I'm Mary Rose Doherty. I am the editor of the Mountain Troubadour and I am a member of the PSOV editorial board and George Longenecker who is also a member of the editorial board is here tonight serving currently as executive secretary. He can do everything. Welcome to the Poetry Society of Vermont's 75th anniversary celebration and reading. This is the fifth and final event in a series which has seen our members read across Vermont in Burlington, Bennington, Rutland and Woodstock. We extend a special thank you to the Kellogg Hubbard Library which supports and promotes literary arts programming with gusto and adult programs and outreach coordinator Michelle Singer in particular for her work in supporting poets. Where are you Michelle? There she is. Yay! heartfelt thanks for bringing poetry to a wider audience through Poem City. Also thanks to Orca Media for recording tonight's event. A few words about our gathering tonight. We feel like separate water droplets but we are also ocean. This quote from Jane Hirschfield reflects Rumi who said you are not a drop in the ocean.  We are here tonight because I reached out and connected you to libraries statewide. It was important to me that we mark our 75th anniversary in a public way. What better way than to give members a forum for their work? The creation of statewide hubs through this reading series was not entirely my idea but that of Ann Day, longtime board member and our longest member who joined PSOV in 1958, just 11 years after PSOV was founded. When I first joined the Executive Council as Troubadour editor four years ago, I spent some time getting to know the rest of the board through a phone call to each. I learned it was Ann's desire to cast seeds and foster the kind of personal touch she experienced in her early days as a PSOV member through friendships seated at our regular workshops. I saw the importance of Ann's vision and gave it legs. While we encourage you to participate in all of our events, we wanted to find other ways to help you deepen your poetry friendships in your own backyard. Thus the hubs. We're hoping PSOV poets will use this opportunity to grow connections with each other. Remembering we are both droplets and ocean. Take out your phones tonight and record contact info of people with whom you want to continue conversations. As members we are droplets and ocean too. We ask you to consider how you can strengthen PSOV. Each of us has the option of giving our time or money. You may have received or soon will receive a request to support PSOV financially. We know you'll respond as you are able. We also ask you to consider how you might give your time to support PSOV. Right now there are formal roles such as the need for a treasurer and a contest chair that we seek to fill. Please reach out to George Swanganekker who's a past president and current executive secretary or to me if you're interested. There may be informal ways that you want to give your time to. Bring your ideas. The members of the executive council are Bianca Sonelli, Carol Milcune, Nate Ingham Prist Bilack, Andrea Kravici Kramer, George and myself. What do you imagine PSOV might be? We want to hear from you about your wishes for PSOV. Please reach out tonight or email any one of us with your thoughts. And now our program. So our first reader, we had somebody who is number one not coming tonight. So Robin, you are our first reader. And should I read the list so you remember who's before you? Would that help? Okay, so we've got Robin Joy, Cindy Hill. Just remember the next person in the line. Cindy Hill followed by George Langanekker, followed by Linda Quinlan, followed by Buffy Akkash. Akkash, thank you. Followed by Scutter Parker, followed by Carol Johnson Collins, followed by Christine Corman and punctuated by Mary Rose Doherty. So our first reader is Robin Joy. Robin Joy's chapbook, Tumbling Through, was published by Budget Press in 2022 and her work has been or will be featured in the 2022 and forthcoming 2023 Mountain Troubadour. Her poems tell personal stories in the context of nature, addiction, sexual identity, trauma, and chronic and mental illness. She's the founder of Rabbit and Wolf, which currently hosts a monthly poetry reading series at the front in Montpelier. She resides in Montpelier with her husband Lloyd and Thomas, their genius cat. And she is our newest member of the editorial board. Welcome, Linda. I mean, sorry, Robin. I'm going to start with Dream House, which is in the upcoming Mountain Troubadour. Dream House. Build me a house by a river, a lake, the ocean in the morning fog, I will ask the water and the animals to hold my grieving whispers so I can float into the day. Build me a house where I have space to cry until I'm screaming and breaking without interruption, a soft bed for when it's over. Build me a house in the rain so I can be productive and in the sun so I can breathe it in. Build me a house with secret doors to secret tunnels, but not small ones because I need room to think. Build me a house where there's magic, bowls of water and flowers taking in moon rays to pour over our bodies when they are dirty. Build me a house so when I step out the back door, my bare feet sink into the earth and meet my roots. Build me a house in the past so I can tell myself it doesn't get better but it gets easier to not be okay. Build me a house in the sky so I can look down when I'm sleeping and take photos of my dreams. Build me a house in the mouths of deities so I can feel what it feels like to be holy. This one's called when I'm hungry. Try to keep my voice going. My thighs hang inward after I've starved them and I still don't have the gap. Some are too powerful to flatten like the tire of my bicycle when I was nine. When I'm hungry, the lambs are no longer born of rams and yews but live within my peas and queues until my wet mouth releases saliva in wanting like the watermelon that gets sticky then itchy as it dries down my arm in the sun in a memory I don't actually have. The table knife sinks into the moldy rind of my soft cheese abdomen when it is warm glistening with butter and honey teeth aching with sweetness sharp like a spoon to mercury. I don't think it'll help. This is called a thin slice of silence. This morning I used yarrow to extract truth from the hovering fog thick with bird voices. I ran under a murder of ravens not privy to my own telltale tail feathers signs of belonging somewhere without being common. I've been staring into the red boat of glass on my altar every day inhaling the satisfying sting of sage wanting to live there. I wish I could find religion in the flickers and smoke crawl inside to see how it works. I wish I could become a minnow in the river see the bottom where my feet might plant themselves find roots of an invasive sort where I can wander across and over always knowing where I started. I wish I could live on the edge without being in it where my belly can safely be soft and tender. When I was little it didn't occur to me that water birds had legs. They were magic floating home without struggle. Every time I see animals I cry lately because when we make eye contact I find redemption. Last night I saw a deer with caramel fur I woke up with dream sand on my fingers to fairy tale. The beans sprouted from their hands when I emerged from fluids and eggs. Growing into a stalk I was clinging to until something better emerged from my scalp and I let down my hair from the top window. But the sting of the feet digging into split ends was too much and so I grew taller with while bees buzzed out rhythms and my hips shook my legs open and what did I have to say for myself except that the one that said this one makes you small had never worked the way I wanted so was it really my fault that the rabbit lived in such an old tree and when the sky really did feel like it was falling no one believed it because my wolf had already cried so much it drowned all this empathy but the hunters only said they cut out my heart because they were hungry for a chest to pin their shame on. This is called summer 2013. My father and I didn't talk about it but we knew that I needed to hear waves every day that summer understand the tide and how the undertow could scoop up all the old crustacean houses leave behind leave some behind as a record of what happens but take the rest to be archived in deep water below where I could feel. When my toes were numb in the foam where the sand turned dark and heavy I called out to him to come see the dolphins playing. We could almost touch them it was as close as I could get to coming back to myself. Thank you. Cindy Hill where's Cindy? Cindy Hill is an environmental attorney writer and obsessed gardener living in Middlebury. She's the author of two sonnet chap books wild earth and elegy for the trees and her poetry has been widely published in literary and environmental journals. She is presently pursuing an MFA in poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Welcome Cindy. Thank you so much for including me in this wonderful event it's so nice to be here. So yes I write sonnets. I'll start out with a simple one from my book wild earth standard Italian sonnet. In praise of weeds grass among the roses ox eye daisies blooming round green cabbages and corn vex the gardener's eye and arouse scorn in those who seek to order earth and sky who plant in rows sterile square and neat violets and purslane won't emerge for those who separate pathways from verge and curse the wildness springing at their feet so much depends upon the hum of bees dancing pointing soaring over the vetch from elder current vine and basswood trees to dandelion clover and sedge so let us rather sing in praise of weeds and everything that grows along the edge so this next one is a a double sonnet it's 28 lines it's just two sonnets mashed together it's also in wild earth and it recently got picked up by a new england poetry checkbook anthology i'm sorry called jim gallagher jim gallagher bought about 36 wild acres back in 1985 he was young then and the land was near his work outside among the trees he felt alive the ground rises and falls everything does like the stream cutting through rock ravine and these sky scraping stands of tall white pine he never thought those pines would ever lean until they logged next door right up to his line the wind the blow downs it's not like it was jim walks each acre every single day rain or shine sleek cold it makes no matter from here this point of land he can survey the deer down in the browse watch them scatter when a rifle fires across the clear cut his own land is posted there's the hemlocks where they bed down in deep snow the fisher cat likes to climb out on that branch and fox get in that brush where all the rabbits are every year the bear goes for those beach nuts he picks up deadwood for the cabin stove he used to pull his water from the spring then they built a manufacturing above it on the hillside cold black pipes leaking the ground beneath his boots rises and falls at night in that old oak the bard owl calls he found a fawn asleep behind that stone out in these trees jim never is alone and then elegy for the trees is a bunch of strange sonnets primarily about trees i've i've known or that played a role in my life and the first one is actually called tree of knowledge i didn't personally know the tree of knowledge but even before my time um but it is a modified terza rima sonnet it all started with talk about a tree didn't it eve did not pluck an apple but fruit of knowledge of good and evil the tree could have been doomed botanically before it had begun unless that fruit probably parthenocarpic took root because at least according to the screed there was only one ah there's the lesson humans might have avoided secession from that premier gated community had they not clutched at human centered views but had instead took times to think things through from the perspective of ecology the greatest sin was not to plant the seed and i'll read one last one hot off the uh ink ink still drying um it's a senato rinter zado which is a 13th century form it's called a reinforced sonnet there are some extra lines in it blame lupo guido not me it's called jenny hickey screen porch skullville new jersey summer 1973 and jenny hickey was my great grandmother the weegee board melts letters out across the low rattan table where our outstretched hands slow dance with the planchette like figure skaters in a spin glider springs croak rhythmic time below limp floral cushions beetles longing to get in bang against barriers unseen then fall to the white sand mosquitoes hum an incessant rain of phrases written beyond the veil from hidden condensation and heavy air to fingers held within transparent walls you believe in this communication in eternal affection pondering vague messages i find ice in the kitchen and bring us cold mint tea silver sugar bowl a long spoon you've closed your eyes lost in dream of twilight and jazz bands and harlem you were just 18 under sparkling dance for lights when he slept swept you off your feet now he's gone home and left you in this place of in between of longing behind a screen your line face forms an image of repose in love serene at your feet on scraps of paper among jumbled words strewn and thin pencil lines you have traced his promise see you soon george longenecker wanders woods i love that and roads with his wife synthia and her dog ico they live in middle sex you can find his poems online this spring in sixfold and his latest book review online in rain taxi welcome george thank you gazelle's giraffes and grizzlies cocker's poodles and muts walk on leashes in hubbard park a few run in the woods but most return to their owners when called on a porch near the park gate a cat watches disdainful of dogs dogs who are so easily controlled by humans people successfully train dogs oxen and horses domesticate cats sheep and llamas but other animals run wild a gazelle giraffe or grizzly bear could carry me through the park faster than a horse or borrow but humans like being in control we don't like animals who can outrun or eat us maybe i should pair up with a panther and watch other walkers shock and fear as i saunter down the park path with my 200 pound kitty who pauses now and then to eat a squirrel or cocker's spaniel we should realize most animals are wild like that red fox leaping through oak leaves into the woods and out of sight so i must admit i as an english teacher and writer i'm a little bit intolerant of punctuation errors missing apostrophe without it we can't possess each other or even associate though at times you told me i was too possessive can we really throw it away that forgotten punctuation mark on my keyboard while it may not seem like such a catastrophe to leave out an apostrophe without it we can't write can't and couldn't ever write contractions which are handy and were badly needed for the birth of informality but they're not essential it's in possessiveness that an apostrophe is at its best except for its one exception it hurts me when you're left out and forgotten please stay please possess me apostrophe i have souvenir cards of that one which i leave at the table with the refreshments for your reading pleasure later if i pass them out now you'll read them during the next person's poem the bold faced hyphen protest the extinction of the bold faced hyphen but once numerous hyphen is all but extinct i have seen them flying in pairs making a mad dash to safety fly fly away quickly before you too become extinct and forgotten or held captive and misused for that's the apostrophe's fate held prisoner and plurals on road signs in mis-punctuated ads mourn the apostrophe's demise solidarity save the apostrophe save the hyphen free them from their sentences now free the apostrophe now save the bold faced hyphen now into quinland won the wicked woman poetry prize for chelsea creek her book of poems reflecting on her upbringing in a blue-collar new england town she has been published in sinister wisdom the north carolina literary review and the new orleans literary review she was poet of the year in wisconsin and presently lives with her partner ann in mom piliar thank you um thanks everybody for coming out this is great um and thank the poetry society for doing it and um the first poem i want to read is i'm going to read two old ones in one new one so um this is and for people who don't know if you're younger when we were kids we had roller skates that you had to tighten with keys and you had to put the uh metal on your foot and then tighten them up so anyway there's a reference to that in here so i just want to make sure everybody knew okay popping frogs in the 50s beside the soldier's home the knotted wing the knotted rope swing pulled between our legs as our bodies swung and our toes touched the leaves below this was before the boys opened us like the names they carved on bark they gathered frogs from the pond and threw them under cars just to hear them pop us girls held each other's hands and tightened our roll skates with keys on the stoop our fathers played polka and laughed at the frog crackers as the heat exploded into twilight the porch light and shirts went on i saved as many frogs as i could but most weren't quick enough to hide in the summer grass they slipped in oil as thick as mud i sat down by the pond making mud pies listening to my mother yell about polio as if that were the only danger this is a new poem that i've been working on it's called baby sitting danie danie was my cousin and i was 14 and he was like nine so this is about him danie and i met for the last time at a fifth street bar two doors down from his mother's old pond where i ran numbers for her to the bookie joint across the street my hand reaches for him then retreats he is a tear waiting to fall on my cheek i taught him to steal at willwards he emptied his pockets and delivered his hall to all the girls he wanted to please balloons eyeliner candy lips that bled into our mose his mother was 43 when she was found dead empty pill bottles beside her no last words in an apartment above cats bagels i wanted to steal something for him to give his give him his mother's laugh the way she held a martini and a cigarette i paid for his beer and offered nothing more he legged behind me my car door opened and shut six months later he's dead beer bottles on his floor california sun on my face when i get the call a gun in his hand no suicide note a long picture of his mother on the nightstand and i was going to read um ann and i lived in new orleans for about 17 or 18 years and so this poem is called a new orleans farewell you left me an african mask left me to enter the please you cafe on lower st charles bacon grease settling on our skins were short round waitresses older than we leave work swiftly on a washed out saturday night where torus wander street excuse me where torus wander streets they shouldn't a rato chapatoulas clio past charity hospital where a broken banana tree slaps at the heat of july making not a bit of difference to anyone and i can't remember you there no money grab beads around your neck no music to sell lying in a hallway gurney stomach so bloated that tears are often here and the stifling air has no arms so i carry your ashes to the mississippi river and remember to be an outlaw to ripple through people's lives with a soft rebellious wave thank you growing up around hills and lakes in new jersey west of new york city buffy akash has been moving between small towns big cities and intentional communities for the last 30 years he has been writing poetry most of his life and came out as a queer man in 1988 he earned an mfa in playwriting for color from columbia university his poems have been published by swede cat press main street rag the north magazine and his first chap book untangling the knots was published by kelsey books in december thank you to the poetry society of vermont for giving us the space to share i have this thing about mics and i know what it is just because okay so can you hear can you hear me better this way okay so i do need to adjust this mic so it will actually work there's a piece hanging over the edge maybe that's okay i'll just hold it like this okay um so this first poem is um uh was the winner of a contest this year by the poetry society of vermont the um the the marsh what was it was the name of that um i can't remember the name of the contest that it won but um it's called the beauty before us we must fall in love with beastly things lascivious brash and pity things bend our knee in grace of circumstance braid misgivings in tales of radiance forgiveness received offenses softened surrender to expanding beauty and gendering bonds give birth belonging falling down before our calling falling down before our calling to see the beauty in all the living resting breathing brave and grieving this one is from um my chap book called untangling the knots and i have one copy i forgot to bring more copies if anyone wants to to purchase a copy this evening otherwise it's available online um it's called this one's called how to look at the stars remember how very small we are crouched on the edge of night when the home of these distant beings throws open its pearly gates for all to see the last of the sun's light a creek of the hinges opening wide wide open so wide it's hard not to resist what pulls you up and away out of yourself for i've heard we are stardust million-year-old karma and the night sky our garden in which we grow our dreams from seeds of wishes we never knew we made and look how our lives shower down from a single shooting comet whose tail disperses light in dark matters helping us grow up from where the seeds were planted like the aftermath of our great day star which calls from the earth the verdant lushness we know as home so too our home is in the stars and while tiny and wrapped in it all so large our souls we can barely keep our feet on the ground this one um this is a new poem that i'm working on and um hopefully it will be in it's part of a collection that i'm putting together about my experiences with love this is called one tennessee summer i remember the whipper wills early morning they kept saying this is life this is the way life goes i hadn't slept much my bed was still empty and i so did not want it to be my beloved bastion of domestic bliss was out later he said chasing the person he loved who was chasing the person he loved it was summer but the morning cool and the whipper wills said to stop taking this lying down so i went out barefoot to the moonlit garden insects abuzz and walked down the rows of pea blossoms smelling that bucolic feculence the manure we've laid down under the swelter of the day before and grazed on the shoots an early morning breakfast of sorts all the while the whipper wills like shamans singing this life into being with the sunlight rising the roosters arousing spirits of langer i dreamed my way back to bed and fell into sweet sleep hardic mollified and again the whipper wills this is life this is life this is life scutter parker grew up on a family farm in north danville his book safe as lightning from rootstock publishing was awarded the best poetry book of 2020 by the independent publishers of new england scutter's poetry has also appeared in sun magazine cross wins oh french the la cow last cow the last i forgot the s i knew i would the last cow review northern woodlands sky island journal and vermont life his poem the poem of the world was recently selected as a finalist in the tom howard margaret reed poetry contest so i do have copies of the book that have been lingering in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet and there my lovely assistant is holding them up they're yours for ten dollar contribution to keloch hubbard library okay you don't get a commission although you deserve me that's right no overhead on this project the first poem is called this and beyond snow and minus zero how is the sound is this i'm yelling down into this thing which seems to be going for my chest um um this and beyond snow and minus zero clamp midwinter in an iron rut the gashawk we have never seen erupts into our ordinary slate blue wings ferocious eye black talons on jaunty yellow claws severe white breast thrill of visitation from the murder god red squirrels vanish ten blue jays shriek hopping limb to limb self-righteous clerics announcing terror in the neighborhood they think they rule and this is a poem for my brother who passed away of an aneurysm you would have loved this the strawberries are greatly appreciated by a committee of 12 cedar wax wings who elegantly adorn the wire tomato cages they take turns sampling the goods paws like aristocrats celebrating after a winter of wizened crab apples and sumac an elm is thriving as its neighbors raise arms overhead twining dry branch trip tips in elm's gesture of surrender this tree has woven roots in compost pile and garden i'm content to share no porcupine for years but here's one snapping elm twigs gobbling lush leaves preoccupied as a spiky panda 30 feet above its death once we might have said though we still think it sometimes they just come for the food as though scorn was our entitlement but you would love this every creature of it we'd share the light gift of their presence knowing grief is not just a human muscle though you have thinned your throne of ground hogs and appreciated fence to guard your family share you'd welcome them as you would have old friends at the reception after the service after the river erupted in your brain after that long swollen silence wrapping brownies in a napkin slipping finger rolls into their coat pockets as helpers in the kitchen watched knowing you would approving and then um susan and ian the state um lost a lovely lovely friend and beth danon whose service was last this saturday and i wrote a version of this as a blessing at the end of the for the end of the service and it just somehow changed a little bit but it felt right to share it and sort of welcome her spirit and accept our loss again tonight sorry i want to have uh this is called blessing let's love like children fearless in their hope let it surgeon us mighty as tides in the bay of fundy and if our bloom of optimism and sense of inevitability ebb choose our human work practicing intimacy with this earth and with each other patient attentive learning vulnerable and daring willing to struggle with ourselves and be brave with our beloved let love's determination fuel compassion awaken our imagination unleash our gift for creation knowing this is what the conspiracy of the universe makes possible for us let's share riotous irreverence a hilarity for the absurdity that surrounds us laugh at the pompous ponderous pretentious self-appointed mighty expose not just the cruelty and immorality of injustice but its illusion of inevitability remembering what it has destroyed how much it continues to steal dismissing its clever excuses saying no building something better let's acknowledge the dark weight of suffering and grief that pervades even our greatest joy and triumph our hard-won confidence admitting how much we need each other the stitch of generosity the heel of forgiveness accepted let's forsake quick judgments go give dismissals learned blindnesses that stumble and bumble us into each other shrinking and cheating us all let's be astonished by life in the vastness of its being doing and inventing stunned to humility grateful for this earth our wellspring let's quit the game of bargained mercy the wasteland of grumpy entitlement let us hold each other in our hearts with porosity delight and laughter with tears and ache unashamed of grief bold in joy let our goodness become a vast shared breathing thank you carol johnson collins teaches spinning knitting crocheting felting and circular weaving in her studio in south duxbury her work has been published in the mountain troubadour and pebbles from the stream and anthology featuring the work of mad river poets and psov members carol served on the editorial board for 14 years and the year of our founding is the year of her birth happy 75th husband's birthday yesterday mine is not until mother's day but so i'll start with my husband's to honor him i think that worked pretty well scutter or whoever was you you are holding it up mad door poll number one friend you can't stretch the daylight run around the sun pull your muscles beyond their born length triple your strength or mine we can't climb Everest when we haven't even climbed the tiny hill behind our house yet you proceed to try okay that's right but i'm i make books lots of lots of different kinds of books and i'm going to read one poem from several of those little books this is called book book making i haven't i haven't figured out this microphone book making whenever i make a book the book makes me a little a little better at saying oh saying what i feel or see so this one is called family song number two and this dates way back 47 years ago our two children our two sick children lying in bed with us are so glad to be close to two people who care what else matters really for a good beginning in this life than being close to two people who care about you they will grow up caring for their two who lie beside them knowing they are cared for this is dear dear Naomi this is a friend from 40 years who lost her son just in October and i wrote this poem for her about her son in 1997 when she and her son came to visit dear Naomi what a burst of sunshine your broad smile hearty voice and yellow gloves bring into our wintered spirits it doesn't seem right for life to run us around the way we let it i wanted to give Madison days and days of just sliding on our snowy hills older folks say they grow up too fast it's true but there's more there's no way later to give them the time we don't give them no a tear and this was written 23 years ago it is hard not being able to talk with you much it is hard not being able to picture your life there books and magazines are one thing but your life will be different from what i see in these articles about Alaska your life will be fuller richer more wonderful than any full color poster a tear comes now as i realize we are 30 years apart and 3,000 miles away we are like the baskets in my shop like the clay pots that you have turned like my vases in our kitchen like the blank books that you make when you come back all these empty vessels we will fill with our shared spirit dreams i have one this is the last one it's called and this is a little book featuring a a dear friend who passed away about 10 years ago the poem is the poem is called in dad's strong arms i was in bed with a very high fever worried mommy called the doctor bring her in right away he said i don't remember my age what vehicle we owned being carried to the car or the car ride to the doctor's office i remember the way my father's long strong arms gathered the blanket that wrapped me up cradled all of me and the weightlessness as we flew toward the doctor's office the penicillin made me well in ours but the way my father carried me made me well for my whole life thanks a lot christine corman lives in warren she participates in writing groups through the joslyn library she says she's fairly new to the world of poetry though she's been reading and writing it on and off most of her life and was an english lip major in college she writes a lot of essays and fiction and nonfiction she has adult children and two grandchildren with one on the way thank you very much and i'll appreciate your patience and the one good thing about my poems is that they are short so i'll start with park boys before drugs and death took the boys who played basketball the grocery store had dirt floors the milkman delivered milk the farmer with horse drawn wagon sold vegetables on the city streets we watched the same shows at the same time coke was a fountain treat then the boys on the basketball court became the park boys they listed a drift day and night eyes closed hands feebly scratching pinprick skin neither alive or dead the zombie walked beneath the basketball rims where no ball was their numbers shrank they were shot in the fields of war or in the alleys of crime blown up in tanks or in car crashes the needle killed the rest in the sought stupor given disease and death instead uncle the screened in ports smelt of wood bathed in salted mist my uncle built rough chairs and heavy round table on which we ate our meals outside but inside with the ocean breezes cooling the hot day plates of steaming corn chicken pot pies breaded fresh breaded fried low fish fill the table my aunt's love jeweler child cans of cherry coke orange and blackberry soda wash down the feast our voices rising and falling like a breeze laughing about the day jumping off the boat swimming in the wavy bay after a day of catching fish and meeting boating friends my uncle would drink not the colorful soda but a dark bitter liquid as the plates were cleared he'd grow weepy talking about his buddies lost in the war the war to end all wars his wounds opened tear streaked his mournful face his purple heart bled for the fallen the soul breeze would call him back from the bloody war this is my last one it's called circle prayer cradling you in my arms i carried you about you watched my face i whispered stories about birds and clouds listen to the breeze it's lyrical insects buzzing wind sighing the sun's rays singing down on you later we walked hand in hand you asked me about the frogs peering from the pond the baby birds chirping in straw beds the strong trees swaying in the warm breeze hugging me in your arms you carried my heart i watched your face telling lyrical tales the sun's rays singing down on you you straightled in your arms you carry my frail body i study your face as you whisper it will be all right listen the birds and breezes are lyrical the sun's rays singing down on you my dear my dear from baby to man from baby to old woman be calm you say and hold my hand the song is forever the sun's rays singing down on you thank you our last reader tonight mary rose darty brings our poems to fruition and publication in the mountain troubadour and has turned it into a beautiful journal she teaches poets and poetry through her business lotus writing writing practice and collaborates with mindfulness practitioner bicky wenchenter to present embodied poetry community workshops which are really fun she lives in waterbury where she walks daily with her zen black lab mix Hudson who has the softest ears of any dog i've met she explores new recipes and movies with her son jacob whenever he's back in mary rose i think we might have a love triangle me you and um putson i have two things i want to say before i read one is that your submissions to the troubadour are due by the end of day Wednesday February 1st please be sure to renew your membership so we can have your work accepted and i'll be looking forward to seeing everybody if you haven't already um sent in your work and the second thing is on your name tags there's a little number and we're going to have door prizes after i read so don't go anywhere okay two poems saturday matinee it's a reward of its own kind sitting in the dark of the high school theater waiting for the story about a robot makes me quietly giddy story movie just us kids freedoms layered on freedoms the summer rains comforting and warmed in luwala's high school's auditorium built the year the stock market crashed i settled into the velvety seat look up at the screen stretching from proscenium to the high ceiling and with a whir a flickering light throws up the images of a boy and his bff tobor the great a walking talking vestige of the cold war tobor which of course is robot spelled backwards looks almost goofy metallic clap trap somewhere between knight in armor and astronaut a hungover relic who's going to save his boy i'm thrilled forward by the menacing discord which sounds like the cold war commies looming in the background later at home the music reverberates in me stirring that darkness i've sought to escape beyond this theater on this this day and this movie though a giant less friendly my father looms like tobor lashing with the belt his tongue i'm silenced after the movie behind the stage we found two staircases at the top a door that went nowhere and a little haiku tinny drops of rain pinging against metal spout joyous to soul's ears and since it's so short i think it deserves a second tinny drops of rain pinging against metal spout joyous to soul's ears thank you and


Thank you, Mike. Hi, everybody. Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you happen to be. I am Dr. Laura Portales, and I'll be presenting today on Unit 3 of 501 for Sailor Academy. And I'd like to talk a little bit about our unit learning objectives, and I want to also bring that back a little bit to what we've been studying so far in the last couple of units. So in this unit, we're going to talk about the meaning of competitive advantage. We're going to talk about the types of things that can help companies create a competitive advantage. And we're also going to talk a little bit about total quality or TQM management techniques, which is one way to harness that competitive advantage. And we'll also have a mention of some ethical concepts as it relates. So when we think about Unit 1 and Unit 2, we're really throughout the course going through the strategic management process. So if you remember earlier, we looked at internal and external tools that we can use like SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis to see where our company is at now. We also talked about mission, vision and values and how those are really, really important factors to help drive our strategy. So we've done that external internal analysis. Now we're really looking at, okay, what does our company do that's different and better than any of our competitors? And again, this is going to help us drive our strategy and really narrow down what our goals and objectives should be for ultimately our strategy. So let's talk a little bit then about some definitions here. Oh, wait, no, first, we're going to talk about some of the things that we're going to talk about in this unit. So we're going to learn the definition of opportunity cost, competitive advantage, and generic strategies and also value chains. And all of these ultimately tie to creating that competitive advantage that is extremely important as we begin to develop our strategy. So let's look at some definitions here. We can define competitive advantage is simply just like it sounds as the advantage one company has over another within an industry. So there may be some organizations that have a competitive advantage based on price. So they are able to charge much less for their products, because their value chain and their supply chain, maybe is so large, they're able to sell at a lower price because they're able to buy in bulk and in quantity. Some organizations have a competitive advantage based on their branding, maybe they're a luxury brand that's very sought after and people are willing to pay premium prices for them. So we'll dig a little bit deeper in different types of competitive advantages, but that's sort of our basic working definition that will will ultimately use throughout this unit. Another important thing to keep in mind about competitive advantage is the idea of opportunity cost and opportunity cost essentially means when you make one decision to go in a certain direction. There's something that you're giving up when you make that decision as opposed to another, because of course there are human resources involved and also financial resources that need to be committed. So when we're looking at developing strategy, we're always going to want to look at the opportunity cost. Okay, if we go this direction, we're committing financial and human resources to that direction. It means we can't go this other direction. So it's it's an important consideration when you're looking at spending a lot of money to go in a particular direction. For example, let's suppose your organization decides to introduce their products to Brazil. Well, by going to Brazil, they are making a strategic decision to enter the market in that country, which means they may not have the financial resources to enter, say the French market. So that's really what opportunity cost is about. And if you think about it in terms of a even as a from a personal perspective, by listening to this right now or whenever you listen to it, there's an opportunity cost associated with that. As you're listening to this webinar, you're giving up something else that you could be doing. So opportunity cost is always important, definitely in our personal lives, but definitely for business too. When we're looking at harnessing a competitive advantage, we need to understand what we're giving up in order to make the strategic decision that we're making. The third definition here is a comparative advantage and comparative advantage is tends to be used mostly as an economic term. And it refers to the idea that some organizations or countries may be able to produce something just simply way more efficiently. And that could be a result of the skills that they have. It could be the climate. It could be just the natural resources that they have available to them in the area in which they're manufacturing. So when we when we just to give you a quick example of that, I used to live in Washington State, which is a fairly cold, cold climate. And they did not grow oranges in Washington State because the climate just wasn't right for that. But in the United States and Florida, the climate is perfect for it. And they grow really great oranges. So when we look at comparative advantage, we look at the fact that Florida has a comparative advantage over Washington and many other places for growing oranges. So this is important in terms of competitive advantage for two reasons. The first reason is that oftentimes these terms are confused. But as you can see, they're really, really quite a bit different. And the other thing that's important is understanding what your comparative advantage is, is part of harnessing that competitive advantage, as you begin to think about it. And as you begin to write those objectives and goals for for your ultimate strategy. So I'd like to stop there for just a second. I know that was a lot of information. And see if there are any questions that I can answer for you at this time. Yeah, it sounds great. So if anyone has any questions, I'll put them in the chat and we'll just give you guys a minute or two here to to ask any questions you have and we'll get to those or we'll keep moving. So back in a second. We're back here, we got a we got a question for you here. David asks, Can you please give an example of a competitive advantage? Absolutely. Thanks, David, for that question. So a competitive advantage might be a price competitive advantage. So if an organization is able to sell goods a lot less expensive than their competitors, the price of that good would be an example of a competitive advantage. Another example of competitive advantage might be a organization that has really, really good branding. In terms of everyone knows the brand, they're familiar with the brand. And that means they can then leverage the the brand power that they have in order to sell more products. So those would be two examples. Okay, well, David, let us know in the obviously in the chat, if that was, you know, I answered your question, but that was the only question we have. So I think we can move on. And again, if anyone has any questions, feel free to leave them in the chat. All right, Mike, thank you. So let's talk a little bit about some of the generic strategies that companies use. And these ultimately tie to competitive advantage as well. So companies can have a competitive advantage based on what we call the scope. And the scope essentially is the market size. So how many customers are wanting to buy that particular product or service that you're selling? So when we look at scope, there are some organizations that may have a very, very narrow scope, meaning that they have a very narrow market, there aren't that many people willing to buy the product. But suppose they are really motivated for that particular brand or that particular product. So market size is an important part of determining what our generic strategy is going to be. And the second, the second definition here is a source. And source refers to the idea that what competitive advantage do you actually have is, can you offer your product at the lowest price when compared to your competitors? Or is your product differentiated enough? Excuse me, differentiated enough in order to show the customer value in your product. So based on that, let's take a look at this next slide that is also in in our readings in unit three. And this kind of it simplifies the idea of both scope and source a little bit. So you can see here on the left, that's the scope. And remember, that's the market size. So we can look at a narrow focus or a broad focus. And then when we look at source, which is our source of competitive advantage, we can be low cost, or we can differentiate our product so that customers see a big difference in our product versus others. And that can then give us a competitive advantage. So if we dig a little bit deeper in this, it's when we look at a broad scope and a low cost, we're going to focus on marketing and going to focus our strategy on cost. So for example, some of the things that we may do if we're very focused on cost is try to find suppliers that can provide us with the lowest cost raw materials. We may negotiate contracts with those suppliers to ensure a steady stream of raw materials to produce our product, so that we can continue keeping it at the at the lowest cost. When we look over here on the on the right hand side, and we look at source. So remember, source is our source of competitive advantage. So we there have an overall differentiation strategy versus a focus differentiation. And this is going to depend whether or not we have that broad market or that narrow market. I want you to think for a minute of luxury brand products, I don't want to mention any by name specifically, but think about, you know, that expensive handbag or that really, really expensive car or expensive shoes, where really you're paying for the name brand of that particular product. The this is the type of strategy where the the market is probably fairly narrow. There aren't a lot of people that can afford those luxury products. But the they're able to show that there's such a difference in their product. In terms of the branding, like we talked about a little bit ago, so they're able to sell that product for a much higher price. So in that type of situation, a company that offers luxury luxury products, they don't want to focus on cost, because they know the customers are going to buy the product anyway, because of the branding they have, and the fact that that's a desired product and someone's willing to spend $2,000 for a handbag. So that's when organizations will use this differentiation strategy and show why they are so different. And it creates that desire for that product or that service within the marketplace. So in summary here, this is what I want you to remember about these generic strategies. You can really there are really two main competitive advantages. And of course, there are sub categories to those as well. But it's cost or how you differentiate your product. So if you look at two products that are exactly the same, the branding, the marketing, the desire that we create within our customers is ultimately what offers us that competitive advantage when we're well positioned in the marketplace to have a or offer this product or service that's really, really high value in the customer's mind. So when you look at this, companies are not going to just say, okay, we have a broad market, and we're going to focus on low cost. There's definitely more to it than that. But this model provides us sort of a basis on where do we want to go with this? And then that then helps us narrow down the funnel of possible objectives that we that we want to create based on this generic strategy. And the other thing I want you to remember as we tie all of this together, is that a lot of this data that goes into determining what your generic strategy is was based on the SWOT analysis and the PESTLE analysis you did back in the last unit. So companies do a lot of research and internal investigation to figure out really what their competitive advantage is. And one of the one of the challenges, if you don't do that, and don't have a lot of that background information, is that it's hard to know where you fit within these generic strategies. So that's a lot of the reason why we go through a lot of effort doing that internal and external analysis. So we know exactly where we're at. And it can help target us for for these specific strategies. So um, that's a lot of information I'd like to stop for a second and let's see if there are our questions on that. Yep, that sounds great. As a question, feel free to put it down in the chat and we'll be back in a minute with some answers. And we're back. We have questions down here in the chat from Jeff about if today is the halfway point of the Unispocus study sessions. And I believe that it is we're going through June 13. And I believe that this is the midway point of our study sessions. So anyone who's been here with us this far, we're halfway through. But if that's our only question, I'm just gonna hand it back over and we can keep continuing on with the review. All right, perfect. So now that we've talked about some of those generic strategies, I want us to talk a little bit about the value chain and relate this back to competitive advantage, since that's really the focus of of this unit. So the value chain is ultimately the path in which products and services are created and sold to customers. I do have a graphic on that. But I want to talk a little bit about what this what this really means. In today's world in a global economy, most of our products and services for that matter are, they go through a very, very long path in order to eventually end up in the hands of the customer. And when we look at the value chain, every person that handles that product tends to add value to that product, but it also adds cost as well. So when we look at major retailers that sell at very low cost, their value chain is very, very effective, because they're able to add value at every level in the value chain, but they're able to add that more cheaply than their competitors. So if we think back to, to the generic strategies that we just talked about, this ties into the fact that there's probably a broad, a broad market, and an organization like that is going to focus on cost. So because of that, whenever we focus on cost, we want to make sure that our value chain is as done as cheaply as possible. So we're not having to pay a lot of people throughout the process, making that product then more expensive by the time it gets into the hands of consumers. So let's take a look at this graphic, because I think this is important and explains that concept of value chain pretty well. So the first thing here, this was created by a person named Porter, who also created the generic strategies that we talked about a little bit ago. So when we look at the value chain, let's look at these orange elements on the bottom first, we can look at inbound logistics. So that refers to how we're actually getting our materials to produce a particular product. We can look at how our operations function, and how effective that is, because of course, if our operations are not effective, that that creates more cost on that particular product or service that we're developing. We also want to look at outbound logistics. That means, okay, we've created this product. Now, how do we get it into the hands of the customer? And a lot of times you'll find that a product that you buy in the store may have switched hands four or five times before they actually end up in the hands of the customer. And of course, that adds cost every time. So we want to be effective on our outbound logistics to try to eliminate any unnecessary people in the middle that may be driving up the cost of that product. We also want to look at marketing and sales and the cost associated with with those processes. Finally, we also look at service and you can think about anytime maybe you go on a website and go on and use the chat feature or call into a customer service department, we want to be as effective as possible when we're providing service to our customers. Because of course, if we're not very effective with that aspect, it definitely drives up the cost indirectly at least of the products and services ultimately that we're selling. So you'll find a lot of organizations with the service part of things have implemented artificial intelligence or AI chatbots to help customers get their questions answered. And although that may be an expensive initial investment, companies are finding the AI is really valuable and in the long run, driving down the cost of servicing servicing the customer. So then let's look at these these top activities. So we can call these in the green, we could call these support activities. So these are the things that are not directly related to the manufacturing of a product or service, but they're still still important in the overall functioning of our business. So the first is firm infrastructure. Sorry, I have a little bit of a cop today. So so the first is firm infrastructure and this is the organizational design of the company. It can be the process by which people communicate with within the organization. And some companies are very, very effective at their infrastructure and the organizational chart is developed in a way that it cuts out a lot of wasted time. So when we look at the value chain, from a big picture perspective, we want to make sure that our organization in of itself and structure that we're leveraging is is is effective in order to better serve the customer and produce those products and services. Another support activity is human resource management and human resource management refers to all of the activities that are involved in ultimately keeping your employees happy. So this could be things like the hiring process, the promoting process, how you compensate your people, how you motivate them, the type of training that you offer to them, all of those types of things go into human resource management. And in this this economy, which is mostly a service economy, as of late, that part is very, very important, because you want to make sure your people are happy.  So that would be an another example of a support activity. A technology also very important technology makes us be able to communicate with our customers, like the social the use of social media, being able to email them back when they have questions, chat bots that we talked about a little bit ago. So technology would be considered a support activity, but still very, very important to the overall operation of our organization. Procurement is also a support activity and procurement refers to the process of actually getting those raw materials available at the right time in the right place that we need them in order to produce a product. So although we're kind of talking about the value chain in terms of our product, I would really like you to think about it. All of these are going to be factors to an extent, even if we're producing a service, like say, an app that does something that people need, you're still going to have all of these elements with service. But when we look at the value chain, oftentimes, it's more focused on product development and getting a product into the hands of the consumer, ultimately. So I want us to look at an example that is that is in our readings. And I know this is going to be maybe a little too small. I don't know, how does that, how does that look, Mike? Is that pretty tiny? I'll see what I can do about maybe making it bigger. But this is a good time to remind people that we will have the slides in the bottom of the, in the description once the unit's review is over. So if you can't see it now, I'll see if I can do something about it. But you keep going. All right. So this, this graphic is also in, in our readings too. And it talks about the, the elements that we just discussed in terms of the value chain and how a donut shop may, may leverage this example of the value chain. So they talk a little bit in this graphic about the operations of the value chain. And specifically operations in this example, they rely on a secret recipe to make, to make their donuts. So that would be an example of operations in the value chain. And then when we look at market, the marketing and sales component, they do, they have a very attention grabbing building, which helps with the marketing and sales of, of the donuts. They talk also about in this graphic about support activities. So again, the support activities are those things that are supplementary to the primary activities that we're actually doing within our business. So this example talks about the firm infrastructure, again, human resource management. And they talk about that in the context of good customer service and training people that work in the donut shop to be friendly and open with customers. And they also talk about a company that uses a conveyor belt to produce the donuts, which would be an element of technology, which, which we discussed a little bit ago. And we also talk about or this graphic also talks about procurement, and the fact that when you're effective at procuring those raw materials that you need to produce donuts in this case, they're able to charge a lower price for those donuts because their procurement processes are very, very effective. They're able to get those raw materials like sugar and flour at the lowest cost possible. So if you can't see this, as Mike said, we will we will be sending these PowerPoints out next Monday and putting them in in the chat. I believe Mike, is that correct? There'll be they'll be in the description along with the, you know, where you could find the playlist of previous courses as well as a link to the course itself down in the description below. So I'd like to take a moment and see if there are any questions on on the value chain specifically or how this ties to competitive advantage. All right, and we'll give everyone just we'll give everyone a minute here to get their questions in if you have any of what we already we already have a question coming in right here that asks is our support activities and primary activities independent in in the value chain? And that's a really good question. I don't think in business anything really operates in a vacuum independently. So while you may have different departments in your organization like human resources and logistics, they do function pretty separately, but they do need to function somewhat in somewhat together in order to make sure that, you know, you have the best people within that department to find the best prices and ensure the processes are smooth. So to answer that question in a shorter way, I think that they're not independent. I think that they really do work need to work independently together to really harness the the most competitive advantage of the organization. Hi, that's great. If anyone has any other questions, feel free to put them down in the chat below. And we will get to them. Of course, if you if you're watching later, feel free to put them in the comments and we'll try and get to them at the start of next week if there's any questions down there in the bottom. Hopefully, the question about the support activities and primary activities was was answered. I'm not seems like it was. You're welcome. Well, you're welcome for I didn't answer the question. But yeah, if there are no other questions, I think this is is this our stopping point for today? Yes, I'd like to go ahead and stop here for unit three. And then next time, I want us to take a really deep dive into comparing competitive advantage and the specific types of competitive advantage, and how you can ultimately tie that to your strategy. So it's a good stopping point, I think a lot to think about so far today. And next time we'll we'll take that deep dive into specific competitive advantages and and how those tie the strategy. All right, well, as always, Laura, thank you for leading us through this. Thank you everyone for joining us. If this is your first one, again, there are links below to our previous videos in the series. And of course, links to the actual course itself down below. If you again, had any questions that hadn't been answered today, feel free to leave them in a comment and we'll be back the same time next Monday to do part two of unit three. So thank you everyone for joining us.


Say something in Bengali.  I'm Rick it equals Not I kind of went off the rails to Today we're back in the Bengali trailer. Yeah, hence why I said hence why you had me say something in Bengali That's it. Yep. It's it's all connected just like inception But today what is it called Rick? I don't know. I'm trying to find it right. I don't know There it is. This is called Shabdo Shabdo with Ritwik Chakraborty and Koshik Thangbili The film revolves. How does it do that? Do they put it on a thing and spin it? It's just going around man. The film revolves around the life of Tarak a Foley artist of Bengali film Tarak's job is to create ambient sound if you don't know what a Foley artist is They basically do sound effects and after the fact and in Hollywood they're basically extinct Yeah, they really it's a it's a dying art form Tarak's job is to create ambient sounds for films, but he gradually gets trapped in his own world a world full of sound I'm really liking this idea interesting It won the 60th national film awards for best feature film in Bengali and the best audiography Well, I would hope so if it's about a Foley artist. It has the same director Koshik Thangbili and lead actor Ritwik Chakraborty as Naga Kitana. Is that the transgender is That's the one about the transgender, right? Yes, the young man. Yeah. Yeah, that's what that film is. So this is the lead actor from that Is it the lead actor or is it the main guy or is it the one who was in love with him? It's the one who's in love with him. Yeah, okay. It's the one who's in love with him. Yeah, got it. Okay, cool Uh before let us know which the next Bengali film we should watch Uh, whether Satya should write something else. Just let us know what should be the next one We should uh get into there Here we go. This is the wrong video. Yay Here we go The video That's what you're doing now and then No, this is a common cause for hearing loss He's a low meter standard So I don't think that was the there's no way this was the theatrical trailer Unless they just Didn't make one and right. I don't know. Um, because you can usually tell like we said with the editing of a video Where it just kind of doesn't flow. Mm-hmm in a trailer form He can kind of tell sometimes but I'm interested in the concept for sure Yeah, for sure 100 because one you don't see a lot of films out of foliarist You really don't I mean, I honestly can't think of one right now and I love I really love foliar Foliaristry is a lost art form. It is. It's actually funny when you went to the youtube space A while back and they actually have a foliarism only room. Yeah, no one ever uses it Yeah, so they're probably gonna get rid of it at some point. Um, but yeah, so it's a very interesting I I loved that actor from the last oh, yeah, all of him. Yeah, I thought he was really really good And then uh, readies and I think the other actor's name was what was magnificent We're all both really really good, but if you guys say this is a really great film There should be our next Bengali one. I absolutely Uh, see it. Yeah, obviously I can't really tell from this No, because sometimes it even seemed dubbed and I was like, there's no way it's dubbed That's exactly what I thought. I'm like, there's no way you're dubbing A film whose primary attribute is foliaristry and sound. Yeah, that would be please tell me you're not doing that That'd be weird. It would be very strange. Um, but I would totally be interested in watching it If if everybody said it was really good because I would like to explore that actor more I thought he did a very good job. Yeah, really sadden as well. Um, so I don't know. You guys let us know how this film is. Um, yeah Oh, was that Rohan? I just saw his name down there. Yeah, well, he'd actually just most of our Bengalis, of course Yes, he's he's our Bengali go to. He is a Bengaliite. Yes, he is. Is that what they call each other? No, Bengali. I just think you just created that. Yeah, it's just a Bengali. They're Bengali, but they're like Mumbaiker, right or from Mumbai. Not Mumbaians. No, yeah, Mumbaikers are from Mumbai. What about Is it Punjabi and then yeah, if you're, what about, um, Rajasthan? Rajasthani? Oh, I guess that would be Rajasthani. Yeah, if you're, if it's if it's Bengali or Bengali And that's anybody from West Bengal? Yes. What about a West Bengalian? Is there no, are there other North-South and East Bengalis? No, because why is it called West Bengal? Because East Bengal is the country of Bangladesh Which is right on the other side of the border And that all used to be India Yeah, okay, but was that so when the wall went up? Well, but was that Pakistan to the west and Bangladesh to the east? But was that called Bengal before? The whole region the whole the whole region of India was Bengal Not all of India. And so no, but that region And then when the partition went up got like Germany when they had a wall it was East Germany and West Germany So Bangladesh was at one point all Bengal was yes And that's why it's called West Bengal because it was the western part of that region just Bengal Correct because it's the western part of why not change it now because it's you know, just sounds weird It's like if we have North and South Dakota and one decides to change the name I know you'd have to change all the license plates. You'd have to get rid of the WB on all the license plates. That's fine Warner Brothers, what would you change it to? Bengal B Big B the big B state These are all great ideas. Let us know in the film is down below


Hey everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Yes, are you there? Hello. I Hate the fact you guys can see all my wonderful typing errors. Awful. Hey Vlad. Hey Tommy. Good morning, Doug. There we go. All right, cool. Hey Clowns. Clowns, are you there? Yes, I am. Yep, you're very very faint. Very very faint. Unless it's me. How about now? Whoa, that's better. Okay. All right, and Ginger. Yes, I'm here, Doug. Hi Inns. Yes, I'm back alive. I was gonna say it's been a while. Welcome back. Oh One day over a beer. I'll give you the comedy of errors with working from at home. Oh, that's great. Tiamar. Yes. Hello. Hello. Mr. Baldwin. Good morning. Hello. So for those of you who are adventurous in two days time, Clemens and I are going to be showing our Cloud Events presentation of what you're gonna call it. For the, I keep calling it Kupkan China, but it's actually not Kupkan. It's one of the cons in China Athletics Foundation. If you are so inclined to join, It's the time zone is more friendly for Europeans. I believe for me, it'll be 330 Eastern time in the morning. But I thought I'd mention that if someone has to be awake at that ungodly hour, You're welcome to join us to the fun. Lance, are you there? Hello, I'm here. Hello. Hey, Doug. Hello. Do you have the link to that Kupkan session that you have? Oh, I could try to dig it out to you. Alright, thanks. Okay. Thomas, you're there. I'm here. Hello. These days, I get to spelling your name down to have a look at it over the same times. There's no G there. There we go. Okay, I got it. Perfect. It's so bad. No, I know. No, no, no. I don't mean your name is bad. I don't mean typing is bad. No, it's also painful for me, though. I would love to have a shorter lost name. I can imagine the difficulty there. Remy, hello. Right. We're going to see if I can dig out that URL. Does that work? You can always put the notes later too, by the way. It doesn't. We don't need to slow down for this. So, Doug, I put it in the chat. Oh, there you go. Great. Thank you. It's actually pre-recorded. So it's really just a question-answer session that's going to be the most interesting, I think. Oh, so really, you could just share the video with us? Actually, I already mentioned that last week, I think. Yeah. It's in one of our Google Drive folder thingies. Yeah. And for better or worse, it is the exact same presentation for the China event, as well as coupon Europe. So, watch it once. You don't have to watch it twice. We are efficient. One more minute until it gets started. Hey, Jim, welcome back. Hello. Thank you. And Hong-Qui? Hong-Qui? I apologize. I'm sure I'm butchering your name. He has no microphone yet, so I can't say anyway. All right, three after. We'll sync back up later. Let's get started. Community time. Anything from the community if you want to bring up? All right, moving forward. No SDK call this week. We do have an agenda for next week though, so feel free to take a look at that and comment on it if you have anything to say to that. I think Grant added a whole bunch of items there. Workflow, Tim, or anything you want to bring the group up to speed on? Not much. Doug and I recorded the KubeCon video with the working group update on cloud events and the total is workload specification. And the only other thing that happened is we are looking at some design proposals for a logo change for the specification for serverless workflow. That's it. Any questions for anybody? All right, before we jump into PRs, is there anything I forgot that we should talk about for the agenda? In that case, I think I already had this one. I don't see Scott. Originally, he did have a change in this one. This was just he was going through the spec. Actually, a couple of different. Yeah, this is just the discovery spec. He was going through the discovery spec. There's a couple of typos he did as of yesterday actually had a slight wording change in there, but he dropped that. A potentially non-typo type change in there. He dropped that. So now it is just a technically just typos in here. These are all mindless. Otherwise, I would have approved it if he didn't have other change, but he did. Any questions on this one? Like I said, I think it's just typos or anything else like subscription URLs, the biggest one I goofed on. Okay. Any objections to approving this one? Like he wants. All right, use case. I think this is classes, but unfortunately he is not here. I think he just wanted to add some additional text here talking about inmate areas and producers. I'll give you folks a chance just a split second to read this one. Because people haven't had a chance to. And keep on. This is just for the primer for discovery, not the spec. Okay. Anybody have any comments, questions on this change to the discovery primer? Any objections to making the changes? Okay. Cool. Thank you. And as with anything, we can change it later. These are not set in stone. I don't see him on the call. I believe this was in response to issue that grant opened where there's some confusion around whether batching is a mode versus something else. I'm just trying to fix the wording. Let's get the key changes here. So I think there are two main changes he had. One is this section right here. I'll give you folks a chance to read that. And then I believe. Let's ignore this one just for a sec. I think this is the other big chunk of text he added down here, give you a second to read that. Okay. And I got you Scott. Thank you. The other little bit is he added this sentence in here. And people thought there's wasn't necessarily to add that text, but I'm going to read that right here. Okay. And with that, let's go ahead and open it up for comments questions. Yeah, I find the, so I'm generally agreeing with what's written here. The only thing I find a little odd is this is embedded in an envelope thing. Is that down here? Yeah, well protocol bindings typically use another 139. The protocol bindings typically use binary mode messages directly on the wire structure mode messages are often embedded in the envelope. That's, that's a little cumbersome in terms of wording. Also, I'm not sure whether, you know, if you have a structured mode message in Jason, and that's a Jason object. I'm not sure when the Jason object counts as an envelope. Two of the people commented that they would actually prefer to drop these two lines and there is no normative in there stuff like you might be in favor of jumping it as well. That's true. Yeah, yeah, because they, they, I don't think they add something other than potential confusion, but the rest is good. Okay. Anybody else have any comments on any of it. Okay, I think what I'm hearing is maybe accept the PR but ask him to drop these two lines. Is that what I'm hearing from people that that would be good so that we can make progress in this one. Anybody want to comment on that suggestion. I'm in agreement. Okay, thank you Lance. I just want to chime in. Sounds good to me. Okay, thank you john. Okay anybody object to that direction. I will double check with the Kristoff and if he's okay with it then we can merge it if he wants to push back on dropping that text then we can have more discussions. So fair. Thank you everybody. Now onto one that's a little meteor. All right, back to ID discussion. I tried to speak for Klaus because he's on vacation. However, I will say that in a private Slack message and you might have to trust me on this. He did say that he understood it a little better because he was looking at a previous specification that he and I both worked on called the service binding spec, or I'm sorry open source broker API, which I think has a similar concept in there. And so we didn't necessarily come right out and say Doug you're right this is wonderful. He did at least say understands better why it's needed. So, but not saying that he's endorsing this yet. He can be for himself but I do want to put that out there. So I did go through and make some changes here based upon last week's conversation. In particular I tried to make it clear that it is unique. But so is name. Name is unique for a slightly different purpose, it's more human readable. It's only unique within the scope of this discovery endpoint, whereas this one is globally unique. So that for example, if you want to say the same one to appear in different discovery endpoints, you can be guaranteed that the idea is the same across them. Let's see what else I put in here. So typically it is defined by the discovery endpoint itself or the one of the components behind there. I didn't want to make it a hard requirement that that's true because I want to be able to make sure that people can do some sort of import type of action where obviously then it's been provided to the discovery endpoint. I thought that was an important use case. I'm talking a little bit about why it's meant why it's there at all so that the clients can have some consistency in terms of knowing what this entity is even if all the metadata including the name changes be sure it's the same one. And that's a think about it in terms of local changes from this section. The other thing I did change I know this might be controversial is I did make the URL of the resource to use the ID rather than a name, mainly because I wanted a static URL. If the URL for this resource uses the name and the name changes, then every single reference to this resource is now going to be broken. Excuse me. And I didn't want to get into a really weird race condition where the server changes but then how do you make sure all the clients get updated. Does the server have to support both the old and new versions of the URL over time it just seemed easier. If we've made it the static URL be the the UID itself. Now, that's not to say if we wanted to support both the name and ID. That's possible. I just got a little bit worried there because what if someone chooses to use a UID has their name as weird as that may sound it is technically possible. Anyway, that's kind of where I left things open for discussion. I think John you came up with your first sec. Do you still want to say something. Yeah, I was going to ask what Kristoff thought about the name versus ID thing.  Okay, well how do I, how do I find out what that UID is so that I can go look it up. Okay, so what forgot I did make another change. So down here in the API section. Down here in the API section I did say okay I'm going to change from name to ID but of course that stinks from a usability perspective right. So I made it a little bit clearer that down here, you can search for it by name. I thought matching wasn't very descriptive, right because you don't know what you're matching on so that okay let's make it a little clear and I thought okay you can put in the name there so here you can find things by the human readable name if you want it's just instead of a slash it's a question mark, basically, what I'm trying to say there. So the technical thing there so then is your model basically sort of akin to DNS right I'm going to use, I'm going to use a very generic label to use different term to go look something up. And then what I get back is a, I guess in your term a static URL for the lifetime of that service in that discovery endpoint. Yes, I believe that is one fair way to think that yes, because I even mentioned this in one of the comments above right once, once someone discovers a service, it's very possible that they monitor, they may want to cash a reference to that service samples right so they're going to stick something inside their own data store something like that, and whether they store the full set of metadata, or just a URL to it is obviously up to them, but at a bare minimum, they're probably going to put the URL to it right and it terrifies me that that URL may change, because someone that finger the name needs to rename it. Okay, so then it's broken. Yep. So then the next meta level up is. Okay, so now that service does actually change. Right. Yes. So then at the top level, I'm going to try and connect to that static URL that you've created, that's going to fail, right. And then I have a loop that just goes back to doing a new search for a new name, or the same, the same name, but doing a new search to get a new static URL to the new service. If yes, if that is what you want to do, because even though it vanished, yes. Now that's not to say obviously if someone wants to store in their data store, a URL that has the query parameter thing right so the services question mark name equals foo. And they're welcome to store that as well. And that way they're, you know, they'll discover even faster than it's gone. You know, the url a stores up to them but yes, if they're going to store the uid then yeah they'll get a 404 and then they have to go refind it and figure out what happened and try to resolve it themselves. And I should also mention at the camera who was it may actually been you John last week. Somebody mentioned well what happens if there's another version of the service and I actually do want to be represented as a completely different service it just happens to be mentally linked because it's version one version I in here I tried to talk about how, whether they use a new ID for that, or they replace the existing one is an implementation choice I don't think we as authors of the specification can dictate. No version one version two must be completely different services versus no same service and you just killing off the old one when you reusing the same ID. I don't think that's up to the service provider or discovery and point or somebody in that back end to make that decision I don't think that's up for us to decide from the spec level. Got it. Any other questions. Now, Thomas I want to pick on you since you are on the call, you said you did not like having the name and I'm sorry you didn't like having the uid in the name. Did my comment here address your concern about that. Yeah. I'm still on mute. It didn't work with the space bar though. I see where you're coming from and what's your intention. Nevertheless, I really don't like having this you ID in the URL. Just. It doesn't look like nice for me. Is it a huge concern though in the sense that, you know, you could drop to this forms you really want it to right so you do get almost the same thing with just five extra characters. Granted, if the name isn't unique or the search term isn't unique right if you just search for food when you have food service a and food service be able to get both so that is a very problem. So yeah. Anybody want to comment I'm not going to push for a vote on this today because I still think you need to think about it. It's obviously a touchy subject with people. I'd like to try to at least gather your comments and feedback if I need to make changes. I'm trying to interpret silence. You guys know I love silence. The silence mean it's generally the right direction people don't care how do people think I want to avoid people but I will. On my side, I'm still like not convinced by the idea even if I understand the reason I'm still have to think more. Okay. Okay. Let me pick on Jim, because you had the pleasure of not being here for several weeks. Jim, do you have a take on this one. If this is just the ID for a thing why do we care it's just a string. Right. Could be a UID, a GUID or some random stuff that I make up is just a unique resource ID. Well, actually, no, I take that back. It is not just a random string. I do require it to be a GUID or a UID. But it is not meant to be human readable and it is immutable. So if that's the resource ID, then I'm not quite sure then it would be normal to put that in a URI string when you're searching for that resource. If you're getting that's what the conversation is about. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so you've drunk the Kool-Aid. That's good. Yeah, I drank that. Okay. Anybody else want to chime in otherwise we'll move on and we'll revisit it next week. Okay. So let's move on. Please if you have any comments in particular ones that would make you want to vote no please raise them in the issue itself so I can or PR itself so I can try to address them. Otherwise we'll see if we can wrap it up next week. Um, let's see. This one is from Ray. I forgot this was you. Okay. And this one was just open yesterday so we can't vote on this today. Remi you want to briefly introduce this one so people can be thinking about it. Yeah, just by talking about the discovery service, I remember like there was a requirement of filtering the events and service based on your permissions. But if the discovery services decoupled from the service itself, it might not have the permission scheme and be built. So you cannot know what do you have access to. So it might want to list the only events from the service and cannot comply with that requirement. So we just losing it with my talking with you just think it was better to make it optional. Any questions on that. Does everyone understand why he wasn't listening. Okay, I'm not hearing any objection will vote on that one next week so please when you get a chance to review that one. And that is technically it. This PR. I know Lance you had a few comments in there. I don't think they were controversial necessarily, but I know slinky is on vacation today so we didn't get a chance to make those changes so we're going to have to wait on that one. But of the other PR is here. Actually, I'm still reworking the pagination one. I'm still trying to absorb people's feedback from that one. So I'll get that one on next week. Hopefully, I think these last three might be from slinky if he's not here. Actually, I'm sorry Jim, your protobuf one did you, what's the status of that one is it's still sort of in the works. If you had to lay money which way would you swing. I'm betting no, no movement I'm afraid. Is there anything you need from us to help you make progress or is it just a matter of just working through the comments and going back and forth with people. No, I think it's just me I think the last, the last comment on it was really that I've seen, and there may be more, I have to say, was more around being more explicit and examples of how we might translate between different event formats. So, you know, bringing in a structured Jason event, for instance, and sending out a struck, you know, the same event but now structured as proto. So that, that was an ask I think I think I know how to address that I just haven't got around to it. All right. Before we leave this section of PRs, or I guess issues to somebody open this you want to raise. Is there anything you want to bring up. That's not on the list or I forgot to bring up. Okay, in that case, the next topic is discovery interrupt. I don't personally I still haven't had a chance to do any coding that anybody else want to chime in in terms of their status or opinions on their coding efforts. So yeah, I'm waiting to settle on the discovery to make sure I implement the latest space based on our discussion. Okay. Right. Anybody else want to speak up. Okay, in that case, before we think about wrapping this up I do have another question. Klaus, I'm not close, Clemens. I'm a registry thing. Is there anything you want to do with that or are you okay with us just sort of waiting till people review it and comment on it. What do you have in mind. I don't know. I just I just feel a little bit bad that we're focusing heavily on the schema stuff. I'm not worried about the subscription API, because I feel like we'll get to that once we finish discovery since it's a natural progression. Yeah, on this on the scheme of stuff I want to make sure that you didn't feel like we were neglecting it or something so. No, I'm not worried. I think I think all those things hang together in a way and if we get those, if we get to discovery if we give discovery love now then and then look at this registry. I think the folks who were thinking about implementing schema registry were already reviewing it. I don't know how far anybody has progressed in terms of implementation but given that it's July coming up in August and we're still having people on vacation etc. I'm not. I don't feel any rush right now. Okay, cool. Just wanted to double check. In that case before I go back and do final attendance, the 10 b list. Are there any of the topics you want to bring up. All right, that case very short today. Manuel are you there. Yes, I am. All right. Thank you. Maybe something for us. There you go. Cool. Thank you. Brian young. First Brian is here. Okay, what about Brian number two, Brian Zerman. Yes. Hello. Hello and what company if you want to be associated with the company. Yes, of course. So I'm I'm with Google and I just joined the project as a product manager for the eventing side of things. So happy to happy to be sitting on the meetings and and joining the initiatives. Cool. Thank you for joining. Brian, you have two brands from Google now. That's exciting. I'm from Google on the same team. So it's quite confusing. We'll have to use our last names wherever possible. And you both still Brian the same way too.  That's interesting. All right. Christian either. Good morning. Good morning. All right. Did I miss anybody? Oh, I'm sorry. There was somebody else on Sunday. I'm here. Yes. And I'm sorry. I apologize. Is this your first time on the call? This is my second time. Okay. Then I already got you. Nevermind. Okay. Cool. Thank you. All right. Then I miss anybody for attendance. All right. In that case, I believe we are done. Thank you everybody. And please, if you get a chance, look over the same PRs and comment if you can. Otherwise, we'll talk again next week. All right. Bye everybody. Thank you.