I love Ricky Jay--and have since I first learned about him. He's probably the greatest living sleight of hand practitioner in the world, and his card-tricks are particularly impressive. He' also a pretty good actor. And he could kill you with a thrown playing card (well... maybe... certainly if you were a piece of fruit).
Wanna see some of his tricks? Imagine playing Poker with this guy....
I'm really looking forward to the documentary.
-t
Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Book Review: Shop Class as Soul Craft
I recently finished the book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford. It has been sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me for months, and it was well worth the time it took me to pick it up and read it. The book has some things in common with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, to which it is often compared, but is a much more focused and polemical book. I don't mean "polemical" in a negative way, but it is true that Crawford has a point to make: manual trades are just as important as "knowledge work." Further, denigrating trades as though they were for those who are less smart or couldn't hack it in the new "knowledge economy" is seriously flawed from pyschological, economic, and philosophical points of view. We are poorer in every way when we misunderstand the nature of physical work. This seems like common sense, and yet the trend in education and other social fields has been a pernicious erosion of the value of manual work.
All I can say about this book is "yes, yes, yes." I agree with virtually every point Crawford makes that I can possibly critique, and I found much of his rich historic analysis (he does have a PhD in Political Philosophy) fascinating. Like many good books, he often finds a way of naming things that I only intuitively perceived. For example, he does a great differentiation between a "crew" and a "team." For the sake of his argument he was talking about "teams" as they commonly form in the office environment. He picks apart the vague and unmeasurable goals, the petty politics of power and influence, and all the other common pathologies of office work. Then he defines "crews" as groups of people focused on accomplishing a concrete task (such as building a house). There is a transparency to the work--you either hang a door correctly or you failed, and everyone who encounters the door knows it. In a crew, there is instant and obvious accountability to all the other people on the crew. Influence and power accrue by default to those with the most skill and expertise. You can't bluff your through as part of a crew.
Maybe this is why I like being a part of a crew that races sailboats, or a crew that builds canoes. There isn't much political nonsense in those endeavours. You shape a rib correctly or you don't. You hammer in a tack correctly or it must be redone. You call a lay-line right on the skipper has to tack and tack at the pin (wasting precious time and distance). Meanwhile, the vast majority of my work in church land is impossible to evaluate in a meaningful way. Sometimes I get an "attaboy" when it's a particularly visible or successful project or event. When I preach a particularly good sermon or something like that. But the vast majority of what I do can't be evaluated. This is just the nature of the kind of work I do, and I learned long ago that I would have to rely on self-validation, or perhaps the consolations of the Holy Spirit, rather than rely on exterior sources. So when I get a nice letter from a parishioner I file it away. When a colleague compliments me I enjoy the warm feeling, but I don't rely on either.
So how does the Holy Spirit give me feedback? That's a great question (and is far beyond what Crawford would be comfortable exploring). I'd say it starts in prayer. When I'm praying, really praying, by myself and according to my own tastes, I often feel that God is present and that I am aligned with God's purposes (at least for those minutes of prayer). That's very comforting to me. Occasionally I'll receive a stronger "showing"--perhaps a VERY strong feeling or a vision/impression of some sort. Maybe a dream. Just as often, the feedback will come in the form of a seemingly random event that confirms an impulse. Often these involve other people. For instance, one particularly dark time many years ago I was very unhappy. Then, out of the blue, I received a sextant that my father sent me. It was a WW II vintage aviation sextant of the sort my grandfather once used to fly back and forth across the pacific. The imagery of "The Navigator" is one of the metaphors I use to think of myself, so the sextant has always been a powerful symbol of my identity and calling. At the time I was praying heavily, and that helped, but receiving this sextant seemed like a wonderful answer to those prayers.
A more recent example would be how I've been praying that God would send me guidance about where lead Church of The Messiah. I believe those prayers have been answered by a very strong "leading" and some new people coming into the extended life of our church. When God sends me people like DS and BS (I don't want to embarrass them), I take it is as a celestial pat on the back.
Anyway, back to the book! Crawford argues (successfully, IMHO) that we have come to emphasize, in our school system, one career track. The notion that everyone should go to to college (and perhaps graduate school) and work with their mind in just nonsense. Good plumbers are essential to making civilization flourish, and the work they do requires just as much excellence and intellectual engagement as anything done in front of a computer. So we need to advocate for including the manual arts in all levels of education, otherwise we're going to raise a generation that can't even assemble Ikea furniture on their own!
The ministry analogue, btw, would be people who start in a parish and I have no idea how lead a group in any kind of brainstorming process, who can't manage conflict, and who have no idea how to hire a person, update a website, or do any of the other hundreds of tasks necessary to make a church run. I'm surprised by the number of seminaries I've met who haven't even heard of Family Systems Theory, the Alban Institute Church Size Topology, or many other practical bits of knowledge that I use constantly.
If you are involved at all in education, especially of young people, read this book. If you care about your stuff and where it comes from, read this book. If you want to know more about knowing, read this book!
All I can say about this book is "yes, yes, yes." I agree with virtually every point Crawford makes that I can possibly critique, and I found much of his rich historic analysis (he does have a PhD in Political Philosophy) fascinating. Like many good books, he often finds a way of naming things that I only intuitively perceived. For example, he does a great differentiation between a "crew" and a "team." For the sake of his argument he was talking about "teams" as they commonly form in the office environment. He picks apart the vague and unmeasurable goals, the petty politics of power and influence, and all the other common pathologies of office work. Then he defines "crews" as groups of people focused on accomplishing a concrete task (such as building a house). There is a transparency to the work--you either hang a door correctly or you failed, and everyone who encounters the door knows it. In a crew, there is instant and obvious accountability to all the other people on the crew. Influence and power accrue by default to those with the most skill and expertise. You can't bluff your through as part of a crew.Maybe this is why I like being a part of a crew that races sailboats, or a crew that builds canoes. There isn't much political nonsense in those endeavours. You shape a rib correctly or you don't. You hammer in a tack correctly or it must be redone. You call a lay-line right on the skipper has to tack and tack at the pin (wasting precious time and distance). Meanwhile, the vast majority of my work in church land is impossible to evaluate in a meaningful way. Sometimes I get an "attaboy" when it's a particularly visible or successful project or event. When I preach a particularly good sermon or something like that. But the vast majority of what I do can't be evaluated. This is just the nature of the kind of work I do, and I learned long ago that I would have to rely on self-validation, or perhaps the consolations of the Holy Spirit, rather than rely on exterior sources. So when I get a nice letter from a parishioner I file it away. When a colleague compliments me I enjoy the warm feeling, but I don't rely on either.
So how does the Holy Spirit give me feedback? That's a great question (and is far beyond what Crawford would be comfortable exploring). I'd say it starts in prayer. When I'm praying, really praying, by myself and according to my own tastes, I often feel that God is present and that I am aligned with God's purposes (at least for those minutes of prayer). That's very comforting to me. Occasionally I'll receive a stronger "showing"--perhaps a VERY strong feeling or a vision/impression of some sort. Maybe a dream. Just as often, the feedback will come in the form of a seemingly random event that confirms an impulse. Often these involve other people. For instance, one particularly dark time many years ago I was very unhappy. Then, out of the blue, I received a sextant that my father sent me. It was a WW II vintage aviation sextant of the sort my grandfather once used to fly back and forth across the pacific. The imagery of "The Navigator" is one of the metaphors I use to think of myself, so the sextant has always been a powerful symbol of my identity and calling. At the time I was praying heavily, and that helped, but receiving this sextant seemed like a wonderful answer to those prayers.
A more recent example would be how I've been praying that God would send me guidance about where lead Church of The Messiah. I believe those prayers have been answered by a very strong "leading" and some new people coming into the extended life of our church. When God sends me people like DS and BS (I don't want to embarrass them), I take it is as a celestial pat on the back.
 |
| Matthew Crawford |
The ministry analogue, btw, would be people who start in a parish and I have no idea how lead a group in any kind of brainstorming process, who can't manage conflict, and who have no idea how to hire a person, update a website, or do any of the other hundreds of tasks necessary to make a church run. I'm surprised by the number of seminaries I've met who haven't even heard of Family Systems Theory, the Alban Institute Church Size Topology, or many other practical bits of knowledge that I use constantly.
If you are involved at all in education, especially of young people, read this book. If you care about your stuff and where it comes from, read this book. If you want to know more about knowing, read this book!
Monday, March 11, 2013
Mentorship
I spent some time with my Uncle Chris, Aunt Tay (yes, she has the same name as me), and my cousin Kate today. This is a rare treat as I drifted quite far from that part of my family until recently. As a kid I always loved my scientist-aunt/uncle and had many long talks about explosives and others boyhood wonders of Chemistry. Kate was here in town for an Art History conference (yep, same discipline as my wife, but different subject area), so Tay and Chris came up as well. They wanted a real Toronto Chinatown experience--so we ended up at Mother's Dumplings, which is a well-known place for homemade dumplings. They had no less that eight staff members just stuffing dumplings the whole time we were there! I remember when Mother's was in the basement of a place on Huron Street--the new digs (2010) on Spadina are amazing. Yummy food and a long, meandering talk. Since all five grown ups are teachers in one capacity or another, where was a lot of talk about those realities. I particularly enjoyed my cousin's critique of Wikipedia, which was highly nuanced and researched--she has obviously thought a lot about the issue. It's true, now, that students are constantly trying to use Wikipedia has a source, which in limited circumstances it can be.
My uncle, a chemist who has made most of his career studying issues related to art conservation, is also very interested in questions of craft and material culture. I remember as a kid that their house was filled with antique clocks and looms that he had restored or were works in progress. He has a fantastic collection of traditional hand tools, he tells me. We see eye-to-eye on these issues (like how shameful it is that many high schools have dismantled their shop programs). As we were talking about teaching he asked whether priests in training go through any kind of mentorship programme. So I explained how the field-education system works in Toronto (which is virtually the same from New Haven where I went to seminary).
Basically, to get a Master of Divinity you have to satisfy a field education requirement. The most common way to do this is to spend one academic year as a student in a church placement. The student and the Field Ed. Supervisor (I know two of them: Andrew Sheldon for Wycliffe/Trinity and Natalie Wigg-Stevenson for Emmanuel) decide on possible placements that look like a good match for what the student needs to learn and the priest at that parish is asked whether they are willing to take on that particular student. If student and priest are agreed that it is a good match, the student develops a series of learning goals and we are off to the races.
To be honest, I was never a fan of the whole student-developed learning goal system--especially when I was a student myself. The problem is that you don't know what you don't know. In other words, I think it is problematic to expect a student to be able to identify their own blindspots. The better approach, in my humble opinion, is at least to have them shadow a priest for a few weeks and then ask them where they feel they want to focus their learning.
I suppose that part of the problem is that one year is not much time. At my seminary it was expected that you would do two academic years of field ed. plus a CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) unit one summer. CPE is usually done in a hospital setting--it's a very particular pedagogical paradigm but it has much merit. If you want to learn pastoral care skills in a hurry, CPE is a good place to start. It's kind of like boot camp for pastors--you might hate it, but it could save your life someday.
I love having students. I try to give them all the time, attention, and opportunities that I didn't get when I was a seminarian. If a student were to come to asking to learn how to preach, I would probably put them on the preaching rota (schedule) every other week. If they say they want to learn liturgy I was involve them in the nitty gritty details of planning the Easter Vigil. When it comes to students I say "Bring it on!" Often students come wanting to know about liturgy, which is, indeed, a fundamental skill. We (as Pastors) are asked again and again to plan and preside over meaningful moments in the life of the communities we serve, and that means doing good worship.
Two years ago a student came to me from Wycliffe that wanted to learn liturgy and general priest-craft. So I asked her to show up the next Sunday with a borrow cassock and shadow me through the service. I took mental notes. Even though she didn't actually do anything, I noticed a lot of problems right away that needed correcting. For example, her manner of walking through the space was entirely wrong. Arms waving by her side, constantly shifting this way and that, it was all wrong for worship. I told her afterwards: "you must move like ninja ghost-walker samurai priest." In one of our first "real" one-on-one sessions I asked her to walk with me up and down the liturgical space. I told her to keep her hands together in front of her as she walked (not stiffly, but naturally). I taught her to walk with simple, intentional direction. As little noise as possible. Think of the angels in heaven. Think of the attendants to the Queen. Never walk backwards. Always know where you will be going before you go there.
Any craft can go very deep. I could write many paragraphs about the proper shoes and how to wear them (seriously), but I'm aware that any carpenter would say the same about hammers or screwdrivers. An accountant could wax eloquent about Reverse Polish Notation and spread sheet programmes. But the young ones never listen to us. Interestingly, advice about material culture (like what shoes to wear, how to choose a cassock, etc.) is usually received much more readily than something like preaching advice. Which is weird, because preaching is much more difficult than selecting shoes. Many of my students have resisted my advice or even downright instruction when it comes to preaching. I'm very gentle with newbie preachers, but most aren't ready to take my softest hint, anyway.
Funny, because I would say that I still have a tonne to learn about preaching myself. The general feeling I get, preaching, is that I'm a bone in the mouth of a dog. The dog is the Holy Spirit and She just shakes, shakes, shakes. I envy preachers that get to spend hours and hours preparing. On a really good week I get to spend maybe four or five hours preparing to preach. Meanwhile, a magazine article I read recently simply said that one should spend about 10 hours on their sermon. Really? That must be nice. And, in truth, there are some weeks like that for me still. But the reality of preaching is that the number of hours spent preparing has very little to do with the outcome. Many of of best sermons came from the least preparation--and many of my worst came from the most. The truth is, there is definitely a diminishing return on sermon research--after a while you are just distracting yourself from making up your own mind about what the text has to say that week. For many people that's a disappointing reality to discover. Focusing on "delivery" has a similar limitation. So once you know enough and have a descent delivery, what's left?
That's the kind of deep mystery that one encounters in a craft that is difficult to teach in only one academic year. I love students. I long for students, because when I'm teaching them these mysteries I feel like I'm relearning something myself.
-t
My uncle, a chemist who has made most of his career studying issues related to art conservation, is also very interested in questions of craft and material culture. I remember as a kid that their house was filled with antique clocks and looms that he had restored or were works in progress. He has a fantastic collection of traditional hand tools, he tells me. We see eye-to-eye on these issues (like how shameful it is that many high schools have dismantled their shop programs). As we were talking about teaching he asked whether priests in training go through any kind of mentorship programme. So I explained how the field-education system works in Toronto (which is virtually the same from New Haven where I went to seminary).
Basically, to get a Master of Divinity you have to satisfy a field education requirement. The most common way to do this is to spend one academic year as a student in a church placement. The student and the Field Ed. Supervisor (I know two of them: Andrew Sheldon for Wycliffe/Trinity and Natalie Wigg-Stevenson for Emmanuel) decide on possible placements that look like a good match for what the student needs to learn and the priest at that parish is asked whether they are willing to take on that particular student. If student and priest are agreed that it is a good match, the student develops a series of learning goals and we are off to the races.
To be honest, I was never a fan of the whole student-developed learning goal system--especially when I was a student myself. The problem is that you don't know what you don't know. In other words, I think it is problematic to expect a student to be able to identify their own blindspots. The better approach, in my humble opinion, is at least to have them shadow a priest for a few weeks and then ask them where they feel they want to focus their learning.
I suppose that part of the problem is that one year is not much time. At my seminary it was expected that you would do two academic years of field ed. plus a CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) unit one summer. CPE is usually done in a hospital setting--it's a very particular pedagogical paradigm but it has much merit. If you want to learn pastoral care skills in a hurry, CPE is a good place to start. It's kind of like boot camp for pastors--you might hate it, but it could save your life someday.
I love having students. I try to give them all the time, attention, and opportunities that I didn't get when I was a seminarian. If a student were to come to asking to learn how to preach, I would probably put them on the preaching rota (schedule) every other week. If they say they want to learn liturgy I was involve them in the nitty gritty details of planning the Easter Vigil. When it comes to students I say "Bring it on!" Often students come wanting to know about liturgy, which is, indeed, a fundamental skill. We (as Pastors) are asked again and again to plan and preside over meaningful moments in the life of the communities we serve, and that means doing good worship.
Two years ago a student came to me from Wycliffe that wanted to learn liturgy and general priest-craft. So I asked her to show up the next Sunday with a borrow cassock and shadow me through the service. I took mental notes. Even though she didn't actually do anything, I noticed a lot of problems right away that needed correcting. For example, her manner of walking through the space was entirely wrong. Arms waving by her side, constantly shifting this way and that, it was all wrong for worship. I told her afterwards: "you must move like ninja ghost-walker samurai priest." In one of our first "real" one-on-one sessions I asked her to walk with me up and down the liturgical space. I told her to keep her hands together in front of her as she walked (not stiffly, but naturally). I taught her to walk with simple, intentional direction. As little noise as possible. Think of the angels in heaven. Think of the attendants to the Queen. Never walk backwards. Always know where you will be going before you go there.
Any craft can go very deep. I could write many paragraphs about the proper shoes and how to wear them (seriously), but I'm aware that any carpenter would say the same about hammers or screwdrivers. An accountant could wax eloquent about Reverse Polish Notation and spread sheet programmes. But the young ones never listen to us. Interestingly, advice about material culture (like what shoes to wear, how to choose a cassock, etc.) is usually received much more readily than something like preaching advice. Which is weird, because preaching is much more difficult than selecting shoes. Many of my students have resisted my advice or even downright instruction when it comes to preaching. I'm very gentle with newbie preachers, but most aren't ready to take my softest hint, anyway.
Funny, because I would say that I still have a tonne to learn about preaching myself. The general feeling I get, preaching, is that I'm a bone in the mouth of a dog. The dog is the Holy Spirit and She just shakes, shakes, shakes. I envy preachers that get to spend hours and hours preparing. On a really good week I get to spend maybe four or five hours preparing to preach. Meanwhile, a magazine article I read recently simply said that one should spend about 10 hours on their sermon. Really? That must be nice. And, in truth, there are some weeks like that for me still. But the reality of preaching is that the number of hours spent preparing has very little to do with the outcome. Many of of best sermons came from the least preparation--and many of my worst came from the most. The truth is, there is definitely a diminishing return on sermon research--after a while you are just distracting yourself from making up your own mind about what the text has to say that week. For many people that's a disappointing reality to discover. Focusing on "delivery" has a similar limitation. So once you know enough and have a descent delivery, what's left?
That's the kind of deep mystery that one encounters in a craft that is difficult to teach in only one academic year. I love students. I long for students, because when I'm teaching them these mysteries I feel like I'm relearning something myself.
-t
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Chestnut "Chum" Restoration: Part 1
Here is a first look at the Chestnut "Chum" type canoe that we are restoring this winter. This canoe was graciously donated to us, and we planning to restore to her to stock condition, plus fit her with a mast partner so that we can sail her. Yes, we are planning to sail this canoe. We think she will probably end up living at the QCYC sailing club where she can be shared among a group of us for day-trips around the Toronto Island.
-t
-t
Bending Stems
This winter a group of us guys are building and restoring some canoes. In this video, we are bending the "stems" of the canoe. The stems are the structural bones in the bow and stern which create the shape of the ends. To bend these pieces of ash, we first soaked them in water for a week or so. Then we baked them in a "steam box" for a while. The purpose of the steam is simply to conduct heat to the wood, there is no magic in getting the wood moist through using steam. Nor, according to experiments that have been done, is there any point to pressurizing the chamber. We were using a wall paper steamer to generate the steam, and it wasn't quite enough. The rig worked, but barely, so we are going to add some more steam generation when we steam the ribs.
Anyway, so you get the ash pieces hot and then you quickly bend them to shape on the form and clamp the whole thing in place for several weeks. Eventually the ash will maintain it's now shape. This is an ancient technique used by boat builders for centuries.
-t
Anyway, so you get the ash pieces hot and then you quickly bend them to shape on the form and clamp the whole thing in place for several weeks. Eventually the ash will maintain it's now shape. This is an ancient technique used by boat builders for centuries.
-t
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Contemplating Canoe Building
The guy I sail with (Dave) and a few others of us are considering taking on a winter project this year while Peregrine is out of the water--building a canoe. Dave and a friend of his both have a lot of experience building canoes, and it turns out that this is a do-able garage project. Here is a five minute video that shows what the process looks like for one type of home-built canoe:
Pretty, isn't she? So I'm thinking of building something like this this winter...
-t
Pretty, isn't she? So I'm thinking of building something like this this winter...
-t
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