-
When was super depressed, I wasn’t working—I was always too depressed. Hemingway did his best work when he didn’t drink, then he drank himself to death and blew his head off with a shotgun. Someone asked John Cheever, “What’d you learn from Hemingway?” and he said “I learned not to blow my head off with a shotgun.” I remember going to the Michigan poetry festival, meeting Etheridge Knight there and Robert Creeley. Creeley was so drunk—he was reading and he only had one eye, of course, and had to hold his book like two inches from his face using his one good eye. But you look at somebody like George Saunders—I think he’s the best short story writer in English alive—that’s somebody who tries very hard to live a sane, alert life.
You’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day. It’s probably better for your writing career, you know? I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist.
—In an interview with The Fix, Mary Karr debunks the toxic mythology that it is necessary to be damaged in order to be creative. My own vehement defiance to that mythology is what led me to choose Ray Bradbury – the ultimate epitome of creating from joy rather than suffering – as the subject of my contribution to The New York Times’ The Lives They Lived.
Pair with Karr on why writers write.
(via explore-blog)
Couldn’t agree more…
-
“The Fraud Police” - AFP’s Commencement Speech to NEIA’s Class of 2011 (by amandapalmer), which Neil Gaiman refers to in his ‘Make Good Art’ speech.
Damn she’s good.
-
Great talk by one of my favorite designers, Chip Kidd. Just received @neilhimself’s book Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good Art’ speech, which was designed by Chip, and I have been enjoying it over and over again, each time delighting in Chip’s rule breaking.
-
i was seeking too. it’s been one of those months. we shared a nice moment and i gave him a dollar. walked a half a block away and turned around and we were still looking at each other. went back and asked if I could photograph him. he said hell yeah. #seeking #finding #havardsquare
Seeking human kindness…
-
I mean, have you seen a 2G, 3G or 3GS screen recently? You’d think you have some kind of eye disease. That screens sits at the bottom of a well with water covering it. No wonder a design made under those conditions is starting too look a little heavy handed.—
Max Rudberg, iOS subdued (via 9-bits)
So true!
-
Anamorphic Sculptures
These sculptures are created with such mathematical precision that the image can only be seen as a reflection. To get this effect the London-based artist, Jonty Hurwitz, first scans a 3D object, then distorts it with a computer using π algorithms. His final pieces, made from steel, resin, perspex, or copper, have to be viewed next to a round reflective cylinder – only then do the objects come into focus.
Very cool.
-
-
The Indelicates sing NOT ALONE…
The Indelicates - great band name
-
Image source: unknown
Find out if you’re an introvert of extrovert by following the link on here: http://neurolove.me/post/48232160310/are-you-introverted-or-extraverted
I may seem like an extrovert to some, but I’m really an introvert.
The key.
-
Catching Up on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
Just before life went all bonkers at the end of March, I was fortunate enough to be able to shoot Compaigni V’ni Dansi performing as part of the Coastal First Nations Dance Festival at the Museum of Anthropology.
It was a great show and, finally, life has settled down to a dull roar and I was able to actually get the shots edited.Tom is an artist with a camera.
-
Create/Curate
-
-
Long Term Exposure of Mating Gold Fireflies
Japanese photographer Yuki Karo goes to various places around Maniwa and Okayama Prefectures in Japan and uses long exposure to capture some stunning shots of mating gold fireflies.
-
my new song, this time with lyrics.
thanks to Andrew Geha for recording it and sharing with us.
quickie audio cleanup via sean francis (@indeciSEAN).
more about it HERE on my blog.THE THING ABOUT THINGS.
i’ve loaned a lot of things to a lot of friends
like dresses and records and books
and some of the time i never see them again
and in a weird way i think that it works
because the thing about things is they start turning evil
when you start to forget what they’re for
and so if you’re not sure what you did with my bathing suit
i’ll just try to love you a little bit more
i had a ring it belonged to my grandfather
he was a mason
and gay
and he was distant and bitter for all of my childhood
and we never had much to say
he wasn’t the type to give tokens of affection
and so i stole ring when he died
and twenty years later when i lost it at a bar
i thought
that’s fine
I DIDN’T WANT HIM IN MY LIFE
the thing about things is that they can start meaning things
nobody actually said
and if he couldn’t make the ring mean something for me
i had to make up what it meant
i can carry everything i need in one collapsing suitcase
i can carry everyone i love in one phone application
built to optimize the facetime with the ties i’m bent on making
actually i want to be alone
to mourn the loss
of what this cost
i collected you but now you are all lost
i think it’s a poem and i think it keeps going
i’ve borrowed and lost lots of things
3 nights ago in the bar where i lost it a bartender gave me the ring
and i lie in bed
with my phone in my hand
thinking
what can i fix with an app
and i call my grandfather
and he doesn’t answer
and i have to make peace with that fact
because the thing about things
is that they can start looking
like kindnesses nobody said
and if you’re not allowed to love people alive
then you learn how to love people dead
because the thing about things is that they can start looking
like kindnesses nobody said
and if you’re not allowed
to love people alive
then you learn how to love people dead -
And the key to mediocrity is only pleasing yourself…
-
Read, read and read! The more you read, the more natural writing will be for you. Enjoy what you write and don’t worry about whether it’s good or complete. Keeping a journal - not the kind where you write every day, but the kind where you write what you want, when you want - is great practice. If you’re serious you’ll have to learn grammar and punctuation. Two books I highly recommend for this are THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE and EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES.
-
-
-
-
The book cover I designed for Margaret Evans, “Could It Really Be Something They Ate?” was featured on CTV News with Dr. Rhonda Low. Watch this video - it’s exceptionally informative.
Even better, check out the food sensitivities website, (which I also designed).
How exciting!