Eurasia, new ways of seeing

August 29, 2018 Ben Yeoh

Theatre and a play writing tradition remain vibrant in Britain partly as because one of the great playwrights was an English bloke called Shakespeare. Outside of this western tradition, there are many performance forms, many of which don’t place the writer in the same place. And some countries traditions don't have playwrights.

As local arts meets a global stage and the collisions and intersections ensue, it will be interesting to note how the arts scene develops. There is already a very valuable Asian arts, particularly Japan and China (from ancient to modern), market but more radical artists wish to claim their own ways of seeing.

This clash, I picked up reading, on recommendation a book looking at the history of Europe and Asia - debunking some of the artificial divides commentators have built up and observing the current jibes amongst cultural models (Dawn of Eurasia - Amazon link). This from an arts lens.

“Arefe Arad is an artist in Tehran. She makes bodies by patching different fabric pieces together, and if the result evokes different kinds of human-size alien creatures and monsters that is very much deliberate. She told me she wants to create monsters, textile models close to mythical characters with no identity or individuality.

I met her at Etemad Gallery in North Tehran while spending a few weeks in the city, mostly among contemporary artists and gallery owners. Her sculptures are flexible, viscous, patched together in deformed shapes, a reflection –she said –on the everyday life of Iranian women. Stopping at Tajrish Square, I immediately understood what Arefe meant.

One young woman was going up the pedestrian bridge escalator wearing a black headscarf covering all her hair –very proper hijab few women in North Tehran are keen on –but she combined it with knee-high pink stiletto boots. The whole square turned to watch her walk.

These are not creative cultural hybrids but distorted chimeras. The authorities want a token of subjection and that is why every woman in Iran must sport her headscarf, wherever she is, as a public proclamation that her choices are, in the end, worthless. For some, the humiliation is powerful and deliberate. At the same time, they fight back by blemishing in every way they can the almost aesthetic dreams the clerics have developed for Iran. The result is not creative but destructive, just as the parties in North Tehran are less festive celebrations than distorted affirmations of the will against a stunting force.

When contemporary art arrived in Tehran in the final years of the Shah’s regime it was an opening for Western values and tastes. As the founder and inaugural director of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art put it in 1979, since Iran already imported Western technology and science, it should import Western art as well. That project of imitation failed when the Shah was deposed and no one in Iran wants to repeat it. The art scene still represents the drive to break free of conventions –to become modern –but today it is a much more primal and destructive force, because there is no model left to follow. To become modern is no longer equivalent to becoming Western.

Talking to young Iranian artists, I learned one important lesson. While they were rebelling against the confined spaces of life in Tehran, they also insisted that they did not want to follow the same path as Europeans or Americans. Contemporary art had taught them that there is always a different way of seeing. Art must foresee other pictures, other worlds. Western modernity is for them just another form of tradition to be uprooted and overcome.

When discussing world politics today, we often revert to one of two models. The first, popularized by Francis Fukuyama, sees the whole world converging to a European or Western political framework, after which no further historical development is possible. Every country or region is measured by the time it will still take to reach this final destination, but all doubts and debates about where we are heading have been fundamentally resolved. The other model, defended by Samuel Huntington, is sceptical of such irreversible movement. The world it depicts is that of a clash between different civilizations having little or nothing in common, particularly since Western political culture will remain geographically limited. This book adopts a third view.

I agree with Fukuyama that the whole world is on the path to modern society, but there are numerous paths and, naturally, different visions of what a modern society looks like. Everyone is modern now, but there are different models of modern society. From this fact the essential terms of the new world order follow more or less directly. The hard distinction between modern and traditional has broken down, giving way to a deeply integrated world, but its most distinctive trait is the incessant competition between different ideas of how worldwide networks should be organized…”

I find the book maybe a little less insightful on Russia (or it may be I know Russia less) but fascinating on the Asia / Europe part. Amazon link here.

The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog. Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism. Discover what the last arts/business mingle was all about (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

A long read on Will Hutton looking at Brexit causes and solutions.

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts: the commencement address; by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Literary Manager, Royal Court, a conversation

August 17, 2018 Ben Yeoh

Notes in conversation with a group of writers and the Royal Court (RC) literary manager, Chris Campbell.

Artistic Directors don’t like being told what to do and are grappling with this shifting mosaic that is programming. Part of the reluctance in committing to a play, or type of play, is that it will necessarily rule out many others.

What do we look for in plays? In many ways, we look for, what you look for - a good play! It’s fairly true to say Royal Court plays are concerned about “how we live now”.

Another aspect of plays, the RC is interested in are plays that question ideas of form and “what is a play” - (Me: Historically this is a question the RC has often raised, and continues to raise under today’s artistic management. I have heard it from more than one RC literary manager over my sporadic writing life).

What is policy? Policy is what you programme… one school of thought suggests all that matters is what you put on. But, perhaps, one might risk the word “urgency” when associated with plays RC is looking at - or, in other words, why put this play on now?

(While I hear this fear raised from some writers) Do not fear your work will be read only by a young graduate of a passing 2:1 degree from a respectable university. A panel of professionals will read your work, and we/RC are incredibly excited to try and find brilliant new writing.

RC commissions writers not ideas.

The wrong question is how many out of the 3000 odd submissions a year, do you commission? (answer we only put on 15 or so shows a year…) but out of the unsolicited submissions, how often is a relationship built with a writer? A relationship with a writer is very often built from an unsolicited submission to the RC, even if that particular submission proves not to be an RC play.

Trends discussed. Many writers concerned about the “near future” including social and environmental concern. Some debate at to MeToo stories.

Ideas discussed. Is writing plays a career? Is someone like Caryl Churchill, somewhat of an anomaly and perhaps the typical playwright (even of great plays) may only have a handful (or one or two) plays in them? Me: there are parallels here with poetry. Poets almost always have other careers. Some of our greatest poets have their lifetimes work measured in only a few collections (I’m reading Wisława Szymborska who has perhaps no more than 300 poems over her life time, yet is a Nobel Prize winner)

This gives me comfort as I’ve had not a huge amount of work produced and at one stage, I thought I might not write another play again (now I think I have two sets of plays I think I can write, although whether more than that, I’m unsure).

Perhaps, for some, after 3 plays you run out of life….

My advice, if you’ve written a play and you think it’s good, definitely send it to the Royal Court, with a good short cover letter.

Listening to legendary theatre agent, Mel Kenyon.

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

A long read on Will Hutton looking at Brexit causes and solutions.

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Brona Titley, Aisling Bea on Friendship

July 26, 2018 Ben Yeoh

Brona (middle), Aisling (right), Annette (left)

I saw my brilliant friend Brona, (on twitter here) speak about female friendship with her soul mate friend Aisling Bea (previous blog about male mental health and her relationship with her father here) in a Soho Theatre cabaret slot (my memories of Soho Theatre were way before it was famous for its comedy and caberet slots, so it was also intriguing to see this young and diverse audience through the door into the basement space)

It was part of a recorded conversation for Amy Annette’s podcast and show series - What Women Want.

The audience was woke and full of friends although still sprinkled with randomness, a guy I sat next to came as he thought it sounded fun, same with the girl behind me.

A natural funny-ness sprang throughout, as well as an obvious deep friendship (although perhaps would be considered high maintenance to some) there are friendships where we share the minutiae of life - and always back each other up (although the point was gently raised that male friendships tend not to have this same detailed sharing of experience and perhaps men haven’t grown up with the same emotional space and language as women).

Clever use of puns and quick witted jokes alongside deft uses of recurring comedy - the idea of misrepresenting the word ominous and, or, omelettes is going to reverb long after.

While I will not likely displace Aisling as a soul mate, I’m proud of Brona as a friend, and it’s brilliant watching her succeed onwards as a comedy writer and actor. Keep a watch out!

Listening to legendary theatre agent, Mel Kenyon.

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Some popular posts: the commencement address; by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Mel Kenyon, legendary agent

July 20, 2018 Ben Yeoh

I was privileged to hear Mel Kenyon, legendary theatre agent, speak about her career and the theatre. These are a few notes from her chat

The early part of her career involved a fair dose of serendipity along with talent, hard work and charisma. Knowledge of Rock Follies had Mel singing in one of her final interviews to be an agent. Her training in secretarial (and legal) skills landed Mel her first job at the Royal Court as secretary assistant to Max Stafford-Clark.

With the outrageous, courageous arrogance of youth, Mel announced to Casarotto she wouldn’t make them any money for seven years, but she would create a stable of the finest writers of her generation. Mel proceeded to do exactly that.

A few notes:

Come to a play on its own terms – every play is like a little person – all different – there are no set rules, but you can’t paint a dog green when it is brown.

If you don’t approach a play on its own terms and try to understand what the play is then you can miss plays which might seem radical or ill-formed at the time (she cited Woyzeck, but in more recent memory, I’d invoke Sarah Kane’s Blasted).

Giving notes, reading plays – it’s an act of love and best done with a subsumed ego where possible. There is a reciprocity in the best note giving, a risk and giving for both writer and reader. The sharpest writers – if they are listening – can tell a good note from a duff note, and while many notes might be duff, a sharp note can be valuable.

Mel expressed a view that the best playwrights are innate dramatists, although acknowledged there are others who disagree with this view (cf David Edgar).

Some qualities she finds in plays and writers she likes:

A play which is not static – not a static telling of a story – but one full of dramatic action – a play where every scene has dramatic movement.

Linguistically – a fascinating rhythm, not a plodding rhythm, it may not be poetry or heightened, but it won’t be dull

A play which is somehow bigger than the sum of its parts and (personal to her) one which has no moral vacuum. She knows admirable plays, where she senses a moral vacuum and those are unappealing. So much better for a play to tackle a metaphysical question of the universe, no?

Plays are often visceral and image structure is often important to her (small images building up over the play to produce a synergistic effect)

Some thoughts for writers:

It’s very tough (not impossible) for older writers coming late to theatre writing

Don’t second guess people, things, institutions etc (stay true to yourself)

Open yourself to conversation with trusted people (on understanding you will know a good note from a poor note, if you let yourself listen)

If you have a conversation with an agent, producer and you think they are an idiot – try not to go with them.

Some times, you are wrong. (refers to writers and herself)

Some thoughts on theatre:

Problems with underrepresentation of black artists, women artists and gender pay gap stem from years and years of neglect and underinvestment (I would cite this under many other industries as well). Artistic Directors can’t magic up fully formed artists of colour from nowhere.

On seeing (David Hare’s) Stuff Happens, and triggering a re-evaluation of older generations of playwrights (stretching back to Coward, Rattigan) and some discussion on the intergenerational debate between young and older playwrights.

On Blasted (and in contrast to Killer Joe) and how at its heart, its morality and vision, is in direct contrast to Killer Joe. Yet, Blasted at the time – was mis-understood (due to its surface story). [Interestingly, a critic like Michael Billington has come to a position that both Killer Joe and Blasted are worthy works, where as Mel’s view (along with some other critics) would be Killer Joe has a moral vacuum]. I’d also note Blasted was a very influential play for me (and I think many other young writers at the time, I think we understood much more the deeper levels and the context of what was happening at the time, not only “in-yer-face” but also movements we had seen in fine art).

Mel views TV skeptically. She can’t protect her writers there, and she views the TV process as often stripping down a writer, not nurturing. Plus the courage needed for theatre is often greater. It’s a rare playwright who can easily do both TV and theatre, but they do occur.

I’m glad there are people like Mel around fighting for theatre writers. If you are the next Caryl Churchill you can contact Mel through Casarotto Ramsey agency.

Football, Theatre and Team Cultures

July 8, 2018 Ben Yeoh

One thing I like about this England football team is the unyielding emphasis on the team, and all the support that entails. Take his interview post the 7 July Sweden Quarter Final World cup win from the Manager, Gareth Southgate:

“It’s an incredible privilege to be the England manager but when you sit and think about the people who have got to this point before, people I hugely respect and admire ... it’s difficult to put it into perspective… It would fairly easily be my best day in coaching. But, look, we just want to keep improving as a team of coaches, staff and players. I go back to the fact it isn’t about it. It’s about the whole group.

To be in charge of people who give as much energy, and give me as much as they have over this period of time, is very special. … We’ve got to this point because the collective has been so strong…. [he then pays tribute to the last manager giving the team experience 2 years, in a tournament where consensus suggests the pressure hampered the young players, Southgate then goes on to praise everyone behind the scenes…] We are a team who are still improving, but we know where we are. We are having success because everyone is working so hard on the field, while some of the older guys – like [Gary] Cahill, [Phil] Jones, [Danny] Welbeck, [Jack] Butland, [Danny] Rose – have been exceptional in their mentality supporting the team, training every day, even though they’ve not had as much game-time as they’d have liked. They’re as much of a reason why we are where we are.

You can say the same for people like Tom Heaton, Adam Lallana and Jake Livermore who were on standby and trained with us before we left, and whose contribution was brilliant. And people like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who has been messaging me, or Joe Hart, who made a massive save for us in the qualifier in Slovenia. People who have played a massive part in getting us to where we are. None of that should be overlooked. …”

To a distant observer like me, it seems to be me that Southgate has developed a team culture, where the parts can go on to make a very strong whole. (Southgate is also publically name checking, other players’ interviews also heavily talked about the team)

This is important to culture within arts or business, it is perhaps a reason I was drawn to theatre.

Many other arts celebrate the individual and while sculptors and artists (all the way back to old masters) may have assistants and their galleriests, and novellists have editors and publishers, and poets have… each other (?) mostly theatre is a collaborative effort.

While some strands of theatre may celebrate the writer, or the director, or an actor it is impossible to have most performances happen without design, lights, stage management, let alone the cast interplay, directing, writing and so on.

Even in traditions which might hold the playwright as the centre (listen to the intro between the podcast conversation of Chris Goode and David Eldridge), few writers would deem their script finished without a performance; and, arguably, a performance is unfinished without an audience.

This then makes the culture of a theatre, or of the team gathered together to make a performance, so critical - it’s also one reason I found the MeToo movement within theatre so profoundly shocking.

It’s perhaps why I’m drawn to working within investment teams. I like the collaborative nature of theatre and teams. I like how at their best, the parts make up more than the whole, and that the whole relies on so many parts and the synergy of those parts.

Perhaps that what makes theatre at its best so special. Like football. (Or even business teams).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Some popular posts: the commencement address; by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

David Eldridge, Chris Goode in conversation

June 23, 2018 Ben Yeoh

“The loveliest conversation with an archenemy I’ve ever had” Chris Goode on David Eldridge.

Over a decade ago, when I was first mainly theatre blogging (in the first golden age of blogs, now mostly faded) two of the fiercest and sharpest bloggers and writers were (and are) Chris Goode and David Eldridge.

Both far more successful, older and sure of their work than me, I looked up to them in many aspects of my writing practice. Chris Goode in the devised new work tradition and David Eldridge in the playwright as the primacy voice type tradition.

Emerging after an almost decade long hibernation (although behind the practitioner scene first at Talawa on board and chair, then and now at Coney) in theatre writing I find it joyful and enlightening to find them in conversation.

They’ve both grown as artists and l find it fascinating having known them somewhat from afar (although Chris while AD at Camden’s People Theatre did programme my piece Lost in Peru, so I know him a little) to see how they now arrive in a place closer than perhaps one might have guessed from 10 years ago.

Coming back to my writing practice, it also gives me a spot of hope that I can travel further and that there are stories I still have to tell and pieces I can still make.

In any case, in my view, these are two of our most brilliant theatre makers of our generation and anyone interested in practical theatre making will enjoy listening to them in conversation, (click below or see here for Chris Goode's podcast series)

Want more theatre posts? Check out a look at Massie-Blomfield's 20 Theatres to see before you die.

On climate - click here for more carbon related posts. There's an argument made by risk philospher and Black Swan author Nassim Taleb on why we should lower pollution regardless of models.

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Some popular posts: the commencement address by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Sophie Woolley Interview

June 21, 2018 Ben Yeoh

Sophie Woolley. Credit: David Monteith-Hodge, courtesy of  Sophie Woolley. — Sophie Woolley. Credit: David Monteith-Hodge, courtesy of Sophie Woolley.

Sophie Woolley, is performing her work-in-progress show at Ovalhouse about going deaf, and going hearing again, after becoming a cochlear implanted 'cyborg'. What is it like to hear again? What happens to a person when 20 years of progressive deafness is suddenly reversed? The show is at Ovalhouse in London from 12-14 July, 2018, at 7:30pm (£5). Here's an interview we did below.

Growing up, I knew very little about deaf culture and only came to it late. It’s still little known outside the mainstream. What would you say to more typical people about what they should appreciate about deaf culture?

I grew up hearing and went deaf from my teens. Every deaf person is different. It's important to recognise that what works for one deaf person, doesn't work for the next. Hearing people sometimes ask how come I can speak, and then they compliment me. I accept most compliments but not that one, not in the way it is usually angled.

It's a backhanded assertion of hearing supremacy. It's kind of why I'm writing Augmented, my one person show. I'm asserting my deaf cyborg power.

I have hereditary progressive deafness. On my mum's side, we go deaf in our teens onward, on my mum's side. We sign and speak. we use what is called Sign Supported English. We can also use BSL.

If people are interested in learning more about Deaf culture, a good way is to do a BSL level 1 course. My husband learned to sign, and his brother and sister in law did BSL Level one. This gave them a good deaf awareness and empathy. If you can't learn to sign, remember to maintain eye contact when you speak. I write about that etiquette in my play, and what happens when I break the rule with my deaf mother.

In the first few weeks after my successful cochlear implant switch on, I was blown away by how hearing culture is often about speaking to people with backs turned, often from a distance.

In 2013, a week or two after switch on, something happened to make me realise I had recovered what is known as incidental hearing. I was on the bus, south of the river. I asked a mum with kids – do I get off next stop for Lewisham station? She said nothing, and I thought – bit rude. She bundled her kids off the seats and walked toward the doors to get off the bus. And then I realised, she was talking to me as she walked away from me. "Lewisham station is in two stops."

This will sound tiny to some people, but it's a big part of hearing culture. That busy mum made me realise that from now on, I would have more access to information and more power.

The privilege of incidental hearing is an invisible, structural barrier for deaf people. My incidental hearing is not perfect yet. I can't eavesdrop from a distance like some hearing people can. My 'listening bubble' is smaller than my hearing husband's.

You can also check out my Deaf Faker series on youtube, for some laughs about deaf awareness.

Over your life your hearing has profoundly changed. How has that affected your performance and writing practice, if at all?

I became profoundly deaf over 20 years. When I started working in theatre, I made sure my own shows had creative captions. I mainly wrote hearing characters. Later I began to incorporate some sign language (Bee Detective, Deaf Faker).

I wrote BBC Radio 4 plays. My last thing was a Radio 4sitcom called Absolutely Delish: Grazing. It aired in 2013 and I didn't listen to it until six months later, after my surgery enabled me to follow radio.

Deafness affected my practice in that I was spending increasing amounts of time on organising access or worrying about access. It's difficult to quanitfy how it affects your career, until you are suddenly able to hear again, to be able to make that comparison. That is what happened to me.

Did growing up in Glasgow influence you?

I left Glasgow aged 18 months, and never looked back. It made me tough, resilient and fond of sweets. I grew up in Harlesden in NW London. That influenced my early work. I lived in South Africa for a bit recently, and that has changed the way I experience British culture. I'm very influenced by my environment.

What was the first performance to make you want to write plays or to perform?

I was very influenced by comedy TV. I also used to like watching Fame with my little sister. We also taped Top of the Pops and re-watched it. Dallas and Dynasty and all the UK soaps were big in my mum's house. I also felt inspired by people I watched performing at Leeds University. I didn't have the confidence to join them. They are all doing well now and that feels good.

What was your background to becoming a writer and performer?

I fell into it after university. I started performing my short stories and found out I was good onstage. I had done a lot of theatre in primary school but I did not pursue it at secondary school. There were no school plays there.

What do you find hard to write or perform about?

I find it hard to write about my experience of deafness. It's taken me a few years years to find the voice for my new one person show about becoming a deaf cyborg.

What’s brought you most happiness and pleasure to write or perform?

I enjoyed performing When to Run, my first one person show. It was a long process to make but it was worth it in the end. I am now at the beginning of the long process for my second one person show, 10 years later. So far, so enjoyable.

What have been your artistic influences?

I write about what's around me. Music and nightclub culture was an influence when I started out professionally, I satirised and performed in that environment.

Favourite novelists include Tom McCarthy, Kit De waal, Deborah Levy, Irvine welsh. I like TV. I like the TV serial called World on a Wire by Rainer Werner Fassbinder? It's so good. I like Koleka Potema's poetry. I don't know if these artists have influenced me, but they have inspired me.

I have more theatre influences now that I can go and see the cutting edge work of my peers in theatre more easily.

Any hard lessons you’ve learned as a writer and performer? Any advice you’d like to give?

Look after your posture and avoid RSI. Pilates is better than yoga.

If you could change one thing about performing arts, what would it be?

Theatres should caption every performance when they get to full production.

What projects are you working on now?

Augmented, my one person show. The scratch performances are at Ovalhouse on 12-14 July. I also want to raise international backing to develop The Fake Interpreter, with dancer Andile Vellem, see https://fakeinterpreterblog.wordpress.com

Money no object, what project would you most want to do?

I'd like to make some international shows. One is performed in two countries at once.

I would make a romantic movie, set near a nuclear power station.

I'd also like to do some re-enactment of a particular moment on London Underground, that I like to think about - and have written about.

Is there a play or performance that has made you cry?

Not recently. Check out the Eagle Huntress on BBC iPlayer though!

Sophie Woolley, is performing her work-in-progress show at Ovalhouse about going deaf, and going hearing again, after becoming a cochlear implanted 'cyborg'. What is it like to hear again? What happens to a person when 20 years of progressive deafness is suddenly reversed? Here's a podcast with Sophie on her experience and on making the show:

The show is at Ovalhouse in London from 12-14 July at 7:30pm (£5). All performances are captioned with live palantype, and are relaxed performances. Facebook event link.

These questions are killing me. Tesla’s Elon Musk: A short verbatim play

June 9, 2018 Ben Yeoh

Verbatim theatre uses ‘found’ or real life words, interviews or reports to re-craft work. I’ve been interested in found art, found sound and found poetry for a long time now. (You can find a blog on found sound and drag art here; on a piece of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton phone conversations; and a blog on one of the greatest pieces of verbatim poetry ever written)

This is a highly edited transcript of a recent 2018 public conference call with Elon Musk and investment analysts. It highlights (1) The difference between Musk’s vision and others in places (2) What questions Musk finds boring (3) A Musk view on autonomous driving and media reporting and (4) A maxim on long term and short term investing and a difference on stock vs business.

It’s humorous in parts for an investment analyst call and takes me back to my verbatim work which I’m interesting in digging into again. Consider it a short writing exercise.

“These questions are killing me”

Musk: I think we're going to spend extra time on Q&A and try to answer as many questions as possible. We're going to go as long as there are good questions to answer.

Rod Lache (Analyst): … Your comments on the advances in batteries were interesting.

Ahuja (Telsa): Every data point, Rod, that we look at internally suggests that we are best-in-class / -

<Musk>: We're best, which is not a class.

<Ahuja> : Yes. We're the best. Sorry.

<Musk> : The best-in-class of one.

<Antonio Sacconaghi (analyst) >: Where specifically will you be in terms of capital requirements?

<Musk>: Excuse me. Next. Boring bonehead questions are not cool. Next?

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Joseph Spak

Spak: The first question is related to the Model 3 reservations. I was wondering if you gave us a gauge of the impact that the news has had. … the reservations that opened and what percentage have taken the step to configure?

<Musk>: We're going to go to YouTube. Sorry. These questions are so dry. They're killing me.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Galileo Russell with HyperChange.

<Galileo Russell>: Hey. Great quarter. Thanks for having me on the call to represent retail investors. I was wondering with Waymo's plans to launch an autonomous taxi service in limited markets this year, if you could give us an update on the Tesla Network? And any details surrounding the launch date or geographic rollout? Thanks.

<Musk>: Sure. Thank you for an interesting question. The way things are obviously rolling towards is a shared electrical autonomy model. So, in order for the whole sort of system to work, you need all the pieces in place. You need to have full autonomy, level four or five, whatever you want to call it and, obviously, a lot of cars on the road, and then build the software infrastructure behind that to enable shared autonomy, to enable people to share their cars and be able to offer their cars as effectively kind of a robo-Lyft or robo-Uber, sort of like a combination of like, I guess, Uber, Lyft and Airbnb type of thing, where you can own your car and have 100% usage of an autonomous electric car. You can say it's available generally to anyone who wants to use it. When you're not using it, you can recall it, at will.

You can restrict usage to only friends and family, or only users who are five-star. This is like the obvious thing that's going to happen.

In order for that to be in place, we have to obviously sell full autonomy and we're making really good progress on that front. I believe that the current production of – vehicles that we are currently producing are capable of full autonomy with the only thing that would really be, like, might be needed – maybe is probably needed is a computer upgrade to have more processing power for the vision neural net. That's a plug-in replacement, a thing that can be done quite easily. I think we're really well-positioned and are building the right – the foundation for having millions, ultimately tens of millions of shared autonomous electric vehicles

[Russell]: Do you have any details about or when we could even expect to learn more about the timing of this service?

<Musk>: Well, the hardest thing to break about the timing is regulatory approval. The thing that's tricky with autonomous vehicles is that autonomy doesn't reduce the accident rate or fatality rate to zero. It improves it substantially, but the reality is that even though we think our – we think autonomy, even car autonomy reduces the probability of a death by 30%, which would be incredible because there's like – broadly there's over a 1 million, I think 1.2 million automotive deaths per year. And how many do you read about? Basically, none of them. However but, if it's an autonomous situation, it's headline news, and the media fails to mention that –actually they shouldn't really be writing the story, they should be writing the story about how autonomous cars are really safe, but that's not the story that people want to click on.

So they write inflammatory headlines that are fundamentally misleading to the readers. It's really outrageous. And this will be true, even if electric cars were – sorry, if autonomous cars were 10 times safer, if instead of a 1 million deaths you had 100,000 deaths. There is still going to be people who will still sue and say, hey, you're responsible for the death here. And it's like, well, the 90% of people who didn't die are not suing. They're still alive, they just don't know it.

So, we've got to deal with that and then obviously regulators respond to public pressure and the press. So, if the press is hounding the regulators, and the public is laboring on misapprehension that autonomy is less safe because of misleading press, then this is where I find the challenge of predicting it to be very difficult.

It's really incredibly irresponsible of any journalists with integrity to write an article that would lead people to believe that autonomy is less safe. Because people might actually turn it off, and then die. So anyway, I'm really upset by this.

<Q - Galileo Russell>: I'm not an expert in battery pack technology, but it seems that a lot of people are speculating that the specs for the Semi truck, even I believe the CEO of Daimler said it breaks the laws of physics. / - So, I'm wondering is this a linear...

<Musk> : He doesn't know much about physics. I know him. I'd be happy to engage in a physics discussion with him. I actually studied physics in college.

Operator: One last question

<Kallo> : I completely understand your frustration and I'm frustrated too on how myopic we are right now. They also say that great years were made out of quarters, and great decades are made out of years, so everyone's short-term focus in some ways, and volatility has a way of shaking people out even they are strong and want to be there things. Anything you can do to help in the near-term on that, I think is helpful for the stock. That;s it.

Musk: This is an old maxim of investing, you should not be focused on short-term. You should be focused on long-term things. We have no interest in satisfying the desires of day traders. I couldn't care less. Please sell our stock and don't buy it.

I think that if people are concerned about volatility, they should definitely not buy our stock.

I'm not here to convince you to buy our stock. Do not buy it if volatility is scary. There you go.

Musk: All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate the good questions.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may all disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Some popular posts: the commencement address; by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Learnings from a Welsh goalkeeper

June 5, 2018 Ben Yeoh

A top flight goal keeper and (1) Learning from failure (2) the primary voice of stories not told (3) Mixing (mingle!) with people and views you otherwise would not.

This profile of former top flight Everton goalkeeper, Neville Southall, touches upon the 3 above ideas I am interested in. (It's also a good argument for why when I have time, I flick and read through all sections of a newspaper from News to Arts to Sport...)

On (1) he notes goal keepers often fail but it is how they react to that failure which will mark them out. He still remembers some painful goals scored against him and reflects on the Liverpool goal keeper's mistakes in the recent Champions League Final.

My Mum is a big Liverpool fan, my Dad supported Arsenal - I’ve always been fascinated about what sport and teams and fans tells us about what it means to be human.

This is currently also of note as my work team recently failed in two big pitches / proposals. How we improve from failure will be a mark of how good (or not) our processes and culture are. I hear a lot of talk about learning from failure but it is hard. It is also difficult to teach to children. What makes one child pick themselves up and throw themselves at a problem again and another to shy away....

On (2) Neville Southall talks about giving a platform to unheard voices and genuinely listen to what they say - I like this for several reasons (i) I like to rely more on more on primary source voices not filtered too many times by tropes or media reporters - the primary voices are often more nuanced, complex and fascinating than the filtered reflection of such voices. Good journalism can bring those voices out (but the medium and long form art of that is under pressure)

This increasingly is how I do company research as well, constructive skepticism is practiced by all good business and company analysts - but how do you research what is really happening ? The famous fund manager Peter Lynch suggested you could learn a lot by observing the world. I concur but would also add speaking to people - experts or customers - can also add insights.

It intersects with a primary force behind why some are involved in theatre - to tell the stories / listen to the stories from the voices that are not often heard. And listening to those primary voices is important.

It is an important thread for why I share autistic voice narratives (see here for E Price and here for Naoki Higashida). It’s important to hear from the people themselves.

Finally this idea that twitter is a place where you can meet people you would not usually meet - while I think that’s true of social media I do believe that bringing it to a real life mingle is also useful. Hence the mingle event idea.

A thoughtful read you can find here

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Some popular posts: the commencement address; by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Me and the Young Vic space

May 22, 2018 Ben Yeoh

9 years ago I had my fusion wedding tea ceremony in the Young Vic Bar space (see above picture snaps)

14 years ago an architect friend of mine* helped re-design the Young Vic theatre

24 years ago, I sold books to David Lan (recently departed AD) in Elgin Crescent, in a bookshop that only exists in memory now.

15 years ago, I had my only insignificant moment on a London stage (I’m firmly a not-on-stage-person), where at the Young Vic Studio I had the tiniest part in the reading of a Mark Ravenhill play (an early version of the Cut) playing Gita, a mute waiter, directed by John Tiffany (now famous for directing JK Rowling's Cursed Child amongst other achievements)

I'm having the next mingle 31 May there, do come.

*See HAT Projects where she is now - I am forever in awe of the value of design and the intangible way our built environment nudges us for better or for worse. Hana has helped design some remarkable things and I continue to be in awe of the legacy she will leave from it.