by David Palmer | Jul 21, 2011 | Almanac
The author of
The Medium is the Massage,
Marshal McLuhan, deserves a space in the massage almanac for the positive PR impact he had on the early days of contemporary massage, not to mention my life. In 1967, the year of this book’s publication, massage was still associated in public’s mind with adult entertainment. To put the word “massage” on the cover of the hippest book of the day without a negative connotation was both shocking and brilliant. I still have my $1.45 copy.
This week, in honor of his Centenary, I have enjoyed dipping into, reading about and reflecting on this book and McLuhan. Here are a few thing you may not know:
- McLuhan coined the term “the global village” to describe how humans are moving from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity with a tribal base.
- He also coined and popularized “surfing” to mean rapid, irregular and multidirectional movement through a diverse body of documents or knowledge even before there was a world wide and web to surf on.
- The title of the book was a typesetting mistake. It was supposed to have been The Medium is the Message but when he saw the typo, McLuhan insisted on keeping it. There are four possible readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: “Message” and “Mess Age,” “Massage” and “Mass Age.”
- The book was a graphically innovative collage of multiple type faces, upside-down and sideways text, photographs, cartoons, drawings, news print that a generation of stoners would treasure.
- A major influence on McLuhan’s was Teihard de Chardin, a French philosopher and priest who, besides also having a significant impact on my adolescence, still resonates well today.
- Wired magazine annointed McLuhan its “Patron Saint” in its masthead for the first ten years of publication. Wired’s first executive editor, Kevin Kelly, continues McLuhan’s exploration of the role of technology and culture in his blog The Technium.
Happy Birthday, Marshall. Thank for letting me know I wasn’t so crazy. I certainly never would have guessed that massage would have become my medium.
In touch,
David
by David Palmer | Jul 5, 2011 | Fitness
We all believe in the importance of fitness. Heck some of us are selling it. But what is fitness, and how do you achieve it?
My idea of fitness is a broad one. It includes physical, intellectual, social and spiritual components. But my concept of fitness does not mean merely maintaining the status quo. To me, keeping fit means getting better: stronger, smarter, more flexible, more self-aware, more engaged, more fully human.
We aren’t designed to stand still; we are designed to move, to learn and to grow. True fitness means being able to cope effectively with the accelerating pace of change and the increasing complexity of this global village.
I find that my biggest barrier to developing a fitness routine is lack of motivation. I don’t even like the word “routine.” It just sounds so boring and isolated from my the rest of my life. I don’t want a fitness routine, I want a fitness lifestyle.
Even getting to the gym three times a week can become just another chore for many of us that absorbs way too much precious time and money. Kids raised in the country during the 1950’s, as I was, didn’t need any motivation to stay fit. We were on the move from sun up to sun down, running, climbing, crawling, balancing, lifting, and building our way through each day.
In that environment every moment was a fitness moment and the combination of all those moments created a natural, organic fitness lifestyle. I still believe that model of fitness to be the best. All that’s required is the addition of a little awareness and creativity. Most fitness moments add no additional time to your day but add a huge amount to the quality of your life.
Here are some are some guidelines and examples for building a fitness lifestyle, moment by moment.
- Be curious, ask questions, experiment. This attitude is innate in every kid. If it got squelched in you. revive it. For example, I never go on a diet. Instead I do open-ended dietary experiments like seeing what happens if I drink my breakfast every morning in a smoothie. Some of my experiments result in enough positive effects that they turn into habits. If they do, great. If they don’t, try something else. Everyone is different, so your fitness lifestyle will be unique to you.
- Multi-task. If I find myself standing in line or on a train, I do isometric leg exercises, even if I am also reading a book or listening to a podcast. If I am waiting for the microwave to beep, I do a couple of push-ups or other exercise on the side of a counter.
- Break a routine. Boredom is a big flag of opportunity signalling you to look at an unconscious routine with fresh eyes and find some aspect that you can turn into a fitness moment, like switching your tooth brushing or hair brushing hand.
- Sweeten the moment. We all know we should eat more dark leafy greens, but a salad for breakfast seemed too radical. However, adding raw spinach or kale to a morning fruit smoothie tastes great and is far healthier.
- Spice things up. A part of me responds well to challenges and competitions. I decided I wanted to lose a few pounds so I began keeping a spreadsheet, with a graphic chart of my post-shower weight every morning. Just that extra 30-seconds of record keeping is a fitness moment that helps keep me off the Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream.
I will be adding regular posts to this section of the blog and invite your comments and suggestions for fitness moments. How do you create your fitness lifestyle?
In touch,
David
by David Palmer | Jul 5, 2011 | Fitness
After an operation in 1974 put my right shoulder out of commission for a couple of months, I realized how little dexterity I had in my left hand relative to my right. What’s that all about, I thought. Who made that dominant hand rule that we live our lives by anyway? What’s so great about only developing half my body.
That’s when I began my lifelong quest for ambidexterity and I now consider it to be an essential aspect of my fitness lifestyle.
For the last four decades I have experimented with switching hands (and feet) for a wide variety of daily activities. In the bathroom I learned to hold a razor and shave with my left hand as well as my right and recently I started using my left hand to hold the toothbrush. I also noticed that in the shower, I would always stand on my right leg and wash my left leg first. Now I stand on the right first.
In the dining room I am equally comfortable eating European-style (fork in the left hand, knife in the right) and periodically, for a change of pace, I put my water glass or tea cup on the left side of my plate.
Any time I switch to using my non-dominant side I am exercising not only my muscles, but also my brain. I am building new sensory/motor pathways that build upon each other making any subsequent change a bit easier.
While these experiments may slow me down a bit initially, they can turn each moment into an “sensational” adventure. When I use my left hand I no longer brush my teeth automatically and unconsciously. Because I am learning a new motor skill, I am forced to pay close attention and really feel the bristles as they cover each surface of each tooth.
That level of attention can shift me easily into a timeless place where the two minutes that I used to begrudge to this task become a gift of intimacy with my body. Yeah, I know I’m weird. But so are dancers, musicians, and athletes, all of whom seem to find “the zone” more easily I qould guess because of their bilateral efforts.
There are literally dozens of opportunities every day to nurture ambidexterity throughout all parts of your body that take no time and little effort. For me this relatively modest effort at ambidexterity has had a big payoff personally and professional.
When I do massage it is clearly an advantage that both sides of my body are nearly equally adept at techniques and both hands are equally sensitive. Likewise, since much of my day is spent working at the computer keyboard, being able to alternate “mouse-ing” hands has been crucial to alleviating and preventing repetitive strain injuries.
On the more mundane level, I am better prepared for those awkward occasions when only a left hand will do, like tight spaces with a screwdriver or a wrench.
Give bilateralism a try!
In touch
David
by David Palmer | Jul 4, 2011 | Business
“What do you call someone who speaks three languages?” Trilingual.
“What do you call someone who speaks two languages?” Bilingual.
“What do you call someone who speaks one language?” American.
OK, OK. It is an old joke that is, fortunately, becoming less true each year, but too many of us think that English is the only language that matters. What is more true is that, no matter where you live in the U.S., your target market probably contains many people for whom English is a second language. However, even if you are a monolingual American, there is no reason that you can’t make your website, and thus your business, more welcoming to non-English speaking visitors.
I recently added a translation feature to the TouchPro website in less than an hour after a friend showed me his multilingual website. Depending upon your comfort level with web development and the web platform you are using, so can you.
Our first stop will be Google Translate, the amazing Internet tool for all global citizens. You can cut and paste text to this page and have it translated to and from over fifty languages.
Because I regularly correspond with people in French and Spanish, I drop my English into the translate box on the left side, select the appropriate “From:” and “To:” languages in the drop-downs and, “Poof!”, the translation appears on the right. When they write me back in their native tongue, I cut and paste their email into the translate box, click the reverse arrows and now I can read their reply.
Since it is done by a machine, don’t expect to get a professional grade translation. But I rarely have any trouble understanding the meaning of the communication. Just keep in mind when you are writing for a cross-cultural audience that some of your more clever turns of phrase (puns, for example) may not translate well or at all.
You can also translate any website by copying its URL and pasting into the “From:” box on Google Translate. This time, when you click the translate button, it will take you directly to the website, but translate any text on the page into the language you selected.
So, how do you make your website multilingual? Look at the bottom of the Google Translate home page and you will see a link to the Google Translate Element. Scroll down the page to the section Add Translate to your website. Use the Wizard to determine your preferences, such as which languages you want available for translation. The final step shows you the HTML code, which you can cut and paste to your website.
The TouchPro site is built on the WordPress platform, which makes it relatively easy to develop pages from pre-designed templates. The right column is a navigation area that automatically appears on most pages (like this one). I created a “Widget” at the top of the right column to contain the HTML code I copied from Google Translate button. Then I saved the page. That’s it. As soon as I click the button to select a language on any of the pages of the TouchPro site, it translates all of the pages.
If you don’t know how to put HTML on your pages, but have a web developer working with you, ask that person to install the code for you. If you are charged more than fifty dollars (or whatever their hourly rate is), you are paying too much. On the other hand, if you are willing to pay $100, call me… (Just kidding.)
If your website is built on a proprietary platform (such WordPress or Squarespace), check the Help section or Forums for specific advice on how to add HTML code to your site.
Besides quality, the other limitation of this free translation service is that Google can translate only text words, not image words. For example, many logos with a business name in it are actually a picture of the text and can only be changed in a graphics program, not a word processing program. For your logo that is generally not a problem, because you do not want your name translated. However, where this limitation is more commonly an issue is when menu selection tabs are with words are really images. Keep this in mind when building a site or choosing a platform.
Give it a try and extend your reach around the globe today!
In touch,
David
by David Palmer | Jun 9, 2011 | Touch
That wonderfully rich quote comes from Anne Fernald, the head of Stanford Institute’s Center for Infant Studies during an interview on a RadioLab podcast, one of my favorite NPR science programs. The program segment was titled Sound as Touch and explores the mechanical, biochemical and electrical nature of our sound receptors along with sound’s psychological impact.
Professor Fernald took her tape recorder around the world and discovered that there are four universal “melodies” that all infants can understand no matter the culture or language. For example, when praising an infant (“Good baby.”) everyone invariably drops the pitch of the second word. Even though the child doesn’t understand the words, she knows she is being praised. Professor Fernald compares this to the universality of the non-verbal essence of touch communication.
Sound waves literally touch the bones in our ear and set them to vibrating. Indeed, these waves wash over our whole body and can touch us very deeply physically and emotionally. Orators and musicians are especially tuned in to this phenomenon. As a bodyworker I know that my massage starts the moment I greet a customer.
You can listen to the full segment Sound as Touch. By the way, the other three universal melodies that infants understand are those that comfort, that call attention, and that stop.
In touch,
David
