Plutopia News Network

Jane Hirshfield is an award-winning poet, translator, essayist, and editor. She’s written nine books of poetry. Her latest book, Ledger, “poses meticulous equations of the self coping with doubt, hunger, age, and death.” (Donna Seaman, Booklist). Maria Popova at Brainpickings.org describes her as “a poet of optimism and of lucidity.” In our Plutopia conversation, we discuss the transformatiave nature and purpose of poetry. As part of our conversation, Jane reads her poems “I want to be surprised” and “Today another universe.” Links: “A poem about finding life while we shelter in place” in the San Francisco Chronicle “Before the Collapse,” a review of Ledger by Jake Marmer in Tablet “On writing poems facing into the broken world,” a conversation with Kaveh Akbar in The American Poetry Review. “Think you don’t like poetry? Try Jane Hirshfield’s Ledger” an excellent review by Elizabeth Crane, in Vox. Photo by Curt Richter

Erik Davis is the author of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. The book covers the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. He focuses specifically on the thinking and work of Terence MacKenna, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Anton Wilson — three explorers at the weirder fringes of 70s culture. Erik is a writer, journalist, and historian. He’s written about technology, culture, rock and roll, and esoteric mysticism. He’s given talks at universities, media art conferences, and festivals around the world.

“A meeting is not all pure transaction for the task at hand. It is also transaction of how we are, who we are, and how we are together.” Nancy White is an international practitioner in understanding and practicing online and face to face group facilitation. Her broad focus includes distributed work, strategic planning, social learning, communities and networks. She’s involved in Liberating Structures, an alternative way to approach and design how people work together. Nancy is expert in structuring and conducting online meetings, which are more of a big deal in the era of Covid, social distancing, sheltering in place. In our conversation, we discuss Covid in Seattle, and a whole lot about meeting effectively online and understanding how virtual connection can help you in your day to day life. Resources Mike Parker of Liminal Coaching and Nancy present a special guided relaxation called “Drift to Peace” that will help you decrease stress, reduce tension, and focus your mind on planning and possibility. Mail list for those having to faciliate online: https://groups.io/g/f4c-response. Crowdsourced online facilitation resource doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NyrEU7n6IUl5rgGiflx_dK8CrdoB2bwyyl9XG-H7iw8/edit?ts=5e6fc9e3# List of events to learn how to do Liberating Structures online https://ls.qiqochat.com/events Nancy’s blog, loaded with ideas: http://www.fullcirc.com

Danny Sands is a physician who’s worked in a variety of capacities in the healthcare IT industry for over 25 years. Danny is passionate about, and dedicated to, healthcare transformation. He holds an academic appointment at Harvard Medical School and maintains a primary care practice at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In his practice, he makes extensive use of health IT — much of which he helped to introduce. Jon L. met Danny via their common association with the late visionary Dr. Tom Ferguson, who dedicated himself to Participatory Medicine, defined as a movement where networked patients shift from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health, and in which providers encourage and value them as full partners. Danny and Jon were among the co-founders of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

Steven Levy is editor-at-large for Wired Magazine. He’s an author and journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, privacy, and artificial life. His latest book is Facebook: the Inside Story. We discuss the book, and we also discuss Steven’s recent interview with epidemiologist Larry Brilliant about Covid-19.

Recorded March 26, 2019. Susan Engelking is a mobility disruptor, a tireless advocate for “Tiny Transit” and LEAN mobility. Her new book, Tiny Transit: Cut Carbon Emissions In Your City Before It’s Too Late, is a friendly how-to guide for cities and climate activists. She describes herself as sort of a Janie Appleseed, casting the LEAN mobility message — protected infrastructure for micromobility — around the country in search of people who resonate with this paradigm change and want to bring it to their cities. She is founder and executive director of the nonprofit Institute for Community MicroMobility. Her mission is to educate cities and climate activities to develop protected networks for low speed, low cost, low emission modes like Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs), scooters of all kinds, pedicabs, electric assist bicycles, and active modes. She’s had a consulting firm for twenty years. Over time, she became such an advocate for micromobility that she shifted her business to Tiny Transit Strategies. Her background is economic development. She has the distinction of having served as project manager or senior editor for each of the three long range economic development plans for Austin from 1984 through 2000. She’s been named Austin Communicator of the Year. Other links/resources: https://www.rethinkx.com/transportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle