Assorted Perspective

Crochet like Jane Austin*

Anna & Jackie rappel back in time- at least in audio form- on a piece of proverbial yarn - a clue if you will… to explore life through the chains of crochet panels using the language of craft. Jackie brings in Anna on a slice of life exploration of better times. Together they discover the history, the people, and the places that crochet takes us to. Ultimately, illuminating the hobby that brings a new quality of life to Assorted Perspective, the art and craftwork of Crochet. 

*Title- Jane Austin probably did needlework in her free time. 

Digressions on this week’s episode include: 

• Lice 
• A stitch in time origins
• Letitia Huckaby: Koinonia

https://www.mcnayart.org/exhibition/letitia-huckaby/

https://www.instagram.com/assorted_perspective/

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Jackie and Anna are back at it again with an Assorted Perspective bonus episode on the philosophy of science and technology of cyborgs. They discuss Donna Harraway’s work, The Cyborg Manifesto, with a modern twist on how we can use the word cyborg today in our own lives. 

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Note: Anna misspoke: Donna Harraway used Cyborgs as people who use technology to separate their sexual differences (i.e. gender -not sexuality) from society. She writes about the sexual differences that are broken by cyborgs. Anna and Jackie use the word sexuality when they meant to say gender in this episode. 

Note 2: Anna misspoke again, if you stopped birth control it would decrease effectiveness each day after you took it out. So, alternative birth control is needed to prevent pregnancy after quitting one. It would not take a week to stop working but a week to altogether remove itself from your anatomy. Hence the blurred line of cyborgs. (Babies don’t care about the philosophy of cyborgs, please be safe out there y’all) 

Cyborg - Technology = Human 

But,

Humans - Medicine = Vulnerable 

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Source: 

Haraway, Donna. 2006. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In The Transgender Studies Reader. Routledge.

Special thanks to Sebastian Bracamontes for the theme music!

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our stuff makes us, and we make our stuff.

Stuff has function, and the concept of the function itself is a frame -you do not think about it you just accept it.

In this weeks episode Anna and Jackie talk about materiality, what's all that about?

Listen and find out!

Okay, you need more info before you listen?

here's a list of things they bring up in the conversation

• Sci-fi digression: Dune and Schitts Creek
• Harry potter and the sacred text: https://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/
• If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there, does it have materiality? 
• Bathroom signs 
• Dimensions, Earth time

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Jackie and Anna chat on this week’s bonus episode about what is artificial intelligence, why chatbots act like they are going to kill humans, and why it’s boring to use ChatGPT

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This week on Assorted Perspective, we’re just trying to be a little better off than Medieval peasants! 

Jackie and Anna talk about the work week, why does it have to be 40 hours? What our experiences have taught us, working from home, quiet quitting, and what did people work like before our time. 

Further reading: 

• Inventing the Future, Alex Williams, and Nick Srnicek 2015 Chapter 6. 
• Economic possibilities of our grandchildren: http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf)
• “Preindustrial Workers Worked Fewer Hours than Today’s.” n.d. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html.
• Schor, Juliet B. 1998. The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. Paperback ed., [9th pr.]. New York, NY: Basic Books.
• 
  

Sources are on the 9 to 5 blog post!

Theme Song by Sebastian Bracamontes

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Anna and Jackie talk about Ecologist and member of the Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass and reflect on the relationship between humans and plants. 

In this Assorted Perspectives episode, we learn about: 

• Jackie’s experiences with pecan trees
• Anna’s revelation about Sweetgrass and Basket making
• Jackie and Anna reflecting on the gift of nature

Sources: 

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. First paperback edition. Minneapolis, Minn: Milkweed Editions. https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass.

Narby, Jeremy. 1998. The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. First paperback edition. New York, NY.

Theme song by Sebastian Bracamontes

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Libraries

Anna finds an excuse to talk about libraries, Jackie shares stories that stem from her love for libraries. 

They both find out what the true heart of the city is about. 

Lessons learned: 

• A city is not a tree (cities are best laid out in network formation)
• A city is also not a computer (you can’t create an app or install a camera to solve problems in a city)
• Libraries provide tons of services and support to their residents. They act as maintenance workers and caregivers. 
• The Libby App is a must have for all people with library cards and smart phones

Source: 

Mattern, Shannon Christine. A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences*. Places Books 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.

*Explanation of title

Back in 1965 eccentric architect Christopher Alexander wrote a paper entitled “A city is not a tree” because he was tired of city design that resemble trees from a bird’s eye view. For instance, he cited the inefficient method of designing many small roads feed into roadways that feed into highways that feed into bigger highways. People are funneled to downtown through large roads. 

Alexander proposed that cities should have a ‘semilattice’ structure, so the roads are not all feeding into the same highway, but mobile roadways and the downtown is broken up into multiple nodes. So, the city should resemble more like a network. 

Networks would be like pouring skittles on a table and drawing lines to connect them. The skittles are the nodes, and the lines are roads. It allows for greater connectivity than tracing a tree diagram. 

Imagine your friend lived on an opposite branch than you in a tree diagram and you would have to go to meet them. It would take way longer than if you lived in a city that looked like a skittle diagram. 

Theme song by Sebastian Bracamontes

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In this educational and playful Assorted Perspective episode Jackie and Anna talk about city design using Charles Marohn's book Strong Towns.

Have you ever wondered how cities fund infrastructure or why that pothole that always gets you is taking so long to get filled? Jackie and Anna discuss this and more!

Sources: Marohn, Charles L. Strong Towns: a Bottom-up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.

Hoboken, New JerseyL John wiley &sons, inc, 2020

Theme song by Sebastian Bracamontes

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How did yoga come to America? Why are most yoga instructors white women? Anna and Jackie investigate these questions and more on this episode of Assorted Perspective!

Theme song by Sebastian Bracamontes

Sources:

De Michelis, Elizabeth. A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism. London New York: Continuum, 2005.

Jain, Andrea R. Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. Oxford ; New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015.

Farmer, Jared. “Americanasana.” Reviews in American History 40, no. 1 (2012): 145–58. https://doi.org/10.1353/rah.2012.0016.

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Welcome to Jackie and Anna’s podcast Assorted Perspective! On this episode we cover the wholesome topic of Friendship. We share our experiences and how anthropologists view friendship. 

This episode covers:

• What is friendship?
• Types of friendship
• Characteristics of friendship

Also a little bit of a spoiler alert for the Bollywood movie RRR (but not really because the plot points mentioned are revealed in a song pretty early on in the movie)

Special Thanks to Sebastian Bracamontes for writing and producing our theme song.

Sources: 

Beer, Bettina, and Don Gardner. “Friendship, Anthropology Of.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 425–31, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.12076-8.

Bell, Sandra, and Simon Coleman, eds. The Anthropology of Friendship. 1. publ. Oxford: Berg, 1999.

Mattingly, Cheryl. 2019. Moral Laboratories: Family Peril and the Struggle for a Good Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520959538.

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