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Thursday, March 31  

Wheat? I Can Barley Hear You...

Man, I freaking love this band, Wheat*. Like Jimmy Eat World before them, I'm seriously burning them out fast - every day in the studio last week, I couldn't help cue it up at least once. Their site has some cool alternate and live version mp3's on it, and I think the album Per Second, Per Second... is worth every penny. Really.

* glenn macdonald loves it too

Wednesday, March 30  

I Used to Read More

I updated my SHR-it page today, prompted by the fact that I actually read a book. Yesterday. That is to say, I read an entire book -- yesterday! I'm so impressed with myself that I may have to go lie down.

Anyhow, it was Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (you were expecting a graphic novel or something, right?), a book I'd never heard of but that caught my eye on the new books shelf of our local library. "Great title," I thought. Good first paragraph too - about the authenticity of a 2000 year old Greek statue. So I started in on it yesterday afternoon, and turned out the light to go to sleep 254 pages later. Nice.

It's a rare day that I don't watch any TV at all -- I practically have to be in a foreign country or something -- and I really enjoyed not only the content and pace of the book, but the way time slowed down through the evening. Getting absorbed into a good book is subtly different than watching a movie or playing a game; plus everytime I got up for a snack a small voice in my head said: "Hey, you're being entertained and getting slightly smarter, all at the same time!" What a concept.

So will it happen again? Do I need better books, more willpower, longer spans of uninterrupted time, or a random miracle?

Tuesday, March 29  

2 Years

Hey, my Blogiversary came and went last month and I didn't even notice. Two years of the Negentropic Blog as of February 27th. It ain't that regular, compelling, or useful, but it's getting old in web terms. I don't even know what I thought back then -- would I have been surprised to know that I'm still doing this now? Have I yet figured out what the real motivation to do it is?

Monday, March 28  

More DVD Wars

As Blockbuster lowers prices and changes programs every other week, Netflix vows to forgo profits for as long as it takes, and rumors circulate about Amazon entering the fray, here's another interesting twist in the DVD wars: Peerflix.

They're billing it as a hybrid of Netflix and Napster - a marriage made in heaven, eh? - and I think there's a whole lot of eBay in there, too.

"We built a trading platform that is extensible, and it works for DVDs today," McNair said. "It can work for CDs tomorrow. It can work for games, it can work for audio books. It can work for a number of different things."

Games? Did he say games? Now that would be a killer app. Personally, I don't want to go to all that trouble of swapping a DVD to watch it once or - rarely - twice. But a game I might play for months would be a different story.

Speaking of Blockbuster, I actually went into our local store last week - a very rare occasion since I regularly have 3 Netflix rentals and 50 hours of TV shows on deck at Couch Central. What can I say? I was in town and expecting to be bored, and I wanted to see the special features disc from Matrix Revolutions. Anyways, a quick run through the store and wait in line was enough to convince me that these people are going insane. It's like they'll try anything to prevent their customers from using the competing services, including confusing the freaking frack out of them with rental plans and options more complex than a home mortgage. Then, the poor fella behind the counter scans my card*. A look of horror crosses his face as my profile appears on the monitor - "You don't have an unlimited rental plan! Oh! My! God!". Seriously, he came on with the $9.99 (thereafter to be $14.99 in small print) plan like spam for V1aGra... are these people now on commission? Whew! I realized then the best thing about Netflix: no human interaction. Wanting to watch a movie just should not be that complex nor exhausting.

* I say "poor" because, sadly, I've been there. Let's not talk about it.

Friday, March 25  

March, So Far

11 Bowls
5 Planters
6 M. Bowls
7 Teabowls
3 Cups
3 M. Vases
2 Tall Oval Dishes
6 Cups
2 Oval Baskets
5 Hanging Planters
5 Cups

Friday, March 11  

More From Shirky

Here's a few I enjoyed when browsing his archive - pretty insightful:

Weblogs debunks the idea of getting paid to blog:
"Weblogs make writing as abundant as air, with the same effect on price. Prior to the web, people paid for most of the words they read. Now, for a large and growing number of us, most of the words we read cost us nothing."

I never thought of it that way, but for me it's becoming true. My current reading is split about 50/50 paid offline and free online.

The Price of Information
"Information is only power if it is hard to find and easy to hold..."

So is there less power with more access to information, or is it just acquired and concentrated differently?

Communities vs. Audiences
Interesting ideas about when one turns into the other - it's all about scale.

Saturday, March 5  

Breaking the Rules

I'm not really even sure how to classify this: Prangstgrup -- but it's worth watching. I highly recommend "Lecture Musical" and "Start-Up Sound" is pretty good, too.

Friday, March 4  

New Studio

It sure is nice being out of the basement. Somehow being in a space with normal-height ceilings feels like there's more freedom; more room for ideas, even. And looking up from the wheelhead and seeing... the outside... now that's an upgrade.

 

Waiting For Spring

My annual early-spring watch is on -- too soon and overly hopeful, as usual -- but I saw the first sign of it this morning: buds on the tree out the kitchen window. The birds have been out in the mornings, and the stars seem crisper at night lately, so surely it's just around the corner. There comes a point in March where I start to wonder if this is finally the year where the earth never warms up; not quite yet but in the next few weeks it'll start seeming long overdue.

With our new house in the country, I'm more anxious for it than usual. I can't wait to see what it's like out there as something other than a frozen tundrascape. I can't wait for my studio to warm up some, to open the windows, to want to take walks, to eat lunch in the barn, to sit on the porch and watch the trains go by.

Thursday, March 3  

Get More Creative

I meant to post something about this last summer when I first found it: "How to be Creative", by Hugh MacLeod. The title could seem smugly presumptuous, but he really distills it down to some great points, and they're well-said too. I like the exposition of each item even better than the one-line versions.

Some are quite perceptive:
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
Some I needed to hear:
30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
Some I disagree with completely:
7. Keep your day job.
Some are downright Biblical:
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

In the book-in-progress version, his introduction to how all this came about is a really nice story, and features this brilliant quote:

"It is a very agreeable feeling, when you know you have something special and wonderful happening, but you don’t feel any particular need to let everybody know about it."

(Great cartoons-on-business-cards too!)

Wednesday, March 2  

Kottke Calls It Quits

Blogger Jason Kottke is quitting his dayjob to blog:
Doing kottke.org as a full-time job. Isn't this is great? Score another one for wacky means to self employment.

Related reading: Interview with Jason Kottke.

 

Ken Ferguson

I just learned of Ken Ferguson's death last December from this month's Ceramics Monthly. This is news travelling at the speed of parcel post, instead of web speed, which somehow adds to the regretful nostalgia of hearing the news. Like every icon who passes through this life before us, it's sad and feels like a bright spot has gone out. And like Shaner and Voulkos before him, these were the stars in the sky when I first discovered clay, and started reading about it and learning who was who. It's so strage to see them go, and to know that their work is now set for good, with no more to be added to their part of ceramic history. Generations go by in every field, but potters leave such an amazing legacy. Closer to home, I'm reminded of this every time I hear the words "Peeler Art Center", or walk past one of Richard Peeler's big pots there, or show his films to my class. The past is so important to clay.

I'm really grateful that I got to see Ferguson in action once, at SIU Edwardsville in 1998. I was there visiting the graduate program, and just happened to overlap with his workshop; I resheduled my flight and called in sick to work to stay an extra day and watch. The lasting impression I have is of his personality - stern, confident, unafraid, totally engaged with making things out of clay - and his obvious love of teaching and relating to students.

Ben Bates, one of his former assistants, was there and the way Ferguson worked with him on the pots was amazing: "Now Ben, what are we going to do next? This rabbit looks like it's ready to get propped up here..." Or something like that. It was his tone that I remember, like he couldn't have been any happier or more engaged at that moment. It was clear that he really loved working with someone else, and showing his process to everyone watching. A really unique, interesting example.

The Kansas City Star did an obituary and guestbook, with this great quote:
"Wreathed in smoke and fire, he pulled clay from the earth and made works of art to challenge the terrifying abyss of time."

Amen, brother.