Category Archives: random thoughts

Jon’s

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I found my grocery store! It’s on the way back from school.

Oh, it is marvelous! It’s called JON’S. I think it’s a take off on the other big store “Von’s”

But the reason it’s marvelous is because it has all the wonderful ethnic foods you can think of. They sell frozen pelmeni and vareniki. They also have fresh bulgarian feta at the deli section. They have ptitsa moloko actualy labelled “Bird’s Milk” on the box.

When I saw that they had Pryaniki, and they were called Pryaniki, I almost welled up. I couldn’t help remembering the times I had discovered Pryaniki the first time, in the deli at Mirnyy. I spent SO much time shopping when I was in Russia.

It was all there was to do, but it was also a lot of fun discovering new things.

I also remembered the friends that I shared the bird’s milk and Pryaniki with when I was in Russia. I felt very sad because I knew I would never see most of them again.

But it was wonderful to go to a store that had all these treats I had almost forgotten.

overheard

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Heard at work today, in serious tones:

“…that sounds like a reasonable explanation. Other than the fact that it doesn’t work…”

“It’s good if they can get you an explanation, though…”

“Oh, Yeah!”

Information Technology is strange.

MEL RAMOS AND THE MEANING OF CORPORATE ART

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Although the wonderblog is supposed to be “musings about art and the meaning of life,” I’ve been a little short on the art portion of that. At least, I have never really done a critique of a piece of art yet.

Today, that will change. And I invite comment, please. Isn’t good art supposed to evoke a response?

That’s what they say.

Art should challenge you. Art should change your perspective. Art should make you uncomfortable sometimes.

Right.

But the major patrons of art in the 21st century are corporations. Art for the foyer. Decorative sculpture for the drive up to the main office. Ah yes.

Should lobby art make you uncomfortable? Perhaps the “challenge” of corporate art should have it’s base in challenging the workers (dare I say proletariat?) to do their best work for the company.

My company has been going through some renovations, which included my floor. It was several weeks before the renovation process got around to the part where they hang up pictures. There is a poster by Georgia O’Keefe in the mailroom now. Not her best work—I can say this, since I’ve been to her gallery in Santa Fe—but it is an interesting perspective of the trunk of a tree and some of it’s branches. I appreciate it. There is another work by the elevator; I call it the crayon tree. It’s a sort of white abstract tree trunk on a black background, with brightly colored marks or dabs along the sides. It looks like it’s raining crayons, as I wait for my elevator to arrive. Not sure about that one’s merit, but whatever. It’s cheery.

The one by my buddy’s cube is a sort of college-dorm poster. It’s a poster of a stretch of road going off into the distance, and an enormous moon hangs over it in the twilight blue sky. I think that a college freshman with a desire to travel and/or own a motorcycle would really dig it.

My buddy hates it.

These pictures are all of a bland nature. They are there, they give your eyes a place to rest on, but they are mostly non-intrusive.

The piece that really stopped me was on a different floor. It is a piece called “Candy Bar” by Mel Ramos.

Let me see if I can describe it accurately. It is mostly made out of cardboard, and it looks like a Baby Ruth wrapper. There is an edge of the cardboard with what seems to be instructions posted in the upper left corner. I don’t remember what it says exactly, but it starts out saying, “Cut along the lines.” The candy bar wrapper looks partly opened, and the cardboard cutout of a young blonde 70’s-style knockout is inserted into the wrapper. The edges of the wrapper come right to the right spot on her chest, all you see is a bit of cleavage. But the whole thing is mounted on a mirror, so when you come up to get a closer look, or to read the instructions, you can see that her entire backside is naked. You can even see her tan line, a pale stripe running across her back and another blunt triangle across her naked bottom.

This one is hanging up across from a popular video room, so I get to pass by it a lot. The first time I saw it, I was flabbergasted and I had to take a better look. The idea of a woman being in a candy wrapper was so obviously sexist that it seemed to be almost anti-sexist. And when I got closer, I saw that it was mounted on a mirror, and I saw her little tan lines.

The whole thing is only about a foot tall. Probably not even that. She’s not much bigger than a Barbie.

An apt comparison.

But since I have to pass by this candy bar frequently, I am becoming more and more disturbed. Yes, it is a blatant portrayal of women as consumables for male palates. Or even female. It broadly states the objectification of women, and the role women are expected to play in society. How much the artist is aware of this is unknown. Maybe he is portraying his own attitudes, and they coincidentally are widespread.

It’s witty. It is an exaggerated perspective of an often unspoken reality. In the right mood, it might be profound.

I’m trying to be objective and open about it.

But I don’t think it is the sort of thing that belongs in a company hallway. Yes, women are commonly objectified. But they should not be experiencing that kind of treatment at work! So why should this piece of art (and I think it is more artistic than the crayon tree or the dorm poster) be displayed here?

I don’t think that Japanese Americans would like to have artistic photographs of War scenes from WWII posted in the hallways.

I don’t think African Americans would appreciate having scenes of slavery posted in public rooms.

Corporate art has to be more subtle. More bland, maybe.

Art is not art is not art. That is to say, there is a time and a place for different kinds of art. And some of the most profound and life-changing or life-enriching art must be handled carefully. Like a volatile substance.

I have in the past, a long time ago, made snide comments about the meaninglessness of corporate art. Those strange abstract geometric shapes made out of steel or concrete and rise up tall in the parking lot—“What does that MEAN?” I would say. “That’s not art. It’s just a way to fulfill the government’s requirement to spend x percentage of new construction on ‘art’.”

That was before I started going to work in those buildings.

But here is my dilemma now:

Do I swallow it? Do I just ignore Ms. Candy Bar?

Or do I try to get it removed?

it’s a problem

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It seems that I am addicted.

Those following my blog, and those who know me (what’s the difference, really? 🙂 know that I have just completed my Bachelors in English. YAY FOR ME!

A long time goal, that. It feels very good to be done. But…I miss taking classes. I love going to school and having a forum to ask questions and learn new things. I’m not through with that yet!

California is an absolute Nirvana of educational opportunities. With the difficulties of multi-culturalism and English as a second language for a large number of students in Cali, it is to their credit that they have made it so easy to learn stuff. I’m lucky. English is my first language, so it’s pretty easy for me to get access to all the goodies.

Not too long ago, I called my last remaining friend in Alaska. She happened to mention that her fiancée was really anxious to go to college, and he had never had the opportunity. A little later, she mentioned that she was thinking of moving to California. “Well,” I said, “Greg would be able to go to a jr. college for 11 bucks a credit if you moved here.”

She just about fell through the floor. “That’s impossible! Really?!”

California has made it very easy to get eddicated.

So. I am going to try to sign up for a journalism class at the JC around the corner. Maybe it will teach me to blog better.

We’ll see.

TROY OUNCE OF GEEKITUDE

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I have already mentioned the homogeneity of Silicon Valley–how it is very much an industry town. ONE industry: Computers.

When you are into computers, and you live anywhere else in the country, you tend to think of yourself as outside of the mainstream. If you have delusions of grandeur ( and many computer folks do, especially when they are young) you may consider yourself as part of an elite group of people “in the know,” able to toss around TLAs (three-letter-acronyms) like pronouns. After all, you are able to speak in hieroglyphic syllables to communicate with others like yourself, those who can engineer, control or manipulate abstract and physical machines that wrap themselves around the globe like a poly-tentacled jellyfish.

And so many other cannot do this.

In fact, so many others are in-“duh”-viduals who cannot even understand your syntax.

The idea of the ones who know and understand as an elite strata is easy to buy into.

That is, until you are in Silicon Valley. The maligned, misunderstood, socially inept computer geeks of the world have flocked to SIlicon Valley and found a community where they are simply one of many. TLAs are no longer mysterious knowledge symbols, they are common parlance. The erstwhile guru becomes a grunt in Silicon Valley.
There is a knowledge base there unlike anything else in the world; it is a veritable Fort Knox of Geek intelligence.

One of these troy ounces of Geekitude, my friend Tantek, has a blog now. It is his story about a Silicon Valley encounter that has set me off on this blog-rant.

Now let me just say, I understand the elation he describes at overhearing the deep-geek conversation in the restaraunt. Lord knows, when a person is passionately interested in a topic, it is very exciting to find others who also love it and can discuss it on the same expert level as yourself.

HOWEVER, I myself was getting a little tired of the ONE THING happening in Silicon Valley. Life is rich and full. It is important to have more than one interest. Computers are fascinating, and I enjoy them. But there is more to life than start-ups.

There is quite a lot

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There is quite a lot of animosity going on between the North and South. Well, I have a feeling that the Northern part of California is more invested in the animosity than the Southern part is.

But as I said, I am still figuring it out.

An up and coming artist that I had never heard of before today has created a series of paintings depicting a fictional battle between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

It’s one of those profound-as-you-wanna-be series, I guess. There is a lot of immediate humor involved. It doesn’t take much previous knowledge to appreciate the idea of an army of pizza delivery guys and big gulp slurping soldiers. But there is more thought put into it than that, as the writer of that article shows.

I think the whole thing is pretty funny. I bet the artist had a lot of fun designing them.

Here’s another article that gives even more of the story.

LOVE THE KITTY

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I woke up VERY early this morning. I had washed my hair last night, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it all wet when I went to bed. So I wrapped it in a towel and went to sleep like that.

I think I may need to wash my hair more often down here..The air is muckier…I have been feeling like my hair is dirty, and I don’t usually feel that way. Or, I didn’t in sunnyvale. I washed before it felt that way.

Anyway, I woke up, and it had dried very pretty. I dindn’t have to do ANYTHING to it.

It is free and curly and pretty. How nice! Espcially on a day when I don’t feel so good, having to be up at

4:30

!!!!!

But it is nice to feel pretty, even though I am tired.

Before I woke up and discovered my hair, I lay in bed in a little bit of a stupor. I was listening to some guy talk about…something…Knowing yourself? He was saying something about making sure to live your life the way you know you need to…in the middle of a list of other things he said “…and make sure to have quality time with…” friends and family, right? NO.
“..our companion pets..”

That was not was i was expecting to hear. Is that shallow? In LA, they don’t tell you to reach out to your fellow humans, they tell you to spend time with your lapdog.

*smirk*

However, it made me feel guilty about not spending quality time with my companion pet.

Poor Skellig.

As I was about to leave, I was saying goodbye to him, like I always do. He was looking at me, lying in the middle of the living room. I felt bad, so I went up and petted him for a little bit.

He was lying next to a blue mouse. As soon as I petting him, he started chirping, purring and loving on the mouse.

Good kitty!

He really liked it that I petted him. Perhaps I should work it into my morning routine, to pet him for 5 minutes. That shouldn’t be too hard. He was very nice.

chirp
chirp

BOOK CLUB

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Ah yes. Early morning Wednesday. More about that later.

On Monday night, I went to a book club. I had signed up online, and I was very excited to be part of a book club here in LA.

Remember all those warning about the shallow people here?
Maybe shallow people don’t read books. Maybe moving here means that I will never be able to discuss what I read (because I am always reading) with anyone.

How sad!

But there was a book club, and I joined it.

Let’s see…Philip, Mike, Justin, Michael, Amy, Gneb, and…oh..what was that last girl’s name? I can’t remember. We were reading Othello.
It was fabulous. A lovely INDEPENDENT coffee shop, sitting around and discussing Iago’s motives. Then we got to know each other a little bit. Everyone was friendly and intelligent. Everyone had something to say and add.

At the end, I asked everyone what they did for a living. They were fascinating. Everyone back in the bay area would say, “IT” or “Networking” or “Programming” or “databases”. They are different, it’s true, but there is a homogeneity. Back when those fields were not sinking, it was kind of fun that everybody all worked in the same field. But at the same time, it meant that you ended up talking Tech all the time.

and NOT talking about Othello. For example.

So, at this table, we had ME. Video conferencing administrator. Kind of a glamorous career.

Not compared to these people. There was a guy who was a commercial artist, an illustrator. Then the guy who wrote descriptions of action in movies for people who can’t see the movies…Kind of like closed captioning (he said it was his firm that does that), but it’s said out loud. If you can’t see what’s happening on TV, you might not be able to pick it all up from just the dialogue. So this guy writes the stuff like “Sheila enters the dining room”, or “John furrows his brow”
I think that is also tremendously cool.

Then there was the former Jazz trombone player, whose lips were wearing out, so he was an insurance guy, making sure cars get fixed right. HE says he loves cars too, so it’s not a complete departure from his passions. He’s still composing.

Then the girl who is working on a reality TV pilot, but wants to keep her integrity, so think she would like to write children’s books.

Then the guy who is an Economics professor at a state university. He was actually asked a lot of questions. We all wanted to know things about what it was like to be a professor, or what economics was really about.

Then the girl who worked for the Chamber of Commerce at Hollywood. I guess she helps with the walk of the stars…Whatever that’s called. And other things. She got asked a lot of questions about the idea ( I had never heard about this before) that some part of Hollywood, or San Fernando valley or somewhere wants to secede from the city of Los Angeles. A whole discussion of local politics ensued.

I was, I must confess, enraptured. It was hard to leave. I was there almost 4 hours.

We all had to come up with suggestions for the next book to read and discuss. We filled up a whole page of ideas. NONE of them were science fiction or fantasy-those geek staples were left entirely out.

TREN-DAY

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When I told my new co-workers where i live now, one of them said, “Oh, that’s a very trendy neighborhood.”

I said, “Really?”

I had no idea.

But. As I was watching the stupid afterwork television when I got home, I turned on that stupid show “Blind Date.”
It’s the one with all the pop-up insults, and commentary on how the date is going before you know how it ended?

THEY WERE DOING THEIR STUPID DATE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD!!!

I am not sure what I think about this.

They went to the Irish restaraunt around the CORNER from me. THe Tam O’Shanter.
very weird.

TV is roaming about in my neighborhood. I don’t know.

Maybe I should start wearing makeup every day, In case I’m on TV.

Just kidding. I’m sure that would end up making me look worse.

Besides, since I do video conferencing, technically, I’m on TV every day.

But it was a weird feeling, seeing my neighborhood on national TV.

THE VENDORS ARE COMING

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The Vendors came today. The Vendors bought us lunch.

For my non-IT readers, the “Vendor” phenomenon requires some explanation. Even if you are an IT person, but you are a vendor, you may need to know what it looks like from the inside.

I work for a company. And companies, in many ways are all the same. I do what I do for them, and they need someone to do it, and they are glad that they have someone reliable like me doing it. But mostly, I am not that important. I solve problems when they arise, mostly. I do other things, but as far as everyone else in the company knows, I solve problems.

People are sometimes grateful when their problems are solved. But usually, the intensity of their gratitude does not equate the intensity of their distress when they came to me with the problem.

So I am not that important in my company, not really. I just do my job and continue to solve problems.

BUT! There are vendors. Vendors are special. They are the people we pay to do certain things that we don’t know how to do or don’t have the time to do. They are not us. They are other people, other companies, who do only that one thing that we happen to need right then. And we pay them to do that one thing, because we need it.

Naturally, we think that they should be so excited to just be near us, that they would offer to do the job for free.

Naturally, they think that since we need the job done so badly we should be willing to pay top dollar.

Somewhere in the middle, we have to find a way to get what needs done. Usually, the vendor has to do some things for free. Usually, the company (us) has to pay top dollar for some things.

As you can imagine, it takes a lot of shifting and discussing and pushing back and forth to achieve the mutually beneficial balance between free and top dollar. Exaggerations on both sides, promises on the one, threats on the other. Poking, flattery, courting and playing hard to get, all these things play into the vendor-company relationship.

I usually enjoy meeting with vendors. Because I’ve always been on the company side, and I get to be the one to play hard-to-get. It’s nice to be treated like you are important. I like to make vendors take me out to lunch.

But I like meeting with vendors for another reason, too. I have to spend most of my time buried in a technology that most people don’t know that much about. But these people (or at least some of them) do know about it. They can talk about it, and answer more questions and tell me about new things that are about to happen, or things that happened in the past that I hadn’t heard before. It’s almost like a fan club.

These vendors hadn’t met me yet. I just started work there, remember? So when they met me, they wanted to know what I had done. When I said I had 5 years experience in Video Conferencing, they just about fell out. Not so many people have that.

They asked me about this and that and gave me kudos and all kinds of respect for knowing things. It felt kind of good, except there was no way to forget that these were vendors and sucking up is what vendors do. At least in those kinds of meetings.

But I think they really were quite impressed with the breadth of my experience. We were talking like equals in nothing flat. They were impressed by my experience, but even more than that.

I was a girl.

There was an additional reason I was looking forward to this meeting with the vendors. Even more than being treated like I was important for the duration of a lunch hour, I had some ISSUES that I needed to take up with them. Some of the equipment wasn’t working right, and I have problems with their service that I wanted to take them to task about.

My boss has indicated that he is pretty direct with vendors and getting what he needs from them. He has told me to do the same. No problem. That would be my preference anyhow. Isn’t direct the shortest distance between two points? Or something.

The vendors were talking a mile a minute, and telling about this and that and all the things that can be and could be and should be. I had questions, and I had no problem saying, “stop! What do you mean by that? And what about this?”

I didn’t learn without asking questions.

A lot of what I wanted to know, they didn’t have answers to. Well, I don’t appreciate that. I like to think that the people who do the ONE thing, and the ONE thing they do is what we are paying them for, should know all about it.

Whatever. They are trying to sell us something so that they can stay in business and get their bonuses. That’s fine.

Anyway, the vendors took us to lunch, and we were all talking about this and that. The guys were asking my opinion about this company and that company, what I thought about different products, etc. Then, from the other end of the table, I catch one of the guys saying, “Well, I’m sure that if it wasn’t done right, we would hear about it from Murphy…and loudly!”

Loud? I hadn’t been loud. “…i wouldn’t be loud….” I said.

Well, we were all having a good time. He meant no harm by it, I’m sure. But I began to think about it. Why would the vendor guy think of me as loud? I wonder if he thought of my boss as loud? Because my boss was probably as direct, if not more direct than I.

I think that assertive and smart in a female is particularly astounding. Women are not expected, are not taught, to demand from others. We are taught to get along, to compromise, to let it slide. “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind”

I wish that women could be as assertive as men and not lose femininity. Let those of us who will be women hunters and women warriors.