“… George states his belief that you should go to your studio every day, and if inspiration doesn’t arrive, ‘sharpen your pencils’ until it does.”
From a Stephen Holder review of the film “The Woodmans” in the January 19, 2011 issue of The New York Times (referring to artist George Woodman).
I just read a woman’s memoir that did not involve exotic food eaten in an exotic location in between bouts of exotic sex with an exotic recent acquaintance, which seems to be a common memoir-theme lately.
“Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses,” by Claire Dederer, takes an unusual, in fact unique, approach. The sub-title says it all — Ms. Dederer’s idea is that her life story can be told through the story of her yoga practice. She reflects on how 23 key poses mirror or illuminate or challenge what is going on in her life. She intertwines stories and reflections about her childhood, her parents, her brother, her friends, her writing career, her marriage, her children, her life in Seattle and so on, with lessons about yoga practice and history. She does this seamlessly, and my interest never flagged. Her idea plays out beautifully.
In addition to reading the book, I also listened to it on CD. I wanted to compare and contrast the two “delivery methods,” and I found that both were equally effective.
The letters published in The New York Times in response to the February 28, 2011, tongue-in-cheek op-ed about fooling around with the calendar so that poor little February has 30 or 31 days, like all the other months, were unanimously against the idea.
Almost made me wish I had written one, too. I’m against the idea. February’s 28 days = four perfect weeks. And this means that my February birthday’s numerical date occurs on the same day again in March — sort of like another birthday! Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve enjoyed this fun fact and will support nothing that might change it. (And yes, I know this doesn’t work in a leap year.)
As an artist, I particularly enjoyed this line from Michael Tenzer’s letter: “The magnificent asymmetry of 28 in a sea of 30s and 31s is our first lesson in the essence of art.”
“‘We thought there was a bit of a gap, especially in the area of non-alcoholic beverage options made from fresh fruit,’ she says.”
From “A Chemist, an Artist and a Lot of Fizz,” by Natasha Singer in the March 6, 2001 issue of The New York Times (quoting day-job artist Carline Mak on why she, along with day-job chemist Antonio Ramos, started their new non-day-job venture, Brooklyn Soda Works, dedicated to developing and making limited-edition, carbonated, non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated, artisinal, fruit-juice-based sodas).
“The capacity to create and understand the meaning of ideas is considered to be an essential and defining feature of human beings.”
From the Wikipedia definition of “idea.”