“That the idea or conception of something is adjudged superior to its concrete implementation is a natural consequence of a society in which theory has become increasingly important. The execution is dirty and imprecise, while the idea is pure and unsullied. Theory is always flawless, until you try to apply it in practice and get… Continue reading

“Writing is not the memorialization of ideas. Writing distillate, crafts, and pressure-tests ideas—it creates ideas…They emerge from a process, they represent their becoming, and that emergence, in their final form. Writing is therefore a kind of learning. Active writing should not involve saying things you already understand and know, but instead let you think new… Continue reading

“To create a desire for something one needs to engage in a labor of human happiness. Need is a demanding and obscure thing that defines the dependence of one person on another. To identify it and want it is to define oneself as a person. That’s the secret of culture, the secret of cuisine, the… Continue reading

“On a bike your consciousness is small. The harder you work, the smaller it gets. Every thought that arises is immediately and utterly true, every unexpected event is something you’d known all along but had only forgotten for a moment. A pounding riff from a song, a bit of long division that starts over and… Continue reading

“The ‘nature of sound’…is not a/any/all sound’s essential or absolute guise (as such divination is impossible) but its irreducible behavior, distinctive apparition and ingrained purpose. It eschews any essence as to what it might be—as if it is a metaphor pointing to some sonic soul that has motivated the act of description—and instead accepts its… Continue reading

“You get things that wouldn’t make sense if you were actually playing them. So you would never think of them. Because writing and improvising on a piano is very much based on muscle memory. But with this you get rid of all that. You get this pure, unrestricted creativity.” Continue reading

“Minimalism is simple. Got rid of the unnecessary. Create structure. Stop searching for hidden meaning. Embrace what is solid. Lose yourself in patterns. Don’t fear empty space. Stay clean. Be bold and colorful. Don’t be too expressive! Less is more. But less is more difficult than it looks.” -Grant Snider, The Shape Of Ideas, p. 55. Continue reading