Author: AKMA

I read Dave Pollard’s report of Meg Tilly’s dismaying experience at the Northern Voice blogging conference with tremendous interest and sympathy. Among the many important dimensions of the situation, two particular constellations of points stand out to me.
 
First, neither the presenter nor Dave Pollard had the vaguest idea that someone was actually being hurt. Dave mentions hearing Meg interject a protest, but he only just registered the sound; he didn’t (as he notes) hae time to follow through and identify what was happening. Thing One: Well-intentioned People cause others profound (“devastating”) pain without even noticing it. Nancy and Dave were not egregiously careless — they were going with the program, a program that commendably advocates getting away from mere cognitive-verbal engagement with information. I want to emphasize that this purpose resonates deeply with my hermeneutical interests, and I vigorously endorse Nancy’s interest in getting people out of passive attendance into active participation. It’s all good, as they say; except that this particular day, this particular well-intentioned exercise was not good at all for an articulate, thoughtful participant.
 
The point is that no matter how purely commendable your intentions, no matter how apparently innocent your program, no matter how brilliantly successful its effects in the previous ten situations you tried it out, a presenter (or a preacher or a teacher) always stands under the likelihood that something they say or do will injure somebody. There’s no way to immunize yourself from that possibiliity, and the reflex to blame the person who suffered pain only aggravates the offense. In this situation, Nancy showed laudable concern and humility and extended herself to apologize and make amends (well done, Nancy). Nonetheless, anyone who ventures to take up that sort of position of public leadership runs the risk of causing unanticipated (and entirely unforeseeable) injury. If you want to be sure that you don’t hurt anyone, sit back and stay quiet. If you care enough to speak up and lead, begin by considering the chance that you’ll hit someone at a very vulnerable point, and from the very start resolve not to shrug it off, not to blame her or him, but to take responsibility for the injury that you could have chosen to avoid (even though you had no reason to expect it).
 
On the second point, I’m going to be less complimentary to Nancy. The exercise she led (and countless others like it) looks to me to be extraordinarily extrovert-centric. I’m very skeptical about the ethics of dragooning people into participating in a public exercise, then displaying the results of their participation for the whole conference (and in this case, for the whole world) to see. I heartily sympathize with the value of getting an audience (or a class or a congregation) involved in what’s going on, and as I said before, I emphatically support the particular concern that impelled Nancy to assign the drawing exercise. At the same time, I’m introverted enough myself to wince in pain when I hear Meg’s story. As a presenter/preacher/teacher, I try to avoid anything that puts people in so exposed a situation; where circumstances warrant an exercise such as this one, I try to make the justification explicit (“This is practice for times that you’ll be doing this in public once you graduate”) and to emphasize the limited publicity of the setting (“We’re the only ones who will see it”). If something must be done out in the big, wild public, I emphasize caution, patience, and preparation. None of that precludes hurting somebody, but it helps build mutuality in expectations and the understanding of the exercise. Please, though, please please please, don’t assume that everyone is extroverted.
 
(P.S. I’d never read Meg Tilly’s blog before — didn’t even know she wrote one — but she’s a charming blogger, just the sort of online correspondent who gave blogging a good name. And I’m not saying that because I had a mini-crush on her after seeing her in The Big Chill. That was so long ago, and so mini.)

The Onion’s video segment on Diebold accidentally releasing the results of the 2008 election includes many terrific lines. “This country is based on the fantasy that the government is the voice of the people. Going through the motions of voting and keeping the kingmakers’ dealings secret are central to our culture.” “We at Diebold will see that we properly safeguard the illusion of democracy for all Americans.”

As I’m off-site, I get my Seabury news in dribs and drabs; yesterday I got an email message reporting unexpectedly upbeat news. As it turns out, Seabury will indeed offer classes to continuing students during the 2008-09 academic year. The present plan entails offering courses in Anglican history, theology, polity, and liturgy; congregational leadership; and the practice of ministry.
 
Seabury will still, apparently, need to reduce the size of the faculty — but students who are currently enrolled may be able to complete much of their program without major disruption.

I just handed in my paper for next week’s colloquium, and as I was roughing out the last bits it occurred to me that among the difficulties that beset biblical interpretation, few may be as toxic as the the disciplinary proclivity toward esotericism. I don’t mean that all biblical scholars shop in the sort of bookstore that gives Chris apoplectic paroxysms; I mean that biblical studies tends to focus its disciplinary energies on that which cannot be detected by a casual reader. The same inclination affects other, perhaps all, interpretive fields, too. It is especially pronounced, however, in biblical studies, and that inclination militates against biblical scholars reading well the text that they study. Worse still (and some of you knew I would get to this), by adopting a practice that endorses the premise that “the real meaning” involves something other than what was said, the esoteric impulse in biblical scholarship tends obliquely to support such intellectual miasmas as The da Vinci Code.
 
I do not endorse a facile literalism (still less, the King James variety). On the other hand, sometimes authors express themselves exoterically: they mean what they say. At such points the expositor’s job is not to seek out further obscurities, but to say, “Yup, that’s pretty much what it means. You didn’t need a biblical scholar to tell you that, did you?”
 

I’ve written about the five-star rating system built into iTunes before, and have offered several revisions of my categories for rating. I’ve recently observed that the significance of the stars in itunes operates less as a personal evaluation of critical quality — “By St Anthony’s whiskers, this is a five-star jingle indeed!” — and more as a marker for how often (or under what circumstances) I would like to hear a given selection. In principle, I might regard a particular composition as truly exceptional; if I want to hear it only rarely, though, I shouldn’t assign it five stars, because that will make iTunes think I want to hear it more often.
 
So I’ve adopted a different system:
   ★★★★★ — I love this selection and want to hear it very often
   ★★★★ — I enjoy this selection a lot; whenever I hear it, it delights me
   ★★★ — I recognize this selection and think it’s pleasant
   ★★ — Either I don’t recognize this selection (new acquisitions) or I recognize it but am not moved to hear it again
   ★ — I recognize this and want to hear it only rarely, when I’ve deliberately sought it out (perhaps it’s a comedy monologue, or a particularly scabrous ditty that I don’t want popping out of speakers uninvited, or a poor recording of a performance I might otherwise enjoy)
    (no stars) — I would prefer not to hear this, and it would probably make sense to delete it altogether if I weren’t a dreadful pack rat.
 
So, until I devise some other basis for rating, I will return to other tasks.

Tim Bray asks whether we have reached the time I foretold a couple of years ago, when an iPod is inexpensive enough that a customer could intelligibly buy an iPod and fill it with music as a casual present (on the scale of a mix tape). Of course, there are the obvious digital-restrictions impediments for people who have bought recordings from iTunes or other limited-use vendors (as opposed to ripping from CD, for example). Still, $50 for a one-gig iPod is reaching the point at which I could be tempted to prepare a distinct “Working on your dissertation” iPod present for Margaret.

Since I suggested yesterday that I would alternate days between anxiety and other topics, I’ll point to the heavy-handed corruption evinced by Comcast’s deliberate inhibition of participatory democracy, and I’ll put off talking about lost sleep till tomorrow. On the other hand, if that fortune cookie slip were right, and my dreams were indeed to come true when I least expect it, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a time I expect it less than, for instance, right about now.
 
Returning to Comcast, David provides both a rich account of what happened at the hearing (bloggie-style, so you have to read from the bottom up) and a meditation on how dangerous the path is that starts identifying some packets as privileged.

Since I deviated from the topic of Seabury in favor of intriguing diversions yesterday, I’m permitting myself to be anxious again today.

Fred Sanders points to a scanned “pocket course” in drawing comics (dated 1943, from the Snack-Pack Co. of Indianapolis). Even though I have all of Scott McCloud’s books, I’ll be downloading this and trying it out; McCloud is a heavyweight on comics theory, but (sensibly) he skims over “how-to” issues, reasoning that the marketplace for such guides is already crammed. Anyway, both the guide and Fred’s comments on it are worth noting.

The 2008 Type Directors’ Club recognition list is out (Typographica.org, not yet). I was delighted to see that award-winner Anselm includes handsome Greek glyphs, and to have noticed designer František Štorm’s characteristic treatment of ductus and contrast.
 
I’m still delighted for Si and Laura, and I’m trying hard not to think about my vocational future.

 
Yesterday, Josiah and Laura called home to tell us that they are engaged to be married! We couldn’t be happier about it; we love Laura, we are delighted to be more closely tied to our in-laws-to-be Carol and Doug, and we rejoice that Si didn’t drop the ring in the snow or something.
 

 
When I brought the news to Pippa, I asked, “Sweetheart, how would you like a sister-in-law?” After a split second for processing, she lit up and said, “Well, if it’s Laura!” That’s how we feel — thrilled, and blessed, and very grateful. We love you two, and we’re very proud of you.