18 posts tagged “book”
Zumthor just won the Pritzker Prize. This book reminds me of 'Basic Writings' by Martin Heidegger. There is an essay by Heidegger call "Building, Thinking, and Dwelling." I had a hint of the relation. Then I found a Wikipedia article that mentions Zumthor mirroring Heidegger.
Zumthor mentions the term “presence” of the materials in his work. I remember reading 'Building, Thinking, and Dwelling' and try to grasp Heidegger's meaning of the bridge as the beginning of a 'presence'.
Is Zumthor a senualist? In a sense he is but not the same as those that sprouted in the Roccoco period. Later Modernist such as Adolf Loos strip the ornamentation and the buildings became bare until it was cold. Zumthor seems to bring the warmth back with out all the ostentation. Architecture has always been about light, material, and sense. Zumthor finds innotive ways to let the material speak, or he treats the ordinary material into exterordinary ways. He seems to use material the way a writer uses words to compose a poem.
http://www.squidoo.com/peterzumthor
Objects have a special meaning in ‘Never Let Me Go’. The title is taken from the song by Judy Bridgewater, a fictional singer from the album Songs After Dark. It is in the cassette that Kathy bought at the Sales. This object came from the outside world. It is a reminder of the time Kathy experienced at Hailsham. The objects produce memories. The wooden pencil box is also imbued with mystery. Kathy mentions Tommy's favorite Ruby shirt.
The album has a woman smoking a cigarette. She had to hide it because smoking is forbidden for donors. It destroys organs. This is one of the ways that Kathy casually reveals the fact that they are donors. The books with smokers or smoking illustrations have been torn from the volume.
I like the fact that Madame selects the special art work for her gallery.
"I don't know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham ..."
I was asking myself this question of purpose and length of a life. On the one hand Kathy knows her purpose in life. On the other hand, she also will know when she will 'complete' her life. It reminds me of Blade Runner because the replicants have their own expiration dates to think of.
I wanted to give a few good words about this important and good book. Dr. Schnark talks about 'Hugging Till Relaxed' I notice at the airport that people rarely hug for more then four seconds. I only saw one couple that hugged for more then four seconds and it seem eternal. The beginning and end of the film 'Love Actually', there were shots of people greeting each other with warm love and expectations. This version of the book doesn't have the cover of a couple kissing with eyes open. That's the other concept which breaks the stereo type of romance and intimacy.
Originally uploaded by Duc N. Ly.
Sometimes it’s nice to take a paper leave, go away from the computer
and the internet. Last night, I was sitting with my brother Andy at the
local Barnes and Noble reading and drinking Chai. Andy was skimming
through the pages of ‘Eggs, Milk, Vodka’ by Bill Keaggy. Very Short List.con
recommends it. It is an anthropological and humorous look into the
private lives of lists. The scraps are presented as artifacts, rare
specimens with Bill’s pithy comments. Bill made an observation that
lists are private matters of our lives. We may dump our ash trays on
the parking lot but we guard our lists. To me, they contain personal
notes and the traces of our hands, our immediate desires and
transgressions. Making list is an almost instinctual act to clear our
minds, much like the organizational methods of ‘Getting Things Done’
book by David Allen, which also was on the same table with us. Andy
laughs out loud at some of the lists. There is an example of a rough
script ‘Hooker & Blow‘ written next to cereal on
the most demure teddy bear printed grocery list. The discrepancy
between the debauchery and the innocence has a humorous affect. Or as
it happens accidentally, a different color pen is chosen and written in
different script for emphasis: need coffee. I sometimes look at Found Magazine
because some of the scraps of paper are odd and engrossing. I think it
is our voyeuristic side, our further reading into the brevity of the
text to extrapolate the life, the human being behind such a piece of
raw code. We come upon it accidentally and read signs and meaning into
it much like an anthropologist would. The artifact is ephemeral which
makes them that much more rare. It is written without much aspiration
but all the more private; communication between each other and
ourselves. We come upon these artifacts,
they are our contemporaries not from some ancient civilization, there
fore they say a lot about ourselves. (I’m reminded of a comparison by
Neal Stephenson. In the book ‘Snow Crash’ he compares some of the wall
hieroglyphs as ancient Egyptians’s form of a Bumper Sticker.) We notice
that there weren’t any list in the Chinese language. Andy says it’s
because the Chinese don’t make lists. One list borders on obsessive
compulsive. This particular list was sorted into aisles (Aisles 1:
eggs, milk 2: bread, butter 3: soda pop , popcorn etc.) of that
shopper’s particular grocery store. I however found a more useful list
here: http://www.grocerylists.org/ultimatest/GrocerylistsDOTorg_v2.pdf
I hadn’t seen my brother for a while, since last summer. But we took our time. Not rushing into any conversations or committing to any topic. Steve Leven of Levenger spoke about reading together in his book ‘The Little Guide To the Well-Read Life’. I thought to myself, how nice it is to be comfortable enough to enjoy my brother’s company in peaceful silence. Here we are. He and I having read some of the same books or planning to catch up on each other’s recommendations, and spreading some good book along. I had read ‘Bird by Bird’ by Ann Lamott. He’s reading it and buys a copy for Alex as a graduation present. It is like having a sphere of influence next to you. I made this drawing on the hand*book journal pocket size journal. Pocket size is nice, portable, and available. It fits easily on those small cafe tables. Sometimes it’s hard to do a drawing. I took the advice of Danny of ‘Everyday Matters‘ and just draw what’s around me. This is a special pencil case bought in Poland. the company is Hevlite.
tags: dickblick, Hand*book co., paper, notebook, Watercolor
‘When he was away from work, he preferred to take notes. At night before bed he copied everything he had done, down to the most minute detail, in his diary. He had started months ago when he first found the events of the day receding, even before he had slept, like the details of a dream”. -R.S. Jones, Force of Gravity
‘The Art of Innovation’ led me to ‘Snow Crash‘. I started reading it over the weekend and didn’t want to put it down. It’s very funny. For some reason, I latched onto this book. Maybe it’s because it talks about the Metaverse. Recently, I got into Second Life (SL). I need to do a little bit of research to find out which came first. It talks about people building houses in the virtual world. I can see some similarities between the Metaverse that Neal Stephenson renders and the world of SL. I think this book has influenced a lot of people and companies. For example, the book talks about goggled into the virtual world through the vision apparatus, a goggle. Hm…Google sounds a lot like goggle. Was the book the source?
I’m not a big fan of Sc-fi books, but once in a while a book like ‘Snow Crash’ proves to be readable. I’ve try William Gibson’s ‘Neomancer’. I didn’t make the leap into it yet. Maybe it’s too far out there for me to grasp. ‘Snow Crash’ seems very plausible. I remember, in my younger days, buying David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising’ because it had a cool cover of the man and dolphin. Uplift series
