Welcome to The Spaces in Between, a weekly newsletter on culture, language, and technology written by Stephan Caspar. If you’re new here, then welcome, feel free to subscribe.
One thing that we’ve had to adjust to moving to the US is the lack of public holidays and annual leave. I shouldn’t complain too much because I’m very well treated, can manage my time pretty well and this week there are two days to take a break. I’m writing this today (Wednesday evening) and scheduling it for the usual time on Friday and if you don’t get to it until much later then don’t worry.
We’ve been advised against traveling, particularly out of state and we’re missing these small breaks and holidays to venture out and explore. We’re yearning to travel and remembering our trip to Detroit last year. I managed to complete a few sketches while we were there. It’s not the usual holiday destination, and we saw the remnants of industry, tired abandoned plots among attempts to rebuild and regenerate. We enjoyed the markets and made a special trip to Jack White’s Third Man Records chock full of The White Stripes merch and memorabilia, and a chance to peek into the vinyl press at the back of the store.
In this issue, we travel from Detroit to Cleveland, think about writing, and prepare for a couple of days away from the computer.
Also, hello to the nine new subscribers this week who decided to take the plunge. Pull up a pew, make yourself at home, flick through the archive, or feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend.
Teaching & Learning
My students were pleased to be heading home, most of them traveled at the weekend and we ran a zoom session on Monday instead of Wednesday when there were no classes. They have some good ideas for projects as part of our Everyday Learning course, from Looking After Your Houseplants, Talking about Mental Health for Asian Americans, How To Be an Ethical Sports Fan, Drawing and Shading with Pencil, and First Aid Using Common Household Items. I’ll see if anyone is willing to share their outcomes in this newsletter.
We’re coming towards the end of the course and I tend not to add any more homework or include many formalized learning checks at this stage, I just want them to finish up their projects. As my role shifts to one of consulting and advising, I find there’s often a slight tension involved in sharing work in progress, students are anxious that they might have to change and adapt particular aspects of their project. I try to reassure them and show how thoughtful questions and minor tweaks will often lead to a more favorable end result.
Iteration is at the heart of any creative process. I’ve been trying to impress the importance of this throughout the course and I’ve taken it to heart in my own writing. Each writing project usually starts with short twenty-minute writing sessions early in the morning, usually over a week. It means by Friday that I have at least something that I can start to edit and shape the following week. I try not to edit as I write, just keep going until the sprint is over. If I’m really up against it I might fit in another session, but try to stop if I can. Mornings are when ideas are floating in my mind, and I agree that writing is thinking, that I’m capturing a conversation with myself that I can go back and make sense of.
I’m usually working on a few projects at a time, an article or post, or a longer article for a peer-reviewed journal. (This newsletter is separate, I usually add a few bits over lunch on my phone or in the evening when everyone has settled). I’m not particularly prolific and this year, perhaps with the pandemic and the need to publish (or perish), I’ve had two or three projects on the go at any one time. It’s just as we’re nearing the end of the year that I’m starting to see the fruits of those early coffee-fuelled mornings sitting at my laptop as the first shards of sunlight creep into the room.
Life Lessons
I watched a documentary on Kanopy (which I subscribe to through my local library) called Dispatches From Cleveland - Communities Fighting for Social Change. It was filmed following the shooting of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in a playground outside his home. He was playing with a toy gun when the Police drove up and shot him.
In this documentary, we see the fallout, the indifference, and lack of compassion displayed by city officials including the county prosecutor. Needless to say, there are no arrests for the cops who shot this little boy, there is no admission of negligence or criminality. It is a story that we hear too often, Black lives lost with nobody held accountable.
The community takes action, as they have in the recent elections, and work to register voters, asking them to remove the incumbent prosecutor. One activist notes that in East Cleveland of around 18,000 eligible voters, and 12,000 actual registered voters, that only 3,000 voted in the 2016 election. The problem however isn’t apathy, but the strategy of voter suppression, strict voter ID laws, and a massive reduction in the number of polling centers in predominantly African American districts. This is how people stay in power in America and how democracy is being undermined.
We have visited Cleveland, which is similar to Pittsburgh in many ways, a rustbelt town, fallen on hard times where thousands of people departed when the industry collapsed and the city split between east and west, Black and white. It is a place with a thriving university center, cafes, shops, and the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But there are also levels of poverty that are shocking in the richest country in the world, with many earning less than a living wage, high levels of homelessness, and people with no access to clean water.
This documentary shows us how the community, its powerful voices, especially from its Black LGBTQ+ activists, speak to change as they continue to fight for a better future.
Lost and Found
To help with writing, I’ve been using an AI called Ludwig which I can only describe as a focussed search engine for sentences. Focussed because you can choose your sources to be academic, journalistic, business, or even informal and slang. There are translation features and you can search for idioms or dictionary definitions, here’s a guide.
I’m also loving Apple’s new Translator app, this is a powerful, useful translator that uses Siri’s language capabilities to translate phrases quickly and clearly. I think the accuracy is pretty high, it would at least be useful for L1/2 language learners or even those learning more technical language. It is available in the latest download OS14.
I have linked to MOOCs and online courses in the past, as students often supplement their learning this way. Class central has Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on courses from Coursera, FutureLearn, and Domestika, who have a whopping 78% off, so $9.99 rather than the usual $45.
See you later…
Thank you again for all your support and kind suggestions. I am thoroughly enjoying writing this newsletter and grateful for your patience as it beds down and settles in.
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