November 8, 2011 – Rorschach

Have a look at today’s piece for the 2011 Project. What you think about it may determine if you’re crazy, or not. Or perhaps it says something about the artist? Hmmm.

Back in Zürich on this day in 1884 Hermann was born. As a teenager he got into Klecksography. It was the thing for kids to do back in the days before video games and the internet. Klecksography was the making of inkblot pictures. Fun! Hermann, as in Dr. Hermann Rorschach, went on to make it his life’s work.

I lived Switzerland for a year in the 1980’s. Living in the small city of St. Gallen in a neighborhood called St. Fiden (St. Fido!). I lived a block off the main street through the neighborhood. It was called Rorschacher Strasse (Rorschach Street). I did so much in Rorschacher Strasse, everything from the grocery store, the post office, lottery tickets (once I won SFr 100), haircuts to my Swiss Bank (I used to love saying I had a Swiss Bank Account).

The name Rorschacher Strasse could lead to all sorts of wacky symmetrical public art. They really could have had fun with it. But this, after all, was ever so serious Switzerland. And the street is actually named for the road that leads to Rorschach, a town on the Bodensee (Lake Constance).

As I signed and dated the back of today’s piece I also noticed the date is coincidentally and perfectly symmetrical – 11-8-11.

May 6, 2011 – Chocolate

About 4,000 years ago the ancestors of the Olmecs came up with this wonderful, magical concoction. They used the roasted and fermented beans of the cocoa tree. The Mayans and Aztecs carried on the tradition. The history is a little muddled but it seems at some point in the 16^th Century, Spanish tourists started stopping at a place called Sí’s at the aeropuerto. They bought this delight called xocolatl to bring back to Europe. Inevitably it ended up in the boudoir of some Swiss mistress. And the rest is well, as they say, history. It’s hard to imagine a world without chocolate.

January 28, 2011 – Radio

No matter how old we are, radio has always been a part of our lives. Maybe that is why it will take some effort to let it go. It’s had a good run, a nice healthy century. But the life of radio is coming to an end. In many ways, radio was really the beginning of the rapid acceleration of technology that has marked all of our lives.

KUSF, a local college radio station, was abruptly shut down by the University of San Francisco this month. The dedicated volunteers who staffed the station, as well as their listeners, are understandably, quite distressed. While I sympathize with their loss, it does not mean much for me on a personal level. About the only time I listen to broadcast radio anymore is a bit of NPR on a road trip. Radio stations do not have a significant role in my life anymore.

I was also thinking about radio for another reason today. Today is the 25th Anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. I was living in Switzerland in 1986. I found out about the disaster when I came home from class and turned on the radio. In those days radio was my main source of media (I did not have a TV).

When I first arrived in Switzerland, I diligently listened to German language radio. When setting up my phone service, I naïvely admitted to owning a radio. As soon as I saw the tax bill for radio service, I went to the post office with a great tale about exploding radios and American electrical converters. “Oh no, I was not getting a new radio.” Yes, I was one of those immigrants the Swiss complain about. Truthfully, I never listened to Swiss radio. Much to my surprise, I grew to prefer AFM, the U.S. Armed Forces Radio. I had a year where I seldom had the opportunity to speak English. That is when I finally understood why many immigrants need a radio station in their native language. Sometimes we just need to hear your own language.

Immigrants still depend on radio, but today it mostly is via the internet. I myself am an avid internet radio listener, but what we call “radio” today is no longer the box that many older people used to call “the wireless.”

For today’s piece I used an image of this cute, little, retro transistor radio. I bought it years ago at a yard sale. It’s is labeled a “boys radio.” It normally sits with some kitsch on the bathroom shelf. I’ve had it for over 10 years. Never even put batteries in it, I am not sure if it would even work. But it is cool.