“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Posts Tagged ‘art’
A Few Reasonable Words
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, kindness, Thoughts on May 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I Remember
Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, memory, music, Thoughts on February 6, 2024| 1 Comment »
I tried to resist posting the Tracy Chapman / Luke Combs duet of Chapman’s “Fast Car” because it is everywhere. Why did I break down and change my mind? Because music, like writing and other forms of art, is a transformative time machine.
Tracy Chapman Duets “Fast Car” with Luke Combs
Listening to the performance, I remember who I was when I first heard the original song. I remember the road I’ve travelled to get to where I am. And I remember running down the steps at the Harvard Square T station and realizing that Chapman had been there before me, playing to distracted commuters as she built her own road to the future.
It’s also just a really good song.
And I love that a new generation is getting to hear it in a way that emphasizes the shared humanity, challenges and goals of its singers, and listeners.
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A Wonderful Thing
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, community, creativity, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I recently had an article featured in the Winter 2024 edition of Review Tales. (I’d share the essay but unfortunately it’s not freely available.) If you click through the magazine links, you’ll see my article highlighted in the bottom right-hand corner of the cover. I’m writing about something with which I am all too familiar! “When the Muse Takes a Holiday.”
* Find Review Tales at Amazon and B&N.
I will say that the promotional elements of creative work can be a little challenging. I’ve never been that comfortable talking about myself.
It’s not about me, I want to say. Art is about us, and the world we create together.
“It can seem like it’s about, Look at me! Like me! Approve of me!’, but I think it’s really about finding your people. It’s about connections, especially when you grow up feeling different and like you don’t have a community. Through art, you’re able to find that community, which is a wonderful thing.”
— Maya Erskine, on why she’s drawn to acting despite “a childhood in which she desperately wanted to blend in”
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Witness What’s Hidden
Posted in Other, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, creativity, inspiration, photography, video on January 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I tried to skip past this link and couldn’t.
An augmented-reality filter reveals the hidden movements all around us
This simple technique produces dazzling results, causing tree branches to shimmer as they sway in the wind, dust particles to become bold beams of light, and camouflaged insects and animals to be instantly unveiled. De Boer’s montage serves not only as a free and easy tutorial on the possibilities of this creative tool, but also as eye candy for anyone keen to witness the hidden patterns of movement that surround us.
The effect is fascinating. In some ways it’s the opposite of a time-lapse, which captures what remains still and merges motion. Here, movements that typically remain hidden are visible. Like a camouflaged deer, or blowing leaves, or even footprints.
While some examples are just pretty, it’s hard not to jump to the scientific and creative possibilities of this technique. I haven’t explored video effects, but this makes me want to start.
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Know Your Limits (In a Good Way)
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, fail better, failure, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“You need to drop glass on the floor, get the burns, all those things. The real practice is in all the pieces that didn’t make it, the cliched blood, sweat and tears. You can’t know the limits of something unless you’ve failed.”
— Will Shakspeare, artisan glassblower
And you can still make something beautiful along the way.
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Today, Meet Tomorrow
Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, AI, art, creativity, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Ken Liu is one of our modern masters of speculative fiction. The first story of his that I read was “The Paper Menagerie,” “the first piece of fiction to win three genre literary awards: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award.”
So he’s pretty good.
He’s also been thinking about art, AI and the evolving relationship between them. Here’s his new story:
Future Science Fiction Digest – Good Stories
Clara’s favorite part of the workday is the very beginning.
She likes flipping the switches on the wall right inside the office entrance, all sixteen of them, different colors and laid out in two neat columns, like the console from an old NASA space capsule that she got to sit inside once on a school trip to DC. As she takes a sip of her latte, her right hand running up the wall, click-click-click, flipping one switch after another, she imagines herself turning on rocket engines, initiating a docking maneuver, venting some dangerous alien spores out the airlock.
The story is one of the many interesting pieces in The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman with an impressive roster of authors.
Today’s software can only imitate art, but what about tomorrow?
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This Guy!
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, inspiration, music, productivity, Writers, writing on December 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I was feeling pretty not terrible about closing in on three years of daily posts here, but this guy! Writing, recording and releasing an album every day? Seriously impressive.
‘Like brushing my teeth’: how Michiru Aoyama writes, records and releases an album every day
For two years, the Kyoto musician has risen at five, watched football, then made an eight-track album of super-deep ambient music – while fitting in a two-hour walk.
I’m still feeling not terrible about my streak, but this gives me an extra dose of inspiration. Win win!
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True Strength
Posted in Likes, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, inspiration, Thoughts on November 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh
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Caution: Wet Paint
Posted in Likes, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, @CornellBirds, art, birds, science, Thoughts on November 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »
John Oliver’s recent shenanigans in New Zealand’s Bird of the Century contest has me thinking about birds, and I remembered this site from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
This interactive mural showcases 270 of the interesting birds around us. Zoom in and click to learn more about each species. And if New Zealand’s competition wasn’t enough for you, you can vote for your favorites.
I enjoy a lot of these birds (the Drongo, Lilac-breasted Roller, Hoopoe, puffins!), but the Blue-footed Booby looks like it took a wrong turn and missed the “Caution: Wet Paint” sign. Delightful.
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Do You Doodle?
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, artists, creativity, technology on October 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This is for the artists out there.
New tool lets artists fight AI image bots by hiding corrupt data in plain sight
From Hollywood strikes to digital portraits, AI’s potential to steal creatives’ work and how to stop it has dominated the tech conversation in 2023. The latest effort to protect artists and their creations is Nightshade, a tool allowing artists to add undetectable pixels into their work that could corrupt an AI’s training data…
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