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.]
‘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.
Sometimes, late at night, Ffffound talks to me.
That image, which I interpreted as hopeful and positive, appeared close to this image:
I see how this is going: the carrot and the stick.
Diego Stocco took a few things he had sitting in the yard, made them into an instrument, wrote a piece based on cinematic Western themes for it, and then had this video made:
Diego Stocco – Bassoforte from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.
How impressive and annoying is that?
Steven Pressfield is the author of “The War of Art,” which is brilliant in its description of creative resistance. If you’ve ever gotten up, tried to do your work, and failed to get as far as starting – and who hasn’t? – it’s well worth a read. Among the great ideas in that book: you’re not alone in facing resistance — except that you are, of course, and the resistance will never, ever stop, so get used to it.
He recently wrote this article, “Covering the Canvas,” in which he talks about the importance of writing a first draft.
The part that I liked most about that article is when he talks about the Marines invading Iraq, and what, as artists, we can learn from that.
“Speed is everything, keep advancing no matter what; if we hit resistance, bypass it; keep rolling north, stop for nothing.”