622 Arabian Eutopias

Message no. 622[Branch from no. 593] Posted by Thomas Culhane (1311520071) on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 5:10pm Subject: Re: Adrienne

You've done a beautiful job Adrienne. So nice a job in fact that I will now treat you as a fellow professional and give you some of the multimedia training that I give my video production students, if you don't mind the critical notes!

1) The choice of colors, fonts and picture placement and the flow of the piece, with the quotations from Rumi supporting your own writing, is superb.

Note for improvement: be wary of using too many stock Powerpoint text effects. The "ripple on" effect for having text appear on the screen is best used for title bullet points alone (no longer than two or three words) because once people get your superb idea (the dreamy state of text that dances to the rhythm of your poetic imagination) they get impatient waiting to read the rest of your text. Use your effect up front, then abandon it for the paragraph.

2) It warms an Arab Americans heart to see this part of the world perceived as a possible eutopia. I wish the planners in the UAE had as much vision as you. One thing we have to get them to do in the Palm island and elsewhere is truly embrace solar energy, as you have suggested in your eutopian vision. Is it possible to add to your presentation by illustrating where in the arab world sustainable technologies are actually being used? It would help make your presentation not seem to much of a fantasy but a possible reality!

I agree with you that eutopia is a state of mind, and that we can be happy anywhere, but I also believe, looking at all the suffering and inconvenience, that we can eliminate much of the "DYSTOPIA" elements in life by proper environmental design. Today for example, we had no water in our apartment for the fourth time. I found myself trying to imagine how I could design a way to reuse the same water many many times before pouring it down the drain. We have my wife's parents staying with us (from Germany) and it is hard to have four people in a small apartment with no water and no toilets or sinks or showers working.

That made me think about your seaside eutopia. I looked at the beautiful pictures and thought "water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!" Where will the fresh water come from? How might you guarentee that you will always have water to drink and cook with? Any thoughts?

Bravo to you for becoming a great powerpoint presenter! Now that you have met this challenge, perhaps we can work together to make the presentation something you and your daughter could actually present to developers in the United Arab Emirates who might be able to help make your eutopia come true. What do you think?

Cheers and congratulations,

T