Stuff that sparks ideas or imagination for me.
I’ve written about it here before, but here are a few links about wabi Sabi:
http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/WabiSabi
http://www.stonebridge.com/wabisabi.html
And a couple of books available:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879058498/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586850105/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world — Gandhi
“Lost U.S. city found as lake dries up” All I can say is… cool.
There’s apparently an old town under Geist Reservoir here in Indianapolis, too. On one of the online map companies, if you search for Geist, they still have a label for Germantown appearing in the center of the lake. I’ll endeavor to find the link to it.
It took them an entire study to realize that schadenfreude (glee at the misfortune of others) happens when people resent those who have privileges without working for or deserving them, and those privileged people suddenly fall from grace. I would have thought that was self-evident.
I have to take issue with one paragraph that’s totally wrong: “You will envy more a colleague of yours who makes a thousand dollars more a year than you will a C.E.O. who makes a million dollars more than you,” he said. “We also care about famous people. They are symbols to us.”
Ahem. That’s total bull-crap. I’d be happy for the person I know and annoyed at the C.E.O, not be envious of him. Unless of course the colleague of mine turned out to have made the $1,000 in a totally unethical or undeserved way. And the C.E.O I would probably assume made the million in a undeserved way, unless they had some really creative idea that the built their own company on. Then I’d probably admire them.
And I frankly don’t give a rat’s hiney-end about famous people. Screw ’em. They do, in the article, point out that we tend to think of celebrities as people who are a part of our lives, and I think that’s true, in some ways, with some celebrities. I think the only famous person I ever truly wanted to meet was Princess Diana, just because I think we would have gotten along well.
1000 Blank White Cards, a game that’s making the rounds of weblogs lately. Basically, you use blank index cards and draw the rules of the game as you go along, awarding points for certain things.
Here’sanother explanation of the games rules (or lack thereof).
Also, a slide-deck from the creator of the game on Philosophy of Creativity: Finite and Infinite Games.
Remember Calvinball, from Calvin and Hobbes, where the game could never be played the same way twice? That’s the idea here… creative, fun anarchy.
(2014 update: I never managed to get a game together. I still would like to. Also: the Wikipedia page on the game.)
An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth by Bruce Mau. I like it. I need to come back to it again and again when I’m creating designs.
I saw this link (Popular Baby Names) once, a few years ago, and have been trying to remember where it was located ever since. Turns out it was the Social Security Administration, not the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s come up in discussions a number of times, and I kept saying “there’s this link…” Well, here it is: An analysis of popular baby names based on Social Security applications, going back each year to the late 1800’s. Ah, the good old days, when Mildred was the #9 most popular girl’s name in the country, and Gertrude made it at #22. Guys, don’t laugh, Walter was #11, Clarence #18.
It’s also scary to look at the stats for the 1990’s…. with 8 different variations on the name Brittney. I hate last names as first names, especially for girls. Courtney, Brittany, Shelby, Taylor, Madison—-yuck, yuck, yuck. I’m going to name my daughter Mabel. That’ll show them.
Okay, that’s a little extreme. How about Eleanor?
In a Snob-Free Zone, By Joseph Epstein
My cousin Sherwin’s way into the snob-free zone was simple enough: Care only about one’s work, judge people only by their skill at their own work, and permit nothing else outside one’s work to signify in any serious way. View the rest of the world as a more or less amusing carnival at which one happens to have earned–through, of course, one’s work–a good seat. Judge all things by their intrinsic quality, and consider status a waste of time. One of the reasons I liked him so much is that he brought all this off without any contortion of his essentially kind character.
This is really cool — the best of underground “outsider” video. Orson Welles drunk. Anna Nicole Smith stoned. A wierd movie pitch. Part of a cult recruitment video. Just watch.
Hey, look! It’s the tennis shoes that got my ass kicked in junior high school. Some genius has scanned the 1980 JC Penney catalog and put it online for you to peruse. I wonder if they also have the “Chic” jeans my mom made me wear; the ones that got me beat up in the gym locker room. Yeah, thanks for the memories, man. Thanks a lot.