At five thirty this morning I made my way to the basement for the morning rowing. I sat on the machine, cued up the WBUR OnPoint podcast (I usually listen to whatever is current on Thursdays) on the iPod, pushed play and pulled backwards. Little did I know...
Forty seven minutes flew by and I was ready for the next podcast to begin. I knew I had something to blog about, that was different from what I was thinking about at five twenty five as I started to the basement, and I knew an apology would be necessary. I rowed on in silence lost in thought and stopped about forty minutes later. My ergometer said I had delivered 202.4 watt-hours to the flywheel. Better than 150 watts on average - not bad for me.
Before getting into what I was thinking and why I saw the need for an apology you need to listen to the show. (mp3)
Trust me - it is worth the time.
An interview and some samples from beatbox cellist Kevin Olusola. While he's not technically a great cellist, he did get Yo-Yo Ma's attention. Kevin's playfulness and experimentation and curiosity inform his creativity. In creativity and playfulness he reminds me of musicians cellist Zöe Keating, Björk, and Reggie Watts and more than a few scientists.1
When you are exposed to something like this you want to find more and let your friends know. That made me think of one of you - Jheri.
Jheri is this amazing person - creatitive, funny and kind. The sort of person who amazes you by being a friend. She knows exactly what I mean when I say play is a fundamental component of creativity and she is off-scale playful. She also happens to have a hearing impairment. I want to share this with you Jheri, but I know it won't work so I must apologize...
or maybe not...
This is an opportunity. Jheri is amazingly perceptive visually. She is aware of the nuances of out-of-band communications that take place in face to face communications that most of us tend to miss. She sees much more deeply than the rest of us and is a natural empath. So while people like Niki, Lorraine, Linda and a few others will probably love listening to Kevin, I began to wonder about the part of the world Jheri sees that I am visually deaf to...
This is a chance for serendipty. Jheri - perhaps we can investigate the parts of the world that are beautiful to you that are mostly invisible to people who hear well... I know they exist - would you like to collaborate and sort a bit of this out? Thinking about that excites me much more than listening to Kevin's wonderful music. It is much more fun playing and learning than sitting back - even if what you are witnessing is as wonderful.
Kevin is having wonderful fun and is bringing pleasure. He started with a simple set of questions. There is no reason why you can't have the fun in your domains.
Let's play Jheri
In the meantime I strongly recommend listening to the interview!
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1 Reggie performed just before my TEDx talk and his performance completely captivated me. Look him up - he's amazing. We were talking immediately after TED and it turned out he is from Great Falls, Montana - he lived about 500 feet from our house.
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