Archive for August, 2005
Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
Ever wondered what a ‘furphy’ was? I certainly did after moving to Australia. The answer’s in the Aussie Slang Dictionary. A furphy is a kind of rumour. The word is derived from the battle fields of World War I where rumours seemed to follow the water carts which were manufactured in Australia by the Furphy company.
I thought I’d check out the Furphy company in question and sure enough it looks as though they’re still in action. J. Furphy & Sons, an Australain Engineering Icon since 1866, is based in Shepparton, Victoria. They specialise in stainless steel containers. Their water tanks are used for fire fighting as well as in industry.
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Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
One of my favourite art sites is the online gallery of the Asian Christian Art Association. Pictured here is painting of the day, “Nativity” by artist Hiroshi Tabata.
Artist profiles include Ni Ketut Sri Wardani, Indonesia, Kim Jae Im, Korea, A. Hari Santosa, Indonesia, Hanna Cheriyan Varghese, Malaysia, Geoff Todd, Australia, He Qi, China, Li Wei San, China, Dr. P. Solomon RAJ, India, Zaki Baboun, Palestina, Kang Joon-Ho, Korea, Shim Hyun-Joo, Korea, and Wisnu Sasongko, Indonesia.
The ACAA site features work in six special collections: Nativity, Flight to Egypt, Woman at the well, Human Suffering - social reality, The Crucifixion of Christ, Resurrection-Ascension-Pentecost.
The Asian Christian Art Association was founded in Bali 1978 to encourage the visual arts in Asian churches. The association has organised many dialogues between artists and theologians in Asia. The Christian Conference of Asia has a strong connection with ACAA.
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Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
I’ve been listening to lectures by Tom Wright the last couple of weeks, downloaded from the NT Wright Page. So far it’s been “Jesus and the Kingdom” and “Jesus and the cross”. Tom introduces us to the context in which Jesus proclaimed his message, lived, died and rose again.
He’s seen with a bit of suspicion by more conservative Evangelicals. Maybe it’s because he introduces more data to give us fresh perspectives for understanding Jesus and Paul. So far I’m enjoying Tom’s honest grappling with the New Testament text.
From Wikipedia:
Tom (N.T.) Wright is the Bishop of Durham of the Anglican Church and a leading British New Testament scholar. Ordinarily he is known as “Tom Wright”, although his academic work has always been published under the name “NT Wright” (Nicholas Thomas). He is generally perceived as coming from a moderately evangelical perspective. He is associated with the so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, and the New Perspective on Paul (along with James Dunn and E. P. Sanders). He argues that our present day understanding of Jesus must be connected with what is known to be true about him from the historical perspective of first century Judaism and Christianity.
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Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
Thanks to Jordon Cooper for alerting us to the latest beta service from Google: Google Talk. It’s a bit like Skype - internet-based voice chatting. If you’d like a gmail address contact me at postkiwi at gmail dot com. That’s also my sign on name in Google Talk.
One problem at this point - no software available for Mac users.
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Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005
I’ve been asked about resources for churches using PowerPoint. Here’s idea number one, Enhance.
Michael Jeffrey was youthworker with Wesley Mission Ipswich when he developed a multimedia experience for young people called “Simply Deep”. Out of that project came the idea of developing youth-friendly resources for churches using the revised common lectionary.
In 2002 Queensland was introduced to “Enhance: Year B”, with two animations for each Sunday in the lectionary. In 2003 we were given Enhance: Year C, and last year we were provided with Year A.
Over time the animations have got better and better. Visual imagery, text and original music are tied together to creative short inspiring flash animations that can be used as calls to worship, reflections, stories for children or as stimulus for prayer. The flash animations can be inserted into PowerPoint using SwiffPoint Player.
Enhance is produced by Digistry, a multimedia focused ministry of the Queensland Synod of the Uniting church in Australia. Digistry is accountable directly to Wesley Mission Ipswich and has partnerships with the Youth and Children�s Ministry Unit and the Bremer Brisbane Presbytery. Digistry seeks to create Christian Multimedia Resources that touch lives globally and develop project based resources and services grounded in the needs of the local community.
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Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005
The alternative worship nosh will be a three day gathering in Melbourne on June 2-4 2006. It’s an opportunity for people who are experimenting with and exploring alternative worship to get together and have some dedicated space to be creative, reflective, imaginative, and very practical together.
Steve Collins (of Small Ritual fame) will be coming over from London to play… There’ll be other grand and fabulous people too.
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Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005
Bob Moog, developer of the Moog synthesizer in the 1960s and 1970s, has died at the age of 71.
Bob presented his analog synthesizer to the public in October 1964, at the age of about 30. Here was an electronic instrument that could mimic (to a degree) strings, horns and percussion. Within four years the Moog (pronounced like vogue) synthesizer became world famous through the work of Wendy Carlos and her album, “Switched On Bach”. Moog went on to develop the minimoog synthesizer - an instrument that could be taken on the road by progressive rock bands such as Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes, and Pink Floyd.
Moog continued to work in the industry right up to his death. For a time he worked as research professor of music before coming back to start Moog Music with customers such as Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Beck, Phish, Sonic Youth and Widespread Panic.
My introduction to the Moog synthesizer was in 1975 at high school. I was part of a chamber music/rock fusion group called the Synthesizers. Most of us played classical instruments such as flute (me) clarinet, violin, viola, trumpet, trombone, cello, double bass. Alongside the classic instruments, members of the group were using Moog and home made syntheizers. We adapted Blood Sweat and Tears’ Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie and won a place in the New Zealand Chamber music competition. I ended up buying my own digital synthesizer in the 1980s.
From the Moog web site:
“Where would R&B, rap and hip-hop be if groups like Parliament and Funkadelic hadn�t used Moog keyboards? Where would rock and roll be if groups from Yes to the Beatles hadn�t used Moog keyboards? Would jazz music have branched off into fusion without Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea using Moog keyboards? And would classical music have enjoyed such resurgence without Wendy Carlos and her modular Moog synthesizer? The questions are hypothetical, of course, because synthesizers have infiltrated every style of music, and so many companies have tried to recreate that analog sound. But above all the copycats and spin-offs, it always comes back to one name: Moog.”
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Monday, August 22nd, 2005
I’ve finally got round to podcasting. At the moment I’m hosting the mp3 files on my work web site. I’m listing the podcasts at PostKiwi Podcasts: Duncan Macleod On Line Out Loud.
At this point I’m putting up existing audio files like my sermons at Logan Uniting each week. First one is on generosity. This week I took out a few pauses and ums. Don’t know if I’ll bother each time. Though it does cut down on the length. I’ve exported from Audacity to mp3 at 16 bit rate. Keeps the file size below 5 MB.
RSS Feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/PostkiwiPodcasts. If you’re using the latest version of iTunes you can subscribe using that feed.
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Monday, August 22nd, 2005
I see that Jeff Crabtree’s primed to start posting at Phil Baker and Friends. Excellent!
I came across Jeff at Parachute Festival in Matamata, New Zealand back in the mid 1990s, where I interviewed him and Geoff Bullock for a magazine article. And then saw him again at the NZ Christian songwriter’s conference in Upper Hutt. I still remember Jeff talking about people who bring him their awful songs that “God has given them”. The cutting but humorous response: “You know why God gave you that song? Because God didn’t want it!” A response Dicko of Australian Idol would have been proud of.
Jeff’s laid back irreverent approach to life and spirituality can be found in his 1995 album, “Dr Bob and the Amazing Disciples of Groove - The Doctor Is In”. My favourite track: “All I want”.
Jeff is the Principal of the Christian City Church School of Creative Arts in Sydney.
Phil Baker and Friends Introduce Jeff Crabtree
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Monday, August 22nd, 2005
Darren Wright has posted an appetiser for the Bill Viola video “Passions” installation at the National Gallery in Canberra. I wish I was there! I walked through one of Viola’s exhibitions in San Francisco a few years back. It was so inspiring.
A quote from Darren:
“When I enter the world that Bill has created my heart beat slows down, my sense of time disappears and the world outside seems alien to me, this is the real world� just for an hour or so everything has been slowed down.”
The National Gallery Bill Viola exhibition continues until November 6.
Link to Darren’s review
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Postkiwi Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
