Eulogy

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My family asked me to speak at my grandmother's funeral last week and some wanted a copy of what I said. I thought I would share, as a small memorial.

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of my grandmother, Elaine Mott, a woman of extraordinary quiet dignity and strength who taught me, and I suspect all of you, important lessons on how to live a life of meaning. I want to share three observations about her that will stay with me forever.

As I grew up and my grandmother got older, I was able to discern what a great sense of humor she had...a bit offbeat, only getting more so the older she got. It wasn't really like the other members of my family though. She wasn't a big joke teller. Her stories, in truth, tended to wander around a bit. She didn't fill the room with her witty observations on life or dominate conversation. Rather, her sense of humor to me was one of gesture and reaction. She was famous, at least to me, for her thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs up thumbs to the side reaction to just about anything. She was the subtle straight man, making everyone else funnier in the process. If you had the chance to view the extraordinary photo collage of her life, you will see what I mean in many of the pictures.

I would also say that my grandmother was not one for a lot of nonsense! I knew her to be magnanimous and accepting, loving and supportive of whatever we intended to do with our lives. She could be quite serious minded, whether playing a game of Yahtzee or doing battle with the one-armed bandits down at Foxwoods. She didn't assign much meaning to symbols, preferring real experience to the trappings of them. And she wasn't all that interested in a lot of talk, talk, talk.

The most memorable lesson I take away from my grandmother's life is the powerful contrast between a life of frantic doing and a life of thoughtful being. My grandmother was a be-er. She came to visit my mother and me in California a few years back, and throughout her visit, she reveled in quiet things. Her doo-wop music, games and quiet hours spent watching our cats and the birds they love while sitting in the sun. We sometimes spent whole days sitting quietly. I loved having her around. New England builds things and people who are sturdy. People who endure and last and don't grumble. So it was with my grandmother.

So, ad astra Grandma Mott. Ad astra. To the stars! Your reward awaits you. Our reward was having been your parent, your sister or brother, your daughter, your son-in-law, your grandchild, your great-grandchild, your friend. Love you, Grandma.

[slideshow]

Apple, Puma and Volkswagen

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I have long been a passionate advocate for excellence in design. I have written in favor of radical innovation in school designs in other settings, arguing that a well-designed space does more than merely please the eye and the senses (though it certainly does that). There are three companies that get all of the issues right when it comes to industrial design, and they can serve as an example to others...and to each other. Certainly they have attracted my sustained interest and cash, as well as passionate supporters from around the world.

Apple's track record in design is one of success to success ever since the iMac in the late 90s. I am writing this post on an iPad, one of the devices that history will look back to as a definitive gamechanger...perhaps on the order of the invention of the Internet itself. This device is perfect in exactly the same way that the iPod was - not flawless in it's execution, but so clearly reflecting what the future will need that the future grows from the device itself. It is already clear to me that students might use this device as a research tool, a collaboration tool and as a networking tool. Schools should be able to use iPads to streamline administration, manage safety, reduce paper use and encourage collaboration. In the 1-to-1 learning environments that are emerging in schools, an iPad would seem to be the perfect device. And this is to say nothing of how beautiful it is, now organic it is to use, how right it seems in the hand. I don't care that it weighs more than a Kindle or that it is not perfect now. It will improve.

Puma makes the most beautiful, minimalist shoes being made right now. I can not resist them. In an age where big and flashy or technological and inaccessible seem the order of the day, Puma continues to make minimalist classics (albeit sometimes with unusual colors!). Their products are just like Apple's devices, in that they are well designed for what they do, beautiful in their own way and still perfectible.

Both Puma and Apple share a philosophy of design with Volkswagen, which with some notable exceptions has always been cutting edge. I drive a 2007 GTI, which is to me one of industry's most perfect objects. Minimalist styling, clean lines, a highly functional interior which is beautiful to look at and engineered to the same degree of quality that we see in the iPad.

Check these companies out for yourself...do you think they are the pinnacle of their industries?

Coolness Factor 1000 - Parkour and Capoeira

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From the endlessly fascinating and totally not like me but wouldn't it be cool if it were department, I present this film from our friends at Youtube. I could watch parkour videos for hours, because these guys do things that are totally mindblowing. I often think about life pathways - you know - I made this decision when I was 18 and it caused the life I live now - that sort of thing. I wonder if there is even one of my lifepaths that would have brought me to the point where I could do any of those moves. I've got the same fascination with capoeira. Where parkour is urban and edgy - a mash up of the 21st century city, movement and grit, capoeira is rich with history. I know you're never too old, but come on! I'm not throwing myself off a building...

Bricole, Bricolage, Bricoleur

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I love words that are fun to say and have lots of playful meanings. When I decided to write this blog, I knew I needed a name that would work on a lot of levels, to reflect the goals of the blog. So, why Bricole? And what is a bricoleur? And what might bricolage be?

Bricoleur is the French word for a tinkerer, a jack-of-all trades. I have even heard it defined as "one who engages in bricolage" - most unhelpful. A friend of mine once called me this - in exasperation, no doubt (I'll come to why momentarily). I'm not really a jack-of-all-trades. I'm not the sort of person who can build a cannon in the morning, design a modernist bathroom in the afternoon and then perfectly pair vintage to meal in the evening, though I do have a friend who this describes perfectly. I do love tinkering with ideas, though.

Bricolage - another fun word. Making a new thing from other things, essentially. Assemblage, mixed media, that sort of thing. Getting closer. As an educator and researcher, I definitely subscribe to the idea that one of the best ways to learn and make sense of the world is through the mash up - playing around with ideas and perspectives to solve problems. It has always worked for me (probably why I instantly found James Burke's method amenable to my own).

Bricole - a word that means either a trifling insignificance or a medieval siege engine or a trick billiards shot or "an indirect action or unexpected stroke." It is from this last meaning, and the others discussed previously, that I take the name of this blog.

To whit - I find a lot of things interesting...when it comes to ideas, I am a total bricoleur. There's very little that isn't interesting...it's a problem...and one I hope to share with you. Different perspectives on different things. Outside the boxness. Having fun and playing around. Just in the past couple of days, for instance, I have turned my attention to David Klein's jet age TWA travel posters, British Liberal Democrats, Enceladus, the nature of innovation in schools and businesses and "365s," self-portrait and other year-long studies on flickr.

So - this will be a place to share this, that and what have you. I hope it's more unexpected than trifling...or siege-engine like.