And now, in 2011, every second person in Kreuzberg is contributing to the gentrification processes by passionately complaining about gentrification.

I stole this photo from his blog too.

Read her post To Poach a Pear for a lovely reflection on what seems like old fashion family life (certainly looks nothing like my life today).

My favourite bit:

My mother is usually the one who makes poached pears. I have a photo of her in an old family album, holding a platter of them. By the length of her hair, I’m guessing that the year was 1982. My father must have snapped the picture as they were leaving for a holiday party. That was the kind of thing he liked to do. She’s standing in the wood-paneled den of the house we lived in until I was 13, wearing what appears to be a sand-colored fur jacket. She must have curled her hair with hot rollers, because it sits on her shoulders in soft loops, and where she’s pinned it back above her left ear, you can see the sparkle of her earring. Her eyes are lined in dark pencil, and her lipstick is as red and glossy as a Robert Palmer girl’s. She’s staring at something just beyond the camera, probably waiting for the flash to go off. The platter is in front of her chest, tilted slightly downward, so you can see the pears in neat rows. For her, that’s clearly what the photo is about: a dozen pears standing upright, each carefully peeled, poached, painted in dark chocolate, and topped with a sprig of fresh holly leaves. I like that for my father, the photo is clearly about her.

But it’s 3.46pm and after working solidly and soldiering on I have hit a wall of boredom. I need to find my way back into the pool of anxiety, because although that was horrible, at least it got me moving. I would prefer to be moved along by a wave of enthusiasm and motivation but I will settle for anxiety.

I just booked a flight for a long overdue overseas trip in a couple of weeks – right in the middle of this too-long project. It’s fun to book trips for the middle of projects. Part of my rationale was that nothing says “meet the deadline” like an international trip and two weeks away from my desk.

OK, feel ready to work again.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry ~

I even found it really fun to have bought everyone presents. No one went overboard so instead of feeling appalled by consumerism, it just seemed nice that everyone was thinking of things to give each other.

It hailed and rained for most of the afternoon and evening, so the ideal patio Christmas at Jess’s new house was not fully realised. Eventually we had to concede and find a way for 20+ people to eat indoors. Which we did and it was fun. Kev made oyster shots with a bloody mary base – yes, delicious.

The only downside was that I was mean to MJ. I don’t really know why, but I was in a bit of a grump (just a general end-of-year weariness grump) and took it out on her. Hopefully she hasn’t taken it personally.

Christmas starts well. Santa attended. Champagne was served in pink glasses.

Silly picture through the window, but too funny not to share. A bunch of hyperactive kids stopped in their tracks by a very compelling TV show. I wonder was it was…

Then the hail started…

Which provided plenty of entertainment…

But then it started raining and didn’t stop for a long time.

Hava stuck inside…

And eventually it stopped.

The latest addition is all over the internet right now:

Read it about it here and here.

You may recall that Gretchen’s emails led to me writing the same email twice - 12 months apart.

Even though I enjoy Gretchen’s blog, I’ve not really been inclined to adopt her very structured approach to happiness. I tend to be more dramatic in my life changes – if things are getting a bit bland, I move countries.

However, I finally got around to buying a copy of Gretchen’s book and am reading it now. Despite knowing Gretchen’s model for her happiness project inside out, something about this book – pages and pages of this stuff all in between a front and a back cover – is really bringing home the structured model of incremental improvements to daily life.

Anyone who has been around me lately (say…the last six months) has known I have been in various states of contemplation, over-thinking and restlessness. Despite planning on talking about anything other than myself and my life trajectory today, I dealt MJ a massive serve of inner dialogue. One of these conversations centred on the contradiction of wanting to feel content in daily life but also wanting to strive for more.

MJ left and I picked up the book and this is the passage I read next – a nice addition to the dialogue:

Studies show that many creative, influential people in the arts and public life score above average in “neuroticism” (i.e., they have a greater propensity to experience negative emotions); this discontent arguably urges them to higher achievement. Other studies, however, show that people tend to think more flexibly and with more complexity when they’re feeling happy.

But whatever a wide-ranging study might show about the connection between ambition and happiness generally, I realized that for my own part, I was much more likely to take risks, reach out to others, and expose myself to rejection and failure when I felt happy. When I felt unhappy, I felt defensive, touchy, and self-conscious.

Daniel, Bryant and I went walking in Lerderderg State Park a while back.

It was a happy time.

It used to be fun to buy kids presents. Now I’m just contributing to their consumerist existence in which we’ve bought children so much stuff they have lost the ability (or never learnt it) to appreciate and get excited. A gift should represent light against the darkness of ‘not-having’ and then ‘having’ and thinking “wow, this is great!”. But there is no ‘not-having’ so ‘having’ is meaningless. It is not about not-having and having – it’s about ‘what do I have?’ – your present is judged, “is this the best present I could have received?”

Boring.

It used to be fun to have a holiday. But now we’re so exhausted that ‘holiday’ is actually ‘recovery from 2011′ and instead of staying in bed and recovering we commit to 17 parties (because it makes sense to see these people while you’re on holidays so you don’t have to figure out how to fit in catching up with them during the year), spend 250 hours in shops buying things that you don’t want to buy (see first point), and then when we get to Christmas day with our families, everyone’s so tired and grumpy we’re rude to each other and have no resilience against the things about our families that bug us.

Boring.

It used to be fun to eat Christmas food. But now it’s impossible to ignore how unhealthy it is because we know we have a week to recover before getting back to work and facing the terrifying pile of work you put off until after christmas (because the final two weeks of the year were both the busiest and most unproductive because you spend your whole time at work christmas parties – and even worse, the cursed “we simply must catch up for a drink before Christmas!” drinks. Which makes no sense because Christmas is NOT the armageddon so why don’t we wait until after christmas to catch up?”

Wait – that one started to be about food but I ended up talking about parties. So, Christmas food is unhealthy and because we have to be back at work and starting “2012! Best year ever!” in a matter of weeks, it seems really unwise to put on three kilos and give yourself diabetes – especially because you’ve been eating mince pies for so many weeks now that you don’t even enjoy them anymore. My diary is already full for the first week of January and I don’t have time to see a doctor or a naturopath or a faith healer or whatever, so it seems wise to just steer clear of the christmas food.

Boring.

Kids stopped being little. Now they are just awkward and boring pre-tweens and don’t make you laugh like they did when they were three and would say something a bit precocious. Even the three year olds don’t make you laugh anymore because you’ve already heard that joke from their older brother when they were three.

Boring.

UPDATE: Sarah Wilson wrote a nice companion piece to this post in the weekend paper. See it on her blog.

I like Christmas. I like some carols and I like decorations and I like Merry Christmas Charlie Brown (and pretty much every other Christmas movie and TV special ever made). But Christmas just hasn’t really happened this year. Buying loads of presents seems even more insane than other years. Eating loads of baked goods seems even more insane than other years. It’s not like I’m angry about Christmas in a bah humbug kind of way. It just seems like I’m in a foreign country and I’ve overheard talk about a really odd ritual that doesn’t make much sense to an outsider. What’s going on?

I am truly bereft of Christmas spirit.

Alas, this is not a good option because I will be celebrating Christmas regardless. So I endeavour to inject myself with Christmas cheer. But I know it won’t work to inject myself with Christmas cheer by going shopping or eating mince pies.

So I will enjoy all the bits of Christmas I like and do my best to ignore the other bits.

Injection of “Christmas Cheer as defined by Sarah” no.1.

Yeaaaah right. It’s, like, virtually impossible. So I’m reducing sugar. At least I think I am, but all that sugar has taken it’s toll. Sometimes I don’t really know what I’m consuming.

However, I still like reading about why sugar is so goddamn awful. In a moment I will share you Jonah Lehrer’s take on it. But in brief, eat eggs for breakfast. (P.S. What’s New? Eggs!)

Why Sugar Makes Us Sleepy (And Protein Wakes Us Up)

Excerpts curated by Sarah.

Although we like to imagine ourselves as the driver – our consciousness is in full control – that belief is a lovely illusion. In reality, we are mere passengers aboard the body, strapped to a fleshy engine that is driving us.

Because we eat lots of refined sugars, washing down Twinkies with cans of Coke, we continually reduce levels of orexin in the brain, which then reduces levels of physical activity. In other words, we get fat and sleepy simultaneously.

“For Dr Venkataswamy, how you did things was as important as what you did, and he believed that great strength and spiritual fulfilment can come from the divine nature of work done well.”

Reminds me of this lovely post from Sunisa.

Today I’m reading:

What Really Happened to Strauss-Kahn?

Edward Jay Epstein from The New York Review of Books

Such a peculiar book, with lovely odd pictures and lovely odd stories and recollections to accompany the pictures. A funny little book in amongst a funny collection of things in a fancy department store. It was one of those moments when you feel like you’ve struck upon a rare treasure that you were never likely to find, but so glad you did, because what would life be like without it?

I bought the book that day and pick it up from time to time. Each time I consider myself lucky that this odd book that found its way into my bookshelf.

Only recently I realised that its author, Maira Kalman, is not my special Parisian department store secret.

She has illustrated covers for the New Yorker. She has illustrated Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, and she has illustrated  The Elements of Style. Yes, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style!

You may wish to buy me her book, And the Pursuit of Happiness, (originally a blog for the NY Times) for Christmas.

My favourite passages from “The Art of Being an Ambitious Female”

[Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO] is challenging women to assume full responsibility for their own success – not because she’s “out of touch” but because, as any Brian Tracy self-help book will tell you, that is what successful people do. They assume an internal locus of control – that their own actions determine their fate (whether or not this is always true, it is empowering). Men don’t have much of a problem with this (“we are awesome!”). Women, Sandberg points out, tend toward an external locus of control. They attribute their success to external factors: to luck, or help from someone else. They defer and self-deprecate and apologize and “shrink to fit”. In an environment that judges you on the sense of personal power you project – or don’t — this hurts us, and undercuts our chances for advancement.

AND

When a man is ambitious – and successful and powerful – he is leaning that much more into what it means to be a man.

But when a woman is ambitious, she cuts against the grain of her gender. You can’t be ambitious and feminine, so you have to give up one or the other — or redefine them both, and invent yourself in the process.

Go and read the whole article!

I love this quote -

“Live each season as it passes; breath the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
— Henry David Thoreau

I love the seasons so much, that when I decided to post this quote, I searched my archives for other posts about seasons and found THIS very similar blog post written 11 months ago.

Every year there is the Writer’s Festival and many, many other writing/reading events all year round. But all of a sudden, Melbourne has, for me, morphed into a city of literature! This shift in my perspective can be attributed almost entirely to four things.

1. Jonathan Franzen at the Writer’s Festival. AMAZING.

2. Jonathan Safran Foer is on his way

3. David Sedaris is on his way

AND…wait for it….

4. IRA GLASS IS ON HIS WAY!

This reminds me of the great musical touring event of early 2008. Feist, Sufjan Stevens and Broken Social Scene were all in Melbourne around the same time. I, however, was not…

It’s since been removed from the author’s blog, so I won’t link to it, but it’s still sitting in my RSS feed so I will just be a bit sneaky and cut and paste the list (with a bit of editing to make it more Sarah).

Now that it’s the tale end of winter here, I’d better get on with it and make the most of the list.

Winter is for…

- Making the mundane tasks into projects (I’ve just printed up a bunch of lists and charts – life organisation 101)

- Planning Thinking about a garden – ordering seed catalogues, planning a summer of vegetables and canning

- Getting to all those craft projects that get pushed to the side in the Summer

- Walking in wintery woods parks

- Lighting a wood fire and pouring a whisky tea

- Reading awesome books – downloading audiobooks for the kids

- Discovering weird vintage dolls in your grandparents’ crawl space and calling them Lucy and Nancy

- Watching old and odd movies (we’ve been having a 1980s teen movie-a-thon — 16 Candles, Say Anything) (Woody Allen films – Interiors, Scenes from the Mall)

- Collecting rocks

- Watching tv shows made in the UK (Misfits, Downton Abbey, old Black Books) US (30 Rock and Community)

- Taking the kids on their first skating field trip – ever!

- Potluck dinners with friends and neighbours

- Wearing goofy fake glasses and banging out a first draft

- Trying new recipes

- Redesigning a blog

- Drinking lots of water

- Drinking coffee in cafes at my desk. Finding a favourite coffee stand, becoming a regular

- Talking endlessly about finally getting a dog/chickens/a potbellied pig

- Munching on delicious crystalised ginger to help with sore throats (Illness-free winter so far!)

- Finding a good friend and making a habit (or at least a promise) of getting fit together  (yoga! walking! etc!)

This time last year, I bought a Mac, and while it’s great in so many ways, it’s absolutely rubbish for simple photo storing and editing. So totally overdone and impossible.

Forget inspiration, discipline, creative energy. Make sure blogging is easy, you’ve got a smooth process and it’ll happen.

It was a nice, light book that very easily and effortlessly transported me other places. NY Times wrote a confusing piece about it – I agree with everything they say, but still can’t figure out whether the writer liked or hated the book.

A friend of a friend of friend of a friend of a friend or something like that directed this movie. It’s the kind of thing I’d watch and reference for weeks after. It’s screening in Melbourne the following times:

LOOP – 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne, 3000
Saturday, June 25th at 2:30 PM

Knox Community Arts Centre
Cnr Mountain Hwy and Scoresby Rd Bayswater, 3153
Saturday, June 25th at 7:00 PM

LongPlay- 318 St Georges Road, North Fitzroy, 3068
Sunday, June 26th at 6:00 PM

*Cinema Nova- 380 Lygon Street, Carlton, 3053
Tuesday, June 28th at 7:00 PM

Uni did a profile on me for an alumni magazine…then they blew it up and put it on the wall for a marketing event.

I think it entitled me to the free drinks and snacks I consumed when I gatecrashed the event.

We all have values that we sometimes live up to and sometimes don’t. We all have ideas about how the world should be but sometimes give up on little bits of it because the problems seem too intractable.

But if ever I am looking for a moral loophole or deciding that maybe the actions of one insignificant person like me don’t really matter, I remind myself that I want to be on the right side of history and find it much easier then to act in alignment with my own values.

We all have a different sense of which side of history is the right one, so there no indication that this approach en masse will lead to world harmony, but it does mean we might all act in accordance to some kind of moral compass more often.

I read a book once that I have no recollection of apart from it being fiction and based in the civil rights movement in the States. There was a brief discussion about fighting for a cause that may never see its realisation in your lifetime (and indeed may never see its realisation). That can seem so incredibly depressing – knowing so strongly what is just and also knowing that many after you will have to continue to witness and experience repeated injustice. When I read this book I wondered how anyone could maintain the motivation to continue to pursue justice without indication that anything would come of it.

It’s easy to believe that any one of us would have been marching for civil rights but how many of us would have forgone a stable career for the uncertainty of activism,  or taken the risk of getting involved with people that might turn out to be unscrupulous, or taken the risk of losing control of your reputation, taken the risk of losing friends, or taken the risk of devoting your life to something and making no difference. Life wasted – oh well.

But when I ask myself whether I’m on the right side of history, all of those concerns recede just a little bit.

Michael Caton, who appeared in the carbon tax ads, responded to criticism with:

“Occasionally you’ve got to put your head up and if someone kicks you in it, you’ve got to roll with the punches…But in 2050 I suspect my grandchildren would be really disappointed in me if I didn’t take a stand and try to do something to make a positive impact on their standard of living.”

That sounds like a right side of history kind of argument to me. I wonder whether this is as powerful key to conscious living for others as it is for me.

High Resolves Initiative, an organisation operating in Australia is taking a similar message to high schools. From the High Resolve website:

If we are to have any hope of responding to the increasingly complex challenges of our world while there is still time, we will need a critical mass of today’s youth to develop the desire, the skills, the creativity and the confidence to act with solidarity in the collective interest of humanity; something that previous generations have failed to accomplish.

No preaching about what needs to be done and how it needs to be done, just a reminder to be on the right side of history.

One of the least surprising elements of this is that Barnaby Joyce had something to say about it.  Here’s a bit of the poorly thought out commentary by Barnaby Joyce (commenting on Cate Blanchett’s personal wealth):

“Fifty-three million dollars gives you a whole heap of latitude to care about a lot of things,” he said.

Does Barnaby Joyce really believe that you can’t possibly care about a bigger picture unless you’re rich? Is he suggesting that people who are struggling financially can only care about their own immediate needs?

If we left the fighting of causes up to rich people we wouldn’t have much in the way of social movements throughout history.

Asking that human beings think about something other than their own needs is precisely one of the great challenges to finding mass-support for action on climate change.

I’m sure most people believe in principle that we should do the right thing by the planet and future generations. They might not yet be convinced that sacrifices today are necessary, or warranted, or maybe some people are having a hard time thinking about a bigger picture beyond their immediate needs because they’ve just received another mega electricity bill.

But let’s not set that kind of self-interest as the noble norm. Let’s not label an altruistic approach as ‘out of touch’ and offensive to those who are struggling to pay bills.  Wait, I know, let’s not listen to Barnaby Joyce anymore and let’s strive to be better than any picture he paints of the Australian people.

Watch the advertisement:

The Big (Kitty) Bang Theory

Those pants! It’s worth going to see Kitty Bang just to witness the magic of the tightest, shiniest pants you might ever come across.

But also, as an aside, can I tell you about this show that is very, very fun for its high quota of sing-along 80s anthems and cabaret glamour that is somehow not at all cheesy – or maybe only cheesy in a good way (note: I have a low threshold for cheesy so can assure those people who have to think twice about cabaret that this might be the cabaret moment for you).

The thing that makes The Big (Kitty) Bang Theory really special is that it captures a slither of the inner Melbourne indie sensibility in a way that had me doing those “it’s funny because it’s true” laughs. But there was also that satisfying feeling that I assume is much harder to cultivate, that comes from intense recognition of a thought that you’ve never quite articulated. It feels a little bit like, “is Kitty Bang in my brain?” and a bit like “finally, someone has shone a spotlight on this madness”.

Live music (with probably the hottest pianist you’ll see at the Comedy Festival), jazzy lighting, and animation (probably the cutest animation you’ll see at the Comedy Festival) took a good premise and a really solid story and turned it into a most enjoyable cabaret show.

I came out of The Big (Kitty) Bang Theory feeling a bit sillier and a bit wiser – like a little sugar-coated pearl of wisdom that went down a treat.

Was lucky enough to get two tickets for the almost-completely-sold-out Cafe Scheherazade at fortyfivedownstairs (which has since become the completely sold out Cafe Scheherazade).

The play is based on the book of the same name by Arnold Zable. Zable gathered stories from Polish Jewish emigres at the cafe of the same name in St Kilda.

In the play, old people retold their stories of fleeing Europe to a young journalist. It was about more than the stories though, it was also about personal history, memory, the passage of time (no matter how much you wish it would just stay still), and a reminder that there is no guarantee that hard work and being a good person and following the golden rule will protect you and others from the bad things the world can throw at you.

If they extend the season (and you are in Melbourne) I highly recommend it.

Update (12.4.2011): Return season announced for August-September 2011.

Charlie Sheen is not filial

• Source: Global Times
• [10:34 March 07 2011]

By Hao Leifeng

Actor Charlie Sheen is a classic example of the difference in Western and Eastern values and norms.

Ignoring public pleas from his father, Sheen has continued a weeklong media blitz, exhibiting obvious signs of mania. With no firm hand to guide them, Western media has deliberately goaded him into making increasingly delusional statements, more concerned about “winning” higher ratings than Sheen’s own sense of pride, or the negative example his brash public admissions about his private sex life and unverifiable international conspiracies could be setting for society.

How many young people have been led astray by Sheen’s boasts about his substance abuse and freewheeling sex life? And that was when he was in character on national television, as a randy bachelor in Two and a Half Men.

Sheen attracted 1 million Twitter followers in just 24 hours, yet more evidence that microblogs spread the most unhealthy contagions in society like a disease. Chinese family, coworkers, or the authorities would have taken firm steps to make sure someone like Sheen did not make a public spectacle of himself.

Take Edison Chen, who humbly apologized and slipped away to Canada. Or Li Gang’s father, who wept as he sought forgiveness on his son’s behalf.

The fact that Sheen continues to embarrass himself unabated, becoming even a hero to many, points to the vast differences in cultures.

His employers are unhappy that he was distracted with prostitutes and drugs, and didn’t show up to work on time. Why not take a tip from the Chinese business community, and make visits to a KTV parlor part of Sheen’s workday?

And instead of epic parties at his home with porn stars, why not keep Sheen occupied with business banquets?

Sheen goes on television and boasts that he has two girlfriends, who both sleep in the same bedroom. Is he too poor to set up his wives and mistresses in different houses?

In Chinese society, these problems are dealt with delicately and privately. Sheen is like a typical Westerner throwing fuel on the fire with each interview and tweet. It is almost as if he feels no shame and is loving the attention.

Racism, spousal abuse, addiction, politics, mental illness, boasting about mistresses, – these are all subjects best dealt with behind closed doors.

As much as Sheen has lived a life most Chinese men can only fantasize about, our admiration of him can only go so far. He has not only lost face with his public rants, but also crossed a cultural barrier no Chinese can abide.

He ignored his own father’s advice to keep quiet, who was once the president of the US. Sheen is a disgrace, unfilial to his father and his fatherland.

Martin Sheen should at once go on television and tearfully apologize on behalf of his son for his inability to keep up appearances and keep his mouth shut.

Sam, the best MSF worker in the whole universe is prettying up a page on the MSF website. Take a look.

photo stolen from website © Kate Geraghty / The Sydney Morning Herald

You may recall Sam from such Where is Sarah? adventures as trips to TCDC to get some work done on the weekends. Wow that was lame (TCDC wasn’t lame, you know what I mean).

Now Sam is engaged in business that is way better than working-on-reports-on-the-weekend-business. Onya Sam.

In the past four weeks I’ve seen two plays and one quasi-opera (the other Friday night was that crazy torrential rain day so I stayed home, but it was sufficiently dramatic).

So who am I to buck a natural trend? I hereby declare Friday night to be Culture Night with capital letters. If you live in Melbourne I will drag you into at least one of these FNCNs.

This is perfect for me because I’m not hugely into Friday night drinks that last for more than one or two glasses and sometimes I’d rather just go home. But Friday Night Culture Night means I do something grand to delineate between work week and weekend, and if its boring I can just have a good nap in a dimly lit room with comfy chairs.

It was a less conventional performance than I’ve seen in a while (I realise I’ve been spending too many of my cultural hours at the Arts Centre where things are preeeeety traditional). The stage was made of shipping crates, a ghostly singer wandered along the roof, and a guy you hope never to get stuck next to in a bar did weird stuff with puppets. And instead of being “oh, hmmm, I see what they were trying to do there” it was engrossing and gross and intense and funny and wonderful to look at for an hour and a half.

This guy over at The Age didn’t love it. I wonder if his criticism was motivated by his longing to say , “Tis Pity She’s a Bore”. Dude, we all thought of it and threw it away because it was just.too.easy. Anyway, gratuitous, shallow, insubstantial – maybe. Boring – not at all.

Visit the creator, Eirik Solheim’s website or follow him on twitter.com/@eirikso (understanding Norwegian will help here).

Zoe writes, “I used to see this old grandpa get off at Box Hill station, so I sneakily drew him.”

Boat shoes

...for boating

fairfieldboathouse.com

I saw Don Parties On at the Playhouse last week.

For the non-Australian audience, Don Parties On is the sequel to the original David Williamson play/film, Don’s Party.

Here is a clip from the 1976 film:

Kiiiiiiidddinnng. That’s footage of a surprise party for some guy named Don…his divorce party. Cool idea guys, totally modern and lame.

Here’s the real Don’s Party (try to ignore the annoying intro bit)

So, it was election day 1969.

Fast forward to election day 2010, Don’s having another party. David Williamson is writing a play about it.

I won’t provide a comprehensive review but to say I laughed a lot, the set was incredible, some of the acting was great and some of it was awful, and I mostly didn’t identify with any of the characters except in some general lefty political ways. Good night at the theatre. Two thumbs up.

The finding: In good communication, a listener’s brain activity actually begins to mirror the speaker’s brain activity.

The study: Uri Hasson and his colleagues Greg J. Stephens and Lauren J. Silbert recorded the brain responses of a woman who was telling a story about her prom and those of people who were listening to her. Afterward, the researchers asked questions to gauge the listeners’ comprehension of the story. The recordings showed that the listeners’ brains started to resemble the speaker’s brain, or “couple” with it. The stronger the resemblance was, the higher the listener’s comprehension of the story.

The challenge: Is communication a single cognitive process shared by two brains? Can people who are great at it literally change our minds? Professor Hasson, defend your research.

Hasson: It’s a clear and dramatic correlation. The more listeners understand what a speaker is saying, the more closely their brain responses mirror the speaker’s brain responses. What’s more, while normally there was a slight delay in a listener’s response matching up with the speaker’s, in cases of extremely high comprehension, the delay nearly disappeared. In listeners who scored highest on comprehension, brain responses sometimes preceded the speaker’s.

HBR: They understood what the speaker was going to say before she said it?

We believe that our recordings showed that good, active listeners were anticipating what the speaker would say. That was exciting to see.

Or creepy.

No, it’s just two tightly coupled brains communicating well. It’s that feeling you get that you just click with someone. It’s almost visceral. You can finish their sentences. You just know you’re on the same wave. By the way, you get similarly strong feelings when you’re not in sync with someone. Sometimes you can just feel it when someone’s talking and you’re not getting it. Your brains aren’t coupling.

But why does it matter that the brain responses become similar? What does that explain?

Speech production and speech comprehension have been studied as separate processes that occur within the boundaries of a single brain. I speak and my brain is doing one thing. You listen and your brain is doing another. This is one of the first studies to look at interactions across two brains as a single shared process. Coupling is not a result of understanding. It is the neural basis on which we understand one another. We’re suggesting that communication is a single act performed by two brains.

Subjects listened to a recording of the speaker while inside an MRI machine. Can this really translate to complex, real-world communication?

We suspect the coupling effect would be even stronger in face-to-face communication, which is enhanced by expressions and gestures. Moreover, you wouldn’t have the unnatural noise distractions that you have in the MRI scanner. We did use special recording and listening equipment to eliminate some of those. And even though listeners didn’t have any nonverbal cues, the coupling was widespread across all different levels of the brain’s network, from low-level processing of auditory information to higher functions. Unfortunately, the state of technology doesn’t allow brain responses to be measured in real-world settings yet. Someday!

So, here’s the million-dollar question: Why do some people’s brains couple more easily?

We don’t know yet. That’s what we’re looking at next. Are some leaders, for example, better at coupling their brains with others’? I think of how mesmerized and engaged people are by good communicators. I saw Obama speak at a rally once, and people in the audience were captivated. Is he somehow more capable of inducing similar brain responses across all listeners? What are the mechanisms that allow a listener’s brain to couple or not? If you disagree with Obama’s views, do you actively prevent your brain from coupling? Can I interfere with the signal? Why does miscommunication, or a lack of coupling, happen? How do children acquire the ability to couple brains? These are all questions we want to look at.

Do you think some people are born with the ability to couple their brains with others’?

There’s probably a spectrum of abilities. On one end you have an autistic person who can’t seem to transmit or pick up the right information to have successful brain coupling. He can’t click with others. On the other end you have people who almost seem to transmit a common signal and are very easy to connect with.

Could understanding the mechanisms help us move along that continuum?

Absolutely. That’s an important way ahead for us. What if we could help the autistic person click? What if we could test people’s ability to transmit and receive these signals? Can we help people learn to lead better? Can we reduce miscommunication by increasing coupling?

You use terms related to wireless communications—“coupling,” “wave,” “signal.” Do you see the brain as a kind of wireless transmitter?

That’s precisely it. I’m generating a brain wave that generates a sound wave that generates a brain wave in you. There’s nothing mystical about this. It’s not a Jedi mind trick. This is what communication is. It is what humans do best, and it’s unique and amazing.

How?

I don’t want to get too philosophical, but basically, all brains are coupled to the external world. If I sat next to you in a movie theater and someone measured our brain responses, they’d see extremely similar patterns. We couple to external stimuli in the same way because as a species, humans have similar perceptions of the external world. All monkeys’ brains respond to a banana in pretty much the same way. But humans can couple brains directly, without external stimuli. I can say “elephant” and you’ll comprehend what I’m saying even if there’s no elephant in the room. My brain conveyed the idea of an elephant directly to your brain. Not all animals can do that. But humans can.

Honestly, this is all giving me a headache.

Our brains must be out of sync.

When brains couple, listeners’ brain activity becomes similar to speakers’. The less lag, the higher the listener’s comprehension of what the speaker is saying. In cases where comprehension is highest, the listener’s brain activity actually precedes the speaker’s. These are cases where you might say that two people “just click.”

Clare is in town from Alice Springs, which has made for some good friend outings, including trips to Ocean Grove, trips to the movies, and trips out for food, food, and food. The city is quiet and lots of places are closed, so it’s nice to wander the empty streets until you finally find someone to feed you.

My old UNIFEM colleague from Aceh, Toni, just arrived in Melbourne to begin a two year Masters program. Within an hour of his arrival he gracefully allowed me to drag him around Melbourne for a while. He even insisted he wasn’t too tired, even though his plane was delayed by two days and flew to Melbourne via Singapore. So excited to have Toni in Melbourne for the next two years.

Tomorrow, Nikolas and Chiara are going to carve up the city and have some school holiday fun. I think it might be time to get my camera out of retirement.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Christmas, the week after Christmas and New Years Eve were all primo beemo! Had an amazingly relaxing and fun time. Just excellent!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 88 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 493 posts. There were 132 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 35mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 9th with 166 views. The most popular post that day was Postcards from the Thalys.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, facebook.com, google.com.au, Google Reader, and sarahfortuna.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for lolcats, rsa animate, wind in the willows, imma let you finish, and the wind in the willows.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Postcards from the Thalys December 2009
3 comments

New heights reached – but why? March 2009

“vrmm vrmm vrrrrrmmmmmm” September 2009
5 comments

RSA Animate May 2010
1 comment

Tits out Tuesday November 2009
8 comments

Merry Christmas dear readers. It’s been a quiet year at Where Is Sarah? but no less anticipatory of the birth of baby Jesus than every other year before. Hooray for Christmas, a time for eating too much sugar and getting giggly when your usually very conservative office gets covered in tinsel.

I have been extra specially giggly today because I’ve been listening to this week’s Christmas episode of This American Life: Comedians of Christmas.

Here’s the thing – it’s pretty silly, and probably not the most sophisticated humour from start to finish (Q. What nationality are Mr and Mrs Claus? A. North Polish) but it makes you laugh out loud even when you’re in public and you know you look like a crazy person. But it’s Christmas so you don’t mind and you just giggle even more.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Today was a truly excellent day. I was on my way to handing in the final piece of assessment for my Masters and I got a call offering me a really very exciting job. If you’ve been anywhere near me in the last two weeks you will know exactly what I am talking about.

Then, I was able to pull a bunch of excellent people together for impromptu celebratory drinks that turned into dumplings for dinner.

But wait, here is where it got amazing. Lara, Sebi and I had just said goodbye to Amy and were walking to our trains/trams to go home and a man jumped out in front of us and offered us free frozen yogurt! I love frozen yogurt! I love it so much that I’d already eaten some today. I learnt to love frozen yogurt in Bangkok, where the trade is fierce and the product delicious (my favourite was B.Naturale).

Melbourne doesn’t have a great frozen yogurt trade….until now.

Cacao Green
285 Swanston St – Melbourne
(Cnr Lonsdale & Swanston St)

www.cacaogreen.com.au

Cacao Green on Facebook

This is GOOD frozen yogurt. I will eat it often.

Who are you kidding?! Perfectionism is awful – it’s not a guarantee of high standards its a guarantee of unhealthy work practices.

Reading The Happiness Project today, I was delighted to read Oliver Burkeman take self-proclaimed perfectionists to task.

Q. What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
A. Among many, many other things: I no longer think of perfectionism as one of those traits you should be secretly quite proud to possess (“Oh, I’m a perfectionist, yes, I’m just not happy unless I’m producing brilliant work!”). Perfectionism is 100% bad and evil. As Anne Lamott says, it’s “the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people; it will keep you cramped and insane your whole life”. Working as a newspaper journalist on deadline has drummed much of it out of me — there’s nothing like a screaming editor to make you abandon all hope of a perfect opening sentence — but it’s an ongoing challenge. I guess I shouldn’t be perfectionistic about getting rid of perfectionism, though.

FOLLOW THIS LINK AND GRANT IT ACCESS TO FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND YOUR WEB CAM

(you can still enjoy it without granting access but I’m sure it won’t be as cool).

P.S. VSL told me to watch it in Safari but Chrome works too.

***Spoiler alert – The image below might undo the surprise a little bit***

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Once you’ve watched the clip/video/amazing thing the following image will make sense (it will even explain why I was smiling like a madwoman at my computer):