Play in the City 2013

My day in the city accompanied by Louise, Sara and Ava began as an adventure, free of restrictions except needing to be back at the Free Public Library by 3:00. Our group decided that instead of choosing a place or two to spend our day, we would just wander and see where the concrete streets would take us. We soon found ourselves outside of the Rodin Museum, were we were able to see the copies of the sculptures he created many years ago, each one full of varied but deep human emotions. We then found ourselves walking to the sculpture garden behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where we were able to interact with the art. We climbed on the sculptures that looked like worms reaching towards the sky, we sat above a modern fountain and felt the water move between our fingers underneath us. We then found a mountain of rocks that we chose to climb, giving us a beautiful view of the river. We chose to experience rather than plan, we made the decision to play.

    I used to think that a city is a friend who I am so familiar with, but when I play in a city, as a bystander and explorer, I find that the city is more like a stranger to the civilians who “seem” to connect with it tightly. In fact, they are never bothered by the “serendipity”, because they actually only care the information benefits and interests them and neglect the surroundings automatically.

Phoenix

MLord

Play in the City 028

Sunday, September 15th

The Art of Wandering

The article which most particularly resonates with our trip into Philadelphia is Cass Sunstein’s article, “So Much for Serendipity in Personalized News.” This is not perhaps particularly original, since everyone on the trip most likely found themselves released into a world of serendipity. However, I tried particularly hard to play in the city, to open myself to any and all possibilities for play, and found them delightful.

Upon being freed into the city, my group, consisting of myself, Marcia, Thea, and Agatha, agreed to visit the sculpture garden. There we discovered, among other things, a door decorated with many small figures. Although I rushed past the door at first, Thea pointed out that a large sculpture of three men entitled The Fades was reproduced in miniature on the door, which prompted me to look more closely and find that another large sculpture, apparently a replica of the famous Thinker, was also miniaturized on the door.

Vitiligo causes depigmentation of the skin. I know about this, because my son has patches of vitiligo on his wrists, hands, and jaw. The condition is much more noticeable in those of us who are dark skinned, than in those of us whose skin is lighter in color.

I'm trying to write a short story here about vitiligo. It is about the absence of homogeneity, the presence of authenticity (cf. Zukin) on Logan Square. It's about how a biological phenomenon invites a certain kind of social drama (cf. Mumford), playing out perceptions, creating uneasiness, dis-ease. Do I attend carefully enough to the raced and classed history and present of this country, in which people with darker skin bear a disproportionate burden of discrimination? Do I offend, in making a physical condition metaphoric?

I loved the conception of “The Quiet Volume.” I loved being whispered to attend to the sounds in the library, and to attend to the ink on the page. I loved the shadows cast by the image of my hand on the blank page—having my attention called to the gradations of color and sound created when I placed my hand there.

Aaaaand I'm the last one to post. I knew there was something I forgot yesterday night. Sorry Anne. Hope my tardy two-cents still are relevant. 

We talked a little bit in class about why scientists are cutting open dead rats' brains to search for the neurological implications of play. I think Agatha said that we must take play for what it is, just relax and stop trying to analyze it to death. Respectfully, and as the daughter of two hardcore scientists, I disagree. Scientists are curious creatures. When an answer eludes them, they would gladly sacrifice their spleens in the effort to understand the unexplainable. That, in my experience, is their play. They derive pleasure from the chase, the puzzle. 

I think the most interesting part of Sunstein's article was the bias that interfered with a study on play. Even though trained professionals were interacting with the children, somehow their desire for the players to do better permeated into their actions and rendered a false-positive. I love how we are so enamoured with play. 

I'm a little astonished as I recall my childhood.I had a schedule perfectly "crammed with activites that are productive, educational and fun". I practiced piano an hour a day since kindergarden, but my major memory of that time is still running and swinging in the twilight. I guess that's because I went to a great kindergarden: the hardest math we ever did was copy-writing numbers. My weekend schedule was filled with piano, drawing, ballet, calligraphy classes, but I never felt tired and I still got time to fly kites, climb mountains or just lay on the grass. The reason why I could do so many things at the same time as a kid is that, fortunately, I was curious about almost everything in the world so I enjoyed all the classes. They were not tiring burdens but just another form of play, an opportunity to do something interesting. So as long as a child is not forced to learn something he hates, "productive education" and play are not contradictory.

I didn't find Henig's article to be overly revolutionary in terms of how I personally view the act of play, but it definitely diverted my attention to something which, upon some thought, is more disturbing than all the frightening and awful things we realise that kids do and say to each other when they play. Bullying, name-calling, fighting, lying... it is certainly really terrifying to see that children have it in them to truly be so mean...

And yet, there is not the same let-down, horror, or shock when adults behave in the same, or worse, manner. What brought this to my attention was the ease and calmness with which the lab tests and brain surgeries and experiments on rats were described. I took a moment to step back and look at the situation.

Adults collecting and breeding rodents. Controlling the environment in which they are raised. Slicing open their brains, poking around inside their little craniums – and why? Because “science demands that if there are important long-term benefits to play, they must be demonstrated.”

“That is why studies of play-deprived rats are so fascinating.”

Over the summer, I worked at a summer camp in Point Reyes National Seashore, a few hours North of San Francisco. It was my second year working at this camp, although I’d been a camper for around six or seven years. Point Reyes Summer Camp is a nature science camp, so the campers do a lot of learning about local plants, wildlife, and natural processes. We often integrate this learning into games and activities, and the kids (aged 9-12) seem to really retain the information they learn in that way. 

I wasn't really struck by the Sunstein article, though I agree with the general sentiment that the serendipity of newspapers is a good thing. I don't go out of my way to find news, so I like the variety that a newspaper provides.