Brown Motion

My old friend came in from the cold to the gold(en) state.  Old as in I have known him close to  two decades.  Cold as in his permanent residence is Chicago.  He visited me in San Francisco. It was a fine Sunday in the bay area.  We decided to utilize nature's bounty in the form of sunshine and crisp air to our advantage and set out on a walk.  First was an eight mile effort that saw us go along the north south corridor on the peninsula region in a county where 60% land is reserved as a natural habitat.  That helps maintain abundance of foliage and wildlife.  Helps to have the primary water source in the form of a reservoir along the edge of the trail. Morning mist and fog was lifting as we began walking. We took in an old water temple - a monument to  a heroic engineering feat to bring crystal clear snow melt from the Sierra some 200 miles to the east to the west coast of the state for consumption. Next was a mansion a...

Denzel Washington plays the protagonist in the eponymous movie Roman Israel.  A hard nosed black lawyer, he prefers to work in the shadows for his partner who manages the front end against the legal apparatus that works like a money printing machine. A savant of sorts Israel's character wears period clothing and exhibits OCD while consuming dinners of peanut butter sandwiches, in part due to their affordability is an activist attorney based in Los Angeles.  His partners' sudden death puts him at risk of being jobless after decades of being comfortably righteous and fighting for the underdog. Colin Farrell's character of a successful criminal lawyer finds Israel at his wits end to make ends meet and offers a job at his highbrow firm working their low end cases. The film is a portrayal of someone trying to do what is right in a system that is all about enriching the lives of those that can afford to play the court room game without much justice being served. In the c...

I attended 3 days worth (about 8 hours in real learning time) of training.  Purpose was to train me or at least make an effort to get some ideas in my aging, thick skull of what it takes to conduct effective communication. The tool used was a video capture of yourself speaking.  Use that to critique style, tone and body language. The teacher/educator was a lady with degrees in psychology and speech pathology and experience talking to people about why their messages reach a dead end. The idea is also to use the critique of other attendees from corporate world to help learn the dos and don'ts of addressing an audience of one or many. Some basic takeaways - Use short sentences. Breathe. Use pauses to highlight a point and also to think. Use your arms and palms open face to convey outreach. Do not move around like a maniac so as to distract your audience. Look at people.  Avoid staring at the imaginary clouds and angels. Use energy to articulate and pro...

I was a carpool driver and a judge at a speech event.  In the UC Berkeley campus for an inter state invitational Speech and Debate meet for high school kids.  UC sits between hills to the east and a homeless encampment to the west. We, which included a gaggle of HS kids, set out in the early morning to arrive at the UC campus.  Parking was tricky.  Always is.  Part of the mismanagement of the logistics by the kids involved in planning the affair.  I guess the only excuse might be many are volunteer kids but not for paid contingent of staff from representative schools along with the host? Any rate we parked and made our way to our forum time table allocation desk.  Kids went off in myriad directions using Google to guide them in an unknown campus.  I parked myself to begin what would be a series of inexorable waits. The first session timetable got texted to me and I too worked my way into a classroom.  One thing you realize - Berkeley i...

A documentary.  About Jewish people.  Specifically those that owned a Delicatessen (or Deli for short).  In  the USA. An informal food purveyor or establishment with origins going back to the mass exodus of eastern Europeans to the United States to escape persecution. People anywhere are nostalgic for what they leave behind whatever the circumstances.  So it was with the Jews.  They wanted to enjoy a taste of home.  They decide to open delis in the east coast - largely New York, NY where they first settled.  Matzah ball soup, babkas and corn beef were staples. Some went on to become institutions like the Katz, or the Carnegie.  But the numbers dwindled steadily from the first war when there were thousands in the country to today where only a handful remain.  NY still leads in number of delis per capita. The deli traditionally served kosher food (a style of preparing the meat served) to some bei...

It was a Curry Show.  Not an Indian classical cooking show.  Rather a game of basketball dominated  by a guy named Steve Curry.  Of the Golden State Warriors. At their home turf in Oakland.  The Oracle Arena.  Regular season game betwixt the local boys and the team from Dallas, TX.  The visitors were called Mavericks. It was a first for me.  To attend a match in person.  High up in the stands where the cheap seats are but still gives the viewer a good perspective of the game.  The object of the match - the Ball - is visible.  As are the players and their coach. Some observations - The arena is an indoor facility currently sponsored by a large software company called Oracle.  Hence Oracle Arena.  It is accessible by local train but there is a half mile walk to get to the gate once you exit the train. Obstacle course - getting to the basketball stadium requires walking around this building A relative newcome...

It was in the 70s.  On the Fahrenheit scale.  In San Francisco.  On a hill overlooking all of San Francisco.  Getting there took time.  Like a few hours of arduous climbing done postprandial.  But we had a blast. First we enjoyed a modern take on Vietnamese food in a restaurant in SOMA. Quail with Five Spice @ Tin in SOMA Then took local transit to our first attraction.  The local community in the Sunset district collaborated to create art on steps going up the hill.  Every riser is decorated with colorful ceramic tiles artfully painted. It is a joy climbing up the stairs admiring this art that has been maintained through the support of the locals too. We continued our climb atop the hill to the final stretch where another set (around 170) of stairs await.  This art is thematic with the lower stairs showing marine life and eventually end with the planets and stars at the top of the hill. The views from the summit w...

Well the public is always speaking.  Is it art?  No. The topic is misleading.  It really refers to one's own self learning to speak effectively.  In public.  Public can be a single person other than oneself or many.  It is an art more than science and hence the 'art of public speaking'. I myself have often found that when I speak to others I may not be heard.  Rather it is not so much being heard as not everyone is listening. In order to be effective it is important that your audience whether formal or informal perceive you to have something of value to them. So content matters.  But it is not just content in and of itself.  There are other traits and characteristics of the human voice that matter.  It is just how we are coded and so learning the code helps to be an effective communicator. I am planning to attend a speaking class this week and I will share my findings after.  Meantime I listened to some thinkers and speak...

If you live in America you will notice a large percentage of Indian born migrants drive an automotive brand born in Japan.  I say born because its manufacturing location these days is mostly within the USA of American and Mexican sourced parts.  So how is that for globalization? To take that further I would like to propose the Toyota and Honda families to consider producing their vehicles with another built in feature. Ganesha.  That's right.  The lord of wisdom and good beginnings and remover of obstacles is so omnipresent that people at times buy one and put these massive chunks of plastic or marble or a fancy metal smack in the middle of their viewing area next to the driver.  Said chunk is in the form of the Ganesha deity which is an elephant head mounted atop a four armed male.  The elaborate versions show his ride being a rodent.  Depending on the skills of the owner the mounted idol may or may not adhere to the laws of physics and can becom...