Category: ART

WHERE I WRITE

My desk is on wheels, so sometimes it faces east; sometimes, I swing it around so I can look west.

I use a standing desk that I bought in 2019 or so, before the pandemic. Attaching the power strip to the leg was a recent move, to make it easier to wheel around, with the cords getting caught under the wheels.

Yeah, the cords take away from the “minimal aesthetic,” but I need power, and my external HD plugged in, so whatever. This really works for me. I can’t stand having a lot of stuff on my desk while working, so having a small desk makes that easier.

Thanks to @Beth Kempton for these #meetthewriter prompts.

THE TRUTH WILL FIND YOU

Fight Club and The Matrix are two very important movies for me, mostly because I was in high school in the early 90s.

So yeah, I may watch these two movies a lot. I even have a Matrix tattoo.

Something struck me recently. Near the end of Fight Club, when Edward Norton is beginning to realize that he’s Tyler Durden.

“You work nights because you can’t sleep. Or you stay up and make soap.”

Now, the scene where Neo meets Trinity for the first time:

“I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night you sit at your computer.”

Neither of these main characters can sleep. They’re searching for something. Your next life, who knows?

And then each character expands because they start hanging around people.

Edward Norton was fighting with himself in the parking lot of Lou’s Tavern, when that guy walked up and said, “can I be next?”

Neo was searching, living alone, living on his computer. But his pals dropped buy for a miniDisc, right?

This then leads to Neo meeting more characters that wear all black and do stuff with computers.

This is an absolutely incomplete line of thinking between the two movies, the two characters. I’m not saying they’re connected, or in the same universe.

But the concept of not sleeping, or searching for meaning in some way outside yourself… I don’t know where this is going, so please stand by.

STOP SHRINKING

Love this by @madebynelson from Instagram.

“Stop shrinking into places you’ve outgrown 🌸✨

It’s important to continue to plant ourselves in bigger pots and new gardens as we continue to grow and evolve.

Enjoy your week! I cannot believe it’s December”

See the full post here.

I AM AN AMATEUR

Oh, this is heavy:

“Being an artist within an economic system that favors private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, a price system, and competitive markets belittles my practice into a hobby. I am an amateur with no artist statement, thesis show, or MFA. The money I invest in creating art is a temporary loan to myself that I feel pressured to repay quickly by attempting to exhibit wherever the crowds are.”

From ‘A soft manifesto‘ over at The Creative Independent, via Naive Weekly.

LONELY CONTENT MACHINES

I like this quote from New Creative Era:

THE CREATIVE STATUS QUO HAS MADE US LONELY CONTENT MACHINES
PRESSURED TO POST WITH UNNATURAL QUANTITY AND FREQUENCY
TO PURSUE OUR LIVELIHOODS AND EXPRESS OUR WORK
WE PLAY SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME

I’ve been thinking about that first line a bit, as I sort of felt isolated as a writer, as someone trying to offer up ideas. I feel like it’s me vs everyone, stacking up against everyone else trying to offer solutions and ideas in a busy, hyper-competitive world of music and culture.

Makes me think back to my high school days. I hung around creative musical people all the time, for years. The result was creative musical projects. These days, I’m not so creative with music anymore.

I wrote this in 2018:

We can’t do the “real life” thing if we’re scrolling through an app for hours a day. That’s not “keeping up” or “staying informed,” that’s taking time away from our creative pursuits! And emailing friends! Calling people. Have coffee with friends.

We are lonely content machines, cooped up in our rooms and studios trying to make everything ourselves.

The real life hangs and interactions came to an end in 2020 because of the pandemic, and I think it’s gonna take a minute to get back to that.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

Found this interview via CHRIS WONG’s newsletter UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS, from the 18:15 mark:

“I don’t know what it’s going to become, but do that because one day you’re going to wake up and you’re going to be 40 years old like me, and you might be dying of cancer, and you may have spent your entire life doing something that you never truly loved.”

Instant listen, and wow… so good. Lots of blog talk, and following your passion inspiration.

ZENMOJIS

I often think of closing my Twitter account, but then something like this finds its way onto my timeline, from Anne Fine:

“I used to make a lot of emoji art through instagram stories when I was bored, but then they changed the UX of stories and it was no longer possible for me to make these.”

Anne called these “zenmojis.”