Humphrey asks, who is the baddest girl in Spider-Man's harem? Um... Okay, we got the audio sink down. Hello everyone, probably Spider-Man here. I know it's been a while since I've done sort of like a update video, but I guess this is less of an update video and more sort of a Q&A video. I sent out a request for questions from my community, from my discord, which you can join in the link in the description, and I'm just going to be answering a ton of questions from fans, you guys, and I'm just going to read through it. I'm not going to answer them all. Hopefully I answered like a huge amount. Like I hope I answered the most useful ones before we get to that. There's not an ad, don't worry. I'm wearing my Ditko suit, and it's got web wings on it. The, you know, the suit pictures that I took in it, I didn't have the web wings, but now it has the web wings. They're a little short. They're a lot shorter than they would be on an actual Ditko suit, but I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. I'm not wearing the whole thing, also. I'm wearing sweatpants right now. I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take off my mask, actually. I got a haircut. It's been a while since you've seen me with, with my hair, and my hair is short now. It's because I got a haircut.  I don't want to look ugly on camera, I don't know why I said chat. I'm not alive. Okay, I'm back. Hopefully my hair looks less, yeah, see, that looks better. That looks much better. First question is, what is the best burger you've ever tasted? I love Five Guys, and like the real Spiderman, Five Guys is the best burger place ever, okay?  That's a self-love burger right there, baby. It's greasy, right? It's compact. The bread, not too much bread, which is good, you know? You can taste the cheese. The cheese is melted. The toppings are, are amazing. Get some toppings on your Five Guys burger. Get some bacon on your Five Guys burger. You bite the fry, the fry bites back. That's why I love Five Guys. It's amazing. Do you still do commissions? Oh, I should probably read out the question names. This, the first question was from the average moof. This question is from Kit Cave. Do you still do commissions? I do not do commissions to the public. No, I do commissions for close friends. I do commissions for movie productions, like fan films and such. But I do not do public commissions anymore. And that's just because the money was not there. The money, like, it was there. The money was there. But there was not enough money there to justify the time I spent making commissions. Like now I make enough money off of videos than I would making costume. I make more money than I would making videos sometimes than I do making costumes for people. And as much as I'd love to keep doing that, it broke my heart to send out these really high quality costumes that I loved making and I wanted to keep because I love them so much.  It broke my heart. So I just ended up stopping doing it. Devil Logan asks, what's it like? I'm going to assume he's asking what's it like to be a YouTuber. I actually was trying to be a YouTuber for over eight years, I think, because when I was a kid, I wanted to be a YouTuber because I loved YouTube. I did nothing but watch YouTube all day. So I wanted to be one myself. I started by trying to be a Minecraft YouTuber. Then I started by trying to be like a general gaming YouTuber. Then I was an animation YouTuber.  And then finally, like around the time I really gave up on YouTube, I made it before that. Just before that, I made a Spider-Man channel where I would goof off sometimes. But that channel started getting attention more and more. And I realized I was like, well, I should, I guess, feed into this. So I started doing that. And now we're here. So this channel was created like before I started to quit. And when I started to quit, this channel picked up. I really appreciate that. Shout out to the ones that were there before it blew up, but I really appreciate that. What is your favorite interpretation of the symbiote? I don't really, I wouldn't say there's one that's necessarily my favorite. I haven't read most of the original symbiote run. I've read bits and pieces of it. Um, but I will say design wise, my favorite interpretation of the symbiote is still the original. I've seen a lot of redesigns of the symbiote over the years, and I just don't think any of them hold up to the quality of the classic black suit. Because the classic black suit is such a, it's, at its heart, it's a really simple thing, you know what I mean? And a lot of the redesigns just want to take it and make it more complicated when really all the black suit needed to be successful with was its core elements that it already had in the first place. I think the original black suit is nearly perfect. It is almost as nearly perfect as the original Spider-Man costume. I don't think, I don't, I think when people start adapting the black suit and like movies is in such they need to keep the design the exact same as it was. Like you can change up the logo a little bit and like just make sure the eyes and the logo are consistent with one another in terms of like sizing and all that, but the original is perfect. You should not touch it. Any collaborations you're planning on doing? No, but I do want to do more collaborations like the one I did with Orb Monster where he let me buy his lotus suit even though I broke it. Oh, I forgot to read that. That question came from eth0.png and the one before that came from probably symbiote fan. Probably superior asks out of all of your suits, which is your favorite slash least favorite? The thing is, is I don't really have a favorite. I have like suits I wear that I'm comfortable with and suits I wear that I'm not really comfortable with because they're a really hard to put on or b they're really old. This suit is pretty comfortable. You'll find that like my favorite work a lot of the time is stuff that I've most recently did. Like right now this is one of my favorite suits. I love the texture variation with the velvet and then you've got the liverpool. That's always nice. I like the logo work. I like the web work. This suit is probably one of the best things I've made this year. My least favorite? I wouldn't say I have a least favorite. I have old ones and I don't really like those anymore but I don't think I hate one more than the other. Literally Daredevil asks which of the live action Spider-Man is the most mid? Okay so I don't think it's any secret that the Raimi movies are probably the most uh well written out of all the three Spider-Man. Like you can have a favorite.  You know what I mean? And I think that's what I would say the Raimi movies are definitely the best ones but I feel like if you had an argument about and there is an argument ongoing currently actually about which is the most mid between these two but people usually fight over Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield and which of their adaptations is the worst. I would just say me personally I've I think Tom Holland has more movies that I would rather not watch than Andrew. I would rather boot up Tasm 2 than Far From Home because Tasm 2 while it is probably the worst written Spider-Man movie. I do love the visuals and the visuals in that movie are absolutely amazing. Why do you talk about Spider-Man and not other heroes? That is because Spider-Man is my special interest. Spider-Man was something I loved ever since I was a kid. Spider-Man has showed me a lot of things he's you know I wanted to animate because I wanted to animate Spider-Man flying around. I wanted to draw so I could draw Spider-Man. I wanted to make costumes so that I could be Spider-Man. I love Spider-Man and he has always been like a really important part of my life. You can chart my growth in life with what Spider-Man movie was currently coming out at the time. Spider-Man was always this huge part of my life and he means so much to me. I think who he is as a character is very important. I think he represents something very special and it's that Spider-Man is not innately good. He is not naturally a good soul. He is not perfect. He's not a perfect man.  But what being Spider-Man is about is about quelling the temptation to be selfish, to be inhumane.  Spider-Man is about actively fighting that urge to only care about yourself every day. And I think that's what matters so much because he's not like Superman where Superman is good. Superman has a good heart. He has a good soul through and through. Spider-Man does not. Spider-Man is about fighting with Peter Parker's want to be selfish. At least that's how I interpret it. That question was asked by HaleSky. I keep forgetting to read out the question. How do you say that? Solich asks, can I ask a question? Yes you can. And if you put a question right here I would have read it anyway. Bob68 asks, how do you feel about a black suit possibly returning in Spider-Man to the game? I'm excited. I'm excited to see it. I hope we get a trailer soon. I've been kind of disappointed because we haven't gotten a trailer soon. I hope it looks good. I have faith that it will look good. I just don't know if it'll be great. You know what I mean? Like I think Insomniac is very iffy with their suit designs. They either make like absolute bangers. They've made actually they've made everything. They've made like banger suits. They've made mid suits and they've made like pretty bad suits. But I'm confident in the design team at Insomniac. I am confident that the design team at Insomniac will actually throw together something that is good. They will peer review it over and over and over until they get like the best result. Just another James3 asks, do you consider 90s Ben Reilly and modern Ben Reilly slash chasm to be separate people? Well, I do because they are written by two different people. I think I think the big illusion about comic book writing is that people so so often they want to think that like these characters are the same exact people every time they read them and then they are in a way.   So do do I think chasm and 90s Ben Reilly are separate people? Continually, no. But writing wise, yes. BasedSevs asks, I asked this many times before but I never got a straight answer so I think I'm going to ask again what got you started on cosplaying Spider-Man. I have no idea. I always dressed up as I always dressed up as Spider-Man since I was a little kid like for Halloween and such and I guess from that point onward it always felt natural to me.  It was just I'm gonna put on my Spider-Man suit today because why not because I feel like it and I think from that point it just sort of grew on to I'm gonna make my own costume with my dad then I'm gonna buy my own costume and then I'm gonna solely make my own costume and never buy a costume again which that which is a lie because I recently bought a $500 costume for a video so stay tuned for that. Moonlord, what do you think is the hardest part of being Spider-Man? Not including Peter Parker's personal life like just Spider-Man. What is the heart? I think about this. I will say making the costume over and over again cannot be fun.   Maddening asks what was your first costume also how have you improved on making costumes from when you made that first design? I'm gonna put it on I actually posted this on Instagram recently I mentioned making costumes with my dad. This is the costume I made with my dad when I was a little kid. It uses car window tint as the lenses and it's made out of a white muscle shirt and white jeans. I have obviously improved since then. The black lines on that are made with spray paint you just spray them on after taping it out and it was cool it was a pretty cool suit I wish I still had it I don't know where it is. I've definitely improved since then. Before I sewed together my costumes from scratch like I do now like this I would take I would do the Godzilla Mendoza way I would modify the Godzilla Mendoza way I would take spandex body suits and I would take some muscle shirts and I would take the red muscle shirts and cut it out and put it over the blue and then get a pair of party gloves and just take some old socks some red socks and use them as the boots but now that I sew everything together completely I'm at the I wouldn't say I'm at the peak of where I'm at right now but there's still a lot of places to improve like this is the first suit where the seams are not exposed the seams are tucked in completely on this suit which I'm very proud of and of course I need to get better at that but that's where I'm at right now. AnimeSpooter asks what do you get your inspiration from? I keep a concept folder of spider-man suits I see online of old concept art drawings of spider-man that I like certain things about like how the webs are etc and I will just keep those in a folder and whenever I need to be inspired I will just go through that folder and like combine elements of things that I like I tweak them a little bit just rack my brain looking at a bunch of spider-man costumes he's back with a with a Hugh Jackman profile picture what is your favorite what is your fuck what is your favorite piece of spider-man media uh that's a tough one I like a lot of the community made stuff specifically spider layer on VR chat I think that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen the spider-man I guess community in general do um I like spider-man into the spider-verse that might be my favorite spider-man movie like I I can say definitively that that is the best spider-man movie but I like it just as much as I like spider-man too um but into the spider-verse and spider-man two are my comfort movies but spider-man two holds a therapeutic purpose for me whenever I get confused in my life and whenever I'm going through like some tough and I really need to sit down and think about what I want I'll boot up spider-man two because spider-man two is something that connects me back to being a child and seeing spider-man and just thinking that everything was was going to be okay you know what I mean because I love spider-man hedgehog plays asks favorite spider-man suit design ever I love the classic suit I don't think there's gonna be any spider-man suit that beats the classic suit sonic exclamation point asks how should I start making costumes and where should I start I recommend looking stuff up on the internet there is nothing more useful than looking around and seeing what other people are doing that's what I did when I was a when I was a kid when I first started out I just looked up how to make spider-man mask how to make spider-man suit and I just remember looking around seeing what other people were doing changing what other people were doing going around and trying to find my way around the community look for advice ask for advice but mostly it was it would be just me looking for what other people were doing and then putting my own twist on it quill milk asks favorite spider-man other than peter miles was my favorite spider-man for a long time uh he was my favorite spider-man I actually made a really shitty Miles Morales costume back in the day and I wore it to my local comic con and then I never wore it again because I never cosplayed Miles again after that Humphrey asks who is the baddest girl in spider-man's harem um who is your favorite DC superhero or when you're genuinely interested in and take time to read their comics I don't read a lot of DC comics but if there's one character I read the comics of every now and then it's Batman I like Batman as much as much as people like to pretend that I hate Batman and that oh I hate Batman because he's like I hate Batman because he's the only one that could stand on the same pedestal spider-man can or whatever no I love Batman I love Batman so much I think he's one of the coolest DC heroes out there I love his costume I love his universe there are times where I will admit that Batman is better than spider-man because Batman is not being held back in the comic books by a shitty writing team DC is not afraid to do shit with Batman like DC has fun with Batman Marvel plays it safe with spider-man and that's why I will admit that Batman has better shit a lot of the time because Marvel just holds back spider-man so much like there's so much shit holding back spider-man from being at like the peak of Marvel or just the peak of superheroing in general because I mean Batman just has so much cooler shit than we do a lot of the time like we have no way home and we have into the spider-verse and that's it everything else that the spider-man community has is like mediocre or the same shit Batman has but Batman just has like consistently he has so much good shit he's got Batman the animated series he's got the Ark these got the Arkham series he's got several good cartoons that aren't trying to be the same thing over and over and over again he's fucking they keep the best Batman voice actor all the time they don't ever change him Kevin Conroy he's got like several side characters that can have their own movies unlike spider-man sometimes Batman is better and I really want spider-man to be better than Batman again I know I'm like I know I'm like betraying the fan base right now but like you don't see Batman going through the shit spider-man does and I just I want I want spider-man to stop being so fucking cringe I wish Marvel would let him be cool the marvelous spider-man asks if you were to theme your channel around any other franchise other than spider-man what would it be the thing is that I don't really have a lot of franchises that I'm so obsessed with maybe like Nintendo and I could be a fnaf youtuber I really could like I fucking I love fnaf and I really could just sit here and make videos about fnaf all the time but I love spider-man way more than I love both of those franchises Mayday Mewo asks do you like pineapple on pizza yes I love pineapple on pizza and I have a reason okay if you don't like pineapple on pizza that's probably because you had pineapple on pizza while it was hot okay you put pineapple on pizza in the fridge overnight and then you wait and you come back in the morning when it's cold and you eat it because then you can taste the pineapples when you eat it hot it's just some weird chewy crunchy thingy that pops in your mouth when you bite into it it's like ew all these hot juices no you eat it when you can actually taste the pineapple and it's good get you some cold pineapple on pizza and it will be way better than when you have it hot that's the way to eat pineapple on pizza hardly stellar asks who was your favorite marvel character apart from spider-man I like daredevil I think daredevil is cool of course the first thing that introduced me to daredevil was the netflix show and I fell in love with the netflix show the netflix show is like the Sam Raimi movies for damn for daredevil because they're so poetic and character driven and I really love that about both of those franchises and I think seeing daredevil get like that much love and attention like that was what got me to really enjoy it because it had heart you know what I mean like I can tell it was a it was a show that really cared about the titular character and therefore I started caring about daredevil now I like daredevil I I read daredevil comics every now and then I have some in my comic collection and I like daredevil he's my he's my second favorite marvel character mayday miwo asks again actual serious question what is your usual budget when making a suit usually it's about like I would say 50 to 100 dollars most of that is on fabric fabric is pretty expensive especially if you buy from the more expensive fabric shops like parallel life studios I want to make a parallel level I want to make a parallel life studio suit soon um I want to make the fortnite suit I love the fortnite suit agus tobia asks again if there are a few things you'd like to change about spider-man his villains are anything related to his stories or any characters that are in spider-man comics and you got the chance to change what would you change I would change okay first of all I'm not knowledgeable enough on modern spider-man comics to know what should be done but I've heard from a lot of people who read spider-man comics that they wish they would have just let peter parker get married and have a kid and just keep going on from that point so I would probably just make it so that a he's still married to mary jane b he has a kid now that would be cool I do understand why they didn't want to have a kid just yet because that is kind of scary because that means that like oh shit he's not like he has like more responsibility like you can't just throw away a kid you know what I mean so they had to kill it literally the second it was fucking out of the womb it was still born so yeah no but I I'd probably make him married to mary jane still and I'd make him have a kid I'd make him have a kid because I think that's where that's where the community wants to go and we haven't seen that in mainline stories and I from what I've seen from renew your vows and all other stories where spider-man's had a kid it was fucking good I've read a little bit of spider girl I've read a little bit of renew your vows and I love it spider femboy asks what was one of your first introductions to the wall crawler it was the sam rehmie movies the first time I ever saw spider-man was the sam rehmie movies in fact I don't even remember the first time I saw spider-man spider-man has been so embedded into my life that I can't even remember the first time I saw him he was just always there in my memory so I'm gonna say it was the sam rehmie movies because that's what I've been told by my parents and that was it Ian ID asks how would you do a spider-man 2099 suit I would probably do it the same way I did my scarlet spider suit where I would do a lot of paneling use a lot of different fabrics maybe go for more shiny fabrics as in like because he's from the future and such I would have the web cape big-ass web cape yeah I would try to I would cut out all the parts I don't like about the original 299 design which isn't much I would just change the logo a tiny bit and then I would continue but it would be pretty accurate advanced spidey asks what's something you've only seen once in a spider-man comic slash movie that you wish would be seen more throughout different stories this isn't something that's only been done once but I wish they did it more often I want to see spider-man making his suits I want to see that more often I think we don't see that enough um I want to see more of it because I want to see him doing the shit I spend hours doing Mr. No Name asks if you had a chance to direct a spider-man movie would you do it no I would not because I am not a writer I have tried writing serious stories and I was not satisfied with how they were going I've decided that I am much better at writing stories that are silly and funny so if I were to direct anything spider-man related I would direct a tv show and it would be a somewhat it would it would sort of have like a it would have a similar feel to rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where like they're always goofing off and shit I would do something similar but I wouldn't have it so that Peter is always like goofing off and doing silly shit but I would just I would just make it funny you know what I mean because if you can't write a story that's serious and has like super serious plot threads there's nothing wrong with writing a story with a less serious tone Gillian Gmod fuck Gillian Gmod asks I don't know if you can make multiple questions but I have a few interesting ones one what was your first ever spider-man comic I hold on I'm going to go get it because I specifically remember which one it was this this right here was one of the first spider-man comics I ever picked up this thing is beat to hell the inside of the issue is not even attached anymore also it's so funny looking at the ads and these things but the this was one of the first spider-man comics I remember ever picking up it was amazing spider-man issue 290 question 2 which version of Peter Parker do you like the most I like Peter B Parker I think I think his interpretation of the character was very refreshing and I found him very endearing and very funny what voice actor do you think could make a great spider-man voice um I had an idea for a daily bugle-esque show where it's like a office type sitcom and it's not focused on spider-man but whenever spider-man shows up it's just a fuck around with J Jonah Jameson uh and I would probably pick Ben Schwartz for that role because if we're only going to have spider-man show up just to fuck with J Jonah Jameson I want to have someone voice him who can pull off a sort of annoying cocky spider-man and then nothing else I'd probably pick Ben Schwartz for that probably spider menis asks what other characters would you like to cosplay besides spider-man uh my girlfriend has been begging me to make a daredevil suit I will at some point you guys will see me do that but only because my girlfriend has begged me to do it so I will um that's it I like Batman I like Superman but I'm I'm if I do make those costumes I'm not going to make them for me I make them for my friend who fits that body type way better Darnell asks what's your favorite non crossover fortnite skin he's a red llama um I forget his name but I remember seeing him and he came out in the spider man battle pass something about him I just loved him he was red and he was a very pretty shade of red he was a llama and I thought he was absolutely amazing and I loved him if I if there were no collab skins in fortnite and it was just fortnite I'd probably play as him probably scottish asks what villains are you planning to do for the probably spider man webtoon I'm actually rewriting my webtoon from the ground up I'm rebooting it because I did not like where it was going and I'm going for the more silly tone I was talking about earlier there are a lot of villains that I'm thinking of in here uh of course there's the American Punisher I still think he's a great villain and I still want to try to write something about him there's a character called the the crooked man and he's like this carnival fun house scary guy and his entire gimmick is sort of like the riddler in the arkham games where he makes like this gauntlet you have to go through it's like that he makes haunted houses that are incredibly dangerous it's based off of a real life story where like this guy tortured people in a haunted house and I saw that and it was like that's fucked up that'd be a really cool super villain agus topia again asks do you think a gender fluid spider man could work a spider man that switches from a regular costume to a more feminine looking costume depending on their mood kind of just asking because of an oc I want to write I think that could work really well um um I guess I guess I guess it just depends on what body the the spider man currently has if it's like a male body I don't know I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable on gender fluid but I guess I guess I think it could work um I think it could work no matter what um I think it could be done it could definitely be done and I think that could work into the story too because maybe the the the public thinks that these two spider spider people are two different people and that could be used to their advantage agus topia asks thoughts on a lego spider man movie asking a lot of questions and if they did make a lego spider man movie what would you want it to be like um first of all they should hire me to voice spider man lego spider man movie that'd be awesome I'm just kidding uh I would want it to be like the lego Batman movie where it's literally just a big love letter to the character there's all kinds of references and stuff I don't I wouldn't ask for too much Jed cause UK asks if you could have any version of spider man ripped directly from the comics in a movie which would you pick also hello Jake um I don't want to say the one from the dick code books because the one from the dick code books is is kind of dated at times uh I don't know I'm currently like I'm pretty happy with the spider man we have now like I wouldn't complain too much probably Bruce Campbell asks okay so I got two one for buying fabrics what is the best place to get ones with textures and patterns on it go to Joann's go to your local Joann's look online blue moon's fabrics spandex world stretch house those are ah sorry and uh if you're if you're balling barrel parallel life studios these five places are where I get most of my fabrics and they are all really good I can't say anything bad about any of them also Etsy Etsy is really good and two what is your favorite thing about Vivian Tori you two are adorable together thank you Vivi is my girlfriend um I love my wife unlike that motherfucker from the try guys relevant joke she listens to me that's the number one thing um I I had a lot of partners I've had a lot of girlfriends over the years and nobody has cared about the way I've felt like Tori has um a lot of them sort of just I don't want to say outright neglected me one of them did but Tori really just cares about how I feel at all times Tori will like always ask me if I'm okay and I think that's what a lot of people need to value more in their relationship is someone who truly cares about how they feel at all times um because I like being hurt you know what I mean and Tori does that and I love when she does that she's also very comforting to be around agent Primus asks which would you prefer sticky webs from wrist bones or pew pew mechanical web shooter a um for for like a story I would prefer the pew pew mechanical web shooter a because I guess at least for Peter it shows how smart he is but if it was in real life I would probably pick the sticky web from wrist bone because I don't have to make anything Agastopia asks again no I'm just kidding you can ask me any questions you want more of a smaller question who is your favorite X-Men character I thought it'd be nice to know since he was coming back I like Wolverine he's cool I like his costume uh I don't like actively follow the character but everything I've seen about Wolverine has been pretty fucking cool he's cool I like when he interacts with spider-man I like Wolverine Kai do you like this video let's watch it let's watch let's watch this video Michael P productions mistake again maybe we can jump probably Pepsi asks what's better MCU or Taza I well I think I went over that a little bit earlier if you for better movies in terms of quality in writing probably the MCU movies but because as much as I don't like far from home as a spider-man movie it's it's pretty all right writing wise critically I think the MCU movies are slightly stronger but I prefer Taza I prefer Taza I'd rather watch Taza I do like spider-man homecoming though that is my I wouldn't say it's my favorite MCU movie but it's one of my it's one of the better spider-man ones probably gay asks do you like the approach they took on MCU Peter no I don't um part of me kind of wishes that if they really didn't want to do the origin story for spider-man so bad they could have just had it so that we're looking at like a college age peter and if they really wanted to we could go back and do younger peter they were like I remember seeing an interview that was like we have a chance to do something unique here how would spider-man get his hands on all this tech in a world filled with superhero he would just do it the same way he did in the comics that's that's all we need that's really all we need Teddy squid asks question if you could sit down with anyone involved in the production of a spider-man movie ever who would it be and why that's a really tough question because I really want to talk to Tom Holland or Andrew or Toby I'd want to talk to Andrew the most because I feel like Andrew is the only one that could hold like a decent conversation about spider-man with me like I feel like Tom and Toby don't have as much knowledge of the character but if I couldn't talk to the actors I would probably talk to the lady in the matrix who designed the tazam one suit the lady from the matrix who designed the tazam one suit and I would just talk to a lot of the costume designers I would pick one of them the cam k yo I ask what would you do if you had the chance to fix anything in spider-man history I would probably undo one more day just save the community with that one um average symbiote enjoyer asks do you plan on doing spin-offs for your universe with other heroes based on comic book characters I'd love to see a character similar to static shock and black panther unfortunately if I am writing like spider-man is real still to the point where like I want to focus on other characters I would probably write it so that they are guest stars in the current issue I wouldn't solely focus on another character like that because I don't have enough love for any other character to write a story solely about them I like spider-man and that's probably as best as you're going to get from me if the world stops turning and all I can do is make videos about one thing I'm going to probably choose spider-man every time so just same thing for comics in general anyway uh oh wait I have one more question my girlfriend asks what is your favorite spider-man comic I love spider-man blue spider-man blue is one of my favorite versions of the character because it does the it it's it's a it's a character dive it's a dive into trauma it's a dive into like what peter does to cope with that trauma and I really enjoy that I really enjoy getting to take a deep introspective look on who spider-man is as someone who's grieving and I thought it was a really interesting book I love the art style by tim sale I did a voice dub of it like when he died um r.i.p. tim sale and yeah I I like spider-man blue and honorable mention the spider-man life story spider-man life story was the first spider-man comic to make me cry and that's it uh thank you so much for watching um if you want to ask me questions yourself you can always ask them in the questions for chi channel and maybe I will answer them maybe I will not and of course you can join my discord to get to that channel it is in the link in the description uh just be sure to tell me if the link is broken and um again I just want to say thank you all so much I might start doing a section where I answer one question from the community at the end of every video from the questions for chi channel but who knows I will figure it out uh I don't know when you're going to be seeing this video I don't know if you're going to be seeing this video but um yeah that's it thank you all so much for watching and of course I will see you guys in the next one bye guys


I was, as a student, I was a squatter and then I became a neighborhood activist and then I started to do social housing and as a social housing architect in Holland you start to do neighborhoods because the projects are large scale and then I ended up doing large scale urban designs and the culmination of that is the Hafen city in Hamburg on the left last year the Olympic legacy not for London but for Hamburg which was the first comprehensive urban design act to jump across the city of the elbow to the south and which was exited by a referendum in the wake of doing many of these sorry yes in the wake of many of doing of many of these projects we just we started to do a research on what we call Grand Projet in the tradition of Pompidou and his Paris concept and we collected 26 projects worldwide in 15 countries and 23 cities and research them superficially then cook them down to around eight so here you see top left La Défense in the middle you see King's Cross on the right hand you see Hafen City down left you see what the hell do you see there Tokyo Maranouchi in the middle you see the beginning of Marina Bay in Singapore and on the the right hand side you see Luya in Pudong Island in Shanghai we do not only look at these projects as isolated things but for instance here you see in King's Cross we look at how these projects are part of a constellation of centralities that can be read as an orientation network across the city of London and their relation in between there's a tradition in these projects one is for instance Canary Wharf which is more or less from the same period as La Défense and these are hardcore multifunctional aircraft carriers that have been landed from the sky rudelessly onto the city and that's why we call these projects wolves they are mostly privately owned and they are very strongly gated and have a strong control all over skyscrapers that have two large floor plates that are not flexible etc but you see also in this picture that Canary Wharf is not only a wolf it turns to be gradually a sheep because the interesting thing about these bad projects is that over time they attract housing they attract transport they attract connectivity and then gradually they start indeed at the end networking into the city today we know that so there's a kind of evolution so if you look at Hafen City it is based on extreme networking it is based on giving small plots away to developers it is based on incremental development piece by piece and of diversity in program architecture grade level and so on and so on if you look at La Défense you see the same you see that La Défense was landed like Canary Wharf but it created in the end the centrality and the centrality attracted a whole kind of urban district around it which kind of organizes itself as fungus around it and you see that even on the right hand side La Défense starts to Chinese identify itself gradually which is the next and maybe the final thesis if you look go to Pudong Island in Shanghai which is partly co-designed by the Epadesa the designers of La Défense you see this compound of large skyscrapers that are set into a field with no public space they have no real connectivity in terms of permeability there's no internal external integration and they don't talk to each other and the neighborhood itself doesn't talk to the surroundings it's interesting to see a comparison between Pudong Island and Wall Street where you see what an immense differentiation difference in public space street pattern and fineness of connectivity Wall Street shows against this Pudong Island in more or less with the same density and on the right hand side drawing by Peter Rowe that shows this famous diagonal that runs into the middle of nowhere as a kind of copy of the Champs Elysees from La Défense last project I will show you is the and also then show that there is also an evolution in Asia in terms of mega projects being becoming more human is Marina Bay which is a successive large scale development that seems not to end at all the first one is Marina Square which you see here in the front and it's a kind of it was meant like a kind of Florentine Italian nollie system of public spaces they are all covered underground and overground as you see conceived by Hong Kong developers and designed by American architects like Philip Johnson and Roger Dinklow so it's a kind of enormous caricature that has been built there quite successful on a landfill and is the house the home of the formula formula one racing track activities that are every now and then in Singapore and by chance they are held on the same day as the national as the international bicycle day ironically which the government of Singapore finds a little bit awkward here you see this is a kind of symbolic picture because the director of the Hafen city in Hamburg is standing here praying in front of the model of Singapore where all this these fantastic goodies are being produced successively over the decades and what we work there with our research lab around five seven years now and we have gradually a kind of influence on the way that the town planners think about the city so this first Florentine project you could say was a very initial thing the second phase is a couple of skyscrapers that you see here that still have the problem that they have enormous floor plates and one block one plot one building so no diversity only internally directed but gradually we have been able to manage to discuss smaller plots with the example of New York where real estate can also get a lot of value even with small blocks and we give them little boxes of cardboard like you see here with zoning laws in which they can play and see how the how they can really create a little bit more diversity within the development of that and last but not least this is Marina Bay South that's a revolutionary change in which perimeter block developments are being combined with towers and semi-public and public spaces that are transitional like you see here in official diagrams of the center of livable cities which is one of the main drivers of these kind of developments in Singapore which has a great spin-off in other Asian cities you shouldn't underestimate the effect that it has enough in Saigon Jakarta etc these people do and it is not a surprise that these the images that they produce are very strongly related to the European tradition I talked two days ago to Liu Tai Keur the big maker of Singapore and he said yeah actually we were all only aspired by the European city the last development that is now going to be done which you see here from the Marina Bay Sands hotel is the container terminal terminal in the back and this container terminal is an enormous piece which is going to be an extension of the CBD this is the size of it it's about one and a half times the size of half and city and what is very interesting is that gradually the society is geared towards that there's going not to be a made a master plan but there is first a community created this community we are also co-creating and this community is is going to stakeholder the master plan together and there will be different scenarios with all kinds of new insights of development like what does high density mixed use really mean to also tackle the myths that all these concepts have with a lot of categories that are also including economic sociologic and psychological and research energy systems information technology mobility and transport planning of course there's a big discussion about light urbanism etc now Singapore of course has a bad name maybe that's also right you can compare it a little bit with the West Berlin it even has less border controls than West Berlin in its ace but actually it is a large corner basin of over 10 million people and what is of course very ironic is you cannot discuss that this is a large corner basin you can only talk within the walls I have to stop now I see thank you very much thanks case I wanted to try and tie what how you introduced yourself as somebody who's grown out of being an architect and ex-architect back to the point that was the subject of the session before lunch which was really as I understood at a discussion about the limits of architecture and all the limits of design I'm very struck in your presentation and I'm delighted that urban design has expanded and grown as a profession in the way that it has and I think there's no question that we have much better cities because of it not least because architects are very bad at the spaces beyond the building but my question to you and perhaps you don't have an answer and we can pick up on it later on is what are the limits professionally of the urban designer in particular what I'm thinking about is when you're designing beyond just the big project when you're designing the whole city or perhaps more importantly what I was really thinking about is about the system of cities where do you put multiple big projects which is an issue in the parts of the world where you are building at scale much less than it is when you're building in established cities we've only got a little bit of room to maneuver but when you're thinking about the west coast of Africa we are going to be doing a lot of building a lot of mega projects do you need special design skills to engage with a different kind of person who will make the political decisions about that it's not the same kind of banker it's not the same scale of politician and just as you were talking and I was thinking well how do you even represent that are there limits to design when we think about the system of cities is my question you know an architect sees the completion of his design within the taste of his own aesthetics after it has been completed the urban designer is the coordinator of everybody's bad taste and usually does not survive his project he is a cogwheel in a machine and has to very carefully conquer his position but what is the crux is I do hardly know people who are well who are doing very good urban designs which of course have to be open and incremental and adaptive and so on who have not been an architect or a landscape architect or something related so you have to be a designer to in order to be proactive in creating robust public space systems in an urban context and the kind of interpretation of the local context you are coordinator also of politics designers implementation people population and engineers you are on the on the kind of hinge point between between I lost it I have a little bit of a jet lag sorry yes between design and science so let's say what is extremely important what is not so very developed in my experience with architects is that there's a very important component of let's say science on level of transportation and economics etc needs to feed in your work as an urban designer and I know Andy's got a question on this but it does seem to me we need to think about this both from the perspective of the person implementing the mega project but also from the perspective of the person writing the specs or the terms of reference for these very large scale interventions at the urban scale so when you have whether it's the minister of a human settlements department or the treasury and she commissions work from urban designers what is she expecting and do we need a special language to begin to train people so that they ask for the right kinds of things and that we brief people correctly but let's hand over that you recover a bit from jet lag and just say to think about this and we'll come back to this in discussion which is the city that cities that 26 or so that you've studied of the kind of mega projects the contrast between the presentation of those and this morning's different you know the sort of alternatives from below and I'm very curious because you've you've worked in so many different environments is what's the connection between these two in some ways many of these cities these global centers more relate to one another than they even do to their surrounding context or the communities the city of refugees we saw this morning or in Lagos and I'm very curious what is when the relationship but what is one learn what is the connection between these two things as an urban designer working on very large context that these aren't islands unto themselves but actually how they address the fundamentals of what's happening in urbanization in many of these countries yeah I think if you talk about a mega projects they happen and if you wanted or not and you have to decide as a designer or an architect or an urban designer do you want to have influence or not my decision to focus primarily on urban design was that I discovered that architects are ignored by large scale urbanization and by politics and that I think that the discipline of architecture and design needs to have influence on large scale urbanization that's the first thing the second thing is that our mega projects are always complementary to slums and other things they are economically economically in a certain dynamic balance if you like or not and they are centralities in a system in which conurbations are either concentrated but sometimes also much more spread out that the myth that 60% of the people lives in cities is not true at least half of these people lives in desiccota areas that are spread out along the Ganges or in Shanghai and so on and so our mega projects or centralities if you like I don't like the work of mega projects at all but working on centralities as nodes of encounter on all levels economic culture etc is very important if you don't interfere it will be done by developers and politicians that want to kind of stamp their life on to the city and I think that is a lost chance if you don't do that.


You're so fortunate and lucky today to have Richard, which I'm going to refer to Richard, your other name, which is Richard Smith, because it's easier to pronounce if that's okay with you. And so, you know, we call you the magical composer from Wisconsin. So the first question I have for you is something that you and I have discussed, and you know, I got an email from you recently, and that is, tell us how you got into this composition framework. I mean, how did you begin getting interested in composing music? Because it goes back to your childhood, and I think that's very interesting. Yeah, it really does, because what I first got interested in music, it was but through playing the piano. My sister played the piano at home, and I liked what I heard, and she played a lot of Mozart, and so I decided at a very young age when I was three years old that I wanted to play Mozart, too. And so after she would finish playing, I'd sit down at the piano and try my best.  And my sister said, well, that's not so easy for a three year old. He can't even read words yet. So somehow she invented some way of making it so that I was actually able to read music off of the printed page when I was three and a half years old. That's amazing, what she was able to do was the next step was to actually write like Mozart, right? And so I wanted to write pieces of music, too. And so I eventually got down to that when I was seven years old. That's how I started. And, you know, didn't you also do things like in high school?  But didn't you have some sort of musical ability and function when you were in high school? Well, yeah, I always say that my musical career began in kindergarten because when I was in kindergarten, the teacher saw that I could play the piano. So I was asked to play the Star-Spangled Banner for the assembly at school, which was kindergarten through sixth grade. And I was really scared, but I played it. And so that was my first exposure to an audience. So I really wasn't so scared in terms of playing in front of other people. And I know that that can be a major deal for a lot of people. They may know how to play, but they don't want to play for other people. They're afraid of making mistakes and stuff like that. My sister was kind of like that, but it didn't bother me. And I enjoyed the reaction that I got. And when I was in high school, yeah, I was in the orchestra and I did play piano in the orchestra. I kind of fumbled my way through the clarinet for a little while. And then they put me on percussion, so I got familiar with that too. But eventually it always came back to the piano. And in my senior year, I played Mozart's Piano Concerto in B-flat major as part of the concert in senior year. OK, you've now mentioned Mozart twice, so I have to ask you this question. Is the film Amadeus, does it have any reality in it? I mean, is there or is it just fictional? Well, I don't really know the answer to that question. I know that Mozart was a very talented composer and that saw the area was very envious of what Mozart could do. But I think there's a lot of fiction in there, but it makes for good theater. Oh, it certainly does. OK, let's go back to you. So where did you get your formal training? You know, and I mentioned formal training because I'm talking about college or graduate school, et cetera. Right. So my formal training, well, I took piano lessons for a very long time. And then that was through high school. And then after that, when I was in college, I took summer school classes and I took them at Columbia University and I took courses in harmony and counterpoint. And then when I graduated from Fordham and went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, I took more classes in composition. But like I was telling you before, I I really feel that in terms of the best teachers that I had were the music that I listened to and the stories that I heard from other people. Well, so now that begs the question. So who did you listen to and how did they influence you? OK, so Mozart and then, of course, I played the sonatas of Beethoven, which were very, very challenging and Bach meant a lot to me. And Bach was very difficult and very challenging, but very worthwhile. And I was not afraid of making mistakes when I was when I was playing and I wanted to imitate those styles.  And then when I was in high school, I became involved in a band besides the orchestra. And we played different music. We played music that was rock music. And when I got into college, I joined a rock band. And then after that, when I actually started teaching in the early days, I got a job as a band on the road. I left teaching for a couple of years to pursue a full time career as a composer and as a musician. And I was writing all kinds of different styles of music, rock and country music and all that stuff. But really, basically down there deep inside me was my love for classical music. So Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, I loved. I loved Stravinsky, Shostakovich, the Russians. I liked the Greek, the Romantic composers, which actually leads to a to a wonderful story about mistakes. In a Juilliard School of Music, there was a very, very famous teacher. And her name was Rosina Levine. And she was no small deal. She was born in the Ukraine, actually, their family lived in Kiev. And they were Jewish and she was also had Dutch heritage. And she came to be a teacher at the Juilliard School of Music. And I knew people at Fordham who actually had friends at the Juilliard. And so when I went over to that school and I talked to different people and they told me a story about her, about how she had wanted to enrich this one piano student who she was having trouble with interpreting music correctly. And she told him that Arthur Rubinstein, the famous pianist, was giving a concert of three romantic concertos all in one evening. Grieg and Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. This was a concert that she was going to attend and she told the student to do it. And the student went to the concert and so did she. And at the next lesson, she asked him what he thought of the concert. And he said, you know, the thing that surprised me the most was how many mistakes Rubinstein made, especially in the Greek concerto and in the Tchaikovsky concerto. I just couldn't believe it. And Rosina Levine said to him, so you heard him play, but you didn't listen to the music and that had a really big impact on me. And so when what I play, I try to put my heart and soul into it. And I'm not concentrating on making mistakes. And I do a lot of improvisation at the piano. And at the same time as I was teaching, I also got a job as a church musician here in West Bend. And I was a church musician for 30 years. And what I would play a lot of the times I would improvise during communion or were doing a presentation of the gifts or like that. And people would come up to me and they would ask me what I had played. And I said, well, I played what was going through my mind at that time, which was a combination of a whole lot of different things. Did you, as a church musician, did you was it prescribed or were you working from your own, were you working from your own music? Well, that's kind of half and half. We I was the one who chose the music that was being played. And I chose a lot of music which had been written and published. And much of the music that I did actually do was written by me. And some of it was published by Oregon Catholic Press and Trinity Music. They published some of the pieces that I did. And so it's a combination, Carl, of both. Did you, you know, I've always, you know, often when I go into churches and of course, I will go often around Christmas time. And of course, they're always playing handle. And I'm wondering if handle was the person that you went to in your own church music? Well, we did handle it Christmas time. Yes. And also at Easter time, because it's very, very famous and very beautiful music. Yeah. And it was important. And again, he's a composer from that period, which is one of my favorite periods of music. And that's what I kind of that's why comfort music. And I think that the thing that's the most important to me about music is that I didn't get bogged down with making mistakes. And that I continued to write, even though my orchestral music that I was writing was really not being performed at that time. But I still had my musical diary and I took notes every day and I played every day and playing was my strongest suit and improvisation at the piano in church was very, very strong for me. But music is something which is something that's been so much a part of my life, I wouldn't think of not being with it. And having that diary really helped me stay connected with music all the time and with composition. OK, you mentioned something about your youth and I have to ask you this. So when you were young and playing rock and roll and enjoying rock and roll, who did you who did you like and who did you admire in the rock and roll field? Then we'll then go back to classical music. Yeah. Well, the the musicians that would that I thought were the greatest with the Beatles, I thought they were great.  When I was in in Honolulu one time, I was in the park. What is Queen Capulani? You know, the Capulani Park right there. And they have a shell there. And Jake Shimamukuro was actually giving a free concert. And you could hear the music and I was drawn to it. I went over to it and he was playing while my guitar gently weeps by George Harrison. And what he did with it was so magnificent because he took that music and he improvised on it and he put his soul into it. And that's one of the wonderful things about classical music or even about good rock music based on classical tradition traditions. After all, they did Eleanor Rigby for a string quartet and the vocals. So I that's it's so rich to me. It's a wonderful thing. Well, it's interesting that you pick the Beatles because the Beatles have been adapted, you know, often by by classical musicians. Yes. And it's I'm not sure it's because of the melodies or, you know, why the Beatles, but it's, you know, classical music, much less department stores and and grocery stores and things like that. So OK, let's get down to the nitty gritty. And so you had mentioned to me that you love to come to Hawaii and to the Hawaiian Islands to compose. So let's hear why. Why why Hawaii? Well, the that. Well, the way it is, I became so attached to Hawaii after I was teaching in those summer schools that I was at at home and I came to just love the people and I really love the place. My time for composing is in the morning. In the morning, it's always very, very peaceful and you can hear the birds and it just. It just allows my mind to be free to think. And when I would go to the beach, I wanted to go to the beach every day. I just love the ocean. What I would do is I would go into the ocean and I'd stay there for maybe 45 minutes, an hour or more than that. And I got caught up in listening to the to the waves, just the sound of the waves. There are there are cadences and there are crescendos and there are day crescendos and it just would make different ideas come into my mind that I could then put into place the next day. It just is very fruitful for me. That's the effect that Hawaii has on me and why I like to work in Hawaii. In fact, I've done several orchestral works all in Hawaii in the times that I've been there. Um, do you did you you mentioned the birds? And so did the birds come into your music also? I mean, do you get inspired by them? Well, there is actually a French composer who did put birds into his music. Olivier mess I am. He was a French composer and he tried to mimic the different bird calls. And that to me is not really possible that they have a music of their own. And every once in a while, it will trigger something different in me, a different thought in me. It's it's more the piece that I feel and then that the sounds of nature that I feel that give me ideas when I am in Hawaii. If you had to pick three of your compositions that you have found to resonate with you over the years and maybe perhaps not over the years, perhaps currently, could you name the pieces and talk a little bit about each piece and and what the music sounds like? And unfortunately, we don't have a piano. I wish I yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but that would be even better. But yeah, your description would be great. Yeah. Well, the first piece that was performed by an orchestra, which was the Milwaukee Chamber Symphony Orchestra in Milwaukee at the Performing Arts Center was in three movements. And it was called on a country road. And they were written at different about different locations. The first location was a place called Waiting River in New York, which is on Long Island, which even though I was born in New York City in Brooklyn, I grew up really on the island in a place called very small community called Waiting River. And it was a piece that I wrote actually when I was in high school. And it is very peaceful and it's very happy. In fact, music is kind of an escape for me. And a lot of my music would probably be considered to be very upbeat and very joyous, both from a religious point of view from our religious music that I do and also from a secular point of view for the music that I've written for orchestra, not religious. The second movement was written at a very turbulent time period in US history. It was written in 1968, which was the time in UW Madison that there were the riots against the Vietnam War. And that's one of the most turbulent disinit paces of music that I've written. And the third movement is from St. Croix Falls. And that is in Minnesota. And it's a river and it's just very peaceful and kind of grand because I'm trying to depict musically the feeling of the awesome power of that water in the music that I'm writing. So that that piece was performed and it was well received. So that's one which has a big dent on me. And then a second piece of music that I wrote would be Times Four.  My sister, unfortunately, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. And I ended up having to take care of her. She was older than me.  I had to take care of her, of course. So it was hard because the disease caused a change in her personality. And from being a very loving and warm and generous person, she became a very cold and angry person. And she would shout and scream at me. It was very hard, Carl, very, very hard. And I empathize with people who have loved ones who have Alzheimer's disease. And music was my escape. And so that piece, Times Four, was in four movements. It was morning, afternoon, evening and night. And, uh, morning, I wrote all, in fact, all of the movements that I wrote were fully orchestrated in Hawaii. However, I did write the movements for them for afternoon and for evening in, uh, New York, where I was taking care of her. But morning was written entirely in Hawaii and night was written entirely in Hawaii. And, uh, made a big dent on me. And that has been performed, actually. That was performed by a couple of different high school orchestras in Michigan and in North Carolina. And then also in Ohio. And then the last piece was the one that's going to be performed at Calvin University in, uh, Michigan, uh, April 22nd, I think, is the date of that concert. I know that I got to go to rehearsal next week because, uh, the new perk is called 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. And it's based on the poem by Wallace Stevens. And his poetry is very musical in nature. And I couldn't possibly set his text to a musical melody. So I'm the narrator and I read a stance out of the poem. And then I give my musical ideas about what this music inspires me to think of. Uh, Stevens felt that imagination was the most important human quality and which differentiates us truly from the rest of the animals that we can imagine things that are not and are yet to be and can become. And that really strikes a chord with me, no pun intended, Carl. And I... But Pineball take it. And I, uh, I set the 13 stanzas to music and I'm so looking forward to doing that with the orchestra. I said to the conductor who has been an advocate for my music, Josh Seller, I said he could either have me or if he could possibly get Patrick Stewart. I would prefer him to have Patrick Stewart, but he said I was cheaper. So I guess I'm doing it. Wow, big name. Let me let me ask you this because you mentioned your compositions in Hawaii. Yeah, are they affected besides, you know, the the waves and the melodic composition and perhaps crashing sounds of waves? Are they influenced at all by Hawaiian music and the melodies of Hawaiian music? And you mentioned, you know, the ukulele. Yeah, well, all of these things obviously have an influence, but I I have not been tempted to write in a Hawaiian style because that belongs to the people of Hawaii. And I have to sift things through my lens, through my own background and through my understanding. And I enjoy listening very much to Hawaiian music. I love music. I'm taking an anthropology course actually right now. And it's about Native Americans and the music that they have, which was shunned actually in the beginning by the Europeans and is now being recognized by Americans as having such worth. I think that we have to recognize all the different gifts that people have to offer. So, no, I have not tried to that if the influence has been there, it's subtle and it's not conscious on my part. But maybe there is a little bit of Hawaiian influence in the music that I've written to. That's great. Well, you know, that's wonderful. And it's wonderful that you come here and compose. You know, you had mentioned that this piece you're going to, that the conductor was the person who was a big supporter of yours. Is that how your music gets performed? Does a conductor find out about it or how is your music disseminated? Because that's kind of an interesting question for anyone who is going to compose music. Yeah, well, it helps to go to a famous school. It would have helped if I had gone to Juilliard School of Music, because then that leads to ends where you get to meet different people. So in the music that I have done, I've kind of been in the hands of the people who have been around me. And the Josh Teller was one of them. He taught at the high school where I was working and he became interested in the music that I had written. And I've done with so many musicians over the years that I was working at church in terms of instrumentalists and especially with singers. But these are not people who are really in positions to promote my music elsewhere. So I guess it's a matter of contacting people or getting your music published in that manner. And I've written a lot of music and dedicated it to different people. And now I think some people are beginning to get back to me and saying they would like to hear more. For example, let me ask you for a specific example for the Milwaukee Chamber Group. Yes, how did that come about? Well, that came about because we were regular attendees at the at the Concert Series. And my wife, Cheryl, wrote down on one of these things that they gave asking for recommendations for pieces that they could play in the future. She said, why don't you play the works of my husband? And so the actually one of the directors contacted me and said, could you please submit some music to us? And I did and it was performed.  There you go. Yeah. Now, I know you have children and so dear children also, are they musicians also? And have they copied dad? No, the oldest one has that. But, you know, that's interesting. You should say that, Carl, because after all these years, when he kind of didn't do anything with the piano, he had learned to play the piano. He's now taken it up again. It's so important. The music is just, it's so much a part of our lives, really. That leads me to another thing. When I was teaching European history, I used to ask in the beginning of the question, what are the five most important things that Europeans did for the world? And then I would follow that up with it. What are the five worst things that the Europeans did for the world? And one of the things that was never mentioned, really, on best things was music. They would talk about medicine and they would talk about science. And yet music so much touches our lives on a daily basis. I think it's just because it's so much a part of us. We don't think about really where it came from. Anyway, I think you were asking me a different question. Carl, what is the question that you were asking me? Well, I was I was asking about your son's about what music Michael Michael plays the guitar and he plays the guitar on a daily basis. He did learn how to play the piano, but he has really followed up with the guitar as his primary instrument. Well, we are running out of time and and rich, I want to thank you for your wonderful discussion of what it means to be a composer. And of course, our last queen was a composer, Lillio Colani. And so you fit into a mold that is well represented here in Hawaii. And well, and you mentioned European history and history in general. And of course, you follow in that great tradition of composers. I'm going to leave the last words to you. If there's any brief words of advice that you would give, especially young people, if they want to compose music, what would that be? Stick to it. Keep a musical diary, write every day. It's important that you keep writing every day and don't let anybody discourage you. If you have a love for it, just keep on plug it away. Well, there it is. And, you know, we call him the magical composer from Wisconsin, a rich Smith and a Huey Ho and a Loha to you, Richard Smith. We want to announce that Think Tech Hawaii is moving into a new phase and will not be producing regular talk shows after April 30th. We will retain our website and YouTube channel and will accept new content on an ad hoc basis. We are also developing a legacy archive program to provide continuing public access to our content. If you can help us cover the costs of the transition and the development of our legacy archive program, please make a donation on thinktechaway.com. Thanks so much. Aloha.


So far, I've introduced you to cannabis and cannabinoids, and in my last video I discussed the impact of smoking cannabis on your lungs. In this video, I'll cover recent research on how cannabis use affects your heart and blood vessels, and we'll talk about some of the ways that cannabis has, in fact, killed people through overdose. A quick review of what we've learned about your endocannabinoid system. There are two receptors, CB1 and CB2.  A common comment on previous videos was that, while most reasonable people agree that smoking cannabis joints is going to be bad for your lungs, other forms of ingestion don't carry the same risks. I want to be clear that this video is about harms that are irrespective of the mode of ingestion. Smoke it, eat it, vape it, it doesn't matter. The impact is from flooding your endocannabinoid system with a super stimulator drug. I'm going to break down the effects into two categories, acute and chronic. Acute responses happen quickly. Generally what people refer to as an overdose is called an acute toxemia. There is an acute toxemia for excess cannabis consumption that we'll discuss. The other response type is chronic long-term use of the drug, which causes effects on a longer time scale, over months or years or decades. Cannabis consumption also has cumulative chronic effects from long-term use. First the acute responses. When you ingest cannabis, the drug enters the bloodstream and circulates through the usual routes, eventually ending up in the brain where it has the desired psychotropic response. When stimulated, the cannabinoid receptors throughout your cardiovascular system have a two-phase response. Initially, vasodilation or relaxing of the blood vessels, which leads to increased blood flow. In some cases this can cause sudden drops in blood pressure, which causes people to faint, a position called postural syncope. At the same time, heart rate is often increased and may remain elevated for two to three hours. As dosage increases, that is as people get more stoned, the effect of relaxing blood vessels reverses and becomes vasoconstriction. We now have a very dangerous scenario, hard contracted arteries, a heart muscle pumping faster and harder than normal, and a sudden shift from low blood pressure state to a high blood pressure state. What can happen in rare cases is that the small blood vessels can't handle the pressure, and like a thin walled pipe bursts, producing internal bleeding, including bleeding in the heart and brain, called a hemorrhagic stroke. Alternatively, the pressure and blood flow can dislodge material from the blood vessel and produce a blockage or reduction in flow called an ischemic stroke. What distinguishes cannabis-induced stroke from just a random stroke from other risk factors in people who happen to be pot smoking at the time? Two things in particular. Cannabis-induced strokes occur in very young people, teens and 20-somethings, where all other risk factors could be ruled out. The second distinguishing feature is that these strokes recur again after smoking pot. There are numerous case reports of young people presenting with ischemic stroke who are successfully treated and then re-admitted a few weeks later with the same condition after the use of marijuana. Other than the blood pressure-related stroke risk, there's also a risk of damage to the heart muscle called cardiomyopathy and dysregulation of heart rhythms called atrial fibrillation, and the most extreme sudden cardiac death and myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack. All of these are usually happening in young people, which makes them exceptional. So how big is this problem? For the most part, we don't know. The majority of publications on this topic are on specific case reports and forensic post-mortem reports, and we know these events are seriously under-reported because the linkage is not well known, even by clinicians. One study in France found that out of about 2,000 emergency room visits related to cannabis from 2006 to 2010, about 2% were serious cardiovascular complications, a total of 35 events, including 22 heart problems, 10 problems in limb circulation, and 3 strokes in the brain. 9 out of 35 of these events led to the death of the patient. That's a death rate of 26%. And on average, these were people in their 30s, who would not normally be at risk for heart attacks or strokes. Another study interviewed 3,800 recent heart attack patients. Of the 120 of them that were marijuana smokers, 37 were smoking within the 24 hours leading up to the attack. Based on a case crossover analysis, the authors of the study conclude that the risk of myocardial infarction, heart attack, was elevated 4.8-fold in the one hour following cannabis smoking. The second hour had only a non-statistically significant increase of 1.7-fold, which further suggests that the drug may have triggered the attack. I want to be clear, these are likely very rare events, and we know little about what triggers them beyond an understanding of how phytocannabinoids interact with the cardiovascular system. The fact that they're so serious, and that so few people are even aware of these risks, make this topic worth studying more. I'm frustrated with the myth that no one has ever died from cannabis overdose, especially when offered by people I consider to be pro-science and pro-evidence. While it's hard to get a specific number of deaths resulting from rare cardiac complications of acute cannabis use, I find it highly unlikely that any drug that changes blood pressure and cardiac output has a zero death rate. Let's shift the focus from acute responses to chronic effects of long-term cannabis use on the cardiovascular system. There are only two effects I want to highlight, cannabis arteritis and alterations in normal heart function. Arteritis is inflammation in the walls of an artery. Cannabis arteritis is a poorly studied consequence of long-term cannabis use. If you recall, cannabinoid receptors are found on immune cells. Those immune cells are found along the lining of blood vessels, and chronic stimulation may cause them to produce an immune response with the effect of hardening the arteries or producing clots. When this occurs in the extremities, toes and fingers, the result is necrosis or tissue death followed by gangrene. And in many of the case studies, patients who are unable to stop using marijuana require amputation of the affected digit. The complication with studying cannabis arteritis is that so many people use both tobacco and cannabis, and tobacco is a known risk factor for arteritis. The only distinguishing factor is that, again, these case studies are mostly in young people who wouldn't normally be at risk from tobacco use alone. It's possible that tobacco plus cannabis is the real risk factor. More study is needed. Lastly, cannabis use can disrupt the normal function of the heart. It does this through interacting with the adrenergic system of your body, the one responsible for regulating your heartbeat. A number of cannabinoids found in marijuana interact with both the part of your brain responsible for heart function, but also directly with the adrenal response in your heart by altering the way the nerves there respond to the signals. Chronic use of cannabis is associated with heart rhythm defects, atrial fibrillation, tachycardia, palpitations and premature contractions. This is, again, very poorly studied and understood. The effect on most people is probably below detection. But in people with complications, like a congenital heart defect or congestive disease, cannabis can increase risk of death. I focused on negative consequences of recreational use, but I think it's worth recognizing that for every harmful interaction with the body, there's an opportunity to develop cannabinoid drugs that correct other types of defects. The impact of cannabinoids on stroke survival, for example, is an exciting area of research. As are applications in diseases of the central nervous system and immune disorders, I feel very strongly that therapeutic use and recreational use should be treated as two separate cases. By analogy, codeine is a very effective cough medication. But it's potentially habit-forming and a popular drug of abuse. I can talk about the medical use of drugs, including synthetic cannabinoids, without discounting the health consequences of recreational use. If you take only a single message away from this video, I hope it's this. Cannabis use in any form carries with it some potential for rare but life-threatening conditions. I'm not trying to scare anyone. Being informed is not the same as being afraid. Cannabis use of any kind will carry with it risks, typically in proportion to dose and duration of use. I feel about cannabis use the way I feel about tobacco use. I'm not interested in judging or shaming you, but I hope through education to make sure you make an informed decision on the best research. As always, consult your physician or health care provider if you have questions or concerns. Never take your health advice solely from the internet. The next video in this series is going to attempt to cover the impact of cannabis use on the brain. I'll talk about the scientific basis for reefer madness and the growing body of evidence linking early cannabis use and psychosis risk. I'll also talk about the long-term cognitive consequences, IQ, learning ability, and we'll touch on risks associated with driving while stoned. I look forward to your comments and thanks for watching.


Lesson design, ESA and practice. For this task I have selected the course structure. As a teacher a lot goes into the daily operation of the classroom. They need to consider their classroom setup, their management style, and the students they will teach. However one very important facet of teaching is lesson design and teaching students appropriate standards, to help them in their English acquisition. Advantages of the ESA methodology. Even though there are lots of teaching methodologies, such as grammar translation, audio-lingual approaches, task-based learning, and PPP, presentation practice and production, it could be rather difficult to decide which one is the best. I think that it is really important to motivate students and encourage independent learning in a student-centered environment, regardless of the methodology a teacher chooses this should be a focal point in the daily activities taking place. In my view the engage study and activate approach is an effective teaching methodology, because it focuses on motivating students a lot, and teachers can be more flexible in class with the ESA process. Engage phase. All ESA lessons should start with the engage phase, and end with the activate phase. I think that the engage phase is an important part, as its aim is to have students interested and involved in the lesson. Also the teacher can be informed of what students already know or need to learn through the engage phase, which means that teachers can use any materials, that can make students speak and think about the topic that will be covered. Due to the importance of this step, teacher should make efforts to find appropriate materials, and also consider students level carefully in order to engage and elicit students more easily. Study phase. The study phase which is the second phase in the ESA model also starts with elicitation, so teachers should elicit as much information as possible from the students. In this phase the students will focus on the language and how it is constructed, and then teachers can check student understands the language objective from activities, such as gap fill exercises, pronunciation drilling, and sentence building. I think this phase is less student-centered than the other two phases, due to the fact that the teacher is more of an instructor and less of a facilitator of the learning. Activate stage. The activate stage is where the students are encouraged to use all of the languages they have acquired previously, and we're taught in the lessons leading up to this point. In this stage it is important to make an adequate environment for students to use the language freely and communicate as much as possible, so role play is a typical activity in this stage. While students practice what they learned in class, teachers should be more focused on students' fluency rather than accuracy. Also they should not restrict the students' language usage, but instead encourage them to freely participate and express their knowledge of the English language. Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course. Teachers should know how to balance each stage rather than focusing on one stage or another. However it does not mean they should include those three phases equally in class. Teachers need to know how to cover each phase flexibly depending on their lesson. Therefore they should always use lesson planning and their knowledge of the students, and their background to make the best decisions to move the students forward in their pursuit to be proficient English learners. Overall it is important to plan proactively and be aware of the students' abilities, as one plans the lessons for their pupils. Thanks so much for watching. We are ITTT the leading provider for TEFL and TESOL training courses. If you like this video, please subscribe by clicking that button down here and click on any of the videos here on the left for more interesting teaching tips for getting certified to teach English abroad and online.