Introduction

Social media is changing the inner workings of our museums. Like many other organizations, our hierarchical structure has historically disseminated information from our experts to our visitors. The envisioned twenty-first century model, however, is more level. Instead of a one-way presentation, our on-line visitors are often interested in having a conversation with our curators and content providers. And many of us are joining our traditional experts in representing our institutions in these conversations. In response, we in new media have been looking for ways to engage our public by designing and using applications that encourage dialogue; however, in order to succeed all of us will need to approach our jobs and our relationships with our co-workers in different ways.

While the early hope of many technorati was that the Web would dramatically change the inner workings of our cultural institutions, new media's role began as a support for more conventional projects - exhibitions, outreach, and our collections - with their Web-based counterparts. But as new Web 2.0 tools developed and we saw the possibilities for a greater engagement, we often felt like Sisyphus. We heard concerns these new initiatives would take too much time or they would take away from our institution's core tasks. And just when we thought we had made inroads, the boulder would come crashing down: one step forward, two steps back. Our work was to function within our traditional organizational structure. Yet these first steps were just a prelude to real change.

Social media is now challenging the traditional flow of information throughout our institutions and out into the world. Researchers, educators, new media specialists, and exhibition designers are asking to join marketing and public affairs departments in conveying the mission of our museums to our visitors. Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, just to name a few social applications, allow for and encourage multiple institutional voices.

But how is this transformation really taking place? Are there methodologies that encourage this shift? And how can we negotiate with our peers a greater role in content creation and dialogue? How can we challenge existing paradigms, yet maintain the support of our coworkers?

Those of us at the Smithsonian American Art Museum are working on two levels: as part of important Smithsonian-wide initiatives, like Flickr Commons, and directly within our museum. In March 2009 I discussed social media’s new roles for museum professionals in an article titled “Confessions of a Long Tailed Visionary”. Rather than just disseminating important cultural information to our visitors, we were adding new roles to our jobs as we began to engage our public in conversations about our museums and our artworks. We were exploring new connections, advocating for change, collaborating with each other to create new forms of dialogue, and organizing these new communities in ways that would benefit both our visitors and the museum.

In the months since penning that article, I’ve been looking more closely at how we can more effectively embrace this change. And in doing so, I’ve started to explore how social media is changing not just our jobs but also our working relationships with our co-workers. Adding to the five new roles I outlined in 2009 are those of system analyst and negotiator. How can we work together to promote this change and increase our public network? And how do we negotiate with our colleagues as we parse out these new working relationships? What strategies work best for clearing that social media path for Sisyphus?

A Case in Point

One of our most successful pre-Web 2.0 outreach programs has been our on-line Ask Joan of Art research service. For the past seventeen years people have been able to submit questions about American art to a research team at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and receive a detailed answer to their queries via private email. Over the years Joan has amassed a huge repository of useful information. But none of it has been available to the public. And when the New Media Initiatives department suggested we put this information on-line, we were initially met with resistance.  

Some thought we had more important short-term priorities. We had just completed a major revamping of our Web site’s information architecture. Many projects had been put on hold while we completed this large task, and our stakeholders were eager to get back to these. While New Media Initiatives saw many Web 2.0 opportunities, we had to balance this with our more traditional service-oriented duties.  So we had to be strategic when adding these to our normal workload.

In addition, Joan used a number of proprietary subscription-based publications, like Oxford Art Online, Art Full Text, and Art Index to answer these questions. All of these are full text citation indexes, and the Smithsonian’s General Consul office was concerned that making this comprehensive information public might present a copyright infringement. A case could certainly be made for educational fair use. But our lawyers’ concerns presented a roadblock we needed to deal with.

Simultaneous to this discussion, Kathleen Adrian, our real Joan of Art, began tweeting questions about American art, but only the questions. Following her, I saw an opportunity and asked if she’d be willing to answer those questions on our Web site. By posting the question on Twitter and a link to the answer on a new page on our own site, we would not only bring these answers to the public, but also bring followers back to us, creating a synergy between Twitter and our site. Adrian was willing but needed to structure the answers in a way that would not jeopardize copyrighted material she mentioned in her private responses. So she started to post answers into an informative, yet less academic forum for our public site. In addition, posting the question and answer on our own site in a comment format (using a third party commenting application called Disqus) allowed the public to interact with Joan should they have additional information to contribute or any follow-up questions.

In the six months since we started this project, we have posted over twenty-one Ask Joan of Art answers on-line, and over 700 people have come to this page to view them (our statistics also show that viewers are staying longer than our average on this page). This is not a huge number in the scope of museum Web statistics as a whole, but gratifying when you consider that only a few months ago this information was hidden from the public. And we are now building up quite a repository, so much so I started to become concerned that some of this would become buried once again at the bottom of the question and answer page. So I went to Adrian with another idea: let’s repurpose these questions and answers as posts on Eye Level, our museum’s blog (http://eyelevel.si.edu). The material was already written and would require only minor editing for style. Since we had already navigated the tricky copyright issue, it would be easy to provide another outlet for information about the museum’s artworks and bring this content back up to the surface to an expanded audience. And, by taking this path, we were able to do this quickly and with a minimal amount of decision-making “by committee” or higher ups.  

Working together, we found a way to navigate around these initial barriers to bring this content to the surface. But it required looking at how we could structure the content and our systems to make it happen. Joan’s answers were written in a form appropriate to each venue: detailed with citations for private answers, more general for her public question and answer page, and more conversational for our blog posts. Adrian had opened the door when she began tweeting on her own. New Media Initiatives worked with her to develop information that benefited the reader and the museum without jeopardizing our other work.

Through our New Media Committee meetings, in which stakeholders from around the museum are represented, we developed an idea to bring Joan into the galleries. Using branded mobile boxes, where visitors could drop their questions about the art close by, could these answers also appear on Joan of Art’s question and answer Web page? We could focus on one or two artworks for a month, and then move the boxes to other locations and other art. In addition to building a relationship between Twitter and our museum’s Web site, we could complete the circle by encouraging relations between our bricks and mortar museum and the Web. We could not be stealthy about doing this part of the project, and it is presently being considered by our administration. But our earlier work is laying the groundwork (and providing us with excellent talking points) as we make our case.

The methodology used to make these additions to Ask Joan of Art can be categorized, as a co-worker so aptly stated, as a “conspiracy to commit progress.” The New Media Initiatives department recognized the need to bring this content to the surface, but we also took note of initial objections. Noticing the initiative of our stakeholder to experiment with social media, we saw an opportunity to move forward and encouraged a discussion on how we could use this to meet one of our most important Web 2.0 goals: bringing buried content back to the surface. Working together, we then devised a strategy that resolved copyright concerns, was easy to implement (no added work), and value-added (created a connection between our social media efforts and our traditional museum Web site).

Adjusting Our Social Media Outreach: Case Study II

At present the American Art Museum has three Twitter and three Facebook feeds (each managed by a different department), one Flickr account (used by numerous departments but managed by New Media Initiatives), and our blog, which is also managed by New Media Initiatives. Last year all of us involved in the museum’s social media efforts decided to form a working group to discuss and coordinate our various Web 2.0 activities and plan for coverage of upcoming exhibitions and events.

The museum has been using Twitter since September 2008. We tweet about upcoming public programs and point to our Web-based content, including our blog and Facebook posts and to our Flickr stream. With a little over a year’s experience and with different museum models now presenting interesting examples of how other institutions tweet, it seems like a good time to take stock of where we are and whether we want to move this outreach to another level.

There are a number of things we can explore. Do we want to increase the frequency of our tweets? Do we want to add multiple voices? In addition to the content we were already tweeting, is there anything new we could add to the mix? Specifically, is there any “low hanging fruit” we could pick to bring content back up to the surface to additional audiences?

We average about 1.8 tweets/day. By comparison, the Museum of Modern Art tweets 3.4 tweets/day and our sister Smithsonian institution, the National Museum of American History tweets 4.8 tweets per day (Twitter statistics via Tweetstats.com). Should we consider increasing our activity by using software like Hootsuite to allow us to “bank” tweets for publication later? Right now we are mainly tweeting directly into Twitter’s Web interface, which has its limitations. Most of our tweets occur during weekday business hours. The Modern’s is skewed a bit more into the evening hours, while the American History Museum tweets much more frequently during the weekends. In addition, is there value in retweeting our own tweets multiple times? With the quick flow of Twitter, people might not see our tweets the first time around, and a second one, perhaps restated to look fresh, might be a good idea. Being able to create and publish our missives at a later time might be helpful.

In a recent Museums Etc webinar, Twitter in Action, we learned that some museums used only one tweeter while others used multiple ones. Would it be advantageous to us and beneficial to our public if we had multiple tweeters, each talking about different aspects of the museum? A steadier stream of tweets might gain readership. But we did not want to add noise to everyone’s feed. So if we were going to increase our stream we would need to find good content. But, once again, we faced the Web 2.0 dilemma: too many good ideas and not enough time. Who was going to create this content? Did we have any quality “low hanging fruit” we could repurpose?

Could 1001 Days & Nights of American Art be our Twitter "low hanging fruit?"

In 2000 we created 1001 Days and Nights of American Art, our first major on-line venture during the museum’s renovation. We had planned on being closed for approximately 1001 days (truth be known, it turned out to be over twice that amount). And we wanted to create a calendar of interesting facts about our collection during the period we were closed: one each day. It was another one of our pre-social media endeavors. While our building was closed we were open on-line, and we wanted to remain connected to our visitors.

Designed and edited by hand each month, it was a huge effort that was supported by numerous departments in the museum, and one that was begging to come back to the surface ten years after we first launched it. The question now is how to create a process that will allow us to do so with a minimal amount of work. Using our experience with Ask Joan of Art, perhaps a similar model could be used with 1001: tweet a teaser with a link to a new page on our Web site.

This is where we are right now. Our social media group is scheduled to meet in a couple of weeks, and these ideas will be part of our discussions. Our Public Affairs department produces our tweets. How these ideas (or any new ideas) will fit into their present model and workflow and how receptive they will be to these suggestions will be part of our initial discussions and negotiations. Having a working group already established to discuss these issues is a good first step. Like Joan of Art, the content has already been vetted: a big time saver. Should we move forward, we would do a system-analysis of the most efficient way to repurpose 1001, with emphasis on minimizing the extra workload for everyone. 

What’s Next?

So what are we learning from these experiences? The social media aspects of Ask Joan of Art began when a museum worker took the initiative to start tweeting on her own. Expanding its functionality by building a connection between Twitter and our museum’s Web site first required us to see the bigger picture: matching the promise of social media with the specifics of our museum’s programs and outreach. Under these circumstances it seemed natural for a few of us to “conspire to commit progress.” Extending our main museum tweets, however, will require discussion, negotiation, and collaboration. Interestingly, both of these methodologies are hardly revolutionary in organizations. They still require good face-to-face social skills. Yet, as we are becoming seasoned students of the shifts taking place in the 21st century museum, we can act as advocates and guides for the changes taking place in museum practice. By keeping in mind our core mission and connecting it to our social media practice, we can make our case for a fuller on-line engagement with our audiences. It is important that our stakeholders know that we are not going to throw out what has worked just for the sake of social media and “the next best thing.” Coming across as reasonable with an eye to that next on-line development will encourage open discussions and negotiations, moving us forward.

There is no silver bullet to the success of these new Web 2.0 projects. Time, money, and personnel are still the anchors to success. And strategic fact gathering, good proposals, and excellent negotiation abilities are still critical in a social media worker’s skill set. While new tools for connecting museum assets to our larger communities are announced almost daily, developing and integrating them into our workflow requires good traditional people-to-people management skills. But the desire to present our content and extend our connections with our on-line public in new ways has increased the need and urgency to fine-tune our ability to work well with our co-workers as the boundaries between museum departments and our job descriptions become more porous and ever changing.

Sisyphus still may be rolling that boulder up a hill, but it is getting smaller and easier to push forward.

Cite as:

Gates, J., Clearing the Path for Sisyphus: How Social Media is Changing Our Jobs and Our Working Relationships. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2010: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2010. Consulted

• [ Social Media, Museums, Smithsonian ]

I was digging myself into a large hole. Where was that downspout? Click on photo for larger image.

Imagine living through the DC blizzard of "aught ten" (I know that's not grammatically correct but it sounds good). Then imagine your arthritic back survived the post-storm shoveling of your paths, your driveway, and your car. And you managed not to fall and break your hip as melted snow refroze every night. All the while, you enjoyed watching the longest stalactites ever form off your roof as the temperature rose and slowly, but surely the heavy snow receded. Wouldn't you want to help it along?

Neighbors were reporting ice dams were causing water to seep into their homes, their frozen gutters unable to deal with the runoff. What would you do? Why dig your downspouts out so they could get rid of the water. Right?

That's exactly what I attempted to do this morning. Three feet of snow had turned into two feet of snow ten days after the storm. And I wanted to shovel out the area around our downspouts to help nature take its course and to save our home sweet home. Now where was that downspout anyway?

I followed the line of the gutter as it left the house and I positioned myself where I thought the end came up to the surface. After all, I'd been mowing over that exposed PVC pipe for years. I should know where exactly it was. And I was sure I knew. X marked the spot and I began to shovel.

But when I got to the ground it wasn't there. One of our neighbors stopped by to ask what I was doing. "Searching for a needle in a snowbank," I replied. And so it went. When that spot yielded no downspout I surveyed the front yard, imagining myself with our mower. Wait, it should be a bit to the left. Where was my GPS-enabled downspout finder when I needed it the most?

More neighbors passed by as I first dug out here and then there. Eventually, I ended up with a big hole about ten by fifteen feet. I had shoveled out 300 cubic feet of snow and for what? Out of breath and concerned about my back, I gave up. When I got into the house and reported on my search my wife said, "Oh, the spout comes out directly in line with the edge of the house." "Listen," I replied, I've been mowing that lawn for almost 17 years. I should know where that thing surfaces."

But obviously I didn't. I can't believe I don't know my own front yard.

• [ Snow, Blizzard, Washington, DC ]

Jeff Gates, From a Series of One Acts… #7, 1987. Click on image for larger view.

Before moving to the DC area I spent a year teaching art in Minnesota. I learned to drive in the snow that winter and am proud to have survived a week of -90F (-68C) windchill. But that pales by comparison to what the Mid Atlantic is going through right now (okay, what I'm going through right now). It's a blizzard out there and believe it or not, I think this storm is worse than the snowpocalypse that inundated us this past weekend.

We've been off of work since Friday afternoon. As managing editor of our museum's blog, Eye Level it's my job to keep the blog posts on schedule. But, like everything DC, all activity has come to a standstill. So this morning I decided it was time for an art-related snow story. I did a search of our collection and found a beautiful image from Robert Singletary called Snow on the Chesapeake Bay and wrote a post on it. But in looking through the 196 search results for "snow," I suddenly came upon the photograph above. I'd forgotten it was in American Art's collection. And how appropriate for today. More importantly it still resonated for me.

I hate late winter. And, actually, after this season I think I'm on pretty solid ground when I say I just hate winter altogether. As for late Abstract Expressionism, the energy of its predecessor was no longer there. Like late winter it had lost its attraction.

I was young when I made that image. Thirty-five to be exact. So it's nice to see I still feel strongly about the weather. Oh, and about my art too.

• [ Snow, Blizzard, Washington, DC, Art, Abstract Expressionism, Photography ]

Top: Panorama of the entrance to the park across the street from our house taken during the blizzard (part of a series of photographs I've been taking). Bottom: Our street as I struggled to get back inside (our house is at the extreme left). Click on either image for a larger view.

We knew it was coming. They had been warning us for days. The good people of the nation's capital thought we were seasoned winter citizens after the last big snow in December. But at the last minute we all panicked and cleared grocery stores of anything that was edible (it was good to hear the veggie and fruit aisles were barren for even when we panic we seem to be a healthy lot).

I don't mind being snowed in, but only if I'm comfortably ensconced in a Swiss chalet with waiters to bring me food and drink and resort tractors to clear the walks for my afternoon stroll. Yes, it's nice to look out my window at the gently falling stuff. But I can never forget what I am about to face once the precipitation ends. Waiter, would you be so kind and bring me my ergonomic snow shovel?

The snow started Friday evening. And by Saturday morning it was once again a winter wonderland. Of course, it was my artistic duty to immediately go outside to take a few photographs. I bundled up, put on my heavy duty snow boots and brought a soft wipe to gently clear my lens of the morning's cold dew. It was coming down pretty heavy and when I took my first step off our porch and I immediately sunk to my knees in that dew. For a moment I felt like I was going to drown. It was a funny reaction don't you think?

I had to first get to what I thought might be the street. It was hard to tell where our property ended and the road began. I waded through the snow, thinking this must be what wading through molasses was like --or better yet, the La Brea Tar Pits. I could feel that mammoth's fear of entrapment. I slowly made my way to the park's entrance about 50 feet away. Once I got there I decided I'd make a panorama rather than the single shots I had been taking on previous sessions. Using a stitching software I'd come back to the warmth of my computer monitor and put them together. It was cold and the wind was starting to pick up. I took my photos, doing a few additional exposures for good measure and started my trek back.

My survival instinct under control, as I got closer to the house I looked down the street and saw the second scene. Brown and white all over, with just a touch of bright yellow. Perfect.

Creative energy expended, I opened the front door with my photographic booty where my daughters were waiting with a nice hot cup of coffee. Who needs a Swiss chalet?

• [ Snow, Blizzard, Washington, DC, Photography ]

Mr OCD's on subway. How do I know? He told me last time. He's nice & strikes up chat w/ everyone. He's talking 2 lady next 2 him now...

...But Mr OCD has a mean anger streak. How do I know? I saw him yell @ 2 boisterous teens way on the other side of subway platform. Way far.

Mr OCD's still chatting it up with that girl as we make our way up to the surface. See ya next time.

• [ Twitter, Storytelling, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Washington, DC, Subway ]

Glenn Beck as our species savior?

Annalee Newitz recently posed this question: "When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like 'Avatar'?" And she followed it up with some interesting ideas on race and film making in America. While I would agree that Avatar and District 9 are Hollywood's metaphors for racial relations, by limiting her piece to just race she missed a larger issue: the broad scope and brutal reality of human nature reflected in these films.

Avatar is James Cameron's epic about the Na'vi of the moon Pandora. Humans are so interested in obtaining the element Unobtainium (talk about transparent Hollywood story development) they are willing to destroy the Na'vi's habitat in order to do so. In District 9, the more straightforward racial metaphor of the two, non-humans have been strategically and brutality segregated from the population of Johannesburg. In both cases, as Newitz points out, white males are the saviors of these aliens. And I do agree with her to a point.

But I would go farther by saying that greed and fear, both prime motivators here, are human traits that go beyond America's racial history. Earth has a long and sad history of intra-racial and sectarian genocide. The wars between Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu, the Sunni and Sh'ia, the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland, and between Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Albanians, and the Romani, are just a few recent tragic examples. In addition, as we've seen in the last year, the quest for riches right here on Wall Street have destroyed millions. This is not just a racial issue but a human malady.

Sadly, there are those, like Glenn Beck, who make it their business and their livelihood to foment these differences. According to a recent Gallup poll Americans admire Beck more than they admire the Pope, Billy Graham, Bill Gates, and Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. Bush. Hollywood isn't the only industry willing to oversimplify our human condition for big bucks.

In another recent film, Up in the Air, George Clooney's character is a good example of the disconnect we often feel for one another. In his case, compassion would have destroyed his life and robbed him of his precious frequent flyer miles. The redeeming part of this film is that it doesn't convey a simplistic character development (like other Hollywood fare and Beck himself) but let's us complete the picture of a human forced to reconsider and redefine his being. Things are not black and white here nor in the world, but filled with shades of gray.

"The Other" is a human construct. If it's not race it's something else. All of these are important parts of the discussion. And should we ever come in contact with real sentient non-humans we will feel the same fear, difference, and loathing we do now for those humans we see as different. And "speciest" will be able to sit comfortably next to "racist" in our human lexicon.

A Related Conversation: at David Weinberger's JOHO the Blog.

• [ Avatar, District 9, Glenn Beck, Washington Post, Genocide, Race, Up in the Air, Aliens ]

The beginning of an 18 inch snowfall. Click image for larger view.

I live in the burbs of DC but on Saturday, like Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia I opened my closet door, I mean my front door to see this scene as the beginnings of what was to become an 18 inch snowfall unfolded before me. You might remember I took a similar photograph when I woke up to dense fog on Thanksgiving morning.

I love the snow (as long as I'm sitting by a roaring fire in a Swiss chalet). What I don't like is shoveling our walkways and driveway, especially now with my unreliable back. Luckily, my children are growing into the most wonderful shovelers a father could have. (And let me not forget my wife who was their able assistant crew leader.)

Yesterday I decided to venture out late in the day to the drugstore for a few supplies. Our car had been moved to the edge of our driveway early in the storm. Why shovel any more than we had to. And the girls had dug the rest of the way out. Even though our side street had yet to be plowed, it looked like I could ease my way to the main road. As I tried to turn out of the driveway I lightly tapped the edge of a snow bank across the street, my signal to turn and move forward. Except I didn't move forward: my tires spinning in a useless effort. I was stuck right in the middle of the street blocking all who wanted to pass. With the help of a growing assembly of neighbors (nothing like a little excitement when you're snowed in) we pushed the front of the car back enough for me to turn and move back into the driveway. My trip to the store was jettisoned.

As I stood there surveying the scene I saw a tractor with a snowplow coming down the street. He stopped and asked if I needed help. Being the cynical suburban I asked "How much?" "Oh, $15 should do it," he replied. He could see the skepticism clearly written all over my forehead and added with a smile "How much did you think I'd ask?" Within five minutes the whole driveway was clear and those same neighbors were lining up to contract his services.

Our winter wonderland bordered the entrance to Narnia. The snowplow was driven by our Aslan, the true leader of this enchanted land. And I became a true believer.

• [ Snowstorm, Narnia, Washington, DC, Photography ]

I like hearing about the new VWs and car safety. But the newsletter also clearly includes fluff pieces about new recipes, pushing one to try new experiences like skydiving and trapeze school, and must-see movies for 2010. None of these have anything to do with my car or any automobile. This had been bothering me for a while and a few days ago I finally wrote to give them some feedback.

"Dear Newsletter people," I wrote. "I enjoy reading about updates to the VW line of cars. Keep sending those. However, I would like to give you some constructive feedback on other non-VW related pieces in your newsletter: I'm really not interested in them and, quite honestly, they dilute the value of your newsletter. Articles about the kitchen seem to be "filler." Are you getting these from some newsletter story repository? Anyway, keep the germane articles but ditch the unrelated ones. Thanks."

I subscribe to the PNP Sandwich School of Constructive Criticism: positive-negative-positive. I enjoy; I'm not interested in; keep the good. Wrapping criticism around some positives helps the other person hear what you're saying. And that's how I constructed my email to them.

A few days later I received this response from Mike:

Thank you for your thoughts, Jeff. Your instinct is absolutely correct... an outside company who works with Volkswagen creates the basic newsletter. From that template, we add our own content and try to customize it for our customers. We do this by writing articles and adding... specific coupons / savings programs. But you're very observant to conclude that this came from an outside source. In fact, I will forward your message to the newsletter company. We always appreciate customer comments and recommendations. Thanks again, Jeff.

Unfortunately, Mike forgot to delete the comment his boss made in response to me:

Mike,

It was nice that he wrote to tell us his thoughts. I'd write him back and tell him that his instinct was correct—that an outside company who works with Volkswagen creates the basic newsletter, and that we try to add our own content to it to customize it for our customers. That way, he'll realize that it's not just us—and that he was extremely smart and intelligent [emphasis theirs] in knowing that the newsletter was from an outside source. To make him feel even better, you could tell him that you'll forward his comments on to the newsletter company.

Bill

I am observant. Most of the time. And, yes, I like being told I'm extremely smart and intelligent on a weekly basis. But flattery, Mike and Bill, will only get you so far. You didn't get my point. Passing my comments on to the newsletter company won't make me feel any better. Don't blame them. But telling me you'll include only auto-related articles from now on will. And that's what I wrote them, using my patented PNP sandwich of course.

Oh, and re-read your emails before you send them to me, Mike. Yes, that will make me feel a lot better [emphasis mine].

• [ Customer Service, Constructive Criticism, Volkswagen, Newsletter, Flattery ]

The view from our house. Click on image to enlarge.

Woke up this Thanksgiving to dense fog. After a little breakfast in the peace and quiet of the early morning I put my coat on over my PJs and walked a few feet out our front door to take this photograph. The last of the colorful autumn leaves was a great counterpoint to the atmospheric mist just above the forest path. To my Southern California friends who are expecting an 80°F holiday, eat your hearts out. This is what Thanksgiving is supposed to look like!

Now that everyone is up, Susie and the girls are making a pumpkin chocolate chip pie (yes, you heard me, chocolate chips!). The girls refuse to take credit for this artful derivative of the Thanksgiving classic (and so do I). It was all Susie's idea. I will report on her success later. Much later.

Another first for this holiday: the Gates/Krasnican household, for the first time ever, is hosting a piece of pork for tonight's dinner (in addition to our turkey). A smoked ham. This, too, was my wife's idea. (What's gotten into her? She was once an ardent vegetarian.) And while she still refuses to eat that porker, just having it in our house is an odd treat for the rest of us.

However, a few minutes ago, I was called into emergency service. All of a sudden, Susie began to think this ham needed to be soaked for 24 hours before eating. In addition, we couldn't tell if the ham just needed to be warmed up or fully cooked. The thought never occurred to us that it wasn’t “heat and eat.” What do we know about preparing meat? After surfing the ham manufacturer's Web site we still couldn't tell. I ran to the market and enlisted the aid of the meat guy who filled me in. "A few years ago, your ham was fully cooked and advertised as 'ready to eat.' But meat safety became an issue and now the packages say the hams are cooked but need to be even more cooked. So put it in the oven for about an hour, hour and a half, until the inside temp is about 160. Then it will be ready to eat." I bought a meat thermometer (another family first) and headed home.

As for me, I've been granted a temporary leave from the kitchen. I'm now sitting in front of the computer writing this missive while listening to Sarah Vaughn's rendition of Summertime. Yes, it's a cozy and cool late November day, just what Thanksgiving is supposed to be. But that doesn't mean I've completely sworn off a fully-cooked, baked-to-perfection holiday with a bit of summertime heat.

• [ Thanksgiving, Photography, Ham, Holiday Weather ]

An East German Volkspolizei guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in East Berlin, 1974, © Jeff Gates. Click on image for a larger view.

I am slowly unearthing photographs and memories from my 1974–1975 trip to Europe. I took this image at East Germany's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I remember thinking the pomp and circumstance of the East German soldiers as they marched in front of the monument reminded me of ours at Arlington Cemetery.

While smoking was much more prevalent in both the East and West in the 1970s, I took notice of the large number of people in East Berlin with cigarettes in their hands. The man in the background on the left is striking a pose I often saw during my time in the eastern half of the city.

From here I went looking for a place to eat and found the cheapest dinner I had throughout my seven months in Europe. It was a full German meal, heavy on the wienerschnitzel with lots of heavy bread and vegetables, all for an astounding thirty cents American. I ate early to get back to West Berlin before dark.

For a young college student traveling on a budget that was the sweetest taste Communism could offer.

Related Post: Encountering the Berlin Wall (and its version on NPR)

• [ Berlin, East Berlin, Berlin Wall, Volpo, Germany, Photography ]

A family reunion at Checkpoint Charlie. Click image for a larger view. © Jeff Gates

In 1974, I was a fresh college graduate when I decided to embark on my first trip abroad. I spent seven months traveling in Western and Eastern Europe, exploring my longtime interest in borders. Even knowing a bit of history, they just seemed so arbitrary. To think there was a man-made demarcation line where one side abided by one set of rules and the other side by another was profoundly intriguing. The United States was so large and so relatively homogeneous it was hard for me to understand the weight of these lines.

My attraction to the epitome of borders, the Iron Curtain, was inevitable. Growing up in America in the 1950s and 1960s this border was emblematic of the line between light and dark, good and evil. And I wanted to experience it first hand to see just how black and white things really were.

I hitchhiked to Berlin in a bakery truck. Westerners could not stop in East Germany but had to transit non-stop to West Berlin -- and the deliveryman was going the entire way. The life didn't seem to change as we crossed that border. Nothing seemed out of place.

After arriving in the city I found a place to stay in the home of an old woman. I asked her if she had any relatives in East Berlin and told her of my plans to cross over. In a grandmotherly tone she gently warned me to be careful.

All Americans had to cross into East Berlin by foot, and there were only a few checkpoints we were allowed to use. I was herded into a small processing room at one of these crossings with many others, all of us crammed in wall-to-wall. But once on the other side, I still remember my initial reaction as I exited into the open sunlight: The sky was still blue, and the grass was still green. I looked for people "shackled by the chains of Communism," but what I encountered didn't match the stark differences I had been taught.

I spent the rest of my stay in the city following the wall on both sides of the border. When I got to Checkpoint Charlie, there was a platform we could walk up to that gave a good view at this ground zero of the Cold War. Except for a small family of West Berliners, I was alone. Suddenly, on the other side, a man appeared from around the corner. He stopped and stared at us. It hit me with a rush that he had come to see and be seen by the family standing next to me. They conversed in silence.

After about 10 minutes, the man turned and walked back around the corner. An East German police car followed him. The abandoned buildings along the wall blocked our view, and we waited. No one moved. No one spoke.

Fifteen minutes later, the man once again walked around the corner. This time, he turned in the other direction and gingerly skipped down the street, a sign that all was well. The tension on our platform broke, and the family began to talk and smile.

The grass was green and the sky was blue. But it was very black and white.

Update: This story and photograph have recently been published on the National Public Radio Web site and in Pictory magazine in their online feature 25 Stories of Culture Shock.

• [ Berlin, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Germany, Photography ]

And when I got onto my train I appeared to do what every San Franciscan did. I pretended to be in my own little world (as I pretend to do every morning on my commute from the Maryland burbs to downtown DC). Secretly, however, I was really being myself: curious as ever, watching my commuter brethren in their natural habitat on their ways to work. In this regard I am no mere amateur.

One morning as we pushed east from Church Street I spied a young man near one of the doors. He appeared to be in his twenties, with blond shaggy hair and dressed casually. He was looking into a folder. Straining my neck just a little and with experienced stealth I was able to see the folder was filled with music scores, which added to my excitement. I tracked his eyes as he read the scores line by line just like a good book. Every once in a while he'd laugh. No, it was more of a chuckle, as if he'd just read a funny passage filled with alluring innuendo from Phillip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint.

He seemed to really be enjoying his morning read. Looking around, I seemed to be the only one noticing him. Ah, a hidden pleasure visible only to me. I'm such a voyeur. He was so engrossed in his music I continued to look directly at him with no fear of being discovered. You might remember I've been in this enviable position before.

Music Feet on the DC Metro

Interestingly, this was my second mass transit encounter with the musical staff. A few weeks before as I made my morning commute to work I suddenly looked down at the feet of woman standing next to me. Each foot sported a music notation tattoo. I so wanted to ask her the significance of her musical commitment but decided the mystery was more interesting.

In the case of the young man there simply was no photograph or video that would adequately convey the encounter. The memory of watching this little tableau unfold was more than enough. He exited the train at Van Ness and I wondered if he worked at the symphony or opera close by.

The woman's feet, however, were wonderfully photogenic. Their position on the subway floor suggested a dancer but the rest of her body seemed more musician.

In both cases I was left with a mystery which only encouraged me to continue with my life's work underground.

• [ San Francisco, MUNI, Rapid Transit, Washington, DC, WMATA, Photography, Phillip Roth, Music ]

I went to Santa Fe and all I got was this wonderful portrait of my daughters. Click image for larger view.

It's the week after Labor Day. The girls are back in school and I've got deadlines at work. It's been rainy and cool and I'm starting to see just a hint of fall colors on the trees above my head. Way too early, I think. Summer, my favorite season, has instantaneously migrated to fall, my least favorite. I know what's coming (PDF). Our family vacation to Santa Fe just two weeks ago is starting to seem like a very distant memory.

Family holidays end and what do we have to show for them? Some worn out maps; a few bills to pay. My daughters came back with a few beautiful baubles from the annual Indian Market in Santa Fe. Nice, but I'm hoping they'll eventually look back on these annual trips with more substantial family memories (and more uplifting than my wife and I took away from our own childhood family vacations). That's evolution, right?

In order to help that along I've documented our time in New Mexico. I brought my video camera but didn't touch it once. Instead, I wanted my souvenirs to be those special slices of life in between our normal family dynamics (which never seem to take a vacation). It was a chance for me to be creative while really getting away from my daily grind.

I got my best souvenir just a few days into our trip. On our visit to the International Folk Art Museum I took this portrait of my daughters. In addition to the amazing folk art tableaus from the collection of Alexander Girard, they had an exhibition of Indonesian shadow puppets and instruments. The girls gravitated to the family room off the main exhibition space where they immediately began to put on their own shadow puppet show.

I caught them in play, but the photo reflects the girls' relationship. My older daughter on the left, a newly anointed teen, seems to be admonishing her younger sister for something. A new constant in our lives, the image reflects our family dynamics captured on camera as a family vacation memory. So much for trying to document the "in between."

There were other photos, more stereotypical of travel. And I hope my children remember the vacation part of these vacation images: my oldest mistakenly drinking from a large water bottle of holy water at the Santuario de Chimayó or my youngest's excitement at attending a performance at the Santa Fe Oprah. But I'll best remember this photograph because it reminds me of where we really spent our family vacation in the summer of 2009.

• [ Photography, Family Vacation, Santa Fe ]

Half Sours on the right and the more pickled Dills on the left. The choice was mine.

I surveyed the choices in the refrigerated section of my local kosher market. Dill, garlic dill and half sours --it had been so long since I'd eaten one of these I couldn't remember which one I was craving. My sister had worked in a kosher deli when we were teenagers. I thought of calling her.

Garlic seemed too over the top and half sour, just barely a pickle, seemed more like a cucumber really. I wasn't in the mood for a cuke. I picked a jar of the plain dill and made my way home. With a nice thinly sliced turkey sandwich on the side this would make a perfect lunch.

As I opened the jar and removed the pickle I heard myself saying out loud "Please let this be the one. The perfect one." The closer to satisfying a craving, the more intense that craving becomes. I knew what I wanted and now I had it. "What are you talking about?" my wife asked.

As I slid the pickle into my mouth my taste buds went on high alert. It tasted perfect. But then I bit down, my palette meeting the pickle's center. Mush. The inside of the pickle wasn't merely soft, it was mushy! I bit down again, rolling the pickle around my mouth just to make sure. How could this be? There were bendable pickles but mushy ones? My disappointment was audible. This was not right. "I'm taking this back," I said. Reading the determination on my face, my wife made a safe retreat out of my way.

As I pulled into the store lot I wondered what reception I would get with my return. I imagined talking to an unsympathetic and surly Israeli who would bat my dismay to the floor. Instead, I met Iris. Formerly from the Lower East Side of New York, I immediately let Iris know I was from the long lost LA Jewish tribe. What do those chosen people from California know? Taking my hand she led me back to the refrigerated case and immediately began my pickle lesson.

"Are you pregnant?!" she asked, laughing. Well, the thought did occur to me. "You know, I was in LA last year," she continued. "I was staying with some nice people. But they weren't Jewish. So I was a little leery about taking them to a kosher Persian Mexican restaurant just off Pico. I figured, if they didn't like the food I could eat the leftovers myself. You know what? They loved the place. And there weren't any leftovers."

She ran over the choices in front of us. "I like the half sours but with a bit more pickling. Here's what you should do: when you get home unscrew the top and place the whole jar in a bowl. Let them sit at room temperature. Some brine will drip out. That's what the bowl is for. Every now and then just pour it back in the jar. I like to let it sit for a couple days."

But I wanted my pickle now. And I couldn't wait a couple days for it to mature. Yet I still wasn't sure. "Well, come over here to these barrels," she said. "These are the dills and those are the half sours. You want a taste? Mario, cut this man up a couple slices of each for him to taste."

To evaluate each pickle's flavor I rolled both samples around in my mouth before chewing. Definitely the half sours. Crunchy, they had the taste I craved and they were pickle enough for me. So Iris picked out two really nice ones, covered them with brine, and warned me not to let them dry out.

Never underestimate the power of a craving. But if it hits you, make sure you know exactly what you're doing. There aren't enough Irises in this world to set us straight every time.

• [ Pickles, Craving, Deli ]

My fellow commuter. Click on image for a larger view.

It had been a long week. I'd just completed two days of teaching teachers how to podcast: a rewarding activity that reminded me of my years in the classroom. But teachers know teaching is exhausting. And teaching technology is even more so. You closely examine your students' faces, ferreting out those who get it and those who are lost. To bridge those techno-fears I succumb to using humor to push on through. By the end of the session I surveyed the room, happy to see their relaxed faces. But I had lost my voice in the process.

So, on Friday morning, knowing that my instruction had ended and I could tie up my regular loose ends before the weekend, I was in an easygoing mood on my commute into work.

As we pulled into Union Station I noticed the woman sitting next to me. My, what long red fingers you have, I thought. If I could get a good pic of those nails holding your book's pages at bay I'd start the day feeling creative. Should I ask you first? An age-old question. If I did your body language would surely change and that special relationship between your nails and the book would be lost. Yet, I've always felt a bit weird about being surreptitious. What if I got caught? What if she questioned what I was doing? So much the better I finally decided. The tension woke me up.

I pulled out my iPhone and nonchalantly aimed it her way. The man across the aisle was watching me. But my next door neighbor continued to read. When you work undercover the pressure's on to get your shot quickly. But once I looked through the viewfinder I knew this: to get a good photo I would make myself take the extra second to compose it just right. Every extra second increased the chances of an engagement. But that's all it took. I moved the camera a bit to the left.

I only took one shot. And I had gotten my voice back.

• [ Photography, Commuting, DC, WMATA ]