The wave Speech by Hunter Stockton Thompson
Living City
Wednesday 18 January 2012
Tuesday 3 January 2012
Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20,
2005)
The "wave
speech"
“
|
Strange
memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems
like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes
again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place
to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long
run ...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can
touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of
time and the world. Whatever it meant ...
History is
hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure
of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now
and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine
flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never
explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central
memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or
very early mornings—when I left the
Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home,
aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket ...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end
(always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I
fumbled for change) ... but being absolutely certain that no matter
which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and
wild as I was: No doubt at all about that ...
There was
madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up
the Golden Gate or down101 to Los Altos or La Honda .... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic
universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were
winning ....
And that, I
think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old
and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy
would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs.
We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful
wave ....
So now, less
than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look
West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the
high-water mark —that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
|
Monday 2 January 2012
Andy Warhol
What's
great about this country is that America started the tradition where the
richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be
watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks
Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink
Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better
coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same
and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum
knows it, and you know it.Sunday 1 January 2012
URBAN FUTURES
The global localization and the local globalization:
This is only a draft a preliminary exploration, a first word not a last word, and attempt to
capture ideas and to suggest how they might be developed and tested. Its tone will be speculative and perhaps a
little irresponsible .(Kevin Lynch, 1960)
Globalization already exists from many years ago, even before Colombus
arrives America (the continent).
Lost of traditions, localities, cultures, among others, because the clash
of different cultures is a constant in the human history. Spanish Empire erased
Inca Culture and religion through the introduction of “civilized” customs into
the native’s way of lives. Before that, Incas were not saints. They had a
warrior tradition and every time they conquested a city, they used to take all the
inhabitants as prisoners. When they didn´t use them as slaves or in sacrifices,
Incas spread them all over the Empire in order to erase any tradition, ritual
or sign of the foreign culture. They useed this strong process of acculturation
to expand they own culture all over the territory. When Spanish finally defeated
them, the acculturation process was, from my personal point of view, softer
than Incas one, at least at the beginning.
The Incan culture was more develop in many ways than Spanish, however,
(a lei motive of history) the strongest culture devours the richer one. One
example of this was the exorcize exercise of Incas religious buildings. In many
cases Spanish de-built many Incas temples (made by the well known Inca´s masonry)
to build Catholic churches in a very rustic masonry way (as they built in those
times).
On the other hand, Spanish Empire did not take many elements, at least
not intentionally, from the Incas, however, the Spanish architecture in America
and they way to built cities, the way of create art, even the way of living
were radically different than in Europe. Despite the fact that Spanish culture
smash Inca´s one, it couldn´t avoid to be influenced by it. That process
reminds me the vector sum explanation at Physics course in high school. When
you sum two different vectors (different in magnitude and direction), they always
become in a new one with a different direction and magnitude at all, doesn´t
matter how big one was and how small was the other, the result it’s always
different.
In somehow, aside of the war episodes, and in a very schematic way, we
can say that what really happens is that between Incas and Spanish were a huge
clash of cultures from which a quite different
culture emerge. Mostly Spanish, but not really Spanish. Not Incan but with some
Incan aspects. Not so obviously at the beginning but quite clear some centuries
later.
In addition, with new vectors or localities making interference in all
this process, the new “vector” wasn´t only a direct result among Spanish and
Incas. The life was different, the weather was different, the connection among
cities was different, and the distances, the landscape, the resources, the
food, the row material, and the political problems were different. This was a third vector in this sum (defeated
Incacult+Spanishcult+locality)
Finally, when we speak about America, the Spanish Empire was spread all
over a massive extension of land, from the very south (Tierra de fuego,
Argentina), to the Caribe, even Mexico (over the Ecuador tropic). That not only
includes the Incas, but also many others native cultures and many others
localities (also Mayas, Aztecas, Charruas, Quechuas, Patagonians, etc).
We can see how, despite Spanish culture won over other cultures
(predominant vector), in the years after, each region, every city was a
different result from each other. Later they look for individualization. In the
next decades, America (the continent) not only got their independence from the
Spanish empire, but also they had divided in different countries with very different
characteristics, even when they had the same origin. In fact, however they were
colonies of the same Empire, they got they own independence separately, like
independent… countries?
Regarding this point, we can argue that politics, economy, trade &
commerce, different interest, etc could generate determinants strains among regions;
however the result of a massive process of globalization ended in a massive
process of new localization.
In some way there is a feeling of identity that always prevails and turn
into something stronger when “the other” becomes visible. In Garcia Marquez
book´s “El General y su laberinto” (The General and his maze) which is a
historical novel based on Simon Bolivar´s last days. Shows how difficult was
for him to unify the people all over South and Central America. His bigger aim
was to unify South America in one Nation.
There is a Bolivar phrase (in that book) which says: “I spoke so much
about Independence to all of them that now everyone wants their own one”.
The McDonald Experience
Nowadays, we feel that in some how our cultures are erased by the
globalization process and by the consumism phenomena. It’s well known the in
any traveler’s tales the anecdote about how to get into a Mc Donald. No matter
in which country, all the McDonald are exactly (or mostly) the same. However
there is a big difference in the perception of this experience: Travelers that
used to go to McDonald in their own city said that it remind them home because
it´s exactly the same that the McDonald in their town. Radically different is
the effect if the travelers who’s never (or usually don´t) goes to Mc Donald or
there are no McDonald in their city. They claim that is like a “culture gap”
and they are exactly same in any country.
The same experience is perceived in a very different way among people.
Globalization
I strongly think that, in the past, globalization already exist.
However, it was closely linked to some other “agents” or/and “phenomenon”.
Examples of these agents could be not only empires, wars, colonies, religion
but also trade & commerce, explorers (like Marco polo), etc.
In the early 1990 with the internet invention and the “www” experience
(World Wide Connection), globalization phenomenon started to change radically.
One of the main changes was that it became independent from other agents. It didn´t
depend of wars, conquests or agents as it used to in the past. Regarding this, the
scale of globalization’s scope was different. Like if it became independent,
globalization decisions no longer depend on governments, big companies or other
agents but on the domestic decisions or at least actions of any dwellers house,
in their habits of consumptions and in their day to day customs.
In somehow, at the beginning of this process, globalization seems to be
a one direction process. Therefore, people were passive consumers without
significant influence in the information flows. However, this started to change
with the invention of the social networks in the first decade of the 2000.
After social networks, globalization became a two-ways phenomenons in which way
of lives are influenced but also became an influence factor. Information flows are strongly influenced by people,
and somehow, through social networks, the individual have found a place of
global expression in this process. We could be locals, our network could be
narrow or wide, and our interest could vary in a very wide range of
possibilities, however, there is a general feeling of belonging to something
global, and all we do could impact in the global way. We are building our
identities no longer only with our immediate environment but also with the
global environment.
Finally, we are surrounded by plentiful examples of normal individual
making big differences, achieving great impacts in our lives. The feeling that
everything is achievable, that anybody can become millionaire, famous or
popular suddenly is in the air. This has been encouraging entrepreneurism in
many ways and this has also built many global changes many times.
The Marketing Revolution
I don´t know anything about marketing, I really don´t know how they
work, however, from one moment until know, they are in everywhere.
Before internet, TV was the most effective way of advertising, in
somehow radio too but without this special support of images that TV has.
When internet arrived, wasn´t as strong as nowadays, however TV started
to change. Cable TV deterritorialized advertising. I remember a father
complaining in a shop about the trouble caused by the fact that his kids had
been watching advertising in cable TV about toys that didn´t exist in Uruguay
and he wasn´t able to buy for them.
In addition to that, at the beginning internet was like if somebody
would had created a city without public spaces, where, If you wanted something
you just looked and found it. You could write the www…adress and go straight, browsers
worked as a very useful “tourist information”. Everything was towards the
search in question.
When facebook appeared, for example, was like a new urban public space
in the network. People started to share, to comment, to expose, etc. Things
like found something useful in the net started to happens by chance. Facebook
was the public space in which in an active way the individual appears and
interact, directly (posting) or indirectly (just looking the other). People
also started to suggest, to recommend, thus, to give their own opinion about
not only actuality themes, art, news, social events, etc, but also about
brands, new technologies, etc. Therefore, something that at the beginning started
like a social network, step by step became also a kind of commercial network
too. Brands realized that a recommendation by word of mouth had 90%
effectiveness while TV advertising has a 20% [1]. In this line,
google, facebook and others start to develop a whole new system of advertising
and relationships among users according with their needings [2]. In some how,
this new virtual Public Space is now full of kiosks, shops and advertising.
However, and this is relatively new, you wont find many of this by chance. This
will be recomennded by a friend or “posted” by the network (google, facebook,
etc) [2]. This makes the invest in
publisity more accurate, effective and cheaper, but it is also another example
of how globalization, one more time, tends into a new way of locality.
Local and
regional targeting
Set your ads to
appear only to people searching in a particular city, region, or country. Now
it's easy to target online customers within 20 miles of your front door or
across the world.
Local ads
Help potential
customers find you by showing a business address with your AdWords text ads.
You can show your location to people searching for local information on
Google.com and Google Maps.
[1] Eduardo Mangarelli: Director of Technology, Developers &
Platform Group, Microsoft Latin America at Microsoft
Director at Cámara Uruguaya de Tecnologías de la Información
Teacher at Universidad ORT Uruguay
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