Baldwin: What do you think you do best? You lead a band, you play guitar, you write music, you produce music and you sing. What do you think your greatest strength is, if you had to pick one?
Yorke: That I don’t know what I’m doing. I like the fact that I still don’t know what I’m doing. I think – no, honestly. I’ll go through whole phases of months where I haven’t got a clue. I regularly lose complete confidence in what I’m doing.
Here’s the Thing is an amazing podcast. Baldwin is a treasure.
The paintings demonstrate a command of line and color that is rarely seen in the modern-day “art” world. Former President George W. Bush appears to be influenced by such painters as Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet. The portraits also clearly capture the personality of their subject.
Image from “Happy Birthday to You!” copyright Dr. Seuss Enterprises
Exhibition: “Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!”
February 8 - March 18 2013
Main floor, Geisel LibraryA selection of original drawings and documents from the personal archive of beloved children’s author, Theodor Seuss Geisel.
I think what UCSD is trying to say here is that you can see a selection from Dr. Seuss’s personal archives at UCSD starting next week.
I’ll go to this! It’ll be a good excuse to visit Fallen Star again too.
Above is the Fallen Star sculpture at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering, the project took seven years in the making and was supported by $1.3 million investment from private donations. Designed by Do Ho Suh particularly famous for his unusual and adaptive approach to architecture and installations. The permanent sculpture balancing off the edge of the building was the 18th such to be built for UCSD’s Stuart Collection, and is fully complete with a front lawn, brick walkway, garden and lawn chairs. Even with the interior is fully furnished. Do Ho Suh explains how to project was about:
Home, cultural displacement, the perception of our surroundings, and how one constructs a memory of a space.
I’m so proud of the Stuart Collection.
From Keith Haring’s journal:
Today I am 24 years old. 24 years is not a very long time and then, again it is enough time. I have added many things to the world. The world is this thing around me that I made for myself and I see for myself. The world will, however, go on without me being there to see it, it just won’t be “my” world then. That is what interests me most about the situation that I am in now. I am making things in the world that won’t go away when I do. If this “success” had not happened, then maybe the world would not know these things after I go away. But now I know, as I am making these things, that they are “real” things, maybe more “real” than me, because they will stay here when I go.
In the situation I am in now, I am a vehicle for these “things” I’m bringing into the world. I am not having things and making things and waiting for the world to have them. The world is waiting to have them. At 24, that is maybe a funny feeling. The things that I make are “in” the world as soon as I make them. That is also the situation I (I guess) always dreamed of: so that there is a a kind of reason for making these things and the “things” in some sense become more important than me.
The world is waiting for the things and I am the only one who can bring them these things. There is a kind of freedom in that. There is also a kind of hysteria in that, but it depends how you see the world. I only think that I want to be the one who makes the “things”. I don’t know what I want to the world to be. But only I can make these “things”.
These things that are called the works of Keith Haring.
Amazing. This is killing me. It’s so beautiful.
We were so lucky to have Haring, just as we’re so lucky to have everyone who gives anything to the world. Haring was tremendously successful, in a way that very few people ever are, but his insight applies to everyone. Make things and give them to the world. The world is waiting for them. They will live for you once you’re gone. Things could include: words you write, a song you sing, a friendship, a family, a business, a recipe, a new dance, etc.
BRB, going to make some things that only I can make.
This piece from the New York Times last month keeps bugging me. It does a good job explaining how we’ve reached our golden age of television:
Networks have effectively entered into a quality war. Basic-cable channels have to broadcast shows that are so good that audiences will go nuts when denied them. Pay-TV channels, which kick-started this economic model, are compelled to make shows that are even better. And somehow, they all seem to be making insane amounts of money.
And it does a good job of explaining how this system will not be able to sustain itself:
[…]the cable industry is dying — albeit very, very slowly. Erik Brannon, an analyst at the market-research firm IHS Screen Digest, notes that while few people choose to drop their service, young people aren’t getting hooked up in the first place. When people in their 20s move out of their parents’ house or dorm room, they are less likely to get into the habit of paying for cable.
This makes sense to me. I never got in the habit of paying cable after moving out of my parents house 16 years ago. But then the thing ends on this sour note:
[…] without the existing system, it’s hard to imagine that the quality war will rage on. Will there be enough content providers willing to gamble on expensive programs with big stars, lavish wardrobe budgets and huge overhead — only to sell episodes online for less than a dollar? If there are no oligopolistic profits, no cartel monetizing our eager anticipation, will there be as much great stuff to watch? For people, like me, addicted to not only “Breaking Bad” but also “Mad Men,” “Game of Thrones,” “The Killing,” “Homeland” and others, this future is scary because the answer is probably no.
Scary!? Come on. A few thoughts:
See also, Why Content Isn’t King, from the Atlantic last year:
The most-prevalent sources of industrial strength are the mutually reinforcing competitive advantages of scale and customer captivity. Content creation simply does not lend itself to either, while aggregation is amenable to both.
A neutral internet makes it difficult for any one content aggregator to hold consumers captive. Netflix understands this, which is why it focuses so hard on consumer experience, which is also why the Qckuickqster debacle was so jarring. It also places the onus of captivation onto content creators who can get people hooked on their great shows.
yoshimasa tsutsumi: anzas dance studio
“By applying a gradient of dots on to the room’s mirrored surfaces, a deep fog effect is created, resulting in a dramatic altering of the room’s atmosphere.”
This is fantastic. Very Robert Irwin.
I'm Jed Sundwall. This is my blog, which you can follow on Tumblr or via RSS. You can talk to me on Twitter.
