You don’t stop progress, so what do you do with it?

Bahhh it’s an old say.

I remember the little book of Akira Kurosawa, who remembers that when the movies were silent in Japan, there were people in each cinema, playing music, dialogs, and some sound effect. When the talking pictures came, these people were in the streets, protesting. And well…

It’s the same for everything. Electricity killed the oil lamps market. Cars killed the horse cart market. Electric cars will harm the gas stations, little by little (in Norway, today, more than 60% of new cars are electric).

Today I make images with AIs, and that’s cool because… I don’t know how to draw. I just describe what I want, add some little tricks in words (I’m learning) to precise textures (painting, digital, video game?), and I get pictures, plenty of them, all unique and different. The AI invents for me. And batches plenty.

“Luminescent mushrooms in a mystical forest, twilight, fireflies, clearing, bokeh” gives as many as these as you want (hundreds, if you like):

So I found out that some digital artists find it “unfair”. In a way, I understand that!

But what I feel is they should use it, today.

I can switch on the light, but I don’t have an oil lamp. I can drive a car, but I can’t take care of a horse (and I’m short of room in my apartment).

When I post images in forums, like in Reddit, I got things like:

So, people love it, but some want to ban it. And I’ve been banned from many of them! The viewers love them, but the moderators hate them. It’s not “real art” (and is it, after all)?

Today, it’s a bit difficult to use these Google Colabs. And it’s lonnng. If you use the free option, you need one hour for an image. I pay, and I need 6-7 minutes/image.

There are hundreds of colabs, and very soon (this year, next year?) you’ll be able to get images in seconds. Concept artists will use these tools (or teach them), for sketching, to get ideas, for colors, composition, etc.

Some sites offer this already, in a simple form: Wombo Art, Hypnogram.xyz.

There’s no horse-skill in driving fast cars, it’s like… unfair, right? Drivers developed other skills. Today, to get cool images, you have to know what words are useful, and how to combine them. Unfair, maybe, but people have fun, and are creative (in their own way), and I kind of like it.

I began to make tutorials (on YT) for digital artists, how they could use this. I’ll make more, concept art for characters, using initial sketches to create something else, etc.

Maybe it’ll create a new job: “digital ideas provider”. Hmm…

What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

https://quick_eyed_sky.artstation.com/

Photography: An old cemetery in Sarlat-La-Canéda, France

Photography: An old cemetery in Sarlat-La-Canéda, France. Statues, old stones and flowers.

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Vectors & North Star: Chronicle 67

I love to explore Springsteen or Dylan, though I really don’t like their music!

I tried to listen to Blonde on Blonde – I’ve been completely bored. I will try again with headphones and articles about the music, but I already know I’m not really interested, because I find it harmonically lazy. I need strange chords to trigger my pleasure!

Nevertheless, when I have a huge book about these guys on my lap, I feel like a child in front of a toy chest. I love to read about what they did, how they did it, and why. Intentions. Attempts. Codes. Changes. Etc.

oOOo

I found this draft, for this blog, a sentence: “She’s organized and he’s messy, but, and other positive “buts””. Haha! I don’t remember what it was about! The “Positive Buts” (one “t”, please). So what is it about? Complementary characters? A need for balance?

oOOo

Ordered a microphone for my Macintosh. A USB one. I’ll music this year, voilà.

oOOo

Poe’s Law is “Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

oOOo

I also wrote (or found) this: “The world’s most faithful and unreliable friend” (oh), near to “The North Star. You can navigate by it.“

I wonder if, when one is creative, if they have a North Star. I like the metaphor! The idea of Muse (someone is there for you, even an “idea” of them). The Golem (a figure you invent from clay), who is like a statue you work for, an archetype, a friendly aim.

The North Star is a landmark and a point, you draw a vector from your point to this other point. Direction. But also a light, right? Maybe a sign? Glow, Glim, Glimmer, glimmering (for a reason).

The watcher needs it, he’s thankful, he smiles, he travels, thanks to the North Star.

oOOo

I found Honorary Astronaut, a great little song with surprises each minute. Had to explore a bit before finding it’s a lateral group from The Dear Hunter, plenty of music to discover, like this one hour long “ACT IV: Rebirth in Reprise”, which is like someone says in the comments: “Indie Prog Orchestral Rock”.

Then I found Hold Salted Wind from Einar Stray Orchestra, from Norway (again). This music gets my attention immediatly: harmonies, doubled voice, organ, drama, some dissonances, surprises, broken structure.

Voilà, pour finir :

Thans for reading!

Tritones & Sad-Eyed Ladies: Chronicle 66

“We have to bring out knowledge where we don’t expect it.” – Roland Barthes

Isn’t it a fascinating quote?

We bring out knowledge in articles, in schools, in books: exactly WHERE we expect knowledge to be shown, that’s good.

But why should we do this in “unexpected” places? To create surprises? To aim at a new audience? Elegance of life?

I don’t know but I find it interesting.

But OK: where?

At work? Social media? Could we talk about Barthes on TikTok?

Knowledge? Music isn’t knowledge. So, what? Humanities? History? How? What form? Courses?

oOOo

Ahhh a day off, and a lonely time…

Let’s choose a musician (Gustav Holst, Chick Corea), ask some web pages, take some books, and explore. Finding names: “The Could Messenger”, “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs”. But I ended listening to “Jan Bang, Erik Honore, Gaute Storaas and Arve Henriksen – (2013) – Knut Hamsuns Victoria”.

A piece of quiet music:

oOOo

I have a draft here named Blood Family/Soul Family but I only have the title here. It’s an old structure, we know and see what it is. The problem is that we “know” our blood family – the soul family is elsewhere. We meet them later, maybe never. Maybe some work is needed to find the soul family. Not some work, but some… accuracy, or attention. But not being a tracker, right? One does not hunt a soulmate, but one can be ready to meet one.

oOOo

I made some photos which need some poetry.

oOOo

In French, there’s a song: “J’attendrai” (I will wait) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27attendrai. See lyrics. Other versions.

oOOo

Riskiest modulation of The Beatles: If I fell. It’s funny to hear it “explained” by a scholar with tritones, knowing that John Lennon liked to build song by “making piles of random chords”. I used to do it. Listening to the chords in loop triggers melodies.

oOOo

I opened a book about Bob Dylan and found that he had be signed on Columbia in the sixties by a guy named John Hammond. Hmm:

“What I wanted to do with Bobby was just to get him to sound in the studio as natural, just as he was in person, and have that extraordinary personality come thru…. After all, he’s not a great harmonica player, and he’s not a great guitar player, and he’s not a great singer. He just happens to be an original. And I just wanted to have that originality come thru.”

Producers who… feel something – the archetype probably being George Martin, often called the “fifth Beatles” (producer, arranger), and there’s another man, the manager (Brian Epstein). Hmm:

“…as John Lennon and Paul McCartney joined in with jokes and comic wordplay, that made Martin think that he should sign them to a contract for their wit alone.”

Stig Anderson was one of the dominant figures behind ABBA. He built them, co-wrote lyrics, etc, he’s sometimes called “The fifth member or ABBA” (well well), etc…

It is funny to read about the “guy behind”, when you read about big music stars. Who’s behind Queen, Elvis Presley? I’d like to find a book about them. What did they bring? What did they see? What have they in common?

oOOo

I opened a book about Bob Dylan’s songs, finding pages about one single song: Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. In itself, a big source of analysis games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Eyed_Lady_of_the_Lowlands

• It’s a very long “poem”, full of mysterious words. I found a French web page about Dylan’s lyrics style, closer than Rimbaud than American or English poets ( https://www.bobdylan-fr.com/articles/jeffreyside.html -> Google Translate it!).
• Instead of “stories” or descriptions, images so weird that people scratch their heads in wonder. Like in Umberto Eco & the Open Work, the audience built their signification.
• Therefore everybody finds something talking about themselves. Read the comments everywhere.
• Dylan’s recording of the song is interesting.
• It’s said to be a “hymn” to his lover. But some guys think that it’s about Dylan’s “anima” (the unconscious feminine side of a man – animus being the unconscious masculine side of a woman).
• It’s a waltz.
• The album was released in 1966; I’ve seen June, but also May 16th (I was born on May 15th this year).
• The sleeve’s blurry.

Well: voilà some seeds, dig a hole, put the seed, see what blossoms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass
Who could they get to carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I put them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Here it is by Joan Baez :

oOOo

Isn’t the best stimulant the curiosity of the person you love?

Thanks for reading. Happy New Year!

JP

Carpenter or Marquetryier?

In an article about a group the journalist called one musician the carpenter and the other one the expert in marquetry.

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It’s obviously an article subjet “in itself”, a tool, a choose your weapon one.

• A photographer likes textures, and another one thinks “composition”, lines and balance.
• A poet thinks “long story” and parts, another one thinks about how he would associate words to spark an interesting meaning.
• An orchestra director works on the big picture, and another one on timbre.
• A teacher sees a course as a progression, or focuses on elements which…

Wait, isn’t the ideal tool to choose to be the both, each time?

Rarely we are lucky enough to have a McCartney who writes the whole Hey Jude song, AND a Lennon who says hime to keep the great, confusing, fabulous nonandverysensical phrase : “The movement you need is on your shoulder”.

Pure marquetry!

Therefore we have to tango between details and big lines, between a spoken sentence and the scenario, between a minute and a life’s choice…

“The movement you need is on your shoulder”, hmmm what does that mean? It’s maybe the subject of another article, right?

Thanks for reading!

So let it out and let it in
Hey Jude, begin
You’re waiting for someone to perform with
And don’t you know that it’s just you
Hey Jude, you’ll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder
La-la-la, la, la
La-la-la, la, mmh

The Gifts Frontiers & cup of teas

As a bookseller I talked with a lady who wanted to offer a book as a present.

She was wondering…

1. If you choose something which will please the person, she’ll be happy, but she’ll stay in her comfort zone…
2. If you choose something more personal and you wish to make this person discover something you like, you take the risk to fail, and to bore the person. The useless present!

So there’s a frontier, a place to find : a surprise which will be delightful, opening a whole new territory of pleasures.

So it could be a 3. Choose something which is not necessarily your cup of tea, but could be the other one’s NEW cup of tea.

Mmmh? Stair’s strategy? What will you get, today? Something you like, something the other one likes, or something unknown you could like?

Your house? The other one’s house? Or a growing house for you? New room?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Works that create an irrepressible need to express yourself

Works that create an irrepressible need to express yourself

Take music, for example, you can study it in many ways : historically, genres, energy, impact on society, lyrics, etc…

There’s a book I love (Francis Wolff, Pourquoi la Musique ?) which studies the impact of music on human kind. What music does to us.

Any work of Art can be studied that way, a book, a sonata, a painting or a poem.

What does it do?

1. Emotion
2. Remembrance
3. A need to dance
4. A need to know more about the artist
5. A need to get more of her/him!
6. Relief
7. Calm down
8. Focus
9. Meditation
10. Understandings of the things of life
11. Knowledge
12. Beauty sparks

 

Etc…

Some artists are so… peculiar that they can trigger this : “An irrepressible need to express yourself”.

Why? How? How does it work?

I read it about Proust, and I agree : it’s because his huge Lost Time group of books, besides being a fantastic work of literature, is also a big, constant river of ideas, of “tropisms”, little movements of the mind. It touches little parts of your brain you know very well but, well, nobody talked about it to you before. Therefore you have the constant impression that this guy knows you very, very well. It can become a drug (and it is !).

This puts you into a movement. You need to move, to work, to write, to tell. Your well set big trunks of ideas, in your head, begin to move. Things get alive. They want to get out.

Also, there’s the risk of mimicking the artist who triggered it. Get over it. Don’t care : the flow is here, ready to do its flow thing.

Work, work, work. And thank the person who, in the past, had the talent to open your desire to express.

Who are the person who did this to you?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Proust crée chez son lecteur un besoin irrépressible de s’exprimer.

The Rhonda Byrne ladder

The Rhonda Byrne ladder?

The Law of Attraction, “the principle that you attract whatever you focus your energy on (good or bad)” has a best seller : The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne.

Of course, this is crap. If you’re robbed or you house gets on fire, it’s NOT because you “negatively thought about it”. And if you want to loose weight, just try to “think thin” and watch the results, haha.

There’s an “other” secret in this book and the Law of Attraction : the author doesn’t give a monkey’s about “how” it works.

She mainly says : you want something, you ask for it, you watch, and if you get it, thank you.

 

This is obviously a ladder – and it’s maybe the reason the book had such success :

1. If you’re a religious person, you’re in your warm bath : Jesus (or your Angel) always takes care of you and just offered you this perfect parking place you needed, cool.
2. If you think the Universe conspires to help you, it’s the same. Just attract what you need by thinking about it. It’s the secret.
3. If you are a normal, good sensed person, you can play it too : want some, ask some (to a tree, or whatever), watch around and if you get it, thank (the tree or whatever – you don’t care), just thank.

 

Both (sorry, troth) solutions of the ladder work. What this “game” provides is maybe… focus and good will.

If you get up on the wrong side of the bed, you really have a good chance to spend a bad day, right? And it’s not because of the Law of Attraction. If you want you daughter to succeed her exams, think about it : do you pray the Lord, or do you spend time with her when she needs it?

 

My tool here is : Where are other ladders? Which concept will we choose to operate on, from the bottom to the top, effectiveness wise?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Big Boredom

This week I read (I underlined) :

A UK wide survey reveals the extent to which the younger generation feel disillusioned, with the MAJORITY (89 percent) of 16-29 year olds, claiming their life lacks purpose or meaning.

Then I learned about three French guys this summer :

• A Franco-Canadian man, a 44-year-old musician, died after being attacked by a grizzly bear in a remote area of Canada last week. He was surprised by the animal in his sleep. He was travelling along the Mackenzie River to record sounds of nature for a musical project.
• The adventure of an “eco-adventurer” originating from northern France and living in Toronto, which was supposed to last more than two months, ended tragically during the second stage of his crossing of Canada by bike and kayak.
• The body of a French hiker, 27, who disappeared in Italy after making an emergency call 10 days ago has been found in a ravine near Naples. He made a plea for help on 9 August, saying he had fallen down a cliff and broken both legs while walking in south-west Italy.

 

Then this :

Antidepressant usage has increase almost 400% over the past few years. 23% of women in their 40s and 50s take antidepressants. Women are 2 1/2 times more likely to take an antidepressant than men. Antidepressant usage does not vary by income level.

In other words, it’s safe to say there’s a health, happiness, and antidepressant prescription epidemic going on in USA. Why are people so miserable? Or why are antidepressant medications on the rise?

 

 

Then, I found this chart :

 

Today :

Jessi Combs, famed racer, skilled fabricator, lover of all things automotive, and the “fastest woman on four wheels,” as reportedly died while attempting to set a new land speed record in Oregon. She was just 36 years old. 

 

So this is slowly becoming : what’s happening?

I asked friends, who all agree. In the old ages, we human beings struggled to survive, then (and also), we were constantly working. But today is the days of… more free time. Then how do you live? I wondered once :

https://afrenchtoolbox.wordpress.com/2016/12/29/hey-how-do-you-keep-yourself-together/

Cuddling, reading, sex, alcohol, drugs, sports, art, work, friends, thinking, religion.

You can google “how to live” or “live to the fullest”, you’ll find things possible (“know yourself”, “be moderate”) and hard to find cursors (“be curious”, “set goals”, “laugh”) when you feel this lack of “purpose & meaning”.

 

Voilà. I worry too much for my human sisters & brothers. Too much empathy, I bet.

What did you choose, between the big families?

1. Evasion, with pills, alcohol or drugs?
2. Engagement, with politics or religion, rules?
3. Moderation, with culture, knowledge, watching the world?
4. Pushing limits, with speed, danger, exploration?

 

 

JP

 

#change #motivation

 

 

Middle of life & Refusal of continuous evolving plan

“In the middle of the journey of our life”, writes Dante in the beginning of his Inferno.

Roland Barthes uses this to think about the feeling of being in the middle of our life.

After an event which determines the start of the second part of life, some rest then they go on, repeating what they did before, maybe slowly withdrawing from action. Acedia (Wiki : “a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world”) is not necessarily a bad thing.

Let me fall into a quiet clean living space

Others will feel the coming of the end of life – or at least, that they begin the second part – and choose, like after a tremor, to change something.

Life of course, but also elements of it, things like beliefs, methods, ways of writing are subject to mutations.

In fact, one can feel this need anytime, not “in the middle of life” (which becomes, then, one trigger).

Who never felt “la lassitude de n’être que soi”? The weariness of being only oneself…

Something suddenly has to be done (and we should probably also list the triggers). What’s and how is it discontinuous?

• sinuous – bends
• defectoring – big changes
• lives using turnarounds – doing the contrary for certains things
• metamorphosis – another skin, way of seeing things
• displacements – moving places, moving where we act
• growing by stages – learning, opening
• risks – uncertainties, voluntary skidsideslips, waverings
• seeking freedoms – explorations
• re-inventions – mutations

and having said that, at the same time, staying truthful & faithful (to ourselves).

1. Choose solutions
2. Invent solutions

Thanks for reading!

Don’t ask me who I am and don’t ask me to stay the same.

M. Foucault

See also (Google it) “Becoming Deleuze”. For example :

“Becoming-” is a process of change, flight, or movement within an assemblage. Rather than conceive of the pieces of an assemblage as an organic whole, within which the specific elements are held in place by the organization of a unity, the process of “becoming-” serves to account for relationships between the “discrete” elements of the assemblage. In “becoming-” one piece of the assemblage is drawn into the territory of another piece, changing its value as an element and bringing about a new unity.

Rifle Shoulder Switching & other Aiming Transmutations

Some guys are astronauts, some other astronomers, right?

Someone who wants to be an astronaut, because of an accident or bad vision, has to give up, he’s sad, what’s the meaning of life, etc.

He must aim differently. Use what he learned to work in the boat industry. Become an engineer or a scientist, to help organize, calculate or help the guys in the rocket.

I read this phrase recently :

One does not do what they WANT to do, but what they CAN do.

Now think about how many times we have to do this in life…

It can be the simple “lower expectations”, but it’s often richer, or more complex.

We have the whys : why do we have to change our aim? Change? Interruption? Surprises? Betrayal? Death or dearth? Did you fail an exam? A breakup?

Then the hows : is it an instant modification based on instinct? Is it wanted or piloted by circumstances? Do you need help? What about the nature of the coming change? Is it about intensity, complexity, a change of nature?

Something, then, is bending.

In French, to say “to change your tune” or “to change tack”, we say : “Changer son fusil d’épaule” – something about Rifle Shoulder Switch.

What happens inside? Disillusion? Bitterness? New steam? Relief?

M. Yourcenar said something like :

There’s a relief in the deep of each powerlessness

 

You’re a conversationalist but your best friend disappeared in a love affair with a Belgian mountain climber? Blog the possible chats’ ideas!

You’re a painter but you lost both arms in a paintbrush accident? Teach your art to young people!

 

I put this again : What about the nature of the coming change? Is it about intensity, complexity, a change of nature?

Do you know examples?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Do it on your cam” – Are you a photographer or a computer tinkerer?

No effects : “Do it on your cam” – Are you a photographer or a computer tinkerer?

Photography is a great hobby, and we all do it differently.

Digital and Big Giga SD cards allow us to take thousands of pictures. Then, for each, we can play a long time on our computer, pushing/pulling cursors for light, sharpness, special effects and filters. That’s fun!

In a way, I’m sure that we all realize one day or another that… it’s too much.

I heard many times about how photographers “invent” limits to reframe their Art. You have, as often, to invent some fruitful limits to climb into a higher level of… requirement.

Some go back to analogue, films. It’s expensive (you have to buy film rolls), therefore you really, suddenly, have to THINK before you trigger. It’s good to think about what we do!

What I chose to do is to know my cam enough to take the picture I want to get, without spending time to “fix” it on my Macintosh.

Thus, I often take the picture I want to get. I have to think about frames, grain, color, darkness and light, shadows. I don’t touch it, then. I sometimes reframe a bit, or add a little sharpness, that’s all. No filter, no color alteration, no RAW, etc…

I took these pictures today.

Voilà. The tool is yours : what will you… decrease, limit, in your Art-Too-Much? When you’re too rich on something, what do you stop, or choose 2%? What for? What would you win?

Thanks for reading!

Thoughts & Quotes about Rilke and patience

There’s a very well known quote from Rilke :

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

…from the Letters to a young poet.

In fact, when he was around 30; Rilke wrote a few letters to a young man who had asked him advices about poetry. Rilke’s answer is splendid :

“Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself.”

 

But at this time he was also writing letters to Lou Andreas-Salomé, who was… 14 years older than him. I read their letters, they are amazing : two high-range brains talking about subtleties of life…

In 1903 he wrote :

“Patience contains everything: humility, strength and moderation.”

 

Patience, at this time, seemed to be an obsession to him.

How do we hear this today?

1. Do we hear that negatively, patience as inertia disguised in virtues? Should we be patient instead of enter a resistance?
2. Do we hear that positively, patience as hope? Humility, strength and moderation… Is it linked to indecision “as a decision”?

Savoir Attendre – Know How to Wait

 

How do you hear it?

Why do I think about Saint-Exupéry?

Les vaincus doivent se taire, comme les graines

The vanquished must stay silent, like the seeds…

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

The wish for mentor

Mentor sounds good. It’s not a guru – where you feel it’s toxic, too much, manipulation. It’s not a guide. It’s maybe in the middle…

It’s not a muse, nor an authority, it’s not a coach, not your parents, or disturbers.

I’m reading Irving Yalom‘s autobiography, where he tells his constant need, during his growing life, for a mentor. An adult person who would have “detected” his uniqueness, his talents, his whatever makes one special…

Then, this person would guide you a little, would show you things you should know, and would probably tell your parents (who aren’t aware, of course).

It’s a cousin-pattern of many things, linked to Types,

• like the teacher who unblocks you with a single phrase,
• the uncle who offers you a magnifier (or a telescope),
• the best friend who marks/scars you forever with a single innocent observation,
• the soul-mate lover who disturbed you so much you’re reconfigured in the whole of you, or almost.

Wishing you had a mentor is almost a Type in itself : overthinkers, introverts, shy people, book lovers, quiet seekers.

Everybody needs attention and understanders (and I think it’s why some love stories are so intense), good conversation lovers, listeners, good askers. Here, it’s something else, right? Not sure…

Every other helper I listed here can embody the role of the Mentor… one needs. Someone who gets you, even in a 2 seconds sentence,

1. points you out to others
2. shows you possible paths (doors, windows)

 

Well, we should NOT need that, but… we do what we can!

Have you met a mentor? Have you been a mentor to a kid? Should you? How?

 

Thanks for reading!

When you insist until you fail… on purpose.

“When you insist until you fail… on purpose” is a pattern everybody knows and everybody tried one day, right?

For Headlong rush or forging ahead, in French we say : “La fuite en avant” (an escape forward).

Sometimes one does it oneself, but is it on purpose and fully aware – as a strategy, or in a nihilistic despair suicide-like rush?

In other times, we can be part of it, for instance when you work for a company which makes bad decisions in a row :

Incompetence or Cruelty?

There’s these ideas swirling in “forging ahead” : going fast, decide quickly, being a bit crazy, vanity and vainglory, last brightness, grab what we can, or maybe go ahead, destroy what we can, and bury yourself in the end. Who knows?

In dictionaries I found to careen, which seems to be a bit crazy, right? To throw oneself into the fray (if the fray is a fight, why is there another word? Is a fray a messy fight?). “Fling yourself” sounds similar.

All these sound risky and breaknecky… but I titled my article “When insisting…”. Therefore I’d like to talk about a quieter way of forging ahead, a headlong quiet insisting daily rush…

I just found the word “Adamant”, which is splendid! Maybe because in French “Un Diamant” is a Diamond. Your adamant sounds to me like “adamond” – see?

I also found that you add “on” after insist : to insist on, stubbornly, right? Leads me to “pigheadedly” (waowwww!).

This is really funny to discover these words… In French we also say this. Entêté (could be “enheaded”, or têtu comme une mule…

Calmly insisting… until I fail. Makes me think about self sabotage (but “Why would you do that??”), or nihilism.

Sometimes it’s the only way, the only path to walk on, so… you go! Sacrifice? Maybe. Suicide? Maybe. Dark fun? Why not? Manipulation? Ohhhhh… No. To provoke, to trigger an answer, to show a door or a window? Well…

When do we do that? When do we witness that? What to do, then?

Overthinking, I know.

Thanks for reading!

Treating the Fringe

When you work, there are often two parts :

1. One part you have to deliver – and you’re paid for it. It’s the “main thing”, your job.
2. There’s another part, where you treat yourself, or where you treat your audience…

 

“you offer them a treat” : what’s that word which is a noun and a verb? What’s that verb which sounds positive and lovely to me, and at the same time which need “well” at times : to treat well…

Question : does “to treat” contain “to treat well”, “to give pleasure”, or not?

 

It’s a two-parts-pattern all creative people know well.

If you’re a teacher and you have to teach a complicated maths lesson for 2 hours, if you’re a director and your job is to make a film to promote a train station, if you order books for a library, etc :

1. you can do it the normal, proper way
2. you can do it in a splendid inventive way
3. you can play a cursor between both

 

This “3.” is interesting. How do you do it?

1. Do you begin with pleasure and complexity aimed to an intelligent marginal group, THEN you add elements to help others to stay on the road?
2. Or do you build the average normal job, then hide smart elements to be seen and guessed by the clever fringe?

 

If your fringe becomes too large, you’re elbowing them, good to you, but you lose the next one, who will look at you as a smart arse : not good, right?

On the other side, if you treat yourself with too much subtlety, it becomes a “private pleasure hidden, just for you”. And why not? :

Luxury is insular

 

Overthinking over it – two examples :

I talked with a friend who, in a way, complained that when you work and you add great and complicated elements on purpose, for the pleasure of resolving them (for example, a sequence-shot when you direct a movie), only a few percents of the audience will catch it (moreover : to find where to put the cursor is a mess).

Pablo Picasso explains that when he works on a complicated project for a cubist painting, he has to develop very subtle and complex balances, colors, masses, energies, frames, etc… This, as the core of his Art.
Then he adds little easy elements (like a necklace or a moustache) and then names the painting accordingly. This to… guide or please the unschooled, while the connoisseur will see the real purpose…

 

Thanks for reading! Have a great sunday!

JP

 

Decision : Is today the day after yesterday or the day before tomorrow?

Is today the day after yesterday or the day before tomorrow?

You can now take this little idea-stick and use it for concepts. Let’s do it with decisions.

As all we have is the “now”…

There are two types of persons, those who think in little simple boxes and let themselves trapped by words, and those who know life’s complex and moving. The first category can be divided in

1. Therefore, most of wise-asses will stand up and pompously claim that “Haha, today is the day before tomorrow!!” – they make decisions watching the future.
2. Some other saddened sad-pants will mourn and stop, watching the past only, the yesterday. They are mocked by 1.

 

Of course, my article would like to show that we need the past and the future to make decisions.

Considering the yesterday is drawing maps, spot mistakes to avoid, increase intelligence, preparing lines towards the tomorrow, inventing goals, foreseeing paths, inventing propositions. Tango!

…inspiration coming from appropriation of experience…

 

Have a nice day!

“I spy… with my little eye… an anted ant & a dotless ladybug…”

I spy…

with my little eye…

 

an anted ant & a dotless ladybug,

a thoughtful dragonfly,

a cannon & an adorable farmer,

and a splendid rose, who’s alone…

 

Ant on leg is like a part of her other – henceforth, they’re one, forever.

Ladybug is one of her kind : her dots are in her mind.

Cannon has wheels, moves, loves and will protect headscarfed lady.

Dragonfly likes the soft clouds, today – she smiles and flies to the sky!

Rose doesn’t watch the grey wall neither the death around : she is happy and all pretty.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading!

JP

 

“What do we displace, today, dear?”

There’s a French/English problem with the word “Translation” :

In English, you use the same word to translate a word (in a language to another language) AND to translate in geometry (which “moves every point of a figure or a space by the same distance in a given direction”).

In French, “to translate a word” is Traduire, and “to translate geometrically” is Translater. Which becomes for nouns : Une Traduction / Une Translation.

 

I had fun one day writing an article about concepts translations, which is, for example, to pick an architecture concept (“the door”, “the archway”) and to use it in another discipline (in poetry, in photography, or teaching).

“Displacing Concepts” : from Architecture to Poetry ?

 

I admit my brain is in some places connected like that : as soon as I notice a structure, I want to extract it and play with it around, in… another discipline.

• The idea of verse in poetry would become interesting in photography.
• The form “sonata” in music is maybe something in architecture.
• Etc.

 

Today I take my magnifier and I realize we could do this “exercise” with other things than concepts.

1. Methods
2. Models
3. Invention
4. Team
5. Supervision
6. Training exercises types
7. Risks
8. Out of the box thinking
9. Paradigm changes
10. Etc

 

I know someone who studied how music pedagogy could be useful to language learning. That’s a fantastic idea!

Now this is a subject for an afternoon conversation, right?

If you don’t have a partner for that, read some prefaces or thinkers’ interviews, find the seeds and patterns, and apply them elsewhere.

What is impressionism (art) in teaching? What is a corridor (architecture) in marketing campaign? What is a fade to black (movie editing) in poetry? What can a street photographer bring to a lecturer? Etc.

Have fun. Thanks for reading!

Do your shopping/Take your pick

There’s always one moment in a month when you want to metablog.

 

Yesterday I discovered somebody read about sixty pages of this blog, and I wondered :

What did they find?

…painters & photographers, haikus, quotes, small ideas : Unexpected Connections & Sparks Exchanges – I even made a List of Sorts of Blog Articles…

It seems “constantly random”, but my followers know there’s a structure under. Therefore I metablogged about it :

• Finder Keeper Sharer, “What is my blog about?”

 

My sweet will is to share, to invite you to pick tools and ideas, then share again. These are not my ideas, but good ones I found which are worth spreading. Well… I think so!

 

Dreamread, take your pick. Find an ideatool and use it another way. You’re invited to do your shopping here. Explore more. Use my blog as a table of content. Stealfind what I wanted to say. Bendfind what I didn’t say (and tell it back to me, thank youuuu).

What I like the most, probably, is :

When an idea you find in a blog, in a book, in a conversation, recombines with other ideas you have in mind at the moment.

 

Recombining. That’s the subject of another article, right?

 

 

Thanks for reading!