Stories & Strategies
Earlier this year I came across a bold and inspiring new challenge called the Nine Dots Prize, which invited submissions to this important question: Are digital technologies making politics impossible? There were 700 entries and I did not win, but I am publishing my essay anyway because I think (hope!) it will matter to you.... Continue Reading →
On June 3,1989 I spent the better part of three hours onstage at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Centre alongside Gunther Schuller, John Handy, Wynton Marsalis, John Abercrombie, George Adams and literally dozens of other legendary jazz musicians in what was called by the New York Times, “the jazz event of the decade.”... Continue Reading →
As of this writing, a week after the release of the extraordinary Sense8 Christmas special on Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes lists only 5 reviews of the show. Barely enough to trigger the Tomatometer. This is ridiculous and needs explaining. For by rights this mind-expanding, action-packed and shockingly beautiful adrenalin shot of television should be widely celebrated and... Continue Reading →
This is the fifth in a series of new posts that explain how you can apply the lessons of jazz to collaborate successfully. * Define Roles “I don't believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from." Chuck Mangione Collaborating successfully requires everybody to know their role and to stick to... Continue Reading →
In my book Digitopia Blues – Race, Technology and the American Voice, I described Dylan's impact this way: Dylan signaled the triumph of oral poetry for white America, the reconciliation of the word and the body, of the singer and the song, of the poet and the community. From here on in, it was a... Continue Reading →
Oral Culture = OS1 Literate Culture = OS2 Networked Culture = OS3 The rise of Donald Trump can be usefully understood as a product of the disruptive collision of oral, literate and digital cultures, or what I call OS1, OS2 and OS3, aka the Operating Systems (OS) of human civilization. That collision is the defining... Continue Reading →
This is the fourth in a series of new posts that explain how you can apply the lessons of jazz to collaborate successfully. * Never Say No “It’s impossible for me to feel like there’s only one way to do a thing. There’s nothing wrong with having one way of doing it, but I think... Continue Reading →
The Walrus Talk at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Thursday night took The Arctic as its theme, and the evening was as inspiring and illuminating as previous events in this ambitious national series. It also demonstrated with stunning clarity the conflict between communications cultures that is my main topic on this blog. As usual,... Continue Reading →
It took only 10 minutes for Sheila Barry of Groundwood Books to tell me she loved my story and wanted to publish it, but it has taken 4 years for the final product to arrive in bookstores! Happily Friend or Foe is now out and it has garnered some sweet reviews. "...a simple and utterly... Continue Reading →
This is the third of a series of new posts that explain how you can apply the lessons of jazz to collaborate successfully. * Make Room "Only play what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything." Chick Corea A collaboration is a set of relationships and as in any relationship both parties... Continue Reading →
John Sobol 