my contracrostipunctus

2009-11-13T00:55:00.000-08:00

So after an incredible day doing interviews and a press conference and meeting many of our fans here in the Philippines, I got checked into our room at the Shangri-la Hotel and this was the view from the window... I am speechless.

2009-09-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

As a human being, I am in search of the Holy Moment. As an artist, Multisensory Aesthetic Experience is my quest to create the Holy Moment. The following scene from "Waking Life" captures this idea in a beautiful way.

2009-09-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

ASTORYA has some big news! Both of our long time projects are coming into view at once!
Check these out:

1. Worldwide Moment was an incredible success with over 1300 participants in 65 countries around the world. We just launched the first 99 photos in our gallery so check them out and let me know what you think. http://worldwidemoment.org/gallery/

2. "Dear Jack" is finally seeing the light of day! This powerful film is about our good friend and fellow musician Andrew McMahon. He was recently diagnosed with Leukemia and this is the story of his triumphant battle to overcome the disease and continue creating music that moves thousands of people around the world. Check out the trailer here below.

2009-09-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Visualization of sound. This video is as progressive of a take on the MAE idea as I have seen. Thanks John Frazier for sharing this.

Ólafur Arnalds - Ljósið (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

2009-09-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

To celebrate a new season of inspiration and epic aesthetics, I will be sharing a few new videos that have rearranged my mind. Please watch the whole thing, it hits its stride at the 2 minute marker. Thanks 2non!

2009-09-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

A fascinating look at another approach to the theory and concept of multisensory aesthetic experience. You can always rely on TED to deliver the goods. Enjoy!

2009-09-01T12:47:00.001-07:00

Today is a great day for learning something new. Here are two short videos that will enhance the way you look at the world. Special thanks to Melanie for the first one on Ants and Emergence. Emergence is the science of how collections of individual things work together without centralized leadership. I used to think that the ant queen was responsible for organizing everything the ant colony did, but that is not how it works. There is no "leader" ant. So how do a bunch of bugs work together to build a city? Check it out...

The second video is about one of my greatest passions; synesthesia! Multisensory Aesthetic Experience is based on this idea of synesthesia. Check it out...

2009-08-26T20:56:00.001-07:00

As I get closer to 30 its time for a look back at how far my DNA has traveled to get me to where I am today. Ready?

2009-08-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

New song and video from Pearl Jam. There is something about this band that moves me like no other other. I can clearly remember being thirteen and listening to Ten for the first time. It was pure love. This song takes me right back. I hope you like it. Thanks to Zach for the heads up!

2009-08-14T00:32:00.000-07:00

Very cool astronomy video! The best part is at the end and its breathtaking so be patient :)

2009-07-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Check out this video from our current MAE (a)fternoon EP project partners at www.Donorschoose.org. Stephen Colbert is on the Board of Directors??? I bet those Board meetings are hilarious. And yet, somehow, they manage to get all of this stuff done. I love the internet!

2009-07-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

I took another trip to Washington D.C. yesterday. It was the second trip in three days so I decided to make the best of it. Hae-jin came along and we talked for hours about everything you can think of. The main reason for the trip was to pick up the visas from the Indonesian Embassy for our journey next week. After spending four hours in traffic and lines at the Embassy, we decided to have some fun. First, we met up with Vince Scheuerman (Army of Me) and had lunch at a little soup and salad shop in Georgetown. He is one of my favorite people and it was great to be able to spend some time hanging out and catching up. Next we went to the National Zoo (which is free!) to see the Giant Panda exhibit. See pic 5.
We drove up the length of Pennsylvania Ave and saw the White House and the huge grass mall where the Inauguration was held. The traffic was really bad getting onto the interstate so we pulled off at the Jefferson Memorial and walked the grounds for a few hours soaking it all in.
It is amazing to me how a person's perspective can shift over time. All of things you learn about in text books as a kid can seem so dull and impersonal... And then you are standing face to face with history and the realization hits you that these were just ordinary men and woman who faced extraordinary times and challenges. The monuments live to remind us that they rose to challenges of their day and met them with resolve and determination to better the world.
What are the challenges of our day? What must our generation rise above and overcome? There are so many. From religious wars and global warming to poverty, sex trafficking, aids, cancer, and countless others, we have our hands full. What is the first to come to your mind? What will our generation be remembered for in the history books? What legacy are we going to leave behind?

2009-07-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a new project from one of my favorite artists, Jonsi. He sings in the band Sigur Ros. This clips of music in the video sound incredible and I can't wait to get the record.

2009-07-07T08:50:00.001-07:00

2009-07-06T23:42:00.000-07:00

Interesting. At what point do art and commerce coexist productively? This is an honest and unloaded question. Does the thought of "corporate financing" for your favorite band sound better than a traditional record company? Welcome to the future. Marketing strategies are the new CD sales. Thank you Napster for the new music industry ;)
Here is the question; would you rather watch a commercial or buy a CD?

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/07/blink-182-rocks-augmented-reality-show-in-doritos-bag/

2009-07-03T19:20:00.001-07:00

2009-07-03T19:19:00.004-07:00

2009-07-03T19:19:00.003-07:00

2009-07-03T19:19:00.001-07:00

2009-07-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

2009-07-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

2009-06-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Fascinating Wired article about the war between Facebook and Google.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall?currentPage=1

2009-06-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching an extraordinary film called "Baraka." I know I am late to the party on this one since it was made in 1992, but better late than never :)
This film strikes a powerful chord and I highly recommend checking it out. Apparently, the entire film is available on youtube and this link below is to the first ten minutes. Be aware, there is no dialog or subtitles, only music and imagery. (it is very MAE) The story is one of humanity and our relationship to nature, ourselves, and the eternal. Enjoy!

2009-06-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson Shot 3D Video Project Before Death
June 30, 2009 09:26 AM ET
Two weeks before he died, Michael Jackson wrapped up work on an elaborate production dubbed the "Dome Project" that could be the final finished video piece overseen by the King of Pop, The Associated Press has learned.

Jackson was apparently preparing to dazzle concert audiences in London with a high-tech show in which 3D images — some inspired by his "Thriller" era — would flash behind him as he performed on stage.

"It was a groundbreaking effort," said Vince Pace, whose company provided cameras for the shoot, a 3D system he created with filmmaker James Cameron.

"To think that Michael's gone now, that's probably the last documented footage of him to be shot in that manner," Pace said.

Two people with knowledge of the secretive project confirmed its existence Monday to the AP on condition they not be identified because they signed confidentiality agreements.

They said it was a five-week project filmed at Culver Studios, which 70 years ago was the set for the classic film "Gone With the Wind." Four sets were constructed for Jackson's production, including a cemetery recalling his 1983 "Thriller" video.

With 3D technology "the audience would have felt like they were visiting the 'Thriller' experience, like they were there," Pace said.

Shooting for the project lasted from June 1-9, with Jackson on the set most days. The project was in post-production, at the time of Jackson's death, and had been expected to be completed next month. It was not immediately clear what would be made of the video footage now.

Producer Robb Wagner, founder of music-video company Stimulated Inc., did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the project.

Michael Roth, a spokesman for Jackson's Los Angeles-based promoter AEG Live, said he hadn't heard about the production but did not rule that it could be part of the company's contract with the entertainer.

According to one of the people with knowledge of the project, a willow-thin, pallid Jackson left a memorable impression on the crew, arriving in a caravan of SUVs with hulking security guards in tow. The person said Jackson introduced himself to workers on the set and walked with a spring in his step but at one point needed assistance as he descended steps off a stage.

Besides the cemetery, one set was draped in black with an oversized portrait of Jackson in his "Thriller" werewolf costume. Another set was designed to simulate a lush jungle, and a fourth was built to replicate a construction site, with a screen in the back to allow projection of different backgrounds.

Taping took place in marathon sessions ending early in the morning. One scene filmed on the construction site set included scantily clad male dancers wearing carpenter's belts.

According to Stimulated's Web site, the company was hired to produce screen content for Jackson's planned comeback concerts in London. Stimulated has worked with Def Leppard and the Pussycat Dolls, and produced content for the Academy Awards and the Emmys.

Last year, U2 released the concert film "U2 3D," a film of the band's 2005-06 Vertigo tour, shot at several shows in South America with 3-D technology.

At the time, guitarist The Edge told The Associated Press the 3-D technology allowed "the songs to shine through."
___
Associated Press writers David Germain and Ryan Nakashima contributed to this report.
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/michael-jackson-shot-3d-video-project-before-1003988959.story

2009-06-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

Synesthesia is a condition of human perception where one sense (hearing, vision, smell, taste or touch) triggers a response from one of your other senses. Studying synesthesia led me to a better understanding of the goals of MAE and was one of the foundations of the theory of multisensory aesthetic experience. Synesthesia actually IS multisensory aesthetic experience and this video captures the essence of it very creatively. Enjoy!

Synesthesia from Terri Timely on Vimeo.

2009-06-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

Great article about micro-financing and the philosophy that helped inspire our 2009 campaign. This was printed from The Seattle Times at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2009395980&zsection_id=2003925728&slug=philanthropists29&date=20090629

Monday, June 29, 2009

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Microsoft researcher Adnan Mahmud and his wife, Nadia Khawaja, founded Jolkona, a nonprofit to encourage young philanthropists, no matter how small the donation.

Philanthropist Scott Oki is a retired Microsoft executive.

Information

Jolkona Foundation: www.jolkona.org

SeeYourImpact: www.seeyourimpact.org
Microsoft veterans aim to make philanthropy more personal

By Kristi Heim

Seattle Times business reporter

Microsoft veterans are launching two Seattle nonprofits aimed at encouraging a new generation of philanthropists by using mobile phones, social networking and online connections between donors and people in need.

Each started by asking the same question: How could they involve more people, particularly the younger and less affluent, in philanthropy?

They eventually came to the same conclusion: More people would donate if they saw the difference even a small amount of money could make in another person's life.

"If they can actually see the impact of a $17 gift on a human life somewhere around the world, I believe that will open up the floodgates of hundreds of millions of micro-donors impacting the hundreds of millions of needy people around the world," said Scott Oki, a retired Microsoft executive and philanthropist for nearly two decades.

Oki and software entrepreneur Digvijay Chauhan started SeeYourImpact, a micro-charity portal that connects donors to causes and uses mobile phones to capture photos and videos from the field, showing how the donation is working.

Adnan Mahmud, a program manager at Microsoft Research, started the Jolkona Foundation with his wife, Nadia Khawaja, a University of Washington graduate student.

In the Bengali language, Jolkona means a drop of water. The site offers ways to invest in projects around the world, share with friends and see "proof of their impact."

Both SeeYourImpact and Jolkona are tapping into a generation that demands more control of their philanthropy. A generation accustomed to connecting around the world through Facebook now wants a face and a direct connection to someone they're helping.

Technology is "democratizing" philanthropy by giving people quick access to information about the issues and tools to take action, said Trevor Neilson, president of the Seattle advisory firm Global Philanthropy Group.

Everyone can do it

"Just a few years ago philanthropy was really seen as something that rich people do for poor people," he said. "The trend we're seeing now is that everyone can be philanthropic, and can organize themselves around issues they care about."

Oki has founded 16 nonprofits and served on about 100 boards in two decades. Yet, even with charities he knows well, something was missing. "How often have we seen our dollars at work impacting a human life?" he asked. "The answer is not very often."

Oki and his wife, Laurie, are longtime supporters of Seattle Children's hospital.

"Every time we had the occasion to visit the IC unit at a hospital to see the work these doctors are doing saving lives," Oki said, "it hits you at an emotional level to see the impact."

SeeYourImpact plans to work with nongovernmental organizations around the world, where workers using cellphones can take a picture from the field and upload it to the Web site. They can show the delivery of a $10 mosquito net, for example, or a person who is unable to walk getting around on a hand-powered tricycle.

The site is launching in India in October. Oki said Microsoft is helping him develop the technology platform.

Chauhan and Oki first met when Oki invested in Chauhan's startup, AskMe.com, a person-to-person Q&A site. Chauhan said Oki has been an inspirational figure for him since then.

"Just like any other immigrant from the developing world, I have been blessed to experience umpteen inspirational human stories of the impact of a helping hand in the life of courageous people fighting extreme odds," said Chauhan, a native of India.

The two men believe providing ground-level evidence of positive change will encourage many more people to get involved.

"There aren't as many people who can write seven-digit checks," Oki said. "Many more can write two-digit checks."

Mahmud's inspiration came after a trip to Bangladesh, where he witnessed a man burying his 7-year-old son. Traditions call for wrapping the body in clean, white linen, but the man clearly didn't have money for that.

"There were vendors selling cloth for 50 cents or a dollar," Mahmud said. "I could have helped him, but by the time I came to the realization I was already back home."

Jolkona launched its Web site this month. Similar to Kiva and Global Giving, sites that allow people to give small targeted donations or loans, Jolkona lets people channel funds to specific individuals and causes. The nonprofit also gives them new tools for monitoring their impact.

Mahmud said he was put off by large conventional charities because it was hard to choose specific programs or know exactly how contributions were used.

"Black hole"

"It goes into this black hole," he said. "I don't know what happens to it."

Donors can pinpoint countries where they want to contribute and choose from five categories: cultural identity, education, empowerment, environment and public health. Projects can be filtered by the amount of dollars needed, going down to as little as $5, and the duration, from less than a month to six years.

The site also offers what it calls "tangible proofs for every gift."

"If you give $50 to buy library books," Mahmud said, "you'll actually know what books they bought with your donation."

A person's donations are broken into charts and graphs that look as detailed as a 401(k) portfolio. Mahmud calls it "a résumé of good."

He opens up his account and sees an update on a project he's been supporting in India, helping a pregnant woman in a Calcutta slum.

"Look, on the 20th she had her baby," he said. "Adopting" a mother and her baby costs $235, and donors can follow their progress for 3-½ years.

Mahmud and his wife have funded the nonprofit themselves, with help from volunteers and one paid software developer. They have found 19 partners and 39 projects.

Since all donations go to the charities, they created a separate button for donations to offset operating costs.

Connections important

These new efforts share similarities to long-standing child sponsorships from organizations such as Save the Children or Federal Way-based World Vision that let donors get photos and even correspond directly with the child they support.

But Jolkona and SeeYourImpact offer a wider range of projects and online tools to keep track of their donation.

Matthew Nelson, assistant vice president at the Council on Foundations, says the philanthropy world in general is embracing new Web tools and different models to engage younger donors.

The economic downturn creates pressure to innovate, and technologies are becoming easier to use and more affordable.

"Visually it's a powerful marketing message and a great way to make a connection between donor and recipient," he said.

But he said he's cautious about the ability of these sites to measure impact.

"Impact has a much deeper meaning, and that is something traditional philanthropy has continued to home in on, measuring in a more holistic sense. Did the bicycle get ridden? Did the well provide water a year later? Did you actually change their lives?" he said.

"One is not good without the other."

Kristi Heim: 206-464-2718 or kheim@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

2009-06-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Very very interesting...

2009-06-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

2009-06-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

Zach and I are safely in Knoxville, TN after a long 8.5 hour drive today from VA. We had a great afternoon listening to music and talking about everything that has been happening recently. We arrived around 7pm and went straight to the evening session of the Destination Imagination challenge development where we learned about the goals of the weekend. We were given an incredible welcome and were asked to speak briefly about our goals for the year and what brought us to work with DI. Everyone has been incredibly friendly and we were treated to an incredible dinner followed by karaoke and drinks. It was a fun night and I got some great footage that you will see soon :)
So tomorrow we are up at 6:30 to begin an intense three days of work on the challenges for the international community of kids in the DI network. We are not quite sure what to expect but I will keep you posted!

2009-06-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Continuing in the spirit of humor today...
This photo was taken by my great friend Brendan Klein in San Diego.

2009-06-22T15:15:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, its just a bad day...

2009-06-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

My favorite band photo so far...
If you look closely you can see that we are barefoot for summer. There is something about this shot that feels like it captures the essence of mae. The location of the shoot was a beautiful little art museum on the bay in Norfolk. The property itself feels like a time warp to 1800's English countryside. There were a lot of incredible shots from this location that will eventually make their way into flicker or our photo book at the end of this project :)

2009-06-17T14:24:00.001-07:00

Sorry I'm Late from Tomas Mankovsky on Vimeo.

2009-06-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

Following is the prepared text of the speech delivered by Dana Gioia at Commencement on June 17, 2007
L.A. Cicero Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, delivered the Commencement address June 17.

Good morning.

Thank you, President Hennessy.

It is a great honor to be asked to give the Commencement address at my alma mater. Although I have two degrees from Stanford, I still feel a bit like an interloper on this exquisitely beautiful campus. A person never really escapes his or her childhood.

At heart I'm still a working-class kid—half Italian, half Mexican—from L.A., or more precisely from Hawthorne, a city that most of this audience knows only as the setting of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown—two films that capture the ineffable charm of my hometown.

Today is Father's Day, so I hope you will indulge me for beginning on a personal note. I am the first person in my family ever to attend college, and I owe my education to my father, who sacrificed nearly everything to give his four children the best education possible.

My dad had a fairly hard life. He never spoke English until he went to school. He barely survived a plane crash in World War II. He worked hard, but never had much success, except with his family.

When I was about 12, my dad told me that he hoped I would go to Stanford, a place I had never heard of. For him, Stanford represented every success he had missed yet wanted for his children. He would be proud of me today—no matter how dull my speech.

On the other hand, I may be fortunate that my mother isn't here. It isn't Mother's Day, so I can be honest. I loved her dearly, but she could be a challenge. For example, when she learned I had been nominated to be chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, she phoned and said, "Don't think I'm impressed."

I know that there was a bit of controversy when my name was announced as the graduation speaker. A few students were especially concerned that I lacked celebrity status. It seemed I wasn't famous enough. I couldn't agree more. As I have often told my wife and children, "I'm simply not famous enough."

And that—in a more general and less personal sense—is the subject I want to address today, the fact that we live in a culture that barely acknowledges and rarely celebrates the arts or artists.

There is an experiment I'd love to conduct. I'd like to survey a cross-section of Americans and ask them how many active NBA players, Major League Baseball players, and American Idol finalists they can name.

Then I'd ask them how many living American poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, architects, classical musicians, conductors, and composers they can name.

I'd even like to ask how many living American scientists or social thinkers they can name.

Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O'Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.

I don't think that Americans were smarter then, but American culture was. Even the mass media placed a greater emphasis on presenting a broad range of human achievement.

I grew up mostly among immigrants, many of whom never learned to speak English. But at night watching TV variety programs like the Ed Sullivan Show or the Perry Como Music Hall, I saw—along with comedians, popular singers, and movie stars—classical musicians like Jascha Heifetz and Arthur Rubinstein, opera singers like Robert Merrill and Anna Moffo, and jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong captivate an audience of millions with their art.

The same was even true of literature. I first encountered Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman, and James Baldwin on general interest TV shows. All of these people were famous to the average American—because the culture considered them important.

Today no working-class or immigrant kid would encounter that range of arts and ideas in the popular culture. Almost everything in our national culture, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, or altogether eliminated.

The loss of recognition for artists, thinkers, and scientists has impoverished our culture in innumerable ways, but let me mention one. When virtually all of a culture's celebrated figures are in sports or entertainment, how few possible role models we offer the young.

There are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child's imagination, and we've relinquished that imagination to the marketplace.

Of course, I'm not forgetting that politicians can also be famous, but it is interesting how our political process grows more like the entertainment industry each year. When a successful guest appearance on the Colbert Report becomes more important than passing legislation, democracy gets scary. No wonder Hollywood considers politics "show business for ugly people."

Everything now is entertainment. And the purpose of this omnipresent commercial entertainment is to sell us something. American culture has mostly become one vast infomercial.

I have a reccurring nightmare. I am in Rome visiting the Sistine Chapel. I look up at Michelangelo's incomparable fresco of the "Creation of Man." I see God stretching out his arm to touch the reclining Adam's finger. And then I notice in the other hand Adam is holding a Diet Pepsi.

When was the last time you have seen a featured guest on David Letterman or Jay Leno who isn't trying to sell you something? A new movie, a new TV show, a new book, or a new vote?

Don't get me wrong. I love entertainment, and I love the free market. I have a Stanford MBA and spent 15 years in the food industry. I adore my big-screen TV. The productivity and efficiency of the free market is beyond dispute. It has created a society of unprecedented prosperity.

But we must remember that the marketplace does only one thing—it puts a price on everything.

The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us.

There is only one social force in America potentially large and strong enough to counterbalance this profit-driven commercialization of cultural values, our educational system, especially public education. Traditionally, education has been one thing that our nation has agreed cannot be left entirely to the marketplace—but made mandatory and freely available to everyone.

At 56, I am just old enough to remember a time when every public high school in this country had a music program with choir and band, usually a jazz band, too, sometimes even orchestra. And every high school offered a drama program, sometimes with dance instruction. And there were writing opportunities in the school paper and literary magazine, as well as studio art training.

I am sorry to say that these programs are no longer widely available to the new generation of Americans. This once visionary and democratic system has been almost entirely dismantled by well-meaning but myopic school boards, county commissioners, and state officials, with the federal government largely indifferent to the issue. Art became an expendable luxury, and 50 million students have paid the price. Today a child's access to arts education is largely a function of his or her parents' income.

In a time of social progress and economic prosperity, why have we experienced this colossal cultural and political decline? There are several reasons, but I must risk offending many friends and colleagues by saying that surely artists and intellectuals are partly to blame. Most American artists, intellectuals, and academics have lost their ability to converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and inaudible in the general culture.

This mutual estrangement has had enormous cultural, social, and political consequences. America needs its artists and intellectuals, and they need to reestablish their rightful place in the general culture. If we could reopen the conversation between our best minds and the broader public, the results would not only transform society but also artistic and intellectual life.

There is no better place to start this rapprochement than in arts education. How do we explain to the larger society the benefits of this civic investment when they have been convinced that the purpose of arts education is mostly to produce more artists—hardly a compelling argument to either the average taxpayer or financially strapped school board?

We need to create a new national consensus. The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.

This is not happening now in American schools. Even if you forget the larger catastrophe that only 70 percent of American kids now graduate from high school, what are we to make of a public education system whose highest goal seems to be producing minimally competent entry-level workers?

The situation is a cultural and educational disaster, but it also has huge and alarming economic consequences. If the United States is to compete effectively with the rest of the world in the new global marketplace, it is not going to succeed through cheap labor or cheap raw materials, nor even the free flow of capital or a streamlined industrial base. To compete successfully, this country needs continued creativity, ingenuity, and innovation.

It is hard to see those qualities thriving in a nation whose educational system ranks at the bottom of the developed world and has mostly eliminated the arts from the curriculum.

I have seen firsthand the enormous transformative power of the arts—in the lives of individuals, in communities, and even society at large.

Marcus Aurelius believed that the course of wisdom consisted of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones. I worry about a culture that bit by bit trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment. And that is exactly what is happening—not just in the media, but in our schools and civic life.

Entertainment promises us a predictable pleasure—humor, thrills, emotional titillation, or even the odd delight of being vicariously terrified. It exploits and manipulates who we are rather than challenges us with a vision of who we might become. A child who spends a month mastering Halo or NBA Live on Xbox has not been awakened and transformed the way that child would be spending the time rehearsing a play or learning to draw.

If you don't believe me, you should read the statistical studies that are now coming out about American civic participation. Our country is dividing into two distinct behavioral groups. One group spends most of its free time sitting at home as passive consumers of electronic entertainment. Even family communication is breaking down as members increasingly spend their time alone, staring at their individual screens.

The other group also uses and enjoys the new technology, but these individuals balance it with a broader range of activities. They go out—to exercise, play sports, volunteer and do charity work at about three times the level of the first group. By every measure they are vastly more active and socially engaged than the first group.

What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.

Why do these issues matter to you? This is the culture you are about to enter. For the last few years you have had the privilege of being at one of the world's greatest universities—not only studying, but being a part of a community that takes arts and ideas seriously. Even if you spent most of your free time watching Grey's Anatomy, playing Guitar Hero, or Facebooking your friends, those important endeavors were balanced by courses and conversations about literature, politics, technology, and ideas.

Distinguished graduates, your support system is about to end. And you now face the choice of whether you want to be a passive consumer or an active citizen. Do you want to watch the world on a screen or live in it so meaningfully that you change it?

That's no easy task, so don't forget what the arts provide.

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world—equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being—simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, "It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget." Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity. You don't outgrow art. The same work can mean something different at each stage of your life. A good book changes as you change.

My own art is poetry, though my current daily life sometimes makes me forget that. So let me end my remarks with a short poem appropriate to the occasion.

[PRAISE TO THE RITUALS THAT CELEBRATE CHANGE]

Praise to the rituals that celebrate change,
old robes worn for new beginnings,
solemn protocol where the mutable soul,
surrounded by ancient experience, grows
young in the imagination's white dress.

Because it is not the rituals we honor
but our trust in what they signify, these rites
that honor us as witnesses—whether to watch
lovers swear loyalty in a careless world
or a newborn washed with water and oil.

So praise to innocence—impulsive and evergreen—
and let the old be touched by youth's
wayward astonishment at learning something new,
and dream of a future so fitting and so just
that our desire will bring it into being.

Congratulations to the Class of 2007.

SR

2009-06-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

I was doing some reading today and I stumbled across a fascinating article by one of my favorite authors; Malcom Gladwell. Gladwell is famous for his books "The Tipping Point" and "Blink." He has a new book called "Outliers" that Zach and I have been reading through about the hidden details of great achievement.
Gladwell often writes for the New Yorker Magazine and as I was reading through some of his older articles, I was struck by one in particular.
Most of you probably remember the US Presidential debates last year beginning in a church called Saddleback. The debate dealt with a variety of issues including an open discussion about the role of faith and spirituality in modern culture. Pastor Rick Warren hosted the debate and it garnered a great deal of attention and generated discussion on many different fronts. In 2005, Gladwell had written an article in the New Yorker about how Pastor Warren had built his ministry and I thought it was worth sharing here. Enjoy and let me know what stands out to you in this piece.

Here is the article from www.gladwell.com

The Cellular Church

September 12, 2005
Letter From Saddleback

How Rick Warren built his ministry.

1.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Saddleback Church, Rick Warren hired the Anaheim Angels' baseball stadium. He wanted to address his entire congregation at once, and there was no way to fit everyone in at Saddleback, where the crowds are spread across services held over the course of an entire weekend. So Warren booked the stadium and printed large, silver-black-and-white tickets, and, on a sunny Sunday morning last April, the tens of thousands of congregants of one of America's largest churches began to file into the stands. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts and buying Cokes and hamburgers from the concession stands, if they had not already tailgated in the parking lot. On the field, a rock band played loudly and enthusiastically. Just after one o'clock, a voice came over the public-address system—"RIIIICK WARRRREN"—and Warren bounded onto the stage, wearing black slacks, a red linen guayabera shirt, and wraparound NASCAR sunglasses. The congregants leaped to their feet."You know," Warren said, grabbing the microphone, "there are two things I've always wanted to do in a stadium." He turned his body sideways, playing an imaginary guitar, and belted out the first few lines of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." His image was up on the Jumbotrons in right and left fields, just below the Verizon and Pepsi and Budweiser logos. He stopped and grinned. "The other thing is, I want to do a wave!" He pointed to the bleachers, and then to the right-field seats, and around and around the stadium the congregation rose and fell, in four full circuits. "You are the most amazing church in America!" Warren shouted out, when they had finally finished. "AND I LOVE YOU!"

2.

Rick Warren is a large man, with a generous stomach. He has short, spiky hair and a goatee. He looks like an ex-athlete, or someone who might have many tattoos. He is a hugger, enfolding those he meets in his long arms and saying things like "Hey, man." According to Warren, from sixth grade through college there wasn't a day in his life that he wasn't president of something, and that makes sense, because he's always the one at the center of the room talking or laughing, with his head tilted way back, or crying, which he does freely. In the evangelical tradition, preachers are hard or soft. Billy Graham, with his piercing eyes and protruding chin and Bible clenched close to his chest, is hard. So was Martin Luther King, Jr., who overwhelmed his audience with his sonorous, forcefully enunciated cadences. Warren is soft. His sermons are conversational, delivered in a folksy, raspy voice. He talks about how he loves Krispy Kreme doughnuts, drives a four-year-old Ford, and favors loud Hawaiian shirts, even at the pulpit, because, he says, "they do not itch."

In December of 1979, when Warren was twenty-five years old, he and his wife, Kay, took their four-month-old baby and drove in a U-Haul from Texas to Saddleback Valley, in Orange County, because Warren had read that it was one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. He walked into the first real-estate office he found and introduced himself to the first agent he saw, a man named Don Dale. He was looking for somewhere to live, he said.

"Do you have any money to rent a house?" Dale asked.
"Not much, but we can borrow some," Warren replied.
"Do you have a job?"
"No. I don't have a job."
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a minister."
"So you have a church?"
"Not yet."

Dale found him an apartment that very day, of course: Warren is one of those people whose lives have an irresistible forward momentum. In the car on the way over, he recruited Dale as the first member of his still nonexistent church, of course. And when he held his first public service, three months later, he stood up in front of two hundred and five people he barely knew in a high-school gymnasium—this shiny-faced preacher fresh out of seminary—and told them that one day soon their new church would number twenty thousand people and occupy a campus of fifty acres. Today, Saddleback Church has twenty thousand members and occupies a campus of a hundred and twenty acres. Once, Warren wanted to increase the number of small groups at Saddleback—the groups of six or seven that meet for prayer and fellowship during the week—by three hundred. He went home and prayed and, as he tells it, God said to him that what he really needed to do was increase the number of small groups by three thousand, which is just what he did. Then, a few years ago, he wrote a book called "The Purpose-Driven Life," a genre of book that is known in the religious-publishing business as "Christian Living," and that typically sells thirty or forty thousand copies a year. Warren's publishers came to see him at Saddleback, and sat on the long leather couch in his office, and talked about their ideas for the book. "You guys don't understand," Warren told them. "This is a hundred-million-copy book." Warren remembers stunned silence: "Their jaws dropped." But now, nearly three years after its publication, "The Purpose-Driven Life" has sold twenty-three million copies. It is among the best-selling nonfiction hardcover books in American history. Neither the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, nor the Washington Post has reviewed it. Warren's own publisher didn't see it coming. Only Warren had faith. "The best of the evangelical tradition is that you don't plan your way forward—you prophesy your way forward," the theologian Leonard Sweet says. "Rick's prophesying his way forward."

Not long after the Anaheim service, Warren went back to his office on the Saddleback campus. He put his feet up on the coffee table. On the wall in front of him were framed originals of the sermons of the nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon, and on the bookshelf next to him was his collection of hot sauces. "I had dinner with Jack Welch last Sunday night," he said. "He came to church, and we had dinner. I've been kind of mentoring him on his spiritual journey. And he said to me, 'Rick, you are the biggest thinker I have ever met in my life. The only other person I know who thinks globally like you is Rupert Murdoch.' And I said, 'That's interesting. I'm Rupert's pastor! Rupert published my book!'" Then he tilted back his head and gave one of those big Rick Warren laughs.

3.

Churches, like any large voluntary organization, have at their core a contradiction. In order to attract newcomers, they must have low barriers to entry. They must be unintimidating, friendly, and compatible with the culture they are a part of. In order to retain their membership, however, they need to have an identity distinct from that culture. They need to give their followers a sense of community—and community, exclusivity, a distinct identity are all, inevitably, casualties of growth. As an economist would say, the bigger an organization becomes, the greater a free-rider problem it has. If I go to a church with five hundred members, in a magnificent cathedral, with spectacular services and music, why should I volunteer or donate any substantial share of my money? What kind of peer pressure is there in a congregation that large? If the barriers to entry become too low—and the ties among members become increasingly tenuous—then a church as it grows bigger becomes weaker.

One solution to the problem is simply not to grow, and, historically, churches have sacrificed size for community. But there is another approach: to create a church out of a network of lots of little church cells—exclusive, tightly knit groups of six or seven who meet in one another's homes during the week to worship and pray. The small group as an instrument of community is initially how Communism spread, and in the postwar years Alcoholics Anonymous and its twelve-step progeny perfected the small-group technique. The small group did not have a designated leader who stood at the front of the room. Members sat in a circle. The focus was on discussion and interaction—not one person teaching and the others listening—and the remarkable thing about these groups was their power. An alcoholic could lose his job and his family, he could be hospitalized, he could be warned by half a dozen doctors—and go on drinking. But put him in a room of his peers once a week—make him share the burdens of others and have his burdens shared by others—and he could do something that once seemed impossible.

When churches—in particular, the megachurches that became the engine of the evangelical movement, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties—began to adopt the cellular model, they found out the same thing. The small group was an extraordinary vehicle of commitment. It was personal and flexible. It cost nothing. It was convenient, and every worshipper was able to find a small group that precisely matched his or her interests. Today, at least forty million Americans are in a religiously based small group, and the growing ranks of small-group membership have caused a profound shift in the nature of the American religious experience."

As I see it, one of the most unfortunate misunderstandings of our time has been to think of small intentional communities as groups 'within' the church," the philosopher Dick Westley writes in one of the many books celebrating the rise of small-group power. "When are we going to have the courage to publicly proclaim what everyone with any experience with small groups has known all along: they are not organizations 'within' the church; they are church."

Ram Cnaan, a professor of social work at the University of Pennsylvania, recently estimated the replacement value of the charitable work done by the average American church—that is, the amount of money it would take to equal the time, money, and resources donated to the community by a typical congregation—and found that it came to about a hundred and forty thousand dollars a year. In the city of Philadelphia, for example, that works out to an annual total of two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of community "good"; on a national scale, the contribution of religious groups to the public welfare is, as Cnaan puts it, "staggering." In the past twenty years, as the enthusiasm for publicly supported welfare has waned, churches have quietly and steadily stepped in to fill the gaps. And who are the churchgoers donating all that time and money? People in small groups. Membership in a small group is a better predictor of whether people volunteer or give money than how often they attend church, whether they pray, whether they've had a deep religious experience, or whether they were raised in a Christian home. Social action is not a consequence of belief, in other words. I don't give because I believe in religious charity. I give because I belong to a social structure that enforces an ethic of giving. "Small groups are networks," the Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow, who has studied the phenomenon closely, says. "They create bonds among people. Expose people to needs, provide opportunities for volunteering, and put people in harm's way of being asked to volunteer. That's not to say that being there for worship is not important. But, even in earlier research, I was finding that if people say all the right things about being a believer but aren't involved in some kind of physical social setting that generates interaction, they are just not as likely to volunteer."

Rick Warren came to the Saddle-back Valley just as the small-group movement was taking off. He was the son of a preacher—a man who started seven churches in and around Northern California and was enough of a carpenter to have built a few dozen more with his own hands—and he wanted to do what his father had done: start a church from scratch.

For the first three months, he went from door to door in the neighborhood around his house, asking people why they didn't attend church. Churches were boring and irrelevant to everyday life, he was told. They were unfriendly to visitors. They were too interested in money. They had inadequate children's programs. So Warren decided that in his new church people would play and sing contemporary music, not hymns. (He could find no one, Warren likes to say, who listened to organ music in the car.) He would wear the casual clothes of his community. The sermons would be practical and funny and plainspoken, and he would use video and drama to illustrate his message. And when an actual church was finally built—Saddleback used seventy-nine different locations in its first thirteen years, from high-school auditoriums to movie theatres and then tents before building a permanent home—the church would not look churchy: no pews, or stained glass, or lofty spires. Saddleback looks like a college campus, and the main sanctuary looks like the school gymnasium. Parking is plentiful. The chairs are comfortable. There are loudspeakers and television screens everywhere broadcasting the worship service, and all the doors are open, so anyone can slip in or out, at any time, in the anonymity of the enormous crowds. Saddle-back is a church with very low barriers to entry.

But beneath the surface is a network of thousands of committed small groups. "Orange County is virtually a desert in social-capital terms," the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, who has taken a close look at the Saddleback success story, says. "The rate of mobility is really high. It has long and anonymous commutes. It's a very friendless place, and this church offers serious heavy friendship. It's a very interesting experience to talk to some of those groups. There were these eight people and they were all mountain bikers—mountain bikers for God. They go biking together, and they are one another's best friends. If one person's wife gets breast cancer, he can go to the others for support. If someone loses a job, the others are there for him. They are deeply best friends, in a larger social context where it is hard to find a best friend."

Putnam goes on, "Warren didn't invent the cellular church. But he's brought it to an amazing level of effectiveness. The real job of running Saddleback is the recruitment and training and retention of the thousands of volunteer leaders for all the small groups it has. That's the surprising thing to me—that they are able to manage that. Those small groups are incredibly vulnerable, and complicated to manage. How to keep all those little dinghies moving in the same direction is, organizationally, a major accomplishment."

At Saddleback, members are expected to tithe, and to volunteer. Sunday-school teachers receive special training and a police background check. Recently, Warren decided that Saddleback would feed every homeless person in Orange County three meals a day for forty days. Ninety-two hundred people volunteered. Two million pounds of food were collected, sorted, and distributed.

It may be easy to start going to Saddleback. But it is not easy to stay at Saddleback. "Last Sunday, we took a special offering called Extend the Vision, for people to give over and above their normal offering," Warren said. "We decided we would not use any financial consultants, no high-powered gimmicks, no thermometer on the wall. It was just 'Folks, you know you need to give.' Sunday's offering was seven million dollars in cash and fifty-three million dollars in commitments. That's one Sunday. The average commitment was fifteen thousand dollars a family. That's in addition to their tithe. When people say megachurches are shallow, I say you have no idea. These people are committed."

Warren's great talent is organizational. He's not a theological innovator. When he went from door to door, twenty-five years ago, he wasn't testing variants on the Christian message. As far as he was concerned, the content of his message was non-negotiable. Theologically, Warren is a straight-down-the-middle evangelical. What he wanted to learn was how to construct an effective religious institution. His interest was sociological. Putnam compares Warren to entrepreneurs like Ray Kroc and Sam Walton, pioneers not in what they sold but in how they sold. The contemporary thinker Warren cites most often in conversation is the management guru Peter Drucker, who has been a close friend of his for years. Before Warren wrote "The Purpose-Driven Life," he wrote a book called "The Purpose-Driven Church," which was essentially a how-to guide for church builders. He's run hundreds of training seminars around the world for ministers of small-to-medium-sized churches. At the beginning of the Internet boom, he created a Web site called pastors.com, on which he posted his sermons for sale for four dollars each. There were many pastors in the world, he reasoned, who were part time. They had a second, nine-to-five job and families of their own, and what little free time they had was spent ministering to their congregation. Why not help them out with Sunday morning? The Web site now gets nearly four hundred thousand hits a day.

"I went to South Africa two years ago," Warren said. "We did the purpose-driven-church training, and we simulcast it to ninety thousand pastors across Africa. After it was over, I said, 'Take me out to a village and show me some churches.'"

In the first village they went to, the local pastor came out, saw Warren, and said, "I know who you are. You're Pastor Rick."

"And I said, 'How do you know who I am?' " Warren recalled. "He said, 'I get your sermons every week.' And I said, 'How? You don't even have electricity here.' And he said, 'We're putting the Internet in every post office in South Africa. Once a week, I walk an hour and a half down to the post office. I download it. Then I teach it. You are the only training I have ever received.'"

A typical evangelist, of course, would tell stories about reaching ordinary people, the unsaved laity. But a typical evangelist is someone who goes from town to town, giving sermons to large crowds, or preaching to a broad audience on television. Warren has never pastored any congregation but Saddleback, and he refuses to preach on television, because that would put him in direct competition with the local pastors he has spent the past twenty years cultivating. In the argot of the New Economy, most evangelists follow a business-to-consumer model: b-to-c. Warren follows a business-to-business model: b-to-b. He reaches the people who reach people. He's a builder of religious networks. "I once heard Drucker say this," Warren said. "'Warren is not building a tent revival ministry, like the old-style evangelists. He's building an army, like the Jesuits.'"

4.

To write "The Purpose-Driven Life," Warren holed up in an office in a corner of the Saddleback campus, twelve hours a day for seven months. "I would get up at four-thirty, arrive at my special office at five, and I would write from five to five," he said. "I'm a people person, and it about killed me to be alone by my-self. By eleven-thirty, my A.D.D. would kick in. I would do anything not to be there. It was like birthing a baby." The book didn't tell any stories. It wasn't based on any groundbreaking new research or theory or theological insight. "I'm just not that good a writer," Warren said. "I'm a pastor. There's nothing new in this book. But sometimes as I was writing it I would break down in tears. I would be weeping, and I would feel like God was using me."

The book begins with an inscription: "This book is dedicated to you. Before you were born, God planned this moment in your life. It is no accident that you are holding this book. God longs for you to discover the life he created you to live—here on earth, and forever in eternity." Five sections follow, each detailing one of God's purposes in our lives—"You Were Planned for God's Pleasure"; "You Were Formed for God's Family"; "You Were Created to Become Like Christ"; "You Were Shaped for Serving God"; "You Were Made for a Mission"—and each of the sections, in turn, is divided into short chapters ("Understanding Your Shape" or "Using What God Gave You" or "How Real Servants Act"). The writing is simple and unadorned. The scriptural interpretation is literal: "Noah had never seen rain, because prior to the Flood, God irrigated the earth from the ground up." The religious vision is uncomplicated and accepting: "God wants to be your best friend." Warren's Christianity, like his church, has low barriers to entry: "Wherever you are reading this, I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity. Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you. Go ahead. If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the family of God! You are now ready to discover and start living God's purpose for your life."

It is tempting to interpret the book's message as a kind of New Age self-help theology. Warren's God is not awesome or angry and does not stand in judgment of human sin. He's genial and mellow. "Warren's God 'wants to be your best friend,' and this means, in turn, that God's most daunting property, the exercise of eternal judgment, is strategically downsized," the critic Chris Lehmann writes, echoing a common complaint:

"When Warren turns his utility-minded feel-speak upon the symbolic iconography of the faith, the results are offensively bathetic: "When Jesus stretched his arms wide on the cross, he was saying, 'I love you this much.' " But God needs to be at a greater remove than a group hug."

The self-help genre, however, is fundamentally inward-focussed. M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled"—the only spiritual work that, in terms of sales, can even come close to "The Purpose-Driven Life"—begins with the sentence "Life is difficult." That's a self-help book: it focusses the reader on his own experience. Warren's first sentence, by contrast, is "It's not about you," which puts it in the spirit of traditional Christian devotional literature, which focusses the reader outward, toward God. In look and feel, in fact, "The Purpose-Driven Life" is less twenty-first-century Orange County than it is the nineteenth century of Warren's hero, the English evangelist Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon was the Warren of his day: the pastor of a large church in London, and the author of best-selling devotional books. On Sunday, good Christians could go and hear Spurgeon preach at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. But during the week they needed something to replace the preacher, and so Spurgeon, in one of his best-known books, "Morning and Evening," wrote seven hundred and thirty-two short homilies, to be read in the morning and the evening of each day of the year. The homilies are not complex investigations of theology. They are opportunities for spiritual reflection. (Sample Spurgeonism: "Every child of God is where God has placed him for some purpose, and the practical use of this first point is to lead you to inquire for what practical purpose has God placed each one of you where you now are." Sound familiar?) The Oxford Times described one of Spurgeon's books as "a rich store of topics treated daintily, with broad humour, with quaint good sense, yet always with a subdued tone and high moral aim," and that describes "The Purpose-Driven Life" as well. It's a spiritual companion. And, like "Morning and Evening," it is less a book than a program. It's divided into forty chapters, to be read during "Forty Days of Purpose." The first page of the book is called "My Covenant." It reads, "With God's help, I commit the next 40 days of my life to discovering God's purpose for my life."

Warren departs from Spurgeon, though, in his emphasis on the purpose-driven life as a collective experience. Below the boxed covenant is a space for not one signature but three: "Your name," "Partner's name," and then Rick Warren's signature, already printed, followed by a quotation from Ecclesiastes 4:9:

"Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. . . . Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break."

"The Purpose-Driven Life" is meant to be read in groups. If the vision of faith sometimes seems skimpy, that's because the book is supposed to be supplemented by a layer of discussion and reflection and debate. It is a testament to Warren's intuitive understanding of how small groups work that this is precisely how "The Purpose-Driven Life" has been used. It spread along the network that he has spent his career putting together, not from person to person but from group to group. It presold five hundred thousand copies. It averaged more than half a million copies in sales a month in its first two years, which is possible only when a book is being bought in lots of fifty or a hundred or two hundred. Of those who bought the book as individuals, nearly half have bought more than one copy, sixteen per cent have bought four to six copies, and seven per cent have bought ten or more. Twenty-five thousand churches have now participated in the congregation-wide "40 Days of Purpose" campaign, as have hundreds of small groups within companies and organizations, from the N.B.A. to the United States Postal Service.

"I remember the first time I met Rick," says Scott Bolinder, the head of Zondervan, the Christian publishing division of HarperCollins and the publisher of "The Purpose-Driven Life." "He was telling me about pastors.com. This is during the height of the dot-com boom. I was thinking, What's your angle? He had no angle. He said, 'I love pastors. I know what they go through.' I said, 'What do you put on there?' He said, 'I put my sermons with a little disclaimer on there: "You are welcome to preach it any way you can. I only ask one thing—I ask that you do it better than I did."' So then fast-forward seven years: he's got hundreds of thousands of pastors who come to this Web site. And he goes, 'By the way, my church and I are getting ready to do forty days of purpose. If you want to join us, I'm going to preach through this and put my sermons up. And I've arranged with my publisher that if you do join us with this campaign they will sell the book to you for a low price.' That became the tipping point—being able to launch that book with eleven hundred churches, right from the get-go. They became the evangelists for the book."

The book's high-water mark came earlier this year, when a fugitive named Brian Nichols, who had shot and killed four people in an Atlanta courthouse, accosted a young single mother, Ashley Smith, outside her apartment, and held her captive in her home for seven hours.

"I asked him if I could read," Smith said at the press conference after her ordeal was over, and so she went and got her copy of "The Purpose-Driven Life" and turned to the chapter she was reading that day. It was Chapter 33, "How Real Servants Act." It begins:

"We serve God by serving others.

The world defines greatness in terms of power, possessions, prestige, and position. If you can demand service from others, you've arrived. In our self-serving culture with its me-first mentality, acting like a servant is not a popular concept.

Jesus, however, measured greatness in terms of service, not status. God determines your greatness by how many people you serve, not how many people serve you."

Nichols listened and said, "Stop. Will you read it again?"

Smith read it to him again. They talked throughout the night. She made him pancakes. "I said, 'Do you believe in miracles? Because if you don't believe in miracles — you are here for a reason. You're here in my apartment for some reason.' " She might as well have been quoting from "The Purpose-Driven Life." She went on, "You don't think you're supposed to be sitting here right in front of me listening to me tell you, you know, your reason for being here?" When morning came, Nichols let her go.

Hollywood could not have scripted a better testimonial for "The Purpose-Driven Life." Warren's sales soared further. But the real lesson of that improbable story is that it wasn't improbable at all. What are the odds that a young Christian—a woman who, it turns out, sends her daughter to Hebron Church, in Dacula, Georgia—isn't reading "The Purpose-Driven Life"? And is it surprising that Ashley Smith would feel compelled to read aloud from the book to her captor, and that, in the discussion that followed, Nichols would come to some larger perspective on his situation? She and Nichols were in a small group, and reading aloud from "The Purpose-Driven Life" is what small groups do.

5.

Not long ago, the sociologist Christian Smith decided to find out what American evangelicals mean when they say that they believe in a "Christian America." The phrase seems to suggest that evangelicals intend to erode the separation of church and state. But when Smith asked a representative sample of evangelicals to explain the meaning of the phrase, the most frequent explanation was that America was founded by people who sought religious liberty and worked to establish religious freedom. The second most frequent explanation offered was that a majority of Americans of earlier generations were sincere Christians, which, as Smith points out, is empirically true. Others said what they meant by a Christian nation was that the basic laws of American government reflected Christian principles—which sounds potentially theocratic, except that when Smith asked his respondents to specify what they meant by basic laws they came up with representative government and the balance of powers.

"In other words," Smith writes, "the belief that America was once a Christian nation does not necessarily mean a commitment to making it a 'Christian' nation today, whatever that might mean. Some evangelicals do make this connection explicitly. But many discuss America's Christian heritage as a simple fact of history that they are not particularly interested in or optimistic about reclaiming. Further, some evangelicals think America never was a Christian nation; some think it still is; and others think it should not be a Christian nation, whether or not it was so in the past or is now."

As Smith explored one issue after another with the evangelicals—gender equality, education, pluralism, and politics—he found the same scattershot pattern. The Republican Party may have been adept at winning the support of evangelical voters, but that affinity appears to be as much cultural as anything; the Party has learned to speak the evangelical language. Scratch the surface, and the appearance of homogeneity and ideological consistency disappears. Evangelicals want children to have the right to pray in school, for example, and they vote for conservative Republicans who support that right. But what do they mean by prayer? The New Testament's most left-liberal text, the Lord's Prayer—which, it should be pointed out, begins with a call for utopian social restructuring ("Thy will be done, On earth as it is in Heaven"), then welfare relief ("Give us this day our daily bread"), and then income redistribution ("Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors"). The evangelical movement isn't a movement, if you take movements to be characterized by a coherent philosophy, and that's hardly surprising when you think of the role that small groups have come to play in the evangelical religious experience. The answers that Smith got to his questions are the kind of answers you would expect from people who think most deeply about their faith and its implications on Tuesday night, or Wednesday, with five or six of their closest friends, and not Sunday morning, in the controlling hands of a pastor.

"Small groups cultivate spirituality, but it is a particular kind of spirituality," Robert Wuthnow writes. "They cannot be expected to nurture faith in the same way that years of theological study, meditation and reflection might." He says, "They provide ways of putting faith in practice. For the most part, their focus is on practical applications, not on abstract knowledge, or even on ideas for the sake of ideas themselves."

We are so accustomed to judging a social movement by its ideological coherence that the vagueness at the heart of evangelicalism sounds like a shortcoming. Peter Drucker calls Warren's network an army, like the Jesuits. But the Jesuits marched in lockstep and held to an all-encompassing and centrally controlled creed. The members of Warren's network don't all dress the same, and they march to the tune only of their own small group, and they agree, fundamentally, only on who the enemy is. It's not an army. It's an insurgency.

In the wake of the extraordinary success of "The Purpose-Driven Life," Warren says, he underwent a period of soul-searching. He had suddenly been given enormous wealth and influence and he did not know what he was supposed to do with it. "God led me to Psalm 72, which is Solomon's prayer for more influence," Warren says. "It sounds pretty selfish. Solomon is already the wisest and wealthiest man in the world. He's the King of Israel at the apex of its glory. And in that psalm he says, 'God, I want you to make me more powerful and influential.' It looks selfish until he says, 'So that the King may support the widow and orphan, care for the poor, defend the defenseless, speak up for the immigrant, the foreigner, be a friend to those in prison.' Out of that psalm, God said to me that the purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence. That changed my life. I had to repent. I said, I'm sorry, widows and orphans have not been on my radar. I live in Orange County. I live in the Saddleback Valley, which is all gated communities. There aren't any homeless people around. They are thirteen miles away, in Santa Ana, not here." He gestured toward the rolling green hills outside. "I started reading through Scripture. I said, How did I miss the two thousand verses on the poor in the Bible? So I said, I will use whatever affluence and influence that you give me to help those who are marginalized."

He and his wife, Kay, decided to reverse tithe, giving away ninety per cent of the tens of millions of dollars they earned from "The Purpose-Driven Life." They sat down with gay community leaders to talk about fighting AIDS. Warren has made repeated trips to Africa. He has sent out volunteers to forty-seven countries around the world, test-piloting experiments in microfinance and H.I.V. prevention and medical education. He decided to take the same networks he had built to train pastors and spread the purpose-driven life and put them to work on social problems.

"There is only one thing big enough to handle the world's problems, and that is the millions and millions of churches spread out around the world," he says. "I can take you to thousands of villages where they don't have a school. They don't have a grocery store, don't have a fire department. But they have a church. They have a pastor. They have volunteers. The problem today is distribution. In the tsunami, millions of dollars of foodstuffs piled up on the shores and people couldn't get it into the places that needed it, because they didn't have a network. Well, the biggest distribution network in the world is local churches. There are millions of them, far more than all the franchises in the world. Put together, they could be a force for good."

That is, in one sense, a typical Warren pronouncement—bold to the point of audacity, like telling his publisher that his book will sell a hundred million copies. In another sense, it is profoundly modest. When Warren's nineteenth-century evangelical predecessors took on the fight against slavery, they brought to bear every legal, political, and economic lever they could get their hands on. But that was a different time, and that was a different church. Today's evangelicalism is a network, and networks, for better or worse, are informal and personal.

At the Anaheim stadium service, Warren laid out his plan for attacking poverty and disease. He didn't talk about governments, though, or the United Nations, or structures, or laws. He talked about the pastors he had met in his travels around the world. He brought out the President of Rwanda, who stood up at the microphone—a short, slender man in an immaculate black suit—and spoke in halting English about how Warren was helping him rebuild his country. When he was finished, the crowd erupted in applause, and Rick Warren walked across the stage and enfolded him in his long arms.

2009-05-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes on long drives I get motivated to do things that I might not normally do. Yesterday I decided to look back through our tour history and make a list of the bands we've toured with or played shows with so far. This might not be complete and it doesn't include the many local bands we have shared the stage with because they usually aren't listed by name. But here is a first draft and it is pretty incredible to think back through all of the memories that surround these names. Enjoy:

The starting line
Unsung zeros
Punchline
Brand new
Vendetta red
The movie life
Plain white tees
Army of me
Elliott
Senses fail
Hidden in plain view
Copeland
The working title
Watashi wa
River city high
Zoloft the Rock and Roll Destroyer
Piebald
Ozma
The format
Armor for sleep
Matches
The stereo
Bayside
My hotel year
Glasseater
Celebrity
As tall as lions
Rufio
Motion city soundtrack
Fall out boy
Something corporate
Rx bandits
Days away
Jamison Parker
The rocket summer
Relient k
Sugar cult
Maxeen
Spitalfield
Communique
The snake, the cross, the crown
Sleeping at last
Hot rod Circuit
Waking ashland
Action action
Yellowcard
Lucero
Underoath
Further seems forever
Mewithoutyou
Hellogoodbye
Simple plan
The race
Anathallo
Name taken
Yellow second
Receiving end of sirens
This day and age
The donnas
June
Midtown
Nas
Elephant man
Dropkick murphys
The academy is
Lovedrug
Dropping daylight
Foo fighters
Weezer
Circa survive
Mute math
Discover America
Mashlin
The pink spiders
The blackout pact
The audition
Lydia
Self against city
Matt pond pa
Shipiro
Chris cauley
Wax on radio
Over it
House of heros
Cruiserweight
Drumkan
Blackpool lights
All American rejects
Thursday
The early November
Ben folds 5
Clipse
Robert randolph
The spill canvas
Inkwell
Edison glass
Brandston
Vedera
The new amsterdams
Kate voegele
Jack's mannequin
Story of the year
Anberlin
Sherwood
The hush sound
New Atlantic
Sparky's flaw
The fray
Ok go
Dear and the headlights
The redwalls
Metro station
Steel train
Arden
Kevin devine
The jealous sound
The skylit drive
The honorary title
Between the trees
Far less
Alexis on fire
Finch
Saves the day
Smash mouth
Kung fu girls
Mates of state
Drive by truckers
Seabird
All the day holiday
Very emergency
The fold
Homer hiccolm & the rocket boys
Black tie dynasty
The new frontiers
Color fred
We the living
Lights resolve
Shirock
Conditions
Recession
PersonL
Barcelona
Tokyo
Coheed and Cambria
Cartel
The offspring
Incubus

Festivals and overseas:
Cornerstone 2003
Skate and Surf Festival
The Bamboozle Festival
Warped Tour 2004
Warped Tour 2005
Give it a Name Festival 2005 UK
Fuji Rock 2007 Japan
Soundwave 2008Australia

2009-05-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

So, the the extreme tour continues haha... enjoy! Seriously, this was the coolest feeling I have ever had. I was scared it would feel like falling but it really feels like floating. Incredible!

2009-05-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

There are some moments where the inspiration is so great that it clouds judgment. Those moments yield either true triumph, or utter destruction. Fortunately, I am still here to write this... :)

2009-04-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

I am busy with the final preparations for this tour right now and it is really exciting! There are so many things about this tour that are important to mention. I very pleased to say that our projection show this time will actually feature a couple of songs in 3D. We will have custom "mae" 3D glasses available for purchase at the merch table for $1. These glasses also have an imprinted code on them that will allow you to access an exclusive section of our website to view the video footage from the show in 3D. If that wasn't crazy enough, we will also be selling the (m)orning EP at these shows and it will have a "scratch and sniff" surface on the CD. The scent also plays a part in the show and at a certain moment, the projection screen will ask the audience to activate the scent. (hint... it involves the Ocean...) It will make more sense at the show :)
We are also closing in on our goal of raising enough money to fund Rhonda's house. We will once again be hosting acoustic shows after the main concert to raise the additional money needed to complete the house.
Clearly, there are a lot of reasons to come hang out with us on this tour, I really hope to see you there and thank you for your continued support for this band and this vision. There is a brand new song called "Night/Day" now available on www.whatismae.com
Enjoy!

2009-03-31T23:18:00.001-07:00

Good morning friends. It is time for breakfast at whatismae.com

2009-03-31T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here is an interview I just did with a really cool organization called the International Arts Movement. I was so long winded that they made it into two parts ha! Great conversation and thoughtful questions.

http://www.internationalartsmovement.org/podcasts/IAMglobal/episodes/441-a-conversation-with-maes-jacob-marshall-part-1-of-2

2009-03-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

So I finally went there. After successfully avoiding (albeit unintentionally) the social networking world, I have finally gone there. I was never sucked into Friendster or Myspace. I was never a Facebooker or a Last FMer or iLiker. What finally got me?
dun dun dun...

2009-03-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

Breakthrough.

Conflict and Character within Story Structure

The Basic Three Act Structure

The simplest building blocks of a good story are found in the Three Act Structure. Separated by Plot Points, its Act 1 (Beginning), Act 2 (Middle), and Act 3 (End) refer not to where in time in the story they lie but instead fundamental stages along the way.

3 Act Structure

In the Beginning you introduce the reader to the setting, the characters and the situation (conflict) they find themselves in and their goal. Plot Point 1 is a situation that drives the main character from their "normal" life toward some different conflicting situation that the story is about.
o

Great stories often begin at Plot Point 1, thrusting the main character right into the thick of things, but they never really leave out Act 1, instead filling it in with back story along the way.
*

In the Middle the story develops through a series of complications and obstacles, each leading to a mini crisis. Though each of these crises are temporarily resolved, the story leads inevitably to an ultimate crisis—the Climax. As the story progresses, there is a rising and falling of tension with each crisis, but an overall rising tension as we approach the Climax. The resolution of the Climax is Plot Point 2.
*

In the End, the Climax and the loose ends of the story are resolved during the Denouement. Tension rapidly dissipates because it's nearly impossible to sustain a reader's interest very long after the climax. Finish your story and get out.

story structure

Character Arc and Story Structure

* Act 1 Character Arc
o In the Beginning of a story the main character, being human (even if he of she isn't), will resist change (inner conflict). The character is perfectly content as he is; there's no reason to change.

* Plot Point 1 – Then something happens to throw everything off balance.
o It should come as a surprise that shifts the story in a new direction and reveals that the protagonist’s life will never be the same again.
+ In Star Wars this point occurs when Luke's family is killed, freeing him to fight the Empire.
o It puts an obstacle in the way of the character that forces him or her to deal with something they would avoid under normal circumstances.
* Act 2
o The second Act is about a character’s emotional journey and is the hardest part of a story to write. Give your characters all sorts of challenges to overcome during Act 2. Make them struggle towards their goal.
o The key to Act Two is conflict. Without it you can’t move the story forward. And conflict doesn’t mean a literal fight. Come up with obstacles (maybe five, maybe a dozen—depends on the story) leading up to your plot point at the end of Act 2.
+ Throughout the second act remember to continually raise the stakes of your character’s emotional journey.
+ Simultaneously advance both inner and outer conflicts. Have them work together—the character should alternate up and down internally between hope and disappointment as external problems begin to seem solvable then become more insurmountable than ever.
+ Include reversals of fortune and unexpected turns of events—surprise your reader with both the actions of the main character and the events surrounding him.
* Plot Point 2
o Act Two ends with the second plot point, which thrusts the story in another unexpected direction.
o Plot Point 2 occurs at the moment the hero appears beaten or lost but something happens to turn the situation around. The hero's goal becomes reachable.
+ Right before this unexpected story turn, the hero reaches the Black Moment—the point at which all is lost and the goal cannot be achieved.
# In order to have a "Climax", where the tension is highest, you must have a "Black" moment, where the stakes are highest and danger at its worst.
# During this moment, the hero draws upon the new strengths or lessons he's learned in order to take action and bring the story to a conclusion.
* Dorothy’s gotta get a broom from the Wicked Witch before she can go home.
* Luke’s gotta blow up the Death Star before fulfilling his destiny.
* Professor Klump’s gotta save face with the investors of his formula and win back Jada.
* Act 3
o The third Act dramatically shows how the character is able to succeed or become a better person.
o Resolution/denouement ties together the loose ends of the story (not necessarily all of them) and allows the reader to see the outcome of the main character’s decision at the climax. Here we see evidence of the change in a positive character arc.

Story Structure & the Buddha

Great novels—great stories—existed long before there were books about something called Story Structure. The pattern of an enchanting yarn has been recreated again and again through time and around the world in myths and tales. The rhythm of these stories that so captures our imaginations reflects not marketing trends but our collective struggle through life. Things that deeply resonate do so because they tug at our inner workings. Structure is not a prison—use tips and advice on it only as a map, but go down deep within yourself to find the road. Finding the road is the most pleasurable part of writing.

A Word on Plot

Don't let your focus be the Plot, which is the series of events and situations that occur along the route of your story. The Plot is a natural outcome of the seeds of your story—it emerges from your setup of the characters, their conflicts and the setting they occur in. You'll write a more powerful, believable story if you focus on seed planting long before you worry about the harvest.

http://www.musik-therapie.at/PederHill/Structure&Plot.htm

2009-03-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

Just crossed the $25,000 mark!!!
Look what Rhonda just sent me. Wow. Look what you did :)
We are making some serious progress together but we have a long way to go to finish financing this! Thank you for continuing to spread the fire, I am so excited to get back out on the road and share this music with you in person. Congratulations community.

2009-03-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This is incredible. I have grown to love street art over the last several years. This is an interesting issue to debate though because many people see it as vandalism. What are your thoughts?

2009-03-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

I got this from my friend Brian Ireland today and it made me laugh. This weekend was wonderful. It has been productive and yet restful. My little brother, David, had his 7th birthday on Friday night and I made the trek up to Newport News with "Wall-e" for Wii. He was pretty happy about it and we played for awhile. My parents brought out an old slide projector from the late 70s/early 80s and we looked at old photos of my dad's band and me as a baby. It was cool to see my parents young and in their hippie gear :)
My mom makes this dish we call Beans and Rice and it is everyone in our family's favorite meal. It actually is beans, rice and cheese baked in the oven and served on a plate with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, avocado, sour cream, salsa, and crunched up Doritos for texture. Delicious! We had that and homemade cake. A good night indeed.
Back to the grind today, we are tracking strings for "A Melody, The Memory" and I will be preparing for a speaking engagement in Boston later this month. Have a great day!

2009-02-27T08:29:00.000-08:00

Hi friends, your help is urgently needed. Mae is very close to winning $10,000 for our partnership with Habitat for Humanity! We are a finalist in the Feb "Ideablob" contest which rewards creative thinking. We have today and part of tomorrow to keep rallying votes and we need your help. Please take a moment to follow this link and cast a vote for us! Thank you so much:

http://ideablob.com/ideas/4435-Music-To-Make-A-Difference

2009-02-16T21:51:00.000-08:00

Hae-jin and I just finished watching this incredible documentary about Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York City. We were both thoroughly inspired by many aspects of the story. I hope you get to see it. Tell me what stands out to you the most.

2009-02-15T21:26:00.000-08:00

We just returned from a two-day mini tour this morning. It was snowing in PA last night when we left and Robert took the first shift. We left at 1AM. At 4AM, the familiar glow of gas station light came pouring through the window and it was my turn to drive.
I have come to love this most painful of drive shifts. You see, no one wants the second shift. If you have the second shift, you are pretty much going to fall asleep for about 2 hours and then wake up to drive for 3. It is a giant tease. As soon as you are comfortable, it's time to get up and drive. It is worse when it's cold.

But here is the thing. When you live the musician's lifestyle, your work day usually ends at 1 or 2 in the morning. You very rarely see the sunrise. If you take the second shift, you hate life for two hours and then you get an incredible present at the end of your struggle. The last hour of the second shift is an entire sunrise and it is usually worth the pain. I love listening to music and watching the day begin.

I guess that is a lot like most things in life. The harder the struggle, the more rewarding the victory. Here was my reward this morning.

2009-02-09T20:47:00.000-08:00

Check this out. I hope to be attending in 2010 :)

http://singularityu.org/

2009-02-09T20:46:00.001-08:00

2009-02-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

Progress.

Yesterday, Zach, Brett, and I bundled up in our winter worker wear and grabbed some coffee. We piled into my car and drove the 40 minutes it takes to get to the house that fire is building. It was cold. 28 degrees Fahrenheit cold. But nothing could have stopped us. This was the first day that volunteers were allowed to work on Rhonda's house and we were excited to be a part of it.
There was a lot of hammering, a lot of pulling out bent nails and trying again, and a lot of camaraderie.
The top photo is the house after we left yesterday. The bottom photo was taken last week after the wall raising ceremony.
We will be back over there on Saturday and I will post some more photos.

2009-01-25T12:46:00.000-08:00

After a crazy whirlwind of a week, it feels good to collect my thoughts in a quiet coffee shop. It looks as though it will snow soon. The sun can't cut through the thick layer of clouds and it feels like a living metaphor for the last few weeks.
I went to church this morning. It has been awhile. I am glad I went.
This week I have dealt with a close friend having an abortion, another close friend having a divorce, three different friends have unexpected pregnancies, and a best friend moving away for a new job. There seems to be no end to the chaos and I must confess that I feel like a small boat in a big storm.
The hard drive crashed with all of our music on it. I wish I was making this up but I am not. Most of files should have been recoverable but the data recovery specialist we sent it off to said that it needed to go to a different type of specialist. We found that out Monday afternoon and the only option was to immediately start from scratch on the Feb track (Boomerang) that same afternoon. Drums were set up again within an hour and a half. Every day this week was a mad dash towards a finish line we had seen weeks ago. But the progress was undeniable and the song has really come together. I am excited to hear it mixed and mastered. Miraculously, we should have it out on time for Feb 14th release. Everyone rallied and the team worked long, long hours to complete the work.
On a brighter note, we will be on 96X tonight for the Late Late Rock Show from 10-Midnight so tune in here to check it out http://www.96x.fm/info/listenlivehelp.shtml
Tomorrow is the groundbreaking/wall raising ceremony for Rhonda's house! At 10:30 AM we will be playing an acoustic version of "Home" and "The House That Fire Built."

Monday, January 26, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.
2603 Oak Ave, in Newport News, VA

If you are in town, please join us. If not, we will be filming and bring it to you in the next webisode update.
Peace and thanks for the thoughts, prayers, and words of encouragement.
-Jacob

2009-01-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

MaeWidget

2009-01-01T20:56:00.001-08:00

2008-12-31T07:17:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

I am leaving for Philadelphia where we will bring in the new year together. Andy is meeting us there. Benji, Zach, Dave, Hae-jin, and I will be piling into the old tour van to road trip up to our home away from home. We have something special happening tonight so when you are done with all the fireworks and toasts, check out whatismae.com and start your year off right :)

01.01.09

2008-12-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

This shoot was cathartic. It was mesmerizing. These are a couple of my iPhone shots captured throughout the day. I can't wait to see the real thing!

1. Off roading in the van and trailer on our way to the photo shoot... Not a great idea....
2. Dave's Grandfather "Pops" helping tow us out of the mud. Sadly, we got stuck four times on the way back to our shoot location.
3. Well worth it though because the location was perfect! This photo shoot is for the new song "The House that Fire Built" and the concept was a living room without the house. It was definitely pulling from the surreal and playing with the idea that the house is about to be built again. Figuratively (this next chapter of the mae story) and Literally (working together with you to build Rhonda and her family a house with all of the profits for this song!)
4. The fire = potential creativity that is about to be unleashed. The fire is the awareness of what is possible. It will continue emerge as we all work together to make a difference in the world this year. The thing about fire is it wants to spread. We are asking you to do just that. Take it, spread it, and let the world burn with a new sense of potential.

2008-12-20T06:23:00.000-08:00

This may seem like a tragedy to some but we are about to go do a photo shoot for the new song, "The House That Fire Built." In it, we will be burning a piano. Keep in mind, this is not some brand new piano. It is old and broken down and doesn't really work anymore. But our friend Josh Bogart has been wanting to do this for some time and this is the only time it has ever made sense for us. "The House That Fire Built" will be coming your way on Jan 1, 2009. All the profits from this song are going to build a house with Habitat for Humanity for a woman named Rhonda Floyd and her family. When you buy this song, you are helping to build a house for Rhonda and her two kids, Tariq and Deja. This is how we will be doing things all year long. You listen to the music for free. If you like it, then you can download it directly from us and all of the profits go directly into projects like this. We want you to help us choose the next project for a song we will release in Feb! We have no label and no manager. We have you. You are the most important aspect of this band. You are the legs that will carry this project and make it a success. We are giving you the tools to make it happen on 01.01.09.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. I will post some behind the scenes pics later!
Jacob

2008-12-17T22:44:00.000-08:00

I have been made a caricature from an iPhone app. Yay!

2008-12-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Graduation Day! 2008
Yesterday was a long day of celebration because Hae-jin Cameron is done with college. In typical Haej fashion, she graduated with honors and I am extremely proud of her. Exam week was pretty intense and she really persevered right through the finish line.
This was also a notable day because it was the first time that our parents have met each other. There was much anticipation about how the Camerons and the Marshalls would fare in conversation. Mr. Cameron is not exactly the most talkative person I have ever met (although incredibly generous and good spirited). Our conversations have mostly consisted of greetings and farewells with not a lot of fluffy filler in between. My parents can usually hold their own when meeting new people but I knew that both of them had been sick all week. I was a little concerned. The last thing you want is a long awkward dinner between two sets of people with nothing to talk about...
To be honest, I was blown away. After the ceremony we went to tasty Mexican restaurant called Abeulos for the celebration dinner. Mr. Cameron came to life in a way that I had never seen before! He was telling fascinating stories about his time working for NATO and the year he spent in Bahrain. We were learning about Saudi princes and their taste for Corvettes and Hummers. This of course makes more sense because gas is approximately 25 cents a gallon over there.
He gave a heartfelt toast and we all raised our glasses to a young woman who has impacted all of our lives and who has on this day accomplished a tremendous thing.

Then we went home to watch the news and weep about the job market ;)

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-12T10:59:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

2008-12-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

Can't wait :)

2008-12-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

Congratulation to Kenna! I just found out last night that my old house mate from college days is an official Grammy nominee for the Best Urban/Alternative Performance group. Wow!
If you have ever met Kenna this comes as no surprise. He definitely has the "highest probability of success" statistic of anyone I know. If you talk to him you will immediately understand that he is gifted, hardworking and not settling for anything less than the entire world.

When I was still in college, Dave Elkins and I were up at our local mall and we stopped in to say hi to one of our friends who worked as a bar tender at an upscale restaurant called Kincaids. We were deep in shallow talk when we looked over and noticed Kenna sitting at a table in the corner. We went over to say hi and got a rather menacing look from two of the large men on either side of him. It was an awkward moment because we knew Kenna wasn't in need of body guards yet but these guys were clearly not normal friends. It is at that point that we noticed his dinner guest was Justin Timberlake. It was too late not to say hi but it was clear that we were not on the dinner party guest list. I said a quick hello and excused myself. Dave had been playing music with Kenna out in LA and Kenna quickly introduced him to Justin. Dave said "Hi, nice to meet you." Justin said, "Hey, don't make a scene."
In Justin's defense, this was right in the middle of the Britney break up and his guard was definitely up. But still...
A few years later, I was at a post Warped Tour party at Chris Kirkpatricks house in Florida. He was a really nice guy and he restored my damaged faith in N'SYNC. He even let me do dives off of his waterfall into his pool. It has been a strange and good life so far :)

Kenna was featured in the best seller, "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell and more importantly (kidding) he sang on our song "Novocaine." That song is featured as an iTunes exclusive and is one of my favorite songs we have ever created.
If you haven't ever heard Kenna's music, I can't reccommend it enough. It is amazing. Congratulations to an amazing artist and a great friend. Good luck on Grammy night!

2008-12-01T09:23:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw a movie that will be stuck in my mind for awhile. One critic called it a "miracle movie." I am inclined to agree.
I would hesitate to recommend this movie though. It is not what you are used to. It pushes the boundaries. It pushes hard. It moves in a way that never allows you to become comfortable. It feels both faster and slower than anything I have ever seen before.
Half of the people I was with thought it was one of the best films they had ever seen and the other half thought it was one of the worst. I guess great art is designed to do that. To make you talk. To make you think. To challenge the way you look at life. If you have seen this, let me know what you thought.

2008-11-30T12:58:00.000-08:00

The Golden Ear Theatre from adam patrick jones on Vimeo.

I am very pleased to tell you that our next tour will feature the phenomenal Brooke Waggoner. More details to come soon :)

2008-11-28T01:54:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving 2008

Lets make a list. Tell me the top 10 things you are thankful for in the 2008. I will think about it and tell you mine as well.

-Jacob
(Update) my list is in the replies.

2008-11-21T19:41:00.001-08:00

Multisensory aesthetic experience is a constant quest for the creative visualization of music. This animation is a fun example of what is beginning to be possible.

2008-11-17T16:56:00.001-08:00

Thank you.

As a thank you for being a part of the international Mae community, we'd like to give you an exclusive, unreleased Mae song called "Somewhere." Keep reading for directions on how to download the song.

This song is our gift to you and it comes with an invitation and a promise. We are hard at work on a new collection of music in the studio here in Virginia. This is the same studio in which we created Destination: Beautiful six years ago. Many things have changed for us in the past year. We saw Rob and Mark leave to start new chapters in their lives. In early 2008 we parted ways with management and Capitol Records. At this point we have no label and no manager and we are inspired by a new beginning.

At it's genesis, Mae was about making music and connecting people. The reasons for our continued existence as a band are the same as when we started; music and people. The old model of the music business is broken and there is no longer a mold to fit into. We are the creators and followers of our own path. Most importantly we are still doing what we love, and we are excited to share this experience with you. Outlined below is a bit of the details of our transition, where we are going, and how you, our fans, fit in. Thank you for joining us on our journey and our continued walk together.

There were many difficult times during these transitions. Finances were tight and we began the year heavily in debt. The challenges to bands these days are overwhelming. As the music business has continued to suffer, music itself is quite alive. There is a passion inside of us that has refused to let this band die and we humbly thank you for your encouragement through the darkest of those days. There is a sense of coming full circle and it feels good to be home. We would like to share with you our plan for 2009.

There are so many ways that you have changed our lives. You have given us memories that will inspire our children to know that anything is possible when they pursue their dreams with hard work and dedication. We are grateful to you for that inspiration. Every time you listen to these songs, you will be channeling a moment of time that was wrought with intention from the silence of an empty room. Every work of music begins with still air. Every painting starts with a blank canvas and an idea. Every epic begins with empty pages and a thought. Every day begins in darkness with a sunrise. Every year begins in winter with a spring. Every life begins in the unconscious cry that fills tiny lungs with air for the first time. Those same lungs will eventually breathe life into words, both spoken and sung. That tiny mind will grow and be filled with countless thoughts and impressions that shape its actions and views. Those actions will reverberate throughout their surroundings and ripple through their family, their community, their nation, and their world. In this sense, we are all the same. We all begin as a blank page, and end as a story.

As this new year begins, we are reminded that once again, on some level, our story begins anew. Our story is a collection of decisions that we work through every day. Those days connect and become years. Those years connect and become a life. Those lives connect and become a generation. Those generations connect and become history. We create and change the course of history with every decision. That is the power you hold in every one of your choices. That is the scope of your significance. You are a writer of history. It is not an option, it is a certainty. You may think that your voice is insignificant, but we invite you to come with us for one year, and we will show you over the course of that year exactly how significant your voice truly is.

Every month in 2009 we will be bringing you a new song that is part of a bigger story. These songs are like the hours that make up the day. These songs are like the months that make up the year. These songs are like years that make up a life. They are about the tiny choices we make that lead to large results. Sometimes these results are wonderful; sometimes they are terrible. We learn from both.

Three times during 2009 we will put these songs together and give you an EP. As we search to understand the meaning of our own stories we can shift our perspectives to see things under a different light. We expand our understanding in these moments. This is like finishing one chapter and moving to the next part of the story. These EPs represent the broad chapters of our life. They will be called:

(M)orning
(A)fternoon
(E)vening

(M)orning represents the beginning of the day, the beginning of the year, and the beginning of a life. It is our childhood. It is our fresh start. It is our new hope. It is the empty canvas of our minds and the beginning of our story.

(A)fternoon represents the middle of the day, summer turning into autumn, adulthood, parenthood, and the time in life to take control and write the story we want to leave behind.

(E)vening represents the end of the day, the return of winter, looking back at the end of our life, and preparing for death. This is the one time in our lives where our perspective is clearest and we see the arc of our story as a whole.

Here is the invitation and the promise. When you come to back to whatismae.com you will be able to hear all of the music for free. And we will make every song available as a digital download for a minimum donation of $1. Our promise to you is to commit every dollar earned through these digital downloads towards making the world a better place. We will be asking you to help us choose projects to focus on. The power of community is the strength of numbers. As we tie our voices, our resources, our minds, and most importantly our actions together, we will see the world change for the better over the course of this year.

Progress requires focus. In each of these chapters we will focus on certain issues and ask you to help us choose the best way to make a difference. We want to approach this in a way that aligns with the greater narrative. Here is how we will break it down:

(M)orning: [January - April] This is the season to focus on youth and help instill appreciation for music and the arts. Music is the world's language. It has the ability to bridge nations and to connect people. We have been changed by the power of music. That is a gift we want to share. Art goes hand in hand with music as a powerful voice of expression. Art shows us the world from the people's point of view. Art is the vessel of the human experience and it is a powerful weapon in the hands of truth. This is also the time to focus on education. Learning is what opens the doors to a better future. What aspects of the education system need our help? How do we educate ourselves to face the world's problems as they become ours to solve? These are the issues of Morning:

(M)usic
(A)rt
(E)ducation

(A)fternoon: [May - August] This is the season to consider the challenges we face as adults. The world is shrinking. We are connected through technology, economy, and destiny. No matter how diverse we are, we share a common humanity. Our unique cultural legacies should be respected and celebrated. Our wealth and prosperity inevitably rises and falls together. Who among us can truly celebrate our own prosperity when our neighbor starves to death? When we experience the world's poverty, it changes our priorities. Yet this economic progress must come with respect for the fragile and dynamic nature of our planet. We are building a future for our children and their great great grandchildren. What will their world look like? The choice is ours and we must consider this big picture with great respect for those who will come after us. These are the issues of Afternoon:

(M)ulti-Culturalism
(A)nti-Poverty
(E)nvironment

(E)vening: [September - December] This is the season to step back and see the bigger picture. We work and then we check our progress. This is how progress is made. When we make mistakes, we correct our mistake and resume the journey. We all make mistakes. What sets us apart is how we react to them and move beyond them. One day the students will become the teachers. One day the children will become the parents. Think about how we will inspire those who come after us to continue on the path to hope for everyone. What is the story we want to leave behind? Are we writing it with our actions? What do we want to world to be like? How do we get there? These are the issues of Evening.

(M)otivate
(A)ffect
(E)ngage

There will be countless opportunities for you to be involved during this process. We will be asking you to take photos throughout the year that tell us your story. We will use those photos in our art and in our live performances. We encourage you to share this music with everyone. Tell them what is going on. Invite them to be a part of this. We are your band and your community. This is a chance for you to take your love of music and make a difference in the world. You are the vital piece that completes this puzzle and we can not do it without you.

Our hope is that this music will inspire you to step back and look at the bigger picture we are all a part of. None of us are truly alone. Many times it feels like we are completely alone. In those moments, we hope that you find comfort in these sounds. We hope you remember that these words and melodies have been sung by many thousands of others, and their voices are tied to yours. We hope that your voice will sing along and find its place here in this community as we work together, as humble people, to make a difference in a world that needs our help.

To download "Somewhere," simply go here and use the password: thankyou. You can also read Dave's explanation about the origin of the song here.

Thank you,
Mae

P.S. Don't forget to check out our brand new "Destination: Beautiful" Five Year Anniversary DVD. Check out the trailer and order your copy here! When you order, you'll receive a free download of our new version of "Embers and Envelopes" recorded at Earthsound Studios in the fall of 2008!

2008-11-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

Destination : Beautiful

destination demands action for actualization.
it requires movement.
and generates evolution.
our march has led us to see that we are but a small part.
we are all unique parts of a whole that is much more grand than we could have possibly imagined.
we are the individual droplets that lead into the streams of family and rivers of community.
everything we do affects everything else.
the current of our collective intention carves out the canyon of legacy we will leave behind.
that is all that matters.

a song, a painting, a poem, a film.
they are all just little pieces of someone else.
this sound recording is us.
wide eyed and full of wonder looking out the window, hoping it would be a long time before we return home.
believing that the world would be better for our trek through it.
bashing sound and light into the dark corners of large cities and quite towns.

these sounds were painted by imagination.
stories sculpted from moments.
moments carved into memory through words.
words married with notes.
notes married with rhythm.
resonant droplets that, through their dance, gave birth to streams of music which in turn gave birth to rivers of inspiration.
inspiration that rushed and spilled from person to person through conversation.
on long drives, and train rides.
through late nights and sun rises.
making its way into the ocean.
the light came on over and over again.
it still lives behind the eyes and in the chest of those who really hear.

:art is important because it is the vessel of the human experience:

all human beings are bundles of experience.
we are actions and reactions.
learning.
striving.
succeeding.
failing.
sometimes euphoric; sometimes broken.
capable of fear and capable of love.
born blind and ignorant, attempting with a lifetime, the treacherous climb into the light of understanding.
understanding our selves and those that surround us and give our lives meaning.
our tiny, completely insignificant, yet completely significant, piece of the puzzle that is the universe.

part of the beauty of life is the mystery of death.
we are not aware of our predetermined finish line.
we simply drive until we run out of gas.
with the time left in your tank, i hope you spend as much of it as possible immersed in the glory.
unearthing the beauty.
making the effort to show it to someone else.
that is the point of our band.
that is the point of my life.
it is that simple.
to show you beautiful.

http://gomerch.com/PRE-ORDER/MaeDVD/

2008-11-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

I know that many people who read this simple blog are incredibly happy,
while others may be incredibly disappointed.
I would just like to acknowledge the historic nature of this moment and congratulate our President Elect Barack Obama.
We all come from different opinions, backgrounds, and views,
but can all agree that there are trying times ahead of us.
This will be an era that people look back on in the history books.
Will this change bring people together or keep us apart?
What are your thoughts and your observations?
What are your hopes and your fears?
How do you hope this story unfolds?
What do you hope America will be?

2008-10-31T22:15:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointilism

A clue to the next chapter...

2008-10-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of the previous video but focused more on the rising role of China and India in the coming years. I haven't really spoken too much about this but in my late high-school years, and throughout my college years, I traveled to China and India and several other Asian and European countries. The world was just beginning to recognize an impending shift in power, population, and economic resource and I could feel the potential as I walked through the streets. Cities in China are exploding with bright and eager minds. As a high-school senior, I was fortunate enough to speak to a class at Beijing University. These students were working harder than anyone I had ever met. Everyone of them that I spoke to was taking at least 30 credits in ONE semester. They were telling me about studying 110 hours per week on average. I knew then that a global power shift was inevitable. When you have that many people working that hard on becoming smarter and more effective players in the world scene, the tide will inevitably shift in their favor. It is a matter of simple odds. Of sheer volume. Anyone who saw the Opening Ceremonies at the this years Olympics knows exactly what I mean.

I think we are alive in truly fascinating times and I hope you will take a moment to reflect and share your thoughts about this and what it means.

2008-10-27T17:07:00.001-07:00

http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid=x7aVOMrlfkkijQwcLllwk6WjB5JE0zrF

What DOES it all mean?

This video was produced by the Sony Corp. for its annual Executive meeting held in June, 2008.

2008-10-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that we will be starting our new year in quite an epic way. In January 2009 we will leave Virginia to play a show in Bandung, Indonesia! We are all really excited to experience a new culture and visit a part of the world we never imagined we would visit. I expect the trip to be full of adventures and, as usual, I will recount all of them here.
The message box in our myspace account has been full of greetings from our fans in Indonesia and I wanted to share a sample exchange because we are thrilled by this kind of interaction.

hey guys, i heard you're all gonna be playing in Bandung in January..
thats really really great to hear.
i'd like to hear your comments on this upcoming show..
dont worry, you'll love it there!

cant wait to see you guys here in this wonderous land
Have fun on tour until then dudes.

cheers.

- dylan. 16. Jakarta, Indonesia.

Hi Dylan, we are so excited to come and play for you. This is a great honor for us to be able to travel so far from our home because of music.
In our preparation we are trying to learn as much about Indonesia as possible. Please, tell us what you would want us to experience in your country? What is life like right now for you? Are you a student? We really enjoy getting to know the people and cultures when we travel. We are so excited to meet you so please say hello to us at the show!
-Jacob/mae

hey guys, first of all i would like to thank you for replying my message :) (or as we say in indonesian, Terima Kasih!)

firstly to answer your line of questions, yes, i am a proud 11th grade student from a school named Global Jaya. Most of your fans here are mostly from there i suppose haha :) life is going good for me so far. What about you guys?

Well, to answer your question, i would want you guys to experience the Indonesian hospitality. We are a friendly bunch ( i guess hahah).
You will encounter all sorts of interesting faces and places that arent found anywhere else in the world. You will experience how the communities here devote and commit themselves to an independent media form of choice, such as art or music or clothing, or others. and most importantly you will experience the euphoria, emotion and full energy of the friendly crowd, singing along to "Suspension" passionately, like it were their last song.

A good option would be to explore the city and recognize the culture that we've been built on. Bandung is a great city to be in, whether it be just hanging out or just passing by, you'll always feel that welcoming feel when you're there. When youre there, you will be prepared for an experience of a lifetime.
and finally, enjoy yourselves and have fun there! I guarantee you'll have a great journey and i can guarantee you guys will talk about this experience long after you return home.

also, Bandung is one of our most popular culinary destinations, so get your stomachs ready for that! :)

well, thanks again for replying to my simple message.. and i'll be looking forward to seeing you guys real soon! I'm excited, yay!

cheers.
Dylan.

2008-10-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Congratulations cousin!!!

2008-10-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Dancing with the Razorbacks...

2008-10-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

1. The beautiful Greek Amphitheater at the U of Ar where we played Thursday night.
2. Dave has been getting experimental with audience participation recently. Two weeks ago in Maine we hosted an on-stage hot dog eating contest that was quite fun. The only downside was after two girls ate 13 hot dogs they both ended up throwing up off the side of the stage during Skyline Drive. Um... Yuck.
So, in Arkansas he tried a less disgusting approach to crowd participation. "Has anyone ever seen Dancing with the Stars?" he asked right before Embers and Envelopes. "Well tonight we are going to be hosting Dancing with the Razorbacks."
He asked for volunteers and the hands went up all over the arena. We brought up teams of two and they each would dance for the duration of the song and then leave the stage. While some of the dancers were good, others were quite bad and quite funny.
Somehow I was able to snap this shot right before the drums came in on Embers.
3. I know Zach posted his Paul Begala photo but I figured I would get mine out there too. I was getting a coffee in the St Louis airport and Mr. Begala was standing next to me talking to a congressman. He was just on the Colbert Report a few nights ago and I have seen him many times on CNN discussing politics. I gave him a copy of Singularity and he gave me a copy of his new book. He was very nice and even remembered Zach's and my name several minutes later as we passed each other again.
4. What more can you ask for?
5. Saturday was a beach day. I went for a quite walk on the north end of Virginia Beach after lunch and listened to a few chapters of my new Einstein biography and the entire new Coldplay record. The weather was perfect.

I hope you are well.
- Jacob

2008-09-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

Sigur Ros
Salt Lake City
9-28-2008
Happy birthday Hae-jin.

2008-09-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

1. The edge of the world...
2. Not the great salt lake but still pretty cool.
3. Ahh love :)
4. The view from behind the Great Salt Air theater
5. The cooler view from behind the Great Salt Air theater

2008-09-28T00:10:00.000-07:00

In three hours I will be leaving for the airport. For Hae-jin's birthday I presented her with a choice. She could either have a "thing" or an "experience." I had imagined the details of each in my mind but I did not tell her what they were. She had to choose based simply on that limited information.
She chose the experience :)
I cashed in my frequent flier miles and we are heading to Salt Lake City to watch our favorite band, Sigur Ros, play a show at the beautiful Great Salt Air theater!
We arrive around lunch time and will leave Monday morning to return home but we are both thrilled to see our favorite band play for the first time.
I hope we get to see Melanie!

2008-09-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, this was a fun break from the financial disaster that has invaded our week. Thanks for taking the time to look and cast a vote. I had lunch today with my Dad and told him about this whole thing. He thought it was hilarious and really enjoyed the thought of friends from Estonia, France, and Japan all weighing in.
Congratulations to Monique who gave me the first correct answer!! He is the handsome gentleman standing third from the left. Send me your cd choice and address in the comments and I will send it out to you right away. (and I wont post your info)

Have a good night friends, I am playing scrabble with my girl and watching Anderson Cooper. (she is beating me by a lot of points) What are you up tonight?

2008-09-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

The Bridge!

This is my Dad's old band called the Bridge :)
An old friend of my parents found this picture from back in the 70's. Can you guess which one is my Dad???
I will post the answer tomorrow night and the first one to guess it correct will get a prize... I will send you a signed Mae cd of your choice. Let the guessing begin!

2008-09-19T13:45:00.001-07:00

I am packing up to drive to Maine for our show there tomorrow night. It will be another long drive (15 hours give or take) and I have loaded up the ole iPhone with some fresh content including:
1. the Scrabble app
2. the NPR concert series recordings of Radiohead, Bon Iver, Iron and Wine, and Nada Surf
3. disks 6-10 of "Einstein" (the newest biography containing all of his letters)
4. four episodes from WYNC's Radio Lab (which was highly recommended to me by my friend Ryan of Sleeping at Last at the Nashville conference last week)
5. The new Brooke Waggoner record! I am hoping we can have her out on our spring tour. Here is a link to her myspace, tell me if you enjoy it. I think its great! We had the chance to meet at the Nashville conference last week and I got to see her perform on Tuesday evening. It was amazing and I hope we can share her music with our fans.

http://www.myspace.com/brookewaggoner

So, if you are in Maine, see you soon :)

2008-09-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

Here is another article/interview from Caitlin, thanks for sharing:
http://alligator.org/articles/2008/09/11/the_avenue/music/080910_mae.txt

2008-09-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

I was just sent this link to a little interview I did for my college paper. There are a couple of incorrect details but the gist of it is pretty right on. I must say that it was one of most enjoyable interviews I have done.

http://www.maceandcrown.com/news/jacobmarshall.htm

2008-09-13T09:23:00.001-07:00

We are in a very unsexy hotel in the very sexy state of Florida. We just arrived after a nice ten hour drive through the night. Gas has jumped to an incredible $4.99 in many spots. I took the 3AM to 8AM shift by choice and loved it. There are moments where that kind of drive is the absolute worst thing imaginable. Somehow, there are other moments (that admittedly are hard to imagine) where driving through the night like that is wonderfully peaceful and almost sacred.
I got this really cool audio book on the biography of Einstein and I listened to it for hours as I drove. Then, as the sun began to slowly grey the horizon, I switched over to music and let my new favorite song carry me into the morning.
Vince (from Army of Me) came down to Va Beach yesterday and we met briefly for a coffee and conversation before we took off on our road trip to Florida. He played this song when he was at my house for the birthday party and it has been haunting me ever since. Yesterday he gave me a cd that he had made on Garage Band. There are some songs you can spend a million dollars trying to make sound like they are worth someone's dollar on iTunes. And there are others made for free with a pure heart and single microphone that even if you paid a million dollars you would feel like you hadn't paid enough. This is one of those songs for me. Its like a key that comes along at the precise moment it is required to unlock you from chains you didn't know you were wearing. I must have listened to it 15 times as the sun broke through.

I just posted some thoughts from this Nashville trip on
http://whatissingularity.blogspot.com/

2008-09-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

Got some love in the new AP...

(by the way, this was an awesome day and I am looking forward to sharing the stories with you)

2008-09-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I will be flying out to Nashville for a couple of days to attend the Sapere Artist Retreat. This should be a pretty enjoyable few days and I will fill you in on all the stories as they happen. I have been told that the format will include panel discussion, Q&A, conversation about art and faith, and music. Here is an abbreviated list of speakers/panelists (and chef...sweet!)


Guest speakers include:

•  David Kinnaman, author of the best-selling book, unChristian: What
a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity
•  Anna Broadway, popular blogger and author of Sexless In The City:
A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity
•  David Dark, author of Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in
Radiohead, the Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons
•  Mark Scandrette, poet and author of Soul Graffiti: Making A Life
in the Way of Jesus
•  Charlie Peacock, author of New Way To Be Human

A Special Surprise Guest is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon!

Amazing food will be prepared by California guest chef Kathi Riley-
Smith, including a light breakfast at registration on Tuesday morning
at 9AM, so come hungry!  Kathi's food-cred is on stun (Chez Panisse,
Zuni Cafe).  She was nominated by “Food and Wine Magazine” as one of
the 25 Hot New American Chefs.

2008-09-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

Birthday photos continued:
1. and 2. Vince stayed in town with Zach and I and played some new jams after breakfast. One in particular, tentatively called "Love Song" is one of the most beautiful songs I have heard in a long time. I cannot convey what a privilege it is to have a moment like that in your home. (also notice the amazing lion party balloon enjoying the concert just above Vince's head)
3. Sister Alison and Lady Haej enjoying the sunset while Micah and I are off skating a hill.
4. Reflections.
5. Always take the time to stop and appreciate :)

2008-09-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

The Birthday Weekend
1. Fishing with Dad and the little bros out in Suffolk.
2. The Cake compliments of Hae-jin.
3. The party (which was kept relatively low key...) I was fortunate enough to have a few out of town friends roll in as well as my local crew. Andrew McMahon and Casper Johnson rolled by after the Jack's Mannequin show in Portsmouth and Vince Scheuerman of Army of Me came all the way from D.C.
4. Mexican fiesta with the fam. No, I didn't get to keep the hat :(
5. Micah following in the footsteps of big bro. Wear that safety helmet!

It was a wonderful weekend and I appreciate all of the kind regards.

2008-08-30T14:21:00.001-07:00

I love this.

2008-08-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

I just turned 29!
Yikes :)

2008-08-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

Hurry!

http://www.radiohead.tv/

2008-08-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to let you know that I have started a new (and crazy) blog regarding my thoughts and inspirations for Singularity. I hope it will become a forum for some really fun and interesting discussion. Check it out at:
http://whatissingularity.blogspot.com/

2008-08-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

Speaking of creative mash ups and international fan community... check out this video that was put together by a fan in the Philippines. This is the future I want to help build :)

2008-08-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

I got a great email today from my friend Chris who is studying the music industry at university and is about to head to England to further his education. We met for an informal interview before our show at Croc Rock in PA and talked at great length about the myriad of issues facing musicians and artists. Far from discouraging, this seems to be a cultural revolution that is changing the entire landscape of our modern culture faster than any tanks or bullets. This was the link he sent me and his email is below. Let me know what you think!

Hey Jacob,

I took a look at Leftsez's most recent posting, which
included a link to this presentation an anthropology
professor from Kansas State University made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

I don't know if you got a chance to check it out, but I think it's pretty amazing. Especially for someone like you who likes to study the layers in meaning - or even how meaning is transposed. It's odd, I feel like I've been on this Internet ride the whole time, and recognized the potential to some extent, but not like what Mike Wesch talked about.

I don't think I can condense everything I felt in the presentation, but I do think it's important that you watch it. In our interview, we talked about understanding the environment an artist enters. To know the pitfalls. Well, YouTube is an entirely different animal, in a social and personal level. The way he explains it, I really want to start doing vlogs! That idea of personal discovery and reflection while talking to this piece of plastic - I believe it.

In watching this, and realizing the potential of Web 2.0, I couldn't help but relate it back to my study on the music industry. You know, the way he shapes up Web 2.0 with user-generated mediums (user-generated filters, user-generated commentary, user-generated organization and user-generated distribution) it seems like a great corollary to what music business model pioneers could ever want in a bottom up model. If I need to repeat what Leftsez says - the fans own the band. Still, with caution, the assimilation of a fanbase supporting musicians is different from a YouTube community. I feel like, only with YouTube, can the fan triumph the product it likes so much. No need to feel threatened.

One of my favorite quotes: "You can't kill the instinct that technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can't make our kids passive again, we can only make them 'pirates.' Is that good?" - Larry Lessig

This only reinforces the idea that whether you put a set price tag on your music or not - people will get it for free. On the other hand, by giving people the impression that they're stealing music - does that only help to expand the idea of music? I took Wesch's logic and extended it. He says that individualism also breeds a longing for community. Well, isn't the act of pirating music a way of isolating ones self from purchasing music? At one time, that was non-conformity. Suddenly, you're more individualistic than your poors. You're making your own record collection, comparmentalizing single songs instead of albums, discovering - all leading to a desire for (probably niche) community. I don't think I've recognized to this detail how the Internet changed the record industry. So, maybe removing the exclusive *free* but *stolen* feeling from compiling music hurts the exclusive but communal aspect - but lucky Mae - they still have a way to! make things exclusive. Plus, I feel like there's something wrong with my logic that you have to almost feel like a renegade to want to be a part of a community. That can't be right. If it was right, and musicians cared more about community than money, they'd still sell their music in stores and make no money! The whole time up until this e-mail, I've supported the idea to make your music as free/accessible as possible, and that's a good thing. Feel free to point out where I went wrong (probably in association). [Editing note: I revoke this stupid theory later.]

OK, to finish this up - I strongly suggest Mae makes like NIN and put creative commons (http://creativecommons.org/) on your upcoming work. I think this could only further the way Mae is exposed and interacts with communities. I mean, maybe it means nothing, and it won't change anything for you, and you might lose some rights(?), but if Trent Reznor's doing it...why is he doing it? He's not an idiot, and I need to look into that. But people could probably take your music for projects if they wanted to, and you probably wouldn't know - but with CC, you embrace it, and it's legal (if that counts for anything in ubiquitous information). People can use your music on YouTube, if they're so inspired, and maybe they'll make something beautiful. So, basically, screw everything I said about being a pirate is the only way, and lets just stick with that "make your best work as accessible as possible," idea. For now. :)

Thanks for reading. As I started to watch that video and made connections, I felt like I had to write something about it.

Chris

2008-08-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well, last night was pretty incredible. I wish you could all understand how small our neighborhood is haha! To have this caliber of an event in this tiny community was monumental. Zach, Josh, Hae-jin and I all arrived about three hours early and a healthy line had already formed. The weather was beautiful but warm and we passed the time in line with good conversation. They finally opened the doors and began to let us in.
Once we were inside, we rushed up to the front and got the best seats we could. We ended up about seven rows back!
The wait was long but worth it. Several speakers and local delegates spoke briefly about the things you would expect them to. The crowd was unusually supportive though and the energy in the room was very positive.
Finally the moment came and the place went absolutely crazy! Barack was quick to settle the crowd and get down to business. He was great mix of humor and substance. He called a guy out who was sitting on the front row chatting on a cell phone. What a bone head! It made for a great moment though.
The talk it self didn't really yield any new information but the questions afterward allowed for him to expand on some of the specifics of his goals. He did a good job of taking personal questions and giving answers that showed his plans.
Afterward Zach got to give his reaction on our local news channel :)

2008-08-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning at 6 AM. "Why" you ask? Well, last night, Benji sent me an email with an intriguing piece of information. Apparently, tomorrow Mr. Obama will be conducting a town hall meeting and speaking at the high school at the end of my street.
Tickets are free and available to the public but I had to wake up at 6 to go wait in line at the local Obama office to get them. Tickets were available at 9AM and there was already a healthy line of 30 or so by 6:45. I pulled out my new Wired magazine and my cup of Kona coffee and started to kill time. As the morning wore on, people continued to meander up to the line and by 9 it was wrapped all around the perimeter of the parking lot. I am glad I got there early! I could never forgive myself if I had missed the chance to see this man for myself - at the end of my street.
I finally got to the desk shortly after 9 and picked up the two tickets I was alloted. I was hoping for three so I could get one for Zach as well but they were very strict about their two per person policy.
I got home and informed Zach. He went straight there but they were already out of tickets.
Fortunately there were a small handful of tickets left at another location several miles away and Zach was able to make it there in time to collect two of them. Tomorrow we will walk to a town hall meeting and hear Mr. Obama tell his story. I am excited to hear what he has to say with my own ears and hopefully ask a question if time permits.
If you had one question for Barack Obama or John McCain what would you ask?

2008-08-18T23:07:00.001-07:00

Thank you! We just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time to cast a vote for us. You all continue to inspire us and expand the boundaries of what we deem possible. There is no limit to what we can accomplish together when we combine our imagination and our focused action. You took us into the top 3 of over 3000 bands in this contest and we are so grateful for the honor you have bestowed upon us. Congratulations to the band Otep who claimed final victory and who also worked very hard to raise voter education and participation. That was the primary reason we did this. We are all working toward that same end. There is a chance we may still be in Colorado on the 25th because the Governor's office has asked us to perform at Red Rocks to help continue to raise voter turnout and participation. We have to work out the details but we will keep you posted as this unfolds. As always, we love you and thank you for this amazing show of support.
Mae

2008-08-18T15:01:00.001-07:00

Well, as we sit on pins and needles waiting to hear who won this Rock the Vote contest, I thought I would show one of the more interesting responses we received in our inbox. I am also showing you the response that I sent back. I have removed Josh's myspace information because it is not important. What IS important is the fact that thinking like this is actually very rampant. It can only be challenged with love. Enjoy...

----------------- Original Message -----------------
Josh
Date: Aug 17, 2008 2:35 PM

I am really disappointed to hear about this Mae. You used to be my favorite band, as well as self-proclaimed Christians, but playing for the Democrat National Convention is a complete sellout to all Christian morals. I will never think of you guys in the same way.

My reply:

Hi Josh, I just wanted to say that I am sorry we disappointed you. I would just like to clarify a couple of things that might have contributed to you arriving at an incorrect conclusion about the whole situation.
First and foremost, this Rock the Vote event is a non-partisan function. Its goal is to raise voter participation in our generation. We have never encouraged fans to vote a certain direction because we feel that is not our role. We are trying to encourage our fans to participate in the voting process and to educate themselves on the important issues facing our country and the world today. I doubt that you would be against that agenda!
Second, we don't endorse a political party as a band because we don't all agree 100% on all of the issues. That is normal between friends, family members, business associates, and even bands. What we do agree on however, is healthy discourse and active discussion to perpetuate a greater understanding of all aspects of these issues. How can you know what you believe is correct unless it stands up to challenges? And don't you want your arguments to be perpetuating Truth and not just some wrong interpretation of truth? In other words, why would God challenge us to not place our light under a basket and then expect us to live in a Republican compound obscured from the influence of evil Democrats? Are they not people too? And even if you disagree with them profoundly, how do you expect them to change their mind/hearts about something when you never take the time to understand where they are coming from and communicate with them as a friend? Now don't get me wrong, I am not advocating watering down what you believe, on the contrary, if what you believe is the truth then you should not be worried about shining your light into the darkness.
The sad reality is that so many people in the Christian community have taken their time to write letters like this (full of arm chair judgement without really understanding the underlying facts) that the world doesn't really trust our message of unconditional love. Here is a perfect example. You had a wonderful chance to inquire about why we were playing an event that might seem to contradict your understanding of our mission as a band. Instead, you accuse and threaten us casting loads of condemnation and guilt. Fortunately, I understand what my mission is in this case and I am not threatened. But it does make me sad. It makes me sad because loving people and being free to discuss things with them openly and truthfully has created an amazing sense of camaraderie with people who I might have never known as a friend. If you approach people like they are enemies, they will never disappoint you. But if you approach people with the love of God then you just might be amazed by how your life can change the world.
I hope you have a great day Josh and I truly thank you for taking the time to write us and let us know how you felt.
Jacob