art

David Garcia Studio: Pessoa Clock

David Garcia Studio: Pessoa Clock:

In an attempt to formalize the ritual of waiting, a clock was devised to leave traces of poems while it was turned on. The clarity of the traces is directly proportional to the amount of time one has to wait. The text engraved in the base is a poem by Pessoa, depicting concepts of time, and the futility of understanding them fully. Cinnamon is slowly dropped by the rolling cylinder, leaving traces on the street.

[I’d want up with cinnamon everywhere… but I like the idea of creating some art while I wait. I dislike waiting when it’s because the other party is late…]

Source: Chris Adler

Teller Reveals His Secrets | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine

Teller Reveals His Secrets | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine:

Magic is an art, as capable of beauty as music, painting or poetry. But the core of every trick is a cold, cognitive experiment in perception: Does the trick fool the audience? A magician’s data sample spans centuries, and his experiments have been replicated often enough to constitute near-certainty. Neuroscientists—well intentioned as they are—are gathering soil samples from the foot of a mountain that magicians have mapped and mined for centuries.

[Awesome.]

Lists of Note: Thelonious Monk’s Advice

Lists of Note: Thelonious Monk’s Advice:

  • Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.
  • Pat your foot & sing the melody in your head, when you play.
  • Don’t play the piano part, i’m playing that. don’t listen to me. I’m supposed to be accompanying you!
  • Don’t play everything (or every time); let some things go by. Some music just imagined. what you don’t play can be more important that what you do.
  • A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.
  • When you’re swinging, swing some more!
  • You’ve got it! If you don’t want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any case, you got it! (to a drummer who didn’t want to solo).
  • Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along & do it. A genius is the one most like himself.
  • They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along & spoil it.

[A picked a few faces. Can’t have enough Monk. Can. Not.]

Rediscovering the Beatles

Rediscovering the Beatles:

Paul McCartney was, of all the Beatles, the pure songman. He wrote music because he loved music. He really didn’t want to do anything else. For him, being a Beatle was the best deal in the world.

Now that probably still is a gross approximation of who McCartney is. But without the net, without Wikipedia, I didn’t even have that much to go on. Music is a story, like every other human art. It’s the story of one person laid out in a way that others can understand it. A song is saying here I am and this is what I say. Reading the story of the story gives me more to think, and imagine about.

I guess I just wanted to say that all along we had the idea that Lennon was the deep Beatle, and McCartney was somehow the silly one. But I think we got it wrong. As he sang later, there’s nothing wrong with a silly love song. Popular music is popular for a reason, because it engages us in a playful way that makes us feel good. Yes we feel a little silly when this point is touched. But that’s kind of nice too.

[It is also “popular” because something about that story, told that way, at that time, reaches a lot of people. It doesn’t have to be serious, or a narrowly defined “love” song. But there’s is some love or truth it will expose in a way that resonates widely. A tricky prospect on a lot of levels.]

Source: Scripting News