analogies
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Resonant Thoughts: Matthew B. Crawford’s “Why We Drive” (2020)
“In the affluent West, many of our energies of innovation seem to be channeled into creating experiences for the consumer that will make him feel good without making demands on him. This trend has been called ‘affective capitalism.’ Examples include computer gaming, pornography, psychoactive drugs, or a well-curated ecotourism adventure. Manufactured experiences are offered as Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: On Repetition And Baking Analogies In Shunryu Suzuki’s “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”
“We may find it not so interesting to cook the same thing over and over again every day. It is rather tedious, you may say. If you lose the spirit of repetition it will become quite difficult…Anyway, we cannot keep still: we have to do something. So if you do something, you should be very Continue reading
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Owning The Phenomenal World: Jeong Kwan On Creativity
“Creativity and ego cannot go together. If you free yourself from the comparing and jealous mind, your creativity opens up endlessly. Just as water springs from a fountain, creativity springs from every moment. You must not be your own obstacle. You must not be owned by the environment you are in. You must own Continue reading
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Chasing Creativity
Creativity is a wolf that you’re chasing in a mountain forest in the middle of winter. You run after this stealth silent and fleet-footed animal that sprints ahead of you, flying over rocks and branches, leaping over iced streams, always vanishing just around the next bend in the trail. You’re patient in your pursuit, Continue reading
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Personifying Musical Action
A melody does things in a look at me kind of way. It walks, it skips, it pirouettes like a sprightly dancer; it leaps from one pitch to another like a long-limbed ballerina. Melodies love attention and they have a diva quality, as if believing that their personal and exteriorized dramas are of intrinsic interest and Continue reading
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On Less Is More: Lorenzo Senni’s Music
Lorenzo Senni has an interesting musical thing going on. On his recent recordings Superimpositions (2014) and Quantum Jelly (2012) he makes a kind of electronic trance music that does away with the beats, leaving only pulsing, echoing, and arpeggiating synthesizer chord sequences. Without the metrical context of the relentless 4/4 thump, the synth chords are Continue reading
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On Musical Analogies: Notes On Design
There’s a lot to think through in this video that features the designers Dieter Rams of Braun and Jonathan Ive of Apple. In the first part we hear Rams enumerate his ten principles of good design. Good design should be: innovative, essential or useful, aesthetic, understandable, honest, unobtrusive, consistent in every detail, long-lasting, environmentally friendly, and Continue reading
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On Creative Analogies: Lessons From Coi
“Perfect food is born of perfect order.” – Daniel Patterson, Coi I have written previously on this blog (see culinary arts posts) about connections between cooking and music. To add to that mix, I recently read Daniel Patterson’s excellent Coi cookbook. The book is structured around a series of short narratives that provide context for Continue reading
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On A.R. Ammons: “A Poem Is A Walk”
“Poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization. Its knowledges are all negative and, therefore, more positive than any knowledge. Nothing that can be said about it in Continue reading
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