I realize I've been playing pretty fast and loose with these so-called "memes." It's a nice catch-all for anything that is in any way remotely meaningful, right? I'm sure Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore et.al. would be cringing. And yet, maybe there is something there, and something moreover that could be illuminating for me personally and for others (like you).

Naomi S. suggested the connection between "memery" and "memory." All the while I was trying to mine the connection "creamery" and "memery," neglecting this more obvious association evident in my various recollections.

OK, for some mimetic housekeeping:
Don't you like this "Ford Galaxy" meme? It really does speak to the endurance of brands, how the name of a car can get folded into a story of sightings and a confluence of births and deaths. Moreover, it is the activity of memes within me, trying to make sense of my life, grasping at straws to create significance. Anything can be grist for the meme-mill, no matter how mundane or profound.

One of my favorite scenes in cinema is in Godard's Alphaville, when Detective Lemmy Caution, trekking through space at some specified warp speed, is seen cruising the freeway in his 60s American sedan (I think a Nova, not a Galaxy, but it could be a Rambler). One review of the film reveals that Godard initially wanted to name the film "Tarzan vs. IBM." If *that* doesn't suggest a doctoral dissertation in Memery, I don't know what does. (Godard's later films, which I love, capture fragments so well, reconstructing visual, auditory, and musical bits into concertos of memes.)

A few recommendations: first, IntellectualCapital.org, a small site that is probably inert now, unfortunately. A very clear overview of intangible assets in business.

Next, what's come to be my favorite newspaper online: the International Herald Tribune, designed by John Weir, a one- or two-person web design shop in San Francisco. An example of a website taking cues, in the most productive way, from the way people actually read newspapers (who knows? – a web purist might disagree.) Nice personalization, and check out the way you can clip articles, especially from the article index page. The only downside I've discovered is article loading time, but once they load, the individual pages load instantly. Great web design of a great newspaper.

There was a problem with the server for the last several days; hence, no memes from me. Eventually, I'll redesign this page and host it elsewhere, but for now it's free on BLOGGER.

Today's the beginning of packing, stage 2. We are on the road as of May 30.

Another sister calls to wish me a happy birthday. I speak to both of my nephews: Sam, the one whose birthday is October 4, then his younger brother Jason. Jason tells me his cat Lucy was just put to sleep, on my birthday. This is beginning to be a story of cats.

My sister just emailed me to wish me a happy birthday, after my last post. She also mentioned her cats were born today too. So that's two cats, a dog, and me. And Miles.

Reflections of the Black Galaxy...

Today's my birthday: 1 year to the day we arrived back in San Francisco "for good." Twenty-three years to the day (now 24) that I first arrived in Berkeley in my grandmother's old baby blue '66 Ford Galaxy, $600 in pocket. Got a place on Dwight and Telegraph (didn't know about first and last month rent requirements). By October I had moved to San Francisco, sharing a place for $55 per month.

The day Amery and I arrived last year we spent looking for a parking space. Now (not today, my wife is giving me my one-day birthday reprieve) we are packing to leave.

I still see the old Galaxy 500 around San Francisco. I recognize it because I sold it to a co-worker shortly after I arrived for $200. He painted it jet black. There aren't too many jet black Galaxies around, at least within the 49 square miles of San Francisco. Funny how a car can indicate a history of sorts: on the way West last year, we stopped in Colorado Springs to visit a friend, and parked our new Miata in front of a restaurant we were visiting. In the same lot was a '66 Ford Galaxy, baby blue. Indeed uncanny, seemed to me.

My grandmother's birthday was May 24, a day before mine. It was also Pokey's birthday, our beloved and reviled basset hound. It's also Bob Dylan's, which is a day before Miles Davis', also my own, which presumably was the day Beethoven finished writing his Ninth Symphony. There you have it.

More dates: two of my sisters were born on October 4, five years apart. Many years later my nephew, of another sister, was born on October 4. Then I met my future wife and found out her grammy was born October 4. (I never met her grammy. She was 99 and living in San Francisco when we were in New York, and she passed away before we had a chance to meet.)

I'm not yet clear on what how these date configurations are memes, or if in fact it has anything to do with memes. Here is a definite meme related to astrology: "as above, so below." A world view of the pre-scientific era, the correspondance of the heavens to earth. Also, characteristic Number One of memes, according to Susan Blackmore: imitation. As above, so below. Birds might be guided by the heavens in their migrations, but humans create world views and patterns of behavior by the observation of the stars. Or did, anyway.

Last night our first going-away party. Amery sad at leaving our many friends for the summer. We'll be back.

Well, now that I started my blog I guess I have to feed it.

Today's our 2nd anniversary, Amery and myself. We are having a gathering at the Bay View Boat Club, but not for that. Originally it was meant to be a "solar midpoint" birthday, celebrating both mine and our friend Rosa's birthday, on the day halfway between them. Also, it is a chance to get together with friends old and new before moving away for the summer. So we planned it for today, and after sending out the email invitation, we both realized it was our anniversary. What is interesting is that Rosa was the person who introduced us, and created the sacred circle for our wedding ceremony. So the circle turns. Also this day is the 2nd anniversary of Kali and Rich, two friends from graduate school living in Minneapolis.

I could mention other date "coincidences", but maybe I'll just try to call it the "date meme." When dates begin to reveal themselves not simply as calendar page turners, but as aspects of our embeddedness in a social or spiritual matrix, they take on the character of memes.


Rick Poyner, the design critic and former editor of Eye magazine from London, spoke at Yerba Buena last night, part of an AIGA lecture series. Spoke about six vices and six virtues in graphic design. It was a compelling moral rant against excess, corporatism, cheap radicalism, et.al., and preaching the virtues of simplicity and refusing to play the game, not working for the giant. The kind of stuff I could easily agree to, if it were so simple. A good time for me to hear it, having left a Big Five consulting firm and headed up to the farm to do...what? We'll see. Maybe something simple.

But is life that simple? For the critic, it is useful to set up a binary opposition (virtue/vice) – in the space between them there is much to discuss, and criticize. But aren't designers memefiers, very good at making things stick, and survive? Rick's point is for designers to choose what they want to survive, given their talent for making things (the good and the bad, and even the ugly) stick. I remember reading the Italian architecture historiographer Manfredo Tafuri in the 80s, making the point that architecture from the beginning of its origins is about power, its discourse is the discourse of power. Designers need to navigate this terrain, not escape from it. Designing a brand rather than a brochure is like designing a skyscraper rather than a trade booth. Make it compelling, and interesting, and habitable for humanity. Signs + power = memes.

After a few weeks of perusing blogs, decide today to begin publishing one, in preparation for our move to the farm. Initial purpose: keep in touch with our friends, document the change in our life from San Francisco urban to migrants at Amery Farm and Construction.

Why "The Memery"? Well, first because I like memes. For those who don't know, and frankly, I suspect not many outside of certain scientific circles and some cybercults do, memes are cultural replicators. They are, on the cultural level, what genes are on the biological level. The theory is based on Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene," a revision of Darwinism. Genes are out for their own replication. Biological organisms are mere vehicles for the replication of genes, formed through natural selection. On a biological level, we exist for the purpose of genetic replication, not the other way around. So Dawkins coined the term "meme" in this book, but didn't elucidate much.

Susan Blackmore, a cognitive psychologist in England who was indisposed for several months, ended up writing a book called The Meme Machine. Meme theory attempts to answer the question of why certain elements of human culture (e.g., a cathedral, or a painting, or a Coke bottle) don't seem to contribute much towards biological survival. The answer is that memes are out for their own replication, not ours. Thus, stupid songs we can't get out of our head; starving artists; the Coca-Cola brand and its bottle shape; the Jackson Pollock "drip" paintings; and the Catholic Church (a memeplex).

For anyone who knows me, you know that I tend to get obsessed with certain ideas or areas of interest, for instance, pinhole photography, the post-structuralist boondoggle, debris flows, and the like. So now it is "memes," but I think with good reason. My trajectory has gone from art (actually photography, an excellent replicator) to design, to brand...to memes. I'll fill in the details of why this should make sense later, if I get around to it. For the time being at least, it seems a good starting point to blogabout my interests in the context of my life.

The other reason "The Memery" seems a good name is my wife and I are moving for the summer to her parent's farm. Originally I was going to call this blog "The Meme Farm," then "Meme Farm and Construction (after the family business name, Amery Farm and Construction)," and then I came up with, simply, "The Memery." Like Amery, like The Creamery. Getting into psychoanalytic territory, I could propose that the first meme of our lives is "mother's milk". Not mother's milk, but "mother's milk." Based on our own infantile need for survival, but forming a complex of associations that we reenact on a mimetic level the rest of our lives.

Just a theory, and I didn't really think it through that far when I chose this innocent name for my first blog. But there you have it.