Day 5 (10/5) - Art, Macbeth
Most entrepreneurial ventures and startups fail, so if you're not willing to risk your asset values disappearing, your apartment being worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs being in peril, your security at risk and your women becoming maids in other people's countries, foreign workers you're not going to become an entrepreneur. Ditto for a people as a whole.
I saw a "Washington - Evergreen State" license plate this day, but never saw any "California - Golden State" license plates throughout the three weeks.
Wireless was very erratic at the hotel.
In many US buses you signal a halt by pulling ropes strung along the sides of the buses. This is good because you don't need to look for the stop buttons, and can just reach up from anywhere you're sitting. For the company this is cheaper because you only have to wire one contact point at the front of the bus on either side, instead of the whole bus for buttons.
The day began with a forum at the Haas Center for Public Service. Because it started later than scheduled, we got to walk around first; I met a bunch of 3 conspiracy theorists from an organisation called LaRouche giving the usual crap about a cabal, and how global warming is an evil plot to suppress development and kill people in the Third World, and Al Gore is controlled by corporate interests out to make money. Even more amazingly, the guy who I engaged claimed LaRouche had refuted the principle of Supply and Demand in the 70s. Another kept calling to passerbys, but I noticed he only targeted one sort by calling 'young lady' to various girls repeatedly; naturally they gave him the 'go away you creep' look.
At the forum we were told that students like us and students from the National Taiwan University would be the future leaders of our country. Funny, I thought that role would fall to the Singaporean students at Stanford.
Some of us were skeptical about the idea of student led public service. I pointed out that you always see the same few names floating around in these circles: for example someone one of the students who spoke to us talked about was also very active in RI and RJC. The reply was that this was often because no one else wanted to participate in this sort of activities, and that perhaps their examples would inspire others.
Public Service in the US is a very broad term. Besides encompassing working for NGOs and Human Rights organisations it also includes what Singaporeans know as the Civil Service - working for Federal, State and other governments.
Why would anyone throw peanuts into a recycling bin?!
Rear of Memorial Church. There's a 2 year wait to be married inside, so people sign up before they get engaged.
We then went for a talk on Race and Incarceration. I told my neighbors to send me to the Medical Center if I got beaten up during Q&A.
After unveiling supposedly shocking statistics about how blacks are disproportionately represented in incarceration statistics, one of the speakers quoted Massey, 2007 in 'Categorically Unequal' claiming that the US criminal justice system had created an American Gulag. At this ludricrous assertion which mocks and trivialises the suffering of the people in the *real* gulags, I muttered an audible curse, causing someone in front of me to turn around and look at me.
The talk was supposed to end with a debate between the two speakers, but really there wasn't much to debate, since they weren't so much opposed to each other (I'm not asking for diametric opposition, but they didn't disagree on anything) as talking about different things. Unfortunately we had to run off, so I didn't get to ask my classic question about the criminal justice system being biased against men ("If the fact that blacks and other minorities form a disproportionate share of the prison population means that they're discriminated against and that the system is rigged against them, does that mean that men are also discriminated against and that the system is rigged against them?"), or why they had to look at it as a race issue rather than a class issue, which would certainly be more helpful.
Unfortunately not everyone found the talk as fascinating (albeit in a bad way) as me - of the 11 of us, 9 were sleeping at one point or other. Hurr hurr.
We then had a lecture on racial and ethnic politics in the US, by Prof Luis Ricardo Fraga, who introduced the interesting concept of ascriptive inegalitarianism - some segments of the population are excluded from political consideration by those in power. This happened to non-property owners before Andrew Jackson and to blacks both during Slavery and the Jim Crow period. Presumably it would apply too to women before the suffragettes.
In the US, many people are obsessed with the original meaning of the Constitution. In that case, why don't they reinstate Slavery and exclude non-property owners and women from the electorate?
Someone said (s)he was struck by the optimism of Americans, whether at Google or Professors bringing academia out of the ivory tower and into the realm of political involvement. Tsk, the Singaporean model is different - you should stand for elections if you want to interfere in politics.
It seems MOE has implemented Service Learning too, but the journals students write are graded, so one Raffles Guy had told one of our group that they just borrowed good journals from their seniors and copied them. Hurr hurr.
Having some free time, and with it open till 8 on Thursday, we went to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts and were given some Rodin commentary by our chaperone who wasn't a chaperone.
The Burghers of Calais, with idiots hanging around, near the Main Quad
Since Rodin worked with bronze, he could mass produce his pieces. Hurr hurr.
The Three Shades
The Gates of Hell, with Adam and Eve
Detail
Rodin also chopped up pieces of his sculptures for resale:
The Thinker, atop the Gates of Hell
The Thinker, standalone
The Kiss
Age of Bronze, reduction
Bust of Victor Hugo
Nigeria, 20th century. Water-spirit mask
Yes, I was wondering how to put this on.
Butterfield, 1999. 'Untitled' (this is such a popular title these days).
This bronze horse looks like it's mae of wood because it was made from a driftwood model.
Tang Dynasty Horse, c. 700-55
China, Ming Dynasty. Early 15th c. Manjusri (Wenshu)
Japan, 19th c. Dragons holding a crystal ball. Silver.
Japan. Meiji Dragon - Ivory and Mother of Pearl
India, c. 1900. Siva as the Lord of the Dance representing his 5 aspects of cosmic activity.
Vishnu w/Lakshmi and Saraswati, 12th c.
17th-18th c. India, architectural panel
Nage, Flores, Indonesia. Equestrian figure honoring a male ancestor, 20th c.
Great Armor, 19th c. Japan.
There was a wood sculpture of the Buddha in the last age of his life. They explained that when he was 80, he ate spoiled pork and then died, so Buddhists shouldn't eat meat. A modern version might have him eating vegetables contaminated with pesticide, and Buddhists becoming carnivores.
16th vc. Chinese Taoist deity.
11th-13th c. Bear-shaped pillow. China
Ow!
Colina, Mexico. Terracotta figures. 250-1000 AD.
The pictures seemed grainy when I set my camera to auto ISO, but I didn't have the patience for funny tricks as in Europe. In any case, they seem alright here with 100% magnification.
Chief's regalia. Kwakwaka'wakw, assembled in 2006.
Their 1500-1800 European collection was okay, but god I miss Europe!
Description of a reproduction of a Stanford Dorm Room, 2006.
Uhh...
Dalou. The bather.
Bourdelle, the Sculptress at work, 1906.
Bourdelle, Rodin working on the Gates of Hell, 1910.
Falguiere, 1882. Bust of Diana.
Geets, the Accident ('Kind in 't Water'). 1899.
Aube, 1879. Dante.
Feuchere, 1843. Amazon breaking a savage horse.
Kelth, 1876. Upper kern river.
Whittredge, Italian landscape.
There were prints by Picasso of the Minotaur having sex. Wth.
Picasso, Bacchanal with a minotaur, 1933.
Others had the minotaur raping and caressing women.
Ruotolo's The Doomed, 1917 looks like the Dachau monument to the oppressed.
Hadzi, Thermopylae. 1965-6.
This insults the memory of those who died.
Brown, 1990. Social butterfly.
Ireland. Other Id, 1992.
Long, 1990. Georgia granite circle.
Wth
Goldsmith Maid driven by Budd Doble. 1876. Kirby van Zandt
Mosaic of Jane Lanthrop Stanford, c. 1900
Stuffed owl
Some of us who hadn't watched Macbeth the previous night then went to watch it. Forewarned by the experiences of the rest, we brought all our warm clothing, but even then it wasn't enough.
Segal, 1980. Gay liberation.
This is the LGBT monument. Since there're 4 figures, we were trying to figure out which was the L, which the G, which was the B and which one the T was, but we failed.
Someone: siallah lgbt monument looks like the waiting room to an oncology clinic. unhappy people comforting one another
Sans idiots
The first Segway I'd seen. I hadn't even seen one at Google. I think I didn't see any others for the rest of the trip.
Following in my tradition of spending a lot on food, I had a lobster burrito for $7.79. There was a surprising amount of lobster inside.
Macbeth
3 Witches prancing around. It was quite weird, because 2 of them were girls but 1 was an Indian boy with a high voice.
It being so cold, I pitied the actresses acting as females, since they had gowns with open necklines. At least the actresses acting as males could wear stuff under their suits.
Another extract
Sensual stretching by the witches
Somehow I don't think this was in the original by Shakespeare
Chris shuffling to keep warm. The girls were doing more amusing things like jumping jacks, but once I took out my camera they stopped; wet blankets!
We took the 11+pm bus back, and there were a lot of people carrying many things on the bus. The bus driver walked down the aisle waking them up, saying: "I have to wake you up. You can go back to sleep now." Then he handed them flyers for 'Homeless Connect Day'. At least the bus ran 24hrs in a loop, or they'd be screwed.
Quotes:
[On my sweater around my waist] Your skirt looks like a belt (belt)
[On 'ascriptive inegalitarianism'] This is a term only a social scientist could love.
Cynicism is good. Cynicism is what keeps us alive in Singapore. It stops us from commiting suicide... I want you to move from fatalistic cynicism to critical cynicism.