It’s in the Moment
Posted: January 28, 2012 Filed under: Artists, Deep, Listening Leave a comment »I don’t think [Tom Marshall] and I have ever written a single song for any reason other than to entertain ourselves. We don’t really think about the fact that anyone will ever hear this stuff. It’s in the moment. If we took the time to think about it more, we would probably edit ourselves into submission, and take a lot of the joy and spontaneity out of the songs.
H/T YEMblog.
Sustainability as National Security
Posted: January 22, 2012 Filed under: Deep, Environment, Washington 1 Comment »Why should sustainability, essentially an ecological concept, serve as the centerpiece of a twenty-first-century American grand strategy? Sustainability is not an end state in itself. It is a strategic mindset and philosophy that can carry us forward in time, just as diplomat and historian George Kennan’s concept of containment carried our nation through the Cold War years. In this sense, sustainability, as a central, coalescing grand strategic concept, would serve to inform our national policy decisions regarding investments, security, economic development, energy, the environment, and engagement well into this century so that successive administrations can look beyond current risks and threats with a more positive focus on converging interests and opportunities as they relate to emerging global conditions.
Increase Flow Experiences
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: Deep Leave a comment »This post, which I came across via Twitter today, sets out a 12-part recipe for happiness.
8. Increase flow experiences. Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still. It’s when you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you become one with the task. Action and awareness are merged. You’re not hungry, sleepy, or emotional. You’re just completely engaged in the activity that you’re doing. Nothing is distracting you or competing for your focus.
An Aspirational Element to Our Online Selves
Posted: January 18, 2012 Filed under: Deep, Technology Leave a comment »Future Comms on the psychology of Facebook, with some high-grade self-deprecation:
There’s an aspirational element to our online selves. And hey, for me that’s certainly true – I’m a miserable sod in real life!
90 Percent of All Animal Species
Posted: January 16, 2012 Filed under: Deep, Environment, Washington Leave a comment »Things I learned today at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History:
Insects and their relatives (collectively called arthropods) are ancient members of the animal kingdom. Arthropods first appear in the fossil record 500 million years ago. Since then, arthropods began cycling nutrients, pollinating plants, eating other arthropods, providing food for fish, mammals, birds and other vertebrates, and even farming. Arthropods now account for up to 90 percent of all animal species.
All of Our Albums Have Mistakes
Posted: January 14, 2012 Filed under: Artists, Deep Leave a comment »From an excellent 1979 interview with Eddie Van Halen, brought to my attention by Stratoblogster.
I don’t know – I don’t know what I’m talking about. I just really go for feeling. All our albums have mistakes. Big deal! We’re human. It reeks of feeling, you know, and to me that’s what music is all about. Like Fleetwood Mac spent so much money and so much time [in the studio], and my thing is, if something is too perfect, it won’t phase you. It goes in one ear and out the other, because it’s so perfect. Our stuff, to me, keeps you on the edge of your seat. It builds tension. Whether you like it or not, it slaps you in the face.
Grains of Sand on the Beach
Posted: January 11, 2012 Filed under: Deep Leave a comment »Astronomers said Wednesday that each of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way probably has at least one companion planet, on average, adding credence to the notion that planets are as common in the cosmos as grains of sand on the beach.
We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
Deceptive Little Beast
Posted: January 8, 2012 Filed under: Artists, Deep Leave a comment »I have no idea who Amanda Palmer is, but I liked her discussion with Peter Hodgson on that “deceptive little beast”–the ukulele.
And when I realised that I was able to do to people with the ukulele what I had done to them with the piano, I learned that the ingredients are way more essential than what I thought, way more basic than I thought, and you don’t need very much to affect an audience. All you need is the right presence of being, and any kind of instrument and a voice and a song, and you can captivate anyone and anything. And it kind of released me from my cage that I didn’t even really realise I was in.
Beauty in Everything
Posted: December 1, 2011 Filed under: Artists, Deep Leave a comment »“Draw your material from the life around you, from all of it. There is beauty in everything if it looks beautiful to your eyes. You can find it anywhere, everywhere.”
Robert Henri (artist)
American, 1865 – 1929
Winsome
Posted: November 20, 2011 Filed under: Deep, Sport, Washington Leave a comment »From the mouth of a six-year-old earlier this evening:
You say, “you win some, you lose some,” but the Redskins never win some!”
