just don't call it critical theory

Critical race theory is getting bashed these days so I don't want to say this post is about critical feminist theory. Nonetheless, I just listened to most of the keynote address by Lauren Klein at the 2021 LD4 Conference on Linked Data. I was thoroughly heartened by her statement that working to change a system is worth it if it has a long history and is widely used. This was said in the context of a question about whether it's worth it to fix outdated and offensive terminology in LCSH and other vocabularies or should you just start over. She applied her theoretical work based on intersectional feminism to say that we should topple the hierarchy, smash the binary, and embrace pluralism. Use LCSH, try to fix it, supplement it in the short term by other vocabulary. Both/and, not either/or.

wang shu: ningbo

Today's arts section in The New York Times has an article about Wang Shu who won this year's Pritzker Prize. His architecture uses rough and sustainable materials and the shapes are sometimes simple, sometimes sculptural and complex like the Ningbo History Museum (pictured above, image from the About.com: Architecture site). Though I like this building for itself, I also like its evocation of new brutalism.

The Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/arts/design/wang-shu-of-china-advocates-sustainable-architecture.html?_r=1&hpw

There has been critical press about the selection of Wang Shu as an individual even though his work is done in collaboration with his wife Lu Wenyu. Marcia Thorne, the Pritzker Prize's executive director, is quoted in the April 2012 issue of Architectural Record as saying that the prize committee looked at the individual as well as the team and decided that Wang Shu was "exceptional and worthy of the prize."

It has been great over the past few months to be doing my latest gig: indexing for the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. There too, I sometimes debate with myself about individual versus firm access points. As Weinberger said: both/and; it doesn't need to be either/or ... except perhaps for the Pritzker. Christie and I were talking the other day on the phone about the irreplaceable delight of working (being) in a good architecture or art library and having the periodicals at the ready for perusing. It's nice to have Architectural Record, Old-house Journal, Metropolis, others on the "to do" stack rather than the "when I've got time" stack.

everything is dangerous?

With having read David Weinberger's Everything is miscellaneous and now reading Clay Shirky's Here comes everybody, I was ready to read a lot into the news report on the 40th annual conference on "planetary emergencies" now finishing up in Erice, Sicily. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/world/europe/24sicily.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=erice%20global%20risks&st=cse&oref=slogin or search "erice global risks" at nytimes.com

It did resonate too because I'd been talking with Christie yesterday about our long-planned and -delayed trip to Sicily, with Erice on the map as I surveyed where we might camp out for a couple weeks as we roamed around Selinunte, Agrigento, Piazza Armerina, etc etc.

Back to the conference, this year's theme risks included cyberterrorism, climate change, nuclear weapons, and the energy supply. In one session, Hamadoun I. Touré of the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi spoke about pervasive computer use offering the prospect of a global knowledge society as well as making billions of individuals into potential superpowers. He is quoted as saying "Every single brain on earth is equal and can trigger an attack."

That report was in today's paper. Yesterday's op-ed page had a column by Bob Herbert on "Voters want more from Obama." A really interesting discussion of how Obama should let the folks in general know more about how when things are a mess, you need informed and reactive change. We're ready for some strong leadership that works FOR the people's needs other than jingoistic nationalism and America-first crap.

the laws of the jungle

Weinberger's laws of the jungle
Everything is miscellaneous

The four new strategic principles:
Filter on the way out, not on the way in.
Put each leaf on as many branches as possible.
Everything is metadata and everything can be a label.
In the miscellaneous order, the only distinction between metadata and data is that metadata is what you already know and data is what you're trying to find out.
Give up control.

The "laws of the jungle" chapter (p. 84-106) includes an interesting analysis of the Art & Architecture Thesaurus.

everything is platonic

I've started reading Everything is miscellaneous by David Weinberger, thanks to Johanna Bauman who suggested it some time ago and again at the VRA chapter meeting last week. The subtitle is "the power of the new digital disorder." Weinberger writes about how we categorize things: we as catalogers, we as information seekers; how the digital world allows us (or Amazon or Flickr or whatever) to dis-connect and re-connect bits of information based on needs of the moment; how all together we inform each other (if inform is the right verb); how connections grow and morph. Here's just a teaser from page 62:

"Dewey liked the precision, predictability, and uniqueness of decimal numbers, Amazon throws books in front of your eyes with abandon. Compared to the neat row of numbered volumes on the shelf of the library, Amazon is a carnival of books, where even the orderly rows of the marching band are interrupted by a weaving conga line of suggestions."

A few pages further on, he's talking about "lumps and splits" and lists. Lumps for when you put things in the same basket, splits when you put them in different baskets. He talks about maps, nests, and trees, and Plato and Aristotle. When he's talking about Plato, he exemplifies Plato's ideal by talking about the 501st elephant which is more real than the herd of 500 because it represents Elephant. It sounded rather like Work in FRBR: intangible, eternal, ideal. Oy.