Tag Archives: Crazy

We Love Cults.

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Over the past little while, we have been looking at different events in history. We started by looking at turning points, and how the world was experiencing difficult times, especially in the 60s and 70s. Events like Vietnam, Watergate, and the Munich Olympics, changed a lot of opinions about the world, and the state of things. From discussions we had around these events, we were able to look at people’s responses to these tumultuous times. Specifically, we moved to looking at New Religious Movements, and their boom during these years.

I should take a little bit of a pause here to explain what I mean by New Religious Movement. It is a long term, and so I will now refer to it as NRM. An NRM is basically what scholars call cults. Cults is a very loaded word, because cults became a word to describe any religious group you didn’t like. NRMs are often offshoots of mainstream religions, or groups who have non-mainstream beliefs. They often have very fervent devotion, and a charismatic leader. There are a lot of other requirements for these groups, but I think it would make more sense to explain through the lens of a specific NRM.

That NRM would be the Children of God (COG), or The Family International. They have had many names over the years, after bad press and reforms, but COG is their most well-known name. This group was started by David Berg, a preacher in California. While there, he recruited hippies in the area to form COG, which was based on Christianity, and other prophesies of David Berg. COG was an end-time NRM, and 1993 was the year when the world would end and Jesus would return.

There are a few key characteristics that most NRM groups have, and to go further into why COG fits the definition, I’ll take you through each one.

Charismatic Leader

David Berg was this charismatic leader for COG. He formed COG as a sect of christianity, so it was easier for him to gain fervent believers. He referred to himself as Moses David, and was supposed to be God’s end-time messenger. One aspect of Berg that made him interesting to me was how isolated he was from his followers. Unlike some NRM leaders, he was a recluse. He didn’t go visit with his members and interact with them with a physical presence. Few of his followers ever actually met him.

Instead, they had two way communication through the Mo Letters on Berg’s side, and camcorder video on the follower’s side. The Mo Letters created the rules for the COG, and were the published form of Berg’s prophesies. The followers filmed the goings-on of the group to send to Berg. Everything from parties, dinners, and sex tapes. It was a really fun time.

Transcendent Belief System

As I mentioned before, COG was an offshoot of Christianity, so it was easier for members to join. The concept of a missionary church, which was not a new idea, appealed to a lot of people. They wanted to spread the message of God, and this seemed like the best way to do it. The main goal of COG was to conquer the world for Jesus, so when the end came, they would be saved. Members of the cult saw this as the best form of Christianity, and were very enthusiastic about their mission.

Systems of Control

As a missionary organization, isolation was a big part of their group. Members lived communally, in small houses where leaders of the movement were the heads of households. People were encouraged to get rid of all their worldly possessions, give the money to the group, and devote their lives to conquering the world for Jesus. There were very strong groups in Costa Rica, where in one small house they had over 30 people.

You were cut of physically from your past, but you were also isolated within your community. Being a missionary, even if 50% of the people talk to you, is isolating. It creates the divide between us and them, COG being the ones who are saved and the ones you can’t reach were under the control of the devil.

Even if you did want to leave COG, it seemed as though there was nothing left for you in the outside world. Children and teens didn’t go to school; instead, they spent their days as missionaries as well, going door to door and asking people to pray with them. Long time members had given up their careers, houses, and money, so they felt like there was nothing to go back to. There was also the idea of divine punishment, that if you left something terrible would happen to you because you were abandoning God’s goodwill.

Systems of Influence

The biggest form of influence was the Mo Letters, which controlled every aspect of the groups lives. They were comics, religious in nature, and people read them all. These letters controlled everyday life for the group, down to how much tea they could drink. Not following the rules laid down by the group lead to severe repercussions. There was no questioning leadership. Your time was managed, you went to all the group activities, and if you asked questions you were severely rebuked. There was a lot of fear. All the rules were straight from the top.

After years of following Berg’s writings, no one questioned when they became more intense. Berg had different ideas about religion and sex. He promoted sexual sharing, where members were allowed to have sex with anyone else in the group. People were already following what was in the Mo Letters, so they felt it was their duty to follow through with these ideas. There was no concept of consent. If you said no to someone, you were seen as though you didn’t belong. Children knew about this, as well, and it created a bit of strife in families.

Berg also came to the conclusion that witnessing wouldn’t be enough to save everyone. He decided that he would deploy flirty fishing, where women would perform sexual favours and whatever else to get more people into COG and win them for Christ. Some of the houses basically became brothels. You didn’t complain, because you were doing what you thought was God’s Will.

Why People Joined

The 1960s and 70s were a very tumultuous time in the United States. The peace-loving hippies were looking for a cause, and David Berg gave them just that. It wasn’t unrealistic for a lot of people to believe that the end of the world was coming so soon. It seemed like a long time away from them, and they just wanted to help save as many people as possible. This group gave people an easy answer on how to save humanity, which was exactly what they were looking for. And again, it was a christian group. Having branched off of a established religion, it was a lot easier to convince other christians to join. There was a direct way to get more people to support their cause, so why not join?

COG, now known as The Family International, still exists today. They are no longer under the leadership of David Berg, as he died, but his wife Maria took over. They spread Jesus’s message of love all over the world, and are the most successful NRM to emerge from the 60s era of counterculture.

South

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Crazy people change the world by bringing the future to societal norms. There are many examples of this in Seattle, which we have gone to. One of these futuristic groups is B8ta, a technology store in University Village. At B8ta, they demonstrate IOT, which is internet of things, and take customer service to the next level. All their technology takes everyday objects, and merges them with technology. There are water bottles that tell you how much water to drink, electronic wallets, and so much more. Each of their products the consumer can test out. This encourages people to try new things, and see not what they need, but what they want. When you test out this technology, you can see how far our world has come within the sphere of technology, and yet we keep moving. As we add technology to more and more things, you can understand why we need it. Another crazy thing in is Microsoft’s Hackathon. This is an event where employees of Microsoft get together to form new ideas for whatever they want. Through this, employees are encouraged to workshop ideas, and create them. They can come up with these amazing, futuristic concepts, and bring them to life. The Hackathon is definitely something out of the ordinary. By giving people this opportunity to get their ideas out, they have more space to think of more ideas, and help innovate the world, taking us farther down the path of the future. Creative minds help bring ideas to us. One final example of crazy is at Amazon. They operate as if everyday is Day 1. Everyday they try new things, work with new ideas, and move forward. This scares some people, because routine can be important, even a ritual for some people. But by having this mindset, they can move forward, developing new concepts and technology. The Day 1 idea helps Amazon take their failures and successes, and improve. This reflection creates new technology that’s way better than the first draft. Try, try again, and develop the technology of the future. These extraordinary people have created amazing things, that greatly impact our lives. The future is scary, controversial, and different, but helps our world move forward. Without these forward thinkers, society would be mightily behind what is is today.

As is a part of PLP, we always go on an interesting Field School. I also find a theme to connect the trips, such as The Journey East. This year, we follow the same trend, though I guess it’ll be a bit more circley. Anyways, this is South.

This post is also part of the Cray Cray unit and series of three posts! The other posts explain the introduction into our unit, and the end result.

I would just like to start by saying that Seattle is the American version of Vancouver.

So, if you’ve read the other Cray Cray posts, you probably know the gist of this unit, and our focuses and such. But if not, let me explain. We’ve been working with the idea of Crazy, and why it takes a crazy person to change the world. We have studied several people, and ideas based in Seattle, who demonstrate this idea of crazy.

The first thing we did (that I haven’t already explained in other posts) was an essay based around this question. We chose different Seattle based people, and explained what made them crazy. I chose Stan Lee, Paul Allen and the Wright Brothers. It was very interesting, as it was not an in-class essay. We also had to learn how to do MLA formatting. This is SO annoying, but it is good to know.

With all this prior knowledge, we set off at 5 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING to Seattle. I didn’t like that part. But the rest of the trip was amazing, and what this post is about. Don’t let my rambling fool you, that is where this is going.

The PROJECT part of the trip was a video. We were put in groups based on our essay people and had to film on location while in Seattle. My part in this was writing the script, and the screenplay. This was a bit difficult, seeing as we weren’t exactly sure what was at each place. I am pretty proud of the script, and I didn’t need to do tons of revision. One thing I would do next time is have a clearer outline of the interviews. We did get some, and a few were very good, but I feel as though the questions could’ve been more structured.

K. Seattle. Learning. I did learn a lot on this trip, but wether or not it was the stuff the teachers wanted us to learn is another story. We went to a ton of places, and I don’t really want this post to go on forever. So, I am going to explain a few of my favourite places, and places I learned a lot.

Microsoft Garage
Microsoft was the first place we went in Seattle. We first went on a tour, and as much fun as that was, this is not the section called ‘Microsoft Tour’. This is the Microsoft Garage section, which probably doesn’t make sense unless you went with us. The Microsoft Garage is a place in Microsoft where they come up with new ideas, and have the resources to make them! It was amazing, and we got a super cool tour from Dude Who’s Name I Can’t Remember. He talked about the things they do there, and the process in which they make things. What was really cool was that a lot of the ideas that he talked we use in PLP. It’s nice to see that the things we do in PLP aren’t totally mental.

Also with Dude Who’s Name I Can’t Remember we talked about ideas, and passion. You have to be passionate, involved with your idea, for it to come to fruition. He said how the best things come from a diverse team. This idea really makes you think. Maybe it’s why our teachers always make us work with different people. We’ll never know.

Living Computers
The Living Computers lab was super cool, like legit amazing. They had technology from decades ago, showing the beginning of computers, the highs and lows of the industry. It’s crazy to think how technology that once too up entire rooms, and entire buildings, can now fit in our pockets.

M

There were arcade games, and remote control robots, it was amazing. But the thing was, because there was lots of old technology, there was a really high pitch sound resonating from said technology. It hurt my head, and mildly negatively impacted my time there. It was still amazing though.

Chihuly Garden and Glass
Dale Chihuly is a very controversial figure. I talk about him a bit in my PechaKucha, and that’s probably enough. Just watching that would be enough. Anyways. We went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass. It was crazy. The art sculptures on display was fantastically inspiring. It’s amazing.

During the trip, I think I had a hard time living in the moment, as I was always thinking about what we needed to film for the video. If I were to go back, I think I would focus on the present, and having fun rather that all work. Good thing my friend is making me go back to Seattle during spring break!

Also while in Seattle, we were ‘locked in a room forced’ to write a paragraph about crazy ideas. It took many, many drafts, so it will be shared to the world. And yes, I copied it from the original because you deserve to be able to read it without going to another page. It is at the top in the HotBox accordion.

A Vision For Tomorrow

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As is the PLP tradition, every winter we have the Winter Exhibition, a night in which students of all grade level complete a different project and put it on display for the community. And as is another tradition (grade 8 exhibition), we had a week to complete this project. But this year, the teachers tried a new thing. Instead of starting a completely new project for the exhibition, we were working with an idea that we had been for a while, ‘Why Does It Take A Crazy Person To Change The World?’. And when I say a while, I mean a while. As Luca put it, we had all ‘overstood’ this topic. We had been learning about this for several weeks, and it came full circle. 

To start the unit, we created a short PechaKutcha presentation, a term I will explain later. These presentations were based on people from Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign. This, as we now know, was a precursor to what we’d be doing at the exhibition. 

As I mentioned before, here’s where I’m going to explain what that weird word is. So, a PechaKucha is a form of presenting where the slides auto play, which you may not think would be an issue. The real issue was, each slide lasted for 20 seconds, and there were 20 slides. 20×20, seven minutes in total. The first ones we did, mine on Jim Henson, only had 9 slides, and lasted for about 2-3 minutes (if I remember correctly, like I said it was a long time ago). 

Another key part of this project was our Seattle Field school, which I (will) explain in more detail in another post. But as an overview, we studied people (before the trip) and visited places (related to said people) to gain a better understanding of our question. All these deliverables, including an essay and a video, helped us ‘overstand’ this topic. 

As little or much as this may seem, I believe it was really important for us to have all this knowledge going into our exhibition. Because as you’ll see, our knowledge was what got us through to the other side. 

Okay, now that we got through the history lesson, we can go to the spectacle that was the exhibition. Our task for the exhibition was to take all that we learned over the Cray Cray Yay Yay unit and create a PechaKucha presentation on ‘Why Does It Take A Crazy Person To Change The World’. Along with creating these 7 minute presentations, we also had to set up our room, which happened to be the back of the library, but I’ll come back to this later. 

Creating our PechaKucha presentations were, not difficult, but challenging. We were tasked with using all of our own images and have most of them be from Seattle, which, at the time, I thought was mental and going to ruin my project, but I think really made it stronger. I had a solid connection to the picture, I knew exactly what was in it and what the purpose of it was. It did take a while for me to choose images that actually fit, and it was a bit stressful. But we had several drafts and lots of feedback, so I am pretty proud of how it turned out. 

That was more of the maker side of things. Now, let’s talk about the ‘dire events’ that befell us on our journey, and their reason; the script and speaking. The script was one of the most difficult parts of our presentation. And we weren’t even supposed to have a script; only bullet points. In my first draft, I did try this. I didn’t really work out, though. I found myself saying ‘um’ to often, and seeming like I didn’t know what I was saying. So I did write a script to practice with, which was beneficial in the end. The controversial part of this was we had several plan-changes, which many people took very seriously. In the first round, we were allowed to have our iPads up with us when we were presenting in front of a podium, with presenter notes open, so we knew what to say. Next, we weren’t going to have a podium, and our iPads had to be on the ground, with our notes there. Finally, we had no notes, no nothing. Just us, up there, with a monitor on the ground showing what was being presented and our memorized ‘notes’ in our heads. Many people had problems with this, said that the teachers were being unfair, changing their minds. I do understand where this is coming from, seeing as the last revision was just days before the exhibition. But I found as I practiced my script, I got a better understanding of what I was saying, and articulated my words. 

The hardest thing that I found was the public speaking. I’m not a great public speaker, I get very anxious standing by myself in front of people. In the days leading up to the exhibition, my stress kept getting higher the more I thought about it. But as soon as I got up there and started speaking, that all melted away. I knew what I was saying, and I was passionate about the message I was getting across. Everything kind of fit together once I started speaking. And as far as I know, it went great. I didn’t say um a lot, and I used hand gestures. I really think I conveyed my message, which I’m super proud of. 

The last thing I will talk about was the room, which earlier I touched on. So, as you probably know, at the Winter Exhibition, each class has to set up a room to present in. Most times, you have to set up places where to display each persons project, and it gets kind of crowded. But for us, since we were presenting one at a time, we didn’t have to do that. With Jessie as our unofficial leader, we set up the Crazy Café, a lounge-like setting with comfy chairs, stools, tables, and even coffee and tea. It was an amazingly chill room, great for de-stressing pre and post presentation. For PLP 10, the exhibition was a huge success!

Overall, I thought this project went really well. I’m really proud of my PechaKucha, I think it went really well. I also got to work on my group work skills, when setting up the room. One thing I think I would do different next time is add a little more diversity into my work. It would’ve been nice to include at least one woman. Another thing is my photos. As confident as I was, if I’d known in Seattle that we’d need these photos, I would’ve probably tried harder to get those photos. But I’m proud of my work, and excited about how many people I actually got to tell my ‘crazy’ story to!

He’s Crazy

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We have recently started a new unit. It’s definitely interesting. It is called…

Cray Cray Yay! Yay!

What a name, right? Anyways. The driving question for the unit, well, this project in particular, is ‘Why was this person thought of as crazy and how did they change the world?’ This mini project was a fun one, and I learned a lot.

First, we watched Apple’s Think Different Video. The people in this video, and others who were featured in the campaign, changed the world because they were different. And different can be crazy. 

https://youtu.be/cFEarBzelBs

From the people in the campaign, we each chose someone to do a keynote presentation. But this wasn’t a regular keynote, oh no. This was a pecha kucha. A pecha kucha presentation is a presentation where the slides change only every 20 seconds, and usually last for about 7 minutes. For us, we had 9 slides, 20 seconds each, the whole thing lasting only 3 minutes. Now, that was really hard. To fit a person’s entire life into a 3 minute presentation is hard. But, we did it.

The person I chose for this was Jim Henson. Jim Henson was an amazing man, who completely altered the film industry. This is his story. 

Creative Commons License IGypsyWoman via Compfight

Jim Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi on September 24, 1936. From a young age, he had an interest in puppets. He was heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, Burr Tillstrom with his puppets Kukla and Ollie, and other puppeteers. While attending high school, he made puppets for a television program called the Junior Morning Show. 

He followed his passion into university, where he created Sam and Friends with his future wife. These characters were the forerunners for the muppets, and even included a prototype of Kermit the frog. Did you know that the word Muppet is a combination of marionette and puppet? 

As his work with puppets progressed, he started to experiment with puppetry on television. He worked with having the performer off camera, using rods to control the puppets, and precise mouth movements. He even changed what puppets were made of. Instead of wood, he started  working with foam rubber and different fabrics. 

As he developed his Muppets, he started to get more recognition. He began making commercials with his muppets. In 1958, he and his wife created Muppets Inc. in New York City. There, he hired Jerry Juhl and Frank Oz, who became critical to the latter years of the muppets. 

InspiredImages / Pixabay

In 1969, the Children’s Television Workshop had an idea for a show with puppets. They acquired Henson and his muppets, and through that, Sesame Street was born. Characters like Grover, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Oscar and Big Bird were first featured. Even Kermit was on Sesame Street. 

Once Sesame Street took off, Henson started to see where his muppets could go. He tried to start a television program in America, but the producers thought it was crazy. So he pitched it to Lew Grade, who loved it. They moved to England and started the Muppet Show.

Ribastank / Pixabay

 

3 years into the muppet show, Henson and his team created The Muppet Movie. This was a huge success. Once they realized the success that the movies could have, they stopped making the TV show and focused on films. Muppet movies, like Muppets Take Manhattan, or the animated show Muppet Babies, were plentiful. He worked on other things as well, including Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and The Storyteller. He even worked on The Empire Strikes Back, with the creation of Yoda.

In the 1980s, he entered into discussions with Disney about acquiring the Muppets. Nothing came of these first talks, because of Henson’s unexpected death in 1990. His children took over the company, and ran it for some time until the Disney discussion began again. In 2004, it was official. The Muppets were Disney.

Jim Henson’s legacy is still seen today. As well as the many muppet movies produced recently, the Jim Henson Creature Shop has continued making muppets for other films. Farscape, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and MirrorMask are a few.

Jim Henson changed the world of puppets, and had a huge part in the introduction of them into the media, so for that he was crazy.

All of the people who changed the world were different. They had an idea, one that wasn’t normal. An idea that didn’t fit into the societal norms. Something that had never been thought of before. To ignore all that, and change the world, well, that’s crazy.