Had a teacher who said poetry was a moment boiled down to its essence.
Billy Collins gets knocked for being too simplistic, but he does have a knack for boiling.
“1: Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2: Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3: Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
4: When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5: Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6: Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7: Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8: Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9: Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.”
— Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy | Open Culture (via ario) I’m sure I’ve re-blogged this before. I have a copy of this posted on my office door. (via notational)
Fuck a democracy. These are rules for any semi-functioning work space.
(via kenyatta)
Seven songs for a Sunday… (there’s some audio alliteration for you).
(Source: Spotify)
I’m trying to fix an old house. I am more heady than I am handy. I fail at it more often than not. But I’ve come to realize we all fail at things every day – big, little, in between – the key lesson is to not fail the same way twice.
That, and to always measure three times, cut once.
Sam & Patti
People say there’s no such thing as time travel, or being able to see into the future. But there is. Just look at that old couple walking down the street – that’s gonna be you. Look at those young kids at the corner going to town on Mr. Softee cones – that was you. You don’t need a time machine to see the future and the past. You just need eyes. Or a couple of photos of Sam & Patti.
(via bbook)
You don’t need to be graduating this spring to get some schoolin’.
(This Is Water – a film/edit of David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech to Kenyon’s 2005 graduating class)
Photographer Linden Gledhill used a home-made contraption to photograph this ladybird in flight in his garden in Pennsylvania
Picture: LINDEN GLEDHILL / CATERS (via Pictures of the day: 14 May 2013 - Telegraph)
What insects give up in cuddliness, they make up in crazy functional hidden sci-fi wings.
A 52ft-high (16m) rubber duck, which has attracted crowds of admirers in various locations around the world, lies deflating in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. The giant bird, created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, was found lying on its side on Tuesday night and was completely flat by Wednesday.
FUCK COMMITTEES
(I believe in lunatics)It’s about the struggle between individuals with jagged passion in their work and today’s faceless corporate committees, which claim to understand the needs of the mass audience, and are removing the idiosyncrasies, polishing the jags, creating a thought-free, passion-free, cultural mush that will not be hated nor loved by anyone. By now, virtually all media, architecture, product and graphic design have been freed from ideas, individual passion, and have been relegated to a role of corporate servitude, carrying out corporate strategies and increasing stock prices. Creative people are now working for the bottom line.
Magazine editors have lost their editorial independence, and work for committees of publishers (who work for committees of advertisers). TV scripts are vetted by producers, advertisers, lawyers, research specialists, layers and layers of paid executives who determine whether the scripts are dumb enough to amuse what they call the ‘lowest common denominator’. Film studios out films in front of focus groups to determine whether an ending will please target audiences. All cars look the same. Architectural decisions are made by accountants. Ads are stupid. Theater is dead.
Corporations have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste in America. Our culture is corporate culture.
Culture used to be the opposite of commerce, not a fast track to ‘content’- derived riches. Not so long ago captains of industry (no angels in the way they acquired wealth) thought that part of their responsibility was to use their millions to support culture. Carnegie built libraries, Rockefeller built art museums, Ford created his global foundation. What do we now get from our billionaires? Gates? Or Eisner? Or Redstone? Sales pitches. Junk mail. Meanwhile, creative people have their work reduced to ‘content’ or ‘intellectual property’. Magazines and films become ‘delivery systems’ for product messages.
But to be fair, the above is only 99 percent true.
I offer a modest solution: Find the cracks in the wall. There are a very few lunatic entrepreneurs who will understand that culture and design are not about fatter wallets, but about creating a future. They will understand that wealth is means, not an end. Under other circumstances they may have turned out to be like you, creative lunatics. Believe me, they’re there and when you find them, treat them well and use their money to change the world.
Tibor Kalman
New York, June 1998Storm the reality studio and retake the universe.
