November 2011
1 post
sundays
me: “I hope that when I get older, Sundays would more relieving than anything.”
a beautiful girl: “When you can exhale nice and deep, roll around in covers reading old books that you read when you were younger, and newspapers, and tea. Sipping. Maybe even stay there all day. Until the sipping becomes wine and books become films and there will be a beautiful woman enjoying it...
October 2011
4 posts
information revolution?
the simple reality that we have access to all the information in the world doesn’t change:
1. our ability to process it
2. our interest in it
3. our imagination to think of what to do with it
thank you, steve.
“The Interview was all but complete when I met Jobs at a celebrity-filled birthday party for a youngster in New York City. As the evening progressed, I wandered around to discover that Jobs had gone off with the nine-year-old birthday boy to give him the gift he’d brought from California: a Macintosh computer. As I watched, he showed the boy how to sketch with the machine’s graphics program. Two...
“Facing an uncertain future–amidst riots,...
September 2011
1 post
Where do you keep your Ketchup?
“… coordinated behaviors define us. We are the sum of our habits and behaviors and beliefs. How someone holds a fork, what clothes someone wears, how a person ties her shoes. None of these matters but as they accumulate they define who we are individually and collectively. They play a role in whom we fall in love with, who bothers us, and who we find odd or strange.” - Scott Page
August 2011
6 posts
draft one: complete
At some point, I lose track of all the ideas that were once considered, lines that nearly made it in. It’s a difficult thing to try and get a good balance between which ideas are fresh in your head (convenience) and which ones are better. Though I suppose we can’t control when an idea comes to our head and when it goes.
- - - -
Four days after I had set the original deadline for, I...
a lesson in focus
“That’s sort of what keeps it competitive in my mind. I’m not trying to impress the two million people that watch the show; I’m trying to impress my ten friends that I know are watching.”
- Scott Vener (@brokemogul), Music Supervisor for Entourage
“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to...”
– G. K. Chesterton
July 2011
9 posts
fear of the idea itself
I don’t think writers have some special artistic burden in life. Their pains are just expressed more often and more clearly than, say, a postal worker (save Bukowski).
And I don’t know how anyone comes up with anything inspired unless it’s, like, 2AM.
- - - -
There’s a moment, sometimes multiple, when I come face to face with the idea that I, to some degree, birthed.
The emotion arising is a...
process
Mike Gathright invited me to speak at StoryLine Church in a few weeks—this is the third time he’s made the mistake of letting me on stage.
Between now and August 14th, I’ll use this blog to map my ‘creative process’ (I use the term sparingly) in writing a talk.
- - - -
Before I jump further, I should offer an explanation of StoryLine; put simply, it’s a...
“For we are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it,...”
Reblog(?)
wrote this post published on the Eventbrite blog a few month’s ago, in the thick of organizing TEDxUofM2011:
——
“For organizing your very own TEDx conference, I have just two pieces of high-level advice. This is mostly because I believe the idea that your TEDx event will look completely different from the next is what makes TEDx conferences amazing. So take these words...
On Life Choices
[Nick Carraway on life] “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and...
Seeing the Whole Story
“It was like someone who looked for many, many, many dimensions, whether they be proven or not, and could see the whole.” Hanna Loewy, family friend speaking of Albert Einstein.
- - - -
I ordered a book called “The Art of Immersion” by Frank Rose (was sold by this video preview). The book is about the electronic mediums that are changing and revolutionizing the way we tell...
the invention of you
(commenting on this opinion piece by Thomas Friedman in the NYT)
there’s little comfort in the idea that the job i’m going to have doesn’t exist yet. but it’s a reality of which i’m convinced; scary, but challenging, even thrilling.
it can start with throwing a bunch of stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks—being your own editor, finding a voice that’s...
June 2011
11 posts
<a href=”http://gordonwantuch.bandcamp.com/album/little-heart-ep” _mce_href=”http://gordonwantuch.bandcamp.com/album/little-heart-ep”>Little Heart EP by Gordon Wantuch</a>
abby
writing a short story? i think it’s about this stray cat. okay, maybe not one stray cat in particular because i see many in tel aviv.
—-
this whole publishing something everyday is more difficult than i had imagined.
“A lot of people say the number one job of the CEO is to keep money in the bank,...”
– http://www.fastcompany.com/1762632/telling-the-story-a-qa-on-leadership-with-john-lilly
on second thought
most days, i have an idea or come across some interesting piece and have the urge to share it via a social network.
…
for the most part, the urge doesn’t materialize into a post.
social networks share things like shotguns spray bullets. it feels like some version of an old children’s virtue—you better share with everyone, or don’t share at all.
it extends beyond...
““He who seeks truth shall find beauty. He who seeks beauty shall find vanity.
...”
– Moshe Safdie
"saturday in the park"
underrating the art of discipline
i was reading a speech given to graduating design/architecture students at Harvard this year. the speaker was Chris Anderson—curator of the beloved TED conference.
he offered a few pieces of advice that were beautiful and original (surprising for a graduation speech). to focus on just a few words:
“A great musician who wants to pursue the absolute in artistic creativity doesn’t get...
May 2011
4 posts
“He lived in a world shining and fresh and uninspected as Eden on the sixth day...”
(among other things)
“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.
Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them - if you...
April 2011
10 posts
(we do not remember days; we remember moments)
you know that feeling you get when everything feels alright?
you’re looking out through a window, watching the rains pour down over the paths you walk every single day, your immediate worries are washing away before your very eyes.
maybe it’s not clear where you’re going, or even where you’ve been. but there is something that’s made very clear; that in all your...
(bloom backwards)
“we blink over twenty-two thousand times a day. and i bet you thought you only woke up once”
thanks kelsey rhodes and the TEDxUofM team, for helping me to wake up once more.
(rule #4)
do not drunk blog.
…
i was never big on following rules.
(te mo) (te amo)
how do you live a life full of nothing?
“a guy can change anything. his face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his God. But there’s one thing he can’t change. he can’t change his passion”
in spanish, the difference between “i fear” and “i love you” is one letter.
it is a choice, it is the fine line between living a life...
(whirlwind)
i sat in my car with the engine running, waiting for the dynamic duo to come down from their apartment. the yellow barn was our destination, to celebrate with friends for one hell of a mission accomplished.
but as i had my first few moments to myself to gather my thoughts, to reflect after a long day of scrambling, one question was at the forefront of my mind: did that really just happen?
hours...
leaving the windows open tonight, letting the rains in. tomorrow is a new day.
March 2011
22 posts
“sometimes what we are witnessing is simply a massive exercise in missing the...”
(iterate.feedback)
2 hours post hackathon.
my first start-up(?)
really great learning experience, maybe the hard way. i’ve learned a lot about the visioning process in action, how my own needs to be much clearer. The whole team must believe fully in that vision, and be prepared to execute.
4 developers. two back-end, two front-end (UI). all understand their roles and can interact well enough.
the...
(golden gate)
“This is what I want to build. This is classy. This is inspiring. This is limitless. Every single aspect of this is gorgeous… . So your homework this weekend is to cross this bridge, think about that, and also think about how we take those lessons into doing what we do, which is carry every single transaction in the world.”
- jack dorsey, on Square