“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
- 1 Corinthians 15
Happy Easter!
Deeper Magic
Celebrating Two Years of Olivia
Over the past couple of days we’ve had the chance to celebrate Olivia’s birthday with our family. Sunday included a picnic in the park and a trip to the zoo. Olivia’s favourite part (besides the canine guest of honour: Coda) was probably riding around the zoo in a little “safari Jeep” wagon as we looked for animals.
Today (her actual day of birth) was the day of ultra tea parties.
We’re pretty proud of our little kiddo, who amazes us hourly with all the things she’s learning, the jokes she has up her sleeve, and the personality that’s unfolding before our eyes.
(Thanks Joel, for the photos!)
You Gotta Be Good to Borrow
Good artists borrow; great artists steal. – Pablo Picasso (maybe)
While I’ve been hearing this quote a lot lately, and it’s encouraging, I’m not sure it’s right.
It’s way harder to borrow than to steal.
In high school jazz band, we learned that in the language of jazz improvisation, borrowing elements from the great jazz artists was a form of compliment, “tipping your hat” to a jazz great that had gone before. My problem was that I was probably never a good enough jazz musician to borrow. The best I could do was steal, copy someone else’s voice, note for note.
It’s only when you have your own voice you’re able to weave in elements from another artist. Stealing in easy.
In looking into the history of the above quote I came across T.S. Eliot’s words about theft and imitation in poetry:
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. – T.S. Eliot
Here’s to the journey!
Say it With Symbols, O}<=
I was checking out some spoken word poetry this morning and came across this short poem, the one Helvetica Man wishes he’d been a part of…
Love You, {Helvetica} Man
Poster for the release of the Symbol Signs, 1974
I love simple symbols and icons for their ability to communicate clearly and recognizably across language and cultural barriers. I guess this is why The Noun Project, with its growing library of icons, has become one of my new favourite resource sites.
I did a bit of digging recently to find out a bit more about some of the most “iconic” of icons. The first set of 34 Symbol Signs, which we all recognize from airport signage, were designed in 1974 (with 16 more being added in 1979) to standardize transportation communication.
From the AIGA site:
This system of 50 symbol signs was designed for use at the crossroads of modern life: in airports and other transportation hubs and at large international events. Produced through a collaboration between AIGA and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), they are an example of how public-minded designers can address a universal communication need.
Prior to this effort, numerous international, national and local organizations had devised symbols to guide passengers and pedestrians through transportation facilities and other sites of international exchange. While effective individual symbols had been designed, there was no system of signs that communicated the required range of complex messages, addressed people of different ages and cultures and were clearly legible at a distance.
Helvetica Man
It turns out that the clean-cut, hardworking man who stars in many of these symbols, who eventually became known as “Helvetica man” (after the typeface that shares his simplicity and ubiquity), lives a very colourful life. I’m not one for gossip, but you can find out Helvetica man’s personal life in this video and these shots. The paparazzi spare no man.
The next time you see Mr. Helvetica, give him a nod and thank him for what he does, day in and day out, to make this world a better place.
The Words You Use, They Matter
A few years back I was put in the uncomfortable position of explaining the Christian term “spiritual warfare” to a rabbi. I was explaining the training program I was leading at the time (the word was embedded in the title) when he kindly asked me to clarify. Was this some kind of warfare tactic, where we pray about which target to attack? He had mistaken the term as some kind of flesh and blood holy war thing.
Funny how easy it is to forget how the words we use sound to an outsider of our particular industry, organization, country, religion. That nasty curse of knowledge at work again. It gets worse when those “insider” terms start getting used in our communication to the uninitiated. That might even be how real wars (or at least the propaganda that fuels them) get started.
Full of grace and sincerity, the rabbi pointed out that the terms we use really are important.
Though I successfully explained how “spiritual warfare” is more of a love thing than a hate thing, I left wishing we had a better word to explain the concept.
On the flip side, I realized the importance of asking clarifying questions when I don’t understand a term. The person I’m listening to might not realize what their words sound like to me. One clarifying question could clear up a lot of misunderstanding.
The words we use, they matter.
Rehearsal
Here’s a quote I heard a while back, but found myself quoting a lot recently:
“It takes four hours to get one hour of creative work done.” – David Lynch
Tim Sanders wrote a helpful commentary on this idea, in which he talks about the need to rehearse before you create. Rehearsing is a way of invoking the spontaneity of a creative moment, not just in big performances, but in smaller projects as well.
“[Creativity] is an in-the-moment experience. If you sit down to ‘wham it out’, you’ll end up polishing a turd. You’ll spew, edit, delete, fix, re-edit and sqeeze the life out of your ‘baby.’
I know I usually expect myself to be able to crank out good ideas at the drop of a hat, with little thought or time to preparing myself, “warming up”, or rehearsing. Not fair.
Sanders employs rehearsal in his writing by talking through passages on the putting green before going inside to write them down.
What do you do to warm up creatively?
Play
It must be nice to be a pro athlete or musician, because every description of your job starts with the words “I play…”. For the rest of us, it might be easier to forget that, as Mark Twain said, “Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.”
Hope your week is filled with it.
“Play has been man’s most useful preoccupation.” – Frank Caplan