GUY ON SPACE & INDIVIDUALITY - 1

DEFINING, FINDING, AND “SEPARATING”

Discriminating something as individual or unique in some way is a process completely distinct from any concept of space. Space, spatial relationships, and spatial metaphors help us understand the individual, but do not define it.

It's easy to think of examples of people, places, or things that are undistinguished by space and yet contain individuals within them. Janus. Yin and yang. Yourself reacting with an equal mixture of fascination and horror at some dramatic event. This last example is illustrative: fascination has a pleasurable aspect to it, horror a painful one. Each feeling is individual and what we would normally call "separate" … and yet you can experience them at once, in response to one thing, at one moment. There is individuality, but no physical, temporal, or spiritual space to be found.

In more detached terms, individuality applies only to our ability to recognize something by its features. That ability is independent of any spatial relationships that may or may not exist at that moment of recognition. Fascination—how it looks, what is causing it, and how it feels—is perfectly separate in all these features from horror. A sensation of its own, unique to each being that experiences it. Thus definable and individual, without enclosing, filling, or being separated from anything else by space.

So once we imagine any space existing with reference to individuality (when we say, as I casually did above, that something is "separate" from anything else), we are artificially creating a construct in our minds. Space thus helps us examine and understand individuality, even if it is not intrinsic to the individuality of all those, animal, vegetable, and mineral, that we encounter every day.

So the relationship of space to individuality rests only in how we apply it. We can enclose with space; we can fill with space; we can create distance with space.

Fascination. If we enclose fascination with space, we see that it ends with familiarity: what always fascinates is what is always new in some way. If we fill fascination with space, we see that it suppresses understanding: we are too entertained, while fascinated, to question. If we create distance around fascination, we appreciate the particular kind of gratification it provides.

Bread. If we enclose bread with space, we understand, among many things, that it is destroyed by desire: cravings must be fed. If we fill it with space, we know that bread ends deprivation, because whether spiritual or material, bread provides sustenance. If we distance bread, we begin to comprehend the warmth, contentment, and satisfaction it brings.

A nice exercise. How would you apply space to your own individuality? Your friend's? Your lover's?

RO ON SPACE & INDIVIDUALITY

‘I’ IS A SINGLE-LETTER WORD

My approach to individual space springs from an ingrained desire to acknowledge and respect my own existence. This strong belief has fed the choices I have made even as a child, unbeknownst to my family, and even to my conscious self.

Today, it’s reflected in my single, carefree lifestyle; in the emotional and physical space I surround myself with; in my one-on-one interactions, be they professional or personal; in the fact that I don't have a large family or any offspring; in the specific choice of my husband.

Yet, when I look at dear friends who have chosen to create miniature versions of themselves, I believe their individuality is not at all diluted; if anything, it is intensified, and multiplied manyfold.

So what are your thoughts? Is individuality selfish – or self-respectful? Are you the pure essence of yourself? How individual would you want your space to be? Or would the freedom that comes with too much space be a chain of loneliness around your ankle?

RO ON REDEFINED SPACE

CRAVING CONSTANCY. WOOING CHANGE.

Once, my life was a pancake that was constantly being severed from its griddle, turned over – and over again. Once, my life was three fluffy egg-whites on Teflon, refusing to stick. Imagine the chemistry of my brain, the constant high I was on, because my space was in a continuous state of redefinition.

Perhaps living two lives – in diametrically opposite circumstances – gave me a certain internal richness? Perhaps I was bitten by the-grass-is-really-greener-on-the-other side syndrome? One was single and carefree although in a full-time job; the other, married and delightfully captive. One was in the Northern Hemisphere; the other in the South. One was in swelteringly tropical weather; the other in foggy howling cold. One was in my own home within the boundaries of my individual space; the other in a shared apartment with a girlfriend. One was in a city I craved changes in every time I returned. And the other was in a city I wanted sameness from, to be exactly where, and how, I left it.

In the two years I was doing this, I began to notice some key differences in the way this redefined space affected those around me. My flatmate in Singapore really welcomed my visit every three weeks, because my presence redefined her space as well. She’d originally rented a two-bedroom flat anticipating living there with her fiancé, and then they’d broken up. So now it made for the perfect balance – not too lonely, not too crowded.

In San Francisco, I’d dropped off people’s "calendars", as many didn’t really want to “invest” any more time in a friendship with me, given I wasn’t "available” or “dependable” any more. I was often perceived as flaky, and friends were awfully judgmental about the fact that I left my husband alone for three whole weeks. In Singapore, however, where expat culture is the very artery of life, my entries and exits were simply legitimized excuses to throw even more dinners in the name of “welcome” and “bye-bye” at the black-and-whites they lived in, and have more intense one-on-ones over brunches at Marmalade Pantry. The sorrow, by the way, would be really, really sweet, given we all knew I’d be right back.

Eventually, my sandals developed wings, and lost the capacity to find ground or form roots. The only constant ground I knew was in the air. Every time I returned, it would take my husband and me about a week to reconnect, and just when we were warming up, I would leave again. (I daresay it kept our relationship sharpened.)

So I had to redefine my space once more and learn to stay put.

About a year later, we moved to New York, a city where space is constantly redefining itself. Perhaps it has also taught me to redefine my space to be where I want to be.

When I crave Asia, I close my eyes and travel to Bali through my Squeezebox. Gamelan fills my ears as I sleep peacefully, deeply.

GUY ON REDEFINED SPACE

CHANGING LIFESPACE

My aunt drove me. It wasn't far—there's little that's far in a modestly sized Midwestern city. But it was off to a less frequented corner of town, as I was able to recognize now that I'm old enough to understand a map. My parents can't have been all that hip to have lived there.

"My goodness, it sure looks different! Wasn't it green? I don't like the new paint job," I said as we pulled up in front of the tiny frame house that had seemed so big back when I was so small.

"Well sure, I don't remember," said my aunt, parking nearby but not right out front so as not to alarm the current inhabitants if they were home.

We walked up, but we didn't walk right up. Approaching an old, once so familiar space after an absence of many years, one takes one's time. I took an odd path full of curves and hesitations, to get (eventually) to the front door and the screened-in porch where I'd once sat to watch thunderstorms.

It was all different. It's funny how spaces that were intensely familiar in bygone years are redefined when you experience them again. Some parts of this old home came back to me again alike, if not the same: the lawn, which I'd half forgotten but spent so much time on, was only altered in perception, by seeming so much smaller than it once did. Other parts were quite literally redefined, however. An extension had wiped out the back patio, making it Inside Space now, not Outside Space.

The new inhabitants let us in, and I got to see once again the living room—really just a living alcove!—the dining area, and particularly the upstairs attic, where I'd lived and which had been a storage space before my father and my aunt's then-boyfriend took to it and redefined it as the boys' bedroom. This was yet another change in space: in broad strokes, the attic was unaltered from my memory, yet it was now completely unrecognizable to me. There were too many shifts in dressing, perception, and milieu for me to be able to draw the temporal line from then to now.

We thanked the fellow who'd showed us around and drove off to find lunch, a great space in my memoryscape now redefined forever.

LORRAINE ON REDEFINED SPACE

OM IS WHERE THE ART IS

People typically think of space as external – as in outer space or deep space, or the lesser distance between two objects, or between themselves and an object or other person or persons.

Yogis, however, talk about space in the body, especially creating it. In warrior pose, as an example, you are meant to root your legs into the ground like a tree while your arms reach for the sky thus creating ‘space’ in your spine and torso. Personally, I take my yoga one Om at a time, rarely gaining new, physical dimensions. Until recently…

After six years of living in chronic pain as a result of a car accident, I found a miracle worker, aka myofascial release therapist, and had the space within my body redefined. Literally.

While I recognized the physical injuries my body had been subjected to over the years, I didn’t realize that all the knocks life had doled me psychically and emotionally had been stored physically and added up to quite an internal mess.

Now with the redefined space in my body, I can do things I didn’t realize that I couldn’t even do – if you can understand that. Which brings with it a whole new experience of external space so that is also redefined. Consider this - if you can’t walk pain-free, you’re not likely to be going on any major hikes… and now I can!

And once you start being more engaged physically with the world, guess what happens? Your emotional and psychic space is redefined too.

I am so looking forward to doing backbends – I can hardly wait!

Om.

ADAM ON REDEFINED SPACE

MAPS, SPACE & I

Ro’s latest topic, Redefining Space, got me thinking about maps. How they continually challenge my understanding and experience of space. How, curiously, I’m both attracted and put off by them. And how they seem to me to be an abstraction masquerading as facts.

For starters, I love the cautionary disclosure that’s often found on a map – “Map not drawn to scale”. Almost as much as I love the warning that’s ghosted on the side mirror of a car – “Objects are closer than they appear”. In both instances my bearings, which aren’t exactly that reliable to begin with, are put on notice - “Hey buddy, you know that thing that you think you know, well I got news for ya, it isn’t what you think it is.” Now, I’m very comfortable with these warnings. They help remind me that “not knowing” is ok, and actually can be part of a safe and sane outlook on life.

On the other hand, I’m a little put off when the wording on a map states that it’s been drawn to scale. It’s as if this information makes the map more real, more understandable, and more meaningful. Come on! Drawn to scale or not, I, for one, can easily find myself all-turned-around and feeling hopelessly lost using a map. Indeed, how often is it the case that the space that a map depicts has actually changed? Which reminds me that I often rationally know that something “is”, and yet, emotionally I’m still at a loss to fully recognize or deal with “it”. Indeed, emotions are never drawn to scale and almost invariably are closer than they appear.

Before the advent of MapQuest or Google Maps, which I now religiously use to find where something is located and how the heck to get there, I use to like to draw maps for folks to help explain how to get to my home. These maps tended to look a bit like a Saul Steinberg cartoon, where the representation of my home, typically an iconic box with a triangle on top, was always way out of proportion to anything else depicted. Streets, freeways, an important surrounding landmark, such as a nearby park or shopping center, all receded in stature. In effect, my home was the center of the world, the center of my world. I probably should have added these words at the bottom of my maps – “Map drawn to emotional scale”.

If you were to search for my home on GoogleMaps, you’ll find it’s presented entirely differently from “my home is where the heart is” map. The Google map has a little red pin-like icon pointing out where the house is located. Sure, it’s has been called out, but my home is certainly not the center of the world for GoogleMaps. It’s been homogenized. Redefined according to Google. Surprisingly, there’s also a photograph that accompanies the Google map. I believe it’s been put there to imbue it with a greater sense of “reality” and to confirm its “truth”. (There’s a bit of big brother going here. I wonder who actually took this photo? Kind of creepy. But that’s another topic for another day.)

As an exercise in exploring how maps can define or redefine “your space”, draw a map to your home from the airport to your doorstep. Compare that with GoogleMaps’ depiction. Then ask yourself, which one is more real? Or, which one do you prefer and why?

GUY ON HOMELESS SPACE - 2

SPACE ON THE ROAD

In my last post I referred to a kind of continuum that may exist from home-space at one familiar end to homeless space at the other. The idea is that when a permanent change occurs in your living conditions, such as foreclosure, you may be thrust into homeless space, even if you are still living in a home afterward (someone else’s home).

On the near end of this continuum is a situation I hadn’t mentioned: the transient homelessness experienced by the traveler. I have done a fair amount of traveling in my career: enough to feel disconnection from my home-space, but not enough for my traveling space to become a home-space of its own. There is a certain homelessness to the traveler, especially when trips come back to back.

What’s interesting about this kind of homeless space, I think, is its distance economically and materially from what you’d normally associate with the word “homeless.” Instead of being played out in stressful or dramatic places—the street at night; underground; in rail-yards—it occurs in comfort and refinement—in hotels, in airport lounges, in conference rooms, in restaurants.

So, homeless space on the road is temporary, and mild in its effects. But over time it does shape, even disturb, one’s character.

I recall one particular trip that had all the feel of the traveling salesman’s midway journey. I was staying in a perfectly fine, perfectly shapeless business hotel halfway down the Peninsula in the Bay Area in California. There was nothing wrong with the room; there was nothing wrong with the food; there was nothing wrong with the bathroom. In fact, there was aggressively nothing wrong with anything. I seemed to be halfway between here and there, with “here” and “there” themselves being halfway points, never ending.

One’s sense of distance from oneself is heightened by such spaces. I felt somewhat lost by this disconnection to anything with an edge to it. While at the hotel, I presented on a Webinar, calling in from my room; and the strangeness of communicating with hundreds of people regarding a very focused, technical topic, while actually sitting alone in a stark, bland but comfortable place, depressed my mind and pushed me into premature exhaustion.

I think you are pulled by any travel out from your home-space and into a homeless environment, mitigated by your trappings, like your clothes, a book, your iPod, your cel phone. Habitual or regular travel extends this light homelessness through time … and since time is the enemy of homeless space, eventually it must pass and your travel-space becomes familiar space and therefore home-space. But if you do not reach that point you will be, like I was on the Peninsula, suspended, disconnected, waiting.

GUY ON HOMELESS SPACE - 1

AND THE BUBBLE BURSTS

Home foreclosure right now is a wave sweeping the country and globe. And like a wave curling over and crashing on the beach in great slow-motion, the nose-diving economy and resulting wave of foreclosures is encircling the space of the American home-space and smashing it into millions of small floating bubbles of wandering, homeless space.

What forms does this homeless space take? When we think of the homeless, mostly we think of people living on the street, or in the park, or in the wild. But the national or global phenomenon of mass foreclosure today reminds us that, like after Hurricane Katrina, people can be homeless who are actually living in a home. In relatives’, friends’, or foster homes, or even government-supplied temporary homes, they can be said to be living in varying degrees of homelessness.

At least at first. People are made homeless by an event, like foreclosure, that takes them out of the warm, comforting, well-worn space they call their home, without them having a new home-space to move into. You can imagine this being the first degree of homelessness: Moving into a family member’s house after foreclosure. There could be further degrees, like government housing or homeless shelters, leading eventually to the final level of homelessness—where a person actually is on the street.

But we build our homes around us. They don’t require physical walls, fireplaces, stoves, or washing machines. They require no more than warmth, comfort, and familiarity. And this can be found, in time, by the lowliest beggar poorly clothed and wandering.

Time is the key. For eventually, it is human nature to find familiarity in one’s surroundings: even if you wander from town to town aimlessly, this constant change in your surroundings becomes, in time, familiar. And with familiarity comes comfort, and with comfort, warmth.

Economist have a measure called the “velocity” of money. It is roughly a measure of how frequently the same money changes hands, allowing more people to benefit from it. What foreclosure does is increase the velocity of space in one dimension, by moving people’s home-space into homeless space—the wave crashing down. But that is not the end of the story. Eventually, even those totally bereft find home-space wherever they are.

And in that sense, home-space and homeless space are one.

MAX ON HOMELESS SPACE

BREAKING & ENTERING

When we see homeless people we often see them on the same plot of land that we always do. It’s a spot that is either secluded so that they can hide from the world or it’s spot right in the middle of the hustle and bustle where we can see them. These places that they happen to live on become their homes, so if we are constantly walking by them, are we breaking and entering?

I’m so always considering what the other person feels and when it comes to homeless people and their space, sometimes I just feel bad. It’s bad enough being homeless as it is, but being homeless in New York City must be horrible. There is no place to hide, no privacy. There is this one guy who lives in the entry to the subway on 86th and Lexington and I see him every day. And every SINGLE day, I see people staring at him and I just wonder, “What the hell are those people thinking about?” then I wonder, “What is this poor man thinking?”

Even though at times we feel like homeless people invade our space, have we ever thought about how it’s possible that we could invade theirs? Sure, we could be walking along, busy yelling on our blackberry’s about god knows what and feel alienated when a hand pops out asking for change. But what about that guy who is asking for change? For some reason, life has thrown him curves that have led him to this point, sitting on a box begging for pennies that people won’t even give. His 4 by 4 box, his home, that we’re constantly running by and not even respecting because we feel like he made decisions that got him to this point. We are always looking out the windows of our apartments or houses or cars envisioning something, like a better life. Where as our homeless friend sits on his box, constantly looking up at the windows above wishing he was there. And when he asks for some spare change that we have, we close our windows to our souls and keep him from breaking and entering.

[Originally from LA, Max E Kestenbaum now lives, studies, writes and clubs in New York City]

LORRAINE ON HOMELESS SPACE

LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION.

Around the corner from where I live, a camper has been parked in the same spot since 1964. Every Tuesday at noon, the street cleaners commandeer that side of the street and I have witnessed the camper on the corner poised to swoop back in and reclaim its turf the minute the sweepers pass by.

I often wonder how the homeless decide on which space to make their own. From a tent pitched on a central divide to six feet of sidewalk between a set of potted plants to a particular patch of parking lot – and not in the private corner that one might think. Often the location seems random, as if suddenly the person got too tuckered to continue, such as the two bodies in sleeping bags stretched head to toe along the curb by a row of parked cars. Then days later there they are - the same two sleeping bags – suggesting that indeed a choice was made.

It’s been reported that up to 5,000 people live in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and over the years various city regimes have attempted to oust them. One wet winter I watched the bulldozers shove mud from A to B and then back again in the name of landscaping. The problem was that the chicken wire blocked access to the park for all citizens, not just those in search of a lawn to pass out on. As soon as the park reopened, the homeless were back in droves. I didn’t blame them. Camping in the urban jungle seems more appealing than the cement jungle. Besides, the location had a 24-hour supermarket, Laundromat, McDonalds and a French coin-operated toilet in its favor. Location, location, location.

Which brings me back to the question.

I have spoken briefly with the gentleman who resides in the camper. James is a gentle-spoken African American as eloquent as an English professor. Perhaps he chose the spot for its proximity to the library. I imagine he has lots of friends on the street who invite him in for dinner, pass on a barely-worn coat, maybe even have him baby-sit. I do know that his block is the only one in the neighborhood that doesn’t have two-hour resident parking, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to park there, which gives me reason to believe that at some point someone made a decision to let him have his space.

[Lorraine Flett is also the author of Sassy & Single in San Francisco]

ADAM ON HOMELESS SPACE

GOING HOMELESS. GOING MOBILE.

In a city that’s crazy about cars, it seems only fitting that people who are often thought of as “crazy in the head” should make their car their home. I’m referring to those Angelenos who are said to be, “living out their cars”. They are the homeless with a set of wheels. In a sad and ironic sense, they combine the American love affair of the car and the open road, with the American dream of homeownership. It’s a curious space, where many of the shining values and norms driven by our society crash head-on into the darker side of our collective fears and failures.

The other day, while driving during the evening rush hour on a jam-packed east-west LA artery, I came to a red light and noticed a car up ahead struggling to make a left into the parking lot of a bank. This can be a tricky maneuver even for the most accomplished drivers in LA. The fact that no oncoming car was going to yield wasn’t what caught my eye. After all, during gridlock, space becomes a premium for LA drivers – even if that space is just a few inches. And of course, going to the bank is still common practice even in the age of online banking. What made me get out of my own space (the comfort zone of my own car), put the brakes on my normal behind-the-wheel brain and take notice, was a set of unsettling signs indicating that the car (now just off to my side) was a rolling wreck with a lost soul inside.

Unlike a shopping cart, which is easy to identify as a homeless person’s home on wheels, a car is far less recognizable as someone’s “home-sweet-home”. Everything is concealed inside the cabin, as opposed to being out in the open. That said, if CAR & DRIVER magazine were to do a feature story on such an auto, it would be a late model Buick or Pontiac riding on balding and under-inflated tires. The enigmatic car would have a faded paint job with an array of bumps and bruises. Its pitted body would be hovering just a few inches off the ground, its engine able to generate only enough power to always travel well below the speed limit, and its tail pipe would constantly be spewing a cloud of noxious exhaust. But the most important feature would be its semi-opaque windows consisting of a layer of caked-on dust, dirt and grime. In effect, creating the poor man’s version of the rich man’s tinted windows.

As a result, it’s nearly impossible to tell who’s behind the wheel. Is that a woman or a man? Are they young, middle-aged or senior citizen? Nor is it easy to make out exactly what’s piled high throughout the cabin. Are those old newspapers and magazines, or a decade worth of dirty laundry? Is that a cat, a dog, or a bird sitting in the back window? Or just a stuffed animal? Or a pillow that looks like a stuffed animal? Perhaps all those seemingly soft and plush items tightly packed together are part of makeshift airbag safety system, providing a life-saving cushion during a collision. Whatever is in there (and there’s always plenty of it), surely has taken years to amass. And isn’t likely to be brought out any time soon.

After inching my way forward at the remarkable speed of about 2 miles an hour, I looked through my rearview mirror and saw that the homeless mobile home had finally turned into the bank’s parking lot. Of all the things that flashed through my mind at that instant, a torrent of unanswerable questions and profound uncertainties, the one thought that parked in my brain was both banal and bold.

I envisioned this person pulling their mobile homeless home in front of the convenient drive-up ATM. And then depositing all their misfortunes into it with the touch of a button.

RO ON HOMELESS SPACE

HOME TRUTHS

Guy observes that the general tendency is to conflate space with its container.

So what happens in the absence of a traditional container of living space, known to most of us as “home”?

It’s an absence that’s particularly noticed – and noted with vehement indignation by media – when bitterly cold arctic air descends upon Winter’s days to clutch them in a relentless grip. “Homeless evictee found frozen to death on park bench” screams a headline or two, usually in a sprawling urban landscape which – ironically – is most densely expressive of dwelling spaces, some with multimillion-dollar containers.

Expelled from the private spaces of real estate, the homeless have little choice but to spill into public spaces. But even within such public spaces is a need to form containers of semi-private spaces: The grocery cart. The church steps. The park bench. The promenade. The tunnel. The pipeline. The phone booth. Spaces, which – ironically – also symbolize plenitude and prosperity, pleasure and progress. These, however, are spaces that townships and their governances stake their claims upon, prohibiting the homeless from finding any recourse whatsoever in this form of shelter.

Homelessness is a strange space. Perhaps because it has few or no borders, it pervades into several other spaces.

Visual Space being one such. Your eyes can’t miss the San Francisco Santa on Battery who sells Christmas cards every November. Or the human “fixture” on the doorway of the church on 85th & Madison’. Or the unkempt itinerant who lies covered in rags on Tokyo’s otherwise immaculate streets, creating dissonance on the eye. Or the cardboard sign on Berkeley’s Telegraph Street: “WHY LIE? I NEED A BEER.” In its charming, persuasive honesty, that’s Creative Space as well.

Which draws us by the hand into Advertising Space. In Toronto, a “creative” media buy by a radio station chooses a placard held by the homeless himself, to ignite a moral debate on so many levels: “SHOULD PANHANDLING BE LEGAL?”?

What, then, of Auditory Space? The “God bless you” or the four-letter sentiment doled out depending on the proportion of generosity one responds with.

How about Tactual Space – particularly in emerging nations – when the fervent appealer nudges, jabs, and prods, so as to penetrate a wall of deadened emotions?

What of instances when the transient, lacking the means for personal grooming, impacts on the surrounding Olfactory Space with an intensity that is almost tangible?

Consider the implications that the loss of Domestic Space could have on Private Space and Emotional Space. On the spaces surrounding comfort, self-respect, even identity.

For a space so devoid of possession, its explorations are ironically rich.

MAX ON RUPTURED SPACE

"IMAX" BY I, MAX

Space. Something easily ruptured. Like in an elevator when it’s crammed and a baby is crying hysterically. Or a subway cart when it’s packed and stinky people are singing, dancing, or murmuring in the seat right next to you. Not cool. Not fun. Or it could be in a movie theater – a place that is supposed to be peaceful and stress-free.

Over the summer, my friend invited me to go see Pineapple Express. The movie is about these stoners who go on an adventure because they are really paranoid (I wonder why). With every stoner movie comes your usual stoner moviegoers who don’t laugh because they understand the jokes…they laugh because they are too high to know what’s going on.

I had my huge popcorn and my huge drink. I was in my comfortable seat, ready to laugh and enjoy my two hours away from reality when all of the sudden I hear, “Transformers. SCOOBY-DOO!” In New York, you develop a sense for danger and possible threats. You know when something is wrong or is going to be wrong and you know to avoid it. But in a movie theater, you can’t go anywhere. After I heard those two words, all I thought was, “Fuck.”

The high person kept on shouting, “Transformers. SCOOBY-DOO!” His high friends kept laughing. Stress filled the room. I saw heads keep turning back, shooting nasty glares at the noisy assailants. I looked at my friend to my right. He’s slowing being driven to insanity. I could see him unraveling. I looked at the gentle man to my left. He had his hands over his ears and a constipated look on his face. He’s not happy. All I could concentrate on were the loud noises that were preventing me from enjoying my movie. Now I’m angry. I’m zoned in on the noises. My heart was pounding. My anger was rising. I snapped. I jumped up out of my chair, turned around, grabbed my huge drink and yelled, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” And I rifled my drink at the loud guy’s head. Crack. Direct hit. Silence. The kids are quiet. All eyes in the theater were on me. Now, I was that guy who ruined the movie.

What happened was a transfer of ruptured space. From my patience being pushed to the limits, I exploded and turned in to the bad guy. But who is to blame? Is it the high people’s fault for rupturing everyone’s space for a prolonged period of time? Or is it my fault for throwing a drink and rupturing their space taking the focus off of them and putting it on to me?

All good questions… all will be answered in time.

[This piece is a contribution by Max E Kestenbaum, 22, who studies Marketing & Advertising, and is one of the most personable people I have ever met]

JOSE BACA ON RUPTURED SPACE

“CONTROLLED RUPTURE”

In combat sports, in boxing, MMA – which uses boxing techniques, jiujutsu, kickboxing, wrestling, even old-fashioned street fighting – one thinks of fists, knees, feet, face, nose, eyes, physical body parts, being ruptured.

But it’s really about Space being ruptured. It’s about how space is used to advantage, given it can be your best friend or your bitterest foe. Let’s see how it plays out in boxing, in the legendary fight between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito.

So, Cotto was staying on the outside while using his jab, the perfect way to set it all up. Margarito, on the other hand, likes to fight close, on the inside. During the first 7 rounds, Cotto was winning the fight flawlessly, using space to his advantage. As the fight wore on, Cotto started to tire. In the last four rounds or so, Margarito started to walk him down, cutting off the ring and closing the space that favored him. Margarito started swarming him, intimidating him, pushing him against the ropes. On the 11th round, Margarito completely closed off the space. Guess what happened. Cotto succumbed to the punishment and was forced down to take a knee. The referee wiped off the gloves, Cotto got up. Then, Margarito again began to close off the space as fast as possible, didn’t let him move. Cotto was ended up taking another knee, and his corner was forced to throw in the white towel.

Another way to use Space is to literally guard one’s personal space very, very closely. A classic case in point is Mohammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy, where he lay on the ropes while protecting his head and face with his fists. George Foreman, one of the top punchers of all time, began to throw blow after blow out on his body. But Ali just let him, all the while, defending his head. By the 5th round, Foreman got exhausted from all the punches he threw at Ali to no avail, because he couldn’t land punches to his head. As the fight wore on, Foreman got completely wiped out, and was eventually knocked out. In this case, Ali basically used his own personal space to counter-attack.

Contrary to how it’s viewed, the space within this arena is actually quite civilized. There’s an unspoken (if very strong) code of ethics, etiquette, respect. You have to respect that person, because they are about to take on as much punishment as you are. At the end of every fight, combatants actually hug each other, congratulate each other, and hang out as close buddies. It’s not about wreaking anger, it's not emotional. It’s about the sport, the art, the pure craft, the professionalism, the competition. It’s about bringing out all your childhood fantasies and turning them into a career – in a very mature, adult way.

Ultimately, it’s the individual’s choice, he decides how much of his space can be ruptured.

So if you think about it, it’s really it’s a space of “controlled rupture”.

[Jose Baca is an ardent fan of boxing and MMA; being a thinker and an avid boxer himself, he offers a first-hand insight into this world of ruptured space.]

DAVID SLAPE ON RUPTURED SPACE

RUPTURED SPACE AND "FREE WILL"...

For me one of the most profound and disastrous ways in which one can experience ruptured space is when the fabric of one's mind rips or tears. I mean this in two senses. The first is physical…

Glial cells make up about 80-90% of the brain - the rest of the brain is made up of neurons. There are several kinds of glial cells. Astrocytes help clear neurotransmitter from the synapse, without them your neurons would overheat and die from over stimulation. Oligodendrocytes wrap around neural axons and allow electric signals to pass between cells at astonishing speeds. Glial cells can reproduce and be replaced, neurons largely cannot. It’s good that glial cells can replenish themselves except in rare case where they divide mitotically in an uncontrolled fashion. They can form what is known as a space-occupying lesion, the worst type is a glioblastoma, the most aggressive of all brain tumors. It pushes everything adjacent to it out of place, placing pressure on other areas of the brain; it ruptures the precarious composition of everything in the intracranial space.

The other kind of ruptured space I think of most is the psychotic break. These profuse disconnects from reality remind me of how tenuous sanity is. We take it for granted that our mind will always be ours, that our thoughts are our own. But what must it feel like when you start hearing other people’s voices in your head? What must it be like to be so tortured by stress and fear that eventually the mind shuts down, when the space your reality exists in, ruptures beyond repair.

And on that note, one parting thought about who controls your brain. Neurophysicists have recently discovered that most motor signals which precipitate physical movement, actually manifest and are sent several milliseconds before we actually “make the choice” to move.

Kind of makes you wonder about the whole free will thing.

[My friend David Slape, originally from Adelaide, is Psychologist by Day & Bartender by Night. A teetotaler who has perfected – and invented – the Art of the Cocktail at such places of repute as The Slanted Door in San Francisco, Gramercy Tavern, Del Posto, and PDT in New York. David currently studies Psychology at Columbia.]

GUY ON RUPTURED SPACE

BREAKING PERFECTION

Rupture brings greater joy to the impact of space on the mind. When I first got iTunes, I maniacally rated all the songs I added. After a while, I learned how to create a playlist of only five-star songs, and with (by that time) about a thousand songs saved, I was able to listen to a mix of all my truly favorite songs.

The result was boredom. I figured that interest and entertainment required variety, so the large number of songs in the mix should have made for joyful listening. I rarely heard the same song twice in a day, or twice in two days. But excellence and variety were not enough to please.

I returned to the radio for a time, now thinking that it was newness that was lacking. (Do you see how the mind resists rupture? More on that in a bit.) Radio programming surprises more or less by definition, because you didn’t do the programming yourself; even if all you hear are songs you know—and it’s remarkable how many songs, seemingly an unlimited number if the genre is familiar, your mind remembers—you can’t know what song is next. So radio entertains each moment another song begins playing, even if it’s a song you don’t like, just by presenting you with something unpredicted.

But that wasn’t it.

Finally my misunderstanding hit me: what I wasn’t recognizing about radio was the value of the songs I don’t like. I realized that the relentless awesomeness of five-star songs one after the other was giving me no break, putting fast asleep the pleasure centers of my brain. I tried a different mix that included songs that are not my favorites and songs I don’t like. Et voilà! my mix made me happy again. Adding Holes to the content created a more excellent Whole.

This is an example of compensatory perception creating benefit through negativity. In the discipline of space, it translates as rupture of space creating pleasing sensation via reaction of the senses to violent imperfection. This principle tells us that we lead the viewer to an ultimately more pleased reaction by smashing through the main subject giving pleasure. In space terms, breaks in the perfection of emptiness give us greater joy in contemplation of it.

But it is natural and useful for us to resist rupture as strongly as we do. Because perfection is still best. The kind of breakage and violence described here is a human tool for creating satisfaction out of human flaw. Experiencing a work such as the Taj Mahal, though, is quite the opposite of an experience of ruptured space. Its space is ideal, ideally measured, ideally scaled.

Still, we are not all Lahauri, nor was Lahauri likely a creator of ideal space more than once in his life. Though we always instinctively strive for the ideal in our work, we may want to give ourselves our own breaks from time to time, and create pleasurable spaces with interruption instead of only with perfection.

RO ON RUPTURED SPACE – 5

THE GIFT OF RUPTURE

A news clip caught my eye this morning while I was sipping my coffee. Headline read, "Boy's wrapped birthday gift is dad back from Iraq". The picture of the gift box had a giant gash in the center, through which you could see the dad – who’d hatched a plan to hide out in this 4-foot-tall box when he learnt that his leave would coincide with his son's birthday.

And I thought, tearing apart the wrapping of a present is also a rupture of space. It's an oxymoron, because it's an act of rupture that bonds humans, using physical form to express an exchange of emotions.

Set in the backdrop of the Rupture of Political Relations manifest in the Rupture of War, with the Rupture of Separation, what must the rupture of this gift-wrapping have felt like?

RO ON RUPTURED SPACE – 4

MÉTHODE CHAMPENOISE

The Drink of Kings, the King of Drink

Ruptured Space?! How does Champagne link?

Sediments formed over the passage of time

Float like muddled aspirations through the pale-gold wine

They coast along the curves of an upside-down bottle

Bursting with effervescence at full throttle

They settle at the neck and freeze into a plug

Which is then disgorged with an explosive tug

The tiniest of bubbles start rising up

When this golden liquid fills the cup

As we hold the stem and lift the flute

To joie de vivre, with this refined brut

’tis Rupture’s hand that makes this wine

So unbelievably divine

RO ON RUPTURED SPACE – 3

RUPTURE’S RAPTURES

Adam asks: “Indeed, is the violent rupturing of space a part of what it means to be alive, to be human?”

The repercussions of ruptured space need not always be negative, violent, or invasive.

Rupture could be found in the poetry of the French kiss, or the romantic rhapsody that ensues. A carnal captivity of body that at once releases mind. A death of sorts that creates life. Whereupon birth itself would be another of Rupture's displays.

Envision the shattering of shell by a helpless baby bird that emerges from the cracked egg, its endearing down all moist and ruffled.

Rupture is wondrous, indeed, when that skillful slit removes a malignancy with unerring precision, or ultrasound waves fragment kidney stones to shards, or the quotidian needle punctures the skin – granting another day to live.

Why, women’s legs wouldn’t be quite so baby-soft or men’s chests as beach-ready, were it not for the ripping rupture of hot wax.

Split a passion fruit, a mangosteen, a longan or a rambutan, and devour its tropical succulence as its juicy stickiness dabs your mouth. That’s rupture.

Rupture’s hand breaks oven-baked bread, fragrant and crusty, at Dinner's table.

Rupture would also be a new government at work, pulling out conservative edicts and injunctions. Maybe with a directive to shut down a detention camp at Guantánamo Bay – ending forever the physical and emotional rupture of inquisition.

BEN & RO ON RUPTURED SPACE

“SANCTIONED VIOLENCE”

Punches and kicks, fist-to-fist face-offs, nasty injuries and “finishing people off” are the way things usually go in the ruptured space of combat sports. So why do fight fans really want that rupture in this space, aka “great fights”? What really makes this arena so juicy and compelling? An interview with an ardent MMA fan throws some light on Adam’s question: “Indeed, is the violent rupturing of space a part of what it means to be alive, to be human?”

Perhaps this ruptured space isn’t really about rupture, after all.

Ro: So what do you like about MMA?

Ben: I like the athleticism. You have to be so skilled at so many different things.... boxing, juijitsu, wrestling, submissions, thai boxing... and they put themselves through intense training, and 50% of it is mental training.”

Ro: What really fascinates you?

Ben: So you have these two guys who are skilled in all these things... two warriors... and they go head-to-head and square off. Whoever wins is usually smarter, or has the mental training not to give up. it’s like a physical chess match.”

Ro: What about blood and that sort of thing?

Ben: Umm. I don't like it but I don’t mind it; it excites me because sometimes a guy will get cut, and bleed like crazy but he keeps going... to me, to able to do that you need to be at a pretty strong place mentally – so when I see a guy doing that, yes it excites me... but not because of the blood, because of the resilience.

So the most dominant MMA fighter in the world, he's undefeated.... Fedor Emilienenko is his name. He was fighting a guy named Kevin Randleman a few years ago.

Kevin Randleman picked up Fedor, tossed him backwards and slammed him down on his neck and head. It looked brutal, like a broken neck or something, but because of Fedor’s mental training, he learned to relax in the ring. So as he was in mid air, he completely relaxed his body and when he landed, his body just absorbed the blow. He got right up, and got Kevin Randleman in an arm lock called a “keylock”. Randleman gave up and Fedor won.

It was one of the most amazing things in MMA history and it was all from intense resilience and mental strength and training. Like, if that were me being thrown i would have locked up and probably broken my neck.

Ro: So if it’s all about mental strength, why does it have to manifest itself physically?

Ben: It’s the combination of brain and brawn, really. But the physical part is what we all grow to love about it. It’s amazing to see these guys try to edge each other out physically… with split second timing and holds and strategy.

Watch the rupture.