Age and Change or Dead Men Don't Win Bar Fights
Change works for me. Changing jobs. Changing cities. Changing addresses. The work of change stinks, but once it’s done, I just like the difference, for its own sake. One change I haven’t liked so much is the very real feeling of aging. You see it at 30 and that’s not so great. Still, age has made some changes in me for the better. The tale of the short story. For the last few years, I have been trying to fund a publisher for a short story I wrote.
The art world needs its assholes
The Art World would be boring without a great many assholes. Groups have the right to exclude people. There. I said it. I believe they do. That doesn’t mean I’m okay with it, but I definitely think they have the right. The question for me, though, is this: does exclusivity hone the skills of a form’s practitioners or sound its death on the great gong of stagnation? I think the answer is: sometimes both, but let’s explore both sides.
A confession about Anne Sexton from the occasional poetry reader
Poetry makes me contented. I’m not sure if that’s cool to admit anymore, but I can pick up some verse, sink into it and come back out feeling more mentally rested. As if that isn’t a strange enough to confess (these days), I’ll one up it: when I look to my bookshelf for a bit of poetry, there’s one go to volume that beats the rest: Anne Sexton: The Complete Poems.
The Radical Boy Manifesto: Individuals Err & Institutions Learn
What is to be done? If wisdom is folly and the Heart Misleads? What’s the point? Why should the artist even try to go for the gut? What is his motivation after all? So he’s a worldwide phenomenon and everyone learns that everyone is just as important as everyone else, a new Enlightenment, it dawns on everyone and… then what? Wisdom fails, remember? And one day the wise will die and the young never listen anyway and what good is it?
'8 Permutations on the Electric Screwdriver of Power': an homage
] This weekend I went to DC with a bunch of Featherproof Books Mini Books tucked into my notebook. I had printed them out and folded them by the directions. I read maybe a dozen of them, but I’m going to read a lot more and then make a really great blog post about them all at once. In the mean time, I really liked two in particular. This post concerns one of those, “Eight Permutations on the Binoculars of Power.
Ideas Won't Wait
I found myself downtown tonight, alone, no place to go. It seemed pretty clear that I should just get into my car and head back home, but I kept finding myself poking my nose into bars. I knew I wanted to write tonight but I could not see what writing I’d get done if I tried. The story I’ve been poking about with hasn’t had much of a point to it.
The secret to humor is hidden in the chicken joke
Humor isn’t mean. Humor isn’t anything. It’s just a sensation our brains get when we surprise it in a particular way. Let’s break it down by starting with what I think is the fundamental joke of American society: Q. Why did the chicken cross the road? A. To get to the other side! Now, that’s funny. Odds are, you’re reading this and you don’t think it’s funny. Not true.
1,000 true fans
One of the founders of Wired Magazine did an essay yesterday on the way an artist or filmmaker can assure themselves a living without chasing the hopes of a blockbuster or other low-margin, high volume dreams. The idea is this: 1000 true fans. If you can get 1000 people lined up who will buy pretty much anything you produce, you’re set for a decent, liveable income. In fact, if you’ve got 1000 people who will buy anything you make, then you are sure to have many more folks who will buy some of the stuff you make.
long-bets-kevin-kelly
Kevin Kelly has also already started a prediction based website. I’m glad somebody is giving people a chance to put their money where their mouths are on predictions. I heard a guy on the radio say that Obama’s one visit to Rhode Island might be enough to put him over there. Sounded like nonsense to me, but why shouldn’t he say it when no one is ever going to call him on it later?
Memories, merry-go-rounds and water
According to TriplePundit, a company has come out with this new innovation called “The Play Pump.” The basic idea is that a lot of potentially useful energy is wasted when kids play, but it could be put to good use by attaching machines to playground toys. This could be an especially useful idea in the developing world where play could power pumps yielding clean, underground water. It makes me think about how much fun I had on merry-go-rounds as a kid, but that reminds me of a memory that I’ve always sort of questioned.