Yesterday , after church, I went on an adventure with my colleague/neighbours the Blantons and the Sherwood/Davises (we’re threatening to take over Partick Hill in the name of biblical studies). We ended up having a quite delectable Indian lunch, but the real excitement came before that. (Well, the giant curled crispy pancakes were pretty amazing, I have to admit, but the gallery was even better.)
 
The primary destination was the Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre, a brilliant art installation woefully under-served by their website. (Underserved by Google, too, which still thinks the gallery is located at 64 Osborne St., where I walked back and forth several times trying to find anything that resembled a gallery — I finally noticed a single sheet of A4 paper taped to a door among various other posters and leaflets, saying that they had moved to 103 Trongate. Look at the “Street View” on Google Maps, turn to see the red doors with white trim, and then imagine what they’d look like if no one had been keeping them up for months.) If you go through Sharmanka’s site and look at the photos you will get only a foggy sense of the intricate constructions made with the sort of underground Russian satiric bite that you might suppose to have died out years ago. Several YouTube videos show the sculptures in motion; again, there’s no substitute for seeing them in situ. Read the bio page for a fuller sense of the backstory of these wonderful works.
 
The kinetic art was terrific; the children were spellbound (Adam Davis had been there before, but he couldn’t have been more enthusiastic at this repeat visit); the wit and imagination scintillate; the craftsmanship astonishes. I can’t wait to take Margaret and Pippa (successively, not simultaneously), and if any of you want to go with me, I’ll be glad to go with you, too.

AKMA :: Feb.08.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

This morning’s sermon seems to have gone well, even among the people who helpfully noted before the service that they were expecting a strong one. The specially odd part is that (as you will see, if you’re so inclined) the sermon pivoted on the question of “self-esteem,” and whether Isaiah and Paul and Peter suffered from low self-esteem — so in commenting about how I felt about it, I have to observe a robust enough confidence that I can mention, in passing, that I see some rough patches.
 
Actually, my original draft began with a description of Chris Locke’s relentless polemic against bogus self-esteem-mongers. It got off to a great start, then modulated into the problems that arise when students arrive for study with a boatload of groundless self-esteem. But I try to be very, very cautious about saying things from the pulpit that I can easily imagine stirring up needless trouble, and if studetns were there it might have been problematic for me to suggest that I knew of over-confident students. Then too, the transition to the Scripture lessons wasn’t working out, so I scrapped that beginning and just started writing in the middle. Eventually a beginning paragraph attached itself to the middle, and I wrote the ending in the wee hours of this morning. Took a nap, walked to church, and — as I said before — people received it very generously.
 
All that being said, I’m pretty tired. I look forward to a comfortable night’s sleep, and I won’t bother getting to work by eight, the way I usually do. It feels good just anticipating it.
 
[Later: Kelvin has put the video of the sermon up — here it goes.]

AKMA :: Feb.07.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

Does anyone have advice on cloud storage services (for Mac-based users)?

AKMA :: Feb.04.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 5 Comments »

In fact, by focusing on liability and not teaching our kids how to take risks, we are making their world more dangerous. When we were children, we had to learn to evaluate risks and handle them on our own.

Exactly. That’s Chris Daly, quoting from his own 1995 Atlantic article, being quoted on Doc Searls’s blog. And Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bob live on Spy Pond, so give them a wave for me, Doc.

AKMA :: Feb.04.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 4 Comments »

Remember when coffee-shops were the utterly coolest thing in missional evangelism? This link from Jordon provoked me to think, “What about if ultra-innovative missonal evangelists, instead of starting (or inhabiting) coffee shops, started congregations in laundries?” Large numbers of people have to go; it gives you an hour or so in which to have deep thoughts and spiritual conversation; you could bring along quarters and laundry detergent to share/exchange. I think it has real cool-Jesus cachet; but I’ll bet someone else has already thought of it.

AKMA :: Feb.02.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

This morning I woke up early to meet David Jasper at the Queen’s Street train station and catch the train to Edinburgh for the winter meeting of the Doctrine Committee of the Scottish Episcopal Church. You may guess how I feel about committee meetings in general, and ecclesiastical committee meetings in particular — but in this case, you’d be wrong (unless you guessed “excitedly looking forward to,” in which case you are so wrong about my general frame of mind as to raise questions about whether you navigated to the blog you thought you were looking for).
 
The meeting was really cool, inasmuch as the Scottish Episcopal Church calls upon us as theologians-by-vocation to deliberate on the life of the church and prepare carefully-reasoned theologically grounded responses to church life (and the issues that confront the church). We don’t determine anything in particular, but the SEC seems to take our input very seriously. It’s a consultative and educational body, and that’s the way (un huh, un huh) I like it.
 
My cousin Adele asked on Facebook if there was a quiz; thankfully, there was not, because I am not fully au courant with the specifics of Scottish Episcopal history and ecumenical relations. There is, however, a lot of homework of the sort I relish. I’m assigned to collaborate with the newly-elected bishop of Glasgow and Galloway on a paper about the doctrine of marriage (with some attention to the state of Scotland’s civil law), designed to guide and inform discussions with ecumenical partners. And I will participate in the annual group composition of a Grosvenor Essay, the topic of which will be Incarnation (my remit involves writing about the biblical articulation of the virgin birth). The meeting involved thoughtful, respectful, professional (if I may say so) group efforts in response to queries directed to us from various other committees and boards; they actually encounter theological problems, and refer them to us to gnaw at. It’s the kind of activity that makes me feel as though I’m in the right place, doing what I’m meant to be doing.
 
Now, I didn’t really get all the way into the heart of Edinburgh. Forbes House — the SEC HQ — is in Haymarket, the rail stop before Edinburgh. But it was my first trip on ScotRail, and now I have a better idea of how that system works. This makes it slightly more likely that I’ll navigate my way to St Andrews successfully next week, when I head over there to give a talk a week from Thursday afternoon.

AKMA :: Feb.01.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Steve suggests a collaboration between these birds and these musicians; I’m thinking about Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s brids and Dinosaur Feathers.

AKMA :: Feb.01.2010 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

A few weeks ago I was stopping in at the Bay Tree, my Sunday morning oasis of coffee on my way to church, and business was slow. A couple of gents had come in to order coffee to take away, and I was waiting behind them to pay for the nutritious start to my morning, when the more gregarious of the two turned and addressed me. “Have you ever seen weather like this?” gesturing at the snowy sidewalk. I allowed that I hadn’t seen the like in Glasgow, although my sample size was relatively small. I had in fact seen wondrous blizzards when feet of snow fell, on top of a foot or more already on the ground — back in the States. “Oh, when’d you come here?” he asked. “Just September.” “From the States?” “Yes, indeed.”
 
“Did you understand what we were saying?” To this I had to admit that I would only have been able to puzzle out about half of the conversation (not that I’d been listening in). Their colloquy had fallen into the part of my consciousness to which I assign pleasant-sounding auditory static that I can’t figure out, apart from a word here or there.
 
“Well listen, the first thing to learn is to say, ‘Och aye, the noo.’” I know that nobody here says that; plenty of people say “Och, aye,” and occasionally people use “the noo” to refer to the present moment, but somehow “och aye, the noo” has become a stereotyped representation of Glaswegian patter. Rather than quibble with him, I made a few feeble efforts, and when he was satisfied he demanded to know why I was out early on a Sunday morning. I pointed out that I was on my way to church.
 
“Say a prayer for us, then,” he said, and introduced himself as Alan. I agreed to, and was about to leave, when he pressed his card into my hand. “Alan Marsh, pleased to meet you.”
 
Apparently Alan is something of a media person. His card shows a picture of him evidently from a production about Greyfriars Bobby (one imagines he played Bobby’s master, not the terrier himself); his IMDB entry indicates that he’s made walk-on appearances in a number of shows, of which I recognized the Glasgow detective program Taggart; he has made a YouTube video from stills of himself with some of the celebrities he has met (if I’m not mistaken, he’s kissing SuBo toward the middle of the sequence); but most of all, I like the portrait of him from the photographer’s Flickr site.

AKMA :: Jan.31.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

According to the Panopticlick, my browser profile is unique among the quarter million they’ve tested so far — so it would, presumably, be easy to track my browser if someone wanted to spy on my trail of fountain pen sites, Facebook, and Google Reader.
 
If I were worried about this, I’d complicate the enterprise by activating and deactivating various fonts in my system; that seems to be a strong element in the fingerprint process. That way I’d look different every time I browsed. But on the whole, I’m not yet concerned that I might be the target of a browser-based spy ring.

AKMA :: Jan.30.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

I remembered today that my blogiversary comes round this week. Came around, actually, on the 23rd. On 23 January, 2002, I entered a few settings into Blogger.com, pushed the “Post” button, and darned if it didn’t start up a website for me with my daily random thoughts.
 
Eight years of blogging have brought wonderful benefits, but I’m beginning to think I can see the end of it. Not immediately, but eventually I can envision putting more time into focused, larger-scale online writing, and leaving the dailyness to microblog vehicles. I dislike microblogging for a number of reasons, but the community into which I started out blogging has largely faded to inactivity (blogwise — I’m not accusing anyone of laziness). With less tightly-woven sense of writing to people and hearing from them, I feel less sense of obligation to put anything here at all. And I’m certainly busy enough, even busy relaxing, that I can imagine a time when I’m not inclined to bother at all anymore.
 
But that’s not today, and heaven knows I’m wrong often enough, so maybe I’ll just keep chugging away at it. The important thing, though, is that they’ve been eight really good years, with very wonderful friends and readers, and I can’t ever adequately say to the old gang who lured me into this uncanny world how grateful I am for their interest and encouragement. Seeing Euan the other day reminded me what a special experience that initiation was, and how magical the transition from one side of the looking-glass to the other. The neighbours who have moved into Blogaria after it became “normal,” after everyone rolled their eyes at the sound of the word “blog,” missed out on the frontier days — but I will remember them, and cherish them, for they helped keep me sane and showed me some of the cool tricks reality plays when you develop digital extremities.
 
Eight years — and who knows how much longer! Thanks, y’all, a million times. And see you tomorrow.

AKMA :: Jan.29.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

See also Kevin Marks and Michael Pusateri. By the way, Michael, thanks again for that breakfast in California five or so years ago.
 
And now Steven Frank’s. I know Kevin and Michael are certifiably smart, and Steven sounds as though he knows what he’s talking about. I’m beginning to think I was right, and that this iPad really is a big deal in the making, despite the antihype.

AKMA :: Jan.29.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

OK, first make the predictable two or three jokes, some cleverer than others. Get it out of your system, I can wait.
 
Now, what do I think of it? Well, I doubt I can afford one, and I’m not uneasy about that; by the time our finances stabilize, a great many other things will have settled down, too, including prices and apps and specs. If someone wants to donate one, I’ll gladly accept it and put it to work, but I’m not making puppy-dog faces at Margaret over iChat.
 
That being said, I can envision immediately what an iPad would mean for my daily routine. I look at the iPad and I see the main reason I haven’t been drawn into the Kindle world. An iPad will do more, better, in color — and it will do a very fine job of presenting books. And that’s the pulsing heart of such desire as I feel for one: as a recent immigrant to this thistl’d isle, I have had to leave a great proportion of my library behind (as I’ve said before). and I see in the iPad the device that could help me make the transition to digital reading. Most of what I read, I read in unattractive formats. Academic and technical books are generally published with minimal effort toward the selection of paper, ink, page design, illustration (if any), and so on. I would ecstatically trade all my bound copies of academic/technical works for digital copies. Please, make me the the offer. Please.
 
That doesn’t make me post-bibliophiliac. It does mean that I would select the bound books that I buy for their specific physical manifestations. I don’t want (only) digital versions of Edward Tufte’s books. I will continue buying various editions of the Greek New Testament, Bibles, and liturgical books (although digital editions of Ritual Notes, Fortescue, and A Priest’s Handbook would come in awfully handy). It does mean that book publishers will have to earn their bound-book sales, though at the same time they will be able to mass-market digital pulps. It means that bound-books will retain their value for the things that tangible books do best (archival copies, a centuries-old open format) and digital books will be able to flourish for the things they do best (convenience, portability, multimedia hybrid formats, perhaps some interactivity, low backlist storage costs, somewhat adjustable formatting (no separate large-type editions necessary, and machine-audio once the publishing industry recuperates from its cranio-rectal displacement disorder). All of this should be a very good thing for authors. Different, but very good.
 
And the super-good news, if Apple doesn’t ruin everything (and I don’t trust them not to), is that the iBook app rests on the open EPUB book format. I repeat my assertion/plea that this is the moment for some university press to lay claim to a huge untapped market share.
 
Plus the iPad will do much else beside present books — those other uses for which gadgeteers are slagging the current iteration of the iPad as “not good enough.” Word: if people play games, watch video, read and send email, and browse the web contentedly on smart phones (and they do — have you noticed?), they will do so all the more happily with an iPad. If the iPad is as blazingly fast as the people who handled it have suggested, all of these functions will work so smoothly that smartphones will again look as awkwardly clunky as did the monochrome dot-matrixed versions of those apps on early “web-ready” mobile phones. And come on, the bezel about which so many are griping serves the essential purpose of giving a margin for holding the unit. These aren’t flaws, they’re features.
 
Apple hasn’t played all its tablet cards yet. There’s an upgrade to the iPhone OS due in a short while that may well introduce limited multitasking. There’s plenty of opportunity for Apple design engineers to figure out what to do with a camera such that it fits functionally with the uses to which one might put a tablet (did people seriously imagine that someone might hold a legal-pad-sized item up in the air to take photos? Or that a webcam-like unit would work well with the positions and circumstances in which users will deploy iPads? There’s progress to be made on this front, but I think Apple is smart to wait and see how cameras fit into the emergent usage patterns for this new device). It’s going to get better.
 
So I’ve almost talked myself into lusting after one — I see a very strong case for the iPad as a note-taking, book-reading, video-watching, web- and mail-browsing mobile computing platform. That sounds like a huge winner to me. So I’m with Dave (except that he’ll own one before I will).

AKMA :: Jan.28.2010 :: Uncategorized :: 8 Comments »