005. a booted team is like having a computer

The difference of working on a booted team and an unbooted one is like the difference between having a computer & the internet, and not having it.

It is almost indescribable, the difference in the kind, quality, and rapidity of work.

I feel like Johnny Appleseed. I can plant two kinds of apples. Green apples, which grow up into theatre ensembles. And reddish apples, which grow up into booted teams.

That is a fun and funny thought.

Maybe there's a third kind of apple coming. Something less structured, more intimate, more rawly alive. Something that is being born in an office with a small round table, a steady stream of people, visualizations as I fall asleep & wake, and many walks to the river.

phase 2 ends here, the Odin crouched like a cougar

The previous post with the painting completes phase 2 of this blog. It represents a v1 integration of art, theatre, software, and wealth.

I almost ended the blog there.

But the Odin is crouched like a cougar on my shoulder, its gleaming gaze on the moonlit path before me.

There are lessons of the Odin I have yet to fulfill.

"Phoenix 11" - team painting

The team & our painting


Jason, Peter, Rachel


Left


Middle


Right

This is a team painting by a booted, i.e. ultra-high-performance, team. This is the 7th version of the painting. It is 15 feet long x 4 feet wide, acrylic on watercolor paper.

yesterday, today

Yesterday I watched a DVD of Yo Yo Ma (cello), Daniel Barenboim (piano), and Itzhak Perlman (violin) playing Beethoven's Triple Concerto. It was like a strange chamber music piece for 70 players -- 3 soloists and an orchestra. Daniel conducted from the piano, a Steinway grand with its top removed. They all followed each other by listening. Barenboim had his back to YoYo & Itzhak. Yo Yo Ma followed Itzhak intently, and Itzhak, so lame he had to haul himself to his chair with crutches, both legs in braces, led peremptorily.

It was the crutches that did it. Everyone there was playing in the face of death. Yo Yo as always, listened attentively. He listens to Itzhak. He listens to Daniel. In the beautiful soft beginning to the third section he listens even to his own cello, to hear the melody emerge.

Bootcamp has finished. I have the familiar hunger, hollow, & bleakness that follows a closing performance.

Yesterday was glory and joy.
Today, a blackened burn everywhere.
On the record of my life,
these two days will be put as one

-- Rumi