New Feature: Non-Profit of the Month

One of the many things I love about Louisvillagers is their willingness to come together and share ideas. The idea for Non-Profit of the Month sprang from a conversation I had during a lunch with the lovely and talented Robyn Sekula in late May. So next time you see her, thank her.

Each month for the foreseeable future, My Loueyville will feature an ad and promoted content from a non-profit that I believe in and want to celebrate.  On the website, you'll see a prominent ad and throughout the month, the blog will feature guest posts, contests, and/or special posts related to that non-profit.

I'm so excited that our first Non-Profit of the Month is Theatre [502]. I love these people, and I admire what they're doing for the Louisville theatre scene.  Keep your eyes out over the next couple of days for a post about why I asked Theatre [502] to be my first Non-Profit of the month. We'll also have guest posts from people involved in their upcoming play, Gruesome Playground Injuries, and ticket giveaways for that show.

Do you work for or have a favorite LOCAL non-profit that you'd like to nominate for Non-Profit of the Month? Send me a brief email (this isn't an essay contest) at lou@loueyville.com telling me why your non-profit should be featured and giving me a couple of ideas of blog posts I could write about that non-profit over the course of the month.

I'm really excited about this series, and I'm so happy to have Theatre [502] on board!

{LOL, I just Googled NPOTM (Non-Profit of the Month) to make sure it wasn't dirty or anything-- you have to do that these days!!-- and it's already the acronym for a fairly popular blog called Nail Polish of the Month. I guess we can share.}

New series: "Awesome Louisvillagers"

It's no secret that my favorite thing about this fine, fine city is the people.  I recently came home from a two week vacation up north and wanted to hug each and every Louisvillager after spending so much time with stand-offish New Englanders.  

One of my favorite things about Louisvillagers is that they're always doing really nifty, innovative, and/or kind things.  And wouldn't it be great if we could get to know a little more about the people behind these really nifty, innovative, and/or kind things-- these awesome Louisvillagers? 

But it's also no secret that-- in real life-- I'm shy as shit.  Seriously.  Sweaty-palmed, stammering, awkward-smile-that-kinda-looks-like-I-might-bite-or-cry kind of shy.  

Enter the internet. (cue gong)  And the magic of the e-interview.  (cue chorus of angels singing)

So, starting next week, I will be featuring periodic interviews with awesome Louisvillagers-- locals who are doing something cool for the city, for the region, for others, or even just for themselves.  Just five questions (more or less), just enough to let the Louisvillager get to the heart of what he or she does.  

No surprise, my shy ass is starting with people I know or kind of know.  Who do you want to hear from?  What do you want to know about Awesome Louisvillagers?

Nothing to do with Looueyville #1: GO SOX!!

Welcome to a new series here at Loueyville.com-- the Nothing to Do With Loueyville (NTDWL) post, featuring stuff Lou just can't keep under her Derby Bonnet.

When the Red Sox won the Series in 2004, my four uncles went to my grandfather's grave the next day and adorned it with a commemorative T-shirt, cap, issue of the Boston Globe, and most memorably a note that just said: "They finally did it, Dad!"

Go Sox!

By the way, Lou has been on vacation... sorry for the radio silence.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- Michio Kaku

Apparently, Dr. Michio Kaku is everywhere and somehow I've missed it. Or at least that's what the presenter led me to believe. He's on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel... and here I was thinking that I was somehow tuned into those sort of pop-science things. After all, once upon a lifetime ago, I led the charge to compel Columbus, Indiana to erect a "Home Of" sign celebrating hometown hero Jamie Hyneman. To, of course, no avail.


In the introduction, it's mentioned that Kaku has been recently named one of the 100 smartest people in NYC. When he starts to speak, he says that Madonna is also on the list, so we shouldn't be too impressed.



When Kaku, who looks like a cross between Mr. Miyagi and a lion, took the stage for his sold-out speech, called "Parallel Worlds, Higher Dimensions, Time Warps, and More," Kaku, a theoretical physicist from the City University of New York, was greeted like a rock star. And he handled the crowd like a seasoned politician, preceding his remarks with a joke and sprinkling jokes and one-liners throughout. To paraphrase his first joke:


A theoretical physicist, a priest, and a lawyer are set to be executed by
guillotine. The priest is first. He's asked for his last words and he says that
faith will save him, and sure enough the guillotine falls and it stops just
inches from his neck. The crowd is amazed and he is set free. The lawyer is next
and his last words are "Justice will have Her way!" And again, the guillotine
stops just inches from his neck, and he's set free. The theoretical physicist
takes his place on the guillotine and says, "You know, the rope is hung up on
that pulley over there..."



When Kaku was a teenager, he built an atom-smasher in his garage whose magnetic pull was strong enough to pull out the fillings of anyone nearby. I have no idea what that means, but it's frigging impressive. Next year, an atom smasher with a 27km circumference will be activated just outside of Geneva. According to Kaku, this atom smasher will be so powerful that it will give us further insight into the Big Bang, and be able to, somehow create what he calls "tiny universes."

Kaku is a devotee of string theory and the idea that there are many more dimensions than we perceive in our lives on earth. He compared our lives to the lives of carp in a pond. They perceive forward and backward and left and right, but they only understand "up" to a certain point-- pull a carp UP out of the water and he is seeing the world from a dimension that was unimaginable to him while he was IN the water.

Picasso and Dali painted using the fourth dimension as a mode. Picasso's portraits relayed all dimensions of a person at once-- which is why said portraits look hopelessly messy to us; he tried to convey the idea of seeing all dimensions simultaneously. Dali, an endlessly more "realistic" painter than Picasso, still allowed for the dimension of "time" to be present in his artwork. The melting clocks. His hyper-cube Crucifixions.

He talked about Civilizations and how we are a type 0 civilization that is moving toward being a type I. Type 0 refers to a civilization that controls the power of particular geo-political regions. Type I controls the power of an entire planet. Type II controls the power of an entire star (solar system, I guess?). Type III controls the power of an entire galaxy. We are moving from 0 to I though the ubiquitousness of the internet, the burgeoning prevalence of English as a language, and the sway that Western culture has over the world. (I'm not sure I buy that... but whatever). Kaku says that earth will be a type I civilization in 100 years.

Kaku also discussed how all this science parlays quite nicely into spirituality. String theory suggests a beginning-- as in Genesis-- but also a timelessness-- as in the Buddhist belief in Nirvana.


Our civilization is threatened by both global warming and the death of the sun-- both problems could be solved by finding a wormhole that would allow us to pass from one plane to another. Like Alice in Wonderland, he said, a novel that dealt with bendy time and space.

For more information visit his website.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- Woz

The caveat with not posting immediately after events is that notes and memories cease to make perfect sense. So throughout this post I will regale you with my nonsensical notes in italics-- maybe you can decipher them. This will be, I'm sorry, the most disjointed entry. In the end, what's important to note, is that I came away feeling totally jazzed by his enthusiasm and charmed by his stories.

Steve Wozniak, iconic co-founder of Apple, was Friday's keynote speaker. I'd be remiss not to mention the fact that the food was fantastic. Going alone was, however, a bit like going to a wedding where you don't even know the bride and groom-- I milled around for a good half hour before finally finding an unassuming-looking couple whose table was empty.

I have to admit that the name "Woz" didn't resonate with me the same way Steve Jobs or Bill Gates might have. Sure, I knew who he was, and afterwards I was very happy that I had gone, but I get the feeling that Woz is a geek's geek. And while I proudly admit to being a nerd, and I am enamored with geeks in general, I'm clearly just not that kind of geek.

Wozniak was introduced by Phoebe Wood, the CFO of Brown Foreman, who cited his many accomplishments, but I definitely got the feeling that she just wasn't that kind of geek either.

Woz insists that he wasn't a college drop-out; he just left because he didn't have the money to stay. After he founded Apple and then left the company (and survived an aircraft crash) he returned to school and finally earned his undergrad degree from UC Berkley under the name Rocky Raccoon Clark.

Odd note #3: Is he gay? He looks like [my childhood dance teacher]. (Who was gay, although I didn't know what that meant at the time. I thought my childhood dance teacher had adopted the young, hot male dancer who lived with him. When my mom said he was gay-- that he liked men-- I just thought that mean that my dance teacher was happy... and he liked men. Big deal.)

Answer: No, Woz is not gay.

When he was a teenager, he told his dad that he wanted to be an engineer first and then a fifth grade teacher after that. And he ended up doing just that. He taught fifth grade for eight years. Imagine being taught by a man with his experience?

Odd note #8: Compared building a computer to playing a prank.

Wozniak had a hand in creating: the first scientific calculator, the first VCR, the first sattelite TV dish, the first hotel movie delivery system (yay-- porn away from home), the first dial-a-joke service (which got him sued by the Polish American Congress)... he met his wife through dial-a-joke.

He also created Breakout-- the Atari time-sucker of my youth.

Odd note #15: Remember Scott [a former employee of mine] from [my old place of business] and his favorite story about me-- the Windows transfer folders flying through the air???

I can only sort of explain what that note means... it's the last note I have on Woz's speech (in my defense, I was listening pretty carefully). Lo these many years ago, when computers were still new and charming, we got new computers with Windows installed in them in the office that I ran. And when I was transferring files from the old computers to the new ones, I observed the animation of little documents flying from one folder to another folder on the screen and grabbed Scott and pulled him over and made him watch. And I said something like, "Isn't it amazing that some computer geek somewhere cared enought to create this little cartoon? It's such incredible attention to detail!" And for years afterward, Scott retold that story to anyone who would listen. I have to say, Scott was the best kind of employee that anyone could ever hope to have-- enthusiastic and utterly devoted to me and to the business. Even when I was promoted and Scott was promoted to fill my position, when we would meet at manager's meetings in Los Angeles, he'd cite that story as being one of the reasons he liked working with me-- because I appreciated even the silly small stuff that people did to make other people's lives better.

That's a long winded way of getting to this point: although my recollections and notes are muddy and disjointed, the feelings and message I got from Steve Wozniak's speech basically amounted to this: God is in the details. The little things are the most precious things. If it's not fun, in some way, it's not worth doing.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- James McLurkin

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for geeks. I know nothing about James McLurkin, except what he told us during his "Robot Swarms" speech at IdeaFestival, but I spent the rest of the festival looking for him, hoping to have the chance just to say hi and to tell him how much I loved his demonstration. The whole time he was speaking, I thought: "I just want to be friends with this guy..." Or maybe I'm censoring myself a bit; maybe I was really thinking: "Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend? How hard would it be to have a long distance relationship with someone in Boston? My family lives just outside of Boston..." You get the idea.

McLurkin's speech was entitled: "Dances with Robots-- The Story of one Engineer, 112 Little Robots, and the Toys, Insects, and Star Wars Movies that Made it all Possible."

First of all, the man worked at iRobot for years, the people who invented the Roomba-- a machine I've become obsessed with and yet do not own. I just can't fathom spending $200+ (I really want the Scooba because of my plethora of hardwood floors) on something that I'm just too plain lazy to do... but holy cow, if I ever win the lottery...

Anyway, back to the event: McLurkin works on distributive algorithms for swarm robots. In pedestrian terms, that means that he teaches a bunch of robots to work together to solve problems. An article in our local Velocity Weekly about McLurkin gave me a heads up on his research. He explained one of the practical applications of studying robot swarms as follows, using robot swarms to help with post-earthquake rescue missions:

that's a job that humans are either too big or too weak to perform. So (we could
have) a bunch of cockroach-sized robots that can look for signs of life and then
relay their findings to maybe rat-sized robots. They would analyze the structure
and figure out the right way to remove the debris, and then they relay their
instructions to a bunch of brontosaurus-sized robots who would then do the hard
work and heavy lifting.

During his presentation, he gave two small-scale exhibitions of what a couple dozen mini-robots could do. Programs that made them follow the leader compelled the mini-robots to sing "Hi-ho-hi-ho It's Off to Work we Go;" those that made them disperse across a plane called for them to sing "Into the Wild Blue Yonder." These tiny, stapler-sized robots had not just a command of obedience, but also, dare I say personality (albeit McLurkin's?). At the end of the presentation, they aligned in groups to perform a melodic and accurate marching band rendition of the Star Wars theme song.

McLurkin cited bees and ants (he has a huge ant farm at home) as inspiring his research into distributed algorithms. Essentiallly it is the act of dividing a big math/physics/science problem among a huge group of problem-solvers. It's hard to program one robot, he said, but he's facing the challenge of programming hundreds if not thousands of robots. Robot swarm technology could be the future of planetary exploration or even nano-bio technology.
My photos of his demonstration came out badly. So I went to his website to grab a photo. He showed this photo during his presentation saying: "Like all good engineers I was hatched from a cardboard box." It made me laugh. Ahhh Geek humor

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007: Karen Walker

It’s worth noting that, bored, two nights before Karen Walker’s event, I watched the last two episodes of last year’s “America’s Top Model” back-to-back. I’d never seen it before. Actually, I watched the first episode and during the second episode when my favorite, Renee was disqualified for looking “too old,” (SERIOUSLY? She’s 20 years old!! She can’t even drink!! Yes, she’s a mom, but holy cow…) I let TiVo do its thing and only watched to see who won (thank goodness it wasn’t Natasha—what did they see in her? Jaslene was a godawful choice too—if she weighed 90 lbs, I’d be surprised, but she was better than the plastic-y Natasha).

I bring this up because after Karen Walker’s talk was over, a journalist who works for Wired Magazine asked her about the growing sentiment in the fashion world that runway models shouldn’t be too thin. And she totally flubbed the answer. I was nuts about her until she was forced to face that issue and the best that she could come up with was: “we hire models that make the clothes look good.” I thought it was a daring question—frankly one of the best audience questions I heard during the Idea Festival (where many questions were posed by people who’d clearly not been listening or by folks who had agendas). During her speech, a montage of her fashion shows played on screens behind her, and what made me nuts about her was the fact that she designed clothes that even I would be interested in wearing. But those clothes that I—short and less-than-svelte—could wear were on decidedly scrawny girls.

Karen Walker got her start eighteen years ago with $70 by designing a shirt and consigning it at a local boutique in New Zealand. Now she’s showing her collections at NY’s Fashion Week and at Fashion Weeks in London and Paris and Milan. She has a line of eyewear, jewelry, paint colors, and a lifestyle line. And her speech focused on the Karen Walker brand, and how despite the volatile nature of the fashion industry, she’s managed to build her brand and stay true to her vision. She was, in short, (and despite my feelings about her lack of answer to the model question) an ideal model for any entrepreneur.

Her speech outlined, basically, her secrets to success. The eight points were:

1. Embrace volatility. Diversify; build your brand so it represents more than one thing, but don’t dilute your brand by offering it up to sub-quality knockoffs. In the 80’s and 90’s Gucci licensed its name to more than 200 different vendors and designers and lost control of its image. Brand-building is all about control.


2. Ignore the rules; try not to learn them in the first place. She cited the NZ slang term “number eight wire” as being critical for her creativity. The term refers to a type of fencing wire that was readily available in colonial NZ, when it was cut off from most of the world—a sort of duct-tape like wire that allowed New Zealanders to cobble together all sorts of thing McGuyver-like. Make do with what you have, she said. It never occurred to her that she should have a design degree, she said, or a business degree before starting a business. Just go with what you have.


3. Everything Inspires. This is a quote from Paul Smith, a British designer. And to illustrate this idea, she showed a slideshow of the random things that had inspired her last ten collections—everything from the eyewear of dictators around the world to Alice in Wonderland to B-movies from the 50’s.


4. Look for the scary stuff. All design should make you border-line uncomfortable.


5. Know your style. Coupled with the “scary stuff” she said this meant knowing “the right amount of wrong.”


6. Know your customers. Walker has never done market research. She said to cater to the “same singular voices in everything you do.” She calls her market “PLU”—“people like us.” Her designs have been worn by celebrities as diverse as Bjork, Madonna, and Claire Danes, and she says she doesn’t design for a market, but designs what she likes and people who are like her will like what she does.


7. Surround yourself with people who support you. A few years ago, she approached the makers of 42 degrees below vodka to cosponsor an event; they liked her designs so much they put her on the board. It’s since been sold to Bacardi (I think) and the mutual love-fest propelled both their brands.


8. Brand building is like building coral. It’s slow and tedious and over the short-term, it’s hard to see. But take a step back and the growth is very clear.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- Thursday Night "Taste of Innovation" and "It Never Got Weird Enough for Me"

Thursday was fairly low key. I hightailed it down to the convention center to hit my first event, which was the Taste of Innovation featuring sampling booths from most of Louisville’s best restaurants. This gets a “Cheap Eats” rating because for $10 you could eat and drink to your heart’s content—sampling food that would be $20+ a plate at nearly all of the restaurants. A chefs and a bartender gave demonstrations. Everything I had was extraordinary (with the exception of an uneatably weird sushi-tuna-steak thing from, surprisingly Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse—he of “refused service to OJ Simpson” fame).

Leave it to me, however, to have preferred the booze to all else—Woodford Reserve’s Liquid Bourbon Ball was a drink that I will no doubt add to my repertoire—seems like a great winter drink. You can find the recipe here.

The silent auction quickly mounted beyond my price-range, but there were still good deals to be had if you had $500+.

The Hunter Thompson documentary “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride” aired first on the Starz! Network and was part of the IF After Dark series in an event called “It Never Got Weird Enough for Me.” The movie, narrated by Nick Nolte, and all but stolen by Gary Busey in all his addled-wackiness, featured the highlights of Thompson’s life from his childhood in Louisville to his suicide at Owl Creek Ranch in 2005.

In September of 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, I stopped in my exile at a writer’s retreat in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The guest teacher was Tom Corcoran, the writer of the Alex Rutledge mysteries, and he’d just returned from Thompson’s memorial service which had been largely funded by Johnny Depp and during which Thompson’s ashes were blasted out of a two-thumb-fist-topped cannon. Tom’s stories of the event (scroll down to 9-8-05 “Flip Flop” entry) were a nice, brief diversion. I half expected to see him in the movie. I did not expect to see my staid, distinguished, bow-tie-wearing real estate agent (actually, the brother of my real estate agent who stood in for her at my closing) as one of Thompson’s childhood friends.

The University of Louisville is currently trying to get its hands on the Thompson archives. From what I understand, there’s been some double-dealing and weirdness associated with that acquisition, as highlighted by an audience member who directed a question at Thompson’s son, Juan, during the panel discussion. I’ll try to remember to look into that.

The panel featured Juan Thompson, the director Tom Thurman, the writer Tom Marksbury, and childhood friend Ralston Steenrod (not my real estate agent). The film was interesting enough for me to consider moving on to a Thompson read-fest after I finish my Harry Potter read-fest. The panel discussion wasn’t particularly illuminating, although it’s worth noting that Marksbury seemed a bit bitter that the Starz! Network tried to make the film “more about Johnny Depp and Sean Penn” than about Thompson

Loueyville Special Edition: IdeaFestival 2007-- Big Brains Invade Louisville

At the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, there’s that wonderful moment when, after witnessing the Whos’ selflessness and love in the face of adversity, the Grinch is reformed. And his little red heart grows and grows (three sizes) and finally bursts the cartoon x-ray screen.

This weekend my cartoon brain (symbolized by a lightbulb or maybe a complicated drawing of gears and bolts) exploded. Or perhaps I should phrase that in the passive voice: my cartoon brain was exploded by the 2007 Idea Festival, a three days of events here in Louisville featuring some of the Biggest Brains from all over the world.

I was like a little kid when I got the email from the Courier-Journal a week or so ago telling me that I’d won a drawing for a free all-access pass to the Idea Festival. I’d (surprise, surprise) put off getting tickets to the events, many of which were free, so long that most of them had sold out. Not to mention that the keynote event, a night with Ray Bradbury, was out of my price range at $75 a pop. I quickly emailed them back and said I wanted a ticket for every event on Saturday, and every event after school on Thursday and Friday. And then I spent the remaining days before the opening of Idea Festival in giggly, nerdy, woo-hoo anticipation of the Festival.

That Louisville is the host of this event (this is its second year in Louisville; it spent its three incarnations in Lexington) is extraordinary. You’d expect this kind of gathering of diverse, cutting-edge thinkers in a “world class” city like NYC, LA, or Chicago. The Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation (a 20 year old institution) nurtured this event and Idea Festival founder Chris Kimmel has grown the event so that this year there were more than 15,000 tickets sold. Most events took place at the Kentucky International Convention Center which looks like crap from the outside, but is well appointed inside.

This year’s title sponsors, the Geek Squad, were ubiquitous in their pocket-protectored, penguin-Beetle driving, cheeky “Agent #”-named glory. Karen Walker, New Zealand fashion designer focused her speech not on “The Meaning of Fashion,” as was advertised, but on the importance of “branding.” I tell you, Geek Squad has it down for their audience. Perhaps not the true techno-geeks, but the wanna-bes like me. (Nice to note that the web page homepage features a photo of a female geek. Seemed like there weren’t many She-Geeks in attendance. Geek Squad had a Geek Squad Beetle on display in the lobby of the convention center—wish I had a picture—and on it you were supposed to post sticky notes with your Big Ideas. I stopped myself from posting “Hire more Girl Geeks!”)

Before I get into individual events, my general thoughts:

• I wish it had been longer. I wish I had taken a day off to do all the Thursday or Friday events. I probably could have gotten a “professional day off” to do it. But come Saturday night, I was genuinely sad to not have any more Ideas to enjoy.
• IdeaFestival sponsored a Middle School Science show on Friday. I didn’t get to attend. I did see a total of six of my students at the Fest, but I wish more had taken advantage of it. Wouldn’t it be great to somehow get more kids involved? I might keep that in the back of my head for next year.
• Events like Ray Bradbury and Dan Gediman and Nicholas Kristoff (who I missed) did a great job opening up the event to Humanities folks; more should have been there. Even the most science-y presenters like Michio Kaku and James McLurkin made their far-out science understandable to the pedestrians.
• I wish I’d bought an Apple laptop when I had to buy a new laptop last summer. Again, it’s that stupid branding thing again, but there were so many anti-PC jokes among the presenters that I felt like a grandma. On a purely practical level (probably the ONLY practical level), my website would have made me happier—Apples web design tools are great. Sorry that the website has gone kablooey, by the way. I’m working on it. I just wanted to be one of the cool kids in on the “in jokes.” No doubt some of the Apple-centricity of the event was because Steve Wozniak was one of the guest speakers.
  
  On to the individual events! (Note: it will probably take me a couple of days to post all of the events, so bear with me!)