The Strange Attraction of a Stop & Shop Marty Toy

A bunch of these were leaning on each other in a cardboard box up high near the checkout counters. There was no explanation that I could see, just the $10 price. Knowing my 5-year old nephew provided a plausible excuse, I popped one into my grocery cart. Truth be told, they were so cutely odd I couldn’t resist. There seemed to be a story here, but perhaps one that only makes sense in the way that brutal fairytales do. The “Stop & Shop Marty” front and center on its belly gave me hope I could learn more with a little online research.

I already knew a bit about Marty. The original robots glide very slowly and smoothly around grocery store aisles. They will even stop for a picture. That is me with one below.

The first time one of these things crept up on me, it spooked me a bit. I found out that Marty makes note of spills and items missing on shelves and communicates that information electronically to staff for follow up.

Evidently, Marty is an acronym for “Mobile Autonomous Robot Technology.” The missing word beginning with “y” led me to believe that the name was added after the fact, as I learned was the case for the googly eyes and the drawn-on mouth. This article provides insight into this history, and notes that Marty seems popular with children. There are, in fact, a variety of Marty toys.

As for the one I bought, 20% of the sales go to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy in Chatham, Massachusetts, USA a group that advocates for protection of white sharks and educates people on ways to stay safe from them.

I can see how finding a way to put a robot and shark together in the general configuration of a Marty stuffed toy might prove challenging. But a shark eating a Marty robot would not be very good for the shark, nor for for the robot.

Here are two scary things put together – hungry sharks and intelligent robots can both feel threatening. But in this unusual case, Marty is smiling and the shark also seems OK. We can certainly hope that the natural world upon which we depend and our rapidly evolving technology will both prove more beneficial than harmful.

In “Robot Revolution” in the July 6th and 13th edition of New Yorker, Stephen Witt describes how humanoid robots while still of interest, are raising a number of serious concerns. They can be heavy and pose safety risks; both arms and legs might not be needed or worth the additional cost. In addition, “physical AI that runs a robot remains underdeveloped” (p. 22) and there is always the concern that humanoid robots might take jobs away from humans.

Somehow I cannot fault this strange shark Marty toy. It may be a bit on the dramatic side, but this fruit of the arrangement between Stop & Shop and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy draws attention to what is already here and what it is worth taking care with dangers, benefits and all.

Tea & Dialogue Basics – Open

The first practice during a weekend online retreat for a cohort of individuals interested in offering Insight Dialogue was a variation that includes sharing tea first. My introduction focused on these basics:

  1. Guidelines: While all of the Insight Dialogue guidelines apply – Pause, Relax, Open, Attune to Emergence, Listen Deeply, and Speak the Truth, I decided to emphasize “Open” in keeping with my desire to have this tea and dialogue practice serve as a form of welcome to our online retreat.
  2. Generosity: With sharing tea it is obvious, but listening deeply and speaking the truth are also generous gifts. In this case, given the practice was being offered online, each of us must necessity make our own tea. Remembering to offer ourselves both respect and appreciation for such intentional acts of self care seems important in these particularly challenging times.
  3. Ichigo Ichi ‘e (One Time / One Meeting in English) – Each meeting is unique and will never recur. That is a basic principle of Japanese tea ceremony which applies to every meeting. It makes sense to pay whole-hearted attention to those precious moments in which we can be genuinely alive to all that is here.
  4. Other elements taken from Japanese Tea ceremony include support to attend to all of the senses and to think with appreciation of all that went into being able to share tea together. Bowing after speaking brings in a bit of the respect of formal tea etiquette, while a natural object or an image provides a remind of our fundamental relationship with the natural world.
  5. Mindful dialogue: For this part of the practice, the participants take turns listening and speaking, in this case contemplating, “What is arising from the experience of mindfully preparing and drinking tea, as well as bowing after speaking?” Participants mentioned appreciating the opportunity to slow down and open to themselves; the simplicity, comfort and warmth, and how this practice had served as “a soft start” to the retreat, as I had hoped it would.
  6. Adaptability: Even without a hot beverage in hand, I like to think we can bring more of this open spirit to when we interact informally around the kitchen table, with strangers, and with those in need of comfort. And perhaps it might help with bringing fewer judgments to our own internal dialogue.
     

Two Pond Walks – Never the Same

Some days I do not take any pictures. Others, I take pictures after every few steps. For better or worse, my sensing there is something worth capturing has become quite intuitive. This surely has as much to do with my mental state and receptivity as it has to do with how patches of sky, reflections, and plants dance together in the changing light as I walk around Hill’s Pond.

There are similarities, but also quite a few differences in the photos below taken during two separate pond walks this past spring. Nature has a way of quietly reminding us that there is also a positive aspect to the continual change that none of us can escape.

Day One:









Day Two:








Five Boxes and a Troll

All four of the carved wooden boxes were described as coming from Norway, and that made sense given the Telemark acanthus leaf designs and the notches in three of their lids that fit over projecting tabs on either side. The smallest of these “tines” was the perfect size to hold one special ring. Perhaps it was my Oslo ancestor, but I could not resist this charming collection.

The fifth quite different box is a model of a Norwegian stabbur. These charming storehouse buildings are raised up on stone or wooden pillars with a gap above the steps to protect their contents from marauding vermin. You can imagine the fragrance upon opening that door from grain, flour, cured meat, root vegetables, dried fish, fruit and sometimes also clothing.

The wall-mounted cabinet was perfect to hold this box collection. Then, at my request, my Aunt brought me a troll back from her travels to Norway. I was glad that I learned trolls come in all sizes from small to gigantic. I sat the troll so he he seemed to be staring into the stabbur’s front window, but as the pouch slung on his back was already full, perhaps he had already completed his troll-like mischief.






Color Changing Rhododendron

By the time the Lily of the Valley is seducing bees with its scented white bells, this one has completed a remarkable progression from deep pink buds to white with pink dots. The first photo below shows the colorful midpoint. The others show the 12-day progression from start to finish.

The last photos shows how it looks most of the year.







Spring Happening

It was quite cold this spring. After several years of very little snow, we had several inches for most of the winter and that took its time melting. Then we still had nights below freezing and cold days for quite a while. Still there were signs. The daffodils started blooming on schedule. There were buds here and there. And when we got a few warm days towards the end of the month it was catch up time.













Melting Art on Cars (Again)

Noticing an icy flower on the car’s roof when I looked out the front door on a chilly morning, I ran for my camera. The last time I saw such large ice crystals on that car was in late November, 2019. Fall and now spring – still, the conditions must have been just right for that to happen.

When the temperature is below 0°C (32°F) and supersaturated humid air flows over a textured surface, ice can be deposited directly without first going through a liquid phase. And as you can see, the results can be quite spectacular.







Melting Snow

The snow had piled on snow this unusually cold winter. I wondered if I might find interesting patterns in the woods or at the pond now that it had finally started to melt.

Slick icy paths could be treacherous, but this year the inches-deep snow was mostly hard and crusty. I did not sink in as I added my prints to those left by dogs, people, rabbits and others.






Ikat (Mudmee) Cloth from Thailand

In contract to Indonesian ikat, Mudmee cloth from Thailand makes use of resist-dyed weft (horizontal) yarns. Originally, special designs were reserved for nobility with simple patterns for everyday use. While Indonesian ikats tend to use fewer colors, modern mudmee can have quite a range of vibrant bright colors, especially when the cloth is intended for use by young women.

Traditional patterns often had strong horizontal or vertical bands, like the silk weaving shown below. Vibrant and highly complex-patterns are created with the help of modern looms, as was the case with the last two examples below.




Ikat Adventures

Betsy White told me that the Indonesian ikat she had listed for sale had been purchased when her family was living on Sulawesi between 1976 and 1978. That island did not seem to be the type of place that the average American tourist would visit, and there was something about Betsy’s few words that hinted there was a great deal more going on.

As luck would have it, Betsy had recently published Balancing Act: Mountains, Family, Career. That proved a perfect way to learn more about what showed every sign of being a fascinating life. It occurred to me that lessons she learned during her many mountaineering adventures must have helped Betsy live her (multiple) dreams. Besides mountain climbing, her husband, Gene, loved textiles including rugs, and he collected them wherever they went during their extensive travels. Betsy also has ikats from India, and central Asia.

When they lived in Indonesia, Gene would travel from island to island working on projects to improve access to fresh water during the long dry season. He would make it a point to visit remote villages and ask if they had any ikats for sale. I could tell that Gene and I appreciated many of the same qualities to be found in these lovely weavings.

The influence from specific island cultures is clear, but each piece also bears the stamp of the individual artist-weaver who put so much time and effort into their painstaking work. In addition to describing the textiles’ varied designs and fascinating cultural contexts, the books below include wonderful stories about individual weavers:

Between the Folds; Stories of Cloth, Lives and Travels from Sumba by Jill Forshee

Textiles of Timor; Island in the Woven Sea edited by Roy W. Hamilton and Joanna Barrkman

Gift of the Cotton Maiden; Textiles of Flores and the Solor Islands edited by Roy W. Hamilton

Ikats I purchased from Betsy are from (top to bottom): West Timor, Sumba, Flores, Sumba, an antique fragment that is likely from Flores, and lastly, an “everyday” sarong from West Timor.