Mouth: A new genre within journalism: SlowConversation

Read Antonella Gambotto-Burke’s revealing, SlowConversations in her new book MOUTH which is a collection of SlowConversations with people like: Edward de Bono, Jordan Belfort, Jack Falcone, Sasha Grey, Sig Hansen, Marilyn Manson, Bette Midler, Chuck Palahniuk and many more including myself.

The interviews are very well connected together as a collection. Antonella has invented a new genre within journalism namely SlowConversation. A interview without a premeditated agenda (she is in no hurry!). A very important new genre in these times of short catchlines and FastConversations.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

– I have to admit that I am not 100% neutral in this book review because from chapter “The idle revolution”, MOUTH, by Antonella Gambotto-Burke

“In 1999, Berthelsen founded the World Institute of Slowness, a Slow think tank. His favorite challenges are those pertaining to change management, stress, creativity, problem solving and process improvements in what he calls our fire fighting culture.”

“The fast will beat the big, but the slow will beat the fast,” he says.

“The jolly Berthelsen notes that our culture´s omnipresent corporate mindset is long on quantity and short on quality. The focus is on the end product, not the process itself. In the west, the man with most toys wins and not the man with the most time to play with the toys. Ironically, the best business thinking often comes from a walk in the slow lane.”

– From chapter “Buttoned Up + Plugged In”, MOUTH, by Antonella Gambotto-Burke

“Throughout the west, a rapidly increasing number of 20- to-40 somethings are beginning to feel the same way. Over the past few years, there has been a 65 per cent increase in the sales of board games, a boom in knitting, and an explosion in the popularity of poetry evenings, obscure lectures and book clubs. Ballroom dancing has been described as enjoying its biggest resurgence since the 1940s, steam train holidays are subject to flurries of bookings, cooking class attendance is surging, books concerning traditional wisdom for men are selling beautifully (Lost Lore, Red Sky at Night), and hundreds of thousands of men are building vintage Skype phones and Secret Knock Gumball Machines. Such men go to bed early, cultivate mustaches and social sensitivities, trap and skeet shoot with muzzle-loading shotguns, keep bees, and – with an earnestness and enthusiasm antithetical to the eternally adolescent Seinfeld generation – marry young. Their conversational topics? The integrity of architecture, comparative literature, heritage roses and philosophy.”

“Fittingly, there has also been a sharp rise in the number of festivals held by Victorian enthusiasts, horse riders in formal Victorian riding dress, and participants in Tweed Rides (cycling events in which riders clad in vintage formal attire vie to win Best Mustache, Most Dapper Chap, and so on). These technologically adroit revivalists do not necessarily recognize themselves as belonging to a movement, but do acknowledge a profound nostalgia for a time in which life pivoted on meaning, rather than net worth.”

Here is the link to the book and free Kindle app:

MOUTH

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Author: Geir Berthelsen
Founder of The World Institute of Slowness
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