One Idea in Detail: Make Mobiles

I didn't realize until I started to research mobiles that one individual is generally acknowledged as the inventor of the art form: Alexander Calder. I was certainly aware that Calder's fame rested largely on mobiles and I've seen a number of them, but I'd assumed that the mobile's origin as an art form was hidden in the misty recesses of time.

Turns out that's not really true, although one can make the argument that the common American weathervane, responding to air currents by pointing into the wind, has the necessary elements to comprise a mobile. Including, in some cases, a certain artistic sensibility. (By the way, Belarus also lays claim to pre-Calder mobiles.) But Calder not only transported the concept embodied by the folk-art weather vane into the abstract art movement and, thus, the museum, but even gave it its name: mobile. He also invented "stabile" to describe those boring inanimate sculptures which, by the way, was the medium of choice for both his father and grandfather. He had quite an artistic pedigree and one of his earliest experiences with sculpture was modeling in the nude for his father at age 4. I have a feeling that might be frowned on today.

Regardless of origin, the fact is that mobiles can be fascinating pieces of art. Unlike most other forms, they're three-dimensional rather than two, and unlike all other forms, they're built to move in response to air currents. This makes a mobile with even a few independent parts an object of infinite views, and to me can elicit the same fascination and infinite musings as watching a real log fire on a cold winter night. No matter how long you look, you never want to look away for fear that you will miss whatever unique composition will appear next.

Many of us fall into the trap of thinking that all mobiles are either installed in museums, chiming in vaguely Oriental scales on back porches, or hanging over baby's cribs. This would seem to leave a tremendous gap that is begging to be filled. I suggest that you use a HarvilleQuarter to make a beginning.

Mobiles have many aspects to recommend them, including the possibility of making one entirely out of found objects, i.e., you can build a mobile without spending a cent. Even if you're a bit more fastidious about your raw materials, you can create a mobile for a few bucks. In addition, mobiles can be sized to fit a corner of your desktop or a corner of your backyard. You can create quite a spectacle --- neighbors will watch your progress with interest, and possibly awe.

It also appears that an interesting, even artistic, mobile can be designed and constructed by those without the ability to draw a decent stickman. A mobile can comprise a few abstract shapes hung on a few wires from horizontal struts to stay roughly balanced, with perhaps an interesting texture, color, gloss or timbre to catch the light or create a few pleasant musical riffs. Your library or bookseller can certainly locate a few books (some more oriented for children, but who cares --- you're in your second childhood) that will explain the basics, suggest some materials, and include some designs that you can copy. Of course, the Web is another resource, where you can even procure kits for making mobiles.

No one else has to know that you didn't design your particular mobile in a burst of artistic creativity as you teetered on the border between genius and madness.

If you do decide to create your own mobiles to hang over a baby's crib - say your grandchild's or a favorite neighbor's - please do exercise caution to ensure there is no chance of parts falling into the crib where baby will choke on them or gash himself. Common sense paired with an abundance of caution is definitely called for. Also bear in mind that the baby will be gazing at the mobile on his or her back, from underneath, so make sure that there are interesting things to see from that vantage point.

The Calder mobile at the top of this post is titled National Gallery III [maquette], 1972 and hangs in the Washington National Gallery. The image was taken from calder.org, the Web site of the Calder Foundation. The birds mobile is included, with detailed instructions for its construction, in the book Magnificent Mobiles by Melanie Williams, (c) 1994, Quintet Publishing Limited.

One Idea in Detail: Learn to Play the Harmonica

I don't use the word "evocative" often, maybe once a year at most, but it comes to mind when I think about a harmonica. It just plain evokes some sort of nostalgia for a time and place where I've never been in real life - around a campfire on the Great Plains after the horses have been bedded down for the night, in a Southern blues bar on a dusty side road, in a hobo encampment alongside the railroad tracks with the sounds of train whistles in the background.

My one real-life association with the harmonica was attending a concert by Jerry Murad and the Harmonicats when I was a delegate to the National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago as a high schooler. The Harmonicats' hit song, Peg o' My Heart, had recently scored big on the charts so we farm kids were pretty impressed to have them as our entertainment after one of our banquets.

Having never learned to play the plastic harmonica I owned as a child, I recently started wondering whether it was something I could pick up as an adult. A trip to the local library uncovered a couple of slim instruction books with lots of photographs and songs and only a few pages here and there of actual instruction. Which gave me hope --- if playing the harmonica, including several styles and variations, can be described in such few words, it ought to be something I can learn in a HarvilleQuarter.

How well I could learn the instrument in three months remains to be seen, but I'm really tempted to start now, well before my official retirement. Perusing these books raised my awareness of the many possibilities the "lowly" harmonica offers. A quick search of the Internet revealed that perfectly respectable, quality harmonicas can be purchased for under $50, in fact under $25. And an absolute beginner's model (not necessarily recommended, but an option for the truly cash-strapped) can be found for $10 or less.

Not only that, but instruction is available - including free instruction - on the Web, with harmonica enthusiasts, eager to share their knowledge, demonstrating how to get started in home videos that are short on production values, but long on sincerity. Of course, "how to play the harmonica" manuals, DVDs and subscription Web sites can be easily located as well.

I recommend taking a look at these sites yourself and picking one that seems to call to your inner "harmonicat", or harp player, as some term it. Buy a harmonica if you don't already own one (a diatonic harmonica in the key of C seems to be the universal recommendation) and get going.

I have no idea how proficient one can become in three months, but considering the starting point, the progress should be exponential. And how cool would it be to play the harmonica for your grandkids, sitting out on the front porch on a sultry summer night, the sound of your blues wafting out amongst the fireflies and honeysuckle, accompanied by the distant, mournful wail of a freight and the much closer baying of hounds. It positively sends chills up one's spine. Before long, you could be one of the guys on YouTube demonstrating your technique for the next crop of beginners.

I'll finish this post by quoting none other than John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath, Viking Press):

A harmonica is easy to carry. Take it out of your hip pocket, knock it against your palm to shake out the dirt and pocket fuzz and bits of tobacco. Now it's ready. You can do anything with a harmonica: thin reedy single tones, or chords, or melody with rhythm chords. You can mold the music with curved hands, making it wail and cry like bagpipes, making it full and round like an organ, making it as sharp and bitter as the reed pipes of the hills. And you can play and put it back in your pocket. And as you play, you learn new tricks, new ways to mold the tone with your hands, to pinch the tone with your lips, and no one teaches you. You feel around --- sometimes alone in the shade at noon, sometimes in the tent door after supper when the women are washing up. Your foot taps gently on the ground. Your eyebrows rise and fall in rhythm. And if you lose or break it, why it's no great loss. You can buy another for a quarter.

The photograph was located at flickr.com/photos/thanland/322740247/.

One Idea in Detail: Create a Local TED Event

If you're not familiar with the TED Conference, go immediately to its Web site, www.ted.com, and watch a few videos to get the flavor of it. Of course, I'm risking that you will become hooked and never come back to my blog, but it's a chance I'll have to take.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, although since its founding in 1984, the subject matter has spread well beyond those categories. TED's tag line is "Ideas Worth Spreading" and that pretty much sums up the requirements to be considered as a TED presenter - having an inspired idea and an energetic delivery style. The ideas involved can cover just about anything and probably have in the 25 years since its inception.

The TED Conference takes place once a year over a four-day period in which dozens of thought leaders - some famous, many not - give 18-minute or less presentations on an intriguing idea. Some use technologically-advanced graphics, some basic PowerPoint slides, and some simply stand on stage and talk (or more likely, pace back and forth and talk). When they finish, the next one steps on stage without audience Q&A.

I've never attended a TED Conference but I can imagine that one's brain is both exhilarated and exhausted by the end of a day. If you followed my suggestion in the first paragraph and checked out its Website, you very likely watched a few of the videos while you were there, so you know what I mean.

How does this relate to a HarvilleQuarter? Clearly, we can't all troop off to California for the annual conference, but why not create a local version? I think there's an audience almost anywhere for TED-type presentations and you can probably find a few people who would make outstanding presenters.

I wouldn't suggest trying to set up a four-day conference. But how about series of once-a-week TED evenings for, say, four weeks in a row. Each evening might feature three speakers, and, unlike TED, I would allow for ten minutes of Q&A after each one, so the evening in total would last about an hour and a half, with some refreshments and informal audience member interactions with presenters and each other afterwards.

Where could you find presenters? A local college or university would be a good starting point - it may already have a Speakers Bureau established with a list of faculty members and topics. Organizations that have regular programs, such as Rotary Clubs, could provide names of their best speakers. Not-for-profit organizations and newspaper feature editors and columnists could be another source, as well as music schools or live music venues. And just plain word of mouth.

You're going to want a venue that is the right size, already has or can accommodate decent technology to display presentation materials, is cheap and has sufficient parking. Churches are an option, as well as high school or college auditoriums, senior citizen centers (some retirement communities have small auditoriums), meeting halls, hotel ballrooms, convention centers, or even bars. (I'm intrigued by the thought that a bar could attract an off-night patronage by offering TED speakers.)

I'd find a few friends to help with all the arrangements, including locating and signing up presenters, securing the venue, publicizing the series and creating buzz, rehearsing the speakers, setting up the room and AV equipment, organizing refreshments and performing the myriad other tasks that go into an event like this.

You may be able to find a business to sponsor each evening, allowing for free admittance for audience members. If not, it should be possible to make the cost very nominal. TED does not pay its speakers and you shouldn't either.

Rehearsing speakers will be a key to success. It's important that they understand the time limitation (18 minutes), are well-organized, easily audible (especially if your venue is a senior center) and that the AV works flawlessly. You may or may not feel comfortable giving more substantive feedback during rehearsals, and speakers may or may not be appreciative of constructive criticism. Ideally, you have vetted speakers sufficiently before issuing an invitation to be confident of their audience appeal.

And, if an occasional presenter is less than riveting, the beauty of a TED evening is that the audience is stuck for only 18 minutes at most and can then turn their attention to the next speaker. Who, one hopes, will be both dazzlingly brilliant and falling-down-and-rolling-in-the-aisles hilarious.

Besides the three 18-minutes speakers plus Q&A, I'd consider short entertaining interludes between the speakers - five minutes or so - sort of a palate-cleanser, you might say. A deftly executed Chopin etude or Bach prelude and fugue, an aria, a theatrical monologue, a juggling act - all would be candidates. If there's a music school in your community, a faculty member or advanced student could fill the bill nicely.

That's about as far as I've got in my thinking on a local TED event, but I'm hoping to receive lots of comments and suggestions from all of you. See that "comments" link right under this posting?

One Idea in Detail: Form a Play-reading Group

This idea definitely incorporates playfulness (sorry, bad pun) as well as a chance to involve other people; in fact, it really can’t be done without collaborating with at least a few others. This idea is to spend a HarvilleQuarter reading plays with a small group of other folks who have the enthusiasm, time and lack of self-consciousness to take this project on and enjoy it

My vision is that the group would first select a set of plays they would like to read out loud. Leadership for each play would be assigned at an advance planning meeting, with the leader being responsible for locating copies, assigning parts and doing some research on the play and playwright to help guide the playreading process. Participants would be expected to read the play in advance, concentrating on the assigned role(s), and be ready to throw themselves into their parts when the group reconvenes. The enjoyment of the group will be greatly reduced if even one person is stumbling over lines or has to be reminded of which characters he is playing. Ideally, plays would be selected that offer at least one meaty role for each member of the playreading group.

I would suggest reading two plays per week, which should give ample time for preparation for all concerned. Members can take turns hosting. Assuming that most plays will take at least two hours to read (although one-act plays can certainly be considered as well), this leaves time for some introductory exposition by the play’s leader to set the context and an intermission or two. After the reading, the leader can encourage discussion of the plot, characters, historical context, writing and members’ personal reactions to the play, perhaps over beer, wine or mixed drinks (the selection of beverage may be influenced by the particular play).

I’ve been thinking about the plays I would contribute to a list for my group, and I realize (sadly) how few plays I know well enough to make a recommendation. I hope that other members of my group would be more knowledgeable. At a minimum, the group should talk about a mix of plays that all would enjoy.

Is everyone enthusiastic about the classics, with heavy weighting on the works of Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov and Calderon - not to mention Aristophanes and Euripides? Or would they prefer to concentrate on 20th Century American playwrights, such as Williams, O’Neill, Miller, Wilson and Mamet?

Is there a preference for comedies vs. dramas, regardless of time period or country of origin? One-act plays? Radio or early television plays? Plays that were controversial or even banned when originally produced? The possibilities really are endless and suddenly twelve weeks seems like a pitifully short time to cover even a smattering of the truly great options.

Depending on the nature of the group and how well they know each other, they may decide to forgo some highly-regarded plays. Do they really want to take on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, just to name one? Is anyone bothered by continual swearing and “adult situations?” Will someone prefer to avoid plays so depressing the group will be making a suicide pact by the end? It’s best to find these things out in advance – and let everyone know that they won’t be viewed as over-the-hill fuddy-duddies if they’re not comfortable when every other line contains coarse language.

On the other hand, this should be an opportunity for all the readers to stretch themselves a bit and read plays that are unfamiliar and challenging. Remember, besides playfulness, one of the criteria for a HarvilleQuarter is a little riskiness. You Can’t Take it With You, The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Odd Couple can be great fun, and I wouldn’t avoid them, but also consider plays that no one in the group has read or seen.

Of course, there is one practical concern - can the leader find sufficient copies of the play (in the same edition, if that's important) for each reader to have one without spending a lot of money?

Whether or not you allow for an audience is up to the group.

So What Exactly is a HarvilleQuarter?

The short definition is: "A retirement activity that lasts about three months and produces learning, growth and satisfaction." I came to the idea as I was thinking about my own retirement which, I hope, will begin in about eight or ten years. I've always found it difficult to envision really attractive ways to spend my retirement, at least within any kind of reasonable budget.

This is not a minor issue for me. My Dad died just last spring at age 100, in amazingly good physical condition until the last nine months; if I follow in his footsteps, I will have several decades of retirement in which to do something (what?) or possible nothing. 30 years of "nothing" is not that attractive, so that leads to the question of what kind of "something" do I want this retirement thing to be.

Having read a few articles and blogs about retirement plans, most seem to assume a continual, indefinite timeline of one or more favorite hobbies or activities - traveling, volunteering, quilting, reading, wordworking, gardening or a host of others. It seems that you pick a few of these and keep doing them until you can't anymore. Frankly, I can't think of anything I want to do for 30 years. It really didn't seem to be much to look forward to - but neither did working for another 15 or 20 years.

Thinking back on career experiences that brought me the most satisfaction, I realized they were projects with clear goals and defined beginnings and ends. The best projects required me to work with new clients in new industries with new colleagues doing work with new elements that demanded creativity on my part.

I wondered - could I build a retirement around a set of "projects" with all or most of those elements? That's when the idea of creating distinct projects of roughly three months' duration struck me. Every three months, I'd get to make a new beginning on something that I found interesting (or, if it turned out to be disappointing, I would only be into it for three months). Retirement, rather than one long "petering out" doing a few things, would be populated by a host of planned, enjoyable and memorable events.

At age 65, assuming relatively good health until at least 85, I'll have the opportunity to engage in 80 different HarvilleQuarters. That sounds much more enjoyable and satisfying to me than 20 years of ongoing gardening, traveling and volunteering. (Of course, gardening, traveling and volunteering could all be candidates for one or more HarvilleQuarters.

My purpose in building this blog is to start my journey in clarifying, elaborating and recording my ideas for HarvilleQuarters. I hope that some of you will help me by adding your thoughts and suggestions to mine, as well as proposing entirely new ones that we can build on together. If there are in fact many people out there who feel as we do about retirement, this site could become a terrific resource for all of us to discover better HarvilleQuarters than the ones we'd thought of by ourselves.

Plus, 80 HarvilleQuarters are an awful lot to come up with on my own. I need help! I'll start by posting about a few that I've thought of and wait for you to add yours.