PREFACE to my book of poetry, "To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually! How different it is to soak at Harbin Hot Springs, than to realize it in virtual Reality" (due to be published any day now) ...
PREFACE
This little book of poetry, "To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually! How different it is to soak at Harbin Hot Springs, than to realize it in virtual Reality," explores Harbin Hot Springs in a radically new way, - both actually and virtually, and physically and digitally. I wrote many of these poems while I was doing anthropological fieldwork in 2010 & 2011 for my Harbin Hot Springs’ ethnographic project, both while at Harbin, and while on the road there, and this book's poems are, in a sense, an expression of this anthropological thinking as well. My large, first book "Naked Harbin Ethnography: Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality & Virtual Harbin" was published in 2016 (in the Academic Press at World University and School), and while it also has some poetry in it, it’s an unique ethnographic exploration of both actual and virtual Harbin Hot Springs, coming into conversation with Tom Boellstorff's "Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human," (Princeton University Press, 2008). The Academic Press at WUaS seeks also to reinvent the book anew, and to publish eventually from within the Google Street View with time slider environment, text in the sidebar, and planned, with machine translation, to translate all 7,111 known living languages and with virtual Reality (e.g. images and videos) too, to which we can all add, and which will become interactive and with avatar bots. WUaS Press seeks to make this printable to paper too.
The last poem in this book, also entitled "To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually! … ," is what I'm calling an "idea poem" or "philosophy poem," and possibly as a new kind of genre in poetry, and explicitly explores western philosophy ideas of consciousness.
I hope you, the reader, might be able to 'travel there' or virtually 'visit Harbin' - and via each of the poems in Virtual Reality or VR in something like Google Street View with Time Slider with Maps and Earth and in Google Cardboard, eventually in VR Glasses, thus making it possible to conceive of the book in a new way too, ~ and for any of us to curl up with a good book, and expand our consciousness, in very new ways.
Scott MacLeod
Thanksgiving 2019
- http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html* * *
Karen Leighty
Sat, Dec 14, 5:49 PM (18 hours ago)
to Jane, me
So many museum possibilities. Am going to have to let you and your mom make some choices. I could send you a list that might be googled—
There a practically zero music or stage events in town that week—
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Scott MacLeod
10:18 AM (2 hours ago)
to Jane, Karen
Hi Karen, and Ma,
Ma, what would you like to see in DC? And you Karen - this could be a great opportunity to see something you've always wanted to see, but haven't yet :) Sometimes, it's fun to see art and objects in museums as if we could travel into their virtual world :) ... Glad there's a large park near to where we're staying for potentially nice walks! ...
These 3 museums came to mind, when I just Google-searched, but am flexible -
- The Phillips Collection
- Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress
- Smithsonian American Art Museum/Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
and the Botanical Gardens ...
I enjoy the extraordinary ... and museums can be a way in ... but let's leave it open as well and see what comes up :)
Looking forward to seeing you, Erica and Blair!
With very best regards, Scott
@scottmacleod @WorldUnivAndSch @TheOpenBand @HarbinBook @skgmacleod @WUaSPress ...
PS I also have MIT OCW-centric wiki World Univ & Sch in mind with regard (since WUaS is seeking to develop all museums - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Museums - online in a realistic virtual earth :)
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Scott MacLeod 10:55 AM (1 hour ago)
to Karen, Jane
Hi Karen and Ma,
What 3 museums or so, or similar, would each of you choose to see, brainstorming-wise?
Just found the Phillips' Collection in Google's Arts and Culture -
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-phillips-collection -
which could be a precursor to an ever-improving all-museums-ever-online-in-a-realistic-virtual-earth. Am thinking Google Street View with TIME SLIDER / Maps / Earth with Tensorflow for machine learning and avatar bots ... but moving toward an experience of visiting the physical museum.
Am interested, Karen, in the Actual-Virtual, Physical-Digital in these regards in general. And here's a some Tweets with this hashtag - https://twitter.com/hashtag/ActualVirtual?src=hashtag_click ...
See you soon, Scott
And in this first link, you'll find Google Street View:
~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg ~ https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ~ http://bit.ly/HarbinBook ~
http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html
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Berkeley Scottish Country Dance Holiday party ... nice to talk with you
Scott MacLeod
9:50 AM (2 hours ago)
to Alex
Hi Alex,
Nice to talk with you at the Berkeley Scottish Country Dance party. Your mentioning statesmanship lead to my Tweeting about it idea-wise with regards to World Univ & Sch:
Statesmanship
skill in managing public affairs.
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Statesmanship…
-https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statesman…
Develop ONLINE schools of statesmanship at Scotland World Univ & Sch https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Scotland & in ~200 countries from Law Schs eg https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/China_Law_School_at_WUaS… ~
https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Nation_States… ?
Statesmanship— WorldUnivandSch (@WorldUnivAndSch) December 15, 2019
skill in managing public affairs.https://t.co/NVx06M0snv
-https://t.co/ihKjt7ColR
Develop ONLINE schools of statesmanship at Scotland World Univ & Sch https://t.co/1vIXgVvx0A& in ~200 countries from Law Schs eg https://t.co/tW4zxR4NPg ~
https://t.co/LRKdU7cdv4 ?
- https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch/status/1206252544202166273?s=20
Here's a photo from last night's party, and also the idea behind World Univ & Sch:
Berkeley Scottish Country Dance Holiday party. See too #ScottishCountryDancing WIKI to teach or learn from: https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Scottish_Country_Dancing (@WorldUnivAndSch @WUaSPress) & see too best STEM CC-4
@MITOCW for credit for free-to-students' Bach PhD Law MD degrees at http://worlduniversityandschool.org ~
Berkeley Scottish Country Dance Holiday party. See too #ScottishCountryDancing WIKI to teach or learn from: https://t.co/jralgPlavK (@WorldUnivAndSch@WUaSPress) & see too best STEM CC-4 @MITOCW for credit for free-to-students' Bach PhD Law MD degrees at https://t.co/laEDzMD0vm ~ pic.twitter.com/qN5o5zFR0Q— Open Band (Berkeley) (@TheOpenBand) December 15, 2019
With regards to World Univ & Sch - and SCD too - am thinking in terms of ~200 countries' and their official languages, and relationships between them online in new ways. And World Univ & Sch seeks to create a great number of university careers in all ~200 countries with time too. Would you like to grow a Scottish statesmanship school out of the Univ of Glasgow's debating society / law school in collaboration with Scotland World Univ & Sch, Alex? :) Seems important for a potentially independent Scotland to have trained statesmen / diplomats / foreign service / international relations people - and with Scottish university's schools for this even (I noticed that St. Andrew's has an International Relations school in these regards - https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/ir/). Thanks for the inspiration.
Think I'm going to stay focused on my actual - virtual Harbin Hot Springs' ethnographic project and a realistic virtual Harbin / realistic virtual earth ... but which could become learning opportunities for statesmenship even :)
Happy Scottish Country Dancing, Alex!
Best, Scott
Not clear whether George Galloway -
https://youtu.be/oeb_J0uHnSk - would be a good "professor" in the hypothetical online Scotland World University and School 'statesmanship' school, and out of the Scotland Law School at WUaS, but he seems capable, experienced and smart (and, agreed, this is a bit dodgy -
https://youtu.be/HrdFFCnYtbk :).
Am learning a bit further about the 2014 Scottish independence referendum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_referendum) in all these videos, but in this debate too -
https://youtu.be/5hMFYvPGUjI ...
Here's what I was referring to with regards to a Catalonia independence vote -
"on 1 October 2017. In a vote where the anti-independence parties called for non-participation, results showed a 90% vote in favour of independence, with a turnout of 43%. Based on this referendum result, on 27 October 2017 the Parliament of Catalonia approved a resolution creating an independent Republic unilaterally, by a vote considered illegal by the lawyers of the Parliament of Catalonia for violating the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Spain.[5][6][7]"
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement
Not clear whether this makes Catalonia free or independent re Spain's prior ruling ... but interesting ...
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