Moments, February week 4, March weeks 1-2 in Toronto, Tokyo, Osaka, Tokyo
Toronto, Ontario, Tokyo (Haneda, Kiba, Ookayama), Osaka (Fushimi), Tokyo (Harajuku, Shinjuku, Toyama, Waseda)
Pearson gate E77. Short escape from chilly Toronto for rainy Tokyo. No courtesy upgrade today, so will sleep vertically against the window wall. Enjoyed chicken pho with vegetarian broth in Maple Leaf Lounge, multiple refills die to small bowls. (Toronto Pearson Airport Terminal 1) 20150224Haneda arrival gate corridor. Speedwalk fronted by windows in makes the long trek in daylight from international arrivals to the immigration hall less tedious. Airline terminal formerly just domestic fights, now includes Air Canada from Toronto. Easy walk to monorail, much closer to central Tokyo than Narita airport way out east (Tokyo Haneda Airport) 20150225Kiba Park Bridge and fountain plaza. Rainy walk to Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo on a different route from past trips. Path from Kiba station north through park leads to landmark Kiba Koen Ohashi bridge, over Kasaibashi Street and the Sendaiborigawa River. (Kiba Park, Tokyo) 20150226Scholarly after-lunch discussion. Beyond formal presentations, privilege of relaxed time for conversation of speculative ideas about the future. Wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds add to a rich dialogue. (7th floor, 9 West building, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Japan) 20150227Symposium on Service Systems Science. @JimSpohrer saying Moore’s Law for Service Systems may be found in Smart Service Systems with Cognitive Assistants, at the 8th annual symposium hosted at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Full day of lectures by experts, some regular participants in the invited workshops. (Tokyo Institute of Technology, 9 West Building) 20150228Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum. Learning about varieties of rice used, and how sake is made. Small samples at end of tour still more alcohol than I’ve consumed in a year. Rainy day deterred outdoor sightseeing. Rode shinkasen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, day of touring, then continuing route by car to Osaka. (Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum, Fushimi, Japan). 20150301
My fifth visit to Japan included not only a tour of familiar sights, but also a day trip to Enoshima, Kamakura and Yokohama.
Since Tokyo is so many time zones from home, I arrive a few days and go sightseeing to beat jet lag. On my fifth visit to Japan, I was the first of our meeting to arrive, with the group gradually gaining mass. I checked into the usual hotel, in an high rise tower overlooking the tracks by Tamachi station.
On a mission from DY, my first destination was Harajuku. I went looking for crafting supplies at the Daiso (100 yen) store.
The products aren’t made in Japan, but the variety is wider than in other branches internationally.
A few blocks further east, the Design Festa Gallery changes its installations rapidly, with emerging artists showing their work for nominal costs.
The variety of work includes paintings, photographs and sculpture by mostly Japanese artists.
We found our way over to the Design Festa Gallery, and wandered around the Harajuku area.
Having reoriented myself from Takeshita dori, we crossed Meiji Street to a landmark I remember — the Birkenstock Store. It’s in a flat iron shape, with the street forking off.
The fork on the east side is Harajuku Street. I remember walking down this stretch and thinking that the buildings didn’t seem very interesting.
One or two intersections up, looking to the right, is a strange building at the end of the street.
Design Festa Gallery always amuses me, with the nearly-random pipes on the front facade of the building.
Since I’ve been to the gallery before, I decided to start on the upper floors for a change. The murals on the stairwell walls are entertaining.
Design Festa is a gallery for artists on their way up, in a bohemian setting in Harajuku.
Continuing our express tour of Tokyo, Gary, G.A, Taina and I headed up to Harajuku to see a few more attractions that I had missed on my first visit. I was still looking for contemporary art. Design Festa is a gallery run by local artists, where temporary shows are shown in small quarters. The exterior of the building illustrates the bohemian nature of the art.
Community event #ActorsSocial coinciding with Asian Heritage month, casual backroom stage with mirror revealing audience. Script by #PhyllisCameronUng originally written as a 48-hour challenge for 3 male actors. Story of brothers missing sister. (Society Clubhouse, College Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250528
Cabbagetown Farmers Market on Tuesday afternoons. Easy stroll through local produce and food vendors. Spring temperatures see shoppers without jackets, and in shorts. (Riverdale Park West, Winchester Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250527
Exploring the Chinese Canadian Archives at UToronto with #JuneChow and #MorrisLum. Permitted handling of maps, photos and brochures from geographer David Chuenyan Lai collection from U. Victoria, on Chinatowns across Canada, if hands were washed. Current research into Dragon Centre mall opened in Agincourt in 1984, now in decline with review for redevelopment. (Thomas Fisher […]
Second floor Sala Da Pranzo @Doors_OpenTO used to be main courtroom of Adelaide Street Courthouse (1853 - 1900). View from third floor Il Covo Degli Artisti, originally home for Arts and Letter Club (1910-1920). Jail cells in basement now wine cellar, and a women's washroom. (Terroni, Adelaide Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20240524
n shed at foot of Jarvis Street on harbour, stockpiles of raw sugar at @Doors_OpenTO . Ships from Honduras and Brasil sail up St. Lawrence River, unloading 7 tonnes at a time. Conveyors over and under transport material to other buildings, separating white crystals from molasses syrup. (Redpath Sugar Refinery Queens Quay East, Toronto, ontario) […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
Potluck dinner, with family joining following afternoon conversation. Common shared experiences of having visited farm at Salina, Iowa, some fresh, some a few years back. Reviving the expanded long table, we're empty nesters these days. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20250521
At the post-meeting dinner after the February Systems Thinking Ontario session, Anna Chekhman mentioned that she was teaching a third-year course on Designing Future Systems at York University. I offered to give a lecture, and we set a date for a few weeks later. The CSRP Institute 2024 Banathy Conversation validated that the Systems Changes […]
Two years after submitting an academic manuscript and responding to double-blind reviews, “Rethinking work, with the pandemic disruption” has now been published in the International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior (IJOTB) as earlycite. The article has a DOI (Document Object Identifier), and should be streamed with an official volume and issue number soon. The […]
The 128th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was convened in person. The classroom was filled with current students, alumni, our regular participants, and a few curious newcomers. Moderated by Zaid Khan, the conversation was sparked by Stephen Davies and myself (David Ing) on the evolving styles in learning systems thinking. Stephen has been leading SFIN-6011 […]
The “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course is a requirement in the master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCADU. For winter 2025, the class is now led by Stephen Davies, breaking the incremental evolving of content since 2008. While still on faculty at OCADU, the original course designer Peter H. Jones is now a Distinguished […]
In the 1970s, five ways of knowing were established by C. West Churchman in The Design of Inquiring Systtems. In the 1990s, his student Ian Mitroff carried on the tradition and extended that work in The Unbounded Mind. Now in the 2020s, the technology of Generative AI opens up opportunties to query or request responses […]
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 […]
Rhythm and pitch are primordial to language. Susan Rogers, after a career becoming Prince's recording engineer, turned to complete a PhD in psychology focused on music cognition and psychoacoustics.Read more ›
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 ›
Timothy F.H. Allen, president of International Society for the Systems Sciences 2008-2009, passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by his family, on May 1, 2025. With his work on ecosystem ecology, I learned more about living systems than anyone else in the systems community. After his retirement, he was proud of putting together a […]
In 2024, WordPress Studio was released, making installation on a local computer simpler. The instructions were modified from MacOS to Ubuntu Linux, by Daniel Kossmann, “How to install WordPress Studio in Ubuntu Linux” | Jun 15, 2024 at https://www.danielkossmann.com/how-to-install-wordpress-studio-ubuntu-linux/ I already had NVM installed, but in Terminal, with the result “command not found”. In the […]
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 […]
