Spring return from California visit, into Toronto coming back to life with city activities.
Oakland, California; San Francisco, California; Toronto, Ontario
Gallery of California History: Spun the wheel to get Strike A Rick Vein, Retire to California!, on an exhibit on the Gold Rush Days. Meandering stroll through California history, since betore the acquisition of the territory from Mexico, through to modern-day Silicon Valley. Free admission on the first Sunday of the month an extra incentive for families to visit. (Gallery of California History, Oakland Museum of California, Oak Street, Oakland, California) 20220501Gallery of California Art: Revisiting patriotic stories from Chinese picture books #HangLiu (2012) Heroine of Gu Yanxiu has added plants and birds that didn’t appear in the 19th and 20th century originals. This image shows the heroine organizing women to plow the fields in revolutionary labour. The painter passed away in 2021, having previously been twice recognized by the National Endowmenf for the Arts. (Gallery of California Art, Oakland Museum of California, Oak Street, Oakland, California) 2022050SFO F gates: I wasn’t going to Hawaii, but one gate over were musicians, hula dancers and agents offering macadamia nuts. On the short flight SFO to LAX, the aircraft doesn’t even have entertainment screens in the seatbacks. First leg towards home, to meet my sister for a handoff of my father for the return to Toronto. (F gates, San Francisco International Airport, California) 20220502LAX Terminal 6:. Leisurely connection at LAX, as inbound flight was late. Excellent service on passenger assistance to get around the terminal. Automobile traffic outside was more stress. (Los Angeles International Airport, California) 20220502Arsenal Contemporary Art: Reflective fabric 40 metres long, stitched by @MataAhoCollective (2014) Kaokao #1, part of @TorontoBiennial. Pieced together by Maori artists, in a tukutuku chevron design used both as a military symbol and birthing maps. Size shown in relation to another visitor, innocently reading the description card for the work. (Arsenal Contempotary Gallery, Ernest Avenue, Junction Triangle, Toronto, Ontario) 20220507High Park: Cherry blossoms on a bright spring day attracts both parents with children, and social influencers looking for a selfie. Roads in the park closed to automobiles, traffic jams on the roads north of Bloor Street. Expedited the trip by taking the bike on the subway outbound, and riding on dedicated lanes all th eway home. (High Park, Bloor Street West, Swansea, Toronto, Ontario) 20220507OCADU Graduate Studies: In dimmed room, @mary_k_mcintyre 2022 Breathing Exercise #gradex107 @ocadugrad has partially gilded found cedar root lit from above, with cyanotype print behind. In shadow below is a charred pine branch. Work might have been better exhibited in a space with higher ceilings. Biography says metalsmith, maybe education is broadening the choice of materials. (OCADU Graduate Studies, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220512Centre for Social Innovation Spadina: Frdiay afternoon in-person social event for @climatecsi in the main lounge of @csiTO, bringing together enterpreneurs weary of years of Zoom calls. Easy to meet new people, as the cohorts have changed with years passing. Not a full representation, as the breadth of ventures has expanded nationally, so extra scheduling may be needed to catch individuals passing through town. (Centre for Social Innovation, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20220513St. Lawrence Market South: Volunteers @SLNASpeaks ReMarket sorting donations on the left, Free Market on the right open Wednesday to 7pm. Thursday Repair Cafe 11am-3pm. Waste reduction by keeping unwanted items out of the garbage. Long table has many clothes, I scored a Cuisinart food processor for one son, and a Tiger rice cooker for another, as they’re setting up households. (St. Lawrence Market South, The Esplanade, Old Toronto, Ontario) 20220518Villiers Street: Looking south, new eastern bank of future Villiers Island is dry, with the Commissioners Street Bridge in place for 2024. Had to stand on short concrete construction cylinders to see over the barb wired fence and blue curtain. When the Don River is redirected from the westbound Keating Channel, this roadway today will have been dug out and underwater. (Villiers Street, Port Lands, Toronto, Ontario) 20220519Pine Hills Cemetery: Celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Lowkong Society, the 吳 Ng Wu Ing Eng brotherhood in Canada. Ceremony explained that this monument is much newer, yet it’s a place that our sons have visited each year for decades. Cloudy day on Sunday was better than the tornadoes reported on Saturday. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Birchmount Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20220522Pine Hills Cemetery: Visited Mom’s final resting place on a cloudy tomb sweeping day. Planted some flowers, burned incense and hell money. Event was overdue, mobility has been discouraged in multiple years of pandemic. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Birchmount Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20220522Tov-Li South: Regaining lost time since university years and the wedding decades ago, had a casual dinner together to catch up on lives. Recapping the movements and careers of children who are scattering around the continent. Took some scheduling and logistics to coordinate this event just three of us across this big city. (Tov-Li South, Bathurst Street, North York, Ontario) 20220524Zoomerplex: Welcome and question-answer by #MarilynLightstone for @Doors_OpenTO tour of main hall, before seeing radio booth and museum. Complimented on her voice, she related history as a graduate of the second cohort of the #NationalTheatreSchool in Montreal, many years ago. I’m old enough to appreciate the career of this actress, but no so old that I’m listening to radio targeted to listeners reliving the 1950s and 1960s. (Zoomerplex, Jefferson Street. Liberty Village, Toronto, Ontaro) 20220528The Ismaili Centre Toronto: Park northeast of building is open not only for @Doors_OpenTO, but also wedding parties with photographers. Had joined 20 minute tour inside, the glass column extending up to the roof would be behind a featured speaker in the circular prayer hall. Guides were concise on Muslim history and religious history, I need to do some more homework to catch up. (The Ismaili Centre Toronto, Wynford Drive, Don Mills, Ontario) 20220529
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre: Sumi-e (black ink on paper painting) #HiroshiYamamoto (2022) encountered on @Doors_OpenTO site crawl, although the exhibition of The Way of the Brush regularly welcomes visitors. Work is one of 13 artists, students and teachers of the JCCC program running since 1964. Other activities in progress concurrently were a guided tour of immigration in the Moriyama Nikkei Heritage Centre, and kendo demonstrations in the studio. (Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Garamond Court, Don Mills, Ontario) 20220529
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 […]
Civic Tech can be described as projects using technology “for the public good“. Civic Tech may be related to, but different from Gov Tech. For the May 2024 Systems Thinking Onrtario, we had two knowledgeable guests in conversation. Dorothy Eng, executive director of Code for Canada since 2021, related her professional journey from engineering to […]
On my May trip through the UK, I accepted an offer to lead an Expert-Led Session at the University of Hull. I had previously been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies, but haven’t travelled to the Hull for some years. As we worked out the arrangements, I found out that the seminar […]
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 […]
