Clear screen reflections.
Creaked necks, desperate glowing text.
Last stop, Pearl Station.
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When’s the last time you learned something new?
But not from the internet. And not from your mama. Or your PHD sister. Or your boss. And not even from a book.
I can’t remember either.
But yesterday I was schooled by a building. By the old Dallas Power & Light Building.
Textbook What facts did it share?
– The design inspiration came from the Art Deco movement.
– The sharp angular motifs are Zig Zag Moderne, similar to the Chrysler Building in New York.
– And that when completed, the Dallas Power & Light building was the largest welded steel framed structure in the south.
Dope.
I’m all set for Art Deco Dallas trivia night.
But then the questions poured in like wet concrete.
Questions like:
Who’s Lang and Witchell?
What’s the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs?
And that’s when I knew I’d learned something.
Because in my view, learning is more than collecting facts. It’s about being compelled to ask meaningful questions.
Light and power baby…
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A standard Tim Ferris podcast question is:
If you could have a billboard with one message on it, what would it say?
Sure, it’s not a billboard. It’s an increasingly rare hand painted street sign.
But this must be Tony Hawk’s response…
What would your message be?
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Sand in the floor mats.
Surfboards speared through the backseat.
Waves at dusk whisper.
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I was transfixed.
I’m always on the hunt for street art, but I wasn’t expecting any pieces at the polished Shops At Legacy. But then I turned the corner.
My senses were lifted. Kelsey’s lines and paints transformed a drab garage door into an explosive, 2D winged flower bed.
I’d never heard of Kelsey Montague before. My experience is most street artists don’t leave their name behind for all to see.
But I’m glad she did. My eyes keep focusing on the two blue flowers towards the bottom center. The red starfish stigmas and the pink splattered petals won’t let me turn my gaze.
My only hope is closing firefox.
Discover more about Kelsey and her work at: Kelsey Montague Art
@KelseyMontagueArt
#WhatLiftsYou
#TheShopsAtLegacy
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To mark the opening of weekend of the Bundesliga, we’re posting 5 Pep Guardiola Bundesliga values:
1: COUNTER-ATTACKS
He has sometimes branded it the Bundesliga-counter, based on the efficacy and speed of the counters he has had to plan for. The efficacy, particularly, has fascinated him. And he’s loved it when Bayern have been capable of employing it themselves. Nevertheless, one of the great tasks of his season has been working out how to counter the counter.2: AERIAL PLAY – OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE STRATEGIES
The physical qualities of the players in German football make aerial tactics essential, both from set plays and open play. His Barca team was full of little guys, but Bayern have height and this has meant a new coaching approach to the strategy of the aerial ball.
3: AGGRESSIVE PRESSING
Against the power of Bundesliga counter-attack, it’s vital to have a high, effective and aggressive pressing game – particularly if Bayern lose the ball high up the pitch. It was a tactic at Barcelona, but in Munich the coach has needed to augment the collective aggression and intensity of this action.
4: DOUBLE PIVOTE
Although he’s been the flag bearer for using just one organizational midfielder throughout his coaching career, Pep has accepted the need to renounce this commandment on occasion, if it will bring an improvement in his team’s midfield play. He will often ignore the single-pivote concept in the latter part of this season.
5: WIDTH
At Barca, the ball was played wide with pretty much the sole intention of distracting and confusing the opposition so that it could then be slotted back into the inside-forward positions in and around the box, in search of the breakthrough pass or a shot on goal. At Bayern, with the two full-backs often pushed up, it becomes essential for the wingers to maintain width.
It’s easy to perceive Pep Guardiola as an idealist. A man hell bent on keeping the virtues of some ancient possession football manifesto. But Martí Perarnau’s book Pep Confidential reveals an adaptable coach. A man who’s open to new ideas that a different football culture presents.
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Merciless jungle.
Poison arrows, Jaguars lurk.
Radio silence.
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The Bird scooter’s logo made me do a double take. Triple take even.
With only 7 lines my mind produced 3 three different images.
I saw racing wheels speeding underneath the wheel guards.
I saw a stoned, grinning, robot who forgot to trim his eyebrows.
And I saw wings pressed back against the deck, while a terrified tourist flies towards a stoplight.
What do you see?
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Chapter 6 from Adam Savage’s new book Every Tool’s a Hammer ripped me in by the necktie.
I knew Adam would talk about screws and cardboard. I knew there would be tips on organizing your workspace. But an entire chapter on how drawing will transform your critical thinking?
I’m in.
First Adam reminds us, despite all of the planning technologies that exist, a piece of paper and pencil are still formidable planning tools:
Today, the maker space is not lacking in planning tools. There are software and mobile apps and various mechanical apparatus, and they all work the way they’re designed, but none of them seem to do what a simple pencil and piece of paper can. Because unlike those other methods, drawing out your idea shares the physical, tactile character of the building and making it is meant to precede and facilitate. Drawing is your brain transferring your idea, your knowledge, your intentions, from the electrical storm cloud at its center, through the synapses and nerve endings, through the pencil in your hand, through your fingers, until it is captured in the permanence of the page, in physical space. It is, I have come to appreciate, a fundamental act of creation.
Then fellow maker savant Gever Tulley provides a solution to the timeless excuse I can’t draw:
“The pushback I often get is, ‘I don’t know how to draw,’ and my response is ‘Well, how about you go home and spend the summer drawing every day and then we’ll talk about it in the fall when you show me your notebook,” Gever said, rightfully indignant. “Because we know that practice can move your mark making over to something more precise and controllable.”
Adam explains how drawing works as a translation tool:
From a planning perspective-whether it’s for current or future projects-I look at drawing as a translation tool from my brain to the physical world, where I have frequently found words wanting in the explanation of complex objects and operations, which, of course, is the entire purpose of every plan ever made. What is a plan if it isn’t helping you understand what you’re building and how you’re supposed to build it?
Adam also uses drawing to topple creative blocks:
I frequently use drawing as a tool or a technique to break through that dam. Drawing always gives me a new vantage point on the project and allows me to see the thing I’m building with enough distance to identify the next step more clearly. In that regard it’s almost immaterial what I draw. I might draw some reference pictures for a collaborator to understand what I need from their contribution, or to see where their contribution fits in the wider picture. I might draw some mechanical subassemblies that are kicking my ass. I might re-draw the item I’m making for fun, just to stay inside the construction in my head. I might draw a case for an object, or a case I’d like to build for it when it’s done. Sometimes the exercise of thinking about what might contain the thing I’m working on can help me define better what it is I’m actually building and help illuminate what has me stuck. It’s all information. A conversation between my brain and my hands.
And shares his drawing inspirations:
I draw inspiration from the drawings of others. I never tire of poring over the drawings and graphic novels of Moebius, for instance. I get a lot out of looking at Ridley Scott’s storyboards (he’s a wonderful draftsman). Since I was a kid I loved all those old drawings from the mid-century issues of Popular Mechanics. Something about their clean lines and multidimensionality and the way the artists kept all the pieces separate yet constantly oriented to each other, spoke directly to how my brain looks at ideas.
Remember young ones:
You don’t have to be great with a pencil for this to work. Like I’ve said, I’ve never considered myself particularly good at drawing. For the longest time it never felt like the line did what I wanted it to do, yet I continued to draw. One, because it continued to be useful, and two, because it clearly helped me get better at communicating my ideas more precisely.
Enough reading about drawing. Grab a stack of paper and draw.
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Old manhole covers,
rusted steel. What lives beneath?
I’ll never reveal.
Floodlights and Goalposts 