Resonant Thoughts
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Resonant Thoughts: Bernt Spiegel’s “The Upper Half of the Motorcycle: on the unity of rider and machine” (2010)
“We are so well adapted to the things that we always have around us that we don’t see how they ‘actually’ are anymore, and thus we don’t even notice fundamental traits–for example, how unbelievably complicated it is to handle a motorcycle properly.” “But there’s a trick to understanding it: we can take this familiar thing, Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Lewis Hyde’s “A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past” (2020)
“Memory and forgetting: these are the faculties of mind by which we are aware of time, and time is a mystery. In addition, a long tradition holds that the imagination is best conceived as operating with a mixture of memory and forgetting. Creation—things coming into being that never were before—that too is a mystery. Writers Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Lewis Hyde’s “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World” (1983/2007)
“Where there is no gift there is no art” (13). “Usually, in fact, the artist does not find himself engaged or exhilarated by the work, nor does it seem authentic, until this gratuitous element has appeared, so that along with any true creation comes the uncanny sense that ‘I,’ the artist, did not make the Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Ian Penman’s “Erik Satie Three Piece Suite” (2025)
“Certain pieces by Satie are like someone took the lovely opening minutes of Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert and cut away all the subsequent faff and bore and chaff and chore and ego moan.” (54) “IN-BETWEEN All those in-between emotions it’s hard to name. Old time feelings in danger of disappearing. Staring into space vs Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: James Rebanks’s “The Place Of Tides” (2025)
“Our lives are a series of choices – about what we do, and don’t do. Over time we decide what to let go of, what must die, and what we will fight to keep alive. Sometimes these are big, deliberate decisions, other times change happens in a thousand thoughtless little moments” (91). “There is no Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Craig Mod’s “Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir” (2025)
“Mostly, I remember anti-patterns. Teaching in what-not-to-dos” (29). “Although I’m walking roads, I’m also walking this map representing things beyond what we can see. A layering deeper and weirder than we ever dreamed” (53). “A series of astonishments” (56). “And so each time I walk these routes, these same paths, the conversations come back as Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Matthew B. Crawford’s “Shop Class As Soul Craft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work” (2009)
“The craftsman’s habitual deference is not toward the New, but toward the objective standards of his craft. However narrow in its application, this is a rare appearance in contemporary life—a disinterested, articulable, and publicly affirmable idea of the good. Such a strong ontology is somewhat at odds with the cutting-edge institutions of the new capitalism, Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Steve Tupai Francis’ “Kraftwerk’s Computer World” (2022)
“When composing music together, one member, often Ralf or Karl, would introduce a melodic riff or coda, and the other members of the band would ‘jam’ on their synths for several hours. Florian would focus on altering the texture and sound of the music during these sessions. Once locked into a groove they liked, the Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Philip Ball’s “Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does” (2016)
“Perhaps the most curious thing about natural patterns is that they come from a relatively limited palette, recurring at very different size scales and in systems that might seem to have nothing at all in common with one another” (12). “What is a pattern, anyway? We usually think of it as something that repeats again Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Nadia Asparouhova’s “Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading” (2025)
“Creative self-expression is the only way we will continue to make our mark as humans in times of uncertainty, and it doesn’t come from doing what you think will sell to other people “(21). “Antimemetics are a shadow city built on thoughts, knowledge, and practices that do not spread easily, despite their importance to our Continue reading
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