Eight to Five

I had an amazing change of fortune as of the summer of this year.  For a long, lean six-year period, since we moved to Bloomington, I haven't been able get a job in my late-chosen profession--architecture.  I had resigned myself to the possibility that I might never work again, as the possibility of my finding a position in this field grew slimmer and slimmer with each year I didn't work full-time.  Out of sheer luck I came upon on an opening on Jobs at IU for an Assistant Architect position at the IU University Architect's Office, whose qualification requirements I seemed on the face of it to match quite well.  I put in my application in the middle of June and got an interview at the end of July.  Two months later, I got a call back for a second interview and, thanks to the good words put in on my behalf by my previous employers, in the middle of October, during a morning run, I got a call offering me the position, and two weeks later I started my job!  It was exactly four months since I first put in my application, and during that time I had quietly put it out of my mind that I would be considered seriously for the position.  

So miracles do happen, and here I am again settling into an 8 to 5 routine after a six-year hiatus.  Overall it is the best possible outcome for my professional career that I could have imagined--working in the same institution as Kirk and enjoying all the benefits and perks.  I hope for the next 10 years at least to make some contribution to fulfilling the mission of our office to Indiana University.  

I had originally intended to publish this post on last Tuesday eve to coincide with the anticipated celebration of our first female president-elect.  We all know how that turned out, and how our confidence and the 99% assurance from certain quarters was dashed to pieces.  It was the Brexit vote all over again.  How could the polls and professional commentators have got it so wrong?!  How could the ideological and regional divisions of the country have got to be so deep and unbridgeable?!  Though it seems that the result of this election will be the reality we live in for the next four years, I don't think I will be able to reconcile myself to it, at least for now.  I am not even able to bring myself to utter the name--the repugnance I feel is too great.

I know I am not alone in feeling this way.  I was surprised by a visit to my cubicle last Thursday by an Assistant V.P. of our unit, who came to assure me of IU's commitment to diversity and who told me with teary eyes that this was not the country she thought it was.

Binge Reading James

I've been binge-reading Henry James' lesser known novels in the past few months.  The "reading" I'm referring to here is more involved than merely I eye-balling the texts.  It involved a collective effort, freely given, of many people from the LibriVox community to record and produce these novels as audiobooks.  In case you don't know, LibriVox is a volunteer organization which produces free public domain audiobooks.   

As you may or may not know I'm a devoted Henry James fan.  I delight in his circuitous and laborious way of rendering a character, scene, or a situation.  I admire his ability to spin a yarn out of a tiny germ of a situation that he perceives to contain dramatic potential.  I envy his characters' ability to say much by saying little.  

In July I chanced upon a recording project at LibriVox for a novel by Henry James called The Tragic Muse.  I had read the book before but didn't think much of it; I didn't like the central character, Miriam Rooth, an ambitious "drama queen" kind of person.  However, I was surprised to find that this project had been languishing in the "Readers Wanted" forum at LibriVox for a while.  Usually works by such an established writer like James are snatched up in no time.  Anyhow, I volunteered to record this book starting from the Preface and ended up recording 10 sections for it.  It was definitely not easy-going for me, especially in trying to parse his prose for the Preface, but I struggled on.  Along the way I met a few enthusiastic and responsible readers.  After we finished recording the book, it dawned on me that there might still be other books by James that have yet been "done" at LibriVox and wouldn't it be nice if I could launch these books myself and get them recorded. 

So to make the story short, I managed to launch three projects for LibriVox of three lesser known novels, Confidence, the Outcry, and the Other House, by Henry James in a short span of time, and with the help of several dedicated volunteers got the projects completed in three months.  For me being a BC (Book Coordinator) for LibriVox is a lot easier than being a Reader.  It takes a lot more time and effort to record and edit one's own recordings.  The best part of this experience was that I invited Kirk to record several chapters of these three books.  Kirk, in his obsessive compulsive way of doing everything, spent a considerable amount of effort to make his recordings as best as he could.  So without further ado, please check out the following free audiobooks at LibriVox --

the Other House

The Tragic Mus

the Outcry

Confidence

Courtyard House

Courtyard House

Here is yet another version of the courtyard house that I keep returning to.  There must be some psychological reasons for this obsession of mine--something like a longing to live in a temperate climate which facilitates moving and living in and out of doors with as little reliance on air-conditioning or heating as possible.  The freedom of being able to throw your doors and windows wide open, stepping over a barely perceptible demarcation between indoors and outdoors, with perhaps only a 7-inch high threshold separating the two, seems like a state of innocence that has been lost forever for me along with my childhood.  I remember my grandmother's tiny row house in southern Taiwan where there was no barrier between indoors and outdoors, where one stepped over the threshold right unto the busy pedestrian street.  As far as I can remember, I was totally unaware of any discomfort about the heat, noise, dust, or insects invading the house when I visited my grandmother after school.  Nowadays I can hardly put up with a tiny moth that accidentally flies into the house, or allow dust to accumulate on the furniture or a bit of dirt on the floor.  Since when have I lost the ability to feel at ease letting a little nature inside the house?  It seems that we gradually remove ourselves from the elements and at the same time nature becomes more and more something we have to contend with and contain.  In my case, the process of distancing from nature started with my father's moving his young family from his ancestral home into a small house of his own in order to provide us with better living conditions.  Our house was set back from the street protected by a tall masonry wall with a gate in the middle.  Inside the gate was a tiny bit of garden with a fish pond which my father built.  The front door was equipped with a separate screen door and all the windows were screened.  There were window A/C units in most rooms, a detached kitchen over a covered breezeway with a water closet on one side and a bathroom on the other.  The house was primitive, compared to modern standards, but it was an immense improvement from my grandmother's house.  

For people living in developing countries in the tropics or subtropics in early 20th Century, the kind of improvements in living condition which one strived for could be something as simple as having mosquito nets over one's bed.  This then transforms into the aspiration to have screened doors and windows to keep out unwelcome bugs, and eventually progresses into a desire for fixed, triple-glazed windows and heavily insulated walls, which we have now, and which effectively trap us year-round inside a highly conditioned, unnatural environment, which we call home.  We have practically barricaded ourselves inside a strong box, to keep off the elements, critters, and alas, other people as well.

Now about this courtyard house.  The main feature of the design is a big opening carved out from the middle of the block, allowing natural light to stream in and air to freely circulate inside the house, with the porch roof extending indoors as a continuous light shelf all around the courtyard.  The organization of the various spaces is self-evident, consisting of a more public wing on the one side and a more private one on the other, with a communal dining space like a bridge between the two.  Both the occupants and guests enter the house from the front door through a covered walkway--a rarity nowadays, as most houses have their garages directly connected with the house and people rarely ever use their front doors. 

Floor Plan

West Elevation

South Elevation

East Elevation

North Elevation

N-S Section through Courtyard

N-S Section through Private Wing

E-W Section through Public Wing

E-W Section through Study

E-W Section through Bedrooms

Living Room

Kitchen

Dining Room

Master Bedroom

Private Wing

Courtyard

Knitting Anyone?

Yarn Bowl

I started knitting again in December 2014 after a hiatus of 30 years.  I was first taught how to knit by my French professor in college.  She was from Switzerland originally, moved to China in the teens of the 20th Century after marrying a Chinese diplomat, then in 1950 decamped to Taiwan with her husband after the R. O. C. (Republic of China) was defeated by the Chinese Communist Party.  In addition to French and knitting, she also first introduced me to the art of eating a soft-boiled egg on an egg cup for breakfast.   

Tree Warmer

According to Kirk, I knitted him a pullover 3 decades ago during the early years of our marriage and it was his favorite sweater.  I can no longer recall how I did it.  It, however, soon got misplaced at the Philosophy Department in Berkeley and was never found again.  Fast forward to December 14.  We were in downtown Bloomington looking for ideas for Christmas gifts.  We went into a local yarn shop called Yarns Unlimited--they are the ones who clothe the trees downtown with knitted wool in the winter. Inspired by all the colorful yarn we saw, then and there I (we) decided that I should try to knit another sweater for Kirk just like the one he lost.  That's how I picked up knitting again.
  

Hand Warmers that can type

Thanks to the wealth of knitting tutorials on-line, I managed to figure out how to knit again from scratch. Since then I've knitted several sweaters, multiple scarves, caps, etc.  I like to have my knitting around when I am in between occupations and wanting to keep my hands busy, when conversation in a group seems daunting, or while sitting around at my hairdresser's waiting for my hair to finish "processing"; hours go by more quickly when you're stuck in planes or the airport, if you have your knitting with you. 
   

Tree Hugger

What prompted me to write this post was my chance reading of an article in the New York Times this evening called The Health Benefits of Knitting.  I'm not sure whether all the health claims in the article are verifiable but I can testify that it is an endlessly challenging activity and that it builds patience and perseverance, and teaches you to accept a certain amount of imperfection in your work--mistakes are unavoidable.  I'm certain that if we were still in Gainesville, Kirk and I would be able to get a knitting group going, with our old gang of fearless amateur painters.  I miss them sorely.  A note to the wise, for people with carpal tunnel discomfort, knit in moderation.  

Seymour Bernstein: a discovery

A couple of months ago, in trying to glean some advice from the internet about how to play certain piano pieces, I came across a book called With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music, written by a pianist named Seymour Bernstein, who is a well-known piano teacher living in New York.  Although the title sounded a little corny, I bought the book anyway, through Amazon Marketplace--a used hardback from a private library collection for about $30.  I devoured the book in a few days, while marking, it seemed, almost every page with little purple stickers, meaning to come back to try to digest some of the passages later.  

A couple of months passed, and out of the blue I read somewhere about a recent documentary made by Ethan Hawke, called "Seymour: An Introduction".  I finally put the two together and discovered that along with many other people I had just been introduced to a great pianist and a great piano teacher.  I missed the film when it was screened at IU Cinema, and have not been able to stream it on-line (iTunes won't have it available until January 2016).  But after watching the many video clips on YouTube of his piano playing and the Q & A sessions given by him and Ethan Hawke about the film, I feel like saying that we've just been introduced to a living legend and a national treasure.  (He was born in 1927.)  On one of the videos Seymour recalled having met an old Viennese lady when he was in his 20s, at a retirement home in New Jersey where he once played some pieces by Brahms, and the lady telling him that he played better than Brahms himself.  She said she heard Brahms play when he came over to Hanover to play at Clara Schumann's funeral!  Now who, if not a living legend, could boast of a connection, though tenuous, like that in this day and age! 

One of the things that struck me about his book and his many recorded conversations is how rare and precious a good mentor and pupil relationship is.  Encountering a truly inspiring mentor in one's life, in whatever pursuit one is engaged in, is a gift of the gods.  The true mentor opens your eyes to something, gives you a momentary glimpse into a world rich and with unfathomable depth, and shows you clues about how to get there. Seymour Bernstein in this sense becomes a mentor to all those in whom his books and recordings strike a receptive cord.  My discovery of Bernstein through a random internet search was pure serendipity, like Ethan Hawke's meeting Bernstein at dinner at a friend's house, which led to his documentary, an unexpected find of a treasure trove.  

With the release of this film, his 1981 book is now selling for about $100 used and $350 to $680, like-new.  That was something I didn't expect when I purchased the book!

Here are some links to reviews about this documentary.  If it shows in your neighborhood, don't miss it.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-an-older-man

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/20/394270834/seymour-a-loving-portrait-of-an-acclaimed-classical-pianist

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/movies/review-seymour-an-introduction-is-a-lesson-in-perseverance.html?_r=1

Searle on Profile

Listen to an interview of John Searle on Profile at WFIU when he visited IU in September 2014 -

http://indianapublicmedia.org/profiles/cognitive-philosopher-john-searle/

7 Wochen Ohne / 7 Weeks Without

7 Wochen Ohne

Several important calendar dates seem to have all come together this week; they are important for different people and for different reasons.  For the Chinese, tomorrow is the beginning of the Lunar New Year, this time, the Year of the Sheep.  For Catholics, today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a period of soul searching, fasting, and praying, which lasts till Easter Sunday.  You wonder how, and what, I know about Lent and its religious meaning; the truth is I know very little but what I found on the web.  However, I've recently picked up quite a bit of information about how German people celebrate this religious "season" -- I call it a season for it literally lasts more than three months -- for 2015, it is 19 weeks and 5 days to be exact, beginning officially from 11.11.14 at 11:11.  I have no idea how that specific date and time came about, but this is how the germanic traditions go. 

Another bit of interesting information I picked up is how the German Evangelical Christian communities have transformed this quintessential Roman Catholic tradition of fasting and penance into a popular movement for concrete actions which aim at changing one's habits, presumably those which one wishes to be rid of.  And instead of the usual 40-day fasting, they've turned this into a 7-week event of "doing without" -- a kind of self-imposed privation which can help kick start the forming of a more commendable habit.  

Every year they come up with a motto, a call to action which the German Protestants can all participate in.  For 2015, their motto is "Du bist Schön!  Sieben Wochen ohne Runtermachen", which I translate as "You are Beautiful - Seven Weeks Without Telling Somebody Off or Running Down on Somebody".  I take this to mean without bashing somebody or making disparaging remarks about someone, here, concerning someone's looks, though I presume it can extend to other aspects of a person, and that the idea of bashing can include deprecatory remarks aimed at oneself.  Maybe a more colloquial translation of "Runtermachen" would be "trash-talking," or talking somebody down.  Whether "bashing" has reached a dangerous level in German society, which calls for a collective action to readdress, is something I can only speculate about.  Taking a curious look at their mottos from previous years, I think, would be interesting for social psychologists.  For example, for 2012 the motto is, "Good enough! Seven weeks without false ambition", and for 2013, "Riskier, man!  Seven weeks without caution."  What did they mean?!

This, however, reminds me of the practical advice which William James offers to help with forming a new habit of the will in his essay called Habit .  He said: "Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.  That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test." 

Kirk and I have taken a pledge ourselves to participate in this collective consciousness of self-denial.  Our motto is "6 Wochen ohne Fleisch, ohne Völlerei!"  I'm not going to translate it here, in case we don't make it.