Fernando’s Desk

Last night we had the chance to see McCoy Tyner in concert at Hong Kong City Hall. In my experience, City Hall is the best concert venue for jazz in Hong Kong and last night was a rare priveedge as Tyner is one of the true living legends of Jazz.

The concert itself was short. Advertised as an hour and fifteen, it ran a little over that, but included breaks for the band walking on and off during encores. It’s a small complaint I know, but with a group this talented there are so many songs and styles they could have covered, it felt like all we got was a taste, not a full meal. Still, leave them wanting more is the old saying…

Tyner’s improvisation was less expansive than it might once have been, but his rythmnic foundation and the soaring beauty of his chordwork were on full display. Tyner really is a musician who has contributed to the vocabulary of Jazz and last night he showed us what that was all about. He also brought with him an impressive, dynamic and musically interconnected band.

Gerald Cannon was a familar voice on the bass, having played with Roy Hargrove, Elvin Jones, Branford Marsalis and others. His playing was a controlled mix of soldiity and playfulness. Eric Kamau Gravatt was a new name to me on drums. However his directness, imagination and abilty to evoke a wide pallete of sounds from a basic kit was captivating. I will be hunting down some of his recordings.

But, in many ways the night belonged to trumpeter Christian Scott, who is one of the most dazzling young stars in contemporary jazz. He was respectful throughout, sharing the limelight, clearly tuning into Tyner’s voicings and even taking time to move a misplaced microphone on Tyner’s piano.
That said, Scott’s playing was regal, referencing the tradition of bebop without falling back on licks, working the whole range of the trumpet, including extended passages in the lower registers and maintaiing a high level of articulation and intensity. There’s now doubt that the next time Scott visits Hong Kong he will be headlining in his own right.

This month’s Harvard Business Review carries a feature from Ed Catmull entitled “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity.” The article highlight three key organisational principles that govern Pixar,

1. Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone
2. It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.
3. We must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community.

What is fascinating about the Pixar example is the way they have managed to have both a hard-headed business culture (lines of authority, clear accountability markers, profit motive) and a free movement of ideas.

It’s kind of obvious to ask what shape a Pixar-like church (or mission, of theological college) would take. It would be an openly communicating institution, an intellectually trusting and nurturing institution and a learning institution. I find that “vision” inspiring and motivating (though others will find it obtuse and detestable).

But, on a deeper level I can’t help but think it would also be a more spiritual institution as well - better able to grasp that God is not just an extension of our will, but the ground of our being; that God comes before us, not from us.

I’ve always clung to the idea of church as a creative community because in my view spirituality is the most fundamentally creative activity we can engage in. In many important ways, spirituality is creativity and creativity is spirituality.

That’s not to say that I’m beholden to the industry of “creative ministries.” In fact, I’m often sceptical about that trend, because it sometimes reflects nothing more than an extension of our own ego; as if God is only an image of our own hopes and fears, projected into the world. Or, that God only exists out there to be discovered in our reaching and striving.

If spirituality is creativity, then it must be so before we act, not after. Which means it must be a condition we find ourselves in before we are aware of our condition (or creatureliness). In that sense I see it as our attempt to express an identity even before we have an awareness of the limitations that act upon our identity.

That isn’t so much an immature stance as a childlike one - not unlike the childlike wonder of those who can’t grasp why it’s not possible to learn from the best regardless of who they are, those who have not yet been conditioned to accept that in so many avenues of life politics trumps innovation.

Frank Luntz is a political analyst, spin-doctor and familiar face to anyone who watches the circus that is FoxNews. Of the talking heads that bob up on Fox’s nightly merry-go-round, Luntz (along with Kirsten Powers) is the most compelling. Partly because of his experience as a political insider, but mostly because he relies on research. In particular, Luntz conducts focus-group research of the kind normally used by marketers, to test not just the appeal of candidates, but also discrete group responses to the language politicians use.

Insights from this kind of study together with the concrete realities of the US political process are the stuff of Words That Work; Luntz’s entertaining, informative and slightly biased look at language in political and public discourse. It’s a book I highly recommend, not just to students of politics, but to anyone whose calling it is to use words publicly. If you are speaking from a pulpit, or addressing students, or putting words on a powerpoint slide this is a book you should read.

In the final chapter, Luntz offers up some words that could have real staying power over the next decade - words that work in terms of communicating ideas, cutting through suspicion and building trust with audiences, customers and voters. One particular suggestion stood out for me in the context of emerging church discussions; the use of words beginning with re-,

“…The so-called “re” words… are incredibly powerful because they take the best elements or ideas from the past and apply them to the present and the future.”

Luntz singles out words like renew, revitalise, rejuvenate, restore, rekindle as vehicles for taking something that is old, tired or stale and giving it new passion and polish.

“The “re” words imply action, movement, progress, and improvement - all the essential attributes in the twenty-first-century economy.”

Of course, “re” words are perfect for our consumer society of constant reinvention and makeover. They speak to our sustained adolescence as many of use, despite being well into mid-life, still stubbornly refuse to accept the realisation that this is, in fact, all there is.

“As in corporate communications, the “re” words should be applied to politics as well. Better to have programs and policies grounded in tradition and experience, than launch something that’s brand-new…
… The most effective way of saying “new and improved” from a political standpoint is to employ one of the “re” words.”

All of which leaves us with a troubling duality. On the one it’s hard and possibly unwise, to avoid deep cynicism when it comes to “re” words. New and improved - same as the old and unimproved. We’ve all been fed enough spin and hype in our lives to see that coming. But, there’s also a real value is accepting that some traditions still carry power; that sometimes it’s worth breathing new life into old ideas.

Within the world of Christian speaking and publishing there has already been an avalanche of people leaning heavily into the “re” words and I suspect there is yet more to come. Hopefully we can think clearly about what this kind of language really means and be sensitive to the how overuse of “re” words might lead to intellectual burnout.

Last week two blogposts really challenged me to think about my online persona. First, Jason Clark posted about making public his personal goals. I’m impressed by Jason’s skill and courage in clearly articulating some challenging personal ambitions making himself publicly accountable to them. My own tendency is to speak less and less about my personal (and “professional”) aspirations; partly because I have the weakness of being a “promise more than I deliver” sort of guy. But, mostly because my life has taken so many twists and turns in recent years that it’s hard to know which of my dreams are realistic and what obstacles may get in the way. It feels odd to aim at targets that might take five to ten years to hit when I don’t know what continent I’ll be living on in ten years (or how many times I’ll move in the interim).

The other challenging post was John Smulo’s admission of the struggles he has faced in the last year. This led him to raise some thougthful questions about how transparent we are online (and in church) and whether it is inevitable that we will wear masks in these contexts (I contributed a lengthy comment to that discussion).

The juxtaposition of those two formidable posts is both taxing and illuminating, because considering John’s questions pushes me to reconsider my reticence to follow Jason’s example.

In his post, John contrasts “masks” and “transparency.” Personally, I’m not convinced we should ever wear masks, online, in our work, in church or in our relations. To me, the idea of masks speaks of dishonesty, of pretending to be something we are not. Online it is very easy to become our avatar (which is surely the post-modern equivalent of believing our own hype). By choosing just to focus on our achievements and successes, on our better side, we can create a false impression of who we are. I don’t know if we call that a “mask” or not, by I’m going Sisella Bok’s definitions and calling that a lie. I am my doubts, fears and uncertainties as much as I am my successes, accolades and convictions.

Transparency seems a far more honest and attractive option, but carries with it some real practical complications. Not least of which, for me, is the question of time and interest. How much time does it take to put “all” of my life online and who, in all honesty, is interested in that much detail? For me, as a blogger, that is one of the fundamental questions - Who reads this blog? Why? What do they want from it? I want to invest enough time in the blog to make it worthwhile and worth reading. But, I have other commitments as well. If I don’t get on an live life, then what sort of a life will I have to put online?

Moreover, life teaches us that even our best friends are only interested in a some aspects of our lives. I have friends who love to talk about sport and politics but won’t go near “religion.” Others who only want to talk about issues of faith. Some friends love golf and some hate it. I even have friends who are not into modern art or football! What does transparency means when we admit that everyone’s interest in us is only partial?

That’s why honesty is such a benchmark for me. How does this incomplete picture of me relate to the complete me? I’m not sure there’s much point in making total transparency a goal, given the reality of human interaction. But we can, in each of those interactions, seek to be honest about who are in that interaction itself. In that way, the “truth” of us, our total transparency, whilst not evident in every single relationship, is evident in the composite of those relationships; the sum of our social parts.

Which brings me back to putting my ambitions online. The fact that I can’t bring myself to write a set of targets like Jason’s is a reflection of where my life is right now. If anything, it would be disingenuous to do so, for the reasons I’ve already stated. But, there is no reason why I can’t make public some intermediate goals, the things are currently on my project lists. That will be one of my posts for later this week - I hope.

Christians hide in forests as Hindu mobs ransack villages.

I’ve enjoyed watching the US political circus this week and will comment on Monday. But, there are a number of other stories from the week that are hugely important, not least this one which speaks to the ongoing struggles India faces to balance the benefits of its huge economic growth and continue to manage it’s ethnic and religious diversity. While it may still be true that when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold, it is also true that India has become, in so many ways, a barometer for the health of our global culture.

When a friend emailed to ask my thoughts on Mark Driscoll’s “theology” I groaned. My natural inclination is try and give a vibrant answer. But, I couldn’t help wondering if my progression of posts, twelve to eighteen months ago, encapsulated all I had to say on the subject (especially here and here). However, some calendar management while checking future events in Hong Kong threw up a delicious contrast that explains my feelings on the question of mission and kicking people in the head (our friend Driscoll is rather fond of aggressive metaphors)).

On the one hand, we have the upcoming MuayThai event in Hong Kong. On the other hand, we have the Luxury Week series of fashion shows. One of these is directly relevant to my personal identity as a guy, to my local context and to understanding the cultural milieu I inhabit. It’s obvious which one to choose.

I’ll be going to the fashion week.

Of course, in Driscoll’s eyes this move is worthy of an Angel Valodia Matos style riposte. That’s why the Wittenburg Door’s satire was so cutting - it spoke to the insecurity that inhabits the hearts of men who can only resort to violent metaphors to describe their responses to the world.

A few years back, some thinkers that I had (previously) respected were pushing Driscoll as a role-model and I was initially sucked in. But, I found myself wondering what the church would look like if everyone acted the way he did, spoke the way he did and treated people the way he did. At the risk of sounding Randian, I made up my own mind. Upon reflection, it became clear that what I hearing was another angry white guy bottling up his fears, resentments and narrow cultural horizons and labelling them “Christianity.” It’s religion for the people who think the movie 300 is an analogy for the Gospel.

Or, to put it another way, it’s idolatry.

See, I’ll admit to being a cardigan wearer, which is why I welcomed Wess’ reflection on Barth’s comment on fashion (not to mention his sartorial tendencies).

Technorati Tags: Missional, Barth, Driscoll, Curmudgeon

“Science today effectively does compete with religion, insofar as it serves two properly idelogical needs, those for hope and those for censorship, which were traditionally taken care of by religion..

… In a curious inversion, religion is one of the possible places from which one can deploy critical doubts about today’s society. It has become one of the sites of resistence.”

In these lines (from pps 69-70 of Violence) Zizek highlights what is clear to any critical reader of the new atheism (Dawkins, Hitchens and co.); that it functions as a secular kind of fundamentalism. This is not a new insight.

What is more compelling is the role Zizek assigns to religion. Rather than the future of marginal voicelessness that many church leaders fear, the church has a place as a “site of resistance” able to express “critical doubts about today’s society.”. In support of this argument Zizek quotes John Gray “…churches have become sanctuaries of doubt” in contrast to science’s “refuge from uncertainty.”

The point shouldn’t be lost on theologians, apologists and church leaders. If the church has something unique to offer in our cultural moment then it will be found in resistance, critical thinking, doubt and uncertainty -which is another way of saying it will be found in offering people the space to think.

The question, of course, is what happens when folks walk through the doors of a local church. Will they find a “thinking space” or will they be confronted by something else.

My regressive sporting gene has caused me to succumb to the Olympic bug. Although we are, in an Olympic city (Hong Kong is hosting the Equestrian events) the local television coverage is mostly rubbish. Too many breaks, too many talking heads and too many cuts away from events at critical junctures. To say nothing of the eye-wateringly incoherent and ill-informed English (Australian) commentary (a letter to the SCMP editor suggested the local channel employ American commentators - I’ll let that pass, for now).

Our salvation has been the Japanese channel, BS1. OK, the commentary is in Japanese and there is a skew towards events where Japan is competing (so, lots of Judo!). But, the coverage is solid, lots of events are covered and you can trust that the director will not succumb to ADD and show you five different sports in ten minutes while missing the critical action in each one.

In a perfect world (or my perfect world), you would just get feeds with no commentary. Great commentators add to sporting events, but the other 93.7% detract. As for talking heads in a studio - why bother?

Technorati Tags: Olympics

Part of the rationale for getting the iPhone was always to move back to mobile management of my projects, calendars and contacts. My most product phase as a writer and thinker coincided with the time where I was running a simple Palm device and Mac OS9. I had real control of the informaiton I needed to get through each day and a clear sense of the projects I had decided to commit to. It wasn’t tat either piece of software was especially powerful (though I miss aspects of OS9 and felt that Palm software became less loveable with each major upgrade). Rather, it was that syncronisation between the two devices (Palm and Mac) was solid, dependable and easy.

So, today I jumped onto OmniFocus - both the Mac and iPhone versions. Although the fully Syncing version of OmniFocus for Mac is still in Beta, it only took 15 minutes to download and set up the programmes on the iPhone, PowerBook and Mac Pro. Please note that to get this setup working you need to buy both the Mac and iPhone versions and have a server set up (like iDisk with MobileMe).

The next task is to move the projects into Omnifocus, which I plan to do with my next Weekly Review on Saturday morning.

It is still two weeks to the start of school. Most of Carmen’s friends are still away on holiday - so, we have a solid week of planned activities ahead of us. Golf, swimming and of course, ice-skating. What I’ve tried to do is structure the mornings and leave the afternoons free for play and open creativity.

I used to love summer holidays and between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four they were my most musically productive times. But, these days I find summers quite lonely. We take shorter summer holidays than a lot of people we know and a lot of the time parents here don’t even accompany their kids to camps or playdates (boy I hate that word).

As for writing, well it is not that great a season. I had some good ideas while away on holidays but have not yet had the time to turn them into anything more substantial. I really should have my PowerBook with me through the day. But, since I’m already lugging skates, clubs and clothes in and out of cabs for most of the day extra baggage is the last thing I’m looking to volunteer for.

I don’t normally blog on a Sunday. In (small) part it’s because of church, although I don’t want to sound all that religious. Mostly, it’s because I like to have a day away from the computer and some space to think more creatively. But, today I have spent most of the afternoon tinkering (Mobile Me, iPhone, Backup, etc) and so have pause to jot down some disconnected ideas…

- Missed church this morning, L & C went, but no-one said hello (again).
- Wouldn’t say I miss India, but in the past week have often found myself reflecting on the things that were good there and the limitations of life in Hong Kong.
- Really don’t care about the Olympic circus. Might watch, might not.
- Deeply relieved to have our lease sorted out for one more year. Was not in the mood to move.
- Signed up for at least one more Berklee course.
- There’s something about electronic organisation of contacts and diaries that really works for me.
- There’s something about electronic organisation of documents that really wearies my soul.
- My patience for “celebrity gossip” is at an all-time low.

That will do for now.

OK, call me a craven consumer if you must, but this is my first post from the iPhone. It might not be the convergence device of my dreams but i’m still impressed.

Merlin posted a great quote today on 43 folders, from novelist Neal Stephenson,

Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can’t do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless.

Right there is the core of the struggle I had as a writer in India. Did I have four hours a day to myself? Yes, I often did. Was that ever available as one solid block? No, almost never. In fact, I seldom had an hour to myself. India is the land of interruptions and for me, that was hard to take.

There are lessons here is knowing yourself as a creator and maker. Merlin points out the way Stephenson has managed to be successful as a writer at the expense of being a good correspondent (emailer, etc.). It comes back to creating a working ecology that lets you flourish - space, time, room, environment. Processes like GTD will help you get the “ready state” in terms of your stuff and mental pre-occupations in check - but you still need to be realistic about the time you require to get meaning amounts of work done.

I’ve lost 8 kilos since the start of the year. It’s not something I did with a clear goal, it’s more of a consequence of some “lifestyle” (boy I’m starting to hate that word) changes.

To be honest, I’ve always struggled with my weight, well, since I became an adult I’ve struggled with my weight. As a teenager I was very active in sports at a pretty serious level. But, illness and injury right at the end of my teens meant I packed on weight. In my mid twenties I got fit enough again to play football, but then the weight crept, then hurdled on in my late twenties. I moved to London and the change was brilliant, my weight shot down to ideal for my height/build/age and I celebrated my 30th in good condition. In the first year in India I was unhappy and inactive, but my weight started to go down fast once I took up golf and became adjusted to life in Delhi. The last months of my time in India, the weight crept back on again because of injury and the stresses (and temptations) of Hong Kong meant it kept going up.

That biography teaches me two important things - first that my eight fluctuates in relation to exercise. Second, that it fluctuates in relation to happiness. I say happiness, rather than stress or busyness, because this year, for example, I’ve been quite stressed and busy. My life is also much less cluttered now, which is another interesting factor as I look back on the last years.

I write all this because it seems important (and maybe obvious) to me to connect weight, health and feelings about life. The patterns may be different for all of us on this issue, but for me there are clear patterns. Unhappy and inactive, weight goes up, happy and active, weight goes down. It’s not genetics, it’s not voodoo, it’s right there if I’m courageous enough to admit it.

Beyond that there is also a question of food and here I must be blunt. Without portion control, healthy choices and a willingness to feel hungry from time to time, the weight never comes off. I’ve written already about Michael Pollan’s test - only buy the things your great grandparents would have recognised as food. Well, this year it has worked for me. I was reminded of this looking at yesterday’s shopping basket - fruits, vegetables, raw meats, ham, milk, cheese, butter, bread. Enough for four meals.

I’m not casting stones or claiming to be some health guru. For me, weight is a struggle. But, if I’ve learnt anything about weight loss it is all rather simple and homespun, nothing to do with diets or fads. Eat well, eat less, exercise, don’t fear hunger, watch your emotional well-being, clean up the clutter.

Ever since the introduction of the CD, the sound quality of commercial music has been in steady decline. The first CDs sounded awful, far worse than the albums they replaced. While the quality of CDs and digital mastering has improved, the loundness wars and the advent of MP3 have not only eroded those gains, they have impoverished the listening experience of most music consumers (maybe forever?). We are now in an amazing situation where the potential quality of recorded music far, far exceeds not only the standard delivery formats, but also the equipment most people use to listen to music is worse than what would have been standard in a lot of homes a generation ago.

Content delivery versus price determines the tech specs for the consumer market, VHS, CD, MP3 all confirm that. Fact is, we have been on a downward spiral for a long time in terms of commercial music quality and until it becomes cheaper and faster to downloads *hundreds* of songs an hour in a high quality format, nothing is going to change.

HD video is an interesting case, because people are spending real money to consume a better format. It’s not impossible that people might spend in the future to consume a better quality of audio.

We don’t just need a new mindset towards audio quality, we also need a new pricing model and a new retail experience. I’m not going to pay music companies again for the same music on another format (I already did that up to a point with the vinyl to CD transition). I’m also no longer convinced by the idea that all music should be parity priced.

But, the shopping model also needs to change. It is still easier, faster and more pleasant for me to go to a local music store than to buy online. I also tend to end up with more new and unexpected purchases, which is a joy of buying music. Maybe that’s because I actually like talking to people who sell music (or am lucky enough to have local retailers who employ knowledgeable staff).

As long as there is a one price fits all approach and music is sold like frozen chicken don’t expect a higher quality format to flourish.