Tomorrow I’m riding 16 hours in a van (and perhaps driving too?) to Indiana for the aforementioned conference. After that comes Kansas City – any hot tips on fun things to do in KC are welcome…
All posts tagged conferences
Young Quaker conference at Earlham
Later this month, May 23-26, a young adult Friends (YAF) conference is taking place at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. I’m going, and will be leading an interest group on theistic and nontheistic Quakerism in dialogue, if the organizers approve it.
Registration closes this week, so if you’re interested in going, hurry up!
Still mulling over what place (a) Quakerism, (b) humanism, and (c) just being a regular Joe each have in my life, but I feel a resolution (for the medium term anyway) coming soon.
My name was Jorge Regula
A year ago, at the talent show of a big young Quaker conference in Burlington, New Jersey, I wanted to play a song called “Jorge Regula” by the Moldy Peaches. I chickened out though, because I wasn’t sure I’d remember the lyrics. But last weekend I played it at the WinterCon “Talent Optional Show,” and a good time was had by all.
It’s about nothing, really, but it captures something of the “food & creative love” vibe of those sorts of gatherings. It’s also call-and-response, which, with the audience on response, allows it to be participatory. Which I like.
Saving the self-deprecation for the end of the post, musically it was nothing to write home about. The guitar part is pretty much ape-simple, but I could still feel my musical rustiness in the strumming. It’s good to get practice being on stage though.
Extroversion and ego at a UU conference
I read a story once about a famous Chinese musician who was visiting the West, and was taken to a concert hall to hear the finest in European classical music. After the concert, he was asked what piece he liked the best.
– The first one, he said.
– You mean the Beethoven? his hosts asked, humming a few bars of the first piece.
– No, he said, the one before that.
Eventually, they realized he meant the period when the musicians were tuning their instruments.
Something similar happened to me at the conference I went to last weekend. Continue reading →
