Tinkering, work and learning

Tonight I am watching (listening really) toTED talks and came upon this fellow - Gever Tulley and his Tinkering School. http://www.tinkeringschool.com/ His TED biography said this about Gever: "A software engineer, Gever Tulley is the co-founder of the Tinkering School, a weeklong camp where lucky kids get to play with their very own power tools. He's interested in helping kids learn how to build, solve problems, use new materials and hack old ones for new purposes."

I loved playing with every kind of building and fashioning implement when I was young. My grandfather was a cabinet maker and had a garage, our garage to be exact, full of tools, neatly set out at a 10 foot long work bench. How I coveted those magical instruments. But I was a girl and Nonno was from the old country ( Napoli) and I was not allowed. Instead, I borrowed tools from my father's tool kit and made do. My older brother had friends I worshiped because they let me "help" one time when they took their Boy Scout axes and hatchets to our next door neighbor's trees and started building a log cabin. They 'let me' dig out the cellar hole. Not the role I wanted but still...it was so much more interesting than playing with dolls. We got in a lot of trouble for cutting down the 15 - 20 foot tall trees. The neighbor was the grandmother of these guys so the entire experience had a very favorable punishment to pleasure ratio.

We spent our days making bows and arrows, worked on our bikes and attempted to make things from whatever we could find, beg, borrow and borrow on "advanced setting" ( aka: stealing). For me, it was fun on steroids. No one supervised us or warned us of any dangers. We experimented and failed and tried again.

I gave each of our daughters a Swiss Army knife when the reached the age of 8 years. Our two oldest daughters and I made tool boxes out of wood when they were even younger. And we filled them with the right sized tools too. The pocket knife was a right of passage of our own invention that I guess was meant to make up for the tool deficit I had experienced. You could say I had "tool envy" but not the Freudian kind. I just wanted the freedom and means to make things, do things, and create things.

Gever Tulley recognizes this drive in children and has created a program and a whole schtick on what was once a natural part of growing up - back in the day. And probably still is in many parts of the world. You can read more about him at his site and in this excerpt from an npr interview below:

August 4, 2008 MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Okay, parents. You're taking your kid to summer camp, you pack the sunscreen, the swimsuit, you arrive at camp, and you have to fill out the forms.

Mr. GEVER TULLEY (Director, The Tinkering School): We have what many parents have described as the single scariest document they've ever signed around their child. They actually have to print out. I understand that my child may be injured or killed at this camp.

BLOCK: That's the paperwork for a camp called The Tinkering School outside San Francisco. It is unaccredited with astronomically high insurance. Their children are encouraged to play with real tools, build real things and take real risks. We sent reporter Chana Joffe-Walt of member station KPLU to check it out.

CHANA JOFFE-WALT: Gever Tulley wants his campers to make sure to play with fire and knives while at camp, maybe throw a spear, too, drive a car. Tulley's the director of the Tinkering School, and he's got this list of dangerous things he thinks kids should do. The whole thing started - this minor obsession with kids taking risks - at a breakfast. Tulley was just sitting with his friend in her kitchen.

Mr. TULLEY: And we were in the middle of talking, and she just jumped up and run to the door and opened the door and said, Dave, what are you playing with? And her child is out there and says, I'm playing with a stick. And she said, what's our rule about sticks? And he wasn't allowed to play with a stick, and I think he was six or seven.

JOFFE-WALT: Who can resist a stick, Tulley thought. What's going on here? Don't touch this, don't stand on that, don't throw that, don't go near that? Tulley says he felt worried that the boundaries of kid safety zones are growing too wide, that play was only happening in the safe, structured programs, like soccer camp or forest camp. He wanted to try unstructured kids' time so they could learn things on their own. He wanted to see kids build stuff. He wanted to see them fall down. He wanted to bring out his power tools....Listen or read more here.

Music and Speech - It's not just the words you say, but how you say them.

In a paper appearing in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA), Purves says that sad or happy speech can be categorized in major and minor intervals, just as music can.

“Our appreciation of music is a happy byproduct of the biological advantages of speech and our need to understand its emotional content,” Purves says.

“There is a strong biological basis to the aesthetics of sound,” says Dale Purves, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University. “Humans prefer tone combinations that are similar to those found in speech.”

I love it when science confirms what we know, intuitively, as spoken word performers. "Umm-hmmmmm. What he said. " read the entire article here:

http://futurity.org/science-technology/human-speech-is-music-to-our-ears/

the work of the world...jobs, work and stories

The upcoming story slam on DEC 14th has me thinking about jobs. I started a list of the jobs I have had, in not very careful chronological order...starting with my first jobs at 16 years old... ice cream scooper at Brigham's where I gained about 15 pounds in 2 months. babysitter for family of three - they broke my toe while slamming the door of their room in my face AM counter waitress - Schraft's in the Prudential Center. the morning manager was a lech with wandering hands. When I complained to his supervisor she told me he was too way too " good a worker " for his egregious misconduct to be actionable. I grew up in the stone ages.
(picture above - teenager home from a demo circa 1973 )

Jobs as an art student and starving visual artist:

waitress at "as You Like It " in Harvard Square - should have been called " If We Have It" one night they didn't even have forks!
microfiche and plate maker - Lincoln Hall publishing
box office sales person - Cheri theater complex across from the Hynes Auditorium - I was robbed at gunpoint while on duty.
clerk at dry cleaners - hateful - I lasted a week
cab driver - my brilliant career spanned three companies, Checker Cab, Town Taxi and Boston Cab
xerox operator - near Northeastern and New England Conservatory
breakfast cook at MacDonald's - for about a month - horrifying insight into corporate food and practice.
switchboard operator - at the Hotel Lenox - they still had the cords that you plugged into the jack for a specific room.
florist shop assistant- I worked for Fred Gamer my favorite boss of all time, at Symphony in Flowers,- what a guy.
newspaper paste-up - at the Bay State Banner in Roxbury. I sucked at this - they let me go right quick!
burglar alarm 'operator' - Sonitrol in Cambridge, where I listened to audio alarm systems on the midnight to 8 shift and where I met my husband, the intaller - have some great stories from this job.
graphics arts assistant and xerox operator - Copy Quik in Harvard Square.
mapping and stats - Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade and Douglas hired a mess of people to work on the studies for NYC's West Side Highway redesign.
pretzel cart- almost died selling pretzel's - actually just getting the bicycle cart to and from garage on Huntington Ave.
Production Manager - Addison Getchel, a friend got me into this - from lowly graphics person to PM to fired in 6 months.
dishwasher and pot womper- at L'Espalier,
arts administrator - I wrote the grant and had the job for the first year, working as a dishwasher to support the job.
copy shop manager - in Copley Square Boston
bicycle courier - one of the first in 1981 - worked in Cambridge for Choice Courier - it rained every day from MON - FRI the first month.

well, there is more but that takes me up to 1980's....when my main gig became parenthood - started in 1983 to present.
(pictured below - two tired parents of 2 daughters under 3 year old, circa 1987 and slide show of family pics 1981 on)

A fave story - but where did I find the orginal???

Any one know where this tale comes from?
MAY '06 Money or Wealth?
retold by Norah Dooley © 2006


An old widow woman lived by herself on the side of a mountain. She collected and sold herbs and plants for healing of body and soul. Often she traveled far from her home, collecting rare flowers and roots. Sometimes she was lost but never for too long.


One day, while she was traveling deep in the forest below the mountain she stopped to rest and she dangled her tired toes in a small stream. She saw in the water a bright and surely precious stone. She plunged her hand into the cold water and pulled the stone to her. She held it in the light and enjoyed it’s color and brilliance. She looked at it for quite a while, and then put it in her food bag where she forgot about it completely.


The next day, as she traveled deeper into the forest, the old woman met a traveler. He was young, lost and more than a little hungry. They spoke of their ventures and then the old woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone. He said in a harsh voice-- “Leave off the food woman, will you not give me the stone?”.

The woman looked up in surprise but immediately handed the stone to the man.
“Gladly I will, “ she said, “It is no more mine than yours and I have enjoyed its beauty already.” The man grasped it and turned to leave,
“Would not like some tea or to eat?” she called after him.


The traveler did not answer, just waved the woman off but he was smiling and marveling at his good fortune. He thought the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. Inside his head he heard a small far away voice question taking such wealth from such a shabby old woman. This voice he waved away also. With his stone clutched in his hand he headed straight away for the capital.


After a few bitterly disappointing days in the city where he was almost swindled, was in fact arrested for the theft of his own stone and then released and nearly killed by robbers, he found himself retracing his steps. At last he found the cottage of the old woman.


Her home was very small and had one or at most two of everything -- cups, plates, chairs. Though neat and clean, all was worn and threadbare save for the abundant flowers and plants that grew inside and out.
“ That seals it!” he said out loud but as if to himself.
“Ah, you have come back for some tea?” said the old woman and she stopped sorting dried flower heads and ladled water from an earthen ware jar.


The man reached inside his shirt and took a bag from round his neck.
"I've been thinking," he said to the woman,
"I know now exactly how valuable that stone is.”
“Really?” said the woman putting the kettle on the hearth for tea.
“Really. “ And he told of his misadventures in the city while she clucked and nodded appreciatively.

“I'll give this gem back to you in the hope that you can give me something even more precious.” he looked hopeful as he finally sat down as he had been asked.
“Dear me,” said the woman , sitting across from him in a rickety straight backed chair. “ That stone and I, we were but a happenstance. You see -- here, all my worldly goods in one glance -- ah, do take me in also, my cloak and dress and shoes. What you see is all that there is”
“Yes,” said the man. “I can clearly see that. But I also see your wealth. That is what I want .”
“Really?” she said , looking puzzled.
“If I give you this stone, can you give me what you have that allowed you to give me the stone."
“Oh!, “ she exclaimed. This made her laugh out loud - a loud and throaty laugh.
“Oh, do sit down.” she ordered. Seeing her mirth caused the man distress she stopped laughing at once. “Sit and have some tea and we will talk.”
The traveler pulled the stone from the bag.
“Oh no," said the woman. " Do not give me that troublesome pebble! I have everything I need, all the joys and all the sorrows.” said the woman.

The man still looked puzzled.

“I gave it to you.” said the widow, in a matter of fact tone. “When you are finished --pass it along. Then you will have everything you need. Really, it is that simple.”


THE END

Who do we think we are?

I posted this at the storyteller's listserv - a question From Slash Coleman's blog:
http://www.twentyonehours.com

"Oftentimes, others can pinpoint the theme of your work much easier than you can. This week, I suggest you interview others to begin to narrow your brand. What are you trying to say with your artwork? You may not know. So, this week, bite the bullet and ask 3-5 friends what they think the underlying theme is in your art form. You may be surprised at their feedback. "

A few responses below:

"Ten or fifteen years ago I was informed by different trusted friends on several different occasions that the basic theme of the stories I wrote & told was “dealing with loss.” Hearing this was a disappointment to me. “Loss” is not a particularly funny topic and I had designed my stories to be funny. They made people laugh. Therefore, I had assumed that I was a humorist. These stories were more complicated in their construction than, say, a long joke. I knew that they’d bomb at a comedy club (in fact I’m pretty sure they did once.) But given the right listening venues, people laughed in recognition of seeing themselves in my stories, so how was it possible that at the center of my material was the sad little core of loss?

Time passed. Things changed. I grew older and gained more life experience. I now understand that the basic theme of my stories is . . . loss. Yep, some things may change with time, but not the core of my stories. Perhaps I should gather 3–5 unbiased friends to ask again what THEY think is my main theme. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear something other than “dealing with loss.” I doubt that my friends will come up with something different. But I might as well ask. Hey, what have I got to lose?" from Pat Spaulding

And then this reply:
"The thing about our art is that it is not art unless we come from a specific vantage point/know why we we are sharing a story. This knowledge, though it helps us to shape a coherent piece often means zip to the listener, as you have no idea what is going on in their life, where they will attach to the tale, and what meaning they will draw from it. It's glorious. We must own it, then give it away." from Judith Black

And another from Marni Gillard:
Pat, your post made me smile. I too VERY often tell tales of loss. I had one huge loss and a whole lot of disappointment in my young childhood and without realizing it at first, I became a teller who both tells and elicits from others tales of loss. People carry such tales unconsciously (or consciously) and resonate with such tales when they hear them. Mine, at moments are also full of humor and with luck and some surrender on my part, I do bring us all home to a place of safety when I conclude them. Loss is big part of everyone’s life. Yet, we tend to AVOID it as a subject, so I feel that my stories (and my work helping others free their hidden tales) are helping the world go to that place where they want to go but also resist.

Having said that, I know that stories are heard and told on MANY levels. While being about loss my tales are also about courage, foolishness, stuborness, joy, yearning, and often about the error of inattention. Stories ultimately – in my thinking - are always about knowing ourselves and loving ourselves (whether foolish, jealous, greedy, inattentive or deeply sorrowful).

Good for you for gathering buddies or unbiased friends (is there such a thing?) to listen to your tales with the ears and eyes to reflect what they hear. For years I’ve gathered new and experienced tellers at my home to share tales. We support each other in awakening to what our stories are REALLY about and how to relax into those themes. I say BRAVO if you dare to tell tales of loss. The world needs them.

My repsonse:
Yes, and...very true and I think what you said is also true of paintings and plays and novels and poems - well, art itself, no? Another question is, on a more base and very practical level - How do we present what we each of us do as storytellers? When we speak of ourselves to prospective clients? Are we representing what we ACTUALLY seem to be doing most ( a la - Pat Spaulding? tx Pat )- or Are we representing best hopes and our intentions? Do we say in answer to the question, What is your "brand" a litany? I am your Italian- Irish-NYC born-American, tragi-comical personal tale teller,picture book writing, early 18th century female pirate, various historical character presenting, storyteller ?

Or will we,nay, should we say:

" I am an "artiste" dammit - what I do is, tell stories. Every kind, length, shape and size of story known to human kind. Deal, all you branders and marketers out there - I do not do 'niche'. Do not look for an exact 'fit', story fits everywhere" Both are typical responses from me to that Q. What does it matter? I can think of time when it will matter very much and other situations where a rat's behind is approx value I place on "who thinks what "

Interesting twist on this idea that Slash Coleman had was for us to ask other people what THEY think we are doing?

So, I am curious - what do people tell you? What would people tell me? tell me if you find this idea interesting or just annoying ?

videos from story slam NOV 23

Thanks to Bill Thompson and the amazing Doria Hughes we have a whole set of videos at massmouth or http://massmouth.ning.com/video

She wrote: "Between contestants at massmouth's second Story Slam, Norah Dooley - ably assisted by co-host Jess Sutich - slipped in this rather shocking short story of one d-eel-icious meel that she sadly missed out on."


Find more videos like this on MASSMOUTH The Power of Story



From Rick F. a long time friend and the man with all the good stories. The story above was his. I hope he will come one night and tell one. He delivers all the exquisite details and has a fine appreciation of irony and theater of the absurd.

"Ah yes, I remember it well. So glad that it struck you and will now provide amusement for others. You may want to include the unpleasant moments that followed: each horrible "Oscar Mayer eel slice" was drizzled with a piquant sauce before being placed in front
of each diner. Then the hosts eagerly watched each of our faces, expecting smiles and sounds of lip-smacking relish.

Instead, they saw each of us turn green, gray, etc. as we shuddered, apologized, bowed, begging their understanding that we. just. couldn't. eat. it.


We then watched as their faces reddened and scowls appeared. They began to resemble the angry, demonic temple guardian statues we had seen everywhere. They grunted, hissed, exchanged knowing scowls at each other. "These thankless gaijin just didn't appreciate the honor of being served such a delicacy!"

This just in: Also from my dear friend Rick:
Did I tell you the other Japanese dining horror?

The restaurant where they set a heated, flat stone in front of you, along with a platter of sheep's ovaries and other assorted guts?

"You drop them on the hot stone, they sizzle, inflate and burst, then you dip the wretched things in shoyu and chow down (or in our group's case, DON'T chow down) and yes, followed by glaring demon faces and grunts from the Japanese hosts who belabor how expensive, how delicious the goodies you are leaving on your plate are. "

Mr. Sensei's eating habits are looking more and more conservative.

Enforced Day of Silence

I takes a lot to shut me up. But laryngitis hits me about once a year and it is usually severe enough to make silence a done deal. In fact, this is the exact year to date from the last time. I remember "talking" with the director of the school where I was incarcerat--- working last year,on the WED before T-Day. I was asking about room use and sounding, even to myself, quite outta-me-mind. I "explained" that I was just trying to vocalize thru the frozen chords but I bet this made me even scarier. *sigh* I did not get the room for which I was advocating and pleading. But that is a longer story.

Doctors say that complete aphonia—loss of the ability to speak—is extremely rare. When it does happen, it often is the result of emotional or psychological stress.
I am feeling pretty unstressed and in a weird way, thinking not speaking for a day will be restful and good for me. Especially if I can get all the voices in my head to take the day off too.


So, I am thinking of all things I am thankful for and, as I am sure my family would echo, if I spoke it, being thankful for this silence too.

Archive for Sunday, March 15, 2009

A vow of silence

Key to bliss may be as simple as turning off your car radio

By Anne Stein March 15, 2009

In a stressed-out world filled with 24/7 bad news, author Anne D. LeClaire has discovered the key to calm and bliss.

On the first and third Mondays of each month, she practices silence. No talking to her husband, her publisher or her two grown children, no chatting with the occasional houseguest, the repairman or neighbors. No one.

“On silent days, I try to have nothing on the calendar,” LeClaire explains from her home in Cape Cod, Mass. “Sometimes I’ll be traveling for a book tour, but the silence is still with me. I can’t be complaining and grumbling if a flight’s delayed, I don’t get involved in all the hassle.”

The result: “The days are peaceful, and I release all my stress.”

LeClaire began her silent Mondays 16 years ago after walking on the beach to contemplate her sadness about a friend’s mother dying. The former reporter and radio broadcaster wasn’t particularly religious and wasn’t the quiet type. But she heard the words, “Sit in silence” in her head. The decidedly unflaky LeClaire announced to her husband she’d spend the next day not talking.

Since then, she has eliminated e-mail, radio and television from her silent days, though she’ll sit at the computer and work on novels.

“My single determination when I began was to not speak,” says LeClaire, whose ninth book, “Listening Below the Noise” (Harper, $19.99), documents her experience with quiet. “But the more comfortable I became with silence, the more I thirsted for it, and the sounds I’d accepted unquestionably became noise.” Full article, click here.