Toronto, Ontario; Pleasant Hill, California; Fairfield, California; Walnut Creek, California; Oakland, California; San Francisco, California
Palmerston casual dinner: Invitees list included many active in Canasian Artists Group circa mid-1980s, and friends of the Asian Canadian bookstore of Andrew Lee. Today’s generation doesn’t know the history of Toronto 30 years ago, and we debated whether they need to know. (Palmerston, Toronto, Ontario) 20160604
Robarts Library: Eleventh floor stacks, with triangular window bays protruding out facing Sussex Street. My alumnus card still gives me access to the stacks to old books, including one older than my attending university. Biked cross town, got caught in torrential downpour in the last five minutes, so entered the building dripping water. (Roberts Library 11th floor, University of Toronto, St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20160605Riverdale Park pedestrian bridge: View south on lower Don River, at rush hour with traffic northbound practically stopped. Rode bike west on Lake Shore Boulevard, then north. Carried bike up many flights of stairs to pedestrian bridge from West Riverdale Park to East. Just a short loop around our neighbourhood, but the headwind was strong on the outbound. (Riverdale Park pedestrian bridge over the Don River, Toronto, Ontario) 20160607Yonge Street at Yorkville Avenue: Facades of heritage 1870s-1890s Yonge Street buildings (John Oram, #836; Moses Staunton, #838-844; James Weir, #846-848A; Charles Frogley, #850) are being preserved as incorporated into a luxury 58-storey glass and steel tower at 1 Yorkville under construction. The storefronts are empty. In the lot behind, there’s a big pit with construction machines digging. Neighbourhood was quiet on a Saturday when festivals were drawing crowds elsewhere. (1 Yorkville Avenue at Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20160611Ryerson Student Learning Centre: Entered old building from Victoria Street Lane, not thinking of connection to new Yonge Street entrance. Library is open Sunday into evening, so Ryerson University students must not see summer as a special season. With eduroam, Internet access works the same as at home, so bicycling was just for exercise. (Ryerson Student Learning Centre, Yonge Street, Toronto) 20160612The Hearn: For Monday, @Luminato Festival is closed to the public. Rolled up on bike, attendant said to come back tomorrow at 5pm. The Hearn is a fair bike ride from Leslie Street and Lake Shore Boulevard, most people would choose the shuttle bus or pay the $15 onsite parking charge. (The Hearn, 440 Unwin Avenue, Portlands, Toronto, Ontario) 20160613Factory Studio: Chinoiserie play by @magicalmudge readers @R4Burning @Aranthor @pauliedat director @tara_beagan @fuGENTheatre @FactoryToronto partnered with @Shawtheatre. Story set in late 19th century, midwest America, about a mural to be created by a Chinese painter. For the WalkTheWalk National Festival of Asian Canadian Women, stage set with unwoven/weaving/comingtogether hanging knots of twine, manila rope, cotton rope and fibre piping. (Factory Studio, Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20160614
OCADU: For Systems Thinking Ontario, Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos @closetheloopgr starting with basics of Viable System Model, before describing application on a unified Sustainability Management System. Bimodal knowledge distribution in audience, from those who are new to VSM, to some who are experts. (Lambert Lounge, OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20160615
The Hearn: Tenth annual Luminato Festival, sited this year at the former Hearn Generating Station that was decommissioned in 1993. The main hall used to house eight large turbines. Art has been placed on the ground floor, and on the walls of the top level, six flights of stairs up. On the west field is Pierre Huyghe (2012) Untilled (Liegener Frauenakt) Reclining Female Nude, where a bee colony has taken over the head of the figure. (Luminato, The Hearn, Unwin Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20160616
Michel de Broin (2013) One Thousand Speculations:
View of the installation in The Hearn from underneath on the southwest side, as part of Luminato 2015. Ball is composed of 24 aluminum structural sections and 1184 acylic mirrors. Area underneath the ball is cordoned off, for safety. Venue is a disused power generating plant, temporarily refurbished for a 10-day event. (The Hearn, Unwin Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20160616
Maple Leaf Lounge Transborder: Entourage of 6 bound for SFO, chilling over breakfast in the Maple Leaf Lounge. New check-in routes to U.S. gates. (Pearson Airport, Toronto, Ontario) 20160617Hyatt House Pleasant Hill: The last day of serious bachelorhood, amongst the male cousins available for matchmaking. (Hyatt House, Pleasant Hill, California) 20160617Jelly Belly Factory: Families queued in mid morning lineup for self guided factory tour of Jelly Belly production. We weren’t in the first 500 visitors who got the free two pounds of candy. We donned hairnets to view operations from overhead windows. (Jelly Belly Factory, Fairfield. California) 20160618The Gardens at Heather Farms: Wedding of Julie and Kevin, exchange of vows and rings, conducted by a non-religious officiant. Event was well-attended by a large family group, and many friends. Late afternoon ceremony had practically perfect weather conditions. Reception, dinner, and dancing into evening. (The Gardens at Heather Farms, Walnut Creek, California) 20160618Jack London Square: Bronze of White Fang wolf-dog hybrid, in front of Jack London’s Cabin. Interior of building is ultimate minimum for author. Oakland was a waypoint for family moving from Pleasant Hill through San Fran tourist stops, to Burlingame hotel overnight for early SFO flights tomorrow. DY and I are repositioned in an Alameda hotel for my meeting in Oakland tomorrow. Six of us arrived on Friday on the same plane, but are departing on five different routings on Monday. (Jack London Square, Oakland, California) 20160620United Club, SFO: Of the six of us leaving SFO today, I am on the latest flight direct. Dropped DY at West Oakland BART station at 9 a.m., she should have arrived in Vancouver before I depart to Toronto. The whole family is at ease through airports. (Club United, International Terminal, San Francisco International Airport. California) 20160620Fu Yao Supermarket Riverdale: Fresh jackfruit in season in Chinatown, they’ll sell you less than the whole. Biked over to replenish the pantry, since the family was away for four days. Shift to Pacific Time and back, late evenings with extended family, and then evening flight home means brainpower low due to to jet lag. (Fu Yao Supermarket Riverdale, Gerrard Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20160621Lower Don Trail: In progress Art Relay @PanAmPath A Love Letter to the Great Lakes under ramp from Don Valley Parkway southbound to Gardiner Expressway westbound. Official photo opportunity still two days away, at which point the artists should get more rest beyond the hammock. Signs for bicyclists to dismount or go slow through the site, ask that the work team be left alone so that they can make a crazy deadline. (Lower Don Trail, Toronto, Ontario) 20160622Manulife Centre: Cinema in Yorkville is on upper level of plaza between two modernist residential towers, built in the early 1970s. Building was new when I first came to university in Toronto, and a short walk off campus. Admission price for movie is lower on Tuesdays, and I caught X-Men Apocalypse on a normal sized screen with a handful in the audience. (Cineplex Odeon Varsity, Manulife Centre, Bloor Street West, Toronto) 20160628Nathan Phillips Square: Afterwork @TorontoJazzFest @GrayMatterSound Derek + Justin; @elibennettmusic @luisdenizsax Todd Pentney. @TOArtsFdn in 2015 honoured Justin Gray with Emerging Jazz Artist award. Temporary stage on northeast plaza, beside main stage tent, festival not using New Theatre Stage. Audience filled outdoor chairs mostly in sunlight, others listening from more shady spots outside the official fenced area. (Toronto Jazz Festival, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Ontario) 20160629
Mill Street Beer Hall: H2 Harkness-Herriott @MillStBeerHall @TorontoJazzFest Sean Harness guitar @MikeH_trumpet Herriott as duo. No percussion or bass, yet so much music. Imaginative arrangements, no other musicians to hide behind. Early evening show, high stools in middle of beer hall facing west, so fans standing beyond the few seats with a prime view. (Mill Street Beer Hall, Distillery District, Toronto Jazz Festival, Ontario) 20160630
Within the Systems Thinking Ontario community, we were fortunate to have Nenad Rava step up to explain how the Sustainable Development Goals came to be, and relate them to systems change. This May session of Systems Thinking Ontario was a quick follow-on for the March edition on Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the SDGs. […]
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
A special issue on “Sustainable, Smart and Systemic Design Post-Anthropocene: Through a Transdisciplinary Lens” in the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics edited by Marie Davidová, Susu Nousala, and Thomas J. Marlowe has been released. In that issue, the journey of the Systems Changes Learning Circle from 2019 through 2022 is reviewed. The editorial team, […]
In the ISSS 2022 Plenary talk, the first 25 minutes were a blast through (a) the rising interest in system(s) change(s); (b) appreciative systems (Vickers); (c1) the philosophy of architectural design; (c2) the philosophy of ecological anthropology; (c3) the philosophy of Classical Chinese Medicine; (c4) the philosophy of rhythms; and (d) methods of multiparadigm inquiry, […]
The theme for the February online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was sparked from the discussion from the January session on Root Metaphor and World Hypotheses. What does it mean to have a theory? How does sensemaking contribute to this? Gary Metcalf volunteered to guide a conversation on these topics. Two prereadings were to serve […]
Philosophy underlies the distinction in the three volumes of the Tavistock Anthology: founded on the World Hypotheses of Stephen C. Pepper, the Socio-Psychological Systems Perspective and the Socio-Technical Systems Perspectives are based on Organicism, while the Socio-Ecological Systems Perspective is based on Contextualism. This thread on contextualism can be traced from the association between E.C. […]
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 ›
For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
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 […]
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
