Lasers in the Jungle, Podcasts & I Love NY

Irv's Eye View-Lasers in the Jungle & Podcasts

by Irv Kass

Sunday, 29 October 2006

http://www.MediaMogirl.com Adapted from an online class discussion in the Gonzaga University Communication and Leadership Program These are the days of lasers in the jungle Lasers in the jungle somewhere Staccato signals of constant information A loose affiliation of millionaires And billionaires and baby These are the days of miracle and wonder This is the long distance call The way the camera follows us in slo-mo The way we look to us all --Boy in the Bubble, by Paul Simon When Paul Simon sang those words in 1986 we were 11 years past Vietnam and five years before the first Iraq War. There was actually an Army recruiting commercial, at one time, featuring lasers in the jungle. Artists identify trends and social dynamics in ways that are, at once, clear and compelling. With the miracle and wonder of technology come consequences. Here's a link to the full lyrics that make the point more completely than just the excerpt cited above. Better yet, listen to the song if you have it. http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/paul+simon/the+boy+in+the+bubble_20105881.html Now we find ourselves, once again, mired in a war. Indeed, most of our lives we've been in wars, both hot and cold. The current conflict was made possible by the events of 9/11/01, we are told. And so... I write this from New York City. As a native of the city--born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens, and received my undergraduate education in Greenwich Village at NYU in the shadow of the newly erected Twin Towers--I have deep affection for this place and its people. My official residence and voting address are in San Diego County, California, USA, literally on the other edge of the continent. But my parents and older daughter are New Yorkers and I spend the equivalent of a couple of months a year here. So from this center of our civilization, the most attractive target for terrorists because of what it stands for, the social dynamics of our communication technologies are amplified and multiplied. Last week I attended a "Podcasting Summit" convened by the NAB (National Assoc. of Broadcasters). Most attendees were there to figure out how to use podcasts in practical ways. We heard a great deal about "monetizing" podcasts, something I happily embrace. So it was instructive to see the pods in podcast being widely used. Riding the subway from Queens to the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, iPods were everywhere. Old, young, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, a rough count yielded about every seventh person with earbuds of some sort drowning out the screeching sounds of subway cars. As strange as it might sound, the NY subway is a comfortable place for me. Maybe it's because my mother had me riding the trains before I was born. Something about the motion and the mixed multitude, to steal a Biblical phrase, bring me comfort. Having my iPod added to the experience and lessened the noise. Ultimately all the tech tools we use, email, iPods, near supersonic travel speeds, cell phones, etc., combine to make the mobile lifestyle possible. The social dynamics of doing business with clients in several cities is nothing special these days. In the "flat world" described by Thomas Friedman it can be an advantage. The social dynamic of actually showing up and meeting people F2F (first time I've ever used that abbreviation) can enrich relationships that are usually engaged by computerized communication. The ability to be this mobile is a profound and relatively recent shift in social dynamics. Members of my immediate family can live in three of the four corners (NYC, Seattle, and San Diego) of the US, and be together electronically and physically with relative ease. How different from the world of our grandparents. When my older daughter was in high school, she wrote an essay about a table. Her computer was sitting on a library table that had belonged to my maternal grandfather. We had the table shipped from NY to CA. I'm certain my mother's father wrote letters, conducted business, and used this table in ways people did in the early part of the 20th century. Now my daughter was using the same table with new tools, a computer connected to the internet. In the early part of the last century my parents' immediate families would not voluntarily live far away from their families, too hard to stay in touch. Yet all four of my grandparents fled the Russian Pale of Settlement to escape the pogroms and tyranny of the Czar. Trains and steam ships got them here; long waits between letters kept them in touch with the old country. They crossed the threshold of New York Harbor, welcomed by the well-known words of Emma Lazarus. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.... http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0874962.html (full text) Today's new immigrants have phone cards decorated with their homelands' flags, and email and websites coded with national identifiers that speed messages across borders and oceans at the speed of light. They are welcomed by some and reviled by others. The other day, I sat in a Russian restaurant where the wide screen high def TV was playing news reports received on satellite directly from Russia. It's been 98 years since my grandfather landed at Ellis Island. He could have understood the words spoken on that TV; I cannot. As mentioned earlier, the convention I attended was at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Javits was a long time US Senator from New York. The Senator was something that sounds odd today, a "liberal Republican". He died in 1986 the same year the Javits Center opened. There is a statue of the late senator at the entrance to the building with this quote from his autobiography: "For me, New York will always have the luster and magic of a brand new adventure around every corner, vitality coursing every street. It is still the most exciting city of modern civilization. "I conceive of the new man of intellect as a worker determined to light the world...as a man whose credo is to learn to teach, to roll up his sleeves and give to the people he is bound to live with some of the intellect, the spirit and the beauty which animates him". Senator Javits was a man who apparently had not yet learned about gender inclusive language. The quote is from another time, not so long ago, but another time, which explains the language. The main message, though, endures. http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_K._Javits So we, the users of technology, should humbly remember the words of Sen. Javits, even as we meet to learn how to "monetize" the new technologies. After all we are all learners and teachers.