dianafilms

brain pickings

http://www.brainpickings.org

So much fun to visit blogs, do your basic cool hunting and just keep learning new ways to see. In the winter when we are supposed to lie fallow and go within, I still need to feed my curious nature. Sometimes along the way we get to discover rich writing/thinking. This particular link was posted by Ed Cotton of Influx/BSSP. What I enjoy about this blog is their celebration of the simpler side of the interplay between art and science. We are now living in the age of the curator, given how much information we have flowing in all directions, is it any wonder that we look to places like Brainpicking to contextualize the content in order to better glimpse a simple and playful overview?

the last express: VG

for the gamers and ex gamers interested in narrative:
http://tinyurl.com/kjud54
This game was so much fun to work on, it felt like we were doing something quite groundbreaking at the time on technical as well as creative levels and in I guess we really were. Jordan's specialty is to take the cinematic elements and to incorporate those into game theory, what a treat it was to watch things evolve!
Still so proud of him, he made this game on spec and I think he did it to make a difference in how games worked. He could have just as easily continued making things like Prince of Persia and Karateka and all that, instead he decided to push the envelope.
Here's to all of us pushing our own envelopes in one way or another.

on art, life and inspiration...

Artists & Creatives require time to stare out the window. The words are sometimes right outside, just waiting for your gaze to soften long enough to see without looking. If that does not work you can always glue your ass to the chair and get to work.

Great Ad from India

This video is a great example of the great ads that fully embrace the specificity of cultural symbols while still relaying universal truths in funny and memorable ways.

TFTD: Zinger

Even the best projects have difficult people, just make sure you're not one of them. Francesca Prada on set 2008

TFTD

To Be of Use The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

Lesson #1

Lesson #2

Lesson #3

Lesson #4