“What maps do, is they abruptly take you from the darkness to the light.”
Maps are one of those inventions, the timekeeping, that are vital but overlooked. Think for a moment, how could the modern world operate without maps?
Category: ideas
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Blank pages beg to be filled, and it helps to have them around.
– Seth Godin
Keep blank pages around, but don’t keep them blank forever.
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There I think the attitude of Epictetus helps guide one to the right reaction. He thought every mischance in life, however bad, created an opportunity to learn something useful, and one’s duty was not to become immersed in self-pity but to utilize each terrible blow in a constructive fashion.
– Charlie MungerMunger, Charles T.. Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. N.p., Stripe Matter Incorporated. pp279
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The patron saint of overworked teachers, Alice Kober, taught five classes at a time at Brooklyn College in the 1940s. At any rate, she taught during the day. At night, she set about deciphering an ancient language, Linear B, that had been uncovered on clay tablets at the turn of the century and that stood as a Mount Everest for linguists, a seemingly impossible puzzle. A middle aged spinster, the daughter of working class immigrants, she collected the statistics for each sign of the dead language onto two hundred thousand paper slips. Because of paper shortages during and after the war these slips had to be repurposed from any spare paper she could find. The slips in turn were collected into old cigarette cartons. Her work was cut off by an untimely illness, but she laid the foundation for the dramatic decipherement that took place only a few years after her death.
One never knows when their work will bear fruit. Keep going.
Hitz, Zena. Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. United States, Princeton University Press, 2021. (pp 41)
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We promise “till death do us part” when our love is young and good-looking and when life is full of promise, but it is in failure or decrepitude or at the hospital bed that we learn what we meant and why.
Zena HitzZena dropping truth right from the introduction.
Hitz, Zena. Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. United States, Princeton University Press, 2021.
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Imagine if Jhumpa Lahiri taught a class on journaling and diaries. What would the Syllabus look like?
From the Paris Review:
Course Description:
What inspires a writer to keep a diary, and how does reading a diary enhance our appreciation of the writer’s creative journey? How do we approach reading texts that were perhaps never intended to be published or read by others? What does keeping a diary teach us about dialogue and description, or about creating character and plot, about narrating the passage of time? How is a diary distinct from autofiction? In this workshop we will evaluate literary diaries—an intrinsically fluid genre—not only as autobiographical commentaries but as incubators of self-knowledge, experimentation, and intimate engagement with other texts. We will also read works in which the diary serves as a narrative device, blurring distinctions between confession and invention, and complicating the relationship between fact and fiction. Readings will serve as inspiration for establishing, appreciating, and cultivating this writerly practice.
Schedule
Week 1: Susan Sontag, Reborn: Diaries and Notebooks, 1947–1963
Week 2: André Gide, Journals and The Counterfeiters
Week 3: Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910–1923
Week 4: Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
Week 5: Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark
Week 6: Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935–1950
Week 7: Bram Stoker, Dracula
Week 8: Robert Walser, A Schoolboy’s Diary; James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Week 9: Leonora Carrington, Down Below; Primo Levi, “His Own Blacksmith: To Italo Calvino”
Week 10: Annie Ernaux, Happening
Week 11: Lydia Davis, “Cape Cod Diary”; Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness
Week 12: Alba de Céspedes, Forbidden Notebook
Week 13: Alba de Céspedes, Forbidden Notebook
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Syllabus: Diaries.” The Paris Review, 28 Mar. 2024, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/03/28/syllabus-diaries/.I’d add two more to the list. Josep Pla‘s The Gray Notebook and Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle.
The Paris Review’s Syllabi series is a gem. Read the Archives here.
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Here’s a 31-day daily drawing practice plan with each exercise limited to 15 minutes. The exercises are based on the concepts from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Built with Claude 3 Sonnet.
Each day includes one line of context for the exercise:
Day 1 – Pure Contour Drawing (15 mins) – Draw objects without looking at paper to improve hand-eye coordination.
Day 2 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Focus on the spaces around objects rather than the objects themselves.
Day 3 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted image to avoid symbolic thinking.
Day 4 – Gesture Drawing (15 mins) – Capture the essence of a pose or movement in a very short time.
Day 5 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions by using a pencil as a relative measurement tool.Day 6 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render just the pattern of lights and darks in a scene.
Day 7 – Portrait (15 mins) – Apply right-mode techniques to drawing the human face and features.
Day 8 – Pure Contour (15 mins) – Draw complex objects like furniture without lifting your pencil.
Day 9 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Try drawing the negative spaces between overlapping objects.
Day 10 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted portrait or figure to avoid preconceived symbols.Day 11 – Gesture (15 mins) – Do a series of very quick gesture drawings capturing motion.
Day 12 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions of an interior scene or architectural study.
Day 13 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render value patterns of folded drapery or crumpled paper.
Day 14 – Still Life (15 mins) – Apply right-mode techniques to drawing an arrangement of objects.Day 15 – Pure Contour (15 mins) – Draw a household appliance or tool in one continuous line.
Day 16 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Explore negative spaces in a natural outdoor environment.
Day 17 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted view of your workspace or living area.
Day 18 – Gesture (15 mins) – Capture gestures and poses from watching people in a public place.Day 19 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions of a room interior or piece of furniture.
Day 20 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render patterns of light and shadow on a textured surface.
Day 21 – Animal Study (15 mins) – Apply right-mode techniques to drawing animals or pets.
Day 22 – Pure Contour (15 mins) – Draw a bicycle, machine, or object with many interlocking parts.Day 23 – Negative Space (15 mins) – Explore negative spaces between buildings or architectural forms.
Day 24 – Upside-Down (15 mins) – Draw an inverted landscape, cityscape or tree study.
Day 25 – Gesture (15 mins) – Do gesture drawings of yourself in a mirror to capture different poses.
Day 26 – Sight-Sizing (15 mins) – Analyze proportions of a piece of furniture or architectural detail.Day 27 – Value Study (15 mins) – Render the value pattern on a face or figure study.
Day 28 – Perspective (15 mins) – Use sight-sizing to analyze perspective in an interior or street scene.
Day 29 – Review (15 mins) – Review your drawings from the past week and reflect on progress.
Day 30 – Themed Project (15 mins) – Combine multiple right-mode techniques in a drawing unified by a theme.Day 31 – Freestyle (15 mins) – Draw any subject matter while consciously applying the right-mode techniques.
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I was often tempted to turn tail, but held my ground for all that, and got some profit of my lessons; if it was but to stand on guard with an assured countenance, which is often all that is required. So, though I could never in the least please my master, I was not altogether displeased with myself.
David Balfour“Turn tail” sounds like a 50’s phrase, but here it is, in print, from a book published in 1886.
One more thing. Sometimes all it takes is standing confidently, acting confidently to deter.
And one final thing. The one person you don’t want to be displeased with is yourself.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped. New York: Running Press, 1989. pp189
Floodlights and Goalposts 