What do you do when you dream a great rock anthem, and really want to write down the song of your dreams, yet you have no musical ability at all?

 

I'm going to get back

Get back

Get up and go

Get on the road

 

ok, maybe its not that good.

Just My Type

Fonts and type have always interested me. They are in a realm where nerdiness meets artistry. It can be so easy to presume no one should care about the difference between Helvetica and Arial, or maybe even Times Roman. What difference does it make if the text is legible? Yet people will throw themselves on swords over the finer points of fonts.

 

It's probably no coincidence that in 2008, John McCain's campaign font was Optima, the same fonts used in the Vietnam Veteran's memorial. Obama's font was Gotham, a font designed for GQ magazine. I think that hints at the power of smart design. Mostly it out of the way, only presenting you with what the designer intended. Sometimes it sneaks in a subtle message. Something you are not aware is there, but that affects you none the less.

So much of this comes down to taste... a taste that I do not have, or cannot express. I can say that a font is lighter or darker, or easy to read, or more curvey, but I couldn't tell you what an elegant font was, or minimalist, or original, or arresting, or harmonized. Yet font designers can talk this way for hours.

And why are so many people with poor taste drawn to Papyrus and Comic Sans?

"When you break the rules, break them elegantly, definitively and well. Everything else is bad taste"
"When the going get's easy, it means you're getting lazy."
 

le Quattro volte

For an art film with no dialog, this film is very watchable. Little scenes of almost no significance slowly add up to express a larger story? event? It's hard to say. A real story isn't told, but I felt flashes of recognition all through the film as the various events aligned.

The film is surprisingly emotional. After dozens of slows shots of a goat herder leaving his home, his death is implied by a long shot of the herder's home, and the herder's dog barking at anyone who goes by.

I would love to see a long form narrative told like this.

 

The immortal life of Henrietta lacks

 

The immortal life of Henrietta lacks.

 

Henrietta had a cancer.  But not any kind of cancer.  The cells from this cancer could be cultured indefinitely in a Petri dish.  Her cells were the first cells that could live outside the human body for more than a few days.

 

Her cells have been used in a wide variety of medical research.  Testing the polio vaccine.  Much cancer research.  First human cells into outer space.  Exposed to radiation.  The list goes on.

 

There are many complicated issues associated with her cells.  Henrietta was never informed that her biopsy would be used for research.  Her family was never compensated for their use.  Lawsuits have since clarified this.  When you have your blood drawn, the Dr. is free to send samples of that blood off for research.  If your blood can cure cancer, you have no right to be informed or compensated.  This is established case law.

 

Of course the reality is most cells won't cure cancer.  We will only find cells that help after looking over all the cells that don't.  That process takes an incredible amount of resources. If you want to be compensated for cells that cure cancer, then who should pay for the cells that don't?

 

 

The book also discusses the divide between science and the reality most people experience.  Science depends on collaboration and a bit of trust between strangers.  Many people however deeply mistrust other strangers and rightfully so.  So when a scientist needs the trust of a mistrusting family, things get complicated.  The scientists have problems understanding why the family won't trust them. The family will assume that they're being taken advantage of. Conflict
ensues.

How do we know when to trust an authority? Especially when he is an authority on something we have no experience with? Is he really an authority or is he trying to con me with stories I can't understand?

The Turin Horse

 

The Turin horse.

 

This is a film and not a movie.  It's almost painful to watch.  Tedious, depressing but beautiful.  The movie is about a father and daughter who lived a difficult life.  They work hard.  They subsist on potatoes.  Every day is tedious.  And then things get worse.  Their horse refuses to work.  Their well runs dry. The wind outside refuses to end. Then they die.

 

In an interview the director said this was the last film of his career and that he wanted to end it with a meditation on the heaviness of life. When you are young, you take on the world and all its problems. As you grown older, you see there is no end to the problems. Finally in your old age you realize that life is heavy, and you must make peace with it.

 

 

I've been trying to meditate regularly.  No special meditation.  Not Buddhist or transcendental or Hindu or Christian, just me sitting still and not thinking.

 

It's surprising just how often random thoughts pop into my head. I enjoy the quiet. 

 

 I've had one moment of insight.  It's a little goofy but I'm going to record it for posterity.  I was sitting on a bench listening to the waterfalls looking at the fog and clouds while a light rain fell.  It occurred to me that the water, the rain and the fog didn't know that they were different.  The all just existed.  Their difference was in my perception of them.

 

When I meditate it's for 20 minutes.  Long enough to be a commitment but not too long.  I wonder if meditation is selfish or if it encourages me to focus. It is a good way to focus and to become aware just how often my mind runs off on a tangent.

Carrie Brownstein on performing...

 

Also, the performance kind of gives you license to go places that are darker, more dangerous, more contradictory. And I think that's a consistent theme in both music and "Portlandia" in the ways that you're kind of given license to go off the rails to reach a precipice and flirt with the idea of going off it emotionally. Because it's performance and not real life, you can enjoy that danger and that sense of imbalance and right yourself at the very end.

What to read next

I'm growing tired of self help, and brain insight types of books. But, what to read next? I'm trying to read a book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, for the first time in my life, but it's really hard to pay it attention.

 

I'm also reading a couple books on local edible wild plants. Mark called this very Lesbian.

 

Is that is then, am I going though a Lesbian phase of personal growth? What does that even mean?