Friday, October 24, 2008

New Music
















Chemical Chords by Stereolab
















Radio Retaliation by Thievery Corporation


Art: Austin Kleon - Newspaper Blackout Poems

Austin Kleon was included in the presentation of one of the architects (Page Sutherland Page) for the Austin Public Library Project. The presentation said: "In the end, what we need to do is to make a kind of poetry out of the latent potential of the project and site." What Austin Kleon does is reveal the "latent poetry tucked away in the body text of headline news."







Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

On the Road in India: Niraj Seth's WSJ blog

A great travel blog by WSJ journalist Niraj Seth about his travel through the south of India in an auto-rickshaw - On the Road in India
Excerpt about using a horn while driving :-)
"The horn is your friend. Use it often, use it well. Unlike in the US, where a honk usually signals an imminent emergency (or unpardonable rudeness) honking is a way of life in India. Anything can cross your path at any time — people walking down the middle of the highway in the dark, motorcycles traveling the wrong way, a tire rolling across a street — so it’s wise to keep one hand on or near the horn. Drivers here blow the horn when they’re passing pedestrians, presumably to alert them to an approaching vehicle. They honk to rouse the cars placidly drifting into the oncoming lane. Sometimes they even honk on completely empty streets — out of habit, perhaps."

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Zeitgeist: Why Experience Matters (David Brooks)

An insightful column by David Brooks: Why Experience Matters
Excerpt:
"What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events — the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight.
How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.
Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared. "

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Zeitgeist: Mental discipline

This op-ed column by David Brooks about Tiger Woods' mental discipline has stuck in my mind after reading it a week ago.
The Frozen Gaze
Excerpt:
"In a period that has brought us instant messaging, multitasking, wireless distractions and attention deficit disorder, Woods has become the exemplar of mental discipline. After watching Woods walk stone-faced through a roaring crowd, the science writer Steven Johnson, in a typical comment, wrote: “I have never in my life seen a wider chasm between the look in someone’s eye and the surrounding environment."
The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, Woods is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings. (Twice, he risked his career to retool his swing"

Zeitgeist: Fuel efficiency m.p.g. vs. gallons/100 miles



Excerpt:

"...the researchers say, the relationship between consumption and m.p.g. is curvilinear, and there is a greater savings at lower m.p.g.’s. Over 10,000 miles, the 28 m.p.g. car uses 198 fewer gallons than the 18 m.p.g., more than double the savings of the 50 m.p.g. car compared with the 34 m.p.g. one.
With this new measure, the researchers suggest, consumers would more easily see the value of swapping an inefficient car for one that is even just modestly more efficient."

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Zeitgeist: New Habits

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
Excerpts:
"Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives."

"Ms. Ryan and Ms. Markova have found what they call three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs.
She recommends practicing a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements.
“Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain,” Ms. Ryan notes in her book. “If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.”

Friday, May 02, 2008

Art: SVT's new leadership - announcement


SVT has hired a new Executive Director and appointed an Interim Artistic Director to replace our founder Jason Neulander when he leaves at the end of this month.
Read about it in the Statesman

Books: Books to revitalize a neighborhood

With Books as a Catalyst, Minneapolis Neighborhood Revives
Excerpt:
"Along Washington Avenue, between the University of Minnesota and downtown Minneapolis, there were acres of parking lots, a large warehouse-style liquor store and a smattering of commercial spaces that had once served the thriving flour mill district along the Mississippi River, but later became seedy bars and flophouses.
The city tried to rebrand the area as a technology corridor, but not a single dot-com materialized. Instead, three nonprofit organizations formed a partnership in 1999, bought three adjacent warehouses and renovated them into Open Book, which says it is the largest — if not the only — literary and book arts center in the United States.
It is not uncommon for the arts to revitalize a neighborhood, but it is certainly unusual for old-fashioned literature and books to lead the way.
Since Open Book made its debut in May 2000, however, a steady flow of arts organizations have followed, including the Guthrie Theater, designed by Jean Nouvel, who recently won the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Then there is the Mill City Museum, the MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis Central Library and a few smaller theaters and art galleries."

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Zeitgeist: Daniel Gilbert on happiness

After having read a book on happiness (The Geography of Bliss) recently for book club, it was interesting to read this interview in the NY Times: The Smiling Professor.

Excerpt of three questions from the interview:
"Q. AS THE AUTHOR OF A BEST SELLER ABOUT HAPPINESS, DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE ON HOW PEOPLE CAN ACHIEVE IT?
A. I’m not Dr. Phil.
We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.
We know that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That’s what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money. That’s what I mean when I say people should do “wise shopping” for happiness.
Another thing we know from studies is that people tend to take more pleasure in experiences than in things. So if you have “x” amount of dollars to spend on a vacation or a good meal or movies, it will get you more happiness than a durable good or an object. One reason for this is that experiences tend to be shared with other people and objects usually aren’t.
Q. HAVE YOU JUST EXPRESSED A VERY ANTI-AMERICAN IDEA?
A. Oh, you can spend lots of money on experiences. People think a car will last and that’s why it will bring you happiness. But it doesn’t. It gets old and decays. But experiences don’t. You’ll “always have Paris” — and that’s exactly what Bogart meant when he said it to Ingrid Bergman. But will you always have a washing machine? No.
Today, I’m going to Dallas to meet my wife and I’m flying first class, which is ridiculously expensive. But the experience will be far more delightful than a new suit. Another way I follow what I’ve learned from data is that I don’t chase dollars now that I have enough of them, because I know that it will take a very large amount of money to increase my happiness by a small amount.
You couldn’t pay me $100,000 to miss a play date with my granddaughters.
And that’s not because I’m rich. That’s because I know that a hundred grand won’t make me as happy as nurturing my relationship with my granddaughters will.
Q. SO YOU HOLD WITH THE NOTION THAT “MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU HAPPINESS”?
A. I wouldn’t say that. The data says that with the poor, a little money can buy a lot of happiness. If you’re rich, a lot of money can buy you a little more happiness. But in both cases, money does it."

Friday, April 18, 2008

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Books: Richard Price and the art of dialogue


Review from New Yorker on Richard Price's Lush Life. Excerpts:

"Actual speech tends to be dribblingly repetitive, and relatively nonfigurative, nonpictorial. Price, by contrast, awards his characters great figurative powers, endows them with an ability to take everyone’s clichés and customize them into something gleaming and fresh. His new novel, “Lush Life” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $26), which is filled with page after page of vital speech, shows him inventing a life for dialogue rather than just taking it from life; and this spoken magic is often indistinguishable from Price’s apparently more formal, descriptive prose."


Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Art: Regine Basha's comments on the Austin Art scene

In a recent interview with ...might be good, Regine Basha relates the strenghts and weaknesses of the Austin art scene. She is spot on:
"I think one of Austin’s strengths is that there can be different style of cultural production here. It can be very open—an artist like Luke Savisky for example can work like a renaissance person. Luke has managed to carve out a niche for himself in a way I’ve never seen before. As a film artist, he collaborates with everyone from the Kronos Quartet to the Alamo Drafthouse—with a wide range of participants and venues from the avant-garde to the commercial. Here, projects like the recent Cult of Color : Call to Color that Arthouse is now doing with Trent Doyle Hancock and Ballet Austin can happen in a meaningful way. Unlike New York where rigid boundaries and mini-feifdoms still exist between disciplines, I think Austin—and the wide array of resources available here—make it possible for artists to work across disciplines in innovative ways.
I think one potential weakness is that the Austin art scene can very easily get caught up in its own ‘hip’ factor or its own self-congratulatory complacency. This tends to form a little bubble where your only references about art are in town or Texas-wide at best. It also focuses the discussions a lot on local gossip. To really be involved in the art—either as an artist, curator, or collector—you have to constantly inform yourself about what’s going on in the rest of the field, do the research, and find your place in it. I’m sure the local tech industry does this—the art scene should do the same. "

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Zeitgeist: Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind

A good article from yesterday's NY Times: Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind
Excerpts:
"Focusing on success is important because willpower can grow in the long term. Like a muscle, willpower seems to become stronger with use."
...
"Whatever the explanation, consistently doing any activity that requires self-control seems to increase willpower — and the ability to resist impulses and delay gratification is highly associated with success in life."

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Technology: A conversation with Peter Drucker

A Conversation With Peter Drucker
In 1997, author and professor Tom Davenport spoke with management icon Peter F. Drucker about the state of reengineering, information management, the psychology of managers and the role of technology in business.
"Drucker: The time has come for us to shift from the "T" in IT to the "I." It's time to learn the balance if there's to be information focus. Don't get me wrong. I'm interested in the technology. I consider myself knowledgeable about it, but compared to my 16-year-old grandson, I am a moron. You know, his generation is very different from the CEOs you have now because they didn't grow up with making the machinery work."

Friday, March 14, 2008

Zeitgeist: Kids and Playing

Two good stories from NPR about kids and playing:
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
"Researchers say imaginative play allows children to make their own rules and practice self-control. "
Creative Play Makes For Kids In Control
"Organizing play for kids has never seemed like more work. But researchers Adele Diamond and Deborah Leong have good news: The best kind of play costs nothing and really only has one main requirement — imagination. "

Zeitgeist: Why Office Design Matters

I came across this article on Artful Manager: Why Office Design Matters
"You want to concentrate and collaborate, but how can you get the best of both worlds in your current office set-up? An excerpt from Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers."

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Zeitgeist: Right Brain File

This blog is my "right-brain file" (From the Creative Lawyer blog)

Zeitgeist: A Zagat-Style Approach to Your Career

A good post from the Shifting Careers column/blog in the NY Times.
Excerpt:
"When it comes to career and life change, thinking is overrated. What you need is a way to get beyond your own subjectivity, without simply adopting another person’s subjectivity. One method is to create a right-brain file. Another is to interview five to 10 people who know you in a structured way.
To set up the interviews, create a short questionnaire (six to eight questions) with questions like:
* What are three things I do really well?
* What are three things I don’t do so well?
* Based on what you know about me, what job or experience have I liked the best in the past?
* Based on what you know about me, what job or experience have I liked the least?
* What are three things you can imagine me doing?
* What’s something you can’t really imagine me doing?
* How do I get in my own way?
Pick a variety of people who know different facets of you. You can ask friends, family members, colleagues, and people whose views you respect but whom you rarely speak to. Ask open-ended questions that encourage people to expound; avoid questions that can be answered yes or no."

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Zeitgeist: In the Statesman Out & About blog

I was in the paper today - a photo with Lee Thompson and another Leadership Austin grad - at Lee's retirement party.

Books: The Advantage of Closing a Few Doors

A good article from the NY Times by John Tierney. Will put this book on my list of books to read.
"Dan Ariely’s new book, “Predictably Irrational,” an entertaining look at human foibles like the penchant for keeping too many options open."

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Design: Pecha Kucha

Fight Death by Powerpoint with Pecha Kucha. I found out about this on an Artful Manager blog post. Also found a good site - Garr Reynolds - with tips for doing effective presentations.

What Is Pecha Kucha Night?
Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Zeitgeist: Personal MBA

I came across Personal MBA on an Artful Manager blog post.
"Business schools don’t have a monopoly on worldly wisdom. If you're serious about learning advanced business principles, the Personal MBA can help. The Personal MBA recommended reading list is the tangible result of hundreds of hours of reading and research, and features only the very best books the business press has to offer. So skip the fancy diploma and $150,000 loan - you can get a world-class business education simply by reading these books."

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Books: An Iranian in India, Encouraging Dialogue

An article in the NY Times An Iranian in India, Encouraging Dialogue about Ramin Jehanbegloo's book: India Revisited: Conversations on Contemporary India, "a collection of 27 interviews with 27 remarkable Indians that the Indian arm of Oxford University Press has just published. The book is ostensibly about Indian subjects — dance, caste, Parsis, democracy — but it inexorably engages many of the issues that vex Mr. Jahanbegloo’s homeland, including tradition, pluralism, the West and freedom."
Excerpt:

Kapila Vatsyayan, a cultural historian, offers an elegantly simple explanation of India’s survival. “India has so far demonstrated the capacity to hold together two lifelines, one an original, primal, or indigenous, almost immutable line, and the other of ‘change,’” she tells Mr. Jahanbegloo. “No single unit or dimension is totally ‘insular’ or ‘static.’”
Mr. Jahanbegloo finds this an especially trenchant lesson for Middle Eastern countries, which he says have not been able to accommodate a dialogue of cultures. Instead, he says, they have suffered either a modernization from above, as in the case of Iran under the Shah, or a virulent assertion of fundamentalism from below, as with the Taliban of Afghanistan.
“Iranians, like Arabs, have not been able to digest modernity because they did not find a way to create a permanent dialogue between the two concepts,” he said. “It’s either created authoritarian modernity or authoritarian traditionalism.”
Mr. Jahanbegloo credits Indian thinkers for their “soft reading of modernity, not a violent reaction to it.” Missing from his glowing appraisal is sufficient explanation for the violence that persists in Indian life, whether in the guise of Maoist insurgents or Hindu radicals or home-grown Islamist terrorist groups.
“This is what I think is so important to people of the Middle East, particularly Turks, Iranians and Arabs,” he said. “They want to keep their own identity. They want to be proud of their past. But it’s very important to open up to other cultures. Democracy is a result of this. Democracy is a government of dialogue.”