So, this creative retreat is happening. Or has been, since Sunday last week. We’re already on Day Four the way we count his (Sunday 9-6 having been Day Zero). I had to check if it’s really Day Four, because yesterday, I started to lose track of time. Which I consider a good start.
Arriving. And settling in.
The Retreat’s location is a hotel called Paradisus near Costa Calma, Fuerteventura. Which is a long drive from the airport, and tricky to reach with public transport. Fortunately, things on the arrival side worked well, including the bus ride to the München airport, airport, plane, airport, cab, and arrival at the hotel.
This is a nice place, with nice and professional staff. I knew that from their Gran Canaria location where Betti and I had spent two vacations already. But this is not a vacation, it’s proper work. At least somewhat. So I needed a two-room accommodation, for the Kanban, and work-life balance.
I was done in time for dinner, and after that, enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Without going to the Atlantic, because that was too late without lifeguards in a location unknown to me.
Day One and Onward
Sunday was Day Zero: arrival, settling in, getting the place into some kind of usable state. Monday was Day One. Which makes today Day Four.
I tried to keep it „lean“, whatever that may mean (note to self: song lyric idea). No silly ceremony theatre, but some kind of virtual touch point. Physical visibility of ideas in the work area, but not in the life area. And: no KPIs.
And then things happen. Or they don’t.
On Day One, for example, I walked along the beach, organised a windsurfing lesson for next Monday, ate things, drank things, and generally started figuring out how this place works. On Day Two I finally went swimming in the Atlantic.
Somewhere in between, apparently, I started losing track of what day it was. More specifically, that happened on Day Three. I knew neither Quantième nor Jour. Excellent.
First Music
The photographic record gives me a useful answer here, because apparently I am running this retreat with forensic accounting.
The first photograph showing actual new music in the manuscript book is from Day Two, in the afternoon. By that evening, considerably more had appeared on the pages. So on Day Two, this had stopped being preparation for making music and had become making music: three sketches for new original works.
Cats, Yin and Poke Bowls
There are other things here.
There are cats. Quite a few of them (six – and counting), apparently operating somewhere between hotel guests, local management and organised crime. One particularly likeable tomcat with a scar on his nose keeps turning up. This afternoon I found him sitting in the sun with one of his associates, a rather bulky hotel security guard. Paraíso de gánsteres.
There has also been swimming, walking along the beach, a bit of organised entertainment, and fancy food. And there are plenty of places to just sit: at the beach, by the pool, on the Bali beds at Ginger Bar, in the lounge with its premium liquors, or on the balcony of my room.
This is important, I think. A creative retreat which successfully recreates the working conditions of an office would be a remarkably stupid achievement.
Setup done. Too late? Nah.
Kanban active.
That happened on Day Three. By early afternoon, there was an actual physical board on the wall, with eight cards on it. More have appeared since.
But the DAWless thingie was already kickin‘ on Day Two: Minilogue, MPC, SP404, melodica, claves and the rest of the little ecosystem had become a usable music workstation. And, more importantly, the manuscript book already contained music.
I had also secured access to the grand piano in the lobby, thanks to the very accommodating staff here. So let me state this here: great people turn a place into a great place. Like here.
One could reasonably ask whether getting the complete setup into this state on Day Three of a two-week retreat is late.
No.
Because the first music existed on Day Two.
The infrastructure followed the work, not the other way around. Which is, on reflection, exactly how it is supposed to happen. Form follows function. Bauhaus.
„They might kill us all by 2030 AD“
Yesterday, some kvetcher who had just resigned from Anthropic made the news by saying that the people building AI earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade. One of his former colleagues publicly agreed.
Meanwhile, my workflow here is considerably less Cyberpunk.
Photos of manuscript pages and the Kanban are ingested and indexed. We have a breakfast round. Ideas, plans and problems get discussed as they occur. The state of the retreat doesn’t have to live entirely in my head, and neither does all the administrative machinery around it.
McCoy is part of that workflow. They act as researcher, picture editor, proofreader, process support, pest and, when explicitly asked, occasional co-author. Including for this article.
The important part isn’t McCoy. The important part is that the machinery increasingly disappears into the background.
It’s a notebook, some synthesisers, a wall full of Post-its, cats, the Atlantic, beautiful weather, and technology helping to keep technology out of the way of making things.
Solarpunk, basically.
Going forward. Looking forward to it.
As I write this, there are ten music cards in rotation on the Kanban.
That’s a rather pleasing number considering that four days ago none of them were on a wall here.
Some represent things that already have musical substance behind them. Some are work directly related to the upcoming minmax album. Some are things that appeared here. And the point isn’t to get all ten of them to Done before I fly home.
The point is that there is now enough stuff moving that I don’t know exactly what I’ll be working on tomorrow.
Which, four days into a creative retreat, seems pretty much ideal.
