We went out last night to celebrate my birthday. Drinks at the Bayside Lounge, and then dancing at Celebrities. Many friends came, it was lovely to see everyone. The lounge, it's a great room, leather couches, cubes to sit on, warm lighting. The view of the bay is stunning. The music, they need to do something about the music, not a place I want to hear reggee or whatever the dj was playing. The musical mush. I think it needed something french, maybe, sexy, soft ... but so good to see all of my friends. Darling people.

Then off to the club. I haven't been since it reopened, Celebrities, it was a dance hall in the early 1900's, great great room. Huge sunken dance floor that thumps and gogo dancers (I love gogo dancers, a must have) and a balcony that stretches all around. Oh, we danced the whole time, except for moments of refreshment, and met some fun people on the floor. I love dancing, love it love it. So free, and to reference my last post, the most divine way to give half of yourself to the earth and half to the sky.

Give half of yourself to the Earth and the other half to the sky.

Asana Column: Virabhadrasana II (Warrior Pose II)

By gracefully yielding to gravity, you can meet challenging poses with efficiency and ease.

By Donna Farhi

I am 34 today.

It snuck up on me.

I will make an admission here: I think I have the best birthday date on the calendar. October 13th. It's just all edges and mysteries and it's just got to be fabulous person born on that day ... ;>

I went for an interview at my alma mater, SFU. Sounds like cool work, though they just finished a big project, so are in an ebb. The trippy part was going up to campus, I haven't been there in over 10 years. It hasn't changed at all, well, new buildings aside, there are still the same cafes, same hallways, lecture theatres. But all the people are different, no one I would recognise in the halls at all. It was so trippy. It's like the past frozen, I know the space intimately, but it is not frozen, it is the future. Even I am not the same person anymore, physically, all of my cells have regrown at least once, mentally, I have matured, emotionally ...

And being on campus, watching the students, I know their brains are working overtime, grasping that concept, stretching into history, calculating, composing. Walking around, and it is so silent, but their inner worlds are teaming with activity. Wild.

This is an excellent Greenhouse Gas Emmissions Calculator.

The Global Portraits room is quite phenomenal. I think, my favorite room, it is very cool to see these visual languages overlapping.



This is an artistic expression of earthquakes. Love it! A group called Sensorium.

The idea that underscores this whole room, is that when people were able to see the planet as an entity, they began to understand it as a whole, as a precious livable island floating in a very inhabitable space. In fact, after seeing the ozone hole published in the NYT in 1986, legislation was passed to ban CFCs. The world was not a limitless frontier after all.

Possible room interaction: have the kids walk in the room, but not look at the legend tables. Ask them to find the image that shows: 1) satelite surveillance; 2) mapped space debris; 3) ozone hole; 4) flight patterns; 5) earthquakes.

But I would much rather have them go to the image that they find most compelling/interesting/curious/mysterious, make a guess at what the image is, and then read the legend table. I'd like them to come up with their own possibilities, it might make it more interactive for them.

There is no way we can look at all of these, that would take too long, and we have to cover the imaging room at in the same period. The questions are going to be so integral to creating a flow to this tour.

The Massive Change Tour for students will consist of the following sections:
Urbanization and Movement economies
Global Portraits and Imaging economies
Materials and Manufacturing economies

This will make 15 minutes for an introduction and then 15 minutes per section. The amount of text on the walls, and the amount of explaining could result in a boring tour if we are not careful. The activities will be key. Drawing will be an activity in the Movement economy, in Dean Kamen's pseudo studio (wth prototypes of iBot and Segway, v.cool!). Some possible assignments:

1. Draw your ideal vehicle.
2. These wheels were designed to look friendly. Draw your idea of a friendly wheel.
3. Draw an environmentally-friendly car.
4. Draw a transit system that is wind powered or solar powered.
5. Draw a vehicle that can move at least 20 people.
6. How would you redesign the street so it is safe for these new vehicles to move?