Category: Uncategorized

We’re at a weird point in history.

Today all the exciting stuff, the ideas leading to real change, is happening at the margins. In garages, workshops, kitchens, in people’s laptops and heads. We’ve heard a lot of talk about the “creative economy” on Cape Ann, and have to say that we wholeheartedly agree when it comes to the need to focus on creativity.

Creative Economy: What can we get for this on Ebay?

But we disagree on the scope. It seems like the focus is on what we usually think of as “artists.” Painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, poets and writers. Yes, those people are obviously creatives, but the most creative thing that’s happened in Gloucester in a long time- Chief Campanenello’s new opiate policy.  A long-term problem, a seemingly intractable one. A new approach, one with some risks and very real objections (“are we just letting people go for breaking the law?”).

Creativity is about solving old problems new ways. New visions, breaking down old barriers. We’re at a time when people have unprecedented power to get incredible things done both as individuals and groups, probably more than in the entire history of human civilization. We have communication and collaboration networks, open-source tools and limitless access to information.

We have whatever internet genius did this. Bravo sir. Bravo.

But we actually have to get over ourselves and do shit. It’s hard. And we have to support new approaches. But this is what Gloucester desperately needs right now. Everything is changing. Whatever the fishing industry becomes it will never be like what it was in the 70’s and 80s. Again. Ever. It will need to change. Our education system needs to change (And we see so much evidence of that in our schools, in the STEM labs and with the truly creative teachers in all disciplines).

But there is so much incredible happening out at the margins. In a building in the  industrial park on Kodelin road they are making pipe organs, huge beautiful pipe organs, for churches and cathedrals all over the world. The process is jaw dropping, forging their own pipes out of molten lead. That, folks, is the creative economy. Applied Materials up in the Blackburn and pushing the limits of technology. Creative economy?

Here is the thing: If you are creating new ideas, new approaches and actively implementing them, you are creative economy. We have to push the boundaries of what “creative” represents. And even what “economy” represents. New ways of funding, paying, trading and buying are coming along all the time.

So, here I’ll I’ll include Snotbot. It’s a huge risk. It’s something a lot of good people have worked their asses of on, and it’s something that can literally make a positive impact. Of all the things we do in a day to try and help the environment: turning off lights when we leave the room, riding our bikes or taking public transportation, recycling and composting, of all those things we try and do- this has the potential to have a direct impact on a threatened species: whales.

When we study them, currently, we harass them In so doing we also are very likely getting bad data. To get better data we have to sample them from a distance. It’s the difference between watching birds with binoculars or chasing them around your yard screaming, “BIRDY BIRDY BIRDY BIRDY!!!!” And that data ties in to toxicology, to the health of our oceans. It’s stuff we need to know for not only the survival of whales, but for the survival of PEOPLE.

So we, your beloved Clam, are asking you to support this thing. Because you’re weirdos and you like the weird and this thing is weird in all the right ways. Because whales. Because we’re fairly certain at least 47% of you are actual drone fetishists and probably also contribute at drone/sex/slash/fic over on reddit. Drop a couple of bucks, be sure to send it, remind your friends and family and hassle some people for us. Say you knew us before we flew to LA and drove to Patrick Stewart’s house and shot him with a crossbow.

Or do it because Patrick Stewart asked you to. I mean, it’s Patrick fucking Stewart.

Actually, Friday we will have the culmination of months of work, and our trip to LA, to show you. We have written, re-written, and yelled at each other and then apologized for yelling at each other. We have debated pictures of Putin with a crossbow and how many times we can say “snot” and “drone” in one paragraph. What we have is awesome, and we’re helping to put Gloucester further on the map for STEM innovations on a national, and hopefully international, level.

We hope we’ll make you proud.

Here’s a preview – but it gets much, much cooler.

Hey cats, light posting today because we’re crammed into the minivan on the road conducting an important experiment for the Mars Project in case NASA someday wants to shoot a small family to the red planet. Results so far: A few ironic songs on the playlist is good, but the kids sticking “Dominic the Christmas Donkey” in every third song will make the parent/astronauts rapidly turn course and dive the spacecraft toward the sweet release inside the nuclear furnace of the Sun.

We’re at our pals’ place in Ithaca NY, a town we’ve been coming to at various times since the 80’s. When we think of “hipfrastructure”- meaning a place that has what you need to attract creative and innovative people- this is one of our reference experiences. There are tons of public spaces, they’ve had a bike share program  forever, A huge natural grocer sits in the center of town, there is an ongoing farmer’s market in permanent space by the lake where they take the local currency called “Ithaca Dollars.”

The city occasionally threatens to stop emptying the garbage cans at the Gloucester Farmer’s Market. In Ithaca: “How about a building?”

The reason for all this of course is thirty thousand students with cash coming in from the outside. But college towns have different flavors and we’ve been to a ton of them. You’re always going to get that one strip with bars, head shops, tattoo studios and such and you have that here. But here they’ve also taken that influx of outside cash and have tried to make this a great town to live in for everybody.

Again, they’ve got a lot of things we don’t: Tons of land all around them, for instance. But there are similarities as well- there is a lot of poverty as this is still Rust Belt New York. The manufacturing base has gone away.  They’ve had to make drastic changes as their primary source of middle class lives transitioned to education and scientific/technology pursuits and they really have done the best job I’ve seen of trying to bring as many people along with them in the transition rather than the usual, “fuck it, you’re on your own now” business. we’re so used to in the American economy.

Are there a lot of hippies? Yeah, there are a lot of hippies. But they are actually good for many things: making crafts, running the bike share and getting your shitty old Subaru fixed and promising to pay the dude when you got home because you are an idiot high schooler visiting his summer-camp girlfriend over Christmas break and you are not hip to things like “water pumps” and then when you send the guy a check a week later he sends it back to you ripped up with a note that just says “Karma”.

So think of hippies as an essential reference species that tells you the strength of your hipfrastructure. Kind of like frogs in swamps, if you see them you know it’s healthy. No frogs means something toxic is going on.

Oh, and hey: The current mayor here is awesome. Literally a poor African American kid from town with addicted parents, living on the street at one point, who got himself to Cornell on a scholarship (Oh NOES! AFFIRMATIVE ACTION!) and is now the youngest mayor in the country at 27. He’s worked his ass off to build bridges between the town and the schools and check this out: He doesn’t drive so he uses his municipal parking space to sit outside and drink coffee with the passerby. After the Ferguson riots he included the police chief.

Most chill use of municipal property ever

Obviously Gloucester is a different place, but not all that different when you think about it. Like Ithaca our core industry has been demolished, we’re surrounded by education and Science/Medical/Technology on all sides and we’re trying to figure out what to do. What makes me enjoy visiting here is seeing the extend they’ve embraced the future while keeping what’s important about the past.

Also Carl Sagan puppet shows.

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