Multitasking Muddles Brains, Even When the Computer Is Off

I think this article could have been personally addressed to me. I notice exactly this problem, even when I'm not at work or on the computer. I really struggle to block out everything but the one task I'm working on. This makes it difficult to concentrate on anything, from doing the dishes to reading a book. I've always had a fairly short attention span but I have noticed it getting worse as I spend my working day doing several things at once. And the fact that I caught myself looking at the 'Most Recent Entries' on the page while reading this article not only drove the point home, but made me realize that it's largely not my fault. Any kind of article or news page will be surrounded by links and graphics that distract you from the article you're trying to focus on, so even if you are trying to do/read one thing at a time, the way web pages are designed makes it damn near impossible.

Anyway, it's good to know I'm not the only one losing my attention span. And now I'm inspired to- has anyone noticed that building there before?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/multitasking

Whachya readin' for?

Time for your Friday-morning digital book fix. I really think this struggle for control is one of the fundamental issues surrounding e-books, since this is probably where a lot of people will start getting their books from, once e-readers get their iPod equivalent. Issues of privacy & content control are huge, and because of the role books play in distributing ideas and information, they affect book publishing in ways other industries - including music - don't have to deal with as much. These issues are too important to be left to the control of private companies, much less one private company (Google).

Maybe an alternative model would be just the digital equivalent of the way libraries work now - Google, Amazon, etc, 'publish' e-books and do what it is they want to do, but then individual libraries or library systems can purchase access to, or subscribe to, whichever books or whichever database they want. There are endless possibilities as to how it could be done. This way, as a 'reader' I can download my books from Toronto Public Library, in the same way I physically pick them up now, but it's TPL who will have the record of what books I, the individual, the consumer, the patron (however you choose to classify the person) have been reading. They have this information now, but are pretty responsible with destroying it, so it's nothing new that a library would be able to keep track of what its patrons are reading. Judging by the ALA's passionate response to the US PATRIOT Act, librarians take privacy issues pretty seriously, and I'd certainly trust a public library with my reading records more than a private company.

Regardless, it's interesting to see what the Open Content Alliance has to say about the issue.

Anyway, here's the article that got this all started:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8200624.stm

More on books

I've just started reading Umberto Eco's On literature. I managed to get through about 5 pages last night before it was time to make dinner, but so far it's pretty compelling stuff. He's talking about the importance of literature and language, not just as hobbies but as serious cultural elements, and Eco has been pretty interested in technology and its role in literature for a while, so I'm curious to see what he'll have to say about that later on. I guess I'll have to wait until I've read a little more until I can comment further

Oh, and in case anyone's thinking it I'm aware of the irony of using a google-owned blog to criticize it for its monopolistic control on the spread of information, so please don't bother pointing it out.

A waste of language

My boss is starting up a new monthly or (I hope) quarterly newsletter, to inform the office of the goings on in the library. She's not quite sure what the contents of this newsletter will be, but she does want me to contribute a 300-500 word article on something interesting about the library, some reference tips, or maybe a 'Did you know?' column. I've spent the past hour looking through old reference questions and answers, thinking about what I've done here that's worth sharing, and I've come to the unsurprising conclusion that what I do isn't interesting enough to write about. Of course, I can come up with something to write about, but there is nothing I care about enough to share it in written form - at least, unlike this particular post, nothing positive.

I do write fairly regularly on this blog so I obviously am not opposed to writing and I do have things on my mind that I think are worth putting into words. But to receive an assignment to write something, and to have to come up with a topic yourself, within the confines of a job that you don't particularly care for, is a frustrating exercise to say the least. Whichever words I do end up throwing together to take up space on the page aren't going to be interesting to read because they won't be interesting to write. I do my job and that's fine, but I can't force myself to care enough to articulate, much less encourage amongst others, an interest in what it is I do here. I take words and language seriously, because they can be used in unique and interesting ways to express thoughts or create images with a precision that can be surprising. There's a beauty to language, whether it's using your native tongue to express a thought in a new way, or just learning how to say something simple in a foreign language. It can also be simply practical, and improve our lives by allowing us to communicate important information to another person. The way I see it, like the title says, writing for such a newsletter, which I'll ultimately have to do and is neither practical nor beautiful, is just a waste of language.

But at least I got a blog post out of it.

Lobster?

This was an ad I jjust saw in my gmail. I know google scans the contents of your emails to send you targeted ads that you might be more interested in, so I'm really wondering - what triggered this one?

#1 Live Lobster in GTA - http://www.maritimelobster.ca/ - Free Delivery, Wholesale, Retail $7.95 lb, pickup at store, Fresh

Neither practising nor believing, but Catholic even so

An interesting article on secular Catholicism in Quebec. The idea of being a secular Catholic is one I think about but, despite what you read here, I'm not sure it's really possible in the way it is to be, say, secular Jewish. I've found that as my personal belief as wained over the years, I've found it harder to participate (honestly, at least) in religious ceremonies, even just out of tradition - or habit.

Questions

In response to an idea for a writing exercise on the Rose-coloured blog, I've written a little scene made up entirely of questions. I've never seen Rosencrantz & Guilderstern are Dead, so I'm not sure if I took the instructions too literally, but it was still a fun exercise. Even though I wrote this at work and could probably go through and fix it up a bit if I had the time or the inclination. Of course, I'm too self-conscious to actually share it with people who aren't my friends, so it'll just have to sit here for the enjoyment of the (as far as I know) 2 people who read this blog.

[Two people waiting in a long line. Neither the beginning nor the end of the line is visible. In some sort of public building. They could be men or women, but they appear to be in their 40s. Every few seconds they take a small step forward as they move up the line.]

A So how did you die?
B Why do you think I’m dead?
A We’re in heaven, aren’t we?
B You think this is heaven?
A You don’t?
B Isn’t it more like purgatory?
A Why do you say that?
B It’s not perfect here, is it? And aren’t we just waiting in line?
A Look – can you just answer my first question?
B About being dead?
A How did it happen?
B Why do you want to know?
A You’re not curious why we’re here?
B Does the manner of my death affect where I go in the afterlife?
A You don’t believe in that sort of thing?
B Is it some metaphysical worldview you just invented?
A Would it be less true if it is?
B Don’t you think how I lived my life would affect the eternal destination about my soul?
A Who said anything about a soul?
B Didn’t you?
A Is your soul separate from who you are?
B ‘Who I am’?
A Isn’t your soul just a symbol of your whole being?
B If it’s just a symbol and not real, then how does it explain our being here?
A Have we determined where we actually are yet?
B If we’re both dead, can we assume it’s some kind of afterlife?
A So you are dead then?
B But wouldn’t my death be the end of consciousness?
A Maybe you’ll learn that in the afterlife?
B Shouldn’t the afterlife be more about answers than questions?
A Isn’t that what I just said?
B Did you?
A Anyway, why do you assume that the afterlife would give you any answers?
B How else would you learn about the mysteries of existence?
A Who says we have to learn about them at all?
B Aren’t you curious about the universe?
A Does my curiosity make the unknowable any less unknowable?
B If death doesn’t provide us with answers doesn’t it make life feel kind of pointless?
A If you were waiting to die to find answers, then what did you do with your life?
B Hey – what’s with all the questions anyway?

England, philosophy, comedy...

I've started reading Christopher Hibbert's The Story of England. Despite the fact that I lived in the country for a while, and that I was an English major and have read a great deal of European history, it occurred to me how little I know about England, so I thought this would be a nice way to fill in some gaps. It's a short book, about 180 pages, and well-illustrated. I've just gotten past the Norman invasion and the end of their rule, and I've just started with the Plantagenets (whose name I was familiar with from Richard III and Henry IV pts 1 & 2 - Fetch me a cup of sack!).

[Thesis] Reading through the bits about the Middle Ages, I was finding a lot of the brief descriptions about daily life, castles, etc, familiar, and the funny thing is that most of this knowledge, and the ability to visualize things like descriptions of castles or trials by ordeal, comes from Monty Python. And this realization came a few days after I mentioned to my roommate J. that most of my knowledge of philosophers comes from Monty Python. Which is probably why I always thought Kant would be funnier than he is. What a let down that was. It truly was the antithesis of funny.

[Synthesis] But back to the book. I've used the above picture, which is a replica of a Norman helmet found at Sutton Hoo, a huge archaeological find of a Norman ship, not only because it's impressive in its detail and ornamentation, but also because I love the fact that whoever designed it took the time to put a false moustache onto the actual mask. Unless this serves some defensive purpose I'm not aware of, I really think it's one of the more comically unnecessary military decorative elements of the past 1000 years.

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it wouldn't last

I was just reading through some old posts and it struck me how often I write things at work, in a short amount of time, and always want to get back to a topic to be able to discuss it further. Of course, I never do.

But in an attempt to do so at least once, I will say that, in regards to the previous post about the Holocaust, I was surprised at the author's assumption that most people's view of the Holocaust is that its victims were largely West European Jews. I never thought that myself, and have always thought of Poland and Ukraine as bearing the brunt of WWII, to say nothing of the Jews of the region. It's not really that important, I guess - who thought what and when - but while I enjoyed the article and found it incredibly informative, I can't say it really shook my previous perception of the war. Is this how people really see it? I suppose I'm biased because of my connections to, and interest in, oh, let's just call it East Central Europe. But still, I was surprised by the assumption.

So at least I got back to that topic. There's always more to say about things I guess, which is why there will always be blogs, and may strike me down were it to be otherw-

“Instead of one big shot controlling the media, now there’s a thousand freaks Xeroxing their worthless opinions.”
- Homer Simpson

Go back to Germania, German boy!

Being at work, I don't have time to get into this, but I find the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II a fascinating and world-changing event that's really worth thinking about but which not many people realize actually happened. Before the war, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe had had diverse, multi-ethnic and multilingual populations, with their cities largely populated by Germans and Jews in addition to Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians or whatever else you can imagine living between Russia and Germany. It looked very different from the region's relatively homogenous nation-states of today, and it's hard to fathom how much the murder of millions of Jews and the expulsion of millions of Germans changed those countries in a very short time. I'm not going to get into the human tragedy, which is obvious enough though truly terrible, but in case anyone's interested in the story of the involuntary post-war German exodus, I thought I'd post this article for your reading pleasure. Also, in case you're interested, and have the time, it's included with a longer article about the Holocaust and the experience of the peoples of Eastern Europe during World War II.

The Expulsion of Germans from the East
Of the 12 million or so Germans who fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe at the end of the war, the vast majority came from Czechoslovakia (3.5 million) or Poland (7.8 million). Most of the second group came from lands taken from the defeated Reich and assigned to Poland by the Allies. About half of the 12 million fled, and about half were deported—though a neat division is impossible, since some of those who fled later returned and were then deported.

In late 1944 and early 1945 some six million Germans fled before the Red Army; it was then that most of the 600,000 or so fatalities among German refugees took place. Many of these were simply people who were caught between armies; some were purposefully massacred by Soviet soldiers or died in Soviet camps. Murders were also committed by Czechs and Poles. Hitler shares responsibility for these deaths, since German authorities failed to organize timely evacuations.

The postwar deportations of Germans, a direct result of Hitler's war, were a Czechoslovak-Polish-Soviet-British-American project. During the war, the exiled leaders of occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia expressed their wish to keep their postwar German populations small, and the Allies agreed that German populations would be removed after victory. Winston Churchill recommended a "clean sweep," and the Allied Control Council issued the official plan for the transfer of six million Germans.

The (non-Communist) Czechoslovak government had Stalin's approval to expel its Germans, but also Churchill's and Roosevelt's. Poland was under Soviet control, though any Polish government would have expelled Germans. Polish Communists accepted Stalin's proposal that Poland should be moved very far to the west, which implied expelling more Germans than democratic Polish politicians would have wished. (It also entailed the deportation of Poles from the eastern half of pre-war Poland, which the Soviets annexed. About a million of these Polish expellees settled the lands from which Germans were expelled.)

From May to December 1945 Polish and Czechoslovak authorities dumped about two million Germans over their borders. From January 1946, Polish and Czechoslovak authorities continued to force Germans to leave, while British, Soviet, and American forces arranged their reception in their occupation zones in Germany. In 1946 and 1947, the Soviets received slightly more than two million Germans in their zone, the British some 1.2 million, and the Americans some 1.4 million. Deportations continued at a slower pace thereafter.

Although the expulsions were a case of collective responsibility, and involved hideous treatment, mortality rates among German civilians—some 600,000 out of 12 million—were relatively low when compared to the other events discussed here. Caught up in the end of a horrible war fought in their name, and then by an Allied consensus in favor of border changes and deportation, these Germans were not victims of a calculated Stalinist killing policy comparable to the Terror or the famine.

Correction

I just noticed that in the picture below, the naked souls entering heaven receive clothing as they arrive. So heaven is not a wild sex party after all. My apologies.

Heaven & Hell Cotillion

I’m not normally one to offer opinions on visual arts, as I really don’t know anything about it, but it's something whose pleasures I've recently discovered. I was just admiring Hans Memling’s The last judgment, which I saw on another site. Maybe I’m just looking for distractions from my work, but I looked at it closely, and it’s really terrifying – and not just the images of hell. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t picture heaven as walking naked into a Gothic cathedral. If I were naked, I have other concepts of what heaven might look like – but I’m too bashful to share them here.

What I did find interesting about the painting is how it illustrates how Medieval Europeans really saw the world as a battle ground between good and evil, or God and the Devil. Look at the centre frame, with St. Michael (I think) and his (or is it His, in the case of a saint?) angels fighting for the souls of the naked. Presumably the good and naked. I particularly like the image of the person/soul, just at St. Michael’s right hip, who’s caught in the grips of a devil, but being pulled from towards heaven by an angel – with a spear! Does this mean the forces of good use the same weapons as the forces of evil to win a soul? I’m not sure. But I do like the graphic and personal illustration of that particular struggle, as if, despite what the Church has always taught, it’s not man who freely chooses his destiny, but rather God or the Devil. Why would an angel have to fight for a soul like that if its fate had already been determined by the person's actions on earth? And does that mean there might be good souls who actually are lost to hell because an angel (I only see one in the middle frame) couldn’t get to that soul in time?

I really wonder how literally most Europeans took the ideas of heaven and hell at the time. I’d think that in a world bereft of the visual imagery that so overwhelms us, and in which most people were illiterate and so got their ideas about the world mostly through graphic arts (especially in Church), seeing such a picture must have been horrifying.

A brief post to be continued later on


I'm working on a longer and more detailed post about a couple of things I've encountered lately - namely, the artist's place amongst a larger group. This is something I've thought about before, but I recently read two things that have brought it back to my mind. Chaim Potok's My name is Asher Lev, which I just finished, looks at this from an artist's perspective, and it's also something that's always present in Philip Roth's novels. I just read a profile of him that reminded me of this, and is the reason I'm writing this. Basically, I find the 2 writers' approach to the subject complementary, and interesting for their difference - in Roth, you get characters (at least Coleman Silk is an example of this, maybe Alexander Portnoy, though his situation is a bit more complex) who are trying to escape the world they were raised in, to choose their personal "I" over the "we" of the group. But in Asher Lev, you have a Hasidic, Orthodox Jew with a great talent for painting & drawing. Pursuing this gift is contradicts the wishes of his father, the community, etc, but he does it anyway. What I found interesting, after reading several Roth novels, is that he never questions his religion, and while he doesn't necessarily try to combine religion and art - the two definitely remain separate spheres in his life - he never sees the two as mutually exclusive. For anyone this can be an ongoing struggle with different complications.

Anyway, it's interesting and there's a lot more to say, but I actually have work to do so I thought I should get this down before I forget about it. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it soon, but for now, I'll use this Degas painting to illustrate my office, which is much less scenic than the painting.


(As you can see, the inspiration of reading a book about a painter has led to the use of more classic images for the blog. The hard part is finding something relevant - the first painting is by Marc Chagall, of his shtetl in Belarus, painted after he left, called I and the village. The second, called The office. But maybe I'll pick up a book on art history one of these days. It's embarassing how much I don't know.)

Having been away for 6 weeks I'm extremely busy at work and I really shouldn't be writing this right now, but I've been playing around with font colours to try to get something legible on the background picture I've chosen (a painting of Genesee St. in Buffalo by Charles Burchfield).

I just finished Chaim Potok's My name is Asher Lev, which explores the tension between tradition and the individual, the traditions of family vs. the tradition of art, the individual vs. the collective, and other aspects of art in one's life, among other themes. I wasn't loving the book for the first 100 pages or so but luckily I stuck with it because I really enjoyed it by the end, and have taken a lot of ideas away from it that I'll have to record at some point. Maybe I'll write more on it in the near future.

But now - work. I've got a presentation this afternoon after 6 weeks away. I'm trying to remember what it is I do again...