I love movies, and I loved 2010. Here’s a tribute to both.
PS
Here’s a list of all the films used. Wow.
This is so good. We should all be thinking about and appreciating books the way Craig Mod does.
"A director is a kind of idea and taste machine; a movie is a series of creative and technical decisions, and it’s the director’s job to make the right decisions as frequently as possible. Shooting a movie is the worst milieu for creative work ever devised by man. It is a noisy, physical apparatus; it is difficult to concentrate — and you have to do it from eight-thirty to six-thirty, five days a week. It’s not an environment an artist would ever choose to work in. The only advantage is has is that you must do it, and you can’t procrastinate."
— This interview with Stanley Kubrick might be the best I’ve ever read. There’s so much here about visual vs. verbal experience, the medium, creative and non-creative environments, 2001, and what it takes to make a film. This is a gem of a quote for those of us who have to wedge our creative thinking into a specific schedule.
Wolf Parade’s amazing new video for Yulia, directed by Scott Coffey. It’s beautifully shot, and actually makes me like the song more, which is what a great video should do.
(via The Fox is Black)
These are terrific. Subtle moments from films captured in an animated gif. Coupled with the quotes, many of them almost perfectly sum up the film they’re from, like this one from The Big Lebowski.
Two beautiful examples of printed books. Tree Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer was found over on Kottke and The Whole Story by Debra Folz on swissmiss. You can get the scoop on how how these books were created from their posts.
These two pieces of work are embodiments of what Craig Mod expresses so eloquently in his essay “Books in the age of the iPad”: the books of the future will “embrace their physicality”. They have to. Formless paperbacks — as they become completely uneconomical to produce — will find permanent homes on the Kindle, iPhone and iPad. The books we do actually print will be beautiful and crafted, equally considerate of both their content and their form. Craig offers a manifesto of sorts:
- The Books We Make embrace their physicality — working in concert with the content to illuminate the narrative.
- The Books We Make are confident in form and usage of material.
- The Books We Make exploit the advantages of print.
- The Books We Make are built to last.
Seeing both of these books today reminded me of this. Now, obviously not every single book is going to be this artful and unique, but I do believe that as text becomes both easier and more enjoyable to consume digitally, the physicality of printed material is going to become just as important as its content. It’s great to see that the ball is already rolling.
The second instalment in my Seasonal Mixtape series is ready for the world. Waiting to See is a collection of songs that have been firmly planted in my mindgrapes over the past couple months. Throughout the process of putting it together, themes started to surface. Traveling. The idea of picking up and going someplace else. Moving on. I’ve been thinking about ghosts a lot lately. Is a graveyard our final destination, or a pit stop? Do we come back? Do we still love things when we’re dead? OK, maybe I’m losing sight of things here. It’s just a bunch of songs I like. I hope you do too.
For sharing, I’m trying something different this time. You can stream the whole thing on SoundCloud. It should also give you the option to download the tracks, if you want to keep them.
Enjoy.
This is from 1975. Does it sound familiar?
Was keeping up with published material really all that difficult in the 1970s? Look at what we have now: RSS feeds, news readers, iPads, Kindles and smartphones, yet everyday we walk this delicate line between enjoying all this great content and letting it swallow us whole.
“Expanding knowledge means more to read and less time in which to do it.”
Indeed.
There are only 5 blogs that I read daily now. I make a point of reading the entries completely and seeing where they take me. Anything more is just too much. I’ll normally check them in the morning or specific times throughout the day when I know I can take the time to read them but not let it interrupt my workflow. Any interesting articles I come across during the day I’ll save to Instapaper and read later on my Kindle. David Airey subscribes to a staggering 63 blogs. This is unfathomable to me, but I’m not here to judge. One beautiful thing about the creative field is that everyone has their own process and their own way of getting inspired and making great work.
It’s taken me a long time to figure this out. I used to follow a lot more blogs daily. Once I realized I was reading and thinking more than I was actually creating good work, I knew something had to change. I also realized that going to an event and engaging with the people in my field is more inspiring and worthwhile than almost any blog post.
As I work on a brand identity for an acupuncture clinic, I’m realizing that everything is about balance. Yin and yang. Thinking and doing. Mick and Keef. Steve Jobs and black turtlenecks. Success is the perfect balance between thinking, learning, engaging and creating.
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Book cover found in the incredible Pelican Project from things magazine, an immense collection of book covers from the 1930s to the 1980s.
