1 - Mobs

Adam Talsma

Feb. 12, 2010

Journal 1

"All gatherings are not potential mobs, alll gleaming waters are not to be scrutinized for oil slicks, nor all forests penetrated merely for proof of corporate clear-cutting. There are pleasures as well as crimes to be uncovered, distinction to be made, and prospects to be explored in clear detail, and understood." (Clay, p. 32)

The quote above would have been useful for a Fulbright proposal I made (and didn't get) to travel to the Amazon in Peru to do a video project with communities. I didn't realize that the Fulbright was federally manipulated.

Let's be honest, you and I. Whispers only, because I don't know about other places. At MIT, though, life is easy. Playing engineer student is hard at first. Then, suddenly, when your head settles down, you realize that we are being trained to be highly paid calculators, managers, and little more. What really matters is somewhere much deeper. But how do you find what is deeper? How do you even find the path headed that way? These are thoughts that I have all the time, and it seems that sociologists might have some answers.

Something related to Grady Clay's honest questioning of the genesis of city form and urban flows in Close-Up really hit home for me. For the most part the first 60 pages seem a bit wishy-washy. He says surpisingly little (though it flows well) in the beginning, but he is honest about not offering anything revolutionary, just different ways to use your eyes to generate first-hand information about a place. I think he is actually describing a set of starting points for applying the Socratic Method to analyzing cities. And that makes sense. I also liked the diagrams a lot. His quick sketches to describe "Breaks" inspired me. In addition, I liked the analogy that the old concept of chasity has been structurally undermined by the pill, so the old cocept of centrality has been undercut by everyman's access to space by movement (commuting, vacationing, long-range, visiting, etc).

Since I am under the impression that I am meant to discuss my site, I must say that I am having some issues knowing what metrics to use when choosing a project. From an engineering design perspective the most important step is identifying criteria by which to guide every other step of the design process. The steps for choosing my site are simply too wide open. I have thought about choosing an are near where I live or have lived which means around Union Square in Cambridge or near Kenmore Square in Boston. Kenmore Square seems too large, otherwise I would take it. Besides right next to it lives a highway and Fenway so without taking those into account it seems impossible to give a good representation of Kenmore. Union Square seems too disconnected and uninteresting. Both of these are very accessible to me.

What do you think?