Brett Whiteley, ‘Self Portrait’
Many summers ago we completed a 1,000 piece puzzle of Brett Whiteley’s ‘Self-Portrait’. Spending that much time with the painting, observing it in 1,000 tiny ways made us appreciate it even more.
Kottke’s incredible summary shows how Katsushika Hokusai spent his life building up to ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’.
At 37, he produced his first wave, in the background of a simple print. Then, at 43, the wave appeared again.
Then again when he was 45.
And then again 26 years later, when he was 71. Over three decades, Hokusai’s Great Wave evolved to find its iconic, timeless form. Like Miles Davis said, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.
Katsushika Hokusai, ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’
Inspired, the kids and I did the 1,810 piece LEGO version of The Great Wave.
Until I had to place them piece by piece, I had never noticed the people in the boats.
It was always the wave that captured me.
Perfect Days: The Power of No Mind
¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U’s Tokyo Boiler Room set is best summarised by the (current) 17th most upvoted comment in the comments section:
“This moment cannot be experienced again and this moment cannot be repeated again. I am far away and I regret it.”
While working a job in construction, ¥UK1MAT$U was diagnosed with brain cancer. He used the diagnosis as a trigger to dedicate himself full-time to music, and then ultimately beat his disease.
His past sets steer far into the esoteric but this one just hits from the opening seconds when that incredible 100 gecs guitar line drops at 00:54.
From there it’s Underworld into Prodigy, Romy, Overmono, and the Chemical Brothers into the Chemical Brothers and then finally Skrillex (who at this point I think it’s clear to say we underestimated).
Sometimes you are just ready for the zeitgeist.
Bob Dylan’s 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley in 2004 is fascinating.
Bradley: Do you ever look back at the music that you’ve written and look back at it and say
“Wow! That surprises me!”?
Dylan: I used to. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t know how I got to write those songs.
Bradley: What do you mean you don’t know how?
Dylan: All those early songs were almost magically written. Ah… “Darkness at the break of
noon, shadows even the silver spoon, a handmade blade, the child’s balloon…” Well, try to sit down and write something like that. There’s a magic to that, and it’s not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It’s a different kind of a penetrating magic. And, you know, I did it. I did it at one time.
Bradley: Do you think you can do it again today?
Dylan: Uh-uh.
Bradley: Does that disappoint you, or…?
Dylan: Well, you can’t do something forever. I did it once, and I can do other things now. But, I can’t do that.
My father and his tennis court.
Living life on ‘pinch me’ mode.
The 7 most satisfying things in life.
Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss.
Asking New Yorkers what it’s like being beautiful.
Why I wear a Rolex, a lesson from my father.
Thread of crazy painting details.
Just before Elizabeth Fraser recorded the vocals for Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’, she found out that Jeff Buckley, her former partner, had died while swimming in the Mississippi River.
Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Fearless on my breath
The vocals take on extra weight when you know the place they were coming from.
No love, however brief, is wasted.
One way to strengthen a memory is to attach it to a sense.
When you go on a holiday, you pick one album (ideally one you don’t know yet) and you listen to it on repeat. That way, any time you want to relive the feelings of the holiday, you can shortcut back to them via the music.
I accidentally discovered this technique on a trip to San Francisco two years ago when I was listening constantly to The 1975. And I did it again purposefully on last year’s SF trip with Mk.Gee’s ‘Two Star & the Dream Police’.
"Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim."- When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, by Walt Whitman
I took my eldest son to Copenhagen for two weeks in September, but couldn’t find a new album I loved enough to listen to on repeat… so I tried instead to attach my memories to scent.
Long story short, my friend Fraser introduced me to Marc Antoine-Barrois’ 'Encelade’ which smells so good it’s hard to put into words. I found some at this tiny store in one of Copenhagen’s oldest streets and bought some as a gift for my brother … At the counter, the store’s owner gave me a sample of Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777’s ‘God of Fire’, and I wore it every day I was there, and now when I put it on I am transported back to those early autumn Denmark days.
Heartbreaking piano performance made audience cry
“The world is a museum of obsessions. It’s Steve Jobs’ iPhone, glossy and thin, Miyazaki’s hand-drawn animations, Tarkovsky’s despairing films, Gates’ personal computers, Da Vinci's flying machines, Coco Chanel’s fashion empire, John Quinn and Alfred Barr’s Picasso exhibitions in an America that shunned European artists.
What we take for granted as just merely existing was once a fledgling idea, borne in a world that rejected it or wasn’t ready. Whether it died or lived hinged upon who dreamt it up, and how long they were willing to work and sometimes suffer greatly for it. Indeed, some dreams make for feverish dreaming.”
Sympathy For The Devil [4K Clip] - In the Beginning
Right before Christmas, I played St Andrews Beach with two great photographers: Will from Contours, and Karsten from Gumtree Golf & Nature Club.
Karsten captured the day on his Fuji camera and I was inspired enough by his photos to buy myself the Fuji X100 V1 for Christmas. I’ve been trying to learn it (and its recipes) since.
I got back to St Andrews Beach again recently. The morning light didn’t let me down.
COWEN: There’s some evidence that students learn better when they take notes of what’s being said. Do you feel there’s something for some people with memory a bit similar, that until they have memorized it, it’s less real for them? I don’t just mean that they remember it more, but the initial impact somehow is created or defined by the later act of memorization. People who take trips and until they photograph something, they don’t feel they’ve seen it.
NIELSEN: Yes. They very likely didn’t see it.
COWEN: Perhaps, yes.
NIELSEN: Certainly, it’s part of the reason why I take photos. I will look more closely. It’s part of the reason I will take notes. It is part of the reason why I do spaced repetition. It provides me with another way of paying attention to the world.
COWEN: But at some margins —
NIELSEN: Those things are very valuable, right? Any general-purpose strategy you have which will cause you to pay attention to the world is incredibly valuable, so I collect things like that. Why did I say yes to coming on the podcast? A huge part of it is because I know it’s going to make me pay attention in different ways.
- Michael Nielsen on Collaboration, Quantum Computing, and Civilization's Fragility
While in Copenhagen, we visited Bagsværd Church, designed by one of my heroes Jorn Utzon.
Having laid out the design for the Sydney Opera House, Utzon left Australia heartbroken - his vision for the interior of the building never came to life, his relationship with the NSW government broke down, and he was forced to resign.
Shortly after all of this, while lying on Lanikai Beach in Oahu, he observed the way the light broke through the clouds, and sketched out his vision for a church.
On the morning we visited Bagsværd, we sat inside for some time.
Eventually we were alone, the space entirely ours.
The sky outside was overcast. But the light still broke through.
Always full of gems mate 👏
You are so underrated in your depth of thought. There are so many gems in this one. I deeply appreciate it and more than that your willingness to share. 🙏