Malls

The Mall of America - "The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., turns ten years old [Aug 2002]. Host Madeleine Brand talks to author Ian Frazier about his surreal vision of the massive shopping center." You can read Frazier's Atlantic piece here.

Re-Creating the Mall Online (12-15-08) - "New companies are trying to replicate real-world shopping environments on the computer. Shopping at the new virtual 3-D mall is a little like shopping in Second Life and a little like the actual mall in Seattle."

Mall Makeover (5-20-07) - "Shopping malls are an icon of American pop culture, but they face extinction unless they modernize. Debbie Elliott visits a Washington, D.C., area mall that's getting a makeover for the 21st century."

Musings

• Compare any two of the three NPR pieces above.
  
  
• What's your response to David Segal's piece in New York Times, "Our Love Affair With Malls Is on the Rocks" (1-31-2009). Check out background piece on malls at Wikipedia.
  
  
• It seems that everyone has a mall story. What's yours? If you want, relate it to thus City X mood piece that also serves as a commentary on the place of the modern shopping mall in a “real, yet unnamed, city”: “Using a sound rich audio mosaic of observations and ruminations, all scored to Muzak, the universal mall experience comes to life, for better or for worse.” It was first broadcast (in a shortened form) on NPR’s Living on Earth (15:52) in November, 2004., and is also available in its original full length at the Third Coast Festival (22:32).
  
  

This I Believe

NPR describes its popular series, This I Believe, as "an international project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives."

Singing: The Key To A Long Life (11/23/08) - British composer and activist Brian Eno talks about the joy of singing, a subject taken up as well by Eunice ("Make a Joyful Noise") and Paige ("Singing, My Anti-Drug"), both in written form only. More pieces on singing here.

Dancing All the Dances As Long As I Can - Best-selling author Robert Fulgrum expounds on his joy of dancing, a subject found in the written pieces, Dancing Is Dreaming with My Feet. More dancing pieces here.

Baking by Senses and Memories. (Morning Edition, 11/20/06 - 4:18) · “I believe baking is the best way for me to express love for my people in the present, and honor the people of my past, all in one batch.”

Walking Across the Grand Canyon (6/13/2008) - Radio producer Scott Carrier describes a walk in the desert with his son. From the This I Believe series comes two written pieces, I Believe in Walking and I Believe in Hiking.

Musings

• Not surprisingly, when it comes to core values and beliefs, people often focus on some of life's simplest things. Why do you think this is so? In your response make a reference to one or more of these NPR pieces, or, if you are adventuresome, listen to some more of these series here.
  
  
• Much of the pleasure from simple things often comes from following a prescribed regiment, a set of rules for doing something the right way. Describe your own pleasurable or enriching experience doing something simple that entails its own set of rules.
  
  
• The religious community known as the Shakers played an important role in pre-industrial American life. You can read about their Culture and Artifacts here @ Wikipedia, and a fascinating video @ YouTube. Today Shakers may be best known for a single (simple) song: Here's a slightly jazzed-up version of the classic Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts (on YouTube). The tune was also the basis of the John Williams piece performed at President Obama's inauguration. The song may be better known for its melody than its lyrics--the melody being incorporated into one of the most beloved of American symphonic composition's: Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring. Here's a brief analysis of the piece @ NPR emphasizing the work's simplicity (There's also a link to a full perfomance, under "hear the Music'), and below are the original lyrics, written in 1848. Your job here: Describe the lasting appeal of the artifacts or music or general sense of the Shaker world.
  

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Hand work

Woodworking - (Weekend Edition Sunday, 1/6/02 - 2:54) · "Essayist Tim Brookes experiences a flashback to his youth while working with a piece of fine wood."

Typewriter Lover. (All Things Considered, 9/22/98 - 3:46) · "Alex Van Oss introduces us to his family of five old typewriters. One was once owned by a Supreme Court Justice, another by the Christian Science Monitor, and a third - a hefty thing from Switzerland, once crashed through one of his desks."

Baking by Senses and Memories. (Morning Edition, 11/20/06 - 4:18) · “I believe baking is the best way for me to express love for my people in the present, and honor the people of my past, all in one batch.”

Musings

1. Here are three short pieces linked by a common concern: the value of doing work the old-fashioned way, that is, by hand. Describe one of the pieces in some detail while also commenting how you can relate to the piece on a personal level. If you have trouble listening to these or want to others instead, try listening to 3 other pieces from the Special Features page of "This I Believe." where you will find sections on basic ("hand") things like gardening, poetry, pets, letter-writing, coffee shops, sewing and knitting, walking in the woods, fishing, and so forth.
   
   
2. Describe a mechanical tool (that is, a tool that works without electricity or batteries) you have used, or perhaps still use. Do others still use this tool? Why? Why not? Don't overlook such simple tools as a pencil or a hammer or a cooking utensil.
   
   
3. Have a knack for comedy? If so you might want to take a different approach and describe some new, highfalutin tool (or gadget), mechanical or electronic, like the iPhone or iPod that, despite all the hype, you find vastly over-rated. (Here's Alison Bryce's brief, sardonic response to her boyfriend's iPhone.) Don't worry about a little exaggeration--it might help underscore your point. Here's a case in point: Rube Goldberg, the American cartoonist who died in 1970, has become something of a household word, or at least a common noun, for creating the concept of an overly complicated way of doing something simple--like a 15-step contraption to scratch one's back. Here are examples at RubeGoldberg.com, or, as one might imagine, plenty of new Ribe Goldberg contraptions on YouTube. Here's one for crushing Cadbury Cream Eggs.
   

Stuff

George Carlin's classic comedy routine, "A Place for My Stuff" (5:09) is satire at its best--outrageously funny while saying something serious about our behavior.

"The Story of Stuff" is also a video satire, by Annie Leonard--"a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns . . . . [that] exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues."

NPR commentator Daniel Schorr offers this short commentary (2:05) on Princess Diana and Mother Teresa ("Saint of the Gutter, Saint of the Media")--both of whom died the same week. What do you see as the connection between this commentary and the points made by Carlin and Thoreau?

The Nova web site portrays five families from the 1995 book, A Material: A Global Family Portrait, a book that posed families from around in the world standing in front of their houses with their possessions.

Here's the Website from John Freyer's 2002 project, All My Life for Sale.

Ellen Kushner’s WGBH program Sound and Spirit offers a wide-ranging, weekly musical tribute to a single theme. Here is the playlist for her show on stuff--click here to listen (59:00).

Musings

• Annie Leonard's video, "The Story of Stuff," is clearly a form of propaganda, although a form that some of us (at least those who sympathize with her larger point) may not especially object to. What do you feel makes her video so effective?
  
  
• Describe what you see as the most important connection between any two of these pieces.
  
  
• Use of these pieces as the basis for a story of STUFF in your own life.