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 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. […]
Researching the philosophical foundations of systems theory to understand the meanings of “causal texture, contextualism, contextural” from the Tavistock legacy led to philosopher Stephen C. Pepper. The philosophical lineage and contributions of Pepper were the focus for the January online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario. A deep reading of Pepper’s work (over a month!) was […]
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 ›
In web conference, #HermanDaly says #EcologicalEconomics used to get attacked from the right, now it's from the left. Panel @revkin @jon_d_erickson @ktkish @sophiesanniti #TimCrowshaw #KatieHorner livestreamed #sustainwhat .Read more ›
Complementing the idea of a @longnow , @nfergus provokes the challenge of a #shortthen as the online social media platforms distract the larger perspectives on history.Read more ›
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 […]
An online version of a special issue of Paunch (1980) on "Root Metaphor: The Live Thought of Stephen C. Pepper" has been preserved on the internet Archive
