What Monocole Got Right And Wrong About Twitter
Monocle is my favourite magazine. It constantly feeds my interest in travel, politics, culture and design. I love that Monocle is unapologetically committed to urban living and cosmopolitanism. Moreover, I’m a big fan of the the way they have retained their brand identity online, through the website and their podcasts (Monocle and The Monocle Weekly). [...]
What Exactly Were You Looking For?
Blog stats are a funny thing. Some people obsess over them, others avoid them and the clueless (like me) wonder what to do with them. I used to like to highlight the blogs that drove traffic to this site, the top referrers, because they played an essential role in blogreading – back when trackbacks were [...]
This Week, OmniFocus and GTD
This week really marks the start of the year for me. I’ve gone through every project, every commitment, every piece of paper and every task I have on my horizons (while managing a good amount of practice time). I’m emotionally shattered, but feeling good about the next few weeks. One thing I’ve been doing is [...]
Hong Kong’s Michelin Stars
Let the controversy begin. Michelin are finally releasing their Michelin Guide to Hong Kong and Macau’s restaurants and there is sure to be a storm of protest about the awards given, the restaurants not recognised and the comments and reviews. Hong Kong has done very poorly compared to Tokyo – 31 stars compared to 227. [...]
This First Week In November
November is one of my favourite months of the year. Of course, it’s a birthday month for L and myself, but it’s also the middle of autumn, when the days are shortening (and cooling) and the year is drawing in towards Advent and Christmas. There’s quite a bit on, so here is a summary of [...]
Generation Slash
There’s currently a rush of books on multiple, portfolio or modular careers. A recent newcomer to this herd is Marci Alboher’s One Person/Multiple Careers. This book is focussed on what it means to be a “slash person,” namely, someone who has a slash between the different facets of their “career;” marketer/author, policeman/personal trainer, rabbi/comedian – [...]
Re- Words
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 Defense Of Food
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That’s the subtitle of Michael Pollan’s excellent In Defense Of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and, as he admits, an apt summary of it’s argument. As a statement about proper eating, “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” is almost trite in its simplicity. The genius of Pollan’s book [...]
Things I’m Reading
Here’s the closest bookshelf for the month of March. Concerning The Spiritual In Art – Wassily Kadinsky Art And Social Change: A Critical Reader – ed Will Bradley and Charles Esche The Lucifer Effect – Philip Zimbardo The Secular Age – Charles Taylor The Luminous Dusk – Dale C. Alison Jr Ain’t Too Proud To [...]
Blogging Authors
A few of my favourite authors are deep into completing their new books. I’m looking forward to reading Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith from Robert at Reflections of a Jazz Theologian, Mad Church Disease from Anne at FlowerDust and, of course, Rudy’s new book (whatever he ends up calling it). Of course, all [...]
Creators
Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney is Paul Johnson’s follow-up to the excellent Intellectuals. In Intellectuals, Johnson explored a unifying them; that intellectuals are people who care more about ideas than people. This involved looking at the tension between the outward persona (and ideals) and the personal lives of some key thinkers. [...]
The Creative Lifestyle
In Applying “Creativity” To Your Professional Life Etc. РHugh adds some fantastic insights into creativity as a profession. “I had no life in my 20’s. Get used to the same. While my peers were partying or zoning out to TV sitcoms, after work I’d head for the coffee shop or the bar, and crank [...]
Exiles Review from BUNSW Baptist Pastors Forum
Here’s an interesting one – BUNSW Baptist Pastors Forum is an anonymous blog covering issues of interest to NSW Baptist Pastors (not churches, just pastors!). I’ve been meaning to drag this blog out into the light for sometime, just waiting till the right post came along. Then a gift turned up in my RSS reader, [...]
Aimless Culture Wars – Round 769,873
It looks like the next unavailing front in the culture wars will be in response to the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. The film, The Golden Compass is due for release soon and although my expectations for the film are low (we could start with the cast and the director/writer), it [...]
Thick Book Month
I’ve been noticing lately that the non-Fiction shelves of mainstream bookstores seem, at the moment, to be weighed down by some very dense books and a odd quirk of my reading programme has highlighted this. The last four books I read (three of which come from Christian publishers), I get these page counts, Fascism, Richard [...]
This Month, I’ll Mostly Be Reading
Antony Beevor – The Battle For Spain – The first part of my Easter holiday reading, this is an epic and complex book; it’s scope befits the nuances of the subject. I have about 60 or so pages left to go and would recomend this book highly if, like me, you have an abiding but [...]
The Rebel Sell
Jason Clark was recently praising Heath and Potter’s excellent book, The Rebel Sell. It’s a book I’ve been wanting to review for quite some time, in part because it was one of the most compelling reads of last year, but mostly because it clearly and succinctly articulates a number of positions on postmodernism, consumerism, globalisation [...]
The Starfish Cult
I’ve joined the growing cult of bloggers who have read (or are reading) The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. It’s one of those fertile books that despite being easily readable over a couple of cups of coffee (200 odd pages, big type, no hard words), leaves you with a head [...]
Exiles In The House
L surprised me yesterday with a gift – a copy of Exiles by Michael Frost. Apparently she had bought it as a potential Christmas gift, on the assumption that I was not planning on buying it (true), then wondered if maybe I would not like the gift (she is often reticent to buy me theological [...]
The One Book Meme Thing
John Smulo has tagged me to take part in the one book meme. So, here goes, One book that changed your life – The Secular City by Harvey Cox In so many ways this book is a template for the kind of work I believe theologians should be writing. A surprisingly prescient treatment of globalisation [...]
The Future of Music
I have been meaning for some time to review this book (in fact the draft of this review has sat in my blog’s draft section for 15 months!). The Future of Music is a book by the co-developer of MIDI and current VP of BerkleeMusic, Dave Kusek and musician/music futurist Gerd Leonhard. I was first [...]
A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity – Conclusion
So there you have it, the good, the bad and the ugly. A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity is not the final word on any of the topics it covers, it’s not that kind of book. However, it is an authentic, hopeful exploration of one possible path to faithful living, of ‚Äúbeing faithful‚Äù in the world. [...]
A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity РThe Ugly
When it comes to explaining postmodernity, there is a well-worn but explanatorily deficient path that many Christian commentators follow. Sadly, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity follows that path. Let’s call it the road to 1991. It’s the tired rant that populates far too many powerpoint presentations at youth ministry training seminars and poorly thought out [...]
Book Review: A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity РThe Bad
A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity is not a book for theo-critical cork-sniffers. If your idea of a good time is attacking a book with a highlighter and a red pen looking for errors and bad doctrine, I suspect you might find this book entertaining, but you would be missing out on a lot. It’s not [...]
Musician, essayist, photographer, cinephile, former resident of Santiago, Sydney, London and Delhi.