Monday, March 28, 2011

A lesson from the Journey

At Sherman Oaks Galleria today we wandered into the hairdresser Paul Mitchell's, a teaching salon. It was huge but what impressed me most was the mobile-free zone ('please turn off your mobile') and the list of instructions:

- 'I am present and listen with a focused mind;
- 'I show my gratitude and respect to those present;
- 'I am a brilliant learner who is passionate about my growth'
I also liked the 10 'rules' they had up on the board, with the first being Create Magic: always be welcoming and nice (or words to that effect).
Once again, here is that service ethic, and of course over the counter was 'Service is the rent we pay for room on this earth', but when I compare what I saw here with yesterday's train trip I wonder if there is a larger lesson:
On the train at Emeryville was the guy who had set out about ten years ago to become the best bartender in the world, and ate 'tuna for eight months' in order to save up enough money to learn from the previous best, and the woman who explained to us details of sign language that proved to us that it is as rich as any other language, and what's more, like any other languages, shows us life from another perspective. (Just as Central Australian languages may teach us different ways to look at shade or the various things you can do with wood, deaf sign language can reveal the detail observable by people who use their eyes more than the hearing do.) I then met someone (a nutritional epidemiologist) who spoke Urdu (and today I met someone who speaks Pangasinan).
As we swapped into buses and left sunny Bakersfield, climbed up through the Tejon Ranch to where camel-coloured hills were backed by larger ones flecked with snow, and then down again to Newhall/Santa Clarita where there were Spanish-mission style buildings and palm trees again, I sat next to a woman who works for DTS who are apparently working on 3-D sound to go with your iPhone, videos, etc... I thought of the potential for opera in multiplexes. What more was there to learn in a single trip?
And I wondered if the whole of America is a school, an open book for those willing and able to learn?

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Wilderness and the universe

In relation to the previous post, I have often been amused when I've gone to Buddhist retreats in, say, the Blue Mountains or Bundanoon and I've seen that they've cleared the bush to put in an exotic garden. It seems contradictory to a Buddhist idea that the works of humans would be 'full of mind'.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Individual scope

There is a quote from John Muir at the entrance to this piece of forest: 'The quickest way into "the universe" is through a forest wilderness.'
The other day a politician on TV was bewailing the federal government's mandating of energy-efficient light globes: the American people can choose light globes for themselves. Is 'individuality' really so puny that it must be defended against even so small an attempt to do something for the community?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Such a thing as society

A friend from interstate warned us that if we wanted to come and stay we’d need our own car - there’s no public transport where he lives because of budget cuts. He also said that if we wanted to go into State Archives, it’s only open one day a week (more budget cuts). As for Oakland, a lot of the pavements around here don’t seem to have been fixed since the 30s – I know because they’re dated. I wonder if many Americans realise that this sort of shabbiness reflects on civic pride? But what can be done about it? The Constitution mandates low taxes. Apparently.
On Saturday, we drove down to San Luis Obispo, down the Royal Way, the 'camino real', lined with bells, the route the monks took when they established all the missions. It was a great cultural experience. At one point, probably around Greenfield, where asparagus and lettuce fills the distance, we had the choice of six FM stations broadcasting in Spanish. I enjoyed listening to them in the hope of learning something. ‘Cinque cento uno? Aha, 501!’ At a roundabout in Morro Bay, as we sat behind an SUV sporting a Central Coast Tea Party bumper bar sticker, I saw a ‘Volunteer Police Vehicle’. Are things really that bad?  But then, as we drove into San Luis Obispo I saw a banner advertising the Civic Ballet of San Luis Obispo’s production of The Firebird. It strikes me that all these towns have quite impressive arts organisations. Sacramento has a Philharmonic and an Opera. Santa Rosa and San Jose have Symphonies. As one of the local CEOs told me it’s one of the first things that is established in a town - a symphony and a chorus. And they’re mostly all financed by private donation. The donor lists are huge.
I noticed driving back up to San Simeon that there is a program called Adopt-a-Highway. Part of the highway north of Cambrio was funded by the San Luis Obispo Republican Party. The next sector was funded by the employees of Hearst’s Castle. Is this how it’s meant to be done?  Great institutions and facilities funded by people and organisations voluntarily deciding where to allocate their funds? But how do you ensure funds are distributed where they’re desperately needed? And isn’t there a shortfall? There just doesn’t seem to be sufficient private funding to fix all potholes. What’s heartening however is that there is apparently a desire to contribute, regardless of the attitude to private and public funding.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Bound to give an opinion

We've just voted online for the NSW state elections. We went into the consulate in San Francisco on Monday, but the ballot papers hadn't turned up, and they told us we could vote online (iVote), rather than come all the way back into the city.
Americans are a bit bemused by the fact that we HAVE to vote; that it's compulsory, and we may get a fine if we don't. Either way, that we may have to write and give a good reason for not voting if we didn't.
But is it an inconvenience? I'm quite glad we have to do it.
The other night on telly General Powell was being interviewed on Washington Watch by an African-American presenter, Roland Martin. He said, and Martin agreed, that the reason why he and the presenter have succeeded is because their immediate families and 'the village', ie. all the extended family, the aunts and cousins "did not give us the opportunity to fail". I reckon Australians are not given the opportunity to opt out. We are in the position of being compelled to be involved. And the upshot is we tend to feel that "if you asked us our opinion, you'd better darn well heed it".
We are bound to our governance.  How can that be undesired? Isn't representation what so many have fought for?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Environmental sounds

Woke up this morning to the sound of a halyard hitting the flagpost outside the Post Office across the road. It reminded me of the clinking of boats in Rozelle Bay. But the most distinctive sounds at night are the Amtrak horns, blaring their chord over every level crossing possibly a mile or two away on the track that lines the bay from Emeryville to Jack London Square. This reminds me of the line in Richard Nixon's acceptance speech at the Miami Nominating Convention in 1968 about the boy who heard the distant train whistles in the night and dreamed of faraway places.
But it's not always night sounds. As we crossed Powell Street in the city yesterday I heard the sound of invisible iron chains scraping along the cement beneath the tracks and realised there is a sound that goes with trolley cars. I hear birds of course by day but would not have a clue about their accompanying plumage. And that's the way I'd want it. I saw some birds take off today and the trilling of their wings reminded me of Top-knot Pigeons. The smell of wattle or Sweet Pittosporum I can handle but Australian birds here would really make me think the world had been turned upside down.
By the way, do you know that 'The World Turned Upside Down' was the tune played by Cornwallis's fife band when his army surrendered to Washington at Yorktown?

Friday, March 11, 2011

Dead give-aways

Even if Mt Sutro behind UCSF Medical Center is so covered with eucalypts you could swear you were in Canberra, you know you're in San Francisco when:

- you walk down the hill toward the ocean and the weatherboard houses are multi-storeyed and the churches are all in Spanish style;
- the taxis are differently coloured;
- buses have bicycle racks in front of them;
- people preface remarks with, "You know what?..."
- normal conversation is in a higher performance mode, and the people behind counters engage you in actual repartee;
- the House of Representatives proceedings on C-span are not merely a volley of slinging off at each other (surprisingly);
- a protestor outside UCSF Medical Center is calling for the return of 'Glass-Stiegall';
- ads on TV begin with, "if you're an individual owner of an Indian Land Trust...";
- your eyes start to wander automatically to the Spanish translations on billboards because it's "muy importante";
- you make a note to become familiar with the music of Enrico Chapela, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Mason Bates;
- the secondhand bookshops stock titles like 'Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South', or 'Philadelphia in the Civil War, 1861-1863';
- the panhandler in a seedy part of town offers a piece of wise advice: "Keep her on the inside, sir."
- pharmaceutical ads on TV go for twice the normal length because of all the caveats - "'If you suffer from high blood pressure, or are pregnant, trying to become pregnant, or nursing don't use this product. Ingestion may also cause nausea and twitching. If heart palpitations continue for too long, contact your doctor. Prolonged use may result in eye flutter, vomiting or death...";
- people have bungee cords around their books to keep them from shaking off the bookshelf in an earthquake;
- the uni student at the BART talking to her 'mom' on her cell phone starts off with, "Well, the house got shot up last night."

Mind you, you know things are the same the world over, when she clearly greets her mom's suggestion to move back into a dorm ("Oh, motherrrrrr....") with sardonic dismissal.