The Vibe
February 2010
Volume 37, Issue 2
Friends of Goodale Park are looking for a Volunteer Coordinator
The Friends of Goodale Park (FGP) are a volunteer organization that dates back to 1984 to steward Goodale Park, a park which has a very long and storied history dating back to 1851 as Columbus's oldest City park. Although, the only thing more dynamic than Goodale Park's past is its future as its home to outstanding new perennial garden beds, an herb garden, over 700 trees and numerous festivals, none more vibrant than Columbus's largest, Community Festival. FGP has its hands full, and has many functions including acting as a liaison between the public and the City of Columbus to see that the public's needs are heard, fundraising for park improvements and one of the most visible efforts, physically maintaining the many trees, flowers and other flora in Goodale Park. These efforts are accomplished completely through volunteer labor and are a wonderful display of the pride and love that the historic neighborhoods surrounding the park have for it. As Goodale Park continues to improve and as expectations and ambitions continue to grow so does our need for volunteers. Further, our volunteers are expecting more out of us, and we want to not only meet, but exceed their expectations so they enjoy the experience as much as possible. With all this in mind, the Friends decided to employ a Volunteer Coordinator.
Shortly after this subject was presented for consideration to the FGP board, they received a letter from the Oswald Family Foundation. The Oswald Family Foundation has supported projects in more than 15 countries around the world so Stan Sells, president of Friends of Goodale Park, was surprised and delighted to receive a call indicating their interest in funding a project for Goodale Park. The Foundation is a private philanthropic organization that supports projects of interest to the extended Oswald Family. They do not accept unsolicited proposals but elect to help organizations that strive to enrich their communities, offer an opportunity to connect with nature, improve lives of others, and contribute to a healthier world. The FGP board enthusiastically voted to use the funding for a one year pilot program of a Volunteer Coordinator position. Continuation of the position will be based on the results of the Volunteer Coordinator.
The full job description can be downloaded here. Please email your resume to jobs@friendsofgoodalepark.org . For any questions, contact Rick Frantz at 614-352-7478. The Friends of Goodale Park appreciate your interest and look forward to hearing from applicants soon.
Short North Business Association Welcomes New Senior Director Christina Menges
The Short North Business Association has hired Christina Menges to be the new Senior Director. After an extensive search process, the Short North Business Association has hired Christina Menges to be the new Senior Director.
“We’ve hired someone who can build upon the momentum created over the last several years” said incoming Board President Maria Galloway. “Christina can help keep the spotlight on the Short North. She brings a unique set of skills that will help grow Gallery Hop, the Short North Gala and HighBall Halloween. She has a great sense of humor - we can all use that.
Christina has nearly 20 years of relevant experience. She has experience in a variety of roles including public relations, fundraising, sales and marketing. She’s worked at the Ohio House of Representatives, the College of the Arts at Ohio State University, Fitch, Eli Lilly, and Ohio Wesleyan University. She worked as an actor and model for 6 years in New York City.
“The Short North is a terrific example of the diversity in Columbus featuring some of the nation’s most unique galleries, restaurants and boutiques. It’s important that these very special places in this multi-dimensional community are given every opportunity to thrive. My task is to ensure that we as an Association are doing everything possible to further this effort and to make the Short North the first thing on people’s minds when they think of Columbus and of Ohio,” said Menges.
“The infrastructure of the Short North Arts District is in place and we have tremendous momentum. The staff is highly talented, hard working and dedicated. I’m looking forward to working with these very capable individuals as well as the Board, the area businesses and other community leaders. There are great opportunities here and I can’t wait to get started.”
North Market Fiery Foods Festival
Saturday, February 20
Spring seems so distant, but the North Market is here to help you melt away the winter blues and blahs with our 7th annual Fiery Foods Festival on Saturday, February 20th. Boasting everything from tropical entertainment to tongue-tingling foods the Fiery Foods Festival will put you in a sunny frame of mind!
Want to get directly in on the fiery foods action? Customers can take a shot at fame and fortune (OK, infamy and North Market gift certificates) in a number of contests. There’s the tried and true Amateur Salsa Contest. If you’ve got a good mix of chunky or pureed fruit or vegetable salsa, put it to the test against other homemade salsa makers. Or maybe you like to play with fire? For you we have the Amateur Hot Sauce Contest. He/she with the supreme salsa or hot sauce concocting skills will take home $100 in North Market and CaJohn’s Flavor & Fire gift certificates. Or one can prove their chili preparing proficiency in our ever-popular Customer Chili Cook-off. The competition will garner the first place winner $100 and the runner up $50 in North Market gift certificates. Finally, those with iron gullets can register on the day of the event for the Hot Pepper Eating or the Wings of Fire wing eating contest. Familiarity with the term “capsaicin” should suggest that neither of these contests is for the faint of taste bud, but victors will take home a plethora of CaJohns’ products as prizes.
In its fifth year the Chef Chili Challenge pits local chefs against one another as contenders for the title “North Market Chili Champ 2010,” a special trophy and $200 in North Market gift certificates. Participating chefs (at the time of press release) include representatives of Basi Italia, Chef Butcher’s Creole Kitchen, Latitude 41, Jerry Bullock, the returning champ from North Market Poultry & Game, Pastaria and Two Caterers. We are sure to have many more chef entrants by competition time!
The North Market Fiery Foods Festival on Saturday, February 20 is a free event. Festival activities will take place from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Market hours are 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. To participate in the Salsa Contest, Hot Sauce Contest, Customer Chili Cook-off or the Chef Chili Challenge, and for more information, please call 614-463-9664 or visit http://www.northmarket.com/activities-and-events/2010-02-20/fiery-foods-festival. Sign up for the Hot Pepper and Hot Wing Eating Contests will take place in the Dispatch Kitchen on the day of the event. A tasting fee of $5 enables onlookers to sample all of the chilis by both professional chefs and amateur contestants while supplies last.
URBAN PHILOSOPHY with the Sesquipedalian Dumpster Diver
Markings
(about tagging, “broken window” theory, marking, preference and communication)
About three times each year, during still, silent spaces in the night, taggers furtively pass down our alley in the darkness with spray paint or thick markers to quickly scrawl their “symbols” on our 300-gallon trash containers and commercial dumpsters. The next day, as soon as I realize what has happened, I dutifully grab my rubber gloves, a can of Goof-Off, and a stiff brush, and I methodically remove every discernible vestige of the tagger’s marks. Over the years, I have found that if I don’t attend to this right away, or if the symbol is still identifiable after my scrubbing, other local taggers will soon add new “tags”, and my work will grow.
This “fix immediately” strategy is based on the well-known “broken window” theory (which posits that eliminating one bit of urban disorder can avert greater disorder, or even crime). It has worked well with respect to reducing the dog poop on our tree lawn and the trash in our back alley curb, too. Even though I apply this theory effectively on all three of these issues, the tagging “symbols” that are left to accumulate on the dumpsters seem different somehow from piles of poop multiplying in the tree lawn, and also different from trash increasing in the curb. In addition, tagging seems similar to, yet distinct from, another neighborhood menace: graffiti. Both tagging and graffiti mar other peoples’ (or community) property (whereas poop and trash merely clutter annoyingly), and my “repair immediately” tag eradication strategy also works to reduce graffiti. But unlike graffiti, tagging is not artistic, decorative, or protest-oriented. The symbols aren’t waste, nor are they litter or graffiti. They are something much more interesting.
The purpose of tagging is not (as its name might imply) about putting a label (like a description, or a price, or identifying information) on an object, although that particular marking behavior (labeling) does seem to come pretty naturally to us. We all certainly put our “symbol” (signature or name) on things that are ours (books, toys, tools, school assignments, etc). But tagging is not about traditional ownership. Those who own property or belongings in the traditional sense don’t have a need to “tag”. They put up official signs, or fences, or they just write their name on their stuff. Labeling is putting your name (or symbol) on something you own; taggers put their symbol on something that they don’t own, for a somewhat different reason.
Instead of resembling a label, tagging is much more like “marking” (what dogs and wolves do). Tagging and marking is like announcing “I was here, and I’ll be back; this is my turf.” It’s about territory. Farley Mowat wrote about an intimate experience with territory and canine marking in his book Never Cry Wolf, as he described his study of wolf behavior in Canada. A particular male wolf continued to travel back and forth on a path disturbingly close to his tent, until Mowat “marked” an approximate circle of “his” territory with his own urine, peeing on rocks, moss, and trees. The next time the wolf walked down the path toward the tent, it stopped suddenly at the perimeter (pee-rimeter?) that his human neighbor had established, and then carefully traveled the circumference of that new territory, adding his own mark to each tree and rock that had been peed on by Mowat. This is essentially the behavior of any local tagger wanting to establish his presence in a specific territory; he walks around and adds his symbol to each dumpster and wall that has already been marked.
At this point, it is interesting to me that although the marking behavior of canines and humans is similar, there is a meaningful difference that isn’t immediately obvious. Notice that although we’re studying the same behavior (marking), the senses being used are different. For dogs, it’s their sense of smell (urine), and for us it’s our sense of sight (ink and paint). I think this is a big deal, and not just because the senses are different. The senses that are used are more significant.
I think that the means of establishing/marking territory is based on a species’ preferred perceptive sense. For example, we trust our sense of sight more than we trust our other senses; it is our best-developed sense. If we smell chocolate chip cookies, but don’t see any, we assume that we must be mistaken. It is logical, then, that we rely on visual methods to get attention. And I think that this reliance on the preferred sense is true not just for dogs and humans, but for all species. Along with dogs’ sense of smell and humans’ sense of sight, birds are more attuned to sound, and so the males often use specific songs (or in the case of woodpeckers, drumming on a tree) to mark their territory. Spiders and moles favor their sense of touch, feeling the presence of others in their territory through vibrations. We can determine the preferred perceptive sense of a species by observing the way in which it establishes territory, in the same way that I can determine the left or right “handedness” of my cats by observing the paw they favor when covering their crap in the litter box. 
My markings?
We typically don’t pay attention to the symbols or marks of other species; we’re ignorant of their territorial signals. Inter-species communication is difficult, although Farley Mowat was able to do it by appealing to the other species’ preferred sense. We experience a similar challenge with intra-species (human to human) communication, trying to convince, explain to, reach, and be noticed by others. We succeed when we appeal to communication preferences. For example, I find that explaining to my co-worker works better when I use emotion and gut feeling, convincing my mother is more successful when I use logic, and getting the attention of my preschool neighbor is most effective when I appeal to authority or expert opinion. When I want to communicate with people who are different from me, I need to use their preferred “sense”. If I want to be noticed by a dog, though, I don’t adjust my language or put up a sign; I usually prepare by drinking some water.
You can reach me in my electronic territory: TheSDD@me.com, www.TheSDD.com
Northside Branch
1423 N. High St
Columbus, OH 43201
(614) 645-2275
March 2010
Homework Help Center
Monday through Thursday
4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Description: Students will find everything they need to complete their homework--friendly volunteers, computers, on-site school supplies and a welcoming atmosphere for studying and learning.
Age: K-12th grade
Toddler and Preschool Storytime
Tuesdays
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Description: Books, songs, stories and surprises intended to help your child learn to love reading!
Age: Birth-6 years old
Family Storytime
Tuesdays
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Description: Reading is a family affair. Join us and share in stories, songs, and fun! All ages.
Job Help Center- Hands on Help
Mondays
Time: 10:00 a.m.to 12:00 p.m.
Description: Staff and/or volunteers are available to assist with applying for jobs on-line, creating/sending resumes and searching Internet job sites.
Age: Adult
Job Help Center- Hands on Help
Wednesdays
Time: 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Description: Staff and/or volunteers are available to assist with applying for jobs on-line, creating/sending resumes and searching Internet job sites.
Age: Adult
Job Help Center- Finding the Financial Help You Need While Unemployed Thursday, March 18 Time: 10:00 a.m. Description: Staff from The Ohio State University Extension Outreach and Continuing Education will be on hold to present a program on how to find hte financial help you need if you are unemployed. Age: Adult Job Help Center- Interviewing Skills Workshop Thursday, March 18 Time: 1:00 p.m. Description: Learn the answers to those tough interview questions! Staff from Workforce Development at the Dogman Guild will present an Interviewing Skills Workshop. We'll discuss the interview process, give tips and get practice working in small groups. Age: Adult
Tween and Teen Gaming
Date: Saturday, March 13
Time: 2:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Description: Come hang out and play your favorite video games! Ages 8-17.
Tween and Teen Gaming
Thursday, March 4, 11, 25
Time: 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Description: Come hang out and play your favorite video games! Ages 8-17.