Scape Now News and Views

Archive for February, 2010

New trends in health and exercise are always fun to watch.  They’re also fun to take part in.  At the beginning of a trend, it’s a lot like most exercise programs.  We’re excited because the novelty of it is still enticing and fresh, and it’s a great opportunity to move our bodies in new and different ways.  Sometimes the trends are over very quickly, however, because the second time around, it’s not as much fun, and soon enough it turns into regular work.  There are some trends, however, that are based in very old ways of moving and doing things, and these usually have a better chance of lasting.

If you’re booking a Key Largo hotel any time in the near future, you’ll be likely to notice a new craze here, called Stand Up Paddle Surfing.  Also known as simply SUP, or Stand Up Paddling, Stand Up Paddle Surfing is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  You stand on a surfboard (other boards can be used, and for certain, in any new trend, there will be more expensive versions that will be designed for those who like to spend their money on things that are specially designed), and use long paddles to move yourself through water.  It sort of looks like the elliptical skiing machines, except the ground is constantly shifting and can pull you under at any time and drown you.

The new craze, then, is actually very, very old.  It’s based on how people move themselves around in geographical areas that have a lot of shallow water.  One of the great benefits of Stand Up Paddling is that you can do it in rough or gentle water.  The rough waters work the core much more than gentle water, but all of them work the core very well.  That’s another one of the benefits to it, to go with the era of washboard stomachs, where the core is all that some people seem to care about.   The same thing sometimes happens in yoga classes, but fortunately they get all the other extra benefits anyway.

New York itself is a complex system of signs, and the system is in continual process of self-construction.  The people who live in the city are sometimes so accustomed to how things work, that they stop questioning the apparatus in place.  The most interesting thing that happens here is that they can sometimes forget that they are the same people who constructed this.  This can be both good news and bad news, since it means that there are large forces at work moving things forward, and it seems sometimes to be out of control.  And at the same time, if the people themselves are responsible, then there is always a menu of possibilities for taking things apart to put them back together better.

There are some excellent hotels here, where you can find a place to stay while you investigate these systems the next time you’re in the city.  It will be a buzzing place for Art Fair Week, during the first week of March, as it always is, and there are some heady ideas being thrown around, as there always are.  This is a gathering of international art dealers from all over the world, and the art on display has a very wide range.  It’s not only wide in terms of historical scope and contemporary focuses, but also in terms of styles and forms.

New York being a place that is hyper-conscious of itself, of constructions, and of meaning-making in general, this is a fantastic setting for Hybrid Forum. This has multiple arms, and multiple focuses, too, and has all the markings of the beginning of another movement.  Or perhaps that’s only my own optimism about these things, because it could very well also be the end of art as we know it.  It always seems to be on a precipice these days.  This forum is dedicated to rethinking the exhibition and the art fair in general, and there are some very prominent key players involved.  It promises to be an extremely lively discussion.

Maintaining good records, employee benefits, and solid numbers are all considered an important part of any successful business, be it big or small. It is a common rule in business that if you want your business to succeed your costs and expenses need to be less than your sales. And if you want to draw in strong, well educated, employees you need some sort of 401k , health insurance, and benefits package. Unfortunately, once the employees are hired not much is done by the company to keep them well trained and working happily, much less help them improve their stations. This is where the importance of building a strong foundation of employee-training programs comes in.  Business training programs are a great way to help your employees further their education. These programs can help your company as well. Well-educated employees that are at the top of their game are going to help keep your company at the top of its game with new and fresh ideas. Knowledge begets understanding and understanding begets freedom. When employees understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, they will feel more freedom to excel at their jobs and come up with innovative new ideas. Management training programs help employees develop the skills they will need to one day be in management as well as further understand the methods and expectations of the company. They can also help employers identify future leaders for the company. The bottom line is this, employee-training programs offer new opportunities for employees to learn and grow. They will be better equipped to offer new insight if they have a better understanding of how and why the company works. Employee-training programs also help employers, and the company, by allowing a flow of better trained, highly motivated employees. It is something that no company should go without.

There are many reasons people decide to become a vegetarian but as they learn more on the topic they discover some interesting things. Cross contamination of animal diseases to humans seems to have happened before. It sounds more like some horrific science fiction movie but there have been some studies on the matter and it looks like it is possible. Salmonella is the most everyday version of cross contamination of animal disease to human disease. There is some study that says at least one third of all chicken in the Unites States market is contaminated with Salmonella and it could be as high as half.

We have all heard of Bird Flu, Swine Flu and Mad Cow disease in the news over the past few decades and this is what they are talking about. It is still rather rare but they are concerned about it becoming a pandemic some day. There is a historian by the name of Norman Cantor who believes that the early pandemic Black Death was more than likely from animal to human contamination. He believes that there was some sort of anthrax in the cattle and that may have contributed to massive sickness. These things are still very rare but maybe it won’t hurt to find a great vegetarian restaurant or two on this site to have peace of mind.

Boston is an exciting city.  It’s one of the oldest in the country, and has a tremendously fascinating history.  There are plenty of opportunities to dig in to the local culture here, and you can explore an level of history.  There are native cultures that have traces here that go back for thousands of years.  There is the history of the contemporary U.S. that begins over 200 years ago, and there is also pop culture that has a history with its origins somewhere in last week.  It doesn’t matter which direction you go in Boston, because it’s all enormously interesting, and there’s a lot to learn.

You don’t have to necessarily plan too far in advance either.  There are great hotels here and you can make up the rest of your itinerary as you go along.  One of the truly marvelous things about this city is that its roots are old enough and deep enough that there are multiple connections everywhere.  You can start exploring in one direction, and it will ultimately lead in a dozen more, and all of them are equally interesting to pursue.  There is no final frontier here, because it’s endlessly creating new frontiers based on connections made by the human beings that make up the city.

There are also virtual connections to Boston that are fun to investigate while you’re in town.  For fans of final frontiers, Boston Legal is based in this city, and one of the stars is none other than William Shatner.  This show suffered a very dear loss just recently when Shatner’s co-star, Justin Mentell, was killed in a driving accident in Wisconsin.  The show will surely go on, but it is a heavy weight to bear for the cast and for his family, but the show, like Boston itself, is made from hardy stock.

There’s worse things you can do that to chase after something ineffable, and try to pursue an impossible ideal for the rest of your life.  In fact, it might be said that there are many lives that have been dedicated to these kinds of missions, like the main message of the Man of La Mancha.  The Quixotic search is something that’s been haunting us for a long, long time.  Generations before us had a sense of the absurdity of it all, and generations that follow us will no doubt think the same, and every once in awhile, someone will come along who understands that knowing the quest is bound for failure can make it even sweeter.

It’s what drove George Lucas at a young age, after all, cashing in on the myth of the Great Goddess, and personifying her in his first major success.  Young people following in the filmmakers footsteps may eventually find it necessary to take a trip to Modesto, hole up in a nice hotel, and try to find some of the things that inspired American Graffiti.  There are lots of things all over town that will speak to his own childhood and teenage memories, because it’s the town that inspired him.

It’s ironic that the town, which has become a very sweet and lively place to visit in the past couple decades, refused him the right to film his early work, which has become such an iconic piece of film art.  It’s also interesting that the blonde in the white thunderbird would always seem to fall into great misunderstandings when she speaks, but these ironies are what makes the film so true.  Chasing after the girl of your dreams is never what it seems when it’s attainable, but can only hold power when it has the capacity and necessity to continue to escape again and again.