Sometimes the only sane thing to do is listen to The Flying Burrito Brothers. (The Flying Burrito Brothers // Sin City)
In New York City – the physical infrastructure of it – decay is viewed as mysterious, romantic, even beautiful. I think this is one of the reasons people come here. That some of that magic might rub off on them. But it never does. As soon as that first scent of rot trickles off you, no one wants anything to do with you. Not even the city.
5 Things Creative Professionals (and Amateurs) Can Learn from McNulty & Bunk on The Wire.*
1. Accept there will be bad guys. There will always be bad guys – people pissing on your ideas, your work, whatever you make. That’s not an excuse to not do something. That’s the reason to do something.
2. Show up. There are few truly new ideas. That doesn’t mean you don’t kick around in previously trodden territories. Like, say, an old crime scene. Just by showing up you’ll bring a new perspective to something – yours.
3. Dive into the details. Your big idea might come from that tiny sliver of glass no one else notices.
4. Play your hunches. If something doesn’t feel right, follow what does. Even if “they” say it should be like X, make it like Y if that’s what feels right.
5. Have a good partner. You can’t think of everything. And neither can your partner. But odds are together, you might think of almost everything.
*This is also a blatant excuse for me to post one of my favorite scenes from The Wire.
“They give endlessly and don’t ask for anything in return,” Austin Young, one of Fallen Fruit’s members, said of the fruit trees that make up the group’s latest “art piece” — a fledgling orchard of Tropic Snow white peaches, Mariposa plums and other trees installed alongside swing sets and basketball hoops here in Del Aire Park.”
—
‘Fruit Activists’ Take Urban Gardens in a New Direction - NYTimes.com
Sometimes art is just fuckin’ common sense.
I’m putting this up here so I won’t forget it. Which means the battle’s half lost. But the quote is pretty spot on for just about anything.
The sun is a drum
the moon is a cymbal
The flow of time is caught in a cup.Cupful by
cupful by
cupful time
is cut; if not,
we should choke.By night in the northern quarter the Dipper
or Northern Ladle or Bushel Measure
turns like the hand of a clock measuring time
although no punctuating tick or tock
notches its arc, sunset to sunrise.Its handle divides the year into seasons,
pointing towards earth at dusk in autumn,
upward at dusk in spring, in winter
twilight west, in summer east.And so it is and was and shall be
but not world without end (and neither
was it so from the world’s beginning).—Mary Barnard, from “Song for the Northern Quarter”
Art Credit Christopher Pratt
I’m a sucker for anything that starts:
The sun is a drum
the moon is a cymbal
The flow of time is caught in a cup.
“They keep just throwing more stuff onto the bill to make it that much harder to replicate,” says Jason Kersten, author of “The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter.” “Bills are getting pretty crowded now. There’s a lot of signage on the bills.” (via $20 bill turns 10, trailblazer in fight against counterfeiters | Marketplace.org)
I want to write a story where one of the plot points is an unforgeable anti-counterfeit bill that cost more to manufacture than the face value of the bills it protects.
This is fantastic and hilarious. And amazing. And fantastic.
Easter-egg-style story lines like this always elevate a show or movie to another level for me.
Greatness usually takes patience. Or at least somebody in the writers room saying, “We’ll probably never pull it off, but you know what would be really amazing?…”
(via kenyatta)
Three thoughts from a plane.
1. If you look out the window on take off and landing, eventually you’ll be at the exact altitude you fly in your dreams.
2. When you see all those cities and roads and cars and lights, you realize just how much energy we use.
3. Clouds are like eyebrows. They get really funny looking when you stare at them.
![It was a severe disappointment, Beyle [Stendhal] writes, when some years ago, looking through old papers, he came across an engraving entitled Prospetto d’Ivrea and was obliged to concede that his recollected picture of the town in the evening sun was nothing but a copy of that very engraving. This being so, Beyle’s advice is not to purchase engravings of fine views and prospects seen on one’s travels, since before very long they will displace our memories completely, indeed one might say they destroy them. — W.G. Sebald, VertigoYou might wonder what that quote has to do with The Great Gatsby movie set to open in a few days. Or what F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel has to do with an engraving? Nothing, on the face of it. But taken as a whole, it has to do with memory and what we allow to affect our own. Like a trip, a book is a form of travel. Everyone knows the metaphor, and I don’t need to reiterate it, poorly, here. But if a souvenir, as Stendhal believed, can sap the memory of your travels, slowly replace it, act as a crutch that allows you to passively let a stand-in become the memory instead of a trigger for it – then a movie, as great as it might be, can do the same to the landscapes, metropolises, back alleys, night skies – in short, the entire world – you create in your mind when you read a book. (While we’re on the subject of books, why do we only make movies out of books? Why not treat paintings the same way? How about the Guernica? There’s at least a trilogy in there, no?) Back to Gatsby. As talented as Baz Lurhmann might be, I don’t want his imagination replacing mine. (Because what is a movie other than a director’s imagination imposed on your own?) Leonardo DiCaprio, is not my Jay Gatsby – it’s Baz’s. But now when I grab the dog-eared copy from my bookshelf, I’m starting to forget who my Gatsby is – the Gatsby I met, liked, and mourned on different occasions. Luckily, I’ve been able to avoid the new movie’s trailer and most ads for it (as well as the 70s version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow that’s been popping up on Netflix), but the damage is done in a way. My Daisy was my own blonde and pale-skin beauty – a subtle mix of girls I’d known growing up. But now, it’s Carey Mulligan. That’s not to say I’m always right. Tobey Maguire is a pretty good Nick Carraway. Regardless, the problem is these other people – these stand-ins and imposters – are now walking around my imagined mansions and parties. My East and West Egg. My mind. Look, this isn’t the first time it’s happened to a book I’ve loved (I still haven’t seen The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for exactly this reason), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But the point is, if a book is special to you, do what you can to keep it as a book to you. Or even an e-book. Don’t trade in your memories for someone else’s just because it’s newer, or in color, or in 3D. Unless you really want to. (Which is OK. I’ve done it myself a few times. Just know that you’re doing it.) But if you do hold out, I’d like to think your memory will thank you for letting it keep a souvenir of a world you both concocted out of strings of words on a piece of paper. So, when you re-read that book, you’ll beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. A past you created together.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/b38666fe18a651c629984706177def67/tumblr_mmceigl60p1qzt4cpo1_500.gif)
It was a severe disappointment, Beyle [Stendhal] writes, when some years ago, looking through old papers, he came across an engraving entitled Prospetto d’Ivrea and was obliged to concede that his recollected picture of the town in the evening sun was nothing but a copy of that very engraving. This being so, Beyle’s advice is not to purchase engravings of fine views and prospects seen on one’s travels, since before very long they will displace our memories completely, indeed one might say they destroy them. — W.G. Sebald, Vertigo
You might wonder what that quote has to do with The Great Gatsby movie set to open in a few days. Or what F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel has to do with an engraving? Nothing, on the face of it. But taken as a whole, it has to do with memory and what we allow to affect our own.
Like a trip, a book is a form of travel. Everyone knows the metaphor, and I don’t need to reiterate it, poorly, here. But if a souvenir, as Stendhal believed, can sap the memory of your travels, slowly replace it, act as a crutch that allows you to passively let a stand-in become the memory instead of a trigger for it – then a movie, as great as it might be, can do the same to the landscapes, metropolises, back alleys, night skies – in short, the entire world – you create in your mind when you read a book.
(While we’re on the subject of books, why do we only make movies out of books? Why not treat paintings the same way? How about the Guernica? There’s at least a trilogy in there, no?)
Back to Gatsby. As talented as Baz Lurhmann might be, I don’t want his imagination replacing mine. (Because what is a movie other than a director’s imagination imposed on your own?) Leonardo DiCaprio, is not my Jay Gatsby – it’s Baz’s. But now when I grab the dog-eared copy from my bookshelf, I’m starting to forget who my Gatsby is – the Gatsby I met, liked, and mourned on different occasions.
Luckily, I’ve been able to avoid the new movie’s trailer and most ads for it (as well as the 70s version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow that’s been popping up on Netflix), but the damage is done in a way. My Daisy was my own blonde and pale-skin beauty – a subtle mix of girls I’d known growing up. But now, it’s Carey Mulligan. That’s not to say I’m always right. Tobey Maguire is a pretty good Nick Carraway. Regardless, the problem is these other people – these stand-ins and imposters – are now walking around my imagined mansions and parties. My East and West Egg. My mind.
Look, this isn’t the first time it’s happened to a book I’ve loved (I still haven’t seen The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for exactly this reason), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But the point is, if a book is special to you, do what you can to keep it as a book to you. Or even an e-book. Don’t trade in your memories for someone else’s just because it’s newer, or in color, or in 3D. Unless you really want to. (Which is OK. I’ve done it myself a few times. Just know that you’re doing it.)
But if you do hold out, I’d like to think your memory will thank you for letting it keep a souvenir of a world you both concocted out of strings of words on a piece of paper. So, when you re-read that book, you’ll beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. A past you created together.
