Toronto, Ontario; Vancouver, BC
Mr. Congee Bridlewood Mall: Followng late afternoon appointments, opted for a casual Cantonese meal at a mall storefront. Congee, beef brisket lo mein, turnip cake and barbeque pork rice at modest prices, whole duck cost a little more. Selection is small, save for the seafood set menus the would suit a grander occasion. (Mr. Congee Bridlewood Mall, Warden Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20240313Zhang Liang Spicy Hotpot: Pre-theatre casual dinner, each diner selecting own ingredients from the open refrigerator shelves to be given to kitchen to make soup. Unlike our experience in China where only malatang means numbing spicy soup, our Cantonese palates could opt for the non-spicy mushroom broth. Some have had more experience estimating the quantity of inputs, to the amount one can eat. (Zhang Liang Spciy Hotpot, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20240320Hugh’s Room Live: Songwriter session with @danhillmusic and @lily_frost, with stories about composing, performing, the music business, and challenges of returning to live performing after long interruption. Small venue in former church, pews in the balcony gave a better view than on ground floor. Gladly accepted free tickets offered by an acquaintance on 3 hours notice, I was a fan even before Dan Hill performed at Ontario Place Forum in 1978. (Hugh’s Room Live, Broadview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20240322Maple Leaf Lounge, Domestic, YYZ: Early for flight to Vancouver, adding salad to the meatballs and rice. Six day visit, mostly to visit DY’s mother. Planning on staying mostly in Eastern Time, up before sunrise at 7:00am. (Maple Leaf Lounge (Domestic), Pearson Airport, Toronto, Ontario) 20240327Denny’s Test Kitchen: Brunch next door to Canadian headquarters of international restaurant chain, with menu items under consideration request feedback for inclusion into regular menus. Bridging east coast body time with west coast mealtimes, we’re jet lagged with the 3-hour time zone change. Discussed the Broadway Plan for rental housing in the neighbourhood, designed to encourage low rise construction while protecting affordability for long-time residents. (Denny’s Test Kitchen, West Broadway, Vancouver, BC) 20240328
Emily Carr University of Art and Design: Bob (Tahitan-Tlingit) + Stan Bevan (Tahitan-Tlingit and Tsimshian) + Lyonei Grant (Maori and Pakeha) 2023 “Pacific Song of Ancestors”. Carving may be tradition of natives of British Columbia, but features on this art work aren’t limited to the province. Art university demonstrates is forward-looking ways. (Emily Carr University of Art and Design, East 1st Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240328
Libby Leshgold Gallery: Scaffold 17 feet in height with prose-poem on Tyvek banners, Hazel Meyer (2024) Weeping Concrete fills the open space of the gallery. Sculptural installation can be used as stage, had two public performances in February 2024. We hadn’t seen a similar 2022 work in the Bentway in Toronto, underneath the Gardiner Expressway. (Libby Leshgold Gallery, East 1st Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240328
Emily Carr University of Art + Design: Suspending on wires from ceiling, Kevin Orloski (2024) Freedom is an epoxy resin artwork symbolizing the American Sign Language expression by Shannon Anderson. Nearing the end of the academic year, students works are on display. On a regular school day, we enjoy the energy on campus. (Emily Carr University of Art + Design, E. 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC) 20240328
Canton-Sardine: Behind wall, a maze Xiangmei Su (2024) Here————There weaves threads around up stairs and beyond blind alleys. The artist lives been cultures, immigrating from Changshu, China to study visual art at UBC in Vancouver. Installation is found in the basement of the Sun Wah Centre used as a Chinatown community space by BCA, very quiet on a regular workday. (Canton-Sardine, Sun Wah Centre, Keefer Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240328
Yohachi Sushi: Leisurely dinner catching up on more than 5 years since we’ve seen each other. They’re more retired than us, all of us are in the sandwich generation of taking care of elders, and having adult children with busy lives. Conversation ran overtime, so that we waited for the late Seabus schedule of 30 minutes rather daytime 15 minute crossings. (Yohachi Sushi Japanese Restaurant, Esplanade West, North Vancouver, BC) 20240328
Richmond Public Market: This two-level shopping centre built in 1994 is not a tourist attraction, instead serving the local Chinese community. Near the south end of the Richmond-Brighouse skytrain station, it has the old Chinatown feeling of chaos and bricolage. Immediate neighbourhood is dense with apartment towers, could be a hub for nearby residents who don’t drive in the suburbs. (Richmond Public Market, Westminister Highway, Richmond, BC) 20240329
Garry Point Park: Sun came out for a slow stroll from the southwest shore of Richmond, westward where the Fraser River meets the Pacific Ocean, curving back eastward. Since the City of Richmond averages 1 metre below sea level, the dykes have gradually been built up to be taller. The Akebono Cherry Blossom Trees attracted many visitors at the easten edge of the park, we oped to walk and talk in the quieter areas. (Garry Point Park, Seventh Avenue, Richmond, BC) 20240329Simon K. Y. Lee Seniors Home: Visiting DY’s mother has been a central purpose for this spring trip to Vancouver. We’ve been visiting daily in the afternoons. Elders don’t necessarily get so much variety in their meals, so she’s been enjoying the fresh fruit we bring. (Simon K. Y. Lee Seniors Home, Carrall Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240329David Lam Park: The Blossoms After Dark event drew a lot of people to a large park, with a relatively small number of features. We had dinner in Yaletown before sunset, and then followed crowds trampling the grass before finding the stairs to the upper level attractions. Relying on many espoused expert photographers is a losing game in difficult lighting conditions. (David Lam Park, Pacific Boulevard, Vancouver, BC) 20240329Wesbrook Village: Honoured to receive an inscribed (2022) translation of Zhuangzi at lunch with Richard John Lynn + Sonja Arntzen, both professors emerita now residing near UBC. After 19 years of retirement, academic leisure means research continues for only 6 hours per day. We exchanged life stories on how early university studies don’t present linear career paths. (Neptune Chinese Kitchen, Westbrook Village, Vancouver, BC) 20240330Belkin Art Gallery: Hard to align foreground sculpture Elizabeth Zvonar (2006) Timing is Everything, with two mirrors facing each other with astrological birth charts of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. In background, mounted on wall, Elizabeth Zvonar (2013) Face inkjet print. Part of the Aporia (Notes to a Medium) exhibition, including works that contend with systems of belief and perception. (Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Main Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC) 20240330Gurkha Himalayan Kitchen: Local foodie with travel experience guided us to Nepalese restaurant for dinner. Food is available not spicy, we started with vegan momos with jhol sauce, and chicken momos fried. Big appetizers meant we took main course leftovers back to the apartment. (Gurkha Himalayan Kitchen, Davie Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240330Simon K.Y. Lee Seniors Care Home: Arrived with pork siu mai and beef balls just as DY’s mother was coming out for lunch, so the staff brought a portable table to the vestibule. Had to chop down the dim sum into smaller pieces, because regular meals are now pureed. We might have slowed down serving, she really gobbles down the food. (Simon K.Y. Lee Seniors Home, Carrall Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240331Chinatown Storytelling Centre: A reproduction of the Yucho Chow Studio, a Chinese Canadian professional photographer serving marginalized communities from 1908 to 1949. This cultural history centre, opened in 2021, has a digital improvement enabling self-portraits to be sent as postcards. The tracing of family heritages are mostly centered on British Columbians, although we recognized the names of historians and writers from across Canada. (Chinatown Storytelling Centre, East Pender Street, Vancouver, BC) 20240331
Dunbar neighbourhood: Afternoon tea with family extended into homecooked meal, graciously early for body clocks still on Eastern Time. Exchanged details and compared experiences on recent trips to Asia. In-person time is so much more valuable than onine messaging. (Dunbar neighbourhood, Vancouver, BC) 20240331
For readers with an interest deeper than the 15-minute presentation given in August, the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Socio-Technical Perspectives in Information Systems (STPIS 2024) have now been formally publishied. The invited paper on “Reifying Socio-Technical and Socio-Ecological Perspectives for Systems Changes: From rearranging objects to repacing rhythms” was reviewed by the […]
The 125th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario coincided with the closing day for the RSD13-RSDX online program. As a regular systems convening group, we’ve had monthly meetings since January 2013. Zaid Khan moderated a discussion including me (David Ing), Tim Lloyd, Allenna Leonard, and Kelly Okamura. We recollected starting as a spinoff from Design with […]
The International Society for General Systems Research formed circa 1956 became the International Society for the Systems Sciences in 1988. In 1985, Bela H. Banathy organized the annual meeting on the theme of “Systems Inquiring”. Proceedings normally are published in the year following. In 1987, John A. Dillon summarized Banathy’s perspective in the yearbook, General […]
For five immersive days, a team of six researchers had the opporunity to collaborate on ideas on rhythmic shifts (mostly based on Systems Changes Learning) and anticipatory systems (in the legacy of Robert Rosen). The 2024 Banathy Conversation was organized by the Creative Systemic Research Platform Institute, facilitated by Susu Nousala, Gary S. Metcalf, and […]
Systems Processes Theory has been under development for many decades, led by Len Troncale, a past president of the International Society for the Ssytems Sciences. Many have found getting a grip on the science to be a demanding task, both in scope and in depth. Over many decades, Lynn Rasmussen was a collaborator, refining and […]
The Socio-Technical Systems (STS) perspective, dating back to the studies of Eric L. Trist and Fred E. Emery, was on the reading list of organizational behaviour classes in my undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I got involved with the systems sciences and David L. Hawk, that the Socio-Ecological […]
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
