Commission. So I will read the formal, so I have my laptop here which has my notes and all that on it, FYI if I'm looking off screen. So pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Law Chapter 30A, Section 18, this meeting of the Amherst Public Art Commission is being conducted by a remote participation. So I should do roll call to make sure we're all here. So James Barnhill, Jim Barnhill, Alan Keider, Amy Crawley, Shona King, and Bill Cason, Acting Chair. Okay, so I'm calling the meeting to order and I want to also remind people who are dialing in by phone to press star nine to raise their hand to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting which will come at the very end of our meeting. I don't currently see any members of the public but some may join us. If people are using a computer or tablet they should click on the raise hand button at the bottom of their screen during public comment to let me know that they want to speak and we're a small group so typically we would encourage people to keep their mute on when they're not speaking and then raise their hand to talk so that they're not talking over each other but I don't think that will be a problem. If it is a problem I will recommend that but I think we'll probably be okay. I think that's all the formal wording I need. Is that correct, Angela? That is correct and I've made you co-host so I'm wishing you a great meeting and I will depart. Okay thanks so much. Okay so I am going to let me full screen myself here and just sort of work down the agenda so I put chair report and treasures report at the end I just figured we'd jump into it you know I'm hoping this doesn't go certainly two hours maybe we can keep it to an hour or less. So electrify Amherst was the first thing on our agenda and Amy and I particularly Amy but with my assistants have been working diligently to try to continue that during our time off. I know you guys are amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Amy. Amy is astounding. She's a superhero of art. She is. So let's give her. So I will give you my two cents on where we're at and then let Amy take over. Basically we you know we got the money from the cultural cultural council and it was in place so I figured why shouldn't we go ahead. We did get the okay from Paul to go ahead and we chose the boxes which were the ones that we had all pretty much decided on and we put out the call and now we're waiting to hear back. We've only heard from one person so far and I think Amy and I are both a little bit concerned that we're not going to get a great response given how much outdoor public art has suddenly emerged in town and sort of across the area. That'll be something to discuss now maybe again later when we talk about our relationship with some of the other organizations in town like the bid. Amy do you actually have more to add? So I what I was just going to add as Bill said we got the okay from Paul. We've been keeping the DPW updated and as to which boxes so the boxes are 116 and West Palma Roy near Mission Cantina, Southeast Street and College Street, Florence Bank side and Main Street and Dickinson. There's the new box, a new air box next to the original Emily box that is non-active. So we have those three as Bill said we've been publicizing it. It's been in the paper, Valley Arts newsletter, the IDs putting it in their newsletter, it's on Facebook and Instagram. Deadline for applications is Saturday August 1st and we have at this time only received one application. So something we will need to discuss going forward if we do not receive adequate, if we don't receive enough applications to make it viable. The cultural council is allowing changes to be made to any grants that were received this year. So that change just needs to be documented and sent in by October. If we wanted if in I'll say worst-case scenario we don't receive enough applications. We decide to postpone the event until next year then I just need to submit to the cultural council by October. There's a change in our plans and if we were to do that maybe we opt for the spring as opposed to waiting until September 2021 that might be a might give us some different results. So that's really where we're at right now with the box project. Questions, comments? Well I guess I would add one thing I would add is that we did reach out to the so at Paul Bachmann's request who quite likes the mural that's on the box in front of Hope and Feathers that area the old one we reached out to the original artist to see if she would be willing to come back and repaint it on the adjacent new electrical box but have gotten no response from her. So we've made a good faith attempt I might try to send her another email but then if she doesn't respond then it's I think it's open season for whoever does want it. Any other thoughts or questions from... Well I was thinking I could contact Ann Tweedy and get the contact information of the people who did the murals on the barriers in town and we could actively recruit and invite them to submit proposals for doing an electrical box. Maybe it's gotten them warmed up and excited to maybe you know do something a little more permanent. Do we know why we're getting so little interest? I don't know because I've been seeing the promotion everywhere it's definitely accessible it's out there. Isn't it typical that we get we receive most of our applications at the last minute? That has been consistent the last couple of years. We had also in the last two years extended the original deadline but this year is unique in that we're working with a much shorter time frame as far as you know with the deadline and if you had to extend it and jury it and get certificates to them so everything's been compressed. What Bill had mentioned initially with the pandemic many towns have initiated public art projects and so where has done something Springfield has done something Northampton has done something so I'm not sure if there's just been a saturation point because everybody took the outdoors as an opportunity. So yeah so we have a couple of more weeks before we have to make a decision either way. I think I'm open to Shona's suggestion. I have some hesitations about that or at least I think we should discuss a little sure which is to say I think we could extend an invitation to people with no guarantees. Oh yeah definitely it's like it's like being invited to an audition of any sort you know it's like you're not gonna necessarily automatically get it but you're so actively recruiting people to like try out for it. Yeah I mean I was just concerned with the quality of some of the work that was done under the auspices of the bid in town currently and I don't think that all of the artists who are participating in that would necessarily be at the you know at the level we want them to be but it's but who knows because they could they could they could send us something that's that's fantastic and really works for our needs. Plus the the time frame for those barriers was only three hours. Oh yeah that explains some of it. Yeah it does and you know we have a lot bigger time to work on the our electrical boxes so it's you can have much more like involved pieces. Okay when recruiting those people I think that would be like a good you know angle to you. I would say it could be presented as this opportunity is is available if you would like to apply for consideration. Yeah and you know then it just puts it back on them if they want to. And we're also doing everything digitally we're not accepting any paper applications so people have to be comfortable filling in the application online and uploading an example of what they want to paint. Shona. Yeah. Did you work on the Jersey Barrier painting project? You did. Okay so that might as well just give us a quick two cents on how that went or what that what what the thinking was behind that that would be helpful maybe. Well I I got like recruited into it like less than 24 hours because I was supposed to do like videography for it and I was like all prepared and had the time squared away for that but then Anne was like could you actually do a mural and I was like well okay. Which one was yours? The lemons. Oh okay. I quite like the lemons. I wanted to go with the food theme since it's like for restaurants you know. Yeah. So I cracked that out in three hours. Okay all right well we can come back to this. So I think so do you since you were directly involved want to reach out to Anne or should I reach out to Anne as chair? I can do it because we've already been talking a lot about the the barriers. Okay. So I think I already have that discussion open with her. So it might actually might be worth you and I just having a one on one about that at some point and I could work with you on that just to because I'm also as wording and whatnot for the yeah yeah and I I sit on the cultural district board as the chair of the public art commission so Anne is the you know the chair of that and also on the bid so there's a lot of interaction there synergy potentially or you know. I just had a quick question about Paul's request. Yeah. So my understanding is the box that is currently painted will event is no longer in service will eventually be dismantled so he's asking for the artist to recreate it on one of the boxes we selected so that would not be necessarily a jury box he reached out to he said to us several times to Amy and myself how much he loves that mural and wants to see it preserved you know we're redone so Amy and I just said well let's give that artist sort of right of first refusal to that adjacent box we didn't really discuss I had said to Paul well will the town pay for it and he didn't respond so and we didn't know we didn't push to say well we had three planned for members of the general public and this takes our three and makes it to we could reopen that conversation potentially if she were to come back and say she wanted to do it but for the moment and because there are other boxes in town so let's say we had an abundance of artists who wanted to paint them you know we could possibly say Paul look we have three artists who've submitted could you give kick in money and we'll do this box that you like as a fourth instead of expending our grant funds and the artists is local still I mean we know who he or she is she's Cambridge I think she's in nor as far as we know Amy had a connection to Facebook so okay a tenuous one so we do what we can any other questions about electrify Amherst should we move on Town Hall gallery is the next thing on our agenda Amy I don't think there's much to report there well I I'll give you where we're at and so as we know Town Hall is closed I reached out to all of the artists for the upcoming season to let them know that we're kind of in a holding pattern so what I have offered is to have a digital exhibit of their work so right now our July August artist I put together she sent me ten images I put that up into a video that's on our Facebook page and I post one image each Monday of her work so it'll go through the next several weeks Brianna put the video on our exhibiting artist page on the town website so that is there with Jamie statement and that's pretty much how I'm proceeding at this time I've had inquired at Town Hall when there might be an opening to the public September was mentioned and I know every all of that's in flux but that's no guarantee that we would still be able to have an artist in there hanging art and or receptions being allowed so I think what comes next for discussion is if the if we shift everybody to twenty twenty one which is what some other galleries in town are doing say like the library where if you were to show in July August this year but you can't get in the building you'd they'd have the option for doing July August in twenty twenty one so there's a lot of moving parts because we don't have answers to different things I can say none of the artists have come back to me to say I'm no longer interested and so there hasn't been any upset that I'm aware of of somebody saying I'm gonna have my exhibit and I don't want to do it I would like to reach out to Sharon Sherry regarding our little mail slot over at the library because we also haven't been able to go there if there's any checks or anything sitting in there and and and how we might get anything that's in that mailbox as well so I say you know everybody's everybody's you know seems to be okay with what we're presenting because we're all kind of going through this at the same time so it seems to sorry go ahead Ellen oh I was gonna say one advantage of pushing all the artists to twenty twenty one is that Amy I know you and I are event I think we're cycling off the commission so that would buy either the existing Commission members or new people some more time to rethink or yes plan for the future yes I will say I just to that point sorry I don't think that you will be actually I think Shona you sent me emails asking I don't think anybody's gonna be pushed off I think they'll extend your time to some I haven't heard official word yet but I suspect because of COVID your time will be extended at least six months or something I'll get I'll get final word on that yeah and and I was just going to add that arts night plus have been doing virtual art walks on the first Thursday so any of our artists have also been invited to participate in that which is they either submit a video you could be a demo they put their own video together of their artwork or like the one that I put together for Jamie so they have that option as well so there's some options there for them to get their art out to the public such as it is right now so I think to me from what Amy said it seems like a little bit like electrify embers we have to wait a few few weeks if not a month before we can sort of regroup and make a decision about this depends almost entirely on town halls reopening and what the town manager wants to do exactly okay anything else about that no okay so percent for arts yeah well there's not a lot to say there really not a lot to say except that if after all of the hard work in many years of engagement and really the whole reason I joined the Public Art Commission was to was not to redraft the percent for art bylaw in fact but was to actually work on executing it doesn't look like it's gonna happen anytime soon in fact I don't think it's gonna happen at all maybe someday in a year or two when the council is there'll have to be a new batch of counselors if somebody wants to take it up again could come back but I do not think it will get even a hearing in front of the council let alone come to a vote I think the council president is does not want to see new new potential legislation come up before the council that it's just gonna get rejected out of hand because it's a waste of everybody's time which I agree so it's very disappointing to me and probably to all of you and it's causing me to rethink many ways my engagement with the Public Art Commission and with art in town and where I want to go with that but I haven't made any big decisions so I don't know any thoughts feelings yeah Ellen Bill could you is it because of the pandemic and that the council being overwhelmed with all sorts of new decisions that it won't come before before them I think it's yeah it's because it's financial right so the way we drafted it they could have put it on them so we were literally one council meeting away from getting this thing on the books and they could have put it on the books and we drafted it so they could have then turned it off and at least it would have been on the books for the future but it didn't it we were we were one meeting away I think and we had the votes I was pretty sure I thought it would happen I was you know we we compromised a lot and we really worked hard and you know Jim was really instrumental in it Kathy Shane counselors Kathy and Steve Schreiber and a number of the counselors in a lot of different ways were very supportive in the end even you know Andy Steinberg so it was it's been a very first well I mean understand that's what happens right just twice to have our timing be so bad I know right change of government and now the pandemic like just unreal yes so this leads to a bigger question that we want to ask ourselves and think about moving forward I think and today is not the time to have a deep discussion about it but that was going to be an engine for creating a kind of revenue stream for the Commission and a way of us developing pretty ambitious projects and I'm sinking our teeth into making a real significant artistic contribution to town without that what do we as a Commission want to do and what do we want to work on and where do we see ourselves I do have some thoughts and I don't think we should get into that now but maybe that's a good topic for our next meeting is to really have a conversation about that anything else about percent for art no okay so poetry windows now this actually is the one potential well anyway it's an interesting project I think we could dig into and we talked about this our last meeting which is what to do with the poetry windows and boltwood and Jim and I have spent some time on this and Jim really dug into the contract we were eventually able to dig up the actual final contract that the town wrote between the artist Jim has and I think where it leaves us and I'll let Jim take over in a second but I think where we are is we have two options and Jim can say whether or not and which one he thinks is best but one is to go back to the original artist and ask them to restore the project to its original state or as as as close to it as we can get and maybe even make it better using current technology and the other is to ask the artist to relinquish her rights to that space and that project giving it back to the town and then turn it into a space where we could I mean I'm imagining that the public art commission would curate it on a rotating basis and have different artists come in and do installations in that space which to my mind could be a pretty cool exciting thing for us and future public art commission members to work on but people do like the poetry windows quite a lot and we may in fact be absolutely beholden to the contract to go back to the artist and try to restore it I will say that in the end none of this is our decision anyway all we would do is make a recommendation because we answer to the council the council is our appointing authority and whatever we want is in the end in their hands and of course the town manager always has an opinion one way or the other about all this stuff and has a lot of power so I think what we should try to do is decide as a commission what we think the best course of action is and then I will draft a proposal and send it to the manager the town manager and the council and see if particularly in light of the fact that percent for art is dead we can't get at least some kind of hearing or action on this so that I could say I've accomplished something in my in my time on the public art commission Jim do you want to okay so with regard to the contract I need to tell you about the man that went into a large law firm and asked for a lawyer that was only had one arm here this and so he went up and the lawyer said why in the world do you want me because I only have my right arm I lost the other in the ward well clients said well I get so sick of these lawyers to say on the one hand but then on the other hand and with this contract this is a classic application of that because I have never in my career which is 50 years long seen so a contract so ambiguous but the nice thing about it is on repairs administration that is one instance where it is not any the if we want to alter the work of the site or repair it we do have to talk to the artist so that's reasonably clear so we can go at the artist and if that's what we want to do I prefer to go talk to the artist about anything we do because the contract is too ambiguous I will I can't possibly put my lawyer's opinion behind anything so you can resolve it by getting the artist to agree to whatever you want to do so that would be my that's that's what I would want to do that big thing's fairly simple which is we go to the artist one way or the other yeah now what the question is what do we ask the artist do we ask the artist to restore it or you know to whatever degree the contract states and whatever degree the town is willing to you know have money and etc or do we go back to the artist say will you let us out of the contract so that we can do something else with the space let me tell you what it says about repairs and restoration firstly enough it says we get to decide if and when repairs and restorations will be made so that part's pretty clear and it says that we do routine repair restoration well I don't have an idea what routine restoration means and then it says during the artist's lifetime the artist may make or personally supervise significant repairs and restorations I don't know what that means either and be paid a reasonable fee so the things that you can take out of this are oh it does have a definition of significant repairs it affects the poetic content and so forth so basically you got to treat it as significant repair I think and the artist is going to pay does the takeaway so if we want to restore it we got to have a budget for the artist plus a budget for their restoration in pretty bad shape I think we can all agree right you'll agree with that so the other and I don't know what the artist would say I mean the artist is all up in arms about not restoring it that would be in one situation the artist is I'm not interested anymore it's another if the artist it might be simpler to start over you know we might get a one step would be get an estimate for what it would cost to restore it so we know if we're interested in that possibility and then decide whether we want to talk to artists and if we're getting about it or talk the artist into putting it back comments questions thoughts I do recall the artist made contact with the Commission within I guess the last five years I'd have to go back into the minutes to find out I can't remember where that conversation what it led to yes I have the documentation on that and I believe Eric had reached out to her and then and according to some of some of the accounts the recollections and I again I have to double check somebody on her behalf came and looked at what was there so we could get in touch with her I'm not I'm not concerned about that but that in a way is is kind of water under the bridge I guess we should just make sure we have our ducks in a row when we do get back in touch with her although I can always plead I'm the new chair so I wasn't around then but I think the question before us is on principle I guess what is our relationship to the artworks under the stewardship of the town on our relationship with the artists who have created these artworks and and also the potential for the town to do what's most appropriate for the town with these with these works or the spaces they can make a point to that to that framing of the issue because if you're framing that issue in that way for this particular work yeah the relationship of the town and the artist is set forth in this contract so to the extent that you can figure out what it means that's what governs okay it's a very artist favorable contract and then what the contract does not take into account apparently is the digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Visual Artist Act which gives the visual artist extensive rights which were not waived and those include rights of prevent modifications under certain circumstances and so forth so whatever we do I'd love to have the artist signature on the piece of paper okay and that resolves it all I can say I've never seen the piece in operation it's never worked as long as I've lived here so it's how long is that five years I think I've been here seven I haven't seen it work I remember it working ages ago when it was like brand new but I feel like it stopped working pretty fast it stopped working within as soon as the weather got cold and then they reinstalled it later using iPads and then it was working again for a brief period of time and then it also stopped so it's it's been there was the initial install which is apparently a kind of a disaster and then a reinstall which also didn't take so there is some cause for us to say maybe this wasn't the best idea for public art project how what is the artist I don't know I would guess she's around your age Jim but I'm not sure that day she's probably not interested in starting some big long project when she's had two failures on it already I believe she also lives in Japan she does well I wasn't sure about that I was she because I know she she was here you know in the Boston area at one point that was our if she's in Japan she's supposed to supervise the modification she can't do it I'd have to look at my look back on the minutes but there was something about maybe she was on sabbatical there or teaching over there but she was definitely something about Japan yeah I can't remember the specifics either okay so they were faced with this I love this if the artist cannot be reached within 60 days the town shall seek the advice of the Public Arts Commission it does not say what happens with that advice or what rights are if any are conferred by what we say but at least it's helpful I mean you could take the position that we have the ability to say we're going to destroy it if we can't reach the artist but the contract is highly ambiguous so we can't really say that and I'm not putting my signature on a piece of paper about it well I guess for me from the on point of view as a Public Art Commission what is our goal here and I think we have two outcomes one is to have the piece well three one is to have the things sit and look horrible as it's been and doing nothing and just kind of kind of public art failure in town I hope that doesn't continue to be the case two is to have it restored to the artist's original intent as best as she and or we are able three is to do something else with it I vote for something else because it's failed twice yeah I vote for something else too if we're voting I don't know if we're voting but well it's not a vote but it's a conversation having never seen it operate I vote not to continue it it's obviously an ongoing headache and its dependence on technology which is constantly changing will probably make it a continued headache so I would love to have that space to be creative and think of some other I like the idea of something that is changing and doesn't have to be permanent yeah I was gonna say I think as far as the technology there was someone who did approach the commission a couple years ago with some ideas for some some other technology so that so it could function but again the issue of who covered the cost of that who was maintaining that was part of the broader discussion and whether they are there's the artist wanted that so I would agree I think having something that is rotating it gets refreshed every once in a while keeps it interesting yeah yeah and who knows maybe it would actually like you know make somebody go like hey I want to visit Amherst today and see the new thing whatever it is I mean my my vision for that space is that yeah it would be a rotating gallery peak kind of a peephole gallery space you have an artist or artists come in who want to put things in those windows it would be curated it would you know through public process by the Public Art Commission or potentially outside people it would have a new name we'd have to take out of those bricks it says poetry window and give it a new name people gallery or whatever we want and it could it could have sculpture you know because we don't we can't really display sculpture in in town hall it could have flat things that people put in there I mean there's a lot you could do and people would come up and kind of peek in and could almost have a narrative from one window to the next or you know the sky's the limit in a way depending upon funding and budget we don't have right so that would be a push we'd have to yeah so that would be a part of the conversation that's my vision for it well here's what I do then because it seems like unanimously there's no interest in trying to resurrect it so then the we have the problems that we have to get around is that the rights that it conferred for the artist under the copyright act are not waived and the second is the the rights under the contract for the artist are ambiguous and into there are two options for resolving that the best one and cheapest one is to get the artist to agree to it so that would be our first step we should we should probably prepare something if we find the artist prepare it and say this is why we think it's time has passed and do you agree with that can we can we relinquish that you know and then the second is divided in two parts we can either just do it and hope that she doesn't sue us and she probably won't I'm guessing unless she's got some money because it would be very expensive lawsuit because it would you know be fraught with appeals of the second thing we can do is follow declaratory relief action to get uncertainty over it which I am deaf I'm not particularly recommending because that costs a lot of money to our options but the declaratory relief action would cost far less than if we get to it we destroyed it we got to a battle over it after so as far as those issues that would absolutely come out in a conversation with the council and the town manager and I'm sure town council you know that JP law will have an opinion about all this yes which brings me to a point which I'd like to ask do we know there's a lawyer saying from that this is uneligible do we know who it said approved as to form do we know what lawyer approved it as to form no because if it was KP law then I would anticipate that there might be some defensiveness okay that's why I'm asking yeah well we don't have to say I mean if our intent is to do something else with the peace and the town manager is supportive of that the town council is supportive of that then I mean I'm sure KP law pretty much finds the answers that the town manager wants them to find seems like so well they're supposed to do but here's the problem the problem is how you do it because if you get the artist signature then everybody's happy there's no problem about anything if you don't now you've got a legal analysis and a quagmire and the lawyers not look at this thing and if came out of my law firm I might be a little embarrassed okay well also there's that thing in there about the 60 days too so it's like if we reach out and we don't hear anything for 60 days then that's essentially like a forfeiture of her right that it isn't it says that it just could it doesn't it says we can see I don't have to find it but I remember that it what it says happens if we can't find her is itself very ambiguous it doesn't clearly say if we cannot find I think it says we we seek the approval of public arts we seek the advice of the Public Arts Commission but it doesn't say the consequence of going to the Public Arts Commission nor does it expressly say the Public Arts Commission's decision shall be binding on the artist so it's a that's what I mean it's a quagmire because it it just doesn't complete the thoughts so makes any sense yeah yeah so what we'll we can have if our intent is clear from our point of view as a commission then we can just get the ball rolling and approach I mean I could approach in a casual way Paul and Lynn and just sort of read the weather there and just say this is what we've been talking about can I write up a formal proposal to this effect and they'll probably respond Lynn is very responsive Paul not usually and then that would give them something you know I could I could draft something send it to all of you to look over and it would just be an analysis of the facts that I know from the past where we stand now and where we imagine going with this yeah I don't particularly want to get into anything in writing about what I said no no no inflammatory no not at all it would simply be if we're agreed that we'd like to try to do something else with the space it would just be a recounting of this is when it was made this is the artist's name this is what happened when it didn't work the first time this is what happened when it didn't work the second time it's been empty for five years you know we would like to see something new happen with it and you know what I know comments thoughts yeah I mean if that's what we want to do we have to get the decision made that that's what we want to do however we get it made and then somebody has to write a letter to the artist saying that's what we want to do and then she agreed to it yeah well if she does get her signature on I guess my question is are we ready I mean I guess we could take a formal vote as a commission and then we could draft a formal letter and that's we should probably take those steps are we ready to do that at this meeting or is it better for me to actually in a preliminary way reach out to the you know Lynn and Paul and just get some feedback from them before we get to that point well politically do we need to do that because I think it's pretty clear what we want to do and I think we're pretty clear what we ought to do you know so I mean politically is that indicated and I think we should do it and if it's not necessary politically then I'm ready to vote I feel like going to the town council members that we would be going to with a clear idea of what what we're looking for would be good you know so maybe it's better than if I actually try to draft something more direct that we all agree on so I think this is okay so for our next meeting I will have drafted and circulated a letter of intent you know our summary letter of the situation and you know like I just described and we will have all read it will come with comments and we can vote to approve it and if we do then I will send it along that makes sense yes yeah okay any other thoughts on that okay so that then leads to next item was the on the agenda our relationship to other organizations in town I put that on there just because I wanted to initiate a conversation about how we interact with the bid and the cultural district and actually this does raise the question of how we interact with the council and the town manager this is part of a larger conversation but it was occasioned by covid and in particular by also by the mural projects that the bid had come up with that got that she drew when the historical commission objected to it it was that mural that we had none of us liked but we felt we couldn't say no to because it was going on private property you recall it was like the welcome to Amherst and their kids were going to paint it so when it came up before the historical commission they really pushed back and said they didn't like it it's ugly whatever and so Gabrielle I think was understandably unhappy or you know she ended up withdrawing the project and not doing it and subsequently has called for the dismantling of the historic commission actually so she was really unhappy and there's been some pushback actually Mandy Mandy Mandy Joe Hanneke on the council also has questioned the role of the historical commission so there's starting to be some grumblings which leads me to think well the bid is really taking over in a way it has taken over during covid a lot of what we do or at least that's seems to be Gabrielle's vision put push creating public art in town in a whole variety of ways and there's potential for collaboration and possibly potential for conflict I'm not sure so I just wanted to bring this up you know we nobody reached out to me about the jersey barriers and painting the murals on the jersey barriers which frankly is probably even more public in a sense than that other piece that was going to go in a private building since it was a DPW who set up those jersey barriers and they're actually in the public way part of the covid relief was to actually was to allow these things to happen very quickly and so they didn't want to get a lot of commissions committees boards involved and they didn't are we okay with that do we want to complain do we I don't know I have I did feel like we should have been like involved in it in some capacity but I don't know what our like put in the door up with that would have been you know what I mean yeah we have two major problems first of all we don't have any money and say about we don't have any statutory power other than that I say we should get I'd add to that we are all volunteers whereas the people who work for the bid are not yeah part of not having power so I mean I think you try to do anything about it it's a lost cause but if somebody can tell me I'm wrong I'd love it I would have loved to have yeah I I feel like we should have more collaborative conversations perhaps with the bid and you know Gabrielle obviously supports public art and you know I don't know what happened to the footprints project I assume that got put on hold with the pandemic but you know she seems really gung-ho about that and yeah I drove by that Saturday morning when they were painting all the Jersey Barriers and I was like oh wow this is cool but I didn't know about it so right I think it was more yeah I guess I would want to take a stance of collaborative collaboration not conflict but somehow to have a more open line of communication between our two groups to just be aware of what's each other is doing or thinking about or planning and how can you know if they do have a budget you know how can we support them and in some of these yeah what do we have you know if we have say let's go out collaborate what do we have to offer them I don't know expertise I don't know my understanding with the barriers and and both get Gabrielle and and reach out to me one to ask if I wanted to paint something and to you know do you have any artists you think might be interested I think it was after that that I this may have been in the Gazette but that the money for that came out of a grant or some funding that town or that the BID had received yes yeah that that downtown foundation no I don't think it was through that it was state the state money there there's been a lot of money coming coming to to the organization so I think they took a portion of whatever money was received and after you know Northampton had their public art weekend and people were out painting and then it was hearts are getting now you know painted too I I don't know if because we haven't been meeting regularly if that had any impact on the reaching out to us I you know I don't know it's all speculation I can't say what was in their thinking process I I thought it was interesting when you said Bill that the the money comes in and they you know the organization wants to move through it quickly so how was the fast what's the fastest way to get the money dispersed once it's received so I would just point out that like the I find problematic the I can't breathe mural in front of that in front of bistro 63 or something the message that it sends people are sort of going out to eat it's confusing it's confusing to me I don't know I don't believe anything was juried or very heavily juried I am aware that in talking with Gabrielle one person did submit something and it may have been one of one of the Amherst high school students but it was guess was very elaborate and she was like okay but you've only got three hours so you need to kind of reduce whatever that that was so I think it kind of as shown as I came together very quickly but is that what we want for public art in Amherst I'm not sure anyway I don't know that we have to spend a lot of time on this it's just something for us to be aware of and for us to think about as we think about our charge and our mission and where we see ourselves as a body going in the future I don't want to step on people's toes either and I don't want to quash organizations that are doing things in town I want to collaborate I want to see great things come out of it yeah I was just saying I think it's been a topic of discussion over time because many of our organizations from arts night cultural district BID the cultural council all have a lot of the same same idea same intense but we're still still we're still siloed we've seen some breakthrough of that and some some collaboration some crossover but the silos are still there and I don't know what what the easy answer is to change that stretch my legs mm-hmm okay I just wanted to stretch my legs so it's been an hour I think we can wrap up unless there's anybody anybody wants to say anything else about that topic I have no chair report I've pretty much heard my two cents with you shown I don't know if you have a treasurer's report I understand yeah I do we have $1,202 and 52 cents okay as of like a couple days ago great I mean that does lead me to think a little bit about how we might want to spend that money that's another thing to think I mean it's like some of these town bodies and commissions have absolutely zero so we're lucky to have that much even though it's a small amount and so that might be again for our next meeting something to to ponder I'll put that on the agenda I guess any other business you want to set a date for the next meeting yeah good idea and maybe maybe I'm trying to do it slightly sooner rather than later depending upon what people's schedules are like just because we have some stuff I'd be good to get moving on since we haven't met for a super long period of time how does well it's almost a month away I mean the next meeting I guess would be like August 13th I should have to double I need to double check that date because I actually have a week away book that I don't see in my calendar but are other people available then I am I am everybody but Ellen okay yeah I'm supposed to be away for two weeks the week of the 10th and the 17th the week of the 10th that's sort of right in the middle of the month I mean we could conceivably try to meet again in two weeks on the 30th and just get this issue of the poetry windows hammered out and voted on and signed off on and sort of have a conversation about how we want to spend our thousand dollars and kind of regroup see where we're at although that's before the deadline maybe we should you know I think we should meet after the September 1st deadline for the electrify Amherst and the August 1st I'm sorry August 1st I'll be camping on Thursday the 6th but I could potentially do Tuesday August 4th are people I can yes yes at 12 yeah okay that should work August 1st at noon 4th 4th or Monday or Monday Monday might even be better the third but so that's tentatively say the fourth at noon okay I can do Monday Monday works okay is that better okay thank you Monday's better okay that's great better for me for sure okay so the third that's the third yeah you'll get if assuming I can book it you'll get you know the same kind of email this actually worked pretty well I think yeah so then let me just make a note for myself on the agenda for that meeting and I'll have to circulate beforehand will be the letter re poetry we'll electrify and how to spend how to spend our thousand dollars big party I mean frankly what one question would be do we want to use it to repair the you know the conversation piece a poetic dialogue piece not that I think our budget should be covering that if we say good faith well we will cover it this is a hey COVID everybody you know we're strapped for cash look we have a little bit of money we're gonna pay for it I mean I think about the poetry windows again no no the poetic dialogue piece that CPAC rejected our request for paint last year anyway for next meeting the Culture Commission I have a feeling you get some money if you ask oh yeah and I think the deadline for applying is not over okay I might just reach out to sure you'll get money if you're asked I might okay anyway all right thank you everybody okay okay that's it bye bye


The usual way to frame the ITU Wicked process is to call it the UN takeover of the Internet. But what that type of characterization does is it leaves us out of all the details. Any regulation, either national or international, is directed at someone. So the question to ask is, at the end of the wicked process, whose behavior will be regulated? The second question to ask is, what area of their lives or behavior will be regulated? Will the regulation focus on security? Will it focus on intellectual property? Will it focus on speech regulation, etc.? Making broad meta-arguments saying that the process isn't multi-stakeholder enough or the process doesn't represent the views of civil society sufficiently or the process won't represent the views of developing countries adequately. Those are broad meta-arguments, very difficult for anyone to take them seriously or to weigh their consequences accurately. The Indian government's position on Internet governance, one could say, isn't sufficiently thought through and hasn't been arrived upon after consulting all relevant stakeholders. And that is perhaps the reason why the Indian government has made a variety of mistakes in arriving at an enlightened position. And there seems to be, of late, a change in heart. And they are much more welcoming of civil society input and also a variety of stakeholders within India are getting their act together. For the first time this year, we have held an Internet Governance Forum at the national level and hopefully this dialogue that has been initiated will continue and evidence-based policy positions will be agreed upon and negotiated and will inform both national policy and the position that India takes at international fora. The American dominance over the Internet is a historical reality and it's not just the Internet. America takes foreign policy very, very seriously. So whichever international fora you go to, whether it's WIPO or the WHO or any other forum like that, you will find that the American delegation is usually the largest delegation. So to fault the US government for being proactive and for taking international law seriously would be a completely undeserved criticism. I think the most positive change will be to the process and to the overall philosophy at the International Telecommunication Union. The pressure from civil society groups has already forced the ITU to be much more welcoming of different types of input to be a lot more transparent, though still not as transparent as we would want them to be. The second benefit that I see surprisingly will emerge from controversial proposals like the ECNO proposal. Not that we should take that proposal on board, but it is clear that if one were to answer questions like that or attempt to address the problem statement that is raised in that proposal, that we need much more transparency about ISPs and telcos and their peer ring and transit arrangements and that would necessarily be a good thing because it would protect competition. So overall greater transparency at the International Telecommunication Union and greater transparency in the markets that this union is regulating would be the positive outcomes that we should expect from this meeting.


Hey everybody, welcome back to a Wicking Geekdom time for another haul video. This time we're kicking things off with some manga action. Here we have Magi Volume 3. Really excited to continue this series. I love the show and can't wait to read the whole thing. Here we have Rumi-ko Takahashi's Maisonikoku Volume 4. I'm so excited to collect this series and now with four volumes I can start doing a proper reading of this series and hopefully make a cool video for you guys. Continuing my haulage of Vinland Saga, here we have Book 4. I just love how sturdy these heart covers are and the art is just breathtaking. And I believe this covers, or the anime, the first season covers up to Volume 4. So I'm excited to go beyond that and read some new material for Vinland Saga. You might remember that I've been collecting the Gantz Omnibus editions and I've been missing Volume 2 for a while now. This was ordered back in April and it's been out of stock forever. Finally it went back into print in stock as well and they shipped it out and I finally grabbed it so I can continue my read through of Gantz. I'm a huge fan of all things folklore and Japanese history as well as yokai and all that wonderful creepy stuff. So I had to do it. It's a shame that it was not on my library. Here is Shigeru Mizuki's classic, Kitaro. Here we have the first of the recently released smaller volumes. This one is the first one titled The Birth of Kitaro. Switching over to the anime side of things, here we have the Blu-ray for the complete collection of Dororo from Studio Bappa. Yes, they've done work before this but this series is sort of what made them that household name that now every weeb is out there preaching about Mapa and their animation and all that stuff. Here we have Abade Ranman, one of my favorite series from last year. I really enjoy this samurai meets wacky races in the 18th century Wild West, if you will. Here we have Wave Listen to Me, the complete season, which I hate when they do that because I think we're not going to get another adaptation. But the way it ended, it ends just fine in my opinion, even though the manga is a lot longer and it's still being published as of this recording. I even made a review on it if you guys want to check it out on this very channel. Moving on to some collected additions comic book wise, I picked up Godzilla Unnatural Disasters, basically a 3-in-1 collection or reprint by IDW taking three famous story lines and bundling them up together in one chunky trade. Dejah Thoris, Gardens of Mars. This isn't something that I would have picked up right away but I wanted to check out one of the modern comics to see what all the fuss is about and I take it, it's fun. It's a fun action packed storyline. From DC Comics, my favorite DC hero, it is of course Aquaman, this is Deep Dives, basically a collection of post-rebirth minis that were released including the Walmart Giant Issues. Batman Earth 1, Volume 3, finishing off that trilogy, although from what I've heard, I haven't read this yet, there is hints of a fourth volume and I forgot to record some B footage but enjoy the cover for the TMNT Turtles IDW collection, Volume 13, which is the last one before the reboot or relaunch of the series, a great, fantastic series in my opinion, the best interpretation of the turtles so far. Over on the movie side of things, I've been building a Kaidu shelf, which you will kind of see in a few, but I picked up Godzilla vs Maya Lante. I've talked about this in streams before, this DVD and the Blu-ray were super expensive and finally, I don't know what happened, maybe they found a pallet of unsold copies or something like that, that all of a sudden at least the DVDs lowered in price from the $80 range down to like normal, like 18 bucks, which is what I paid. Next up, I decided to expand my Asian cinema section of my movie show and started picking up random films on Blu-ray that I've missed throughout the years. I remember when this came out from Funimation and it really piqued my interest because it sort of plays on the tropes and history of Satouichi and I was really interested but forgot to pick up Ichi. Next up, another classic movie, here we have Battle Royale. I've seen this many times, but I never owned it until now. The only reason I didn't get the pretty box set is that it is super out of print and expensive online from Arrow. Yes, I jumped on the summer sale for some criteria on Blu-rays and Arrow and all that stuff. Some of it arrived, others did not for this video, but here we have Yojimbo and Sanjuro from Akira Kurosawa. Starting into the Takashi Miké's extensive filmography, I'm not going to collect every single thing, but just random movies that interest me. Here we have First Love and The Great Yokai War. When I talked about Kitado earlier, I mentioned that I'm a huge fan of that stuff and I decided to pick this up. And as soon as I ordered it, a couple weeks after we got the announcement that they're putting out, Arrow's putting out the Yo-kai Monster's collection on Blu-ray, including this thing. So you get the old trilogy and this reimagining. Nonetheless, the Great Yo-kai War. Looking forward to watching this and I don't know, maybe make a video on it, who knows. Another one for my Kaiju shelf, I had to do it. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of King Kong, I wanted to pick up the Japanese side of things when it came to the Giant Ape, so I picked up the classic King Kong Escapes. And I had to. Even though I watched it on HBO Max, yeah it's not my favorite in the Monsterverse line-up, but it's still fun to see these two iconic characters duking it out with modern effects. From Tomo Uchida, we have the classic, the gorgeous Mad Fox movie. This is something that has piqued my interest for a long time, I've never watched it in the beautiful expression of colors and sort of bringing this play to life, and it's just a beautiful experiment in cinema, and it looks gorgeous. So I went ahead and picked it up as part of the Blu-ray sale. Another of Takashimike's classics that everybody should know about, I've seen this already, but again, I didn't own it physically, it is audition. And the less you know about this movie, the better, seriously go watch it. This was a recommendation from a friend of mine, I'm not a huge fan of crime movies, or like gangsters, or Yakuza, or whatever it may be, but it's so stylish, it's so cool, and I watched extensive reviews and trailers, I'm like yeah, I'll follow through with that recommendation and pick up the classic Tokyo Drifter. Next up, an ultra-violent, gourish zombie action flick, this is Versus, and I gotta say, I'm really impressed by Arrow Releases, I've always been curious about them and owning now a couple of sets, I get it, I get the hype. This I love that it's basically a spoof and a cheesy parody on purpose on all things kaiju, and yet I love looking at reviewers who don't understand this fact and they're upset about the movie, I'm like, you know, you're not getting it. Death Kappa is something else, it's so wacky and dumb, I absolutely love it. And honestly, this all leads into the big experiment, I wasn't going to do a separate video on it, who knows, maybe I'll do it, I got myself a new K-Lack shelf that I plan to just use as sort of my Asian cinema, you know, like a couple of thrillers and action movies and gangster flicks and stuff like that that pique my interest, of course kaiju movies, Asian cinema that's not available on Blu-ray that I can get on DVD, that's gonna go on there, anime films like the Studio Ghibli and etc, all that is gonna be here, so I'm really excited, it's already looking pretty awesome, I love this shelf and I'm excited to add more to it. Switching over to the video game side of things, because you know I like to collect for the Switch, that's what I'm actively collecting when it comes to video games. I got myself Tales of Vesperia, the Switch version, I have not started playing this, I need to get through some other stuff first before I, you know, go deep onto the JRPG stuff, because I know that's gonna take forever to finish. From Limited Run, I picked up No More Heroes 1 and 2. Now here's the thing, No More Heroes number one, I played on the Wii when it came out from a friend's copy, lent it to me and I played a good chunk of it back in the day and that was fun, but I never grabbed the copy for myself and when the second one came out I totally forgot about that stuff and never played it. So now I'm excited to go back and replay all of No More Heroes 1 and then jump into the second one and of course as of this video, number three is a couple weeks away, so we'll have the full trilogy and that is really awesome to have that on the Nintendo Switch. Monster Hunter Stories 2, I didn't play the 3DS version, the first game, but I'm excited nonetheless to check this out. I'm not a huge fan of the Monster Hunter series, I've only played two games and it's not my thing, but with this I love the RPG aspect with like some Pokemon mechanics with the little monsters and all that stuff. So yes, I'm excited, I love the visual art style so yeah this is more of my alley I guess. So we'll see how that turns out. And you know, third time's a charm when it comes to Yokai, I picked up Yokai Watch on the 3DS. This was $10 factory sealed, it's an old 3DS game, I understand that. And when that came out, I was one of those nerds that thought this is imitation on all things Pokemon and it's gonna fail. But you don't have to look at it like that, it's its own thing, befriending and then catching and fighting and all that stuff with the yokai monsters. And yeah, I'm sort of on this hype train when it comes to that specific topic of yokai and I'm really excited to own the game. This is a Ninja Gaiden Master Collection, of course these were the PS3 era Ninja Gaiden games. I had to pick them up from Play Asia because they are... they didn't get a physical release in North America.  So yeah, went ahead and picked up the games through that site and I've been really enjoying playing them. Last but not least, here we have the great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I'm a huge fan of the Ace Attorney series, obviously I have not played Chronicles, but nonetheless I'm super excited. This is my type of jam. I've been, you know, getting into the visual novel type games and all that stuff so I'm excited to play through this and hopefully make a review on my gaming channel. That is Geo's Arcade here on YouTube. Alright, so that's about it guys. Thank you so much for tuning in to another haul video. It's been fun, it's been real. The channel is going through some changes, as you can see, so I will be making an announcement or a livestream about it after this haul video. If you want me to review a specific product, an anime or manga, stuff like that, let me know in the comments section down below. Thank you everybody for liking, commenting, and being a part of a week in a kingdom. As always, stay safe out there. God bless. I will catch all of you in our next video.


Were you ever told as a kid that if you play with fire or even watch it burn You'd wet the bed at night or or even you'd pee uncontrollably in your sleep And this is what my family used to tell me back when I was a toddler And even when I was playing with something like a piece of dead wood whenever my father was making a barbecue And this wasn't actually a family specific piece of wisdom And I believe that my friends Parents used to tell the same thing to their toddlers and the reason they were doing this was not backed up by by by research Or not even by rational reasoning, but only because a child can better relate to this Familiar and embarrassing consequence of being in bed rather than the more abstract and theoretical dangers of fire so my parents were essentially making use of heuristics to get the job done and heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to quickly craft the conclusion and bypass the inconvenience of deep thinking as deep thinking is a process that consumes more mental resources and We do not know if and when the benefits of deep thinking will come to life And we humans use mental shortcuts when there's actually no time for deep thinking and I believe that in today's world We're actually just allocating a lot less time Getting to the roots of a particular problem and we are using these mental shortcuts on a daily basis Their goal is to get us from point A to point B without too much cognitive load Skipping the part where we think through the downsides of choosing a particular path It is sort of like an if this then that mechanism for choosing a particular road and these mental shortcuts are So embedded within ourselves so much that they have become a reflex and we we rarely stop and start questioning Their wisdom their meaning or their true application And what I'm trying to do I'm trying to better learn how to spot these type of mental Trickery and there are some good quality mental shortcuts that have been sort of tested from an evolutionary standpoint And maybe we we can trust so it's about simple things such as a cheat shot or a water cooler type of conversation One should ask questions instead of trying to be affirmative and make a point It's a lot easier to do that. It can be more effective communication wise You can keep the flow going with that particular person without upsetting or Sparking a not so useful type of conversation or maybe you can look at things such as Decision-making where decisions having a utility of less than X amount of dollars should be made faster in something like under 20 seconds this time is more Valuable overall and it might not be worth to spend more than say 20 seconds thinking about that particular decision And if you want to browse through some rough statistics, they essentially tell us that Bill Gates made something like $300 per second in 2018 and by following this train of thought it would not be worth his time to stop and pick up a $100 bill laying on the ground and also because he might crack his back or something like that You know, and there's another mental shortcut I found useful and this is sort of like related to communication If you're talking to a person trying to construct and make a point in regards to some random easy to digest Obviously true topics such as saying that the lion is bigger than an ant and if that particular person will not accept What you are saying we should be inclined to think that there is a communication error And that actually means that you could have communicated that specific thing in a better way Because you are probably oftentimes jumping to your guns saying that the person who you're talking to is stupid and cannot comprehend What you're saying instead of looking at yourself First and analyzing your lack of good communication and another mental shortcut another heuristic I found useful by default is to be a skeptic and not trust facts based on small pieces of information like Text audio or video quotations taken out of context For example, you see on online two-minute video with the president saying that he will do this and that But to form an opinion on the overall situation one must read listen or watch the whole video And again being a default skeptic in terms of ingesting fragmented pieces of Content is a high quality mental shortcut and the last thing to consider is that these high quality mental shortcuts come from experience You're building feedback loops so that you can automatically tell yourself when situation X occurs then why might happen as well and Boiling them up and updating them along the way might be indeed the best thing to do