Recently, a friend described it like this: “I was a child of the 60′s, when ‘discipline’ was frowned on. Then somebody told me this, and it stayed with me: Discipline is giving up what you want now for what you want most.”
[image from crypto.]
Rolling Stone rounds up the best rock documentaries available on Netflix Instant Watch.
I really enjoyed ‘It Might Get Loud,’ the documentary that follows Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White as they talk about how they put together their music, and I’ve very much looking forward to ‘Soul Power.’ James Brown! Bill Withers! The Spinners! … And the young Muhammed Ali. The impossible cool.
Want more? Check out Flavorwire’s 10 great free music documentaries.
[via largehearted boy]
“Russian artist Yevgeny Dobrovinsky is the author of many inventive projects. His main material is not canvas, paper or clay, but nature itself.”
[via it's nice that.]
The blog formerly known as ‘Writers on Process’ is now ‘Songwriters on Process.’
There’s not much consensus on process — even on basic questions like, “do you write every day or wait until inspiration hits?” — but there’s a great many ideas on how one might go about it.
What is your perfect writing environment?
All different places. I’ll go to a nightclub like the Hotel Cafe, get there late at night when they are closing and hang out with the staff. I’ll go up on the stage where there is a piano, the place is almost empty, and that’s where I like to write. There are still people milling around, but I can concentrate. It’s very inspiring. I can soak up the atmosphere and turn it into music. It gets me in the mood. The mood is important to me. If I am at the beach, and its a nice night at the sun is setting, I’ll whip out my harmonica or my iPhone and just start playing or singing. I’ll get something different than if I were in a room with no windows. [Jack Tempchin, writer of the Eagles' 'Peaceful Easy Feeling'.]
First, Zimoun is an artist from Bern, Switzerland who works in sound. The noise is interesting (and I wish I could walk around the installation to fully hear it) — but the real impact for me is the videos that he makes of his installations. They feature his oddly charismatic and charming mechanical devices, whirring away. It’s like watching life at the bottom of the sea. [From Make.]
Second, here’s a very impressive display of humans acting as pixels in a stadium. (Take the ‘wave,’ and then really, really run with it…) After you enjoy it, consider imagining and choreographing this madness: [from ze frank]
Psychology Today published this article on playing and creativity that suggests that it’s a good idea (the doorway to genius?) to step away from the lab, workshop, or stage frequently.
Robert Root-Bernstein, Ph.D., a professor of physiology at Michigan State University, recently compared the hobbies of 134 Nobel laureates in chemistry to the hobbies of a control group of scientists in the Sigma Xi society. Root-Bernstein found that the Nobelists were highly accomplished outside the lab. More than half had at least one artistic avocation, and almost all had an enduring hobby, from chess to insect collecting. One-quarter of the Nobelists were musicians, and 18 percent practiced visual arts such as drawing or painting.
And also:
The Root-Bernsteins maintain that the key is not to just slave away at the piano or the easel, but to “find the links between everything in your life, the connections that others miss.” You may not unlock the origins of the universe, but you’ll see the world in a different way.
‘Dancers Among Us’ is a an ongoing project by Jordan Matter featuring top professional dancers in everyday situations around New York City. Be sure to check out the gallery. The ‘making of’ videos are fun, too.
via swiss miss.
Charlie Rose interviewed painter Francesco Clemente. Here’s his wikipedia entry.
He has interesting things to say about boredom, waiting, and finding your voice.
“I was always very conscious that the deepest human desire is a desire for the narrative.”
This bit is from an author, Jim Krusoe, who recently published a novel, “Erased.” He was asked for a list of songs that relate to his work. One of them is a Tom Waits tune. I love the story that goes with it.
Not surprisingly, I’m inclined to favor the mordant sounds of Tom Waits, poet of things closing and of hopelessness, and certainly Erased is about things shutting down, as well as opening onto unexpected vistas. This cut also makes me think of a time back in my youth where one night during an open poetry workshop we were visited by an improbably scruffy (even compared to us), odd-sounding guy. He read his poem, and afterwards I opined that it was good, but maybe not quite complicated enough to stand alone. “Maybe you should try writing song lyrics,” I told him. Waits looked me up and down, considering. “Well, man,” he rasped. “I’m working on it.”
This essay on writing from Paul Graham could be an outline for a great book. Instead, it says what it needs to, and stops.