Living in More Than One World

I haven’t thought much in recent years about the rock singer Willy DeVille and his band Mink DeVille, names out of my music writing/selling days in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But I was still surprised and saddened to read of his death, at 58, of pancreatic cancer. As with so many rock passings, it came after years of living on the edge. But a little bit of your heart breaks when even a small part of your past goes away. DeVille was one of the pioneers of the New York ’70s punk rock scene, playing the legendary, now-defunct CBGB in the same era as bands that became considerably more popular, such as Blondie, Talking Heads and The Ramones. The latter became more popular in retrospect, but had a shocking mortality rate among its band members. And DeVille’s music was not straight punk rock, but in the words of the AP obit, a “blend of R&B, blues, Dixieland and traditional French Cajun ballads.” The official bio mentions his admiration for Edith Piaf. He worked with some stellar producers, such as the late Jack Nitzsche and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.  DeVille’s song “Storybook Love” from the film The Princess Bride was nominated for an Academy award. He was also prolific, recording a number of band and solo albums between 1977 and 2005.  For a personal, evocative appreciation of DeVille and his music, read Neil McCormick’s Willy DeVille: death of an icon, on Telegraph.co.uk. McCormick observes that DeVille drew on some of the same musical sources as Bruce Springsteen, who also began his recording career in the ‘70s. “Springsteen sounded like he was your friend in desperate times,” McCormick writes. “DeVille sounded like he couldn’t quite decide whether to serenade you or pull a knife on you.”

As someone who teaches grad school (if only one semester a year), I was quite interested to read about the array of online ventures that are trying to provide new models for higher education in Anya Kamenetz’s September 2009 Fast Company feature, How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education. While some of the innovations revolve around major universities putting their content online for the outside world (besides online learning initiatives available to their own students), the article demonstrates that there is not one particular model that is winning out for how people who are not on a campus will take advantage of online learning. One thing that is clear is that only a select group of people can pay the eye-popping tuition prices of some our universities. If there is a way to receive, if not the exact experience someone would get by spending four years at Harvard, Stanford or similar schools, but something similar at a greatly reduced price and other barriers to entry, an educational revolution would be possible. If prospective students can mix and match course content from a number of top professors and universities, our whole idea of what it means to be highly educated will change. If this can be accomplished at no cost, or a relatively inexpensive cost, there will be unlimited opportunities for for-profit and nonprofit organizations to apply not only the tools we have now, but those that will be developed in the future. Also check out the sidebar, 5 Startups to Watch, with thumbnail descriptions of 2tor Inc., EduFire, Grockit, Inigral and Knewton. What will happen if schools as we currently know them don’t fully adapt to the new technological possibilities? If that is the case, there is the chilling prospect, Kamenetz writes, that they “will find themselves on the wrong side of history, alongside newspaper chains and record stores.”

Gordon Pitts of The Globe and Mail in Toronto has a fascinating Q&A today, Why Joseph Rotman hates the ‘do-gooder’ label,  with businessman/philanthropist/volunteer/educator Joseph Rotman, who seems to embody the idea of living in more than one world. The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is named after him. He is highly educated himself and recognizes the value of education not just to individuals, but to all of society. One theme I took away from the interview was that working with and strengthening nonprofit organizations and the arts was in everyone’s interest. They are part of the pillars of making a better life for everyone in a community, or an entire country. Rather than focus so much on shareholder value in business education and running corporations, he says we should use a broader view that takes into account a wider set of stakeholders. “You are part of a total system,” Rotman says, “and, as a corporation and business leader, you have a responsibility to participate in all aspects, which is why I do my community work, why I do my public policy work. I am lucky enough to afford to do it and love doing it.” He sees the arts and the creativity that underpins it as a crucial part of life that should be appreciated on the same level as business, science and technology and other endeavors. The interview is relatively brief, but gives a nice overview of his life, the decisions he’s made about his career and education and how he’s gotten to where he is at age 74. Although he’s well past traditional retirement age, he is doing work and putting his personal fortune to use to benefit as many people as possible. I think it’s significant that the tagline for the Rotman School is “a new way to think.”

In my previous post I wrote about extending the summer through summer/beach reading lists. Another intriguing one is Michael P. Maslanka’s Summer 2009 Beach Reads for GCs, from law.com/Texas Lawyer. Maslanka is a Dallas-based attorney and writer, and though this is aimed at corporate attorneys, it is thoughtful and broad-based enough to appeal to a wider readership. He includes recent business books, such as Alan Webber’s Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self, though the list gets particularly interesting when Maslanka goes beyond business. “Books that help us do not need to be self-help books,” he observes. He includes two related to the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, then moves to Charlotte Higgins’ book on Latin poetry, Latin Love Lessons: Put a Little Ovid in Your Life. To honor the value of brevity, there is Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart. The list has many more choices in a variety of categories, including mysteries and thrillers. There is even a brief reminder of why all this is important in the first place: “Books enlighten us. They free us. They uplift us,” he writes. Another angle on summer reading can be found in Some Thoughts on Infinite Jest During the Infinite Summer, Mike Miley’s Huffington Post about an online reading group dedicated to reading David Foster Wallace’s huge novel Infinite Jest by September 22. Wallace, who taught creative writing at Pomona College in Claremont, California, committed suicide last year. I haven’t read his books, but when I heard of his death I wondered if I had ever unknowingly seen him during the times I was in Claremont researching my book. It’s not a big city, and I often walked through the lovely Pomona College campus, which is not far from the Drucker School. Finally, a bestseller this summer is a book reprinting Wallace’s 2005 Kenyon College commencement address, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.

The only thing better than reading books during the summer is reading the summer/beach reading lists and articles. And I particularly enjoy the British ones. Genevieve Fox, on Telegraph.co.uk, presents some considerations beyond the strictly literary in her entertaining article It’s the summer holidays, but what on earth should you read? For instance, think about whether the books you’re packing are going to put you over airline weight limits. One of her interviewees says he will take both a hardback and paperback copy of the same Nick Hornby book: the former for his hotel room and the latter for the messier beach. The 50 Best Summer Reads ran on independent.co.uk in June. Their books were chosen by a five person panel including an author, editor, BBC presenter and two buyers from large British booksellers. The list unfolds as a picture gallery of covers, with short descriptions and panelist quotes. To learn what UK newspaper critics are reading this summer, check out the survey Booktrust’s 2009 summer reading roundup, and the related guardian.co.uk article Sarah Waters tops critics’ summer reading chart. On July 5th, the newspaper published Text on the beach – the 50 best summer reads ever.  The Guardian made a number of its own recommendations, but also included entries from luminaries of the British arts world, including the ubiquitous Alain de Botton, who recommends The Death of Ivan Illich, by Leo Tolstoy. Why should you read this on vacation? “Because reminders of mortality tend to accentuate pleasure,” de Botton reasons. I was happy to see that one of my choices for summer reading (just started), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by the late Stieg Larsson, was recommended by director Richard Eyre, who writes: “It’s an intelligent thriller that never disappoints: complex plot, inspired sleuthing, social comment, violence, sex and almost credible characters.”

The week is moving fast. It’s already Wednesday. But if you haven’t already done so, check out USA TODAY’s handy First Monday: New in business TV, DVDs, magazines, books. This runs on the first Monday of each month, and it’s a fun and informative feature to look at either in print (where it takes up the entire third page) or online, with the added value of links. I always enjoyed when I got the opportunity to write for this page when I worked at USA TODAY. It provides readers with quick and useful scans of upcoming things that should be on the radar screens of business people. It also deserves an audience beyond the business world. The August 3 page includes the book 1000 CEOs, with “brief biographies, career trajectories and pullouts of each executive’s traits, practices or words of wisdom.” The films featured are the advertising documentary Art & Copy, and Julie and Julia, based on Julie Powell’s hit book Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. It stars Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. One of my favorite features each month is What I Read, in which an executive details what he or she is reading, and a bit about their reading habits. The spotlight here is on E. Kelly Fitzsimmons, CEO of HarQen. Her three favorite books: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Good to Great by Jim Collins and Managing the Professional Service Firm by David Maister. The “5 Questions” this month features Bill Roedy, chairman and CEO of MTV Networks International. His response to what makes his network a good ambassador for American culture abroad: “We have 150 channels in 168 countries and our audience, primarily young people, wants to be connected. Our goal is to be both a medium of cultural exchange and a unifying force by integrating global and local culture.”

I’m back on the festival beat with last week’s WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival in the UK. This is yet another event that most of us can’t attend, but can learn a lot about online. It’s one of the premier world music festivals, and was the 27th time it has been held in the UK, where the WOMAD organization is based. They also produce festivals around the world, and I was fortunate to have attended two in the early ‘90s, in Toronto. Peter Gabriel is one of the co-founders of WOMAD, and though he doesn’t often play the festival, he was the headliner on July 25th. Check out the full lineup on the festival’s site to get an idea of the worldwide scope of the music on offer. Click on the artists’ names for brief bios and video clips from pre-festival performances. As with Glastonbury and Latitude, earlier festivals I wrote about, there were a number of stages and more on offer than you could have taken in at one time. Robin Denselow’s review on Guardian.co.uk notes the continued importance of African music to the event, especially this year with Youssou N’Dour and Rokia Traoré. On the BBC Radio 3 stage, one of the events I would have particularly liked to have seen and heard was Charlie Gillett with Special Guests, in which the BBC DJ and author was both playing some of his current favorite records and sharing the stage with various world musicians. I knew Charlie back in my music days in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and he is one of the most iconic figures in British music. Mark Hudson ends his review on Telegraph.co.uk with an interesting observation: “In an environment in which the bracingly unfamiliar quickly became the norm, the jangly guitar-rock of fresh-faced British indie band Black Swan Effect stood out as by far the most exotic fare of the day.”