Algorithms in the Field (8F)

I updated the Algorithms in the Field (8F) site with links to videos, reports, slides, followup meetings etc. This vision continues to be compelling for me and many others. 

Braiding Pleasures, Oakland Style

I traveled to Oakland, the addictive, west coast version of the miasma of Harlem, to get my hair braided. Walking down the steps to the BART, I am twice as fast as others. A woman moved over and said, I am from NY and dont like holding up people. I said I am from NY too. She wished me, "Good luck, dealing with the angst of being away". In turn, I wished her, "Find some peace",  and she said, "I dont need to find peace", thereby capping a perfect NY moment on 24th St Mission stop. Peace is overrated, at least the personal sense of peace.

My hair was braided by folks from Portugese Guinea. I didnt know there was such a country, Guinea-Bissau. The spent my braiding time reading the New Yorker (June 9, 16, 2014 version),  I flip a page and see a short story -- Yesterday -- by Haruki Murakami, what a treat.  Also, this double issue has one pagers by various writers on old flames. My favorite, by Tobias Wolff, is a story of a boy and the improbable girl Joelle, who meet and reach a momentous place. But as my reading on the left shows, we, humans, fumble quite easily.

The King of Jazz, A Story Reading

I have been meaning to read this story aloud for sometime. The King of Jazz, by David Barthelme. It is the story of Hokie Mokie, a trombone player, who becomes the king of Jazz, but is immediately challenged by an young Japanese Cat, Hideo Yamaguchi, and has to defend himself.

It has a great passage describing Hokie's trombone sound:"You mean that sound that sounds like the cutting edge of life? That sounds like polar bears crossing Arctic ice pans? That sounds like a herd of musk ox in full flight? That sounds like male walruses diving to the bottom of the sea? That sounds like fumaroles smoking on the slopes of Mt. Katmai? That sounds like the wild turkey walking through the deep, soft forest? That sounds like beavers chewing trees in an Appalachian marsh? That sounds like an oyster fungus growing on an aspen trunk? That sounds like a mule deer wandering a montane of the Sierra Nevada? That sounds like prairie dogs kissing? That sounds like witchgrass tumbling or a river meandering? That sounds like manatees munching seaweed at Cape Sable? That sounds like coatimundis moving in packs across the face of Arkansas? That sounds like - " The full story is here.