just some cursory musings:
The expressionism of Jackson Pollock and the mathematics of Benoit Mandelbrat, Ralph Abraham, Heinz Otto Peitgen, et al. There is a strange ‘connection’ between Pollock’s drip paintings and the mathematics fractal geometry, chaos, and dynamic systems.
There’s a bunch of stuff out there on this, here are some links of interest:
http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/ap/topics/pollock.html
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/PHYSICS_!/FRACTAL_EXPRESSIONISM/fractal_taylor.html
http://plus.maths.org/issue9/news/pollock/
As software engineering has borrowed a great deal from many disciplines, it has in recent years borrowed from the architectural pattern language development of Christopher Alexander, which itself borrowed from many design principles and abstracted them into a pattern language. Perhaps this does not qualify, but I do wonder if convergences cannot be intentional, not simply relying upon the happy accident or the odd coincidence. I also wonder if the non-visual should be considered. Abstraction can converge at the level of the symbolic and linguistic.
I lack the capacity to articulate anything insightful about Quantum Mechanics, but I would instinctively think it would be fertile soil in this area. I should say that I am suspicious of finding patterns and relationships, because it does seem to be an activity which human beings might be predisposed to perform. However, this does not invalidate durable, robust patterns and our means for identifying them. And they can provide practical, as well as, aesthetic guidance. I guess that’s the fun and challenge of the exercise.
March 8th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Roops, I left out something. I first saw a Jackson Pollock painting when I was ten-ish years old. I was completely awestruck. It went way beyond language to direct feelings and emotion. It resonated with that internal thing: “Quality without a Name.” Moreover, I never internalized anything about the painter associated with these paintings. It was much later in life that I linked the paintings I saw as a child to a person, then to a cultural icon. The effect of these paintings for me were connected to my camping trips as a child and looking from a campfire into a treeline and then into a vast expanse of stars.
March 8th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
My illustrative convergence was today and in Jan06. I had been frustrated that a solution seemed possible, wondering: What is to be done. Then I thought out loud, typed in my thoughts, and boom! The solution was in Google.
It led to developing an idea, and I simply stuck with it; and then did the same today: What converged [ Click ]
My thought of convergence in text is simply knowing that there is the possibility of something new, then choosing to combine what is known with what can be: Simply building a bridge to something new. I had no idea what the specifics were, but then it appeared out of nowhere. It has now taken off: Here’s what’s happened in a few short weeks since January. I never could have imaged how quickly this would spread.
Yet, at the moment when I saw the answer I knew in my gut without a fiber of doubt it was possible — there was a way. I’ve never had that feeling before. And it keeps happening since. Curious you ask about convergence at the moment I’m most aware of what it means and have personally experienced as never before. I have a new single word to explain what has taken me many weeks to understand. Thanks!
March 9th, 2006 at 6:45 am
mmmkay, I think I get the concept.
Last fall I was granted an month long artist residency. It was quite an honor but I was starting to get worried because I was a whole week into it and I couldn’t paint a thing that I could stand to look at. Self-doubt was looming large. I took a break from trying to force it because it just wasn’t happening – I had access to Morris Graves library so I started reading, I looked at Tibetan mandalas and I walked around in circles in a labyrinth. Then it was raining hard and I was just standing at the window watching the rain hit the deck and suddenly I realized that the rain was making thousands of mandalas and I painted a simple watercolor painting that was my first genuine response to that environment and it broke me out of my funk.
I’ve uploaded the painting to my profile page so if you click my name you should see it.
March 9th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Hey, great posts so far guys.
It definitely seems like there’s something larger to be said about convergences between the natural world and the artistic world. I hope in the show we can tackle what it means when the works we create as artists somehow inadvertently mirror the rules of nature. They’re different branches of the observable world, but still, where does that come from? Both the fractal/Jackson Pollock piece and peggysue’s awesome painting (which you guys should check it out if you haven’t already) are good starting points for that conversation.
I love peggysue’s painting, but what I REALLY love is the way her convergence (mandalas, rain ripples, circular patterned paintings) converges with my convergence up on our flickr group…again, it’s the natural and the man made. A striking convergence there between yours and mine peggysue, no?
Cheesechowmain, I am inclined to think we as humans are pattern making machines, but that’s part of what makes this whole exercise so fun and rewarding. That’s probably a good question for this conversation as well: are we hard wired to spot/create convergences?
March 9th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
My first attempt to respond to this topic was to relate a story about a concert I had the luck to attend years ago. I never read the NY times review until, prompted by this topic, I went googling for a reference to the concert. But here’s a strange convergence from the review: “Listening to the Eighth Symphony’s [Henze] first movement is like following moving water in a rapids. There is a general direction, but progress is devious and various.”
My intention was to draw a parallel between Henze and musical impressionism: Debussy, Beethoven’s sixth, etc and the abstract expressionism movement. Anyway because I had such an overwelming connection to the moment, being totally absorbed in the flow of the piece and the pictures my brain was generating at the time, I came to the conclusion that I was having a convergent moment.
And now I can think of many such convergences: Neil Young’s Harvest and painting my bedroom walls in contrastingly bold colored panes (including the ceiling) back in ‘72. To this day I cannot hear “Old Man” without a vivid picture of that moment coursing through my consciousness.
So what of this temporal convergence ROS’rs?
And what’s with all the water? Are we really talking about fluid dynamics here?
March 9th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
damn’d HTML: here’s the link to the Henze 8th Symphony Premiere in Boston: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6D71139F93BA25753C1A965958260
March 9th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
Yes Robin, and thank you for your kind words. I looked at your photographs when I first checked out this topic then came back later to post. Maybe your images are what reminded me of painting raindrop patterns.
In that same group of paintings I painted chimes with sound waves expanding out from them the same way the ripples from drops of water expand.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Those expanding ripples also bring to mind the rings expanding outward from the center of a tree.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
More circles – when I worked on the editorial collective of the Earth First! Journal
I designed a cover with a circular saw overlapping a cross-section of a tree overlapping earth from space. Mandalas of deforestation.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
peggysue, as a child i first began drawing by drawing circular lines. later in life it seemed very natural because of the range of motion between my shoulder, wrist, & hand and it’s frequency in my external environment. is this synergistic or convergence? i dunno.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
oh, peggysue that’s a damn excellent painting. and robin the pictures are dynamite. thanks for sharing.
March 11th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
>>>If you take an unlikely, striking pair of images (or events or characters or historical moments) that in some way resonate or relate or come together, you have what author Lawrence Weschler calls a convergence.
March 11th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Interesting that most folks seem to find these in the visual arts and music. I find my ‘moments of convergence’ happen while I’m reading — and are very frequent. Today, I read a paragraph in a book on Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan acting as a conduit of supplies that quietly bled the Soviets and created a theocracy — and it hit me that Iranian assistance to Shiite militias bent on creating an Iraqi theocracy might put the U.S. in precisely the same position as the Soviets. It was a very strange feeling, seeing a successful US policy from the past very possibly become a current policy used against the US. I think that as the number of possibilities increase arithmetically, the combinations multiply exponentially. Weird!
March 12th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
cheeschow: thanks – and there is the zen brushwork meditation practiceenso one breath, one brush, one mind. a painted circle in one breath meaning everything and emptiness at the same time. when I painted all those circles I did find myself “breathing with my brushâ€?.
and speaking of breath(less)… I found it a quirky coincidence to be browsing the tiny DVD shelf in my small-town public library and find Breathless so I checked it out and watched it. It seemed most JFK toward the end, maybe because my most vivid memory of JFK is that famous black & white newsreel with the motorcade and the girl putting her hands over her face.
March 14th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
We connect unrelated dots as therapy, to help us believe that the world is less chaotic than it really is.
But recognizing, even forcing, convergences can be useful and practical. By taking lists of unrelated things and straining to find connections between them you can open up the mind. Blocked writers do this as an exercise, as do entrepreneurs trying to come up with new product ideas.
I guess the skill is knowing how to recognize which things are truly related and which are just tricks of the mind.
March 15th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Convergences on ROS: In November I found myself a refugee from intelligent design show thread posting in the thread that is forever warming up for “Morality, God-given or Evolved?” (I think it was Nikos who was hoping that the show never happens because of the odyssey the thread is on) My November post ended with this : “Maybe the Dalai Lama can help us”. The gist of my post was I saw God and morality as a unity, both evolving from the growth of human consciousness.
Peggysue, who identifies herself as Buddhist, picks up in January with a post quoting the Dalai Lama.
I tune out of the thread (I said my piece) but watch the number of posts growing.
Finally it’s end of February, posts are growing, no show yet, and my curiosity gets the better of me. I read the whole thread and it took awhile but don’t test me on it. Towards the end Nikos is having a hard time convincing Jazzman that Darwinian Evolution is scientifically proven, not a belief or the “just-so story” that Jazzman claims it to be.
The thread happens to attract Vijtable, who posts for the first time in late February “out of the blue” and gives a knowledgeable and convincing explanation of evolution particularly with regard to the evolution of species part that Jazzman is questioning, calling it a “just so storyâ€?.
The discussion gets into a much more interesting and deep and quite wonderful discussion of Buddhism. Vijtable is a practicing Buddhist, very articulate.
I am cleaning out a bookshelf the other day and this book falls out and I wonder if I should get rid of it. Title: “Centering, in Pottery, Poetry and the Person” by M.C. Richards. I never could get into it- something about Richards writing turned me off. I open the very first page and there is a quote from Goethe:
“Dann man gerade nur denkt, wenn, das woruber man denkt,_man gar nicht ausdanken kann”
(Then only are we really thinking when the subject on which we are thinking cannot be thought out)
- Goethe
Wow! Isn’t this a Buddhist concept? I post it on the thread. Okay no one comments. I Google “Goethe and Buddhism” out of curiosity and find this by one guru Sangharakshita :
If Buddhism is to be integrated into Western society Buddhist ideas of this fundamental kind, which have been known to strike those previously unacquainted with them with the force of a revelation, will have to become familiar to all educated Europeans and Americans. Moreover, we shall have to establish, wherever possible, connections between Buddhist ideas and concepts of Western origin, as I have done in the case of the Buddhist idea of conditionality, mundane and transcendental, and the Western concept of evolution. We shall have to be able to recognize the Buddhistic nature of some of the insights of Western philosophers, poets, novelists, and dramatists. Goethe, for example, has some interesting comments on self-education and self-transformation – a subject of central importance in Buddhism. The bridge between East and West must be built from both sides.
http://www.fwbo.org/sangharakshita/buddhism_in_the_west.html
On the Google page there are numerous references to Goethe and Buddhism, one is with regard to interpreting Goethe’s Faust from a Buddhist POV.
And this passage: I met my teacher Maida. This does not mean that I have learned a doctrine called “Buddhism” from him. I have not received any fixed idea or thought from him. The only thing I learn from Maida is the spirit of a perfect student. He was nothing but a student. His humble spirit of a student has challenged all the ideas, notions, and opinions that I cherish. I have been reduced to an ignorant student. I have gained a position in which I can appreciate all kinds of teachers and teachings. He encourages me to discover “innumerable Buddhas in the ten directions” such as Shakyamuni, Shinran, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gandhi, and Schweizer, and study under them.
From here What is a Buddhist?
East and West are converging in places over time and space and in my head.
March 15th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Wonderful post potter. The Goethe quote resonates with much Taoist expression. A few years ago, I picked up the notion “Quality without a name” from reading the pattern language of Christopher Alexander.
potter: “East and West are converging in places over time and space and in my head.”
Soon, directionality may disappear and dead reckoning rendered obsolete. Invisible sangha, perhaps. The ultimate convergence, metaphysically speaking, where all direction disappears. One of many falling away dominos.
BTW, I’ve been following the “Morality, God-given or Evolved?â€? very closely. Lurking, the blog equivalent of one hand clapping? Probably not. It’s a very deep thread and serves itself up organically. I’m getting way more out of it by simply observing and explaining it to myself. I hope you and the others don’t wander away until it reaches a natural zenith, or nadir, which ever direction seems appropriate. I wanted to say this so you knew others are getting great enjoyment out of it.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
How does this relate to Jung’s synchronicity?
March 15th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Thank you CCM. My post is not visual however. It’s much more abstract and it’s harder to convey the “convergence” if it is what this show is about. I am not sure. That is great thread though ; there is a lot happening.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Brief aside, I believe Paul Cezanne thought paintings could be expressed using with Euclidian geometry; specifically, the conic sections. Again, I’m not sure if this is convergence, but it’s interesting.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
While Mr. Burgess may have foralmized the game of convergence with the Che Guevara image, there are some earlier examples. For example, during the 1961 US deployement during the Berlin Wall crisis, there was a Life magazine photograph of the US commanding officer. When this was published it was widely remarked on the resemblance between that photo and Rembrandt’s Man in the Golden helmet.
March 15th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Robert Prechter has an excellent consideration of “convergences” in his “Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the new Science of Socionomics.”
A wpnderful phrase is included: “Robust Fractals”.
March 15th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
Wow potter my head is spinning just reading your interesting and complicated thoughts. I would also like to suggest a book entitled “The Dubious Conflict Between Means Theory and Robsons Complexities.”
March 15th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
Compare:
http://www.poyi.org/62/19/01.php
With:
http://www.sztaki.hu/~smarton/muveszet/michelangelo/pieta.jpg
March 15th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
I just thought of my own convergence. Have you ever noticed how Ted Coppel looks like Alfred E. Newman?
March 16th, 2006 at 2:54 am
I love that you are challenging us with concept shows. Unfortunately, I’ve come late to this party and I’ve come without a good bottle of wine. All I have to offer is a sip of the following warm cheap beer.
Tonight at the bar I was asking an English guy if they still served fish n chips on newspaper in England. He said some places do, but now they put some kind of paper towel in between. He enthusiastically recounted how the grease drips down you arm as you bite into the fish. He showed us with his hands in a way that tells you that grease has dribbled down his arms many of nights. As we discussed this, Jose, a cook from Guatemala was standing at the bar and I asked him if they had fish and chips in Guatemala. He said no, but they have a fried dish you can by on the street that is layered with meet and cheese, and when you bite into it, the grease runs down your arm. He described it with his hands and arms and mouth just the way the English guy did. I chimed in and as we all laughed knowingly, I realized that three men from three different worlds were colliding and converging on a basic love of food – fried food.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Has anyone out there read any Michel Serres. Talk about convergence. He uses his messengers–Hermes, angles–to move between these often overlapping domanins of science and art, the physical and the metaphysical, ocean and sky. He paints with his unique prose the picture of a world both ordered and turbulent, stable and shifting and take the reader on a journey of the imagination that weave the world together.
March 16th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Absolutely breathtaking show, and having just read the posts, I’m certain Cheesechowmein helped set the high and lively standard.
I’m new at this, having first tuned in to Radio OpenSource as a blog ten days ago when the show happened to be in Seattle my home town talking about design of cities, my favorite subject.
Which leads to my assertion that ‘convergence’ in the highly integrative sense it was discussed, is actually a short form or special case of the intentional human activity we call the design process. Certainly, as discussed on the show, learning design at the university level is a potentially numbing experience, but so is learning mandala-making or brushwork. Opening the intuitive pores while at the marketplace of ideas, followed by praxis in some chosen form is the Western formula intended to alert the mind to its own field.
There is a new bunch of theorists in the teaching of design (mostly at the Phd level) who are now debating and thinking about design as THE central organizing, integrative, problem-solving activity of the human mind. You can get an idea of this terrain by joining their list and browsing at the International Design Research Society’s electronic playground:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=DRS
They are also holding an international conferenence called ‘Wonderland’ on this theme in Lisbon this Fall.
While the on-air discussion skirted the dependence on symbol-making in the formulation of convergences, I think convergences are actually examples of ’super symbols’ where two (or more) objects which each already stand for something else combine to represent another something new or larger–sometimes a patterns It’s here, in the convergence of human symbol-making with the naturally occurring fractals and tree rings and dendrites where I drop my jaw in amazement.
It would be interesting to hear the new neurologists weigh in on which parts of the brain light up at the moment of convergence. Do bacteria experience convergences? Dalmations? Is that what William Wegner is doing with the Weimaraners?
March 16th, 2006 at 10:45 am
The observation that college drives this unconventional way of thinking out of our young people is not entirely true. All of my literature classes deal with seemingly random but extraordinarily dramatic connections.
Antonio Gaudi’s Barcelona apartment building has always reminded me of Pieter Bruegel’s Babel Tower, has always reminded me of Dante’s Mount Purgatory and the unstable nature of narrative, has always remined me of a zuggurat. I could keep going, but this is the general idea.
It is SO good to have Chris Lydon back on Public Radio–long may he reign.
RJF
March 16th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I don’t see the jfk, belmondo connection in the photos above. When I first saw the belmondo photo I thought of bob denver as gilligan.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
a few years ago I was in a waiting room waiting to go in for rk surgery on my eyes. There were several other peopel waiting for the same operation, When the nurse came in and called out:”Mr. Black.” (not my real name), I stood up and the man sitting next to me stood up too. We laughed and I mentioned that I didn’t often meet someone with the same last name as myself, it’s an unusual name. It turned out he was my cousin. His father and mine were brothers. We were the same age and very similar in appearance. Both of us were from towns about the same distance apart. I haven’t seen him since but it had a strong impact on me. Another time I was in a small obscure town in Mexico and ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in years, we used to work together. We were catching up on old times and got to talking about some of the people we used to work with. In the middle of our conversation someone called out our names. We turned to see someone approaching. It was someone who had worked with us at the same time. We were all amazed and tried to find a thread that would have caused us all to end up in such an obscure spot at the same time. but couldn’t. We all lived in different places and hadn’t kept in touch. It seemed random but seemed hard to accept as such. I’ve had other such experiences, I travel a lot so my chances are better to meet people but there is always a sense of amazment when these things happen.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
regarding the relation of college to the creative process: I think the rigors of scholarship can be hard on the spontaneity of the creative process. To get into the state of mind where the images and ideas you’ve experienced interact, relate and flow seems to require the analytical parts of the conscious mind to stand down for the duration. What a college education does (at least what I think mine does) is that after the creative process is completed I can stand back and observe my own work placing it into a context within the world of symbols and art.
I offer as an example my own painting again described in the above post (click on my name to see it). I knew I was inspired by mandalas and rain patterns while I was working but I was not thinking about the Russian Constructivists at all. Only after creating the work could I stand back to look at it and as an observer acknowledge my debt to Constructivism especially the work of Sonia and Robert Delaunay. Robert Delaunay’s Circular Forms could be a convergent image. Even the great black square of Kasimir Malevich has entered my work without my notice until I stepped back and became the observer instead of the creator. My college education gives me a bigger file of images to work with and a way to observe my own work setting it into a context. The flow and the juju that make the creative process happen – that’s up to me in spite of my education.
To see Circular Forms by Robert Delaunay…
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_lg_39_1.html
March 16th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
h wally 3:05 pm comment reminds me of the birthday problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
Here’s a fun little applet:
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~susan/surprise/Birthday.html
March 16th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
For a Radio Open Souce-bred convergence, click on my name to see a piece of my work I just uploaded in response to peggysue’s painting. I’d love to see these side by side.
March 16th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Convergence to whatever degree is created by each participant/observer in the so-called “converged� event and caused by the attributing of beyond ordinary meaningto a personally filtered set of coincidental occurrences that are assumed to be correlated. Time is an illusion (a series of dimensionless NOW points) all events are simultaneous and coincidental. Because we are not generally privy to each event’s component’s history (the series of points culminating in the NOW event), they acquire special and even supernatural status.
For visually convergent images, as Robin stated, human beings are innately pattern recognizing/generating entities (I dislike the term machines being applied to sentient beings) and will create mental images out of clouds, blobs and dots (A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest – The Boxer – by Paul Simon.) The Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, Jesus Christ in the Andean snows, JFK from Jean-Paul Belmondo?, Symphonies from white noise and Rorschach’s inkblots etc. It is WE who converge, NOT events or images.
March 16th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
babu: cool! I’d like to see them side by side too. Is thee a way to put them together maybe with the Fun with Convergences images?
March 16th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
peggysue: I just went to the Fun with Convergences page, was flipped to the flickr page and then to yahoo sign up and my graphics program which was too much for my system. Sorry. But since both images are already in the Open Source orbit, maybe when they wake up again in Boson they’ll give us a hand.
And then for a convergence on a convergence, I have another image of mine for you which is actually up on your little island out by Westcott Bay. It would really be convergence heaven if you actually happened to live on the property now. Let’s see what happens.
March 17th, 2006 at 1:48 am
babu: Where by Wescott Bay?
March 17th, 2006 at 2:53 am
peggysue: Out by Roche Harbor in the NW corner of San Juan Island. Home of the famous Westcott Bay oyster. You’re in Friday Harbor, right?
(For the rest of the world, this is a speck of rock off the coast of Washington state sixty miles north of Seattle.)
March 17th, 2006 at 3:07 am
babu & peggy sue: every day when I run through the woods behind the house I live in, I see those Islands where Friday Harbor lies. Haven’t been there yet (ferries ain’t cheap), but it sure looks pretty over the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
Now then, if this post isn’t an example of the need for a Community Page….
March 17th, 2006 at 3:07 am
jazzman: I agree with you completely. The question for me, and Richard Taylor I assume, is WHY are we pattern-making entities? Here it would be great if these guys would jump back in the conversation.
I think CL and Open Source should require it of on-air guests.
March 17th, 2006 at 3:12 am
or was that last post some wierd example of another ‘convergence’?
I don’t honestly know, because, to admit the sad truth, I never quite understood the premise of the show and its thread…although Peggy Sue’s painting was worth the whole damn production, imho…
March 17th, 2006 at 3:15 am
Nikos: point well taken. I hesitated to mentioned this proximity except in relation to convergence.
March 17th, 2006 at 3:21 am
babu: since you’re new, you might not yet know to scrutinize the date’n'time part of a post. The ‘convergent’ post I was refering to was my 3:07AM post, not yours! (I’d no knowledge of your 3:07AM post until after I’d clicked ‘Submit Comment’.)
Even so, there’s something a bit convergent — if not downright eerie — permeating not only this exchange between us, but the whole dang thread!
March 18th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
I’m kind of assuming that everyone eles has probably moved on so it won’t be too bothersome if we just converse a little here. It is sort of a convergence anyway that we all live right around here.
Babu: Yep, I’m in Friday Harbor. Would your work perchance be in the Westcott Bay Sculpture Garden?
Nikos: Are you in Port Townsend? Believe me I know the ferries aren’t cheap. One reason why I so rarely get off this rock.
March 19th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Peggy Sue, I just now noticed that this thread had a larger number of entries than I recalled, and so checked it, finding your question. And since this thread is ‘convergences’, and since social talk is a form of convergence…
Yeah, I live just south of P.T., on the ridge above the southernmost limits of gorgeous little Discovery Bay. P.T. has the nearest Safeway. And music store. And Goodwill! And it’s pretty, and quaint, and small enough to be comfy.
I expect that Friday Harbor is similar, and hope to explore it someday soon, even if briefly. Your islands look lovely over the water from here. Even so, I like the access I have to the Olympics: a fifty-minute drive to the trailheads that take me up to 7,000 feet, where I gawk at a view that on clear days includes Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams! Which means that when you’re a mile and more above sea level, you can see nearly 200 miles. Now, for a lad from flatlands like Michigan, this is something akin to divine! Hence my offer to serve as a guide should you ever want to crest Gray Wolf Ridge, or even the more pedestrian (but still wind-sucking) Mount Townsend.
Next, I wanted to say, in reply to your posts in the ‘On Forums’ thread, that until I clicked to view your painting, I didn’t know we had ‘profile pages’! Imagine my surprise to find one for me, too. How in the world do you decide what to say (to reveal about yourself!) on a profile page? Let alone what to use as an illustration that somehow characterizes you?
Wow, I’m boggled.
Intrigued, but boggled.
And lucky for me, since I don’t have a digital camera, my only digital images that I might be able to upload onto a profile page is something a friend digitalized, from 30 years ago.
Got any guidance for me?
Thanks, neighbor!
March 19th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
peggysue: thanks for asking. I’m generally against private conversations on this blog — see my post on the Forums thread — but this is the convergences blog, after all, and it’s so tempting to try to make a meaningful real-world contact with you since we’re logistically close and I used to drop anchor in Friday Harbor every summer and have friends all over the island and your words and painting ring a bell so sweetly to me. So, I for one would enjoy seeing your work and showing you mine, if interested.
My Westcott Bay project was a landscape design +/_ 12 yrs ago for a new home which was then sold and I’ve heard that the new owners did something completely different to it. So I don’t know if it became the sculpture park you mentioned. I’ll upload the concept sketch for my Westcott Bay design later tonight, and when you’ve had a look at it I’ll put the Belltown Park back, so the thread is intact for others who might come after.
That said, Nikoa and peggysue; maybe we should think about a meet-up. Nikos, I was at the Seattle show also. (Short blonde with a motorcycle jacket and helmet.) I couldn’t make it to the sit-down the next day because I came down with the flu that morning. Hope you and anyone else didn’t get it from me….
March 19th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
This feels a little bit like passing notes in the back of the classroom. I guess as long as we are ready to sit up straight and pay attention as soon as we get caught we should be OK… and it doesn’t seem like anyone is paying attention to this thread now – have I rationalized enough?
Nikos: Friday Harbor is quite a bit like PT kinda quaint & kinda touristy though we have lots of bourgeoisie development going on now. PT might be more quaint and FH more touristy. I went through PT summer before last on my way to the Bangor navy base for a Hiroshima day protest. I love to imagine the view you describe but I’m not so sure I could keep up with you! You run every day and I’d probably run if I were being chased by a Grizzley Bear but I confess it is not a usual practice of mine. I filled out the stuff on my profile page when I first signed up to blog. I just dashed off my most basic stuff. Any image that you have on your computer you should be able to load onto your profile page. If a relative/friend sent you a picture via email you could use that or you could probably download the fuzzy picture of you at the meet up from the OS page onto your computer and then load it onto your profile page. But hey, what’s 30 years? We could put our high school graduation pictures (or baby pictures) up on our profiles.
babu: The Westcott Bay Sculpture Garden is just outside the Roche Harbor gate and used to be a big open field. Its on Roche property so it wouldn’t be where your landscape design was. So many new people have moved to the Island I no longer know everybody the way I used to but wonder if I might know some of your friends?
I do think it would be fun to have a local get together. I would just need plenty of future notice to go anywhere because I work at the bookstore most days and my car is strictly an “Island car”.
March 19th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Babu & Peggy Sue, re: a get-together — I’m game, but will request enough time to scrimp sufficient money for the ferry. Then, there’s the delicate business of contacting one another ahead of time without giving away our email addresses and/or phone numbers over this national (heck, international!) billboard.
Any ideas?
March 20th, 2006 at 12:27 am
Nikos and pegysue: O.K. we’re being bad kids. Three’s company and I think it’s our party. Nikos is sort of in the middle. I’d enjoy an excuse to take my Vespa to Port Townsend a little later in the season. I haven’t done it for about a year. I can get the ferry to Bainbrige Island right from downtown. Can YOU get there, peggysue? There used to be an excursion boat called the Redhead that went from P.T. to Friday Harbor. Don’t know if it’s still running or its season. I bet there’s info on the Port Townsend visitor website, or I could call friends of mine in P.T.
Or here’s another idea. peggysue, do you know the folks at San Juan Canvas–the sail loft over by the U.S. Customs office in the F.H. harbor? They know every boat that goes across. No names here, but tell them you’re trying to get to P.T. to meet their Seattle landscape architect friend. They love connecting people, esp on the water. Then, if we just picked a time and place we could all just show up….and maybe be surprised by anyone else reading this. Just a thought.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:13 am
peggysue: I went to the Port Townsend website and only found the whale-watching excursion boat which does stop in Friday Harbor. They mention ferry service, but the only rates/schedule on the site were for the whole whale deal, and pricey. You could call them: http://www.pugetsoundexpress.com/
I just uploaded my Westcott bay pic.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:12 am
The best way for me to get to the mainland is to take the ferry to the Anacortes landing but then I’d be there without a car – and of course I’d be a slave to the ferry schedule to get home. So for me the closer to Anacortes the better.
Babu: just looked at your Westcott Bay pic. That looks like a giant project and the convergent circle again! I can’t say I place it but I can imagine where it might be.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Peggysue and Nikos: Well, I could scooter to Port Townsend and maybe Nikos could drive us both up to Anacortes via the Keystone ferry. I could help on the fares.
Anybody listening to this must think we live in some alternate universe. Folks, we’re talking about the island archipeligo which is the southernmost tip of the Alaska panhandle. It just happens to terminate off the coast of Washington state. Some people think it’s the cultural continuation of the coast of Maine. That is, Seattle is to the San Juans as Boston is to the coast of Maine. Another convergence.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Babu & Peggy Sue: we’re not ‘being bad’ – we’re converging!
Recalling that today is the vernal equinox reminded me that Daylight Savings Time is only a couple of weeks away. And it’s always more fun to travel with that extra hour of daylight to work with.
As for Babu’s plan: sounds good. Some thoughts: you could park your scooter in my driveway. I could wait for you alongside a highway, like 104, and lead you to the driveway before car-pooling to Anacortes. I’d likely be driving a red Ford Ranger (a small, car-sized pickup) with a cap on the back. However, if more folks than are chatting here are thinking of coming along, then I need to know in advance so as to request my brother-in-law’s Blazer, which seats about five.
Let me know how this sounds, and I’ll scout out a rendezvous point along 104, and then report it back here.
Finally, I’m usually able to juggle my schedule fairly easily. So, you two pick the date and time, and I’ll only dissent if it (improbably) isn’t appropriate for me.
See ya.
And Happy Spring!
March 20th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Nikos: what a nice offer! I avoid the big highways like the plague on the Vespa, so my natural route to Port Townsend would be the scenic one on 19 thru the Chimacum Valley and Port Hadlock, my FAVE town over there. We could meet at that funny store at Chimacum crossroads or that great little restaurant in Port Hadlock and ghead up to the Keystone ferry. I’m thinking I may stay overnight with friends in P.T. when we come back from Anacortes and that would leave my scooter closer, I think. This will be a very long day for me with 4 ferry rides if I don’t. Is this out of the way for you?
peggysue and Nikos: name some days of the week and weeks you’re thinking about. The 3rd week of April is out for me. May is better.
peggysue: can you possibly bring something of your art with you so we can see more of it? I have a digital portfolio I lug around in my laptop…..
March 20th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Maybe a Sunday in May? Tra la Tra la. And where is CheeseChow Main? (And who eles is a Northwestern OSer?)
Babu: I can bring images on a disc if you bring a laptop.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
How about May 14th?
If you got the 11:10 ferry out of Friday Harbor and we got the 11:15 ferry from P.T. to Keystone we’d get to the Anacortes dock about 1:30-ish, depending on Nikos’ driving. I’d have to get the 7:55 ferry to Bainbridge to be safe.
I just left an aside for CCM. I had no idea he/she was nearby. There is somebody posting from Mukilteo, but I can’t remember who. Other (regular) NW OSers I’ve picked up are myotis evotis; jboylan; David White; joel; Bicoaster; richards1052; j martinstein; jadams; NineInchNachos. More?
My laptop has almost as many miles on the Vespa as I do, so yes.
An ROS meet-up in Anacortes. How FUN. I wonder if we could get Brendan to announce this? We should send him a funny map of our routes.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:06 am
I’m from Burlington but have moved to Mexico. I’d love to change the world but I don’t know what to do. So, I’m leaving it up to you.
March 21st, 2006 at 5:51 pm
May 14 works fine for me – shall we see what we hear from other interested folks before deciding?
re: babu: “An ROS meet-up in Anacortes. How FUN. I wonder if we could get Brendan to announce this? We should send him a funny map of our routes. ”
good ideas!
March 21st, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Does the designation ‘Mother’s Day’ at all compromise our prospective May 14th date?
(It doesn’t for me, but it might others.)
March 21st, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I didn’t pick up on it. Maybe we should switch so there’s no chance of losing someone over it. 7th or 21st?
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:05 am
I’m not available the 21st but the 7th or 28th would work for me.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:42 am
Nikos: you pick the date, May 7th or 28th.
The 7th is my birthday, which would be fun and fine.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:56 am
Let’s say the 7th — while holding onto the 28th as a ‘rain date’?
Or, in our case, since rain isn’t exactly a daunting prospect to Northwesterners, an ‘earthquake/tsunami date’.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:24 am
It’s the 7th then, Yippee.
I posted an aside to CCM, but he hasn’t shown up here. Should we do more of that?
And I’ll work on that map for a bit, then send it by snail mail. Somewhere on the site they say ‘extra points’ for snail mail.
Either of you want to propose a (catchy) name for this meetup? We ARE trawling.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:26 am
It just occurred to me that it may have named itself: The ROS Convergence Meetup.
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:51 am
“The ROS Puget Sound Chapter Guttersnipe Coalition Convergence”
March 22nd, 2006 at 4:51 am
Oiji boards included
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:06 pm
OK, the 7th it is!
March 23rd, 2006 at 2:11 am
ROS-inspired Meetup happening Sunday May 7th in Anacortes, WA, early afternoon.
Stay tuned for more details
March 23rd, 2006 at 2:32 am
‘Exhibit A’ for our need of a community thread.
We know you’re working on it, ROS-gods and -Goddesses!
Thanks in advance,
Guttersnipe Nick
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:24 am
Nikos, I like it happening this way, for all to see. A community thread at this stage in the ROS blog will be too exclusive esp. for an eccentric off-the-board announcement like this.
Now that we’ve picked a time and place, either Brendan helps us with a general announcement to his liking or we pick up the locals ourselves by watching for their posts. This is really our party until ROS responds. I’m gonna send them a map teaser.
There’s a great deli in old Anacortes six minutes from the ferry dock. I have to remeber it’s name.
Wouldn’t it be funny if a huge crowd showed up in Anacortes from all over? Jammed SeaTac airport?