Hello my friends – here’s the latest episode of “Hard Truth and a Big Hug”. It’s a small part of a book that I haven’t yet got around to publishing – but I thought the big ideas and the final take-away were
The Cocomile All-Stars (top photo) You’ve probably already noticed that I really enjoy trying to capture the modest beauty and niftiness of the city photographically, especially those things most perishable, but in some cases I have just plain missed my chance. The
I’ve been trying for some time to zero-in on a particular sort of thinking which is both dangerous to compassion, and very widespread right now. Most helpfully, one of my favourite TV intellectuals, Steve Paikin did an episode about the psychology of
Photo credit: Nada Nesin (finally found it – thanks for a perfect image my friend!) I’m not an easy sell on sport or spectacle – happy to join-in and play, mind you, just haven’t ever got back into the league-following habit, since
Haven’t had a fantastic camera-day in a few weeks, but I do have a regular practise of ‘checking my film’ the same day I take them, and setting aside the curious ones for later processing. This means I can always have plenty
Here’s another selection from the extraordinary collection of Canadian news photography recently acquired by the Ryerson Image Centre – the best new free gallery in Toronto in many years, already the vital centre of photo art for the city, as well as
Memory is a strange thing. How to use it creatively is even stranger – it’s definitely unpredictable stuff – never quite what you expect it to be, when you first start digging (though often as not, what you find is extra richness).
There is something about night-photography from a moving car that feels incredibly decadent to me. Probably the simple fact that it was utterly impossible to do, hand-held (certainly with cheap gear), only a few years ago. But motion around a subject can
You’ve probably already noticed that I’m very interested in extending our awareness of the means of perception we all use, but tend not to examine. One reason for this is really simple – and it’s also why I’m constantly recommending Julian Jaynes’
Also not to be smiled-at (top photo) Crocs and alligators are among very few really obvious dinosaurs still thriving on earth – and yet my recent museum visit proved that their ancestors were considerably more fearsome still. Who was it who first
Sparks fly (top photo) It’s funny how some matters that seem bafflingly vast and subtle when you’re a young curious student (like the classic Greek debates about understanding the universe), can gradually develop increasing associated richness and clarity, if you keep an
Preliminary model of the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern pavilion – Frank Gehry (top photo) Nobody likes to talk about epistemology anymore – but absolutely everyone should be thinking about it – now, more than ever, because when it goes badly wrong, things like
One of the ways that writing reminds me a lot of thinking about mathematics or science, is that you are forever playing with different ways to arrange dynamically-related ideas (characters) – but you always have to provide some credible way-into their relationship,
Just finished a really lovely read – Variable Star – which was written by Spider Robinson, from 1950s notes for a never-completed novel by Robert Heinlein. Quite a nifty piece of work it is, too, in genesis and execution. Robinson’s curiosity and
I don’t like to make a big deal of it, but I have been blue of late – for a combination of very normal human reasons. Stoicism is worth having in your toolkit (and a vanishing art worth demonstrating, in any case),
Terry Shoffner paints the flyboy – top photo The very best thing about the job of being an art model is that (when you can get a gig) you can expect to find yourself among a group of people who are actively
Every poem needs an idea at its heart – but not all of the ideas need to be serious! Cookie-credit to Catherine (perfected pecan chocolate chip) – inspiration too – naturally.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about one of the more interesting and surprisingly ancient optical technologies – the pin-hole camera, or camera obscura – by which an accurate projection can be made upon a screen, of any scene toward which
Here’s one final piece from the Guillermo Del Toro show (I know, but really, I couldn’t resist) – it’s not the most glamorous or polished instalment, visually – but without doubt, these hand-drawn spreads (and the other notebooks also on display) give
Of course one of the very best things about any museum collection is the display of assembled diversity. Almost every exhibit reminds us that the ancient world was really not the way we see it reflected in movies – that is, centrally
Ever since I got into Hofstader and Robert Anton Wilson as a teenager, I’ve been pretty much crazy for isomorphisms, both tight (highly conformal) and poetic (suggestive of tone and insight, rather than specifics of relationship). There really doesn’t seem to be