Moments in June 2015: Toronto; Riverside Beats & Eats StreetFest; Waterloo, Ontario; Toronto Jazz Festival; Luminato Festival
Toronto; Riverside Beats & Eats StreetFest; Waterloo, Ontario; Toronto Jazz Festival; Luminato Festival
Orient Express kiddie ride. Dragon head could be the most menacing part on carnival ride that is being set up for weekend in west end park. Garish display from street for roller coaster that may only get to 10 feet off the ground means teenagers unlikely to get thrills from steep rises and drops. (Christie Pits Park, Blood Street West, Toronto) 20150604Bicycle-powered music. Music by @Mirian_Kay and @petitsnouveaux amplified by cyclist on @TuneYourRide for @RiversideBIA Beats & Eats StreetFest. Sunny Saturday afternoon, relaxed pedestrians discovering short intersections off Queen Street East. (Munro Street, Toronto) 20150606Pedal your own smoothie. Almond milk + fruit @OmaChiropractic, blender 20 seconds on bike @RiversideBIA Fest. @CycleToronto kiosk next over if wheels go astray. Seat was a little high for short riders, so parents had to ride for kids. (Munro Street, Toronto) 20150606Glen Road bridge. Tranquil view south over Rosedale Valley to tunnel by Sherbourne TTC station east exit, tunnel under Bloor Street above, then Howard Street and the towers of St. Jamestown. Despite having been around Toronto for 40 years, still discovering nooks off the beaten path while bicycling around town. (Glen Road bridge, Toronto, Ontario) 20150608U Waterloo convocation. Picked up gown, found name in program, waiting in the bleachers for ceremonies in about an hour. Brothers and grandfather came to see Adam receive diploma for Masters degree in Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering. (University of Waterloo) 20150613@TorontoJazzFestival opener. Tara Davidson sax, @DanielRFortin bass, @ErnestoCervini drums @TorontoLibrary North York concourse for early evening set. Band has known each other more than a decade. Played a lot of new original songs, yet to be recorded, including “31 Days”, which is how long it took Tara to write it last year. (North York Central Library) 20150615Grooveyard @torontojazzfest. Toddlers @shopsdonmills dance with happy feet as jazz musicians play pop and R&B repertoire. Slight personnel substitution due to double booking with other events around town? Maybe the kids will appreciate more sessions jazz when they get a little older. Grooveyard gets the audience to sing along, while their other personas would not have words. (Shoppes at Don Mills) 20150618Choral jazz @BurdockTo: Isis Giraldo Voces project @torontojazzfest, unexpected a capella harmonies in a warm set with an excellent sound system. Performers from Montreal have a different sense of musicality, great that they can share this on tour. Opening for Emma Frank. (Burdock Music Hall, Toronto) 20150618Dreampop jazz @BurdockTO: Emma Frank @torontojazzfest stretches the genre with contemporary vocal phrasing and pacing. Isis Geraldo on keyboard, Simon Millerd on trumpet. Drums and string bass follow the Montreal style of musicality, pushing the rhythm forward. (Burdock Music Hall, Toronto) 20150618Fleet of PanAm @TO2015 cars: Two weeks before the games start, a lot in Toronto Portlands is where the new cars with PanAm stickers are parked. Staging area is near the West Donlands Athletes Village, remarkably close to downtown Toronto. The contribution of General Motors as a transportation sponsor is significant. (Cherry Street at Commissioners Road, Toronto) 20150620Looped cello @Luminato: @cris_derksen with electronics and live drummer on the Festival Garden Stage, as part of National Aboriginal Day. Pattern played into machine, layers built up, and then soloing on top. Audience sprawled out on astroturf enjoying the weather. (Pecaut Square, Luminato Festival, Toronto) 20150621Hoop dancing @Luminato: Nimkii Osawamick performing with @cris_derksen on the Festival Garden Stage. Wrapped up in multiple hoops with looped cello and drummer on National Aboriginal Day. (David Pecaut Square, Luminato Festival, Toronto) 20150621
The family convened in Waterloo to see Adam receive his Master’s diploma at convocation.
Adam completed his master’s thesis in September, and then moved to the Detroit area in October to take a job. The timing put him into convocation with the spring 2015 group. From Toronto, we picked up his grandfather and drove towards Waterloo, while he came from the other direction. We converged in Waterloo for lunch at a local restaurant that serves northern-style Chinese dumplings.
Over at the PAC, Adam had already registered ahead for his black academic gown.
We were early enough to be at the front of the line into the gymnasium where the ceremonies would be held.
Diana and I opted for a more strategic stage right position for photography. This separated us from our sons and their grandfather, who chose the bleachers on the other side.
When the procession started, people stood up to get a view.
The procession came down the middle of the gym. Adam’s group was to be seated towards the front.
Toronto, Ontario; Chicago, Illinois; Waterloo, Ontario.
Jari and Kirsti say that Lake Ontario is colder and clearer at Bluffers Park than at Cherry Beach, having started waterfront tour way west at Sunnyside. They say the great lake is the size of the Gulf of Finland (Toronto, Saturday) 20100703 1700Harbourfront Centre Sirius Stage: Beats, Breaks and Culture final battle between Ground Illusions and FAM. Noah Ing taking the stage (Toronto, Sunday) 20100711 1750The Bean (Cloud Gate) at Millenium Park, installed in 2004. Much better use of the parklands thab in the 1980s when I lived in this city (Chicago, Thursday) 20100715 0930Debora Hammond taking questions after her talk on Food Policy for a Resilient Future, with Ockie Bosch moderating session (Wilfred Laurier U., Waterloo. ON) 20100721 1000Markus Schwaniger causal loop diagram on the Culture of Fear associated with an economic downturn at ISSS 2010 (Waterloo, Ontario) 20100722Jennifer Wilby taking the role of president of the International Society for the Systems Science. A transition from the role of VP of Administration, revisiting bylaws developed by G.A. Swanson with a renewed emphasis on the ISSS council (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) 20100723 1200
Acupuncture mannekin in Dr. Lam’s treatment room. This show the position for needles in the back, where I had eight needles formed in two rows. Hours later, I am still feeling heat on my back. (Toronto, Monday) 20100726 1630
Digging into philosophies underlying the systems sciences, pragmatism seems to have been a strong historical foundation for some research streams. In ongoing discussions, Gary Metcalf and I have been approaching pragmatism from two directions. Gary has been tracking from mid-1800s forward, listening to the audiobook The Metaphysical Club, with a history of figures living through […]
The ties between systems thinking and pragmatism are apparently strong, but the breadth in the philosophy of pragmatism can be confusing. Within the tradition, one of the threads is called nonrelativistic pragmatism, proposed by systems luminaries C. West Churchman with Russell L. Ackoff, descending from the work of philosopher Edgar A. Singer, Jr. A concise […]
A luminary in the systems movement, C. West Churchman, showed some respect for Chinese philosophy, with the I Ching (Yi Jing) in particular. Deborah Hammond was encouraged by West Churchman into joining and becoming a historian of the systems movement. In her 2003 book, Hammond wrote of her conversations with Churchman, back into his days […]
The 1969 publication of Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery as a Penguin Modern Management paperback, can be regarded as a milestone. The articles date from the 1940s to the 1960s, when the first wave of systems thinking was on the rise. For the June session of Systems Thinking Ontario, we stepped […]
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 […]
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 […]
