Stimulating Pixels

A gentleman named Jeff Veen giving a talk at an Ignite show about the idea of “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” He focuses a little on the iPhone with points I think are valid, but that’s just an example for the underlying idea and its refinement. I love the way he describes it.

To me, the the way he talks about stealing is more about learning from someone/something and then using what you learn to create something new for the world. What a great take on things.

“Shooting the Leica is like going out with Pamela Anderson. The camera keeps saying you can make me clean, cook, raise the kids, but I won’t be very good at it., though if you let me do what I’m good at you’ll be very happy.”

- – James Russell (from Leica M8 Revisited)

Even if you are not into photography or Leica’s you gotta give him props for that quote.

(This is the second part of a comment where I was responding to another post, but it got long enough that I decided to move it to its own post.)

Truth be told though, I do try to avoid a lot of the coverage. I’m turned off by it, but not necessarily in the right way. It’s the relentlessness of it that I think is getting to me. But, at the same time, I feel like it’s lacking power. Instead of being engaging, most of it comes across to me as a kind of white noise.

I really don’t know what I’m trying to get at. There are a lot of aspects of this situation that I can’t seem to get my mind around. The whole thing really is F.U.B.A.R. And when things are Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition like they are now drawing any single conclusion becomes and exercise in frustration.

One of the few clear thoughts that I have is that we should not have gone into Iraq the way we did. It’s absolutely not a black and white issue, but the way in which we got ourselves into Iraq has few possibilities of redeeming values.

But that is past and now we are where we are and I can’t really see any good outcomes among the potential near term futures. And from what I’m hearing in the media it sounds like our political and military leaders have the same problem. And, as is want to happen in our United States, instead of grouping together to try to figure shit out, we hurl political grenades at each other with the goal keeping/gaining power for whichever political party we affiliate ourselves with.

It pisses me off that We, collectively, seem incapable of saying that something that The Opposing Party said is a good idea that every issues effectively becomes a choice from a binary selection.

Option 1: You are with us.
Option 2: You are against us.

Fuck you if you want to talk and exchange ideas. Pick “1″ or “2″ or stay the hell out of the game.

Incidentally, I’m a registered Independent, and I think more people (if not most) should be. From what I see, after people register for one of the two main parties they slide into a black and white way of thinking where any big issue, no matter how complex only has one answer. (Yes, that’s a gross overgeneralization, but I’m ranting, so give me a little slack.)

Anyway, I’ll close with a quote:

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’m watching “All the Presidents Men” about the Watergate break-in. There is a quote in the movie about Nixon’s chief council that talks about a cartoon on his wall that reads:

“When you got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”

Makes me wonder if this was an unspoken part of the military’s “Hearts and Minds” campaign in Iraq.

Heard an NPR interview this morning with Josh Rouse about his album that is about to come out. Really liked both the interview and the music. Looking forward to the release. There are a couple sample tracks at the link if you have Real Player installed (which I don’t).

A favorite quote from the interview: “The best way to learn Spanish is to take a Spanish lover”.

All photographs are accurate. None is the truth.
- Richard Avedon

I’ve found the time it takes to reply to emails is a rather steep function of their length. Two-liners I often respond to immediately. Very long emails can take me six months to get around to answering.

– Paul Graham

Like this one a lot. From chapter 6 of Part Four: Howard Roak in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead:

“Look, Gail” Roark got up, reached out, tore a think branch off a tree, held it in both hands , one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. “Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That’s the meaning of life.”

“Your strength?”

“Your work.” He tossed the branch aside. “The material the earth offers you and what you make of it…”

Last week, I finally started on a book that Traivs had suggested. Came upon a nice quote by Ayn Rand’s character Kent Lansing in The Fountainhead:

“Men are brothers, you know, and they have a great instinct for brotherhood – except in boards, unions, corporations and other chain gangs.”

Didn’t know a thing about the book before I started reading it, which is my preferred way to go into something. If I have been given 20 guesses I never would have come up with Architecture as being a main element.