Barcelona: On the trail of Gaudi's genius

Overcoming the fear of flying

I first visited Barcelona some 18 years ago, it was with my partner and it was an amazing experience. My partner then, a design engineering major had things he wanted to see, for me, it was one of discovery.

This was a time when I was trying to overcome my fear of flying, a strange development that took hold over a couple of years, for no particular reason I could explain. I was used to flying from childhood and at many times travelled alone even before I was in my teens.

However, this flight was quite a pleasurable one, I was sat between a father and son who had come over from Australia. The father had emigrated to Australia about 40 years before and now, he had brought his son who was born in Australia to Europe for the very first time and they were doing a modern sort of grand tour.

Gaudi’s Barcelona I learnt

I guess it was the engagement and conversation that took my mind off the fact that we were in the air and in the process, I somewhat defeated my irrational fear of flying.

In Barcelona, for the first night, we walked up a major street and passed an interesting building that seemed to have an eerie living quality about it, little did I know that it was a landmark building, I later learnt it was Casa Batlló and with that I was introduced to the architectural genius of Antoni Gaudí I Cornet.

From a knowledgeable perspective, Antoni Gaudi as he is commonly known was an early proponent of the Art Nouveau movement and particularly what is referred to as the Catalan Modermisme movement. However, to the untrained eye, meaning those who are essentially not architects, we have a different appreciation of these works, the aesthetics, the design and the appearance of buildings and other forms just show an exceptional quality of inspiration and workmanship unmatched.

A madman genius

When Antoni Gaudi received his diploma, the supervisor who granted his the title of architect wrote, “Who knows if we have given this diploma to a nut or to a genius. Time will tell.” Suffice it to say that seven of Antoni Gaudi’s buildings all in Barcelona have been listed as World Heritage Sites.

Then we were only able to access Casa Milà, Sagrada Familia and Park Güell, at that time, Palau Güell and Casa Batlló were not accessible to the public. Now, literally all the Gaudi properties have a form of access for the public to appreciate the work and genius of Antoni Gaudi.

Sagrada Familia, I have visited twice and both times before it was consecrated into a basilica in 2010. Work commenced on this church in 1882 and work is still in progress sponsored by anonymous donations made towards the building and the upkeep. The first time, I went up the bell towers, the building was fascinating but not such a tourist pull as it is now.

No hurry

Of the time it will take to complete the project, Antoni Gaudi said, “My client is not in a hurry, God has all the time in the world for this to be completed.” It is likely, it will take more generations before the work is finally completely.

Yet, on this my fourth visit to Barcelona, I find myself on the Gaudi trail again, with a better appreciation of the uniqueness of this amazing genius, gifted beyond measure and whose life tragically ended as a result of being run over by a tram.

There is much to Antoni Gaudi’s work and legacy, the fact that he defied convention and boldly took strides that were somewhat unpopular, then there was Eusebi Guell, an industrialist who was a patron and sponsor of his work. He championed some of Gaudi’s listed works being respectful of the talent and a very good friend of the man.

The Gaudi trail cannot be done in a hurry, beyond seeing, there is much to observe. You cannot have done Barcelona without seeing what its most famous citizen did in the city. Here is to more Barcelonas.

Alan Turing: The Imagination Game

“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of that do the things no one can imagine.” Recurrent quote in The Imitation Game.

Father and victim

In Sackville Park, Manchester sits a statue with a plaque at its feet, one line, less prominent but quite important, "Victim of prejudice." That was a bygone age where the other sexuality was criminalised and with it came the law, heavy and merciless in its application.

Yet, to this man we owe more than we can ever fully appreciate him for. It was his genius that gave birth to the computer.

I type away literally oblivious of the real history of computing that Hollywood has attempted to serve us in film, one that opened in cinema theatres just over a week ago.

Of the film

Interest and engagement have gotten me have viewing The Imitation Game twice already, it is the story of Alan Turing and his work in breaking the encryption of the German Nazi Enigma machine.

One cannot say that the depiction in film is entirely true to the facts especially in the part where Alan Turing might well have been slandered in the film by being accused of being a spy.

The film itself is worth watching, it is interesting, engaging and somewhat plays around the youth, the genius, the sexuality, the persecution and the prosecution of the man, the man who died on the 7th of June 1954.

There is much acknowledgement of his seminal work, honours that have come posthumously and the royal pardon granted from 2013. [Computing Machinery and Intelligence – Turing, A. M. (1950)]

My crazy

This is not a film review, I somehow cannot help myself when I watch films, and I have to find something of the essence of life in the drama and the action.

I liked the line, "Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of that do the things no one can imagine," which passed from Christopher Morcom to Alan Turing to Joan Clarke and back to Alan Turing in the film.

However, the other bits that got me thinking in my usual penchant for over-analysing plots and plays are some of these things.

How crossword puzzles were used as a means to interview personnel for code-breaking, the conventional wisdom was to use linguists to decipher German code, Alan Turing however saw these as puzzles.

And so …

Somehow, what Alan Turing did was to eliminate chance from solving logical problems, at least that is one perspective to things.

Once the Enigma code was broken, the greater task was keeping it a secret and consequently, when it comes to tough decisions, who makes them and what goes into it? That was what Ultra was about and apparently that is why the allies won WWII.

That is why the Imitation Game was more like the Imagination Game for me, what he imagined became the reality of the world of computational power at the fingertips of mankind today. Alan Turing was an exceptionally gifted man, his homosexuality should never have taken such a genius away from us.

Other readings

Alan Turing: a short biography by Andrew Hodges

The Alan Turing Internet Scrapbook

Decade Blogs - Henry 'O'Jew' Olamiju - Greatness - A Life Waiting Us

Decade Blogs

Henry 'O'Jew' Olamiju is one of those who after sneezing you might find yourself enviously failing to say, ‘Bless you’, to, because he is blessed, with looks, with wit and is a doctor too.

Devilishly handsome and spoken for besides other things I am privy to, he is one with who a conversation on Twitter is such great fun, enlightening, humorous whilst quite serious too.

His blog for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging deals with settling for where we are or aiming for greatness and what it takes to get there, if we do make way for such a destiny.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

He pens his blogs at www.gushingflow.wordpress.com and regales us with fantastic tweets using the Twitter handle @holamiju – Enjoy …

GREATNESS – A Life Waiting Us

“If this letter falls into your hands, think carefully about what it says. By my birth I rank above you, but don’t be afraid of my greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Your fate awaits you. Accept it in body and spirit. To get used to the life you’ll most likely be leading soon, get rid of your low-class trappings. Show some eagerness for the new upscale lifestyle that’s waiting” – Malvolio (Modern rendition of Twelfth Night)

These words from Shakespeare have been quoted severally and are often used by many as though greatness is the exclusive preserve of a handful of people. What it did not say (and rightly so) however is that there are those who can never be great. If all of us cannot be born great like Prince William, and if all of us cannot have greatness thrust upon us like our current president in Nigeria, then we must realise that all of us (who desire and pay the price) can actually achieve greatness.

Great oaks from little acorns grow. The tiniest of seeds has within it the genetic constitution required to make it grow into a full plant. It requires no help from anybody when it comes to the strict dictates of becoming what it is destined to become. All it needs sometimes is just to find the right environmental conditions to favour its growth and yes, it would blossom.

Humans seem to be the only species of organisms in the world that have to be taught how to be itself. Most, if not all other, organisms just be. From the moment they are born or shed as a fruit, the organism just pursues its life-long destiny of becoming. Man, however just try to become like.

We have become ‘settlers’. We settle for whatever comes our way instead of demanding – through hard work and patience – what our harnessed potentials deserve. We see people settling for an image of themselves much below what their potential suggests. We see music stars settling for the easy way out in releasing club bangers instead of music that would distinguish them from others.

We settle for hand-outs from the government instead of creating value for ourselves and following our passion. We have become professional settlers. If blogging is the new thing, we blog; if social media activism, we rant; if run-of-the-mill raunchy music lyrics and videos, we shoot, if Diversity visa, we apply... the list is endless.

What we have forgotten is that each one of us has a uniqueness that stands us out, specific features that distinguishes us. We cringe and hide our small candle lights in the face glowing stars, we shut our voices when loudspeakers (overlords, so-called opinion leaders, godfathers etc.) are blaring, we switch off our brains when ‘anointed’ (pastors, imams, godfathers etc.) tell us what to do. We just settle.

Settle for the seen rather than the unseen realities within us, settle for cash instead of value, settle for temporary pleasures rather than enduring treasures, settle for new-age feudalism rather than true democracy, settle for a mention and or a ‘follow back’ instead of writing your way into history. We know how to settle for easiness rather than pursue greatness, such greatness that is already growing within.

I am reminded of a true story which has been made into a movie. It is the story of the American Gangster [Adapted from Frank Lucas’ The Return of Superfly]. He worked as a pimp for a drug lord on the streets of Harlem; served as bodyguard, errand boy, butler, shoe shiner and so on. He got to a point in his life that he asked himself a question, what will I get from this life as a pimp? He realised no matter how close to the boss he was, he was never going to be a drug boss because the boss’ children got all the attention they needed.

One day, he got out of the system (how he did this, I don’t know); went to his house and took out all electronics and pictures and stuff from his room and sat there for about a week or two drinking only water and just thinking. No phone calls, no parties, no ‘Friday-out-with-the-boys’, no television. Within those two weeks he, thought back into his childhood (a process called back-tracking) and recollected all the times he did really smart things and people commended him.

After about two weeks, he happened on an idea that got him to perfect how to run a drug-ring without being caught or even suspected by police or even the neighbours. If you’ve watched the movie, you know he got caught because of things related to his cousin and his wife’s gift of an exotic fur coat. When he was caught, he had two hundred and seventy million dollars at home because he could not deposit the money at the bank because of the tax people.

This guy rose from being a pimp to being a drug lord by choosing greatness rather than settling for something less. The only thing he knew as an adult was drugs and so his thoughts led him to do something drug-related. If he had gone to school and become an accountant or an economist, imagine the genius he would have exhibited in providing scarce commodities to the end-user without any distribution issues?

The truth about the matter is that there is a genius in all of us; if you judge a fish by its inability to hop from tree to tree, or an elephant by its inability to swim, both will live their lives like failure – like most of us do. We should know that a child that is dyslexic can grow up to be a great world-renowned performer like Brad Little of the Phantom Of The Opera fame; someone who can’t see can become the world’s greatest concert pianist and a child who doesn’t like mathematics doesn’t have be forced to become an engineer. Imagine forcing a Lionel Messi while growing up to do Literature for homework and enrolling him for law in a university?

You don’t plant an acorn and go back to check if it has started growing or tell it when to develop roots and how long the roots should be. By nature, that acorn will grow when it feels the moisture of the soil and perceives the heat from the sun. Before you know it, it will sprout from the ground and shoot up tender branches without any help from any external matter. What we should do to our talents and potential is to find the appropriate conditions that will enable us ‘effortlessly’ release our genius quality.

We can stop following the crowd and yes, we can stop settling.

As I close, I like to remind us of Marianne Williamson’s words:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Uncle Akin stands out with consistency, tact and wisdom. Ten years of blogging and these years I have come to know you on Twitter reinforce my conviction that there’s a wisdom that comes with age. Thank you for being so brotherly and I am honoured to be able to contribute this small piece to celebrate your decade of blogging.

The intrigue of a pencil in deft hands

A chance meeting

I am one to make conversation at the slightest opportunity if occasion warrants it.

At the station, I saw this rather handsome young man with what looked like a big folder portfolio of work; I had gone into the waiting room and turned on the heater; it is getting cold in dear old Blighty.

We got on the same coach and a momentarily loss of consciousness due to incidental slumber had my tablet fall out of my hands to the floor; he helpfully reached and picked it up then asked if it was OK, commenting they are usually made of sturdy stuff. It was fine.

Definition better than doodles

I apologised for my sloppiness and in minutes I saw that he had already drawn a few pictures on his pad; that caught my attention and curiosity as I asked by way of making a statement, you are an artist.

He responded, “I am an animator,” paused, then said, “or at least training to be one.” What I later read was this is a man who is now following his passion having had a career in reinsurance.

I caught the glimpse of a dog's head, one of the vicious kinds with the jaw bone structure to do you some damage as I quipped about whether he will like to work for Pixar. He did find that interesting enough to respond ambitiously, I by then had said a prayer of agreement in my mind without voicing out, I hope you do.

Imagination and play

We went on to talk about the vivid imagination that goes into animation and how it connects one's childhood with one's maturity as the pencil touches the paper.

By which time, I asked if he had a website, he said he didn't but he had a blog, one managed from his school. “I do have a blog too,” I said to him confessing I was still struggling to pen my 2,000th blog as I reached my ninth year of blogging.

As the conversation developed, I had obtained the link to his website, logged on to it, read a few blogs all with illustrations, saw how prolific he was and read his short biography where I learnt he liked Looney Tunes type characters.

My encounters with artists

A southpaw with a gift of artistic expression and I wondered whether I was about to relive history again because decades ago in school, I ran into a group of amazingly talented artists and it changed my life.

I told him I liked the Animaniacs cartoons which he did too, I then introduced myself, told him about what I did for a living, shook his hand; much smaller than mine but with a good manly grip.

The 30-minute journey was up but in meeting an utterly pleasant, handsome and talented man with the knowledge that I can follow his quest for complete genius that I hope will come with the recognition and success that would exceed the ambitions of his wildest imagination – I could see a world of new reality ahead of him much as I warned that he might get more visits to his website because I was going to write about our brief encounter.

What he did not know was that he had already set me up for the excitement of watching Skyfall later on.

Meanwhile, let me introduce you to Fox In Motion 2, it was started recently. Visit, appreciate and comment. Thank you.

Thought Picnic: The genius of Facebook

Facing the past happily

I was chatting to a friend I last saw over two decades ago, he was one of my best friends when we were in secondary school.

The fact is for all the keenness of my memory about so many events of my past one aspect gives me concern, that of names. I have had too many instances where I have mismatched surnames and cannot for all the familiarity I had with the same people remember that essential piece of information.

Obviously, when the name showed up as a Facebook invitation, there was instant recognition with the mental slap on the head as how I could ever forgotten ever.

Everyone is a friend or a fan

However, for all the negative uses of Facebook, when I got chatting to my friend he highlighted something about the Facebook service that should have us in gratitude to whoever thought us the idea and implemented it.

Now, I have many friends on Facebook because the basic concept of interaction is Friendship and that is between people, when dealing with an organisation, institution or some personality as a public figure their profiles offer a different mode of interaction which allows you to click on the Like button.

In essence, you befriend people you know or seek to establish some relationship with and like things, objects or people you are fans of.

This is the air travel of interaction

Before Facebook there were few services that offered the means for re-establishing contact with long lost friends, you wondered where they were, what they did, how they have changed and so on; they were memories – sometimes keen, sometimes faint but we were in terms helpless and just let time run its course.

I am on many networks and have registered on alumni management sites but none have come close to the kind of social interaction that Facebook offers to rediscover and reacquaint yourself with your past; memorably nice or downright rotten.

You do have to filter your reconnections; I refuse to allow my curiosity to know to drive me back into the arms of the dreadful nightmares of the past, they are best left latent maybe even forgotten and never rekindled, no, not for a second.

Facing a broader spectrum of your history

So, as I have written before, Facebook has brought me in contact with family and relations, some so extended and the first time I met then was on Facebook. In my 40s I am making new contact with people I went to school with in the 70s and early 80s, it is surreal.

Such opportunities never existed except at alumni reunions but with the world being an ever smaller place and people travelling even further afield than before the opportunities for live meetings are more diminished.

You make a friend on Facebook and literally all the gaps get filled at an instant depending on the information shared and people share as much information to what is primarily their circle of current and close circle of friends which gets cascaded out to others who are acquaintances and long lost contacts who have become Facebook friends.

So, what Facebook has done for the rekindling of relationships is phenomenal despite the misgivings of many, it brings you back into the broad spectrum of all the people, issues and circumstances that have defined your experiences and history; crowding them into your present and forging and future that would be interesting to control, if you can.

Facebook is no joke

Looking beyond the technology and vehicle of social networking there is something greater at play; what you choose to do with those re-established relationships is left to you and how you handle those you have never had but now have to opportunity to tend, grow and foster might well define who you might become.

For all the figures, ratings and daily interactions that range from trivia to downright serious, Facebook in its concept is a work of genius and its ultimate uses have probably not yet been imagined by those who started this amazing experiment.

If there is anything you can take from this realisation, it is that Facebook is no joke, you constantly have to ask yourself about what you share, what is private, who you are willing to meet, what you are ready to relive, if you should curb your enthusiasm and whether you really can handle what Facebook brings back to you.