A Place For Neanderthals

I was talking to a college undergraduate, and I decided I needed to sharpen my social media skills.

I asked her, “I am on Facebook and on Twitter.  What am I missing?”

Her answer (“You are missing Pinterest”) came with a warning.  She told me that Pinterest was not word-based, it was photo-based, where women pin photos of food or clothes.

Soon after I talked to the college undergrad, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch printed an article about Pinterest, noting that the site was used mostly by women who pin photos of food or clothes or design.  

I signed up for Pinterest, and I noticed that most users were women and most photos were about food or clothes or design or wedding ideas. 

However, there were a sprinkling of men on the site, and a sprinkling of travel photos.  I hatched a plan to promote my St. Louis architectural walking tours.  I pinned photos of buildings in St. Louis --- buildings that people would see if they came on one of my tours.  I planted tour info in the caption of each photo.

Once photos are pinned, they can be re-pinned by other Pinterest users.  So, as my photos move around Pinterest, the walking tour info goes with them. 

I am patting myself on the back for being so clever.

I showed off my cleverness to a co-worker who had never heard of Pinterest.  “I have put some walking tour photos on a website full of photos that people have pinned.”  He is a word-based kind of guy, and immediately labeled Pinterest as a place for Neanterthals.  

His comment: "Neanderthals don't read; they grunt and point at photos."

I realized that I needed to convince my co-worker of the power of Pinterest.  And I had one and one chance to convince him.  I asked Pinterest to show me photos of cupcakes.  

I didn't grunt; I just pointed at a photo of a eye-catching Boston crème pie cupcake.  

The visual won out.  At the sight of this cupcake, my co-worker forgot all about Neanderthals and started thinking about cupcakes.

Visuals are compelling; visuals are not just for Neanderthals.

To see my St. Louis western downtown board on Pinternet:

http://www.pinterest.com/PupOutOfBreath/st-louis-downtown-walking-tour-west/

To see my St. Louis eastern downtown board on Pinternet:

http://www.pinterest.com/PupOutOfBreath/st-louis-downtown-walking-tour-east/

To see my St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair board on Pinternet:

http://www.pinterest.com/PupOutOfBreath/1904-st-louis-world-s-fair/

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com/?page_id=108

Make It Funner; Make It Easier

Most of my teaching experience has been with adults.  However, eight years ago, I was asked to teach a dance class of nine-year-olds.

What I immediately noticed about the kids was their willingness.  They did not hesitate to attempt the new dances I taught them; they listened gladly to my comments about their dancing; they were eager to try out new things.

Not only did the nine-year-olds think dancing was fun, they sought out ways to make dancing funner.  Giggles, long strides, yelps, high fives ---- if there wasn’t a person nearby to high five, then they would high five the wall.  Lots of energy. 

This month, I was asked to lead an architectural walking tour for a high school class of seventeen-year-olds.

Eight years had passed since I taught the nine-year-olds, so these high school kids were the same birth year as the kids in the dance class.

We started the walking tour at Union Station, and took a few minutes to walk a block-and-a-half to the Main Post Office.  We stopped to look at the Post Office.  The seventeen-year-olds started complaining.  “How much farther do we have to walk?”  “Is there any place to sit down?”  “Can we do this tour in our cars?”

Eight years after wanting to make things funner, they wanted to make things easier.

I asked the kids on the walking tour for their opinions of various buildings.  They gave me answers, but they were very guarded about it.  Their observation skills were good, but the kids seemed to underestimate their ability.

After the tour was over, I took some time to look at the arc from exuberant nine-year-old to hesitant seventeen year-old. 

I realized this was an arc that I followed.  I went from a youth who sampled whatever I could of the world to a teenager who was concerned about what the world thought of him.

So, that gave me some sympathy for the seventeen-year-olds who seemed so guarded on my walking tour.  But I could not find any sympathy for their lack of willingness to walk more than a couple of blocks.

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NOTE: for those people who think that it would be nice to be a teenager again, LCD Soundsystem has a 6-minute song for you.   The lead singer of the group used to work as a bouncer for a Trenton, New Jersey, punk rock club:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx4oFRz8LOA

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Look At This Quiver

When I lived in Boston, I arranged my work schedule so that I could attend the monthly African Arts Seminar at Boston University.  The attendees were all Americans, and they were all academics except for me and a woman named Nancy, who was a collector of African art. 

I asked Nancy if I could see her African art collection.  She agreed.

I went to her home.  Nancy and her husband owned a three-story commercial building near Harvard Square.  They rented the first floor to a business, and they lived on the upper two floors.

Actually, they lived in a small corner of the second floor, where they had a living room, kitchen, and bedroom.  The rest of the place, somewhere around 8,000 square feet, was devoted to Nancy’s African art collection.

She liked big art made of wood: masks and statues. 

She walked me through the second floor, full of masks hanging on walls and pillars, hanging on wires from the ceiling, displayed on tables.  There were lots of wooden statues standing on the floor.

I oohed and aahed.  It was like an art jungle.  She definitely needed the 8,000 square feet.  I tried to imagine her husband willingly buying a large building so his wife could live with her acquisitions.  Given Boston real estate prices, the building must have cost a fortune.

We went up to the third floor. Again, wooden masks on display everywhere.  Plus wooden statues.  My mind was boggled.  This collection was bigger than a museum.  Nancy must have spent a fortune.

Then Nancy stopped at a table, and became animated.  She wanted to show me her favorite piece of art.

“Here, Doug, look at this quiver.”  

The quiver still had its crude hand-made arrows in it.  It was covered in leather, dyed a red color very common in Africa, with a simple black ink design on it.  A few small seashells were glued to it for decoration.

“Just look at the patina on the quiver.”  She ran her hand over the quiver to emphasize the patina.  This quiver could not have cost her more than five dollars; yet, it was her favorite object amongst two floors of African art.

I understood why it was her favorite.  It had a patina.  Someone had used this quiver.  That person had hunted, and had brought home meat for his family. 

The patina connected Nancy to a person.  Not the person who made the quiver.  Not the person who had sold it to her.  The patina connected Nancy to the hunter who had used this quiver.

8,000 square feet of masks and statues did not give her such a personal connection.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Found on a Beach on Long Island, 1946

The topic of the presentation at the library was: “Architecture in France”.

At one point during the presentation, the speaker told the audience how he felt about his decision, while on vacation in France, to drive to Ronchamp near the Swiss border.  The drive took many hours.  He is a fan of architecture, and he began to wonder if it was worth spending all this time on French highways just to see one building.

When he finally reached his destination, and saw Notre-Dame-du-Haut, he realized it really was worth driving all those hours.

The chapel, designed by Le Corbusier, was built in 1954, on a hilltop that has been sacred ever since the days of pagan sun worship.

The speaker then showed the audience a slide of the chapel, which caught my eye.  I remember seeing a photo of the chapel in Life Magazine when I was a kid.

Then the speaker said something that caught my ear: “The inspiration for the roof is said to be a crab shell that Le Corbusier found on a beach when he was visiting Long Island in 1946.  Le Corbusier liked the crab shell so much he kept it on his desk.”

Long Island!  I grew up there!!  Our family went to the beach about four times a week during the summer.

Now I was intrigued.  This shell was found three years after I was born. What kind of crab could have inspired that roof?  The crabs I knew from my Long Island childhood were horseshoe crabs --- definitely not an inspiring kind of crab.

When I got home after the library presentation, I enlisted the help of the Internet.  I found the email address of the archivist at Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris.  Her name was Isabelle, and I asked if she could email me a photo of the crab shell.

Isabelle did:

The photo pleased me. 

This crab shell was found on a Long Island beach.  I spent many happy childhood hours on Long Island beaches.  The photo has personally connected me to one of the finest works of twentieth century French architecture: Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, in France, somewhere near the Swiss border.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Once A Prankster

My brothers, who were older than me, had a Johnson Smith mail order catalog.  I couldn’t wait to be old enough to order items from Johnson Smith.

Exploding cigars, itching powder, dribble glasses, squirt lapel flowers, fake plastic bugs in clear plastic ice cubes.  Not to mention cold cream jars that didn’t hold cold cream --- they held coiled snakes that would spring out of the jars when they were opened by unsuspecting women.

My young imagination sizzled with all the fun I would have playing pranks on people. 

But, somehow, I never got around to ordering from the catalog when I got older.  Instead, I created my own pranks.

Some high school friends had never tried white chocolate.  I proceeded to buy some white chocolate from a candy store and broke it into little pieces.  Then I took a small bar of white hand soap, and broke it into little pieces.  I mixed everything in a brown paper bag.

The next time my friends and I got together, I brought along the bag.  “Here, reach in and try a piece of white chocolate.”  I couldn’t wait for someone to nibble on soap instead of candy.

I was sixteen years old when Hawaii joined the Union.  I decided that my high school friends should get exotic Christmas cards that year. 

I bought a bunch of plain postcards from our local post office.  On the front of each postcard I typed a friend’s address, on the back I adjusted the typewriter ribbon to red and typed: “Hope your Christmas is a red-letter day!” and added a typewritten signature: Hester Prynne (the main character in The Scarlet Letter.)

I put all the postcards in a large envelope, along with a letter asking the Honolulu postmaster to mail them.  I put the envelope in the mail, and crossed my fingers.

Lo and behold, the Honolulu postmaster did as I asked.  

I was certain because I had addressed one of the postcards to myself.  My puzzled high school friends asked me if I knew who sent them a postcard from Hawaii signed by Hester Prynne.  I took my postcard out of my pocket and said, “I have no idea; I got one, too!”

I had established my credentials as a prankster --- firmly established.

Many years after high school, I was visiting a friend in Oregon.  We drove by a motel and I was suddenly asked: "How did you do that, Doug?”  I looked at the motel, which seemed rather ordinary.  “How did I do what?”  “You know!  That sign.”  I looked at the motel sign.

The sign said “Welcome, National Pygmy Goat Association.”  My friend had assumed that I had talked the manager into putting this message on the motel sign.

I realized there was no way to convince my friend that I had not invented the NPGA.  Once a prankster; always a prankster.

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FOOTNOTE:  Pranksters will be glad to know that Johnson Smith is still in business, and you can still get fake plastic bugs in clear plastic ice cubes ---  http://www.johnsonsmith.com

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com