One of the best things to come out of the months of Covid-19 lockdown has been extraordinary films from art galleries and museums. One of the best of is about the English sculptor Phyllia Barlow. It provides an illuminating counterpoint to the many life questions that the virus has thrown into relief.
Read Morelinda ellerbee on change
A few days ago, we heard the great Linda Ellerbee speak about her long, ever-surprising career in journalism, and her life. We have her voice saying “And so it goes” in our heads STILL from the great news show, Weekend. For the past 21 years, so she’s been hosting Nick News, a news show for kids that is…
Read More‘do the one thing you think you cannot do’
Maria Robledo sent us this very wise quote from Oprah whose ‘Fail at it. Try again.’ echoes Samuel Beckett’s great ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better‘. We especially like Oprah’s spin on it:
Read More‘experimenting with your own life is the most fundamental medium we have’
We found this wonderful quote in a New York Times Magazine piece about Natalie Jeremijenko, an artist with degrees in biochemistry, physics, computer science and electrical engineering, whose latest work involves designing interfaces that “will facilitate interactions between humans and nonhumans”, lately fish. Jeremijenko pretty much nailed it: our lives ARE the fundamental medium we…
Read Moreleaping and flying, underwater (via mark tipple)
Many of Mark Tipple’s photographs of swimmers and surfer’s diving UNDER waves look like people flying and leaping…underwater. They are, in a way, in a different medium than air… because there are many….ways….to….fly……and…………………..leap!
Read Moreobsessive wingsuit flight through a hole in a mountain
(Video link here.) Wingsuit pilot Alexander Polli saw a hole in a mountain’s rocky outcropping and just had to try flying through it. He practiced aiming and controlling his flight over and over until he just went ahead and…flew…right…..THROUGH… …at 155 miles per hour. Polli “hopes his success will inspire others not only to ‘climb…
Read More‘my dinner with andre’ on the meaning of life + coffee
(Video link here.) One of our favorite films has long been My Dinner with Andre, which is, on the surface, a conversation between two friends during dinner in a French restaurant in New York City. Andre Gregory vividly describes his revelatory, new-ageish, risk-taking experiences in experimental theatre while his modest less-adventurous friend Wally Shawn listens and…
Read Morearen’t we all somehow astronauts? (revised + reposted)
Ed White of Gemeini 4 (1965!) during the first American EVA i.e. extra-vehicular activity, done by an astronaut outside of a spacecraft beyond the Earth’s appreciable atmosphere. The term most commonly applies to a spacewalk. This is what we’re really all doing in some way, right? … …Soon after we first posted this, we found The Future is Space in The…
Read Morekathleen hanna’s uplifting video of skaters messing up
(Video link here.) We don’t remember how we stumbled on this video by Kathleen Hanna, a New York City-based artist best known for her groundbreaking performances in the seminal 90′s punk band, Bikini Kill, and her more recent multimedia group, Le Tigre. She made it to accompany the song Let’s Run. We find it curiously uplifting: a…
Read More‘if you won’t take a chance…’ (winter’s tale)
We’ve been reading Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and stumbled on this amazing bit. No need to know the background. It rings big bells right on it’s own… We’ve enjoyed this fatso novel immensely (except that it’s so heavy). Another favorite chunk is a list of dishes that are part of a rather crazed housekeeper’s repertoire:
Read Morethe 7 vices of highly creative people
D.A. Blyler wrote the Seven Vices of Highly Creative People in reaction to the grumbling he was hearing about people working in offices where Stephen Covey’s bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People had been implemented. Personally, I’ve found Covey’s book to be strangely unreadable, and relate much more to Blyler’s recommendation for sex, cocktails, and gastronomy – specifically…
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