There is a certain quality which makes a piece of music or art special. It is a certain reassuredness, a calm undertatement which takes hold of the recipient and makes him or her feel at home. It is a feeling that what is perceived is enjoyable without any demands, intellectual or em0tional, being placed. Maybe this quality should be called 'serenity' or something.

While I certainly feel that art should often make demands on its audience, works of art which manage to grab a hold without impressing, astonishing or provoking do have a place. I think Kind of Blue from Miles Davis is certainly such a work of art, maybe even an archtype. Today I found such an approach in Donald Fagen's new solo album, Morph the Cat, especially in the song "What I do". In the song, Donald accounts for a visit from the ghost of Ray Charles. It is a warm, melancholy tribute to a master. I particularily like Ray's verse:

"He says Don don’t despair - just take some time
You find your bad self - you’re gonna do just fine
Its what I do - its what I do
It’s not some game I play
It’s in my DNA
Its what I do".


Another place where I have found such solace lately has been the landscape photography of Charlie Waite. His pictures take one into another place, yet not through provocation or flamboyance but through simplicity and charm.

A stressed-up week, starting to look forward to the summer holiday. I'm going to be changing jobs in August and am trying desperately to wrap everything up before I leave. Looking forward to the new position, new ideas and shaking up my basic sense of security as I am socialized into a new orgnizational culture. Also looking forward to teaching new courses to new students.

One of the most exciting new ideas I have been working on with a bunch of colleagues is an upcoming web community called Opensource organizing. Our idea is to create a community where everybody can access and develop strategy, leadership and organizing practices, and their share experiences of using different such practices in different contexts. It will be a meeting place for academics and practitioners. From an academic viewpoint such as mine, most of the interesting action in organizations takes place where such practices are employed, and through a knowledge transfer between practitioners and academics, we can hopefully learn new things about organizations.

All in all, the open-endedness of my current situation is very pleasing after a long stretch of doing basically the same things. That... and the upcoming summer holidays.