An Introduction to the “Inspirations” Series
At the end of his book “52 Projects“, Jeffrey Yamaguchi has a list of 52 resources for inspiration. Here are some examples: 5. phototag.org Photography project in which disposable cameras are released...
View ArticleAmbitious Failures
In sharing what inspires and replenishes my creativity, failure may seem an odd and ominous beginning. But failure is the origin of all creativity. When trying to express ourselves in interesting ways,...
View Article“Awake! Cries the voice…”
Having begun the Inspirations series with an appreciation of failure, I now head about as far as I can imagine in the opposite direction. One of the first ‘classical’ music CDs I ever bought was the...
View ArticleTED Videos
I first heard of the TED conference after reading the book “Information Anxiety2″ by Richard Saul Wurman. The scope of the conference has expanded well beyond the original meaning of Technology,...
View ArticleHerzog, at the End of the World
On Werner Herzog’s film “Encounters at the End of the World” Antarctica is probably the closest thing to a genuine frontier that I might experience in my lifetime. And I’ve long admired by Werner...
View ArticleThe Ordinariness of Arnold Schoenberg
My high-school piano teacher was reluctant to coach me on anything written in the 20th century. It all seemed just too decadent and non-sensical to her church-musician ears, except maybe Bela Bartok,...
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Anish Kapoor’s Marsyas
The enormous turbine hall in what is now the Tate Modern museum in London has been the site of annual large-scale commissions sponsored by Unilever. In 2002, Anish Kapoor created Marsyas in this space,...
View ArticleTravel as Art
By the time I read Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel I had already seen most of the fifty United States, visited more than a dozen countries and even lived abroad for a couple years. In all those...
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Beautiful Ramifications
“As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which...
View ArticleThe Importance and Limits of Words
Am I too word-oriented in my exploration of creativity? Why do I place such an emphasis on writing, poetry, and language in general? No matter what we each choose as the preferred medium of our...
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The Benefits of Having Your Head in the Clouds
For at least half a day earlier this week, a story about clouds was the most shared story on the BBC News website: Clouds: More popular than Reagan and Bee Thieves Clouds, something most humans see all...
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Constructing the Commonplace
A few days ago, I happened across an old episode of the Guardian Books Podcast which featured authors choosing and contemplating “a key word that opened up the literary territories” they’ve explored in...
View ArticleWords on a Screen
Each year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I set aside some time to read through one of his speeches. Yes, read. Not listen or watch, but read. True, Dr. King was more of a speechmaker than a...
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