Year.

Sam Cornwell, a photographer from England, took a second of video a day and stitched into a video of his son Indigo's first year.

CONNECT

Thanks, Ors.

Happy birthday, Degas.

Degas, Field of Flax, 1892

Edgar Degas was born on this date in 1834.

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. 

- Edgar Degas

4.

Karma Repair Kit:  1-4

1. Get enough food to eat,
         and eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
         and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
    until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
         and listen to it.

4.

-Richard Brautigan

Welcome back, Jess!

Silent.

The Silent Cockpit.

CONNECT

Corkscrew?

Who needs a corkscrew?

CONNECT

Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris, "Big Mouth Blues"

God loves you when you dance.

- Billy Joe Shaver

Drake White, "Always Want What You Can't Have"

Alex Colville, R.I.P.

Colville, Swimming Dog and Canoe, 1979

Alex Colville has passed away.

Behind [Alex Colville's] words, as behind his art, you can sense elaborate webs of thought. And, also like his paintings, he stands quite alone, beyond category. It’s impossible to speak with him for a few hours without feeling his powerful sense of self. He is, it seems, a free man.

- Robert Fulford

Aaron Lewis, "Granddaddy's Gun"

Routine.

Once upon a time there was a ballplayer who made the impossible look routine. 

CONNECT

Thanks, Randolfo.

Snow.

Happy birthday, Copeland.

Stewart Copeland was born yesterday (in 1952).

Orchestralli

Niagara.

Earlier this month YouTube user questpact sent his DJI Phantom quad-copter and GoPro Hero 3 over the top of Niagara Falls to capture this pretty spectacular footage. 

CONNECT

Listen.

Manara, Windowsill, Undated

So, must we from the hawk’s far stemming view,   

Must we descend as worm’s eye to construe   

Our love of all we touch, and take it to the Gate

As humbly as a guest who knows himself too late,

His news already told? Yes, while the heart is wrung,

Arise—yes, take this sheaf of dust upon your tongue!

In one last angelus lift throbbing throat—

Listen ...

- Hart Crane, from "The Bridge: Quaker Hill"

Quiet.

Frazier, Halfway to Canada, 2013

... the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

- Billy Collins

Thank you, Big Poppi.

Traipses.

Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
It must eat and breath air and sleep,
It has thin skin and blood right underneath,
An adequate stock of teeth and nails,
Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.

Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it is shuddered
Before the founding of Rome and after,
In the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it’s just the earth that’s grown smaller,
And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall.

Nothing has changed.
It’s just that there are more people,
Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared,
Real, imaginary, temporary, and none,
But the howl with which the body responds to them,
Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocence
According to the time-honored scale and tonality.

Nothing has changed.
Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances,
Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.
The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull away
Its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,
It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds.

Nothing has changed.
Except of course for the course of boundaries,
The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers.
Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,
Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away,
Alien to itself, elusive
At times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence,
While the body is and is and is
And has no place of its own.

- Wisława Szymborska

Thank you, Veerle.

Jackson Browne, "Looking East"

David Lindley is, indeed, a god ...

McGuane.

Gone fishin' ...

Fleetwood Mac, "The Chain"

Insisted.

He was continually chain smoking indoors and insisted on giving me some wine in a solo cup for the road ...

CONNECT

Above.

You don't need to plan an exotic trip to find creative inspiration. Just look up, says Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society. As he shares charming photos of nature's finest aerial architecture, Pretor-Pinney calls for us all to take a step off the digital treadmill, lie back and admire the beauty in the sky above.

Cloud Appreciation Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney shows how seemingly idle pursuits provide unexpected paths to appreciating overlooked wonders.

CONNECT

Healthy.

If you want to be healthy observe this regime.
Do not eat when you have no appetite and dine lightly,
Chew well, and whatever you take into you
Should be well-cooked and of simple ingredients.
He who takes medicine is ill advised
Beware anger and avoid stuffy air.
Stay standing a while when you get up from a meal.
Make sure you do not sleep at midday.
Let your wine be mixed with water, take little at a time
Not between meals, nor on an empty stomach.
Neither delay nor prolong your visit to the toilet.
If you take exercise, let it not be too strenuous.
Do not lie with your stomach upward and your head downward. 
Be well covered at night,
And rest your head and keep your mind cheerful.
Avoid wantonness and keep to this diet.

CONNECT

Blake's.

William Blake's cottage in Felpham, West Sussex in England, is for sale. 

CONNECT

Come in!  It's only Adam and Eve, you know!

Freedom.

It’s a fearful heart that builds a wall and it is a fearless heart that can live without it. And coming into contact with someone with a fearless heart, disarms you. You lay down your arms in the presence of a fearless heart, a wall-less heart. And it is a very solitary decision to have a fearless heart. It’s the real freedom.

Tilda Swinton's The Invisible Frame

CONNECT

Happy birthday, Caulfield.

On this day in 1951, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was published. 

The Infamous Stringdusters, "Tears of the Earth"

A good river song ...

Discoverers.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

- Francis Bacon

Symbolism.

What can we learn from the depictions of music in Vermeer's paintings? Watch 'Vermeer and Music: the Art of Love and Leisure as curator Betsy Wieseman and members of the Academy of Ancient Music discuss the symbolism present in some of Vermeer's best-known works, with musical accompaniment from members of the Academy.

Happy birthday, Reynolds.

Reynolds, Self-portrait, 1749

Joshua Reynolds was born on this date in 1723.

By leaving a student to himself he may be led to undertake matters above his strength, but the trial will at least have this advantage: it will discover to himself his own deficiencies and this discovery alone is a very considerable acquisition. 

Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance; like travelers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it – whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.

- Sir Joshua Reynolds

CONNECT

Beyond.

Wu Dao Zi, Flying Demon, c. 8th century

In the palace of Ming Huang, the walls were of great size and upon one of these the Emperor ordered Wu Dao Zi to paint a landscape. The Artist prepared his materials, and concealing the wall with curtains commenced his work. After a little while he drew aside the veil, and there lay a glorious scene, with mountains, forests, clouds, men, birds and all things as in Nature. While the Emperor gazed upon it with admiration, Wu Dao Zi pointing to a certain part of the picture, said: ‘Behold this temple grot at the foot of the mountain – within it dwells a spirit.’ Then clapping his hands, the gate of the cave suddenly opened. ‘ The Interior is beautiful beyond conception’, continued the artist. ‘permits me to show the way, that your Majesty may behold the marvels it contains.’ He passed within, turning round to the beckon his patron to follow, but in a moment the gateway closed, and before the amazing monarch could advance a step, the whole scene fade away, leaving the wall white as before the contact of the painters brush. And Wu Dao Zi was never seen again.

- William Anderson

High.

High above our planet in the realm of satellites and space stations, the familiar rules of Earth do not apply. The midday sky is as black as night. There's no up and no down. Dropped objects don't fall, and hot air doesn't rise.

CONNECT

Happy birthday, Jones.

Inigo Jones was born on this date in 1573.

Some bright spark turned it into a public loo.

CONNECT

Security lights ... one of the greatest curses of modernity.

Grasp.

Nature is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes -- I mean the universe -- but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.

- Galileo Galilei

Relax.

Worried that your child is ungifted? Relax.

CONNECT

Many.

Flowers are Red

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin' young man
I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me.....

And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin'
She said...Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

- Harry Chapin

Time.

We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling — whether it’s trying to stop the years racing past, or speeding up time when we’re stuck in a queue, trying to live more in the present, or working out how long ago we last saw our old friends. Time can be a friend, but it can also be an enemy. The trick is to harness it, whether at home, at work, or even in social policy, and to work in line with our conception of time. Time perception matters because it is the experience of time that roots us in our mental reality. Time is not only at the heart of the way we organize life, but the way we experience it.

CONNECT

Happy birthday, Rembrandt.

Rembrandt, Laughing, 1628

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on this date in 1606.

Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can't do it. I just can't do it! And that is why I am just a little crazy. 

- Rembrandt

Happy birthday, Johnson.

Jamey Johnson was born on this date in 1975.

"High Cost of Living"

Echo & The Bunnymen, "Seven Seas"

Someplace.

One of Dickens’s villains boasts that he’s never moved by a pretty face, for he can see the grinning skull beneath. That’s realism, he says. But it’s a strange kind of realism that can look through life in all its vibrancy to focus only on death.

Much of today’s architecture brings that misanthrope to mind. Beauty? For our advanced culture, it’s as spectral as classical philosophy’s two other highest values: the good and the true. A building might be cutting-edge, boundary-breaking, transgressive. But simply beautiful? The arts have transcended such illusions.

A pity. Part of the pleasure of metropolitan life is the pre–World War II city’s manifold loveliness. When you see the illuminated Chrysler Building glowing through the evening fog, or walk by the magnolias blooming in front of Henry Frick’s museum, ravishing outside and in, or gaze up at the endlessly varied historicism of lower Broadway’s pioneering skyscrapers, you know you are Someplace—someplace where human inventiveness and aspiration have left lasting monuments proclaiming that our life is more than mere biology and has a meaning beyond the brute fact of mortality. Like all our manners and ceremonies, from table etiquette to weddings, beauty in architecture humanizes the facts of life. So we don’t want a machine for living—a high-tech lair to service our animal needs—but rather a cathedral, a capitol, a home, expressive of the grandeur, refinement, urbanity, and coziness of which our life is capable.

CONNECT

Loud.

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.

- Émile Zola

Transformed.

With Brahms, you often get that feeling of a landscape, a panorama, something on a grand scale. And then there's that strong sense of poignancy as well. When the drama occurs, it focuses on that moment when everything changed, when a life was transformed, after which things would never be the same again.

-Hélène Grimaud

Hélène Grimaud's album of Brahms Piano Concertos will be released on September 27 ...

The album will include thrilling, deeply personal interpretations of the dark, passionate sound-worlds of both Brahms piano concertos: Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor, op.15 and Piano Concerto No.2 in B-flat major, op. 83.

Good.

Contemplation.

Sustermans, Galileo Galilei, 1636

Many of us have tried to imagine what it was like to be Galileo. Dangerously perceptive, unjustly persecuted and posthumously vindicated -- though these struggles were undoubtedly an aching burden on the banned and jailed astronomer himself, they certainly make for interesting contemplation after the fact. After all, Galileo is remembered not just for his contributions to physics and astronomy, but perhaps most importantly for his struggle against the prevailing (incorrect) theories and beliefs of his day.

CONNECT

Happy birthday, Klimt.

Klimt, Fir Forest I, 1901

Gustav Klimt was born on this date in 1862.

Art is a line around your thoughts.

- Gustav Klimt

Preparation.

So what has changed this year?

In some ways, nothing.

“I was pitching like this last year,” Scherzer said. “I’m just doing a little bit better than last year.”

He is more consistent. He has improved his delivery. Improved his pitches. And he is mentally strong.

Best of all, the Tigers have a knack for scoring a lot of runs when Scherzer is on the mound.

Part of Scherzer’s success comes from his preparation, all the work he does between starts. Studying different batters. Studying video. Analyzing trends. And coming up with a plan on how he will attack different batters.

In some ways, it’s like he’s back in high school, doing homework. Trying to get better grades than everybody else.

CONNECT

Seek.

You are wisdom, uncreated and eternal,
the supreme first cause, above all being,
sovereign Godhead, sovereign goodness,
watching unseen the God-inspired wisdom of Christian people.
Raise us, we pray, that we may totally respond
to the supreme, unknown, ultimate, and splendid height
of your words, mysterious and inspired.
There all God's secret matters lie covered and hidden
under darkness both profound and brilliant, silent and wise.
You make what is ultimate and beyond brightness
secretly to shine in all that is most dark.
In your way, ever unseen and intangible,
you fill to the full with most beautiful splendor
those souls who close their eyes that they may see.
And I, please, with love that goes on beyond mind
to all that is beyond mind,
seek to gain such for myself through this prayer.

- St. Denis

Masterpiece.

Private Life of a Masterpiece: The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci

One.