OpenSpace as applied to Theatre and Climate

February 21, 2020 Ben Yeoh

Guest Blog: A report on using Open Space to talk about Climate by Nina Klose

Open Space really works!
Participatory format unlocks and empowers
Final session led to actionable next steps

At the suggestion of my friend Ben Yeoh, I recently attended Improbable Theatre Company’s 15th annual weekend workshop on the future of theatre. “Devoted and Disgruntled” had nothing to do with Climate Change. But the experience of being part of D&D15 allowed me to try out first-hand what it’s like to use Open Space facilitation.

Harrison Owen developed Open Space (also called “OST”) in the 1980s as a way to get a large group of people to explore complex topics in creative ways that lead to actionable takeaways.

According to openspaceworld.org, “All of the issues that are MOST important to the participants will be raised. All of the issues raised will be addressed by those participants most qualified and capable of getting something done on each of them. In a time as short as one or two days, all of the most important ideas, discussion, data, recommendations, conclusions, questions for further study, and plans for immediate action will be documented and in the hands of participants when they leave.”

Really, you have to try it yourself to understand how it can possibly work--but I’ll try to convey what it was like going to “Devoted and Disgruntled.”

“Prepare to be surprised,” warned a sign hanging overhead as I entered the Grand Hall of Battersea’s former town hall, graced with vaulted ceilings, exposed brick walls, and an air of ruined grandeur. Three hundred-and-some chairs stood in three concentric circles, leaving a large empty space in the middle. People were filing in, sitting in the circle, or catching up with friends in small groups around the hall. By roughly 11 am--the scheduled start time--most of the chairs had been taken.

Phelim McDermott, co-founder of the Improbable Theatre Company, opened the space. “Hello everybody, and welcome to ‘Devoted & Disgruntled 15: What are we going to do about Theatre and the Performing Arts?’ After fifteen years, the title ‘Devoted and disgruntled’ still gets laughs.” The weekend would be a chance for anyone to propose ideas for discussion, to meet like-minded people, and to come away with steps forward. For starters, we would all contribute to creating the agenda.

Phelim gestured to the far end of the hall, where empty bulletin boards awaited topics any of us could suggest. Saturday - Sessions 1, 2 and 3 were all empty; Sunday’s sessions, too, were a blank slate. “If you have a burning question, an idea or an issue, please! Come up here and write it down as a succinct, catchy title or a question.”

I had certainly come with questions: What is ‘Open Space’? Can today’s event actually address my focus issue, Climate Change?

Phelim explained the key principles of OST: in this first phase, called “opening,” anyone could come up and suggest a topic or question, then schedule it for a break-out session at the end of the hall. After that, discussion groups would form on all the topics, and the delegates would get down to business. All we needed to know for this to happen were the four principles of Open Space: Whoever comes are the right people. Whenever it starts is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. When it’s over, it’s over. And to make it all work, there is the “Law of Two Feet/Mobility”. The Law means that you can move anywhere at any point during the conference. If you feel bored with the conversation you’re having, walk away. Join a different group, get a cup of coffee, chat to a friend. Break into song! Do a dance. The only limit is your own imagination.

While Phelim was talking, I was strategising. I had paid my choose-your-own entry fee of £45, and I wanted to get my money’s worth, even though my focus issue is Climate, not Theatre. And given I wanted to be home for dinner, I’d better make sure I got a slot in Session 1.

I was the second person to volunteer a topic.

“Hi, I’m Nina. I’d like to talk about Theatre + Climate Crisis.”

Dozens of other people got up after me. Each of them wrote out a subject or question, read it out on the mic, and posted it under a session time on the agenda board. There was space in the hall for 18 separate discussions during each 1.5-hour period, with a total of 7 different sessions scheduled over the two weekend days. Topics varied widely:

“Where are the emerging non-commercial producer training programmes/networks?” Ben M.

“Theatre of the Supernatural (Ghosts welcome).” Patrick.

“National Library of Things - A New Production Model.” Ethan.

“Theatre & Racism - Stop Talking, Start Challenging/Changing.” Shankuo.

“How? Theatre building a base to defeat the Tories.” Danny.

“How will I know when it’s time to start my group?” I asked a facilitator nervously.

“Don’t worry--you’ll know! It will be time once everyone has finished suggesting topics. They’ll move the chairs into circles. It will be obvious.”

Soon I noticed people moving the three concentric circles of chairs into a number of smaller circles, each marked by a flag fixed on a bamboo pole. I walked over to the break-out circle I had chosen, and wrote out “THEATRE + CLIMATE CRISIS” on flipchart paper. A few people sat down, then a few more. I suggested we go around the circle, introduce ourselves, and say something about our interest in Theatre and Climate. As more and more people joined, I kept having to break off for new arrivals to introduce themselves. It was a varied group--but not that varied: mainly Londoners. Nearly all White, middle-class, ranging in age from 20s to 70s. Most, but not all, had some connection to theatre.

I jotted down notes as people gave their introductions: Jasmine - Sustainability charity. Rhiannon - Royal Ballet. Andrea - designer/activist. Gregor - from Edinboro, actor. Barra - run 2 theatre companies, one aimed at families, the other at adults. Dan - performance & ecology. Ethan - production manager, doing a degree in mechanical engineering.

I worried that what typically happens in meetings would happen here: someone would hog all the attention and not let anyone else get a word in edgewise. But the conversation flowed freely and easily. Most people added something to the discussion, though some mainly listened. Four or five people had more to say, building off each other’s ideas.

Two main topics began to emerge from the conversation: sustainability and story. That is, how to produce theatre more sustainably? And how to tell stories of Climate Crisis, stories that raise awareness, inspire action, lead to change?

As I listened to people’s contributions, I suddenly realised where my own energy lay: how could we be using theatre to awaken people to the urgency of the Climate Crisis?

The discussion led to ideas to share with each other and a wider audience: websites to visit, nonprofits that do sustainable theatre. Check out Kris de Meyer’s TedX talk about polarised thinking. A book by Mary Robinson, Climate Justice Is a Manmade Problem with a Feminist Solution. This coming Friday, come along to a session at the V&A on Theatre and Sustainability, someone announced.

“How can we use Theatre to facilitate change? Audiences already know it’s a crisis. But how do we activate them?”

“How about ‘audience after-care’ - offer ideas of small steps people can take after they leave the theatre.”

The time flew by surprisingly quickly.

“Thanks for facilitating! It went great,” somebody said. People added their names to an email list I suggested we start, then wandered off to get some lunch. I used one of the laptops set up at the back of the hall to write up notes on the session. I felt energised: people had come to my session, and exchanged lots of ideas. So this is how Open Space works! But what about the action plans?

Thanks to the Law of Mobility, and Phelim’s open invitation to “come and go as you please,” I stayed home on Sunday to spend time with the family. But on Monday morning I decided to trek back to Battersea for the closing half-day, from 10:30 to 2:30.

I debated volunteering another topic when agenda-setting began on Monday. But something held me back. I didn’t feel a burning desire to bring up any specific subject. Maybe someone else would call a group that could use my energy. Several topics looked good, but I decided to start with Arne’s “Future-Forward Collective: what should it be?”

I was the first person to arrive. Another woman, Loren, came over, and we all chatted for a minute, then started our discussion.

“What do you think Future Forward could/should mean?” Arne asked, in a very nice, open way. “Nina, you can go first, because you got here first.”

“When I heard you say Future Forward I thought Great! That could be a theatre that does Climate actions. I’ve been thinking about whether Climate activism could really use more theatre in it. Maybe street theatre. Maybe somewhere free. Outdoors. Maybe go and make theatre with audiences…”

Arne was taking notes. “And what do you think, Loren?”

“It needs to include hope + imagination. Rapid response, and more sustained response--making the shows of the future. Throwing out idea-generation to the audience. And what about you, Arne? What do you think? We can be scribes so you can talk, if you like,” Loren offered.

“I’m a director,” Arne said. “And I’m really into Life Coaching these days. One of the exercises we do is, you imagine a goal. For instance, for me, it’s to put on a production at the Globe. So what I do is I imagine myself directing a show at the Globe. I imagine it really clearly: I’m there already. It’s happening. It’s in the future. And then I look back, and imagine what steps I needed to take to get to that place.”

“That’s it!” I said. “I really like that idea. It would be really good to imagine a positive outcome of the climate crisis.”

“Some of the sessions I went to yesterday,” Arne said, “talked about Climate. One of them talked about the possibility of a happy outcome, a good future in 2050. We could still get there.”

“Yes! Let’s have our event picture a positive 2050, or a positive climate future.”

By the end of 45 minutes we had come up with 6 specific, actionable takeaways, including:

Arne: discuss with Ben, director of Devoted & Disgruntled, about using their space/imprimatur to launch /host an adjunct OST D&D event. Talk with Tarek, director of Battersea Arts Centre, about venues/space

Nina: propose to Oxford Climate School (which I’m currently attending) to add an additional 9th session to the lecture series, offer to facilitate using Open Space, to discuss next steps amongst all the attendees at the Climate School. Try to convince local XR group to use Open Space at some upcoming meetings/events, because People’s Assembly, and the standard whoever talks loudest gets the last word feel not creative enough

“#bornatdnd” Arne wrote in big letters at the bottom of the flipchart page.

A few days after the event, Arne and I were discussing where to go with some plans we came up with on the weekend.

“It’s so great you had all those ideas,” Arne said to me.

“Me? I thought they were your ideas,” I said “It seemed like they just happened by themselves…”

We are planning a Climate UnConference for 1 May in London. Contact me to find out more (form on site or via social media).

Viral Dances, weakly inefficient markets in everything

February 20, 2020 Ben Yeoh

-Viral Dance Markets

-the Trade-Offs in intellectual property protection

-Cultural bits

I’m not a tik-tok user or a consumer of short form video. I can observe that for 10s of

millions maybe 100s of millions it’s an important cultural bit.

I was fascinated to learn how these dances are created, how they go viral and the difficulty in gaining creative credit.

I typically think copyright is too long (and I’m mixed on patents, some patents could be longer (pharmaceutical), some shorter (some software) ) but I can see how the informal ways of sharing creative credit can also be tricky. Then again the lack of copyright over dance moves allows (perhaps) them to innovate and circulate faster.

The 10 second dance of Renegade is noticeable to me for its moderate difficulty as well as the way it has gone viral. Videos below.

Still despite the difficulties it looks like the creator of Renegade (Jalaiah Harmon, 14) at least has managed to crystallise some value (maybe lots of value) from her dance so it is not a complete market failure. Dance creators instinctively seem to know that moves don’t achieve mass scaling without well-followed personalities copying them. (NYT article, link end)

The under current of “dub smash” culture being subsumed by “suburban” I can partly see but it seems to me to be part of the “subculture” going “mainstream” tensions. In the UK, grime music was big amongst many before it hit mainstream recognition.

Still she created a dance which has been viewed by millions and copies by many, and understood by followers of dance cultural bits and maybe very few others. There’s a cultural richness there that she couldn’t have tapped into except quite recently. While standard bearers for historic and traditional purveyors of culture and often perplexed (cf Instagram poets) I think perhaps they’ve missed a part of how younger generations enjoy and access cultural bits.

If anything, I think humanity is culturally richer the more thriving subcultures we have. Long live viral short form dance.

H/T Ted Giaoa for influencing my thinking on music (and its radicalism and importance to culture). Check out his recent book on Music: A subversive history.

Tyler Cowen for seeing markets in everything. Also see his book Infovore on cultural bits (and autism).

Alex Bedward for discussion in size of Grime markets.

NYT article here charting renegade: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/style/the-original-renegade.html

Insta-poets: short blog here.

Grant Winner: Ioana Mischie, maths books for autistic children

February 8, 2020 Ben Yeoh

I’ve awarded a grant (£500 - £1000) to help Ioana Mischie complete a set of maths books to help autistic children. She writes:

“It is a known fact that Maths is hard for a high percentage of the population, especially for primary school children.

There is a myth going around that autistic children are Maths geniuses and have an amazing memory. This is true but only for a small number of them. Most autistic children are struggling with basic maths concepts due to its abstract nature. Having stated that, you would expect that mainstream school that accept these children will have some adapted resources in order to facilitate learning. However, even the highest-ranked schools are not prepared for full inclusion.

I have been an autism Tutor (1:1 - shadow), working in mainstream schools for over 5 years. During this time, I had to develop the skill of teaching tricky Maths to children that could hardly do basic addition. I had to come up with my own strategies of breaking down abstract concepts to very small and simple steps using various strategies such as errorless teaching, backward chaining and endless repetition. I did this for so long as it became second nature creating strategies on the spot. Over the years, I gathered all my strategies having in mind that this might help other children too. That's how I came up with the idea of publishing a workbook.

When it comes to word problems, I came across a strategy that fits the level of understanding of ASD children, called SCHEMA, which refers to the underlying structure of the problem. The workbook will be focusing on additive SCHEMA (combine, difference or change).

Having access to a workbook containing over 100 word problems gives autistic children the opportunity to systematically move through SCHEMA word problems concepts and consolidate each level of difficulty.

Additionally, it facilitates teaching as the workbook is designed to be worked on independently, once the strategy has been fully explained. The workbook will be accessible to children as young as 7 years old as the emphasis is mainly on comprehension including basic addition and subtraction equations. It will be finalised within the next couple of months and with Ben's support for founding, published in the spring time, on Amazon.”

Congratulations to Ioana.

More on the £1K grants for people making positive impact here.

Maps, Streets vs Roads - dates the age of a city

January 25, 2020 Ben Yeoh

Credit: @puntofisso thread here: https://twitter.com/puntofisso/status/1213135545121099777?s=20

I found this map of city streets / roads / lanes and naming fascinating. It turns out that the naming of “street” or “road” is tied back to the time of when roads were made….

How many roads do you think lie within the border encompassing the City of London? The answer is NONE. Because there are no “roads” in London.

There are however a lot of streets, alleys and lanes. The reason that there are no streets called 'road' in the City of London is because the use of the word 'road' to indicate a byway did not emerge until the late 16th Century - a long time after most of the roads in the City of London were established and named.

The historical emergence of the use of Road as a name for streets in the late 16th Century can be observed in the road maps of most English towns and cities. Streets which were established before the 16th century are very unlikely to be called Road. Conversely parts of towns and cities which were built after the 16th Century are likely called Road.

A map looking at this here, which zooms and looks around the UK.

"Fake Meat", origins with Chinese Monks

January 25, 2020 Ben Yeoh

I was discussing with a new friend the origins of “fake meat” – it happens to be deeply rooted in ancient Chinese cuisine. Beyond meat is 1000 years behind chinese monks. Fuschia Dunlop (one of the great writers on Chinese food) comments below - but I first heard it from my Mum and I’ve eaten some of the food in Asia.

...Vegetarian cooking in China owes a lot to Chinese Buddhist monks, who have existed in the country since the late Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE), after Indian missionaries brought the religion to this part of Asia. One tenant of Buddhist ideology is vegetarianism. Not wanting to break tradition when outsiders came to visit their monastery, China’s Buddhist monks would copy classic meat-based dishes, replacing the meat or fish with vegetables, tofu, or gluten.

Dunlop: “The imitation meat dishes are particularly associated with Buddhist monasteries, although monks themselves live on very simple vegetarian foods, they also have to entertain people from the outside, like patrons, potential benefactors, and visiting pilgrims.”

“A lot of these people would have been normally eating meat but they would eat vegetarian food when they went to a monastery.”

“There are records from the Tang dynasty, which is 618 to 907, of an official hosting a banquet serving imitation pork and mutton dishes made from vegetables. In the 13th century, which is one of the great periods of Chinese gastronomy and culinary development, there were restaurants in the southern Song dynasty capital, which is today's Hangzhou, where you could eat Buddhist vegetarian dishes.”

Dunlop in a 2019 Podcast / Chinese meal with Tyler Cowen mentioned how Chinese can view being vegetarian a little more flexibly:

“…But vegetarians in China do have a bit of a problem, and that is because the Chinese approach to vegetarian eating is very different from the Western approach. So in China, people often make a distinction between Chinese Su Shi 素食, vegetarian eating, vegetarian food, and Su Shi Zhu Yi 素食主义, vegetarianism. Many Chinese people believe in Buddhism and will have vegetarian food when they go to visit a temple or on certain holy days, but they don’t abstain from meat all the time. I’ve even met an elderly monk who was a lifelong vegetarian who said that when he was sick or weak, he would eat a little meat to boost his strength.

So vegetarians traveling around China have this problem, that sometimes they ask for vegetarian food, and it has little bits of meat in it, or it’s cooked with lard or stock or dried shrimps. It’s quite hard. You have to really insist to restaurants that “I am a total vegetarian. I don’t . . .” You have to list the things you don’t want, to explain.

The only place that traditionally you would get pure vegetarian and even vegan food is in Buddhist monasteries, and sometimes Taoist monasteries. The larger ones have their own restaurants which cater for pilgrims and patrons and do extraordinary vegetarian cuisine. So partly it’s simple vegetarian cooking, and partly it’s Fang Hun Cai 仿荤菜, imitation meat dishes. Impossible Burger, they got there centuries before you! So you can go in Sichuan to a monastery, and you can feast on spare ribs and shark’s fin and sausages and gong bao chicken, and they’re all totally vegetarian.

One change in the last few years is that there are a small number of Chinese people, maybe cosmopolitan, intellectual types in cities, who are becoming vegetarians in that Western way. It is, actually, often connected with Buddhism, but they are abstaining totally from meat, and not only from meat, but also from Wu Hun 五荤, the pungent aromatics like garlic and all kinds of oniony vegetables, which is also part of the Buddhist diet.”

Link to podcast and transcript here.

Grant Winner: Marjorie Morgan, oral history in North of England

January 11, 2020 Ben Yeoh

I’ve awarded a grant to Marjorie Morgan based on her work documenting unheard voices. Recent work has included the Wind Rush generation and this grant will enable further documentation of communities around Liverpool.

A blog about the project below, more information on grants here.

#WeTalk Podcast Project by Marjorie H Morgan

This #WeTalk Liverpool Podcast Project is a continuation of oral history work and recording stories that I have been doing for decades.

I have been writing and recording personal stories from marginalised voices - especially in the Black community - for a many years. I was a director and oral history researcher for the Northamptonshire Black History Association (NBHA) before I moved to Liverpool where I have continued this work as an individual community archivist since my relocation in 2014. During my time with the NBHA we arranged interviews and researched histories of the target group, BAME people of Northamptonshire, and recorded and deposited the interviews in the local record office, as well as producing an award winning book: Sharing The Past.

This ThenDoBetter Grant will enable me to dedicate time to the initial research, interviews, the editing and the purchase of additional storage for the video and audio recordings for the continuation of this project in the Liverpool 8 area. Since confirmation of this gift I have now secured a location for the regular recording sessions, and I will be confirming the schedule of the next interviewees by the end of January 2020.

I have chosen to focus on the people of the Liverpool 8 area with the aim of forging greater connections with the marginalised communities in Liverpool, specifically the Black and Ethnic Minority communities in the Toxteth and Dingle areas of the city: people who live outside of these area will not be excluded if they express an interest in contributing to the archives of these community regions.

The podcast format is designed to give people the time and space to talk about subjects that interest and matter to them. This can be personal, social, or political. The contributor can decide who and what they talk about - e.g. A Letter to … (this can even be a letter that was never sent but one the contributor wishes they could share with their earlier selves or another person).

Once recorded and edited, each individual podcast will be made available online, and a community screening will also be arranged where an edited version of all the stories can be shared, and later accessed as required. It is my vision that these podcasts will be both enlightening and informative, and that listeners will thereby build valuable connections in their communities.

The screening of this phase of #WeTalk Liverpool Podcast Project will either take place at the John Archer Hall at 68 Upper Hill Street, Liverpool, L8 1YR or at Toxteth TV, 37-45 Windsor Street, Liverpool, L8 1XE as these venues are in the centre of the communities identified.

The digital records will also be deposited at the Liverpool Central Library in the Record Office with Helena Smart, Archivist, for use throughout the Liverpool City Region Library services, including Toxteth Library, Windsor Street, Liverpool, L8 1XF.In 2018 I worked with the elders from the Steve Biko Housing Association to record some of their stories relating to their individual Windrush histories. See more here: https://youtu.be/UfdDyqMsa9o

In 2019 I interviewed a then 103 year old, British man (Jamaican-born) who served in several theatres of war for the British armed forces and has lived the majority of his life in Liverpool, Merseyside : https://youtu.be/OnePR4bj_Ak

You can see this below:

To get involved with #WeTalk Liverpool Podcast Project, or to recommend someone for me to talk with, please contact via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/marjoriemorgan/

Or via the contact form here, Ben will send on details.

For more details on my work: www.marjoriemorgan.com

TS Eliot's love letters to Emily Hale unveiled

January 3, 2020 Ben Yeoh

The love letters of TS Eliot to Emily Hale (likely inspiration for many of his famous poems) have been revealed (around Jan 2020), 50 years since Hale’s passing.

Eliot wrote a statement - more a letter - to accompany the letters, whenever they were to be unveiled. The letter goes:

“It is painful for me to have to write the following lines. I cannot conceive of writing my autobiography. It seems to me that those who can do so are those who have led purely public and exterior lives, or those who can successfully conceal from themselves what they prefer not to know about themselves – there may be a few persons who can write about themselves because they are truly blameless and innocent. In my experience, there is much for which one cannot find words even in the confessional; much which springs from weakness, irresolution and timidity, from petty self-centredness rather than from inclination towards evil or cruelty, from error rather than ill-nature. I shall be as brief as I can.

During the course of my correspondence with Emily Hale, between 1932 and 1947, I liked to think that my letters to her would be preserved and made public after we were dead – fifty years after. I was however, disagreeably surprised when she informed me that she was handing the letters over to Princeton University during our lifetime – actually in the year 1956. She took this step, it is true, before she knew that I was going to get married. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that her disposing of the letters in that way at that time threw some light upon the kind of interest which she took, or had come to take, in these letters. The Aspern Papers in reverse.

I fell in love with Emily Hale in 1912, when I was in the Harvard Graduate School. Before I left for Germany and England in 1914 I told her that I was in love with her. I have no reason to believe, from the way in which this declaration was received, that my feelings were returned, in any degree whatever. We exchanged a few letters, on a purely friendly basis, while I was up at Oxford during 1914-15.

To explain my sudden marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood would require a good many words, and yet the explanation would probably remain unintelligible. I was still, as I came to believe a year later, in love with Miss Hale. I cannot however make even that assertion with any confidence: it may have been merely my reaction against my misery with Vivienne and desire to revert to an earlier situation. I was very immature for my age, very timid, very inexperienced. And I had a gnawing doubt, which I could not altogether conceal from myself, about my choice of a profession – that of a university teacher of philosophy. I had had three years in the Harvard Graduate School, at my father’s expense, preparing to take my Doctorate in Philosophy: after which I should have found a post somewhere in a college or university. Yet my heart was not in this study, nor had I any confidence in my ability to distinguish myself in this profession. I must still have yearned to write poetry. For three years I had written only one fragment, which was bad (it is, alas, preserved at Harvard). Then in 1914 Conrad Aiken showed Prufrock to Ezra Pound. My meeting with Pound changed my life. He was enthusiastic about my poems, and gave me such praise and encouragement as I had long since ceased to hope for. I was happier in England, even in wartime, than I had been in America: Pound urged me to stay in England and encouraged me to write verse again. I think that all I wanted of Vivienne was a flirtation or a mild affair: I was too shy and unpractised to achieve either with anybody. I believe that I came to persuade myself that I was in love with her simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of Pound) that she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness: the last seven years of her life were spent in a mental home. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land. And it saved me from marrying Emily Hale.

Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive. In retrospect, the nightmare agony of my seventeen years with Vivienne seems to me preferable to the dull misery of the mediocre teacher of philosophy which would have been the alternative.

For years I was a divided man (just as, in a different way, I had been a divided man in the years 1911-1915). In 1932 I was appointed Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard for one year; and even Vivienne’s mother agreed that it was out of the question for Vivienne to go to America with me. I saw Emily Hale in California (where she was teaching in a girls’ college) early in 1933, and I saw her from time to time every summer, I think from 1934 on, as she always joined her aunt and uncle who took a house every summer at Chipping Campden.

Upon the death of Vivienne in the winter of 1947, I suddenly realised that I was not in love with Emily Hale. Gradually I came to see that I had been in love only with a memory, with the memory of the experience of having been in love with her in my youth. Had I met any woman I could have fallen in love with, during the years when Vivienne and I were together, this would no doubt have become evident to me. From 1947 on, I realised more and more how little Emily Hale and I had in common. I had already observed that she was not a lover of poetry, certainly that she was not much interested in my poetry; I had already been worried by what seemed to me evidence of insensitiveness and bad taste. It may be too harsh, to think that what she liked was my reputation rather than my work. She may have loved me according to her capacity for love; yet I think that her uncle’s opinion’s (her uncle by marriage, a dear old man, but wooly-minded) meant more to her than mine. (She was fond of her uncle John but did not get on very well with her Aunt Edith). I could never make her understand that it was improper for her, a Unitarian, to communicate in an Anglican church: the fact that it shocked me that she should do so made no impression upon her. I cannot help thinking that if she had truly loved me she would have respected my feelings if not my theology. She adopted a similar attitude with regard to the Christian and Catholic view of divorce.

I might mention at this point that I never at any time had any sexual relations with Emily Hale.

So long as Vivienne was alive I was able to deceive myself. To face the truth fully, about my feelings towards Emily Hale, after Vivienne’s death, was a shock from which I recovered only slowly. But I came to see that my love for Emily was the love of a ghost for a ghost, and that the letters I had been writing to her were the letters of an hallucinated man, a man vainly trying to pretend to himself that he was the same man that he had been in 1914.

It would have been a still greater mistake to have married Emily than it was to marry Vivienne Haigh-Wood. I can imagine the sort of man each should have married – different from each other, but also very different from me. It is only within the last few years that I have known what it was to love a woman who truly, selflessly and whole-heartedly loves me. I find it hard to believe that the equal of Valerie ever has been or will be again; I cannot believe that there has ever been a woman with whom I could have felt so completely at one as with Valerie. The world with my beloved wife Valerie has been a good world such as I have never known before. At the age of 68 the world was transformed for me, and I was transformed by Valerie.

May we all rest in peace“ (Source TS Eliot Foundation)

Scholars think these lines in the Four Quartets may have been about Emily Hale:

“What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.”

In his letters he wrote to Hale:

“You have made me perfectly happy: that is, happier than I have ever been in my life; the only kind of happiness now possible for the rest of my life is now with me; and though it is the kind of happiness which is identical with my deepest loss and sorrow, it is a kind of supernatural ecstasy.”

In the end, he didn’t marry Hale after his first wife died. He married Valerie.

And, no one exactly knows why. All Eliot wrote:

“Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive.”

Poetry as mysterious as poets as people as love as everyone else.

Theatre teaching business, teaming, trust and speaking up

December 20, 2019 Ben Yeoh

-what theatre teaches me about elite teams and business

-speaking up and empowering people

I work in a high performing team within investing. This is a very competitive “sport”. There are many smart teams also competing and it’s a mix of skill and luck which is complex. It’s very hard to beat the benchmark and competitors over time. There is a large amount of noise and bias.

In my view the best teams learn from other “sports” and industries. I’m fortunate that I’ve been part of elite teams within theatre. I happen to assess elite management teams within business and healthcare R&D, but that’s another story.

The three concepts I’d like to discuss are:

Psychologist Safety or SpeakUp

Teaming, or when it’s not possible to do it all

Prosocial, or giving as a way to excel

I’ve blogged previously on the Amy Edmondson work and the Google studies on the importance of psychological safety within teams. (Link end). This is the idea that you need to be able to feel free to say anything to your team and when you can’t or don’t feel safe - then a team fails to perform at its best.

The best theatre teams I’ve worked with always nurture this. While it’s often led by a director, this doesn’t have to be the case. I’ve seen ensemble and collaborative work, not director led.

These teams encourage all members (including lighting, sound, costume, stage management and so on) to speak up if they have an idea or see something wrong.

Part of this is the observation that much theatre has no “correct” answer. It’s an act of creation which may be finally somewhat completed or judged by an audience but has no answer.

I’m aware of some directors that lead by sheer force of ideas and personality. On occasion these create spectacular works but the dark side is that teams don’t or can’t speak up and feel safe.

As I will reflect on giving and vulnerability this has allowed at times a culture of abuse where people didn’t speak up. (cf. MeToo)

I speculate as to how much greater their works might have been with an ensemble vision over a singular vision. As theatre like football is mostly a team endeavour unlike golf which is more singular.

Still there is something special about the rehearsal room. This is a space specifically designed to learn, experiment, practice and “fail”. It’s accelerated and intense.

Business teams would benefit from seeing elite theatre makers - directors, actors, backstage, design - in action.

There is no failure in the best rehearsals because there’s only learning on what might work for this group at this time. Final completion can’t be until audience stage (and that may continue to develop too). There’s no fixed mindset.

On top of this, theatre is not an activity where you can do it all yourself. Actors don’t work in a vacuum and even solo shows have lights, directors, maybe sound or movement, design or costumes and so on. There is a definitive understanding of this from the start.

While most businesses today are in an hierarchy, they most often operate in teams and while CEOs might lead them, they rely on numerous sets of teams to keep their businesses running and they themselves - although they might not realise it - are part of a team.

Rehearsals teach businesses and teams about continuous improvement. In terms of innovation or acts of creation, they teach about how to learn and how no learning occurs without “mistakes, dead ends or failures” - which seem to me be words with the wrong tone for innovation.

The acts of theatre should remind business people that no one works alone and that we work best in teams. And in reality business people are already leading teams.

Where do theatre teams go beyond the normal? It’s often in how much the players give. Of themselves, to others. In theatre, there is (and was) the danger which we now see in MeToo but that is giving without safety - and psychological safety embedded by the whole team must come first.

But where that is in place then the best theatre is very generous in what the players give.

Turning to business this is embodied in the idea of servant-leaders. Leaders who lead by giving back to the whole organisation and help try and raise up everyone else.

Why does this giving behaviour seem to work? I don’t have solid evidence but my speculation is that what is happening is that the value of the social and relationship “asset” grows from this type of pro-social behaviour. Trust grows. Of course, it doesn’t always pay-off. The world is complex. But typically giving is a form of investing in our relationships and our social value and humans after all are social creatures and we value that.

There’s much more theatre can teach, which I may come back to another time, but I will leave it with those observations on the importance of psychological safety, of teaming and of how giving builds trust and that can lead to extraordinary performance.

More? Here’s my blog on what Google found on what makes great teams (Amy Edmondson work).

Check out my £10K micro-grants for people looking to make positive impact.

Dessa, rapper, writer; memoir

November 22, 2019 Ben Yeoh

I listened to Dessa rap and sing with the BBC Wales orchestra, this month. Her sparkly character glittering about the stage. Her voice has a sensual, draw you in, complex timbre. Her lyrics are complex and playful. She’s written memoir essays about her time on the road, falling in and out of love and the like.

It’s a keen intellect that shines through. One peppered with a life hard and well lived. Touching lightly on mental health and the craziness of forging your own musical path:

She writes in her first essay:

“... Today’s conventional wisdom says that the best way to live a life is to keep all the components partitioned—love, money, friends. You’re not supposed to date your boss, or go bowling with your analyst, or borrow large sums of money from your drinking buddies. We think of ourselves as a store-bought cake with a sheet of wax paper separating all the slices so that they never touch: neat, single servings. But hanging out with Doomtree, it was all one thing—social, professional, romantic. I did all of it with the same people and often at the same time. There were no hobbies and no off-hours, no work-life balance; there was just writing songs and walking to SuperAmerica for cigarettes and drafting set lists and drinking with the guys and making album budgets and goofing off and collapsing into sleep tucked into the leopard print of my boyfriend’s left shoulder. None of it came apart from the rest….”

And on deciding to be an artist:

“...Like a meteor shower, a series of questions flashed through my consciousness at regular intervals: Q: How long should I do this before I give up? Part of the challenge in becoming an artist is that you have to place your bets before you’re fully dealt. You have to assess your talent, still half-formed, and decide what you are willing to stake on it. There’s no best-practice handbook for the pursuit of unlikely dreams. How much of your life should you spend trying to be an astronaut or a fashion model or a professional rapper before deciding it’s time to redirect your energies? A year? Two? Ten?
Some members of Doomtree are genuinely art-for-art’s-sake creative types. Cecil Otter is like that, I think. He’ll emerge from a thirteen-hour production session bleary-eyed and blissed-out by whatever he heard through the headphones. I’ve never been that kind of purist. For me the communication of an artistic idea is fundamental to the endeavor. If there wasn’t someone at both ends of the line, at some point, I’d just want to hang up.
Q: What are the opportunity costs here? I knew that I was capable of making a good living in another field—I had gotten good grades, could interview well, was willing to work hard. If music wasn’t going to be my life’s path, then the time I spent writing songs and bios and press releases might be better spent doing something else—going back to school, or applying for a full-time job, or maybe teaching English abroad, where at least it’d feel like I was contributing. I was a lousy waitress. I was a pretty good tech writer, but couldn’t envision it as a long-term gig. And I couldn’t butterfly forever.
Q: Am I delusional—like, fully out of my damn mind? I’d venture that there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of young women at this very moment who aspire to be the first female president. And one of them will be. The problem is it’s impossible to tell if you’re the one. When small children say they want to be quarterbacks or tap dancers, they’re applauded for their audacity. Aunts and uncles toss a ball around the backyard and buy a little fedora for Christmas. When you are a grown-up who says she wants to be a rapper, the blush is off the rose. The conversation at the Christmas table is more likely to include the words compound and interest than follow and dreams. And it is a little crazy to believe that you can navigate a career path that seems to pan out so rarely. The numbers say you’re almost certainly wrong.
Q: Could wanting it badly enough make it real? This question isn’t about hard work—that’s a prerequisite. It’s about taping blinders to your temples; categorically writing off the critics who don’t like what you do; categorically writing off the counsel of the people who love you and worry about how you’re doing, to insist, I am going to will this into reality. This is the Tinker Bell model. She’s only real because she is clapped into existence. The children refuse to entertain any alternative, and the force of their desire and their determination has metaphysical consequences. The Tinker Bell model is the nuclear option. It taps every reserve. It permits no Plan Bs. It’s bold, reckless, conceited, juvenile—right up until it works. And then, in hindsight, it’s brave, windblown, and scored with strings that sustain right into the commercial break. I’ve known artists who’ve tattooed their hands and faces to ensure they’d have no recourse, no desk-job escape chute…”

I’ve heard artists talk about no Plan B. I don’t know how many burn out - an exploding star.

But those that survive are forged into some alchemical metal.

The above passage is some of her least lyrical more business like writing. Mostly it’s cheeky and funny. Rhapsodic with Street smart lyrical-ness and amazing erudition that her rap-cleverness can’t hide. I’m somewhat in awe and a tiny bit in love. This must be what her audiences feel.

She paints faces (dressed as a butterfly) to make money before her music has taken off. The children ask her:

“...Most days, I fielded the same set of questions: Q: Can I get two? “Unlikely. This line is very long. But if there are no blank faces, come back and I’ll do your other side.”
Q: Are you a kid or an adult? The costume made it tough to tell if I was a giant child or just a parent in disguise. “I’m an in-between.”

Q: If your wings are real, then can you fly? “Kid, nobody can paint while flying.”
Q: Is this, like, what you do? Your job? Well, honey, that one’s complicated. Some days I paint faces. Yes, for money. And sometimes I write instructional manuals as an independent contractor. And sometimes I wait tables at a sports bar downtown. And sometimes I work as a temp for an agency like Dolphin Staffing—which is not as magical as it sounds—but at night, I am a rapper at a precarious point in her—
Q: I saaaaid, is this, like, what you do? Your job? “Well, I’m face painting and you’re waiting to get painted. So is that your job? Being second in line to get face painted? Are you a professional paintee?”
Q: Do you have a boyfriend? I do, but only for a little while longer. He’s becoming a famous person, I think, and there is no competing for first place in his heart because that position was already occupied by music-making when I met him. And maybe the best spot in my heart is reserved for the same thing. But all sorts of people want a piece of him now, including beautiful women who I don’t think he has the self-discipline to turn away. And I am a sizzling mess: angry and jealous and vengeful and sad. That’s the truth, but I can’t share it with you because you’re too young and this is supposed to be a party and I’m being paid by the hour.
Q: Do you have a boyfriend? “How come? Are you single? Are you asking me on a day-yate?”

And like the best heroine-quests she ends…

“...Now, years after that first NPR review and my last face-painting gig, I’ll sometimes stand at the edge of the stage during a Doomtree show. I’ll put my finger to my mouth to quiet the room. I’ll hold my mic off to the side, a gesture that will usually send a round of shhhs through the crowd. Unamplified, I’ll yell something like: “Hey, we’re Doomtree. I’m Dessa. That’s Sims, that’s P.O.S, that dapper gentleman is Cecil Otter, and my guy Mike Mictlan is the hero who thought to grab the case of waters from backstage. Here behind the tables, where the magic happens, is Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger. If it’s your first time seeing us: welcome. If you’ve been coming for ten years: thank you. The reason that seven musicians can play a two-hour show to a sold-out room—even though we don’t have a big song on the radio, even though we aren’t in Sprite ads, even though we write pop songs that are eight goddamn minutes long—is you. Our growth has been slow, and if you’ve been here from the beginning, you know that’s true. But because we make our money in ten-dollar increments at that merch table right there—wave, Ander! That’s Ander—we’ve been able to maintain total artistic control. We don’t have to ask a record executive if it’s a good idea to pick the song with a clarinet sample in 6/ 8 as the first single—of course that’s not a good idea—but it’s good art, dammit, so we’re doing it. Doomtree runs on word of mouth and pixie dust. We are real because you’ve said we are. We’re the Tinker Bell of this rap shit. So thank you….”

Read her memoir essays on Amazon here. So many interesting artists still to be discovered by me. Sign up to me monthly newsletter below.

Here’s a Dessa song

Fancy another blog? Zadie Smith Writing Tips here.

Dating, how we do it, how on-line is taking over

November 17, 2019 Ben Yeoh

-how we date (most US couples now meet on line)

-what it means for friendships and discourse

-what it means for female empowerment and visual signalling

The internet is the primary way couples meet today in the US and I suspect most of the connected rich economies.

This is already having profound implications on several trends.

I missed the era of dating apps although I did organise a few speed dating events as a tiny startup experiment. It was a much less efficient precursor to what we can see in Tinder and the like today.

Trends amongst many I observe are:

Increased power to women (het)
Increased ease/safety to certain minority groups
Increased value to “visual signalling”
Decreasing power to weak friendships and potentially decreasing mixing of different viewpoints within friendships, non-romantic relationships.

Het women in their 20s now have pretty much the entire age range of men as potential mates and very low cost to switching dates powered by apps and the web.

The outcomes are many shorter relationships, as people discover red flags earlier and the cost to switching is low.

Women don’t have to stay within the typical social and friendship hierarchies to find mates.

The rise of “ghosting” is because the cost of switching away is so low. Mostly in social cost. Who cares if you ghost? It’s easier than the awkward (social cost) conversation of telling them you don’t want to see them again.

As initial contact is visual and initial signalling is also visual - mostly Instagram over FB but perhaps some of both, plus messaging - social visual signalling value is on the increase. Think cosmetics, teeth alignment, rentable fashion perhaps; signalling of experience (selfie).

Also note this phenomenon is not so well understood - on average - by those over 40 who mostly haven’t experienced these phenomena as strongly. (Early Last decade people used to lie if they met online, now it’s the norm they don’t.)

The advantages to gay, same-sex, religious and other minority groups was obvious earlier - with same-sex online meet-ups being overwhelmingly the main way of relationship formation from last decade.

There’s initial evidence that potentially marriage stability is now increasing. It’s tentative but it might be that the online selection process is leading - at least for now - to more stable longer term relationships.

The second order downside is - I think - in friendship formation and the creative clashing on meeting people who think differently to you.

I acknowledge this is costly. Going to friends or friends house parties or after-work drinks with a partial goal of finding potential dates is time, effort and socially effortful.

However it had the side-effect of real world meetings that lead to friendships, networks and increasing social capital. IMO.

These gatherings enhance social cohesion and capital as different thinkers (classes, politics etc) tend to civility and understanding in real world interactions (over online).

This social effect is somewhat hard to study but comes under the “contact or extended-contact hypothesis”. That’s typically seen in reducing discrimination and racism under the right circumstances. Overall, I would see it as reducing “hatred” between, say, left-right or brexit-remain or other clashing groups. These groups continue to clash online and in the media, but my observations is that real world meetings are more benign.

As dating has been moved into a somewhat separate field of endeavour, the spillover for forming friendships or meeting different thinking people has - I think - decreased and won’t be helping civility, polarisation and empathy. Perhaps I extend this too far, but I seem to see a similar effect on some social media platforms. You connect like with like and you are shown things you like or cause you outrage; you are not shown naturally nuanced views which might be somewhat different to your in an engaging way, that you have to engage with - as you might in an after work drinks situation.

It could well be that the benefits particularly to women outweigh the negative trade-offs. But it might also account for why safe interesting mixed live event meet-ups continue or will continue to flourish on a local level. As we still need more of them too. And that’s partly the impulse behind the Mingle I host.

A chart on how women rate men (skewed) vs man rating women (normal-ish)

Links: Next Mingle Details.

The time I went to visit one of the most people on earth the Wana Tribe.