I still hope to make it to the 10:45 service of First Presbyterian Church on time....If I don't make it on time, it will not have been the first time that I'm late on the account of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier or Mass in B Minor or one of his cantatas. I know that corporate worship is important, and all of my upbringing should keep me from being late. Nevertheless....

I flew in from Toronto last night to a lovely summer evening at SFO. My absence of two weeks feels longer than that -- which I take as a wonderful sign of some rest at least. I probably don't know what real rest means -- but at least being in three different cities that are not where I normally live (Montreal, Cambridge/Boston, Toronto) helps get me out of my rut.

I pondered and prayed a lot on the plane -- because there was much to ponder and pray about. In the months to come, I hope to share some of what I thought about. As I become more and more into blogging, one of the filters I apply in guiding my reflection is whether and how I might write about that matter. Using such a filter may seem strange (especially to non-bloggers and non-writers) -- but it's a handy filter for me. My mind is typically racing in too many different directions, leading to diffuseness of thought and action. Writing with enough clarity and background to make my thoughts and feelings comprehensible to anyone who cannot read my mind limits me in a good way.

Let me give an example of this filter in action. I was up before 6am this morning because I'm still on east coast time. A sweet way to get back into my Berkeley life is my morning breakfast ritual. Having been away for two weeks meant that my current periodicals pile now contains one issue of The New York Review of Books, two issues of The Times Literary Supplement, two issues of The New Yorker, and the latest issue of Books and Culture -- not to mention today's San Francisco Chronicle. The suspicion that I have been subscribing to too many magazines came to the forefront this morning as I wondered how taking a few hours to read all this stuff was going to help me. Undoubtedly it would be a pleasurable experience for me, lots of mind candy, lots of provocative ideas, great prose, etc. At this point, I don't want to stop reading these and other sources -- otherwise, I won't be in dialog with others. At the same time, I don't want to spend too much of my time just trying to absorb the unabsorbable mass of media (good and bad) out there. How to strike the balance?

OK -- this has been a long-winded way to say "hi, I'm back." In a few more minutes, I must be off to make calls at one of my favorite organizations, Alta Bates TeleCare, something I will write about at length "any time now".

Ginny made the following observation several weeks ago :

Here you bring up a question I've wondered about for a long time: why, at best, my journal-keeping workshops draw only one-third men, when on the evaluation everyone writes that yes, they'd recommend the workshop to men as well as women. I've thought about starting a blog but then wondered to what extent I'd want to "go public" with what's on my mind. This is always a concern of women in my workshop (say, even about reading aloud something they've written). But aren't most bloggers men? I've read only a few, but I now have Rebecca Blood's book. (So many books, so little time.)

I don't know whether more bloggers are men....I suspect so since I guess that most bloggers are those who have easy access to networked computers -- and aren't there more men than women who fit this description? A relevant article is Lisa Guernsey's "Telling All Online: It's a Man's World (Isn't It?)" in the NY Times (November 28, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final; Section G; Page 1; Column 1; Circuits), which is archived on Lisa Rein's blog.

My personal experience with blogging has not made think that blogging is a male-dominated medium. Of course, maybe what I really mean is that it is not any more male-dominated than other forms of media, and that I have encountered very significant female voices in the blogging world -- first and foremost in my own immediate blogging community and then also in the blogosphere at large. I hadn't heard any comments from women bloggers about particularly gender differences in blogging -- but then again, I might not have been listening carefully (or I may not have been privileged to hear them).

I'm very curious to hear the perspective of other bloggers, especially women on this topic.

BTW, a piece on writing differences between men and women (as uncovered by computer analysis and manifest in the use of pronouns) that Catherine found has possible ties here.

As I noted briefly last week, I've been avidly following my friend Krista's new blog (My Transportation Diary). I've learned a lot from Krista about the "problem of car-dependency in our culture", the central theme of her blog, and admire how she has been living out life in the East Bay without owning a car, while making the best use of her bicycle and public transit options. I myself am fortunate to live less than 2 miles from the Berkeley campus where I work, enabling me to bike most days. Still, I own a car but have been wondering whether to sell it (to free myself first and foremost from the financial burden of car-ownership.) Krista is someone I look to to help me figure out whether I really need my car; I hope that she continues to report on her experiences because a lot of us do need help.

So when I saw "The Thrill Of The SUV", a segment on 60 Minutes last Sunday, I thought of Krista and a specific question I have for her. The most intriguing part of the show was an interview with Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, the most famous of the "car shrinks" who help car manufacturers to sell cars to us by tapping into the deepest recesses of our subconscious minds. Whether you believe Rapaille, you have to admit that he's a good salesman for his ideas. Here are some quotes from the transcript:

“Why do you buy a car that doesn't even make 10 miles per gallon, doesn't fit into your garage? Do you really need that? And you don't need that intellectually,” he says. “But at the reptilian level, what I call the reptilian level, the reptilian brain, the deepest part of you, the gut level if you want, you feel like you need that.”

“We are at war. You don't go to war in a Pinto or in a little Volkswagen. You want a tank, you want, you know, and I told the people there in Detroit, you know, SUVs - you put a machine gun on the top, you're going to sell them better, you know”

“Why? Taller. Stronger. I mean, the elephant, the bigger you are, the more chance you have to survive. Now, we know that the higher you are, more chance you have to roll over. And we know that SUVs have a higher rate of accident for rollover than other cars. I mean a Porsche is a lot less chance to roll over than an SUV. That's at the cortex, which means people know it but they don't refer to it because there's something stronger which is the reptilian- the bigger, the tallest, and more chance to survive.”

If Rapaille is right, then what can be done to reduce our dependency on cars, let alone big gas-guzzling vehicles? Is stopping Americans from driving SUVs like trying to stop them from eating, drinking, and having sex? (Not quite, of course) What part of the reptilian brain does public transit tap into? Is the appeal to public transit always a "higher brain" appeal or one to the more visceral side?

From a blurb for an upcoming public lecture on Bach's cantatas at UC Riverside:

Bach's creative life stretched from the early 1700s till his death in 1750, a time known as the Baroque period in European classical music. Contrary to his somewhat undeserved ultra-religious image, Bach only devoted relatively short periods of this half century to the composition of church music, according to Bach scholar Jan Koster. [emphasis mine] Bach lived in Leipzig, Germany from 1723 until his death in 1750. Bach was a prolific cantata composer, writing more-than 300 cantatas, many in only the first five of years of his time in Leipzig, according to Koster. Many of Bach's cantatas were subsequently lost.

I'm about to board Air Canada 827 from Boston to Toronto. Yeah! This last week in Cambridge has been a wonderfully rich one. The goal was to blog during the course of the week-- but I never managed to fit it in the busy schedule. Moreover, I tried to work and keep (some) tabs on what was happening in Berkeley while I was in Cambridge. During the meetings, I paid attention to the speaker and to the non-verbal dynamics of the participants. I noticed that many folks were physically at MIT but mentally back home.

More when I get to Toronto. My last day in Cambridge was a rainy one -- a marked contrast to the heat and humidity of the early part of this week. I wanted to see Boston; I walked most of the Freedom Trail but gave up near the end because of time constraints and because I had developed a blister that made walking a bit painful. So I treated to the Harvard Coop, read excerpts from a few books, trank some earl gray tea at a nearby cafe and then rushed back to catch a shuttle that brought me to where I am now.

(Wish me a safe flight -- I hope my luggage doesn't get lost!)

Even when I'm tired, I am usually able to write something coherent on my blog. But I'm really struggling to get something down tonight. Maybe I'm distracted by the latest "reality tv show" that I stumbled upon while channel surfing: Cupid . After thinking about educational technology interoperability all day, my mind has been reduced to the mush that can contemplate interoperability only of a more primal nature.

This is one of those days in which I just check in, dear blog, to say that I'm ok. Dear blog, I had a wonderful dinner last night -- wish you could have been there at Casa Portugal. Nothing like hanging out with cool, smart people who get what you are doing from around the world (places like Australia, Sarajevo, Berkeley, the UK, and Canada). The duck was good too, though the lack of vegetables made me long for those big salads you get in Berkeley.

Today was full. I didn't have my notebook computer on during many of the sessions -- so dear blog, I was not in touch with you. Sorry. I felt that I needed to pay attention to my fellow human beings. Dinner with Ken and Lisa was the highlight for me, however. First Harvard Square; then Davis Square -- I love this city already. Cambridge is one cool place.

Goodnight dear blog. Sleep tight.

As I noted on The Architecture Lodge, I'm here at MIT now. It's already 12:15pm my time -- and though I'd love to tell you about how I learned to find the local mall so that I can buy clothes to hold me over because of lost luggage; the rediscoverd pleasures of hot weather; the splendor of the mix of people at the conference; the joy of recoverd luggage (Jesus talked about searching high and low for a lost coin); how thrilled I am that my friend Krista has started a new blog focused on transportation; how I finally did something I've putting off for a long time -- too long.

But I must hit the sack and blog tomorrow!

Bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm flying to Montreal to attend my sister Shirley's wedding. I don't anticipate having any network connectivity until I arrive at The University Park Hotel @ MIT on Sunday evening to attend the alt-i-lab meeting all next week.

I need to get packing rather than blogging....