book review

on reading Atul Gawande's bettter - A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
This post has nothing to do with the stated themes of my blog. This book is a medical doctor musing on how to bridge the gap between his idealized view of saving lives and the actual world of modern medicine. His work deals with life and death and is based on the achievements of modern science. My work has to do with saving special places in the world and learning to see the world a new way. On the face of it, my world has nothing to do with Gawande's world. But the desire to improve, to perform better, is a basic human trait. So I learned a lot from reading how to institute handwashing regimens in hospitals, and how surgeons in poor hospitals in rural India improvise and succeed at a broader range of surgical obstacles that their better funded American colleagues. Note, Americans are not better educated, just luckier. His final section outlines his program to strive for better performance. Here are the highlights:

1. Ask an unscripted question

2. Don’t complain

3. Count something

4. Write something

5. change

Ask an unscripted question

• Make a human connection
• Keep the conversation going for more than 2 sentences
• You will discover the unexpected about the people you encounter day to day

Don’t complain

• Everybody has troubles
• Airing your woes won’t lift the gloom
• Negative bring negative
• Change the subject, to the weather if nothing else
• Try to keep the conversation going

Count something

• Everyone should be a scientist in this world
• Count things related to a problem that interests you
• If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting

Write something

• Write anything – a blog, a poem, a letter, an e-mail
• Add some small observation about your world
• Give yourself an opportunity to think through a problem by writing about I
• Let yourself become part of a larger world
• Be willing to join a community and contribute something meaningful to it

Change

• Recognize when change is needed in your work
• Seek out solutions
• Don’t be afraid of failure; learn from your mistakes

“So find something new to try, something to change. Count how often you succeed and how often you fail. Write about it. Ask people what they think. See if you can keep the conversation going.”

Julia & Paul Child - Architects

We recently saw Nora Ephron's new film, Julie and Julia. Among its many pleasures, it presents the loving partnership between Julia Child and her husband, Paul. There is a scene of Paul drawing the shape of pots and pans on the pegboard walls of their Cambridge kitchen. Turns out that kitchen, their 9th, was a collaborative work of design, even a work of art. I discovered a Design Quarterly publication from the Walker Art Museum on my bookshelf that I think I bought at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in the late 1970s that analyzes the design anatomy of her kitchen. The exploded axonometric view shows the interrelationship of the five main functional ares: kitchen/dining, cutting/mixing, cooking, pastry, and pantry. Each is filled with storage, counters, and equipment. There is a place for everything, and everything is in its place. There are more pictures of the kitchen at this great blog by the NY Times writer Mark Bittman here.

A little web research led me to discover that she donated her kitchen to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. There is a great web site here. In fact, there is a scene in the movie where Julie Powell and her husband Eric visit the kitchen in the museum. The Smithsonian realized the cultural, folkloric, and culinary importance of the kitchen. They document their acquisition and data collection in a great on-line diary here.

I remember brainstorming in my housing studio in architecture school on our favorite rooms in houses we grew up in. We all agreed the kitchens were the best rooms in the house. Julia put it best, "Make the kitchen a really important part of your home and I think it's terribly important to have a family . . . For everone to eat together and if you had a nice room to do it in, this is where, this is the kind of place you would choose because it’s warm and friendly and smells good and it's the place to live."

Now there's a goal to work toward. Some we'll have a really workable eat-in live-in kitchen.

Helpless

K.D. Lang

This is the last of my music posts for a while. These are all songs from the music mix I made at the end of last year to share with family. Enjoy!

Light & Day/Reach For The Sun

The Polyphonic Spree

ok, so these folks are a little twee, and they DO look like a bunch of hippies who took over the church choir...but work with me here and give it a listen. Just reach for the sun, ok?

Paris 2004

Peter, Bjorn & John

Song For You

Alexi Murdoch

Pachangueando

Pacha Massive

Harvest

Rufus Wainwright with Chris Stills (covering Neil Young)

Somersault

Zero 7

Forro West

Forro in the Dark

Secret Heart

Feist

More Adventurous

Rilo Kiley

Puntos Cardinales

Cafe' Tacuba

My Father

Wimberley Field Unit, Jones County, TX 1973
Originally uploaded by wdb3b

I'm thinking about my father tonight. He died 5 years ago. By a twist of fate, the calendar lines up with the same days of the week this year, so the years sort of fade away.

This is where my folks lived before I was born. It is a bungalow on a farm just west of Abilene, TX. My dad was managing an oil field for my grandfather after World War II. They left here for him to attend Texas Tech to get a geology degree. That's when I entered the picture.

I think I took this picture in 1973. At that time he was managing the oil field again, though it was only producing stripper wells by then. My folks lived in town, but he went out every day to keep the pumps producing, even though it was just dribs and drabs. I always enjoyed going out to the field with him. I know nothing about the oil business, but it was great to spend time with him in the car, talking about this and that.

This is the summer that I had fallen in love with Judy. I remember talking with him about my life, and my decisions. He was also completely supportive of me making my own choices. Judy and I got married the following June, and his advice stuck.

I really miss him, with his good advice and sense of humor.

This ones for you, WD.

My Printmaking set at Flickr

This is a selection of my prints made at Fleisher Art Memorial, a community art center in Philadelphia, PA. Click on the white triangle, then click on the right side of the image to advance to the next slide. Enjoy!

Come See My Work

We interrupt this musical interlude for an important announcement: Two of my silkscreen prints have been accepted for the Philadelphia Sketch Club's Annual Juried Exhibition of "Works on Paper 2009", January 9th through January 25th, 2009. This piece was accepted for the show in the upstairs gallery. A second piece from the fall semester at Fleisher Art Memorial was accepted in the downstairs Salon de Refuse.

The Sketch Club is at 235 South Camac St. in Center City. The gallery hours are Mon., Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 1 to 5 PM. If you're free on Sunday, come to the opening reception from 2 to 4 PM, 215-545-9298.

Tower of Song

Martha Wainwright

Hometown Glory

Adele

Mansard Roof

Vampire Weekend

Congoleo

Listen to Angelique Kidjo on Morning Becomes Eclectic with Nic Harcourt

Yor Ex-Lover is Dead

Stars