of malls and mosques

Writing for the Spectator, Norman Stone has an interesting primer on the developing situation in Turkey, which challenges some of the stereotypes and assumptions that pooled a lot brave and bracing defiance into a batch of plainly detrimental expectations. Maybe the Western world really wants this place to live up to their idea of an acceptably Muslim and swarthier version of Germany, and of course in Germany and anywhere else home to a diaspora, there's discomfort and a certain sort of blanket surmising and feeling of being crowded out balanced out with an imperfect logic of thinking that the immigrants (anyone vaguely Turkish-ish) weren't able to hack it back at home, so Deutschland is not recipient of the choicest of masses.

Of course, those are not matters for polite conservation and obscure the fact that activists and hardliners have their hopes and ambition—their bourgeoisie, their dogmatists, both secular and religious. Turkey's bids for inclusion in the European Union, courting its own set of proponents and dissenters alike in a sort of macroscopic rallying point, may shape protest and response to perhaps keep up appearances and maybe an allotment for reform, but such tempers cause people to stick with old attitudes and prejudices. What do you think? Is such pressure a conduit for for positive change or just fitting comfortably into a pattern?

one hand clapping or monkey see, monkey do

The science desk of the BBC features an interesting study and meta-analysis of the mentality and momentum of audiences, concluding basically that applause is a social contagion. Watching footage of hundreds of endings to live speeches and other performances showed that the catalyst was the clapping of one or two individuals, sustaining the ovation, until an equal sampling of the audience stops.

Researchers found that the immediate acclaim had no relation to the quality or reception of the show but rather stemmed from the stimulus. There is of course a lot to be said for etiquette and politeness, but I wonder how such mimicking behaviour is reflected elsewhere, like the indiscriminate sharage and championing of all causes and comers in social networks. A few years ago, sociologists revealed that in many cases guilt, an undutiful kind, rather than genuine interest, underlies civility when it comes to accepting amicable invitations or joining up to play some virtual game, when beckoned, and joining such a platform over another in the first place, I imagine. I also wonder if echo-chamber, not peer-pressure, represents something new. Are such phenomena merely easier to observe—or with the spread of the known and the knowable, easily referenced, are we loosing our ability to discriminate and judge what's deserving of cheer? Live studio-audiences used to have a scripted cue and opera-companies in France used to employ professional applause artists to encourage, and booing (though possibly just as contagious) has been relegated to snarky and mean-spirited commentary, whereas the audience used to lob rotten vegetables for bad acting. I am not sure which critique was more civilised.

vernacular

Collectors' Weekly has an excellent and engrossing article profiling the curators and collection of the smallest museum in the world, located serendipitously down an alleyway in Manhattan.

This cabinet of curiosities is installed in the space left empty (formerly occupied by a freight elevator) beneath the collectors' production studio, and aims to document the dander of society captured in changing exhibits, showing the wonders of everyday things. I suppose it's like a time capsule, keenly aware of its own irony, except it's always on display, inviting people not only to stop and look but also engage in dialogue and share their own experience with collecting and personal criteria. Although the intent differs, I see the same tiny museum reflected in these delightful lending-libraries, popping up everywhere, like these stacks housed in a surplus telephone booth at a remote campsite in Switzerland. Of course, the depository is there for sharing and leisurely reading while on vacation, but there's an aesthetic to it too—something reaching beyond the titles and choice, how they got there and what sort of forces keep books in circulation or dammed up in an unexpected spot—which is far better than anything on demand and flustered for attention.

unmoved mover

In response to Ankara's violent usurping the protesters' of their venue in Istanbul have taken a passive stance. The so-called “Standing Man” has inspired hundreds of others to keep a silent vigil, not willing to be kettled and moving for hours and refusing to budge, despite authorities waxing wise to the statement. Like the riots in Tunisia over the desperation of and empathy for a fruit-seller's dwindling prospects that went on to ignite the revolutions of the Arab Spring, the situation in Turkey is evolving, growing from a protest on environmental grounds to an expression of grave dissatisfaction with the drift of the current regime.