The New Colossus

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" - Emma Lazarus

This sonnet was written to raise funds for the construction of the Statue of Liberty. It remains a reminder that the United States was not founded as some closed door society but rather as a place of refuge for those persecuted for their beliefs in other lands. It is there on a plaque near the base of arguably one of the greatest sculptures one nation has gifted to another. The original copy is held and deeply treasured by the American Jewish Historical Society.

When I travel to distant places, as I often do, I deliberately seek out the 'tired, the poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' I do not encourage them to move to America, as many have falsely assumed, instead I prefer to open their minds to the possibility, however remote at the time, that their lands and people can enjoy such freedoms as the people living in the United States.

Since I was a young man I have dreamt of the day when I might be issued a world passport, as I am first and foremost a world citizen. Over time, this dream of mine has grown to the point where I wish someday that all passports become obsolete. Borders are man-made, rarely, if ever, reflecting the true nature of the people sometimes trapped within them. Greed and fear dominate the minds of those who wish to waste money on so-called 'Great Walls.' There will always be more people like me willing to build tiny ladders of hope, still tall enough to allow any who wish to climb over the opportunity to do so.

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Speaking of Mizoguchi I just finished my lectures on Sansho the Bailiff. I can't wait to share them with you. I enjoyed screening that film several times in my studio just to understand his wonderful technique!

Thinking about the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)

Inquiry from a fellow UAT testing person:

  

I was wondering if you know anyone (or anyone who knows anyone…) who is somehow involved in the field of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research and development ? I am thinking it could be fascinating to expose Alexandre to it, especially given that one of its application’s is “Neurogaming” :

“Currently, there is a new field of gaming called Neurogaming, which uses non-invasive BCI in order to improve gameplay so that users can interact with a console without the use of a traditional controller.^[71] Some Neurogaming software use a player's brain waves, heart rate, expressions, pupil dilation, and even emotions to complete tasks or effect the mood of the game.^[72] For example, game developers at Emotiv have created non-invasive BCI that will determine the mood of a player and adjust music or scenery accordingly. This new form of interaction between player and software will enable a player to have a more realistic gaming experience.^[73] Because there will be less disconnect between a player and console, Neurogaming will allow individuals to utilize their "psychological state"^[74] and have their reactions transfer to games in real-time.^[73]

However, since Neurogaming is still in its first stages, not much is written about the new industry

I was wondering if you know anyone (or anyone who knows anyone…) who is somehow involved in the field of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research and development ? I am thinking it could be fascinating to get exposed to it, especially given that one of its application’s is “Neurogaming” :

“Currently, there is a new field of gaming called Neurogaming, which uses non-invasive BCI in order to improve gameplay so that users can interact with a console without the use of a traditional controller.  Some Neurogaming software use a player's brain waves, heart rate, expressions, pupil dilation, and even emotions to complete tasks or effect the mood of the game. For example, game developers at Emotiv have created non-invasive BCI that will determine the mood of a player and adjust music or scenery accordingly. This new form of interaction between player and software will enable a player to have a more realistic gaming experience. Because there will be less disconnect between a player and console, Neurogaming will allow individuals to utilize their "psychological state"^[and have their reactions transfer to games in real-time.^[73]

However, since Neurogaming is still in its first stages, not much is written about the new industry

This is a field that I've had an interest in for many years. It is now getting formally named and categorized but military, medical, software and gaming firms have been exploring this for several years. You just know Apple and Google have a skunk works building doing this research. They all keep their research close but often ask geeks like me to look it over and give them some input, usually under the terms of Non-Disclosure Agreements. I'm on their lists of computer guys that can teach other people about the nascent field. There are some incredible new developments they've discussed with me but I treasure the relationships and never violate the NDAs. That's one reason they keep coming back to me. 

Another huge reason they like tapping my brain is my knowledge of digital imaging technology and Mac gear. I'm a very thorough User Acceptance Tester (UAT). I will help them write the UAT scripts for every role, doing the testing, capture every glitch and then present my results in plain English with plenty of visuals. That last part is tough to find in a UAT person but remember, I remain a photographer underneath all these layers of technology! Unfortunately my age seems to be the barrier to full-time UAT work, the job interviewers love my experience in many verticals, communication skills and computer background but they seem reluctant to put me on their group health insurance. I take smaller assignments anyway and keep my skills sharp that way.

I'm told my past five years in mobile broadband, especially with Apple (AAPL) gear and extensive 4G/LTE training and hands-on could get me in the door to a UAT lab but I have yet to find that door. My new boss at Verizon does some UAT work so perhaps I'll get the chance at my day job!

Verizon has a special lab in Boston that does some of this research since all these applications require wireless or wired links to some computer server in another part of the world!

Surgeons can do some pretty precise work when their new tools include a Brain-computer component, for example. New Eye and nerve surgery tools now have some brain interface but very few hospitals can afford this gear. Veterans that have lost a limb are now using artificial limbs directly controlled by their nerves/brain. That's actually where the bulk of the advances were made recently.

In Gaming this concept is re-awakening the old virtual reality massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), and massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPG) market. It will create a revolution in the market, if the military doesn't keep siphoning off all the best developers in this field. MIT and Stanford probably lead in creating new developers. Perhaps the new computer school in Paris, called 42, will get into this arena. Facebook wants to create chat rooms where people can sense what the other people are feeling. Sort of like virtual dating, if you will. The newest sensors are able to detect mood, physical and mental states, and how alert someone is. Google Glass does some of this just by having someone wear those funky eyeglasses. 

In the development labs they are wearing special headgear loaded with sensors. Some developers even swallow a tiny pill that has sensors and even micro-cameras. 

I enjoyed training for marathon races with software and sensors that input my heart rate and blood pressure. It was interesting to use that information, while I was running. I used a very special wristwatch. Now I use the same wireless sensors along with my iPhone to do much the same thing. I'm not quite ready to put on a "thinking cap" to play computer games, though I do wander around in virtual reality games sometimes I'm just as thrilled screening an old 1920s G.W. Pabst silent movie or Mizoguchi film from the 1950s.

Great Cinema: Lesson 3 - How I Got Hooked

Learning to watch art movies is important. As a very young man I first read about Bresson, Bergman, Hitchcock and Fellini films in columns written in the New York Times, New Yorker magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The writers would gush about a particular movie and then tell you where you could go see such a film. Even in the 1960s and 70s it was not easy to find theaters playing these types of films. There would be a paid ad next to the column describing the movie.

For the first year or so I read about these movies and stared at the small still photos sometimes printed beside them. I saw some on television by staying up late at night. The local community college screened old classic movies sometimes but that was a long walk. Then in 1972, a local movie theater in my little small town was leased by Amos Farruggio, the retired owner of a Philadelphia trucking company. Amos started showing what where then called nostalgia movies along with “second-run” hit movies. My future as movie-buff was assured.

Oddly, I pretty much stopped reading about movies before going to see them. I knew there were articles that dissected the movie’s meaning, along with books about movies and directors. But I found that even the short description of the movie in the paper or on the VCR sleeve was a spoiler so I would try not read them in advance. I wanted my art neat, straight-up and there in my head fresh for me to decide.

Using an 50-year old RCA projector (actually a RCA/Breakert/Simplex) Amos projected films on the screen of a theater built in the 1930s in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Newtown is an old colonial American town. The combination of old town, old theater and old movies somehow became successful. I saw Fellini movies, Bella Lugosi acting, and so many different types of movies available in no other locations.

I was still a young boy and not really permitted to see these movies but after talking with Amos and his wife, when I was caught sneaking in, we agreed I could watch some of them, often from just outside the projection booth up in the balcony. There were times when the place was nearly empty, but I always showed up. On school nights I showed up. I showed up to watch the same movie two or three times. I scraped up coins to buy the ticket. They gave me free leftover popcorn. I was advised not to mingle with the crowds during Intermissions. Yes, Amos gave the viewers an Intermission so they could smoke a cigarette outside the old wooden theater.

Sometimes the movie broke and Amos has to rethread it through the projector. Once in a rare moment a reel got mixed up. Amos quickly fixed the situation but this meant I got to see a scene again. I also came back to watch great movies two or three times. The tickets were quite inexpensive and I was flush with paper route money. I occasionally took young friends but they were bored and the girls sometimes got embarrassed. Classic movies are often more sexy than modern movies.

In addition to being a trucking company owner, Amos was also a projectionist and clearly a cinephile. We talked about the movies before and after the show and during intermissions. I could see the giant projector running and watched him swap the reels, this being nearly as much fun as the movie itself. The movies were sometimes violent or sexy or had foul language but I learned very little new from those scenes alone. I was an avid reader of books and magazines and my family was hardly puritanical.

This was my initiation on watching old movies, reading the subtitles, and enjoying every minute of the show. My head was spinning like the reels themselves during the long walk home. I would pen essays about the ideas these movies generated in my head. I still do, obviously.

In the years ahead I also watched many more classic movies at the nearby community college, in art museums, and eventually on VCR tapes and DVDs. I learned to try to watch several movies by the same director in sequence. I still do this today, watching three or four by  Fellini, then 4 by Hitchcock, then Woody Allen, then Bergman. This is the way you gain a deeper understanding of a particular director’s style.

Great Cinema: Lesson 2 - Get Started Now

Your first assignment as a budding connoisseur of the world’s greatest movies or “cinephile” is to watch Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring”, Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” and Frederico Fellini’s “La Strada.” You don’t have to watch them in that order or even in the original Swedish, Japanese and Italian, with subtitles. This assignment is not some indication that these are the three greatest films ever made. I provide these three films simply to allow these directors the opportunity to teach you how watching a movie can be a truly life-changing event. If you are unable to sit through through any one of these three movies, perhaps you might want to go back to television sit-coms or modern blockbuster movies.

I want to be very clear from the start. Really great movies are “moving” in every possible way. If  you let them, some movies will crawl under your skin and stay there, for the rest of your life. This is a good thing, for Bergman will teach you an entirely new way to experience what it means to be a human, Kurosawa will demonstrate how great actors act and Fellini will just make you cry like a young lover again and again.

Throughout the duration of this course, we are going to dig deep into even more complex movies than these three great films. You will gain a greater appreciation for many directors currently making movies. I will teach you very little or nothing, I am merely opening doors into classrooms where the most fantastic professors stand waiting to teach you at any time of any day.

If these movies happen to be playing at an Art Movie house in your city, by all means see them on the big screen. Otherwise rent the DVD or stream the movie from Netflix or another source. There are versions with the English language dubbed in, I don’t doubt those versions convey a similar message. I have not watched all of them in English, I rarely can stand to watch any foreign movie with the actor’s original voices dubbed over with some other voice. Watching a movie entirely with subtitles is a skill you must acquire to appreciate the best cinema productions.

There is no point in kidding anyone about this effort you are about to undertake. An appreciation of the best directors, movies, and actors will take time and effort. Many great movies are lengthy, few were originally made in English, most were made with black and white film. You will not like every movie you watch. There are chase scenes, love scenes, horror scenes and of course comedy, sometimes all in the same movie. There are scenes in each movie that will terribly confuse you at first. Each director stamps scenes with almost mysterious precision. You must watch two or three movies by the great directors to comprehend the depths of their perceptions.

There is a pot of gold brimming over at the end of this effort, I can assure you of that without a doubt. It is a reward steeped in human understanding, compassion and heartfelt emotion. You will walk down any street with a greater understanding of what it means to be alive, simply for having watched the movies I am about to introduce to you. Trust me, it is worth the great effort it will take. See you back here soon! 

Note: If you rent the DVD of Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” be sure to listen to Ingmar Bergman’s October 31, 1975 speech at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, California. This speech was part of the the Harold Lloyd Master Seminars. It is a treasure of knowledge about film-making.