Glenn's little ugly blog

Joanne's gotten me playing this "Farmville" game on Facebook. It's apparently one of the most popular games on Facebook. Basically, you are given a square of "land" on which you can "plant" crops and then harvest them for game money. You can also go around and visit your friends' farms and do little tasks for them like scaring away crows or raccoons.

All in all, it's an ok game. I've heard that some people are quite addicted to it and I even saw that one guy had worked up a spreadsheet to help him calculate the best planting/harvesting strategy to get to higher levels faster.

To be honest, I'd probably forget about the game if someone didn't remind me to check my crops every day. I'm not a big fan of video games to begin with, though. I played video games when I was a kid, and can almost always think of something better to do.

There are some things about the game that I find creepy. One is that you can go around and fertilize your friends' crops for them. Not sure what this does, but the fertilizer is a little bag labeled "Super Grow." Is it chemical fertilizer?

Another thing is the "harvesting" of animals. The animals are super cute and some people have them as animals on a sanctuary. But the animals are eventually ready to be "harvested." I'm not sure what this looks like since I've never tried it. (I also only just got my first animals for my farm today, so I haven't had a chance to experiment.) I wonder what harvesting a rabbit looks like in the game?

What's really creepy to me is that the best way to get more points more quickly with the least effort is to create an intensive farm with one or two crops and animals packed in tightly. With single crops you can harvest a lot at one time and the more animals you can pack into a tighter space, the more lucrative they are.

I was so creeped out by the whole idea that this farm game is a thinly disguised agribusiness marketing tool that I googled for a while last night to see if I could find any connections between the game developer's investors and agribusiness interests, but I couldn't. I'm still not convinced.

The game abides by the conventions of farming, and animals are displayed as commodities. You buy and sell and harvest them just like plants or other objects. The dairy barn is extra creepy too. The presentation of these farms as idealized plots of land that never turn ugly, no matter how tightly packed with "things," can really serve to perpetuate the illusion that this is what farms look like, no matter how intensive.

That said, I'll keep my little sanctuary going for a while.

See you on the farm!

I sat down to write a post this evening and couldn't think of what to write about. So I posted the question on facebook and got a few responses:

Wool

I wrote a post about wool over on the Liberation BC blog. Wool can be tough to write about, especially since I think it's wrong to exploit animals even if we aren't causing them any immediate pain. It's the system of exploitation that is wrong, the whole system that's been built over thousands of years to push animals into the shapes that we want them to be, into the spaces where we want them to live.

Writer's block

I get writer's block a lot, but it might just be because I don't really have a lot of things to say.... I overcome it by picking something at random or by playing a game to choose a topic. Once I have a topic that is manageable I can just sit down and get to work.

Procrastination is another story. I am a terrible procrastinator, and picking a topic is only a small part of the bigger battle of getting something actually written.

I like the game of posing the question on facebook and letting other people decide for me what I should write. But then I end up writing a pretty boring post about wool.

I should mention that when I was at Farm Sanctuary I really liked the goats, but wasn't a big fan of the sheep. It's hard to get to know the sheep. They are so scared, and they spend most of their time moving around as one big group. Some of the sheep were nice, but goats are really neat and I was drawn more towards them than almost any other animals.

Your first highschool dance

I don't remember my first highschool dance. Likely I went with my best friend and we danced, but not with any girls, then hung out on the bleachers. I was short and nerdy, and not confident at all. Dances were not terribly fun.

There were some dances though, where we had lip-sync competitions. I really loved doing those, since we got to dress up and do some crazy performances. I am afraid to see any pictures from back then because I had the worst hair ever. Even worse than yours.

What would you do if you won the lottery

If I won the lottery (which I actually hope doesn't happen since studies have shown that people who win the lottery often end up less happy than they were before they won the lottery – plus I NEVER buy lottery tickets) I would start a sanctuary, give almost all of the money to that sanctuary, put some in the bank for retirement, donate the rest of it to charities, and then go back to work.

I just sat down to think about the books that I have on my to-read list.

Here's the list:

• The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
• Imperial by William Vollmann
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I think that's the list. To be honest, I've never really made a list of books I'm planning to read.

You may notice that the list is entirely composed of books written by men. I don't know if it's accidental or if I simply gravitate towards male authors. Looking at my bookshelf it is very heavily male, with a major exception of my Kathy Acker books (which take up half of a shelf).

If I ever make a list of favorite authors, it tends to be heavily male as well: Pynchon, Vollmann, Acker, Burroughs, Murakami Ryu, Murakami Haruki, Tolstoy, Cormac McCarthy, and so on. I wonder why this is? Is there just something about the writing of men that resonates with me? Or is it that there are more men writing literary and more experimental fiction? I like Jeanette Winterson but wouldn't call her a favorite. The same with Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates. I loved Cat's Eye but was never moved to read much more of Atwood.

Even my taste in poetry shifts towards male poets. Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are particular favorites of mine. I can't even really name a woman poet other than Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. At university I took a 20th Century American poetry class and the professor was an expert on Marianne Moore, but I never really got into her writing.

No other female novelist, poet, or writer in general has become someone who I need to read, except for Kathy Acker. Her books occupy a special part of my soul, and I like her work so much that I seldom speak of it to anyone. There would be too much to explain.

I'll have to think about why I read men so much and seldom read anything written by women. It could possibly be a cultural issue – that I was raised to listen more to men than women, especially in terms of knowledge and information. This may still be the atmosphere in the world around us, which could contribute to the continued dominance of men in the literary world.

Looking at the New York Times Bestseller list today, out of the 45 books listed in 9 different categories, 14 of them are written by women. In the top 5 hardcover nonfiction, none of them are written by women. 4 out of the 5 children's books are written by women. In the top 15 hardcover business books 2 are written by women (one as a co-author).

Is my imbalance a reflection of a societal imbalance?

I'd be happy to hear if you have similar experiences and if you have any recommendations for great books written by female authors.

I just sat down to think about the books that I have on my to-read list.

Here's the list:

• The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
• Imperial by William Vollmann
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I think that's the list. To be honest, I've never really made a list of books I'm planning to read.

You may notice that the list is entirely composed of books written by men. I don't know if it's accidental or if I simply gravitate towards male authors. Looking at my bookshelf it is very heavily male, with a major exception of my Kathy Acker books (which take up half of a shelf).

If I ever make a list of favorite authors, it tends to be heavily male as well: Pynchon, Vollmann, Acker, Burroughs, Murakami Ryu, Murakami Haruki, Tolstoy, Cormac McCarthy, and so on. I wonder why this is? Is there just something about the writing of men that resonates with me? Or is it that there are more men writing literary and more experimental fiction? I like Jeanette Winterson but wouldn't call her a favorite. The same with Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates. I loved Cat's Eye but was never moved to read much more of Atwood.

Even my taste in poetry shifts towards male poets. Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are particular favorites of mine. I can't even really name a woman poet other than Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. At university I took a 20th Century American poetry class and the professor was an expert on Marianne Moore, but I never really got into her writing.

No other female novelist, poet, or writer in general has become someone who I need to read, except for Kathy Acker. Her books occupy a special part of my soul, and I like her work so much that I seldom speak of it to anyone. There would be too much to explain.

I'll have to think about why I read men so much and seldom read anything written by women. It could possibly be a cultural issue – that I was raised to listen more to men than women, especially in terms of knowledge and information. This may still be the atmosphere in the world around us, which could contribute to the continued dominance of men in the literary world.

Looking at the New York Times Bestseller list today, out of the 45 books listed in 9 different categories, 14 of them are written by women. In the top 5 hardcover nonfiction, none of them are written by women. 4 out of the 5 children's books are written by women. In the top 15 hardcover business books 2 are written by women (one as a co-author).

Is my imbalance a reflection of a societal imbalance?

I'd be happy to hear if you have similar experiences and if you have any recommendations for great books written by female authors.

Right now I'm in the middle of three books, one of which is Europe Central by William Vollmann. I've read most of his books, except for a couple of his latest non-fiction works.

Above and beyond his literary ability, I'm most drawn to Vollmann because of his openness to other people. He has traveled a lot and written about some of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world, but he lives with them and observes them with compassion and an understanding that is very rare.

His book, Poor People, collects some of his best journalism about time spent with poor people around the world.

But it is his novels that I appreciate the most. He travels to research his novels, and the strands of reality and fiction blend together, giving the novels a feeling of truth, but giving the truth a feeling of transcendence or greater meaning. Everything is a means to telling a story, and the story is most often people living on edges, in cracks, outside of the margins, in the dark, in the cold, or lost.

His unfinished series of seven novels, Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes, is a retelling of European interactions with native North Americans. I liked The Rifles and
Fathers and Crows the best and am hoping that he someday finished the last 3 books in the series. They are only loosely a series; no characters appear throughout the books. They are simply a thematic series.

Vollmann's work can often be somewhat conceptual. For instance, his collection of stories, Rainbow Stories is a thematic palindrome. His style ranges from straightforward, journalistic to somewhat magical realism.

I think that he is one of the best writers writing in English alive today. He assembles powerful sentences that bring people, situations, and ideas to life, and is equally comfortable writing about prostitutes, war, nature, violence, ethics, and art.

Check him out and let me know what you think.

The company I work for just announced that they are doing an event in December called "Goodstock." We'll be staying up for 24 hours to work on jobs for 3 different charities, all for free. I am incredibly excited about all the work we're going to do. It's going to be a huge amount of fun.

The event was started by an ad agency in the States 5 years ago. This year another agency took part, and now we're doing one as well.

Today we spoke to someone from the agency that had just done the event for the first time, and she said it turned out really great. She was amazed not only that they accomplished what they'd set out to accomplish, but that the quality of the work was really good. Better than good: actually some of their best work!

More information about the event can be found on the event page: harveymckinnon.com/goodstock.

If you work with or for a charity, please visit that page and download the RFP and submit an application to be considered for the event. It's an opportunity for us to do pro bono work for some of the great charities here in the Vancouver area, charities that are making a big difference in our community.

I hope to see you there!

I'm in the middle of reading The Age of Empathy by Frans de Waal. So far it's really good, even though I'm somewhat struck that it takes scientific experiments to verify what many animal activists have taken as a given for so long.

I'll likely write up a more comprehensive review of the book when I finish, since I'm enjoying it so much, but for now I thought I would just offer some quotes from the book that I have found important or meaningful.

Our nobler strivings come into play only once the baser ones have been fulfilled. If attachment and empathy are as fundamental as proposed, we had better pay close attention to them in any discussion of human nature. There is also no reason to expect these capacities only in humans. They should manifest themselves in any warm-blooded creature with hair, nipples, and sweat glands, which is part of what defines a mammal.

This obviously includes those pesky little rodents.

(p. 69)

...Animal studies are now seriously lagging behind what we know about human empathy. This may be changing though, thanks to a new study by Canadian scientists, titled "Social Modulation of Pain as Evidence for Empathy in Mice." This time, the word empathy is free of quotation marks, reflecting the growing consensus that emotional linkage between individuals has the same biological basis in humans and other animals.

(p. 70)

With preconcern in place, learning and intelligence can begin to add layers of complexity, making the response ever more discerning until full-blown sympathy emerges. Sympathy implies actual concern for the other and an attempt to understand what happened.... Since this is the level of sympathy that we, human adults, are familiar with, we think of it as a single process, as something you either have or lack. But in fact, it consists of many different layers added by evolution over millions of years. Most mammals show some of these – only a few show them all.

(p. 96)

...Taking someone else's perspective is not limited to human adults. It is best developed in animals with large brains, but those with smaller brains don't necessarily lack the capacity.

(p.98)

Commitment to others, emotional sensitivity to their situation, and understanding what kind of help might be effective is such a human combination that we often refer to is as being humane. I do believe that our species is special in the degree to which it puts itself into another's shoes. We grasp how others feel and what they might need more fully than any other animal. Yet our species is not the first or only one to help others insightfully. Behaviorally speaking, the difference between a human and an ape jumping into the water to save another isn't that great. Motivationally speaking, the difference can't be that great either.

(p. 107)

Have a look at this photo and story about chimpanzees gathering to mourn the death of one of their own. A timely example of animals exhibiting emotions.

My good friend Evan is gone off to art school in New York City. Naturally, I'm super happy that he has gone to art school because I think he's a unique and talented artist.

Evan was one of the first people I met here in Vancouver, and we've volunteered at many events together.

Evan's also a great cook, and makes some of the most amazing vegan danishes you will ever eat.

His art is odd and somewhat disturbing, and tends to focus on either self-portraits or depictions of food. I think his relationship to food is complex.

He usually draws with ball-point pen, and his drawings can take weeks to complete. He includes the tiniest details. The most impressive I think are his drawings of hair and his drawings of wrinkled fruit. There is a strangeness to even the most normal of his drawings, an obsessiveness that comes through in the drawing. He remembers amazing details of dates and people and places, and his art really reflects the way he sees the world.

Some of his pictures are semi-surreal depictions of humans changing into animals or odd conglomerations of people and food.

His drawings are like glimpses into his brain, or at least the world that exists inside his head, underneath all that crazy hair.

Evan's 2nd Cooper Union application pieces are also worth seeing.

He has also been carrying around a drawing he did of an apple and latte art and taking photos of the drawings with real objects.

As I've mentioned, Evan is an amazing cook, and his blog bjorkedoff is well worth reading, if for nothing else than the food photos he takes and posts. This month is VeganMoFo and his whole month is dedicated to posts about peanut butter. There's that obsessive streak again – part of his genius and one of the things that makes him so special.

After reading the wonderful example of dialogue and engagement in the DTES yesterday, I came across this example by Kennedy Stewart of how not to conduct public engagement.

Every year the city asks the public how they think council should raise and spend money and every year the public is invited to input into the budget making process. Robertson has just announced a series of eight public consultation meetings and a website where “residents and businesses are encouraged to provide their views on City budget priorities and closing the budget gap.” Apparently, no topic is off limits and citizens can explore a range of possibilities through which the city can “prioritize services and keep property taxes down” - including providing input on topics such as “library hours, book and DVD purchases for libraries, hours of operation at community centres…”

While this appears to be an effort to bring the community into the decision, Kennedy points out some serious flaws in the process.

He notes that the process was announced on a Friday:

Friday is always the best day to announce news you want no one to hear. And no one did.

He then notes the schedule of the consultation meetings:

The first of the eight meetings occured three days after the date of the buried media release, the final meeting two weeks later. This schedule provides no time for citizens to hear about, prepare or organize to attend these meetings.

There is also a poorly publicised online space where people can post their ideas. To be fair to the city officials, Kennedy's criticism of this because it isn't highly trafficked or well-used doesn't necessarily indicate that the process is flawed. I think that the online portion could be more publicised (as could the whole process) but it is there, and it does work. It remains to be seen if they actually listen to any of the comments.

The meetings are set up at reasonably convenient times at community centres around the city. However, I don't know how many people they will be expecting, since I hadn't heard of the process until yesterday when I read Kennedy's post – the first day of the meetings. My neighborhood meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, which is fine for me, since I don't have any children to worry about. I am also far less dependent on city services and can bear higher property taxes more than a family with children who may not be free to drop everything with a single day's notice.

It would seem to me that if the city council were really, genuinely trying to involve the residents they would plan a process that provides more advance notice and would work to better promote these events in each community. Based on the feelings I now have about the process, I am far less inclined to believe that anything that is said during the "consultations" will be listened to. It feels like a show, and is the exact opposite of empowering.

[Note: view the city's page on the budget consultation process.]

photo by mezzoblue

A couple of days ago Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) wrote a post on the Vancouver Sun's "Comunity of Interest" blog about a meeting of Downtown Eastside (DTES) community leaders. CCAP brought them all together to answer Michael Geller's questions:

What do residents say about the public perception of the area as "four blocks of hell"; what should be done with drug dealers and to increase safety, other than to build more housing?

We (and I speak of myself as an outsider of the DTES) tend to regard the poorest area in Vancouver as problematic, and we prescribe solutions to what we see as the problems. Generally, when we drive through we think that the DTES is a horrible place to live, and something needs to be done to clean up the problems of homelessness and drug abuse.

She describes the event:

Last Monday CCAP assembled about 30 low income DTES community leaders and asked them what they thought the bad things in the community were and how they would address them. What was interesting to me is that Geller’s perceptions of the bad things about the DTES were not the same as the 30 DTES residents at our workshop. According to these residents, who live in SROs, social housing, co-op housing, and on the street, the two worst things in the DTES were gentrification/condos and police brutality—two things that the average person who motors through the area on the way to work probably wouldn’t even think of.

The residents' ideas about their own neighborhood are completely different than an outsider's view. How much of ourselves do we project into a "situation" that we are trying to "solve"? Is this another example of paternalism? Why are our ideas of the problems and solutions so different than theirs?

The residents' perspectives on the issues that matter to them are outlined in decent detail in her post. What really interested me in this post was how CCAP is really engaging with the DTES residents and empowering them to voice their own ideas and their own vision for their neighborhood.

I looked back at Jean's previous posts and saw that the previous one was about an amazing "Community Mapping Project."

What jumps into your brain when you hear the words Downtown Eastside (DTES)? Is it "four blocks of hell," "drug dealers, bedbugs and slumlords"? Those are some of the stereotypes of Vancouver's poorest neighbourhood. For the last few months I've had the privilege of volunteering with about 200 low income DTES residents on a community mapping project that contradicts these stereotypes with residents' own voices. The project was led by Wendy Pedersen, organizer for the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP).

How cool is that? CCAP is brilliantly working with the residents of the DTES to build a real map of their vision for the neighborhood. Say what you will about the DTES – and there is a lot bad that you could say – there is an amazing sense of community there, much greater than my neighborhood where most people don't know their neighbors.

For us community mapping meant putting a huge blank paper on a table and asking folks to draw their most meaningful place in the DTES and tell us why it was meaningful. We also asked questions about housing, food, shopping and uncomfortable and unsafe places. Dr. Pilar Riano Alcala of UBC helped us design the process. We took lots of notes and then picked out 10 main assets, or good things about the DTES.

Yes, that's right, good things about the DTES! There are lots of them according to the low income residents we talked to. They were people who were homeless, living in SROs or social housing, working in a variety of volunteer and paid jobs or living on disability or seniors pensions or welfare. Some had families; more were single. They were from many backgrounds including Aboriginal, Chinese, Latino and European. Some used illegal drugs and some didn't.

I'm very glad to see that some of our conceptions of this area are being challenged by these events. Maybe instead of thinking it's our duty and obligation to solve their problems we can instead support the residents in creating their own solutions. And maybe we can listen to them and work with them to create solutions, instead of working so hard to wipe the area off of the map.

I'm hopeful that this is a sign of increased dialogue around issues that affect our city. We all need to be involved in creating our future together, and CCAP is doing some great work towards that end.