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Understanding and Information Constellations in Ultrarunning
Gorichanaz, T. (2018). Understanding and information constellations in ultrarunning. Library Trends, 66(3), 329–350. This page presents a preprint of the article, which differs from the final version.
A typeset PDF of this article is available here. Copyright 2018 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. This article first appeared in Library Trends, Volume 66, Issue 3, Winter 2018, pages 329-50.
Abstract. There have been many conceptualizations of knowledge in information studies. Though presently disparate, they can be brought together under a common framework with the concept of understanding. As such, understanding can provide an account for how bodily experience, recorded information and other forms of information can contribute together epistemically. This paper provides a way for researchers to analyze understanding informationally: It defines information as form-and-activity and suggests that multiple pieces of information can be bundled together as information constellations with narrative as a cohering structure. The concept of information constellation is illustrated in a hermeneutic-phenomenological study of the information experience of ultrarunners. The resulting anecdotes and information constellation mappings show how multiple forms and activities of information are integrated as understanding even in the "simple" act of running. This discussion puts embodied, experiential, corporeal information on equal footing with the external, recorded forms of information that have been the traditional focus of information studies.
And this long-distance running lark is the best of all, because it makes me think so good that I learn things even better than when I'm on my bed at night. —Alan Sillitoe, "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner," 1959
Distance running is a fundamental human activity. It's something we've done for at least two million years. In large part, it's the reason our bodies look the way they do (Bramble and Lieberman 2004). For something so central to humanity, it's interesting that running is often viewed as something purely physical—just a mechanical affair.
In this paper, I seek to problematize that account of running, characterizing running instead as an information-rich and multimodal activity. I present a study that, firstly, documents some of the key information sources, needs and activities of ultrarunning (i.e, very-long-distance running). More deeply, I plumb the structure of these information forms and activities to explore how they contribute to human understanding. I introduce the concept of information constellations, which is meant to showcase how the so-called "physical" and "mental" are always intertwined.
In so doing, I build upon the theoretical work of Marcia Bates (2006) and Anders Hektor (2001) to demonstrate that even a pursuit as seemingly divorced from documentary information as ultrarunning is enmeshed in a heterogeneous information world. I put embodied, experiential, corporeal information on equal footing with the exosomatic forms of information that have been the traditional focus of information studies—and which are privileged in modern society generally. As Haruki Murakami illustrates in his novel Kafka on the Shore, the ubiquity of literacy has reshaped our very being—and narrowed our sense of the possible. It is my hope that this paper may serve as a sort of course correction.
Metatheoretically, this paper is rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology. This is an interpretive way of coming to the world that attempts to understand the world as it is already understood before we try to understand it. Hermeneutic phenomenology takes human experience as its point of departure. It plays with the tension between social constructionism and constructivism (see Talja, Tuominen, and Savolainen 2005). It seeks to cultivate wonder and questioning rather than provide once-and-for-all answers. At heart, hermeneutic phenomenology recognizes that conceptual thinking necessarily eviscerates the quality of experience, and it attempts to recoup as much of the wholeness of experience as possible. A fool's errand, perhaps, but it seems to me that there is some wonder in foolishness.
I begin by discussing the merits of understanding as an epistemic aim for information (and information studies). I then argue that understanding can be conceptualized as the diversity or multiplicity of perspective. This, in turn, can be conceptualized by considering information always as form-and-activity and by taking information in bundles, which I call information constellations. With this groundwork in place, I then present and discuss an open-ended survey study I conducted to explore how ultrarunners build understanding.
Background: Understanding and Information Constellations
Understanding as a Unifying Concept
Information is often assumed to be an epistemic good. How this is the case is not self-evident, but is rarely investigated. When scholars do consider information epistemologically, they generally appeal to knowledge as an epistemic aim (Fallis 2006; Furner 2010). However, conceptualizations of knowledge in information studies have been diverse and disconnected (Rowley 2007). For instance, accounts variously consider knowledge to be a coherent web of information (Bates 2006; Floridi 2011), pure meaning (Yu 2015), and situated action (Lloyd 2011).
As these accounts are paradigmatically entrenched, there seems to be little opportunity for synthesis. However, recent efforts in information studies and epistemology have begun to explore understanding as a higher-order epistemic aim. I suggest that understanding could provide unification to these diverse approaches to knowledge.
Understanding refers to the grasping of inferential and explanatory relationships among a body of information (or, perhaps, of knowledge or meaning, depending on how these terms are defined) (for a recent review, see Baumberger, Beisbart, and Brun 2017). Understanding is posited to be truer-to-life than knowledge because it realizes the innate human drive for sense-making; whereas knowledge can seemingly be given, understanding must be grasped (Kvanvig 2011; Pritchard 2014). It admits of degrees of gradation, rather than the binary of known/unknown (Kelp 2015). It is transparent, meaning a person always knows when they understand something, whereas they may not always know that they know something (Zagzebski 2001). It accommodates subjectivity, allowing for two people's understandings of a phenomenon to be different but for both to be possibly valid (Grimm 2012). Concomitantly, understanding accounts for how outdated and false information can contribute epistemically, as well as that which cannot be evaluated as either true or false. Thus, for instance, pictorial and literary art (and, indeed, bodily action) may not contribute to knowledge as they are not "true" in a positivist sense; however, they may contribute to understanding (Briesen 2014; Elgin 2002). Catherine Elgin (2002) argues that evidence for this is seen in how art challenges assumptions and furthers inquiry in other fields. Mark Johnson (2007) has also argued that art can be regarded as epistemic on the grounds that all meaning, including intellectual abstraction, ultimately has a biological basis in the environmentally-situated processes of the human body.
An example may be in order. Consider a student interested in the work of nineteenth-century American artist Thomas Eakins. The student could get some knowledge about Eakins from a textbook or encyclopedia (e.g., particular paintings Eakins made, that he studied and taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), that he favored nudes, etc.). But these facts alone may not satisfy the student. First, they rely on other knowledge to be of any real use: for instance, knowledge about what those paintings look like, about PAFA itself, and about the sociocultural issues surrounding artistic nudes in nineteenth-century America. Moreover, this knowledge, even once it is interconnected and integrated, may be unsatisfactory because of its one-dimensionality. To gain a deeper understanding of Eakins and his works, the student may read collections of Eakins' correspondence or criticism from his time, and even fictional works about nineteenth-century America, Eakins or painters in general. Moreover, the student may visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where many of Eakins' works are on display, as well as various sites around the city that were influential to or visually represented in Eakins' art. For an even deeper understanding, the student may try their hand at life drawing, perhaps even enrolling in a course at PAFA.
This example illustrates how understanding constitutes common ground between traditional approaches to information behavior and those exploring information experience—that is, between epistemology and aesthetics. This should be welcome, as research in information experience has been of recent interest but no attempts have been made to link information experience to broader, ongoing themes in information behavior or information studies generally. I have proposed this link in an earlier essay (Gorichanaz 2017), and in this paper I offer a more concrete discussion. To sketch my view: Information experience allows for the recognition of pathic knowledge (emotive, intuitive) as a legitimate way of knowing, whereas traditional frameworks of information behavior only recognize gnostic knowledge (procedural, conceptual); both forms of knowledge are important for building a rich understanding of a phenomenon. This reveals another benefit of focusing on understanding in information studies: Understanding is downstream from knowledge, and as such, studying understanding has the capacity to reveal forms of knowledge that have not yet been identified or widely acknowledged.
Here the insight of Johnson's (2007) rallying cry for the unification of epistemology and aesthetics, with understanding as its conceptual locus and the human body as its physical locus, is clear. Again, this is fortuitous: Much as with information experience, threads of research on embodied or corporeal information have been ongoing within information studies but without clear connection to the larger tapestry of information studies. Here, too, understanding seems to offer a gangway for integration.
Conceptualizing Understanding as Diversity of Perspective
Jochen Briesen (2014) suggests that a person's understanding can be deepened through regarding a phenomenon from materially diverse perspectives, including medium (text, image, bodily practice), format (original, reproduction) and genre (history, journalism, fiction), rather akin to the strategy of triangulation in empirical research.
Briesen draws on the work of Thomas Nagel (1986) in describing how this organization and systematization takes place. In his (in)famous book The View from Nowhere, an essay on scientific objectivity, Nagel describes how a scientist can take a step back from their present situation to get a broader perspective and concomitantly a deeper understanding. Nagel takes this to its extreme, suggesting that regarding a phenomenon sub specie æternitatis constitutes objectivity. Of course, the possibility for a human (being inescapably earthbound) to hold such a view is questionable. However, Briesen does comfortably argue that the more one steps back, the broader their perspective and the deeper their understanding becomes.
Thus a person can intentionally and continually consider a phenomenon from different perspectives to cultivate understanding:As these different perspectives are incorporated, a progressively more sophisticated and multidimensional view of the thing is attained, leading to progressivelyincreased understanding.
Conceptualizing Perspectival Diversity through Form and Activity
Following Briesen (2014), we can conceptualize the depth of understanding as perspectival diversity within a web of inferential or explanatory relationships. In turn, we must conceptualize perspectival diversity. It should be noted that, in discussions of epistemology, perspectival diversity can denote the diversity of perspective across members of a group (as in Harding 2015, for instance) or within a single individual. In my discussion here, I mean perspectival diversity in the latter sense. In my view, conceptualizing perspectival diversity can be done through forms of information (Bates 2006) and information activities (Hektor 2001). This pairing is felicitous because, on the social constructionist worldview, information can only be said to exist within human activity. Here I suggest that the more diversity there is in terms of information form and activity, the greater the potential understanding.
Bates (2006) articulates a typology of forms of information for information studies. As she intends this framework to be used by and for humans, she offers the most granularity for describing the forms of information that are most relevant to humans, while situating these forms within an all-encompassing framework. Likewise, she makes no claims to be sketching an essential or universal ontology; her framework is decidedly anthropocentric. In her view, all patterns of organization of matter and energy in the universe are natural information, and such information that is associated with life (i.e., is living itself or was created by a life form) is represented information. Represented informationis the most relevant to information studies and so is described in detail; Bates describes represented information along two dimensions: the encoded–embodied dimension and the genetic–neural-cultural–exosomatic dimension. The first of these refers to the information's ontological status as physically existent or conceptual; the second refers to the evolutionary flow line to which the information belongs. This framework is summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Forms of represented information, described along two dimensions (Bates, 2006).
Ontological Status
Embodied Genetic
Neural-cultural (Experienced, Enacted [Expressed])
Exosomatic (Embedded [Recorded])
To first sketch the ontological dimension, encoded information is that having a symbolic, linguistic or signal-based pattern form, and embodied information is the corporeal expression of information that was previously encoded. Bates asserts that information can cycle from encoding to embodiment, though the details of this are bracketed from her discussion. Moreover, Bates seems to leave the precise ontological distinction between encoded and embodied information unclear. However, it seems that encoded information refers to a concept (and so, physically speaking, encoded information could be consider a pattern of neural activity in a system with materials in the world), while embodied information refers to a non-neural physical structure that can afford encoded information for an animal (including humans).
The second dimension receives much more thorough treatment. This dimension includes four forms of information: genetic, neural-cultural, exosomatic and trace. Genetic information is that encoded in the genotype and is not discussed further.
Neural-cultural information is that created by or processed in animal nervous systems, and it includes experienced and enacted information. Experienced information is ascertained subjectively and embodied in the conscience, as a result of encoded neural information, as perceptions, thoughts, memories, etc. Enacted information is externalized through interactions with the environment, springing from experience and encoded neural information, which can be performed socially or in isolation. At the risk of oversimplifying, experienced information is input, and enacted information is output. Within enacted information, Bates mentions expressed information for its particular relevance to information studies: Expressed information is that enacted information which is communicative. In this category Bates includes language, pheromones and gestures.
Exosomatic information is that "stored" fully outside animal bodies, which can be experienced by other beings. Within exosomatic information, Bates identifies embedded information, which is that resulting from the actions of animals, either incidentally or deliberately. And within embedded information, recorded information is that which is deliberate, communicative and durable. Bates does not discuss other possible forms of exosomatic information in much detail, on the grounds that recorded information is of the most relevance to information studies (at least as traditionally conceptualized, and in my view perhaps unduly so).
Finally, trace information is informational residue produced as a byproduct or left to decay into its natural form. Trace information is in the process of degrading from being associated with life (i.e., being represented information) to not being associated with life (i.e., being undifferentiated natural information).
It stands to reason that these denominations are only valid with respect to particular activities within which the information is picked out and the interests of the person describing the information. For instance, it would seem that all information is both encoded and embodied, but it can be called one or the other depending on whether a person wishes to emphasize its conceptual structure (in the case of encoded) or physical structure (embodied). Additionally, all information seems to be both neural-cultural and exosomatic: One animal's enacted information is another's experienced information; what is exosomatic to one being is endosomatic to another. The identification of trace information, too, seems to be a matter of intentional stance: Bates gives a decaying wasp nest as an example of trace information. It may indeed be trace information to someone emphasizing the disappearance of the wasps, but it could also be considered embedded information for someone engaging with the nest as information in itself.
Based on this, it would seem useful to have a systematic way to describe forms of information with reference to information activities. A typology of information activities is given by Hektor (2001). Hektor's work arose through rigorous conceptual and empirical research on everyday information behavior, and it was meant to build upon and synthesize the frameworks proposed by prior researchers. Hektor places the individual within a particular sociocultural environment and information–communication technology setting. In this environment and setting, the individual goes about life carrying out projects, which entail eight groupings of information activities:
Stemming from these activities, the individual experiences outcomes and changes, which feed back into their sociocultural environment. (N.B.: Hektor's framework focuses on human activity, but in principle many of these activities could apply to non-human actors as well; should such application be deemed useful, future research could seek to develop a universal framework of information activities.)
In a conceptual article using Hektor's framework deductively to describe the information activities in serious leisure pursuits, Hartel, Cox and Griffin (2016) note that Hektor's description of the ICT Setting is rooted in a now-outdated ontology of information sources. This is visible in the somewhat-dated terms Hektor gives to the information activity groupings. Still, in essence, these groupings seem reasonable even today, and a virtue of this framework is its covering the entirety of the information–communication chain—from seeking to use and creation.
Information Constellations for Mapping Understanding
It is evident that Bates' (2006) and Hektor's (2001) frameworks describe separate but essential dimensions of information. That is, all information takes some form and inheres within some activity. As such, any information should in principle be describable according to both dimensions.
Moreover, information seems to emerge in bundles—information is a mass noun, suggesting phenomenological difficulty in identifying discrete units of information. Indeed, the same material components can constitute different information at different theoretical frames, or what Luciano Floridi (2011) calls levels of abstraction. This, I suspect is part of the seeming incommensurability between information-theoretic and human-level accounts of information. For this reason, I find it useful to conceptualize information constellations, or clusters of information activities involving forms of information that unfold in time, from which understanding emerges. An information constellation implies a single level of abstraction for all its constituent information.
The concept of information constellations provides a way to concretize and describe the diversity of perspectives in the building of understanding. I would posit that the more different forms of information that are involved in the more diverse information activities over the longer span of time, the greater the understanding. This assertion is exemplified in the present study.
A Study of Understanding and Information in Ultrarunning
Information Research in Ultrarunning
This study explores information in the sport of long-distance running, specifically ultrarunning (for a philosophical discussion of the ethos of ultrarunning compared to other forms of distance running, see Gorichanaz 2016a).
Sport has not long been of interest to academia, let alone information studies. However, recent philosophical work has argued that sport is not merely idle play, as has generally been assumed, but rather it is socially useful and even educational: "Athletic contests display the characteristics of authentic questioning, impartial testing, and public demonstration of results; features that endure in such modern practices as courtroom trials and scientific experiments" (Reid 2009, 40). Because of these features, sport has subversive power and can challenge established hegemonies. Taking an even stronger stance, Josef Pieper (1952) argued that leisure pursuits such as sport are the very basis of human culture. Pieper defines leisure as the state of mind of doing whatever one pleases, and he argues that it is only when we have access to this state of mind that breakthroughs in science, philosophy and the arts can be made. James Taylor (1998) likewise argues that athletic training is not just a complement to the "intellectual" pursuits, but rather both are part of the same whole. According to Taylor, gymnastic for the Ancient Greeks denoted (along with poetry and music) a direct experience with reality that awakens the senses and opens the door for understanding and wisdom. On these lines, Taylor argues that human knowing is rooted in one's lived experience as a body in the world, and thus that accounts that fail to recognize the epistemic nature of bodily experience overlook a critical part of human being. Taylor's discussion is framed within educational philosophy, but Johnson (2007), described earlier, makes the same argument on more general philosophical grounds.
To more fully engage with this long-overlooked part of humanity, I have been conducting research on information behavior in ultrarunning, one of my own hobbies (Gorichanaz 2015, 2016b). In 2015 I drew on the theories of serious leisure and life in the round to frame ultrarunning events as small information worlds with a particular ethos and particular forms and activities of information. I presented an auto-hermeneutic study of my information experience during my first 100-mile race. The results from this study emphasized the central role the body plays in ultrarunning, both as an information source and as information in itself. Later, in 2016b, I presented an interpretative phenomenological analysis study of five participants in a 100-mile race, a mix of newbies and veterans. This study focused on the experience of building understanding through running, discerning three themes that characterize the experience: taking time, undergoing struggle and incorporating diverse perspectives.
Besides my own work, most academic research in ultrarunning is medical in nature and will not be reviewed here, but there is a small body of work in sports psychology that warrants discussion. As reviewed by Rochat, Hauw, Phillippe, Crettaz von Roten and Seifert (2017), this work has tended to take a "third-person" approach, isolating factors of interest which can be measured or observed. However, this domain is seeing an emerging thread of phenomenological research, which honors the integral nature of human experience by exploring phenomena from a "first-person" perspective at the level of consciousness. As a metatheoretical note, this mirrors the situation in information studies, where the socio-cognitive paradigm has begun to dominate in response to the limitations of cognitivist approaches but phenomenology is starting to find acceptance as another alternative. Considering distance running more generally, there has been some work done in the social sciences (see Bale, 2004; Bridel, Markula, and Denison 2016). A selection of this work is reviewed for its relevance to information studies by Cox, Griffin and Hartel (2017).
In toto, this prior research has established the information-richness of distance running, focusing on the processual and experiential aspects of running itself as a bodily action. This has included the strategies runners use while running in pursuit of success, such as monitoring their bodily signals. This work has drawn lessons for athletes and coaches, and it has also offered insights to information researchers regarding bodily and experiential information management. However, this work has not been well integrated with the broader concerns of information studies, which canonically focuses on recorded information. This may be because, when it comes to sport—and perhaps leisure in general—recorded information is often considered marginal, if not irrelevant.
The same may be said for much of the research on information experience, which seems to silo apart informal (e.g., oral, embodied) and formal (e.g., recorded) information sources. For example, Angela Pollak (2015) sought to challenge the dominance of recorded information in information studies by exploring informal information behavior in everyday leisure contexts. Pollak found that understanding is built experientially, either through social dialogue or solitary reflection, based on experiential information. That is, Pollak bracketed recorded information from her framework entirely. Her research can be extended, then, by accounting for how experiential information works with recorded information in the process of understanding. This should involve a process-based, experience-sensitive exploration of human engagement with multiple forms of information on the path to understanding. This is what I seek to do in the present study. I will argue that the boundaries of running are not so clear—that recorded information does play a role in the running world, including the experience of running. It should be noted, however, that this is a study of ultrarunning, which is a serious leisure pursuit rather than one of everyday leisure; as such, it is more likely to involve active information seeking (Hartel 2005) than more casual cases of shorter-distance running would.
Georges Perec ([1976] 2009) characterized reading as a socio-physiological activity, describing how the eyes, mouth, hands and social environment inhere in the reading experience. This perspective has since been echoed by a number of researchers in various discourse traditions. In a converse move, here I propose to show how "reading" is involved in the running experience.
Methodology and Methods
To plumb this question, I conducted a phenomenology-of-practice study of ultrarunners' lived experiences. Phenomenology of practice is a philosophically informed, hermeneutic-phenomenological methodology developed by Max van Manen (2014) for studying the meaningfulness of the experiences of people engaged in practice, broadly construed. (N.B.: Despite the name, phenomenology of practice is unrelated to practice theory.) In phenomenology of practice, a researcher analyzes the experiential accounts (called examples) of small groups of participants to develop nuanced theories "of the unique" (rather than the general). Phenomenology of practice is a mode of interpretive and descriptive inquiry that attempts to look deeper into what has been taken for granted. It provides a method for cultivating wonder. As such, it "is primarily a philosophic method for questioning, not a method for answering or discovering or drawing determinate conclusions" (van Manen 2014, 29), though these questions themselves may potentiate useful insights. Rather, phenomenology of practice "aims to open up possibilities for creating formative relations between being and acting, between who we are and how we act, between thoughtfulness and tact" (van Manen 2014, 70). The meaning of phenomenological research is not in the facts it apportions, but in the way it provokes readers to think—and feel and act—different, to borrow a locution from Steve Jobs.
That is, a key strength of phenomenology of practice is its capacity to surface what van Manen calls pathic knowledge, or the poetic, embodied, ineffable, emotive knowing of lived experience; traditional social science research, on the other hand, primarily affords gnostic knowledge, which is procedural and conceptual. Following the discussion in the previous section, pathic knowledge has been long overlooked in academia but plays an indisputable role in human being.
Though some may find it difficult to see how pathic knowledge builds on the primarily-gnostic knowledge of the scholarly literature, I suggest that both contribute to understanding; thus, to reiterate, the concept of understanding provides a unifying framework for considering both pathic and gnostic results. Indeed, van Manen discusses how phenomenological research itself seeks to foment understanding, one which is "distinctly existential, emotive, active, relational, embodied, situational, temporal, technical, theoretic, and nontheoretic," thriving on "a certain irrevocable tension between what is unique and what is shared, between immanent and transcendent meaning, and between the reflective and the prereflective spheres of the lifeworld" (van Manen 2014, 68).
In this study, I took a phenomenological eye to the information behavior of ultrarunners who took part in a 100-mile footrace in June 2016. The study included pre- and post-race open-response online surveys, semi-structured interviews and narrative race reports. The surveys solicited free responses to open-ended questions about the participants' running-related information behavior (both while running and peripherally). This included their information needs, information sources, outcomes of information seeking (Kari 2007), and serious leisure career arc (Hartel 2010). The questions were informed by my earlier work on ultrarunning information behavior (Gorichanaz 2015). The semi-structured interview protocol sought more detailed accounts of the runners' experiences. I recruited participants through a routine pre-race email, in which the race director included a message to all race registrants inviting them to take part in my survey and, optionally, a follow-up survey and interview after the race. In all, 46 participated in the pre-race survey, 27 of whom also participated in the follow-up survey. Five runners participated in the follow-up interview.
Phenomenology provides a rich toolkit of analytical methods for diverse forms of conceptual and empirical work. In this study, I employ phenomenological theme analysis (van Manen 2014, 319–323) to analyze all the empirical material I collected. This method differs somewhat from the traditional approach to thematic analysis in the social sciences (cf. Braun and Clark 2006). According to van Manen, phenomenological thematic analysis does not identify codes, abstractions or empirical generalizations. Rather,
"analyzing" thematic meanings of a phenomenon (a lived experience) is a complex and creative process of insightful invention, discovery, and disclosure. Grasping and formulating a thematic understanding is not a rule-bound process but a free act of "seeing" meaning. (Van Manen 2014, 320)
The goal of such "seeing" is to come as close as possible to the phenomenon as lived rather than as conceptualized post facto. This kind of seeing requires directing a naive eye toward the phenomenon, which involves constantly asking why—as the researcher, why I make the associations I do, why I think the things I do, etc. This is a way to challenge one's preconceptions and come closer to the phenomenon in its wholeness. Becoming naive is, of course, a tremendous challenge, as it seeks to defy dualistic, conceptual thinking, which has long been the hallmark of academic thought. However, it offers a necessary counterbalance: Where dualistic (conceptual) thinking says either/or, nondualistic thinking says both-and; nondualistic thinking thus has the potential to recoup what falls between categories, feeding forward into the validation, extension and possible reconfiguration of those categories. Perhaps unexpectedly, some inspiring guidance for this mode of thinking is offered by the contemplative traditions of many of the world's religions. Zen Buddhist teachers, for example, have long sought ways to cultivate the "beginner's mind" (Suzuki 1970) or the "don't-know mind" (Sahn 1999) in life's pursuits. "How do you keep your don't-know mind from moment to moment? You must try, try, try" (Sahn 1999, 14).
To speak of nuts and bolts, such trying can proceed through iterative holistic reading (getting a sense of the whole), selective reading (singling out fragments that seem especially revealing or essential), and detailed reading (examining each sentence and asking what it contributes to the phenomenon) (van Manen 2014). This analysis is writerly in nature: "Research does not merely involve writing: research is the work of writing. Writing is its very essence" (Barthes 1986, 316, as cited in van Manen 2014, 364). As such, van Manen favors results taking the form of a narrative as a way of preserving pathic integrity, as oftentimes "words of conceptual language seem to fall short of the felt meaning" (van Manen 2014, 46).
My analysis did lead to some general, count-based findings on the information seeking and use of ultrarunners, which will be described below. More centrally, however, it allowed me to construct a number of short (70–100 words) anecdotes that embody a range of information experiences of ultrarunning (see Table 2). Each has a beginning, middle and end, and exemplifies the vicissitudes of human intention, which are essential elements of experiential narrative (Bruner 1986; Dewey 1934).
Prima facie, these anecdotes seem to demonstrate a change or growth in understanding. They all involve learning, changing behavior or moving toward greater self-efficacy in some way. To explore how understanding unfolds in ultrarunning more deeply, I mapped these narratives according to the framework of information constellations. As coherent narratives, they each imply a particular level of abstraction and could thus be felicitously analyzed for their informational structure.
These mappings show the informational structure of these lived experiences of ultrarunning. As such, they provide a method by which understanding may be parsed in other contexts. Creating these mappings was an interpretive process, and my mapping does not purport to be the only one possible; pursuant to my methodology, I intend for my results to be illustrative and evocative rather than authoritative.
With its small groups of participants, humanistic methods and meditative aims, phenomenology of practice does not aim to provide statistical generalizability. Rather, it strives for face and construct validity (Babbie 2007), trustworthiness (Riessman 1993), verisimilitude (Bruner 1986) and analytical generalizability (Yin 2014). That is, phenomenological results may not allow a reader to predict or explain, but rather to come to other cases with deeper thoughtfulness, considering how they are similar to and different from what was described in a given set of findings. To be sure, all examples of any phenomenon have unique aspects, just as all phenomena share certain aspects—the tension adumbrated above.
General Findings
Though the primary interest of this study was to explore ultrarunners' stories of building understanding in terms of information forms and activities, some general findings regarding ultrarunners' information sources and outcomes of information seeking bear mentioning. I make no claims to the statistical generalizability of these findings; they are offered merely to sketch in a broad way the information world of ultrarunning.
In the pre-race survey (n=46), I asked about the runners' information sources and seeking outcomes. Several information sources were mentioned by over ten participants. In descending order of number of mentions, they are: fellow runners, personal experience, magazines, bodily signals, and race reports.
In the theme analysis of this survey, I discerned several key outcomes of information seeking for ultrarunners: having a specific question answered, tailoring training and nutrition, planning for a specific race, getting feedback during a race, and getting running-related entertainment.
Information Constellations in Ultrarunning
As discussed above, I constructed short anecdotes to encapsulate a range of information experiences of ultrarunning. Six are given in Table 2. Topically, these stories span the career, the training season, and the individual race, which are the three serious-leisure temporal arcs identified by Hartel (2010) and which I previously found to apply to ultrarunning (Gorichanaz 2016b). Taken as a whole, these anecdotes offer compelling insight into the information life of ultrarunners.
Table 2. Anecdotes resulting from phenomenological theme analysis
Career (Social group) I'm part of a running group that meets every Wednesday evening. I've gotten to know the other runners in that group, and naturally we talk about running a lot of the time. We trade experiences about all sorts of things: mileage, additional workouts, nutrition, gear. One interesting thing that's helped is watching other runners' form. You can just tell who is running well—it's smooth, effortless—and then try to mimic them.
Career (Dealing with chafing) I never experienced chafing until I started going over 20 miles on a regular basis. I did some research on Facebook, runners' blogs and also magazines and learned that different people have very different ways to deal with it—two main approaches are changing clothes and using lubricant. In my case the shorts were the problem, so I posted about the shorts on a running Facebook group and asked for recommendations. Someone recommended a particular brand after having the same issue, and then I looked up more reviews of that product before deciding to buy it.
Training Season (Choosing a race) I'm constantly reading about new races. I'm a member of a few Facebook groups where people post their race reports, and when I hear about a new race I always look up reports or videos. That helps me choose my races—that and the online ultrarunning calendars. I haven't traveled much in my life, so ultrarunning provides an opportunity.
Training Season (Planning) When a race is coming up, I get more detailed with my planning. One thing I do is read race reports and look for photos from people who ran the race in previous years. This gives me some insight about what to put in my drop bags—for instance, if there's a long stretch with no shade, I'll pack a visor. It's a way to learn from others' experiences. This time I read in several race reports that it is easy to get lost, so I'm planning to be extra aware of looking out for course markers.
Training Season (Injury) When my training surpassed 100 miles per week, I started getting some pain on the outside of my foot. I searched on Google and suspected I had peroneal tendonitis. I talked to my brother, who is also a former collegiate runner, and he agreed that's probably what I had. He showed me a specific stretch to use for this injury. He also told me that I could train through the injury as long as I consistently did the stretch. This helped keep the symptoms under control while I continued training.
Race During the race itself, things weren't too bad until mile 35 or so. I was running a seven-mile stretch and it felt like it was taking forever. I looked down at my GPS watch to see how long it had been—only four miles since the last aid station. I was feeling tired. I put on music to distract myself. While I run, when I'm feeling tired or bored, I think about other runners' stories I've heard, which actually help me get through many moments.
To digest these anecdotes systematically, I worked to identify the information constellations—that is, the bundles of pairings of information form and activity—that comprise each one. The full results from this analysis appear in the appendix. What these constellations demonstrate is the way multiple forms of information—say, from bodily experience and from textual recording—cohere across diverse activities in ultrarunning.
For illustration, one information constellation appears in graphic form in Figure 1. This representative form allows a reader to quickly grasp the informational structure of the anecdote, and it provides another representative form for understanding the information in ultrarunning.
Figure 1. Information constellation from the fifth anecdote, about an injury during training
The primary findings from this study are the experiential ultrarunning anecdotes, which are meant to give a sense of how ultrarunners carry out their projects with diverse information, highlighting how the body is involved in every step along the way but also showing the decisive role that recorded information plays for the ultrarunner—from getting equipped and dealing with injuries to choosing races and planning runs.
This observation becomes clearer when these anecdotes are regarded as information constellations—that is, analyzed in terms of their information forms and activities. Across all these stories, all the fundamental forms of information are represented except for embedded information (as these stories did not deal with any non-human animals). Likewise, all the information activity categories surfaced except instruct; however, the characters in these stories did unfold with others' instruction. Moreover, though Hektor (2001) describes exchange as a dialog between dressing and unfolding, in the context of ultrarunning it should perhaps be considered one between dressing and instructing, given the informality of much of it.
Suggesting that recorded information is decisive in and for ultrarunning challenges somewhat the assertion made by Hartel, Cox and Griffin (2016) that, "While long distance running does entail information activities with documentary sources, these are relatively marginal, even optional, since a physical activity is primarily enacted and learned by doing." I argue that viewing running as "merely" running is overly narrow. Rather, as the name itself implies, ultrarunning is beyond running. The act of running is inextricable from the world, which involves recorded information as much as the physical experience of being a body. Simply put, were the recorded-information activities truly optional, ultrarunning would not be the same activity, and this becomes increasingly the case as modern technology continues to mobilize and penetrate the running experience (in GPS watches and biometric monitors, for instance). Of course, it may be that the same cannot be said for shorter-distance running and that which does not qualify as serious leisure—a topic for further research. Even outside running, today's reality is that engaging with documentary sources and the physical experience of being a body are not as clearly divisible as perhaps they once were. Hence discussions of immersive and pervasive documents (Robinson 2015) and the human experience of documents (Gorichanaz and Latham 2016), which point back to Perec's (2009) meditation on reading.
The concept of information constellations seeks to lend some concreteness to these issues. By conceptualizing information as form-and-activity, it avoids the philosophical problems associated with the conduit metaphor (Day 2000; Tkach 2017), and by linking information in constellations it shows how information "works together" in narrative bundles. Here I have utilized Bates' (2006) fundamental forms of information and Hektor's (2001) information activities as the frameworks underlying my analysis, but in principle other typologies could be used. Indeed, other schemes may prove even more useful for discussing information constellations; those developed by Bates and Hektor provide a broad view of information, but this breadth does seem to obscure some of the logic of the narratives in question—that is, these constellations mean little on their own.
My discussion here serves to test these frameworks in a demanding context—ultrarunning is information-rich and corporeal, while these frameworks were developed for the "traditional" information contexts that have historically held the interest of information studies. While no effort is made to do so here, an information-constellation analysis could be used to refine our conceptual frameworks. In particular, the graphic representation of information constellations may prove particularly useful in this regard, as it is meant to foment further questioning: Which forms of information are most prevalent? Which activities? Do certain forms tend to go with certain activities? How well does this typification "capture" the experience? In what ways is it lacking?
To speculate on where this discussion could lead, it would seem that future research could systematically analyze the information constellations of a larger body of narratives in order to draw more general conclusions about how the structure of an information constellation bears on the quality or depth of the understanding it represents, perhaps in relation to the temporal arc manifest in the narrative.
To summarize, in this paper I have suggested that understanding is an epistemic aim that brings together informational concerns about the human body with the longer-standing concerns of information studies having to do with documentary information. From there, I have sought to provide a way for researchers to analyze how information contributes to understanding: defining information multidimensionally as form-and-activity and using narrative as the cohering structure for multiple pieces of information. I have called these analyses information constellations, after the constellations in the night sky: The stars are out there, uncountable, bright and dim, clear and tenebrous, new and old—some, even, no longer in existence but shining on as traces—and we humans look up at night and specify how they're connected, what they mean, what stories they tell. Just as the stories of nighttime constellations have for millennia helped us humans understand ourselves, each other and our place in the universe, so I hope information constellations may afford some insight into understanding information, technology and humanity today.
In the novel Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami tells a story of characters who slip into a world where not everything can be expressed in words or, consequently, put into print. Here, "words have no life in them." For the bookish protagonist, this world is bewildering and contradictory—he is caught "between one void and another." And yet, this is the world we live in.
In our daily dealings, we oscillate between the world of literacy and that of whole being—between the world of words and the world of being a body. There is no real separation between the two. Indeed there is no "two" to speak of, as they are indistinct. Privilege though we do the world of literacy, we are unavoidably enmeshed in a world of emotional, pathic being as bodies whose very boundaries are malleable. It is not that we are merely experiential or merely literate. It is not that we think with our heads and do with our hands. We are always both, and we always do both. We "let ourselves be absorbed into things," as someone tells young Kafka at the climax of Murakami's novel.
Information studies has, for most of its history, sought only to organize the world of literacy. In the past few decades it has progressively opened up, recognizing that there is information also in other aspects of being. At present we seem to be like young Kafka, caught between worlds which, from their interstitium, appear as disconnected voids. We have had, on one hand, the rudiments of information needs, seeking and use, and on the other, this idea of bodily experience. What would seem to be most productive now is to recognize the unity of being—to bring our hands together.
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Table 3. Information constellation analysis of anecdotes.
1 Career (Social group) naturally we talk about running a lot of the time. We trade experiences about all sorts of things: mileage, additional workouts, nutrition, gear. Embodied-Experienced/Expressed Exchange
1 Career (Social group) One interesting thing that's helped is watching other runners' form. You can just tell who is running well—it's smooth, effortless— Embodied-Experienced Monitor
1 Career (Social group) and then try to mimic them. Embodied-Expressed Dress
2 Career (Dealing with chafing) I did some research on Facebook, runners' blogs and also magazines Embodied-Recorded Search and retrieve
2 Career (Dealing with chafing) learned that different people have very different ways to deal with [chafing]—two main approaches are changing clothes and using lubricant. Encoded-Recorded Search and retrieve
2 Career (Dealing with chafing) In my case the shorts were the problem Encoded-Experienced Search and retrieve
2 Career (Dealing with chafing) I posted about the shorts on a running Facebook group and asked for recommendations. Embodied-Recorded Publish
2 Career (Dealing with chafing) Someone recommended a particular brand after having the same issue Embodied-Recorded Unfold
2 Career (Dealing with chafing) I looked up more reviews of that product before deciding to buy it. Embodied-Recorded Search and retrieve
3 Training Season (Choosing a race) I'm constantly reading about new races. I'm a member of a few Facebook groups where people post their race reports, Embodied-Recorded Monitor
3 Training Season (Choosing a race) when I hear about a new race I always look up reports or videos. That helps me choose my races Embodied-Recorded Search and retrieve
3 Training Season (Choosing a race) that and the online ultrarunning calendars Embodied-Recorded Browse
3 Training Season (Choosing a race) I haven't traveled much in my life, so ultrarunning provides an opportunity. Encoded-Experienced Unfold
4 Training Season (Planning) When a race is coming up, I get more detailed with my planning. Encoded-Experienced Unfold
4 Training Season (Planning) One thing I do is read race reports Embodied-Recorded Unfold
4 Training Season (Planning) look for photos from people who ran the race in previous years. Embodied-Recorded Search and retrieve
4 Training Season (Planning) This gives me some insight about what to put in my drop bags Encoded-Experienced Exchange
4 Training Season (Planning) for instance, if there's a long stretch with no shade, I'll pack a visor. Embodied-Enacted Exchange
4 Training Season (Planning) It's a way to learn from others' experiences. This time I read in several race reports that it is easy to get lost, so I'm planning to be extra aware of looking out for course markers. Encoded-Experienced/Enacted Exchange
5 Training Season (Injury) I started getting some pain on the outside of my foot. Embodied-Experienced Unfold
5 Training Season (Injury) I searched on Google and suspected I had peroneal tendonitis. Embodied-Recorded Search and retrieve
5 Training Season (Injury) my brother, who is also a former collegiate runner Encoded-Experienced Browse
5 Training Season (Injury) he agreed that's probably what I had. Embodied-Experienced Exchange
5 Training Season (Injury) He showed me a specific stretch to use for this injury. Embodied-Experienced Unfold
5 Training Season (Injury) He also told me that I could train through the injury as long as I consistently did the stretch. Embodied-Experienced Unfold
5 Training Season (Injury) This helped keep the symptoms under control while I continued training. Embodied-Experienced Monitor
6 Race I was running a seven-mile stretch and it felt like it was taking forever. Encoded-Experienced Unfold
6 Race I looked down at my GPS watch to see how long it had been—only four miles since the last aid station. Embodied-Experienced Unfold
6 Race I was feeling tired. Encoded-Experienced Unfold
6 Race I put on music to distract myself. Embodied-Recorded/Enacted Exchange
6 Race While I run, when I'm feeling tired or bored, I think about other runners' stories I've heard, which actually help me get through many moments. Encoded-Experienced/Enacted Exchange


What puts the giddy-up in Adrian Landon's Mechanical Horse? An MC363 Multifunction timer from Airotronics.
Brooklyn artist Landon combines his lifelong passion for horses, focused creativity and mastery of stainless steel in a remarkable new sculpture called the Mechanical Horse on view at Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida from January to April, 2015.
Almost two years in the making, the Mechanical Horse was single-handedly designed, machined and sculpted by me, at home and in my metal shop in Brooklyn, NY.
With over 100 bearings, custom laser-cut sprockets, 30 feet of chain, 23 articulating joints and one small electric motor, this has been by far my most challenging project yet, combining my in-depth knowledge and passion for horses, my childhood mechanical experience with Legos, and most of all, my love for creation.
What makes it go? The MC363 is wired to an external momentary initiate switch. Using the MC363′s programmable dip switches, Adrian selected the single shot timer function. When a visitor pushes the button, the initiate triggers the timer, sending 12VDC to a brushless motor and bringing the horse to life. Once the selected time period ends, the horse is at rest until the next initiate of the single shot function.
Input voltage is applied continuously. Upon closure of the initiate switch the load is energized and the time delay is started. At the end of the time delay the load is de‑energized and the timer is ready for another cycle. Maintained closure of the initiate switch will not affect the time delay period.
Production managers, product designers, mechanical engineers and artists choose Airotronics timers and controls to bring their ideas to life, too. To ensure things happen at the right time, they're Putting Power to Work with Pelco Component Technologies.
Next Post: Drought-fighter! Repeat cycle timers control energy-efficient feed production…in a trailer!


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West Side Bazaar operators show future space for the market, get a financial kickstart to renovate
WBFO-FM 88.7 | By Emyle Watkins,
Published August 16, 2021 at 6:16 PM EDT
Emyle Watkins, WBFO
Today, the building at 1432 Niagara Street in Buffalo is an empty warehouse space. But the Westminster Economic Development Initiative, which operates the West Side Bazaar, is planning to convert the space into the Bazaar's future home.
The organization which operates the West Side Bazaar is raising funds to eventually relocate the attraction to Niagara Street. On Monday, the Westminster Economic Development Initiative (WEDI) received a significant cash boost to help reach that goal.
The West Side Bazaar has provided an accommodating space for Buffalo's New Americans to incubate small businesses and restaurants for the past ten years. But it has outgrown its current Grant Street location. WEDI recently located a larger space to relocate the bazaar, at 1432 Niagara Street.
To kick off a fundraising campaign for building renovations, WEDI officials received a $1.5 million gift from KeyBank and the First Niagara Foundation.
"This kind of program, what WEDI does, providing educational and financial resources for immigrants and refugees but not only also entrepreneurs and business owners, really helps make this a more stable and attractive community," said Elizabeth Gurney, the Director of Corporate Philanthropy at KeyBank and the Executive Director of the First Niagara Foundation.
The Bazaar's future home is currently a vacant warehouse. When renovated, it will house up to 24 restaurants and businesses. WEDI officials hope to have the new space ready in the autumn of 2022.
"They have a variety of programs and that they that they support, and not only the Bazaar, that's a big part of it, but they have tutoring programs. They have provide tremendous support to small businesses and entrepreneurs, not only on the west side, but also on the east side and across town," Gurney added.
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Emyle Watkins
Emyle Watkins is an investigative journalist covering disability for WBFO.
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Brochures, websites, presentation folders, and white papers. Business cards, print and e-newsletters, trade show displays, and blog posts. Sales "scripts," data sheets, and multimedia presentations. All of these materials, both print and digital, are marketing collateral-"sales aids" that position your company well (or poorly!) in the minds of your prospective customers.
Effective, professionally developed marketing collateral will help drive your business. But how do you know if your materials are working for you…or against you?
1. Is there visual consistency among all of your collateral materials? Every item in your collateral library should feature your corporate identity and brand. Key company messages, photos, selling points, and so on should be consistent across the board, making each marketing piece easily identifiable as yours.
2. Is the quality of the finished material high, with no exceptions? A poorly proofread website makes you look unprofessional and careless. A well-produced presentation folder stuffed with fuzzy Xerox copies mixes messages about your firm`s attention to detail, commitment to quality, and budget.
3. Are the images presented the "right" images for your ideal prospects? We recently worked with a healthcare firm whose patients in different metro areas were dramatically different demographically: In one city, it was best to choose images for brochures featuring working-class African-American and Asian people, while in another, it was important to present Caucasians who appeared affluent.
4. Are the details of your collateral materials accurate and up-to-date? You might be surprised how often materials have to be re-printed because no one noticed that a phone number or email address was incorrect!
5. Do print materials reference electronic materials? Printed brochures and newsletters should refer to websites and social media pages. Printed materials are still important components of your overall marketing effort, but potential customers need to be aware that you have an online presence, as well (and you should have an online presence, if you don`t already).
7. Can your prospective clients and customers tell what you do? This may sound like a funny question, but it`s often hard to tell! Covers, headlines, callouts, and other key elements of your marketing materials should clearly explain WHAT your company does, HOW you do it, and ideally, WHY you do it: Companies that have a clear mission and purpose get better results in the short and long term.
9. Is each piece of collateral targeted toward a particular customer? One of the single biggest mistakes marketers and salespeople make is attempting to be everything to everyone! Every piece of collateral should be aimed toward a particular type of client. Picture one of your best customers-seriously, picture Sally Smith from XYZ company, or John Jones from ABC-when you create collateral. This will help you target your message to other buyers like Sally and John.
By asking the 10 questions above, you`ll be able to determine if your marketing materials are working for you or against you. Developing powerful marketing collateral that represents your company accurately and positively will drive your revenue.
P.S. But wait, there`s more: proofread, proofread, proofread! Don`t just proof for misspellings. Check for accuracy of information (see #4 above), consistency, and meaning. Don`t forget that your and you`re are different words; as are it`s and its; there, their, and they`re. Small mistakes can give a big, bad impression.
https://www.ledgerocksolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/logo2.jpg 0 0 Corrie Lisk-Hurst https://www.ledgerocksolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/logo2.jpg Corrie Lisk-Hurst2016-12-05 08:14:502016-12-05 08:41:01Is Your Marketing Collateral Working For You or Against You?


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Music | ENTERTAINMENT SPOTLIGHT
Back to those gold soundz
'90s lo-fi innovators Pavement go on tour after a decade apart
On the road again: Bandmates (from left to right) Mark Ibold, Stephen Malkmus, Steve West, Bob Nastanovich and Scott Kannberg. | TARINA WESTLUND PHOTO
Special to The Japan Times
Last fall, when the American rock band Pavement announced it would reunite for a series of concerts in New York's Central Park one year hence, nobody seemed surprised. Though the group stopped touring and recording 10 years ago, it never officially called it quits. The feeling was that Stephen Malkmus, Pavement's creative kernel, wanted to pursue other projects. His four colleagues didn't have a choice since they were more or less along for a ride that had already lasted a decade. This loose interpersonal relationship was central to Pavement's unique position in pop music. Many rock bands are legendary for internal discord, but it's unclear whether any have ever succeeded as well as Pavement has with such a fundamentally tenuous group dynamic.
"Pavement was always more of a project than a band," says the group's percussionist, Bob Nastanovich, from his home in Des Moines, Iowa. "And when more business aspects came into play, it became a serious project. By the mid-'90s everybody had their own set of interests, and that involved people living in different parts of the country, which made typical band activities not possible."
Nastanovich should know. He's always been the member with the most undefined role, which isn't to suggest his participation isn't as vital as any other individual member's, save Malkmus', only that the participation is, for the most part, extramusical.
"My position in the band is trying to entertain the live audience," he says. "I've made contributions on the records, but I always felt my responsibility was more to the live show." Though he's listed as a percussionist and keyboard player, what Nastanovich mainly does on stage is play tambourine like one of those windup dolls you see perched at the entrances of cheesy toy stores and shout out choruses. He does this so well, in fact, that Britpop stalwart Blur's hit "Song 2" was reportedly written in tribute to Nastanovich's habit of yelling "whoo-hoo" at random moments of inspiration.
But his primary status is being a close friend of Malkmus, because if anything defined Pavement as a group, it was the spirit of male camaraderie that made its music more than simply Malkmus' songs filled out with other instruments. Pavement was the sound of a bunch of guys having fun with the idea of being a rock band and exploring all possibilities within the limited scope of the skills each member brought to the group.
Music drew Nastanovich and Malkmus together when both were attending the University of Virginia in the 1980s. "There were some really cool bands coming through Charlottesville at the time," he remembers. "But there would only be like maybe 30 to 50 people at the shows, so you'd keep seeing the same people. He was a pretty easy friend for me to have."
Later, Malkmus returned to his hometown of Stockton, California, and started playing original music with childhood friend Scott Kannberg at the recording studio of a 36-year-old ex-hippie named Gary Young, who would play drums for the pair. They released an EP called "Slay Tracks" in the summer of 1989 on their own label. Totally unpromoted, it nevertheless attracted attention with its ramshackle melodies, lo-fi production values, wiggy but literate lyrics and sudden bursts of guitar noise. After several more EPs released on the Chicago-based indie label Drag City, Malkmus and Kannberg, who were known only by the pseudonyms S.M. and Spiral Stairs, felt compelled to play in front of people. So they hired a fan of the EPs, Mark Ibold, from New York, to play bass and Nastanovich to help out Young. Soon after, Young would be kicked out because of his bizarre, drug-fueled behavior and replaced with Steve West, a high school friend of Nastanovich's.
None of the new members played on Pavement's much-anticipated 1992 debut album "Slanted and Enchanted," released to great acclaim on Matador — arguably the most important American indie label of the '90s thanks in no small part to Pavement. In those days, it was still necessary for nominally indie bands to move to major labels in order to gain widespread notoriety, and most of the American groups that had inspired Pavement, like R.E.M., The Replacements and Sonic Youth, had done just that. But the business was changing, as evidenced by the rise of the Billions Corporation booking agency.
"It's run by a Canadian guy named Boche Billions (real name David Viecelli) who lives in Chicago," says Nastanovich. "He started it in the latter part of the '80s. Pavement was one of his first bands, and like Matador and Drag City, these were people in our age group who got the indie ball rolling. We all grew together."
In 1992, the Internet did not yet offer low-cost distribution and promotional tools for indie artists. As Nastanovich explains: "You build a network and hope it takes off. Basically, it was all due to small companies run by people who liked the band and wanted us to succeed."
This looser business model allowed Pavement to retain its preferred slacker vibe, which never really changed over the course of five critically acclaimed albums, among them 1994's "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain," which produced the singles "Cut Your Hair" and "Gold Soundz," and 1997's "Brighten the Corners," which included the song "Stereo." Those albums may not have sold platinum but they secured a fanbase that continues to grow a decade after the band's members went separate ways. The vibe, in fact, may be the group's most enduring legacy, since it became inextricably linked to the larger indie aesthetic that emerged in the '90s and which had a profound affect on almost every so-called alternative guitar band that followed. Contemporaries like Damon Albarn, leader of the aforementioned Blur, and Ben Gibbard, mastermind behind "Amerindie" superstars Death Cab for Cutie, openly confessed their debt to Pavement's stylistic influence, and so did late '00s indie groups as diverse as lo-fi innovators Times New Viking and the Welsh hyper-pop collective Los Campesinos! But you have to listen really, really hard to make any sort of direct musical connection. Pavement was too idiosyncratic for mimicry.
What's surprising is that these idiosyncrasies were to some extent calculated. Nastanovich says Pavement was "self-conscious, somewhat anxious" about its image. "There was a certain amount of vulnerability in that we were pretty aware of our history and of what we were doing." The group only survived as long as it did because nobody pressured them into doing things they didn't want to do.
It's ironic, then, that the breakup stemmed from Malkmus' desire for more structure. "The main reason Pavement stopped recording is that Stephen felt like he needed to work with a different set of people who were more technically on his level," says Nastanovich. "He moved to Portland because he wanted an endeavor where he could record with other people who were right there, something more like a typical band setup."
All that was needed for a Pavement reunion was a go-ahead from Malkmus himself. Everybody else was always on board. "We always kept in touch. These are friendships that have gone on for more than half of our lives now," says Nastanovich. "It was a matter of Stephen figuring things out, what with his family, which has grown to four with his two daughters, and his responsibilities with his band the Jicks, when would be a good time for him to devote six to eight months to a Pavement reunion."
Thanks to Billions, the tour has taken on a life of its own and will cover the Pacific, North America and Europe. It's turned into a monster, which is strange because Pavement always seemed like the least nostalgia-oriented band imaginable; the title of its new greatest hits album is "Quarantine the Past."
"You have a point," Nastanovich concedes. "But during the practice sessions Stephen would say, 'I never really got this song right on the album.' He must have said that for half a dozen songs out of the 43 we prepared. He would be, like, 'Oh, maybe we can make it better this time around.' "
Of course, if the band really wanted to get nostalgic, they'd invite Gary Young to play on the tour.
"That subject has been approached," Nastanovich says, adding with a husky laugh, "We're trying to figure out if, when, where and what."
Pavement play April 7-8 (7 p.m.) at Studio Coast, Tokyo (03-3462-6969); April 10 (6 p.m.) at Zepp Osaka (06-7732-8888); and April 12 (7:30 p.m.) at Nagoya Club Quattro (052-320-9100). Tickets: ¥7,350 in advance.


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The music of John Williams has transported us beyond our imagination to new worlds. Through heart-pounding adventures. Be there as the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera performs John Williams thrilling music from the Star Wars series.
Additional support for this concert is generously provided by The Niello Company.


text:
Q: Cinnamon settings won't open after python3.6 installation I tried to install python 3.7 on my debian 9.7 with cinnamon. I followed the best answer in this post and installed it using the debian testing repository. I think this was a bad idea...
It downloaded many packages, and now the cinnamon control center doesn't work anymore. If I try to start it from the command line I get:
$ cinnamon-settings
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/cinnamon-settings", line 26, in <module>
    os.execvp("/usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings/cinnamon-settings.py", ("",) + tuple(sys.argv[1:]))
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/os.py", line 571, in execvp
    _execvpe(file, args)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/os.py", line 594, in _execvpe
    exec_func(file, *argrest)
ValueError: execv() arg 2 first element cannot be empty

How do I fix this? I already tried removing python3.7, but I don't know what to do with the other packages?
The relevant part from /var/log/apt/history.log can be found here.

A: The error is because of Python 3.6 code:
os.execvp("/usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings/cinnamon-settings.py", ("",) + tuple(sys.argv[1:]))

You need to change "" to " ", because it treats "" as empty.
For more info you should visit  this link. Here you will find the files which need the above modification (to replace "" with " ").

A: If the other packages you installed were only installed for that new install of python, then you could:

*

*Reinstall that new python (I know it seems pointless)

*Then purge not remove  that new python installation.

*Then apt-get autoremove apt-get autoclean apt-get clean

*Then reinstall the version of python, that was working.

This should get rid of all the new python files and config files and unnecessary dependencies, the reinstall of the older version that worked should reinstall working config files.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home News & Analysis Blackstone's Mileway deal shows lines blurring in RE secondaries
Blackstone's Mileway deal shows lines blurring in RE secondaries
The €21bn transaction is the second large recap the firm has done in five months that utilised little or no secondaries capital.
Michael Baruch
A recent recapitalisation by Blackstone shows a trend of large managers creating liquidity without relying on secondaries capital.
Last week, the top-ranked general partner in the PEI 300 completed a €21 billion recap of European last-mile logistics company Mileway, the largest private real estate transaction of all time, according to a statement.
The Blackstone's Core+ real estate strategy, which is designed to hold assets in perpetuity, participated in the recap alongside existing Mileway investors, who were given the option to cash out, retain or increase their holdings. Most LPs rolled with the asset, according to a spokesman for the firm.
The deal is subject to an open go-shop process, which will be led by Morgan Stanley and last for 75 days. The process is an additional mechanism to show Blackstone sought the highest price, according to a senior European intermediary, adding that the few firms that could do a deal of such size likely already got their chance.
The deal did not include follow-on capital, Secondaries Investor understands. The asset was originally held by Blackstone close-ended funds.
It follows in the footsteps of a €14 billion process in 2020 involving life sciences real estate business BioMed Realty. In that deal, Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII and co-investors sold the business into a continuation fund largely backed by the same investors.
Blackstone isn't the only firm creating its own liquidity. In mid-February, Secondaries Investor reported on a $3 billion deal in which Global Infrastructure Partners moved ports operator TIL Group into a continuation fund. The deal, advised on by Campbell Lutyens, was digested entirely by existing investors rolling with the same or enlarged positions, with no secondaries capital required.
To be or not to be (a continuation vehicle)
These assets were viewed as winners in an asset class defined by long-term horizons. Real estate secondaries has a way to go to catch up to private equity in terms of investor education and comfort, though once that happens, the addressable market could explode, according to a senior Boston-based intermediary.
These specific types of transactions resonate with GPs and LPs across the size spectrum, he added.
Such deals raise the question of whether a fund restructuring process that doesn't involve secondaries capital is a secondaries process. Taken in totality, the €21 billion represented by the Mileway recap would account for more than a third of 2020's total secondaries deal volume, based on estimates by Greenhill.
Real estate and infra/real asset secondaries accounted for a combined 11 percent of the secondaries volume in 2021, according to Greenhill's year-end report, just $14.75 billion.
Real estate secondaries buyers and advisers whom SI has spoken with concur that there is an evolving understanding when it comes to what should or should not count as a secondaries transaction, and as a result the addressable universe for such transactions is potentially much larger than the numbers suggest.
– Rod James contributed to this report.


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Home > Brands > Nordic Naturals > Nordic Naturals - Children's DHA Strawberry - 16 oz.
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text:
Truth in the Crosshairs
by John Pilger
The critical moment in the political trial of the century was on 28 February when Bradley Manning stood and explained why he had risked his life to leak tens of thousands of official files. It was a statement of morality, conscience and truth: the very qualities that distinguish human beings. This was not deemed mainstream news in America; and were it not for Alexa O'Brien, an independent freelance journalist, Manning's voice would have been silenced. Working through the night, she transcribed and released his every word. It is a rare, revealing document*.
Describing the attack by an Apache helicopter crew who filmed civilians as they murdered and wounded them in Baghdad in 2007, Manning said: "The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They seemed not to value human life by referring to them as 'dead bastards' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety [who] is seriously wounded … For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass." He hoped "the public would be as alarmed as me" about a crime which, as his subsequent leaks revealed, was not an aberration.
Bradley Manning is a principled whistleblower and truth-teller who has been vilified and tortured – and Amnesty International needs to explain to the world why it has not adopted him as a prisoner of conscience; or is Amnesty, unlike Manning, intimidated by criminal power?
"It is a funeral here at Fort Meade," Alexa O'Brien told me. "The US government wants to bury Manning alive. He is a genuinely earnest young man with not an ounce of mendacity. The mainstream media finally came on the day of the verdict. They showed up for a gladiator match – to watch the gauntlet go down, thumbs pointed down."
The criminal nature of the American military is beyond dispute. The decades of lawless bombing, the use of poisonous weapons on civilian populations, the renditions and the torture at Abu Graib, Guantanamo and elsewhere, are all documented. As a young war reporter in Indochina, it dawned on me that America exported its homicidal neuroses and called it war, even a noble cause. Like the Apache attack, the infamous 1968 massacre at My Lai was not untypical. In the same province, Quang Ngai, I gathered evidence of widespread slaughter: thousands of men, women and children, murdered arbitrarily and anonymously in "free fire zones".
In Iraq, I filmed a shepherd whose brother and his entire family had been cut down by an American plane, in the open. This was sport. In Afghanistan, I filmed to a woman whose dirt-walled home, and family, had been obliterated by a 500lb bomb. There was no "enemy". My film cans burst with such evidence.
In 2010, Private Manning did his duty to the rest of humanity and supplied proof from within the murder machine. This is his triumph; and his show trial merely expresses corrupt power's abiding fear of people learning the truth. It also illuminates the parasitic industry around truth-tellers. Manning's character has been dissected and abused by those who never knew him and claim to support him.
The hyped film, We Steal Secrets: the Story of WikiLeaks, mutates a heroic young soldier into an "alienated …lonely …very needy" psychiatric case with an "identity crisis" because "he was in the wrong body and wanted to become a woman". So spoke Alex Gibney, the director, whose prurient psycho-babble found willing ears across a media too compliant or lazy or stupid to challenge the hype and comprehend that the shadows falling across whistleblowers may reach even them. From its dishonest title, Gibney's film performed a dutiful hatchet job on Manning, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The message was familiar — serious dissenters are freaks. Alexa O'Brien's meticulous record of Manning's moral and political courage demolishes this smear.
In the Gibney film, US politicians and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are lined up to repeat, unchallenged, that, in publishing Manning's leaks, WikiLeaks and Assange placed the lives informants at risk and had "blood on his hands". On 1 August, the Guardian reported: "No record of deaths caused by WikiLeaks revelations, court told." The Pentagon general who led a 10-month investigation into the worldwide impact of the leaks reported that not a single death could be attributed to the disclosures.
Yet, in the film, the journalist Nick Davies describes a heartless Assange who had no "harm minimisation plan". I asked the film-maker Mark Davis about this. A respected broadcaster for SBS Australia, Davis was an eyewitness, accompanying Assange during much of the preparation of the leaked files for publication in the Guardian and the New York Times. His footage appears in the Gibney film. He told me, "Assange was the only one who worked day and night extracting 10,000 names of people who could be targeted by the revelations in the logs."
While Manning faces life in prison, Gibney is said to be planning a Hollywood movie. A "biopic" of Assange is on the way, along with a Hollywood version of David Leigh's and Luke Harding's book of scuttlebutt on the "fall" of WikiLeaks. Profiting from the boldness, cleverness and suffering of those who refuse to be co-opted and tamed, they all will end up in history's waste bin. For the inspiration of future truth-tellers belongs to Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the remarkable young people of WikiLeaks, whose achievements are unparalleled. Snowden's rescue is largely a WikiLeaks triumph: a thriller too good for Hollywood because its heroes are real.
*Read Bradley Manning's statement here.
John Pilger's film on Australia, Utopia, will be released in the UK in the autumn.
John Pilger can be reached through his website: www.johnpilger.com
Sut Jhally – Roger Waters
The Smearing of Emma Watson
Lawrence Wittner
The Decline of Unions and the Ongoing Struggle for Workers' Rigths
Howie Hawkins
Bipartisan Biden Builds Back Bupkis: Reflections on Biden's Inauguration Anniversary
Phil Doe
Welcome to Colorado: the Land of Oil Giants and Lilliputian Regulators
Nick Pemberton
Biden-Cheney or Trump-Greenwald?
Jim Goodman
"World's Greatest Deliberative Body"? Hardly
Sharon Austin
Black Americans Mostly Left Behind by Progress Since Dr. King's Death
Cesar Chelala
Beyond Fauci: When Physicians are Victims
George Ochenski
The Myth of Bi-Partisan Necessity
Race Relations and the Natures of Our Beasts
Is Europe's Inflation Joe Biden's Fault?
H. Bruce Franklin
Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?
Balihar Sanghera – Elmira Satybaldieva
Rentier Capitalism and Class Warfare in Kazakhstan
Marcus Rediker – Peter Linebaugh
The Hydra of Our Day
Kenneth Surin
BoJo "Big Dog" Johnson, Distemper in the Time of Pandemic
ADRIAN KUZMINSKI
The Peoples' Money: Transitioning to a Steady State Economy
America's New Class War
Why Pay Less? The US Strategy for Vaccinating the World
Ramzy Baroud
In South Africa as in Palestine: Why We Must Protect the Legacy of Desmond Tutu
George Wuerthner
The Damage Done to Canyon of the Ancients National Monument by Livestock Grazing
Shane Cronin
Why the Volcanic Eruption in Tonga was so Violent
L. Ali Khan
Tracking Humans as a Migratory Species
Aafia Siddiqui, Political Prisoner
Howard Lisnoff
Say It Ain't So, Joe, Again
John Stanton
Thoughts for the End of Days: a Morning Star, Insatiability, DishBrain, Xenobots
Secure Our Right to Vote
From Aerial Strikes to Starvation, Afghanistan's People Bear the Brunt of the West's Failed Taliban Tactics
Melvin Goodman
Bill Clinton's Role in the Crisis Over Ukraine
Alfred W. McCoy
Eurasia's Ring of Fire: the Epic Struggle Over the Epicenter of U.S. Global Power
Stephen Capra
The Civil War on Yellowstone's Wolves
Enduring Stain: The Guantánamo Military Prison Turns Twenty
Where Greed is a Virtue and Poverty Your Own Damn Fault
Vladimir Putin is Not the Neville Chamberlain the US/NATO is Looking For
Timothy Zick
Seditious Conspiracy Charge Against Oath Keepers Founder and Others in J6 Riot Faces First Amendment Hurdle
Sarah Anderson – Brian Wakamo
Student Debt Cancellation is a Racial Justice Issue
Untangling Ourselves From the Dark Side
Richard C. Gross
Ominous History in Real Time: Where We Are Now in the USA
Joe Emersberger
Corresimo in Ecuador: An Interview with David Chavez
Bob Topper
The People v. Mississippi: Defending Women's Right to Choose
Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl
Democrats in Name Only
Are Western Wealthy Countries Determined to Starve the People of Afghanistan?
Sam Pizzigati
College Football Coaches Making $25,000 a Day? Let's Sideline This Lunacy!


Brownie mix from a box makes it easy to whip the dessert together, but sometimes the flavor can leave something to be desired. You can make brownies tastier and give them more of a homemade flavor by following a few easy suggestions. Keep in mind that any additives you use may affect baking time.
Use butter -- or light butter, margarine or other butter substitute -- instead of the vegetable oil that the instructions call for. Substituting this ingredient will make the brownies richer and give them a buttery flavor. For every 7/8 cup of vegetable oil that the recipe calls for, use 1 cup of butter.
Add a stir-in to the brownie batter. Some items you can add are 1 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans, or chocolate chips. You can also soften 1 cup of peanut butter in the microwave and drizzle the top of batter with the peanut butter after pouring the mixture into the pan for baking. Alternatively, drop 8 oz. of softened cream cheese into the batter and stir it into the mix with a knife prior to baking.
Blend in 2 tbsp. of your favorite flavored extract or liqueur. Some extract flavors that will complement brownies are mint, cherry, almond, coconut and cinnamon. Or, add 1 tsp. of two different extracts whose flavors complement each other, like almond and cherry. Such liqueur flavors as coffee, banana, sloe gin and strawberry can also perk up the brownies' taste.
Don't over-bake the brownies. When they are removed from the oven they may appear under-baked, but the dessert will firm up as it cools. Leaving them in the oven for a little as five minutes longer can dry them out. You can also under-bake them slightly if you poke a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean before the allotted cooking time elapses. Sit them on a cooling rack on the counter instead of the stove top.
You can add numerous toppings to brownies when you serve them, and you don't have to limit yourself to just one. Choices include different ice cream flavors, caramel or chocolate syrup, whipped cream, fresh fruit, crushed candy bars, chocolate candies and fruit puree. Try covering the brownies with a layer of your favorite frosting, like cream cheese or butter cream, or such toppings as mousse, pudding or fudge.
A simple recipe for homemade brownies using one bowl and only seven ingredients--including two kinds of chocolate.
What Kind of Cooking Chocolate Is Used in Brownies?