Ken’s Blog

I went with a friend this evening to see Carol Burnett perform at the Beacon Theater. For millenials reading this, that might not mean much. But for the rest of us it is a very big deal.

When I was a kid I always thought there was something wonderfully different about Carol Burnett. Her humor wasn’t just funny — it had some other dimension to it. There were clearly truths being told in every episode, but always within the flow of the delightful comedy.

But now, seeing her live on stage at the age of 83, still taking questions from the audience and answering them with uncommon humor and grace, I think there is something more particular going on here.

Carol Burnett has never been just been about humor — although her show could be incredibly funny. She was about a philosophy that celebrates the unique spark of humanity in everyone — performer, audience, everyone.

That’s not a very popular rhetorical stance these days. The culture seems to be currently going through a phase in which everyone is the star of their own movie: You are here on this planet to promote your own fabulousness.

But to Carol Burnett, everyone is a star and nobody is a diva. We are each simply here to celebrate each other, and maybe have some laughs along the way.

If this world needs anything, I think it needs another Carol Burnett.

A decade or so ago, Second Life was all the rage, and having an embodied on-line persona was new. Back then there was a lot of buzz around the crazy choices made by participants as to the visual appearance of their avatar.

Some people chose to be purple tentacled aliens, others eight foot tall felines in dominatrix suits. Pretty wild choices were made. None of it really mattered all that much, because it was understood that these were fictional representations.

But sometime in the next decade we may encounter something new. If you start wearing those Future Reality glasses in your everyday life, the stakes could be higher.

That eight foot tall cat dominatrix may become not just something funny and ironically rebellious, but a potential measure of how you might be judged in real life. It could effect the outcome of interviewing for a job, applying for a loan, even trying to get seated at a restaurant.

This happens now, of course. If you show up for that high powered corporate executive job wearing your Halloween hooker outfit, you might not get called back for a second interview.

But if your very appearance, as perceived by others, is largely created in software, that is arguably a bit more fundamental. Will people go for the outrageous?

Or will they systematically skew their appearance toward some safely “ideal” age or set of facial and body features? In a world where we will be able to choose any outward appearance, what will we see when we look at each other?

This morning one of the clues in the NY Times crossword puzzle was “It occurs twice in chalk talk”. The answer was “Silent L”. I was really excited because Chalktalk is the name of my research software. So this morning I rallied my silent L’s and wrote a little poem in honor of the occasion:

I solved the puzzle in a walk
I knew, I think, I surely would
Not for a moment did I balk
Because I knew I really could
I did not suffer sweaty palms
And didn’t need to sprain a calf
In fact, I really had no qualms
And beat my fastest time by half
Yet all the while I stayed so calm
When all was done I ate an almond
Then sat right down and wrote this psalm
But stayed away from eggs with salmon *
 * Alas, I fear that many folk
   Will never really get the yolk

Sometimes I marvel, when it comes time to post my daily blog, how much time has passed since the previous day’s post. I know that sounds strange. After all, wasn’t it just a day — no more, no less?

Well yes, in a strictly chronological sense. But here is where things get interesting. Sometimes it seems as though only minutes have passed since the previous day’s post. And that’s how I know it hasn’t been a very interesting day.

Other days, it feels as though a week or more has passed since I last posted — even though it was just the day before. And that means it’s been a very full day.

I don’t think that “full day” equates to how much I’ve gotten done, or even how much has happened. I think it’s more a matter of how many social context switches I’ve experienced on that day.

So if I’ve met with very different sorts of people, and taken on different social and professional roles, then a day can seem like a week. These are the most exhausting days.

I realize now, having just gone through one, that they are also the best days.

A few weeks ago there was an editorial in the New York Times by David Malpass, a senior economic advisor for the Trump presidential campaign. He laid out a series of reasons, based on right-wing economic theory, why a Trump presidency would be better for the economy than a Clinton presidency.

We can all agree to disagree about economic theory, but there are some things we cannot agree to disagree about. And one of those was Mr. Malpass’s closing thought, which I repeat verbatim:

One candidate has spent her lifetime seeking the presidency. Mr. Trump hasn’t.

Think about this for a moment. What is he actually saying? Speaking as an American, I know that I grew up with some fundamental truths. One of those is that, if you are kid, wanting to grow up to one day become President of the United States is applauded.

Wanting to serve your country in this way is the American Dream condensed to its fundamental essence. So much so that to tell a child that they could never aspire to such a position is, arguably, abusive.

So what, exactly, is wrong with Hillary Clinton “spending her lifetime seeking the presidency?” Let’s do a though experiment. Suppose Mr. Malpass had been talking about a man.

How does this sound: “Mr. Bush has spent his lifetime seeking the presidency.” Or try this one: “Mr. Lincoln has spent his lifetime seeking the presidency.” The only rational response would be “Well, good for him.”

The only difference is between the words “her” and “his”. Apparently, it’s ok, in fact laudible, for a male to aspire to the presidency. But if a woman wants exactly the same thing, she clearly does not know her place.

If you were black, and a candidate’s campaign said that a black candidate was being “uppity” for daring to run for president, you probably wouldn’t vote for that candidate. If you were Jewish, and a candidate’s campaign said that there was no place for a Jew in the White House, you probably wouldn’t vote for that candidate.

So I wonder, all politics aside, what woman in her right mind would vote for a candidate whose campaign is built, in such an obvious way, around mysogyny?

I woke today and thought about the date
And wondered at how much has changed since then
Yet even now our world is filled with hate
And politics brings out the worst of men.
How long a stretch of time time is fifteen years?
One would have thought enough for us to learn
That giving in to hatreds and to fears,
Is not a way to build, but just to burn.
I only hope that all of us today
Will truly honor those whose lives were lost
By turning messengers of fear away
For hate is never worth its awful cost.
      Our better angels call us from above
      When human hearts can find a way to love.

I spent much of the day today with my mom. The wonderful thing about moms (at least mine), is that you can talk with them about things you are wrestling with that you would rather not discuss with anyone else.

As it happens, my mom is a particularly level headed person, so I always have a better handle on how to deal with problems after talking things through with her. And today has been no exception.

It’s not that the problems actually go away, of course. It’s more that they become easier to understand. In particular, after talking with my mom today I have a much better handle on that always tricky question: “How much of this problem was caused by me, and how much of it was caused by somebody else?”

It turns out that in this case, it’s pretty much the latter. Which from my perpective is always good news. In any case, I feel unburdened.

I was talking today with some colleagues about our research, which is not exactly virtual reality, and not exactly augmented reality. We are sort of doing VR for AR: We use various virtual reality techniques to prototype a kind of extreme future augmented reality.

The question came up as to what terminology we should use to describe what we are doing. Neither “virtual reality” nor “augmented reality” really describe it. So perhaps a new term is needed.

I had an inspiration. I told my colleagues that we need something radically new and forward looking, more futuristic and cutting edge than mere virtual reality. “What we need is a brand new acronym,” I explained. “Something that would be completely exotic to young people. So let’s call it Virtual Co-present Reality … VCR!”

I am in an email discussion group that talks about good ways to help kids learn. Today one of the emails was from Ted Kaehler, describing his old friend Julia Nishijima, who taught at the Open School in LA in the 1980s and 90s.

This is just so beautiful that I need to share it:

Julia had a first grade class and taught math. She had a very pleasant voice, and quietly evoked some surprising things from her kids. I was there when she asked, “How many ways can you make eleven?” The kids were sitting in a circle on the floor in front of a blackboard.

Someone suggested 10+1. They went through all of the 9+2, etc. with many children contributing. She went around the circle.

Someone suggested 11+0.

There was a silence. Julia asked how many ways there were to make eleven. Only half the kids were willing to agree that there were just 11 ways.

Someone suggested 12 + -1. Julia drew a number line on the board. This caused a stir. After some clarification, there came an avalance of negative plus positive. Everyone agreed that there must be a lot of them!

Again a silence.

Someone suggested 9 + 1 + 1. Again, the kids assaulted Julia with new combinations. They got tired after a while.

Are there any other ways? Silence.

Someone suggested 10 and a half plus a half. There was a debate as to whether this was fair. It was, and many suggestions followed. The bell rang with kids still begging to tell their new way to make 11.

It’s hard to believe
There’s just a moment between
The past and future