Travel journal day 1

SF - 4 May

To etch my days into paper, and also into memory.

Travelling - I absolutely cannot travel with family any longer. I have previously established that I have very specific interests in travelling and probably a distinctive style.

I am interested in art and culture. To learn about people. For it is people that shape cities. Not nature.

Nature once shaped how people did things. People settle close to resources that they need. But technology makes everything possible these days; availability of natural resources is thus only matter of cost.

Well, I guess then it would be a good idea to study the economics of a city. To understand where the money goes. Seems like that would be a big contributor to what people are like.

Seems then a inherent paradox that I like learning about people but hate talking to them. Perhaps it's because I don't have the conversational skill enough to get much useful information from them.
I guess here's another skill that I could pick up. But as with all things, one must know what one wants before one looks for it. Unless you have that kind of mind that makes connections out of nowhere.

And then on that, I suppose you need to understand the importance of something to make connections between it and other things. I guess I don't understand enough then. But this is something that can be gained through conversation too. So the point of conversation, should really be to find out what people care about. This enlightens us to the importance of things we once thought unimportant and enables us to learn how to serve them better. Art might be better expressing what people hold important, as it communicates emotion more directly.

Also, art needs time if you need to understand anything beyond the physical image of it. This means that I am going to move slower than those who just want to hit every destination - and also that I can't travel with anyone who doesn't have some interest in art.

(time to delve deeper into the value of art and learn how to communicate it)

Homeless - Saw a bunch of homeless people. Wondering if it's that bad to be homeless. I guess it is given this weather; it can get pretty cold here in SF. But I wonder if they go hungry too?

Street art - What are the rules governing art in public spaces and why? How do they differ from place to place, and again, why? How does this affect the content of the art?

Understanding art - What do you ask an artist? 
After some thought, perhaps there is no wrong question to ask an artist. Sometimes the artist expects a certain understanding out of the audience. And sometimes that understanding is not as widespread as expected. Which would then mean that context is required at least for that part of the population which didn't understand. Understanding of human-made art by humans thus depends at least partially on context. And I would suspect that it depends wholly on context, though I suspect also that this is unprovable.

Is it right then to ask an artist for context? I suppose it is on the street and in public spaces, as art there is meant for everyone - but the question is less clear cut for artists who have a small target audience and perform at more private venues. If you don't understand, then maybe this art is not meant for you. Thus I think there is a need for classical musicians to emphasise that their concerts are for everyone if they want to widen their target audience. And not only this, but they must be aware of the context required to understand their music and be ready to supply it for those audience members without. If you get stuck in the situation where more context is required but not given? Hard to say.

On that note though I should really get started on replicating that experiment testing people's preferences for musical notes.

Perhaps we could start with intervals(individual notes are pointless as those without perfect pitch wouldn't be able to distinguish):
-Perfect 5th, octave, tritone
-Perfect cadence vs imperfect cadence vs plagal vs interrupted vs major chord to tritone
-Survey their musical knowledge as well(how much context they already have)

And then some less related stuff:

I really need to get my Linkedin going.

(This one redacted for sensitive content possibly harmful to myself in a way I might not be able to afford.)

Parking and cars - Why are cars more expensive but parking cheaper in SG?

Many questions, only some answers. I hope I get around to answering them sometime.