In this article, stringing together some obersvations about Louis CK and Mary Halvorson, Seth Colter Walls touches on the wellspring of collaboration. He writes a little of the play that replaces rehearsal for true improvisers, of finding outlets of artistic practice where “no one person is responsible for all the tunes–if tunes are even the order of the day. Such groups aren’t the ones that players use as reputational tent-poles; they’re the ones that successful artists keep going in order to keep the channel for new sounds open. It’s the jazz-world equivalent of Zach Galifianakis’s avant-chat Web-show “Between Two Ferns,” …
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I was listening to a brilliant interview with the theologian and scholar Walter Bruggeman this morning. He was talking about “the prophetic imagination” and using the poetry of the Old Testament prophets to make a point about a key capacity that is missing in the world right now: the ability to deal with disruption. SImply, disruption is what happens when the plans we thought we had have suddenly changed. It could be a major economic collapse – a black swan event – or something so small as your bus left early. How we respond to disruption is a key …
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Watch what happens when a rain delay forces two US college baseball teams to get creative. They improvise. So much to love in this, including the fact that they created set pieces, scenes and then when they ran out of ideas staged a dance contest together. It would have been interesting to see how the game went after all this play they did together! Here is another even better video of (almost) grown men having a great time together – moose hunting, curling, pro wrestling, playing football.
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A review of things that caught my eye this week: In #Occupy news, three articles of note: The Good (an #Occupy Wall Street Open Space), The Bad (an #Occupy LA arrest and torture) and The Ugly (Republican messaging regarding #Occupy). And The Helpful. A story about the choices cities make in dealing with #Occupy camps And in related news, a beautiful story about Pancho Ramos Stierle and his commitment to generosity. Two fantastic TED talks: Louie Schwartzberg on Gratitude and Luis von Ahn on how to make good use of useless tasks. MIT reports that improvisation may be the key …
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This is an estuary. It is the place where a river goes to die. Everything the river has ever been and everything it has carried within it, is deposited at it’s mouth where the flow slows down and the water merges with the ocean. These are places of incredible calm and richness, but they lack the exciting flow of the torrents and waterfalls and cascades of the upper river system. Yesterday I was speaking with a client who worried that an initiative we had begun together was heading towards the estuary of action – a long term visioning processes where …