This week's written snapshots.
Openly oligaristic orangutans opposed opportunistic ornamented octopi.
Last week, we got a wooden mannequin at Ikea.
He lay straight in a plastic tube.
The kids called him RIP Mr. Little Wooden Guy.
Mama took him out of the cylindrical coffin.
He’s a stiff little fellow; his hips don’t rotate.
The kids danced with him around the house.
I bought someone to draw.
A figure who wouldn’t run away.
The kids gave him a little headband.
But I wanted someone who can do a full range of poses.
A mannequin who could do the Eight Brocades.
The kids hinted that Mr. Little Wooden Guy would love to have a friend.
12 Aug 2023
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OPM.52 Don’t Wait
My frustration with a superintendent boiled over at the end of a project.
Should have done it months before.
Yes, he should been doing better work. But if I brought up my concerns early, he could adjust. I waited too long. He had no chance.
I need to stay warm hearted but become thick skinned.
Kindness is not pushing things under the rug. Kindness is (gracefully) surfacing problems while they can be fixed.
My job is to have uncomfortable conversations — I owe my teammates the best opportunity to excel at their work.
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Some Links
A Love Supreme on bagpipes by Rufus Harley. nuff’ said.
Andrew Eberlin took amazing photographs of Charles Jenck’s Cosmic House (1978-1983). It’s wild. Check it out. His newsletter is well worth checking out — his photographs find the extraordinary in the mundane (without trying too hard).
Ryan Pendell reads widely and writes with breadth. His newsletters are always enriching, and I suspect he’s been a subtle influence to encourage my continued turn towards ancient literature.
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Thanks for reading!
Justus Pang, RA
11 Aug 2023
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Broken rows of trees lined yesterday’s fancy avenue in small concrete masonry alcoves along the sidewalks.
FLASH
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hood
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dash
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eyes
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head
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scruffy
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pines
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syncopate
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Rainbow
FLASH
䷲䷁
shock and mud
09 Aug 2023
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Rivers and Tides, Riedelsheimer, Goldsworthy, Frith, 2001
I watched Rivers and Tides multiple times in a theater in Berkeley before it was demolished for a new apartment complex.
It blew my mind.
The pacing was deliberate and the images were gorgeous.
I was entranced by the musings of Andy Goldsworthy.
When I gushed about it to a professor, she pushed back,
“Don’t you think it mythologizes the artist too much?”
That dampened my enthusiasm for two decades.
Last year, we rewatched the movie with the kids.
I see where my prof was coming from.
So what! She’s wrong.
Yes, the movie glamorizes the artist and his work.
But it’s about failure as part of the artist’s process.
It takes a metric shitton of boring-ass effort.
If this is mythology, then we need more myth to do the work.
It’s a great film, equally matched by the avante-garde music of Fred Frith.
The entire soundtrack is great, but my favorite moment in the movie is at the start of this clip, where Goldsworthy discusses the effect of sheep on the land while the music builds towards a muted climax when the camera pans around a huge stone sculpture.
07 Aug 2023
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Thanks for reading!
Justus