emergence...

This week we were to read the intro and first chapter of a book by Steven Johnson called Emergence. The introduction began by describing self-organizing communities using slime mold as an example. At first I was really confused as to how it was related but then it was explained that slime mold doesn't have one leader mold organism. There is not one pacemaker cell "calling all the shots". They each release something called cyclic AMP depending on their own assessment of their environment and then form to become a community based on that. One real life example that I thought of while reading this was riots. Particularly riots in Madison on Halloween. There is not one person that decides to have a riot at 2 in the morning. Everyone gets increasingly intoxicated and, based on their surroundings, senses the need to continue to drink and then all of a sudden a big mass of chaos forms all by itself! Maybe not the best example....but thats what came to my mind. I also thought that the part in the first chapter that talked about the ants was really interesting. It is weird that the ants know where exactly to put the garbage so its as far away from both the colony and the dead ants as possible. It really is curious how all the ants just do certain jobs without being told to. The queen doesn't assign them jobs like in the movie "Ants". But then again, isn't that how our world is? At least in our society we can just pick whatever we want to do based on what we are good at and what we enjoy. maybe that is how it is for ants. Or maybe the baby just picks an adult ant to follow around and ends up doing whatever their job is for the rest of their life....kind of like family businesses.

I also enjoyed reading about the formation of Manchester. The population began to explode and people basically organized themselves however they wanted. The poor ended up being confined to certain streets far away from the rich. This isn't all that strange when you think about it though. Poor people are obviously going to live near one another so they can support each other and the rich don't want to see poor people. So, wherever the first poor person decided to settle everyone followed. I wasn't quite sure how the homosexual secret clusters really tied in to emergence, other than that a guy that would go there wrote a paper on morphogenesis. I liked this reading a lot because it explained things well and didn't get too wordy like some of our past readings. I am excited to have a class discussion about it....but, class is canceled tomorrow :) because Scot is sick :( Get better!!!

Lost in Translation

We started watching Lost in Translation in class on Thursday and i am really enjoying the movie! One thing that I noticed about the movie is that there is not a whole lot of talking and the characters are kind of in a daze it seems. I feel like for them Tokyo itself was a non-place because they had no relations formed there and there was no history there for either of them. They couldn't become connected with the environment because they couldn't talk to people and the were living in a hotel which is a non-place itself. They were just there to accomplish a job and that was it. There were a lot of scenes in the beginning that took place in non-places like the elevator and their hotel room. They both seemed to be extremely lonely with this sudden sense of non-places all around them. I think this can be seen in our world today because technology seems to be creating more and more non-places and people tend to be less friendly when set into a non-place. I think Americans are especially at risk for this sense of loneliness because people are always rushing in and out to get to places.

When the two main characters began to develop a friendship I think that Tokyo started to become a place for both of them. There seemed to be more scenes that depicted places, like the club, karaoke bar, and game room they go to together. I am excited to see what happens in the end. I kind of want them to fall in love or something but first of all they are both married and second of all he is a bit old for her.

NON-PLACES

Like James, I too used the bus for my "non-place" observations. I ride the bus to work every few days and I was going to go today to kill two birds with one stone, but with the nasty weather I decided not to go in. Instead, I just rode the 80 to state street in the evening. As I got on the bus, I noticed most of the seats were full and I ended up sitting next to someone. I noticed that when people sit on buses they either A) Sit in a seat as far away from other people or B) If they must sit next to someone, they scoot away and try not to invade the other persons space. Everyone sat quietly unless there were friends sitting together chatting. Many people, including myself, were listening to ipods. I think that in non-places you are really not in that place at all, you either escape into a song, a book, daydreams, or a tv (at a hotel). You interact with as few people as possible and try to just slip into the background only using the space to accomplish a certain task. I suppose the bus can be a "place" for the people who work on the bus, but even then this is unclear on buses. I am not sure but, don't bus drivers switch routes every once in a while? In that case, they don't have one specific bus that can be their place of work. Plus, it is hard to consider a seat a place. From past experience on the 80 on busy days, i have noticed that people don't really seem to care about the other people on the bus. Everyone just objectifies everyone else. The passengers get mad when the people getting on move too slow, the bus driver gets mad when people don't move to the back, and those few who sneak in the back have no regard for the people patiently waiting to get in (legally) through the front door. It is a very hostile environment...where is the love?!