Complexity and flow: Never what is seems Nicholas Carr’s latest book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, continues to spawn conversations regarding what we can and cannot know about the effect of cybertechnology on our brains and cognitive abilities. (A recent post about the book is here with links to earlier […]
Month: September 2010
The Either/Or and the Both/And
Every one of us loves our own story. We are all attached, consciously or unconsciously, to our very personal version of truth, our take on who is right, our convictions about what makes sense, our determinations about how one should live in the world. Certainly the fallacies in our thinking that blindside us about ourselves […]
Architecture and Beauty, Redux
At an outdoor temporary pavilion in the main parking lot at the Southern California Institute of Architecture are fellow architects Peter Cook, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Eric Owen Moss and Greg Lynn, where Moss is director. (Rafael Sampaio Rocha / September 26, 2010) I have had Architecture and Beauty: Conversations with Architects about a Troubled Relationship […]
Liang at the ICA
The painting by Fred H. C. Liang that hangs next to my desk. Its surface, almost impossible to capture in a photograph, pulls me into its labyrinth of layers every time. Closer view Boston-based Fred H. C. Liang is one of my favorite artists and also a finalist for the ICA’s Audrey Foster prize. He […]
- Art Making
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Ways of Working
At some level, everything is of interest to the eye…a view of one corner of my studio space How do artists work? In a recent posting on Real Clear Arts, Judith H. Dobrzynski makes the case that as mysterious as the creative process is, it is that which people most want to know. And that […]
Social Instruction
Blake Morrison has published his review of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Freedom, in the Guardian. Reading a Brit’s view of this very American novel is refreshing. Plus Morrison is an insightful reader. Here’s an excerpt: Like most writers, Franzen is a mass of contradictions. His fiction is generous and expansive, but it’s achieved through monastic […]
Daily Muses
From the wry mind of Andrei Codrescu in The Poetry Lesson: The Ten Muses of Poetry 1. Mishearing 2. Misunderstanding 3. Mistranslating 4. Mismanaging 5. Mislaying 6. Misreading 7. Misappropriating cliches 8. Misplacing objects belonging to roommates or lovers 9. Misguided thoughts at inappropriate times, funerals, etc. 10. Mississippi (the river) I have found that […]
- Aesthetics
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Witnessing
“Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one,” is saying that one witness is everybody else giving you their feedback and opinions (which is worth listening to, there’s some truth in what people say) but the principal witness is yourself. You’re the only one who knows when you’re using things to protect yourself and keep […]
Judy Pfaff: Five Decades
Judy Pfaff’s work has inspired me for a long time. Her new show at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe called Five Decades, includes work from various times as well as formats. Seeing artifacts made by her always thrills something in me, particularly her 2D creations. But this show has playfulness and delight on exhibit in […]
Where Words Gathered
Words The simple contact with a wooden spoon and the word recovered itself, began to spread as grass, forced as it lay sprawling to consider the monument where patience looked at grief, where warfare ceased eyes curled outside themes to search the paper now gleaming and potent, wise and resilient, word entered its continent eager […]