the art of asking or just take the doughnuts

Ranked as one of its top literary picks for the past year, Brain Pickings’ maven Maria Popova interviewed author Amanda Palmer on her new work with the subtitle or: how I learned to stop worrying and let people help, which seems to be a very necessary and circumspect exploration of compassion and self-esteem.

The lessons speak in the language of creativity and talent but the message is not meant exclusively for the artistic set, as we are all trying to carefully navigate the chasm between individual and social entitlement narratives, wanting too much, and the inability to welcome that which we truly need—all the sharing and caring and small kindnesses that make us human to each other. Palmer provides a series of imaginative images that don’t allow one to forget their callings—decrying the common measures of success, saying no one is to the manor born, and long before any one of us is illegitimised, recognized, we need to christen ourselves with a spell and magic wand of our own making and feel ridiculous doing so. Problematically, most of us don’t think our passions are worth that kind of bother—especially when others might be charitably disposed to help—and yet, most of us will still have the gall to ask when is our ship coming in. We may have adopted some sort of purist standard to apply to our entertainers and celebrities—maybe so we can see them fail, and are certainly quick to call fraud, poser and imposter even when trifling assistance is ultimately a means to a greater end. Henry David Thoreau, as the author illustrates, gave up a lot of comforts to pursue a quiet and contemplative life on Walden Pond and eventually came to realise his goal.
Thoreau did also graciously accept help when offered by kindred spirits—including fellow author Ralph Waldo Emerson and his mother and sister who brought the hermit doughnuts. Most of us would think less of what Thoreau created because of that detail. What do you think? Do such aspirations only belong in the rarified world of artists or is it a universal and daily struggle?

ill-will ambassador

For Christmas from H, I received this wonderful Grumpy Cat stuffed animal. Better known by her stage name, the cat called Tartar Sauce made her human caretakers millionaires through a substantial media empire.  Apparently, I am known to pull the same facial expression, from time to time. Though not exactly intended to convey cuddliness—more like, “...no, Mister Bond, I expect you to die”—I think she’ll make a very good mascot, nonetheless.

spatial fossils

The ever brilliant BLDGBlog revisits the field-trip they got to take two summers ago to the secretive compound that manages the constellation of satellites that form the global positioning system for military and civilian applications.

Surely being treated to such a tour could inspire many tangential musings on place and time and the technological triangulation behind translating this vast array with many moving parts into something reliable and useful. The visitors, however, choose not to reflect on the navigation aspect but rather how GPS coordinates are being used more and more in large-scale architectural projects and how the errors in mapping—precision that’s only off by millimetres but still nonetheless present and preserved—are being set in stone, fossilised as it were in big building programmes. Such cosmological footprints are found in the unburied strata of the Earth and, as in the reflection, evidence of solar flares and sunspots in the growth rings of trees. The philosophy is not lost on the team that runs GPS neither, realising that this fifty-thousand kilometre wide array could also be used a massive detection field for the aberrations of space-time due to encounters with gravitational waves or dark matter. Every sub-system on Earth that accesses and makes decisions based off of this satellite telemetry is a part of this experiment and exotic, cosmic discontinuities may be leaving subtle footfalls everywhere.

gonwanda-projection

Mental Floss has a semi-regular special series entitled Afternoon Map that invites one to pour over imaginative cartography and charts visualising demographics. With some concession to sea-levels and icecaps to keep geo-politics recognisable, contributors at Open Culture share the land masses aligned as Pangea with modern borders included. What is most amazing about such a venture is to think how much has changed before and since with continental-drift and we know a little bit about how those puzzle-pieces fit together.

rat-race

A sufficiently academic study from the University of Geneva demonstrates that while life’s stressors may be an enabling factor when it comes to indulging those things that we seek, as profiled by Boing Boing, that same drive does not yield any increased relish for said awards. It is a bit disheartening and telling that striving on an everyman’s level is equally alienated from the goal, whether or not we invite any middle-man. What do you think? Is this about our own expectations, guilty pleasures and the measure of success, or the motors of progress and productivity?

subway special

Down in the underground, Neat-o-Rama features a brilliant gallery from Russian photographer Andrey Kruglikov capturing beautiful images of the metro stations of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. These stops are surely inviting and reminiscence of when no expense was spared for public convenience. Would that all spaces might be so house-proud. It is an interesting time to reflect on this grand artistry when residents are apparently hording subway tokens as a hedge against the declining rouble.

twenty-five metres squared or this small space

Earlier this summer, the Kingdom of Sweden relaxed zoning and permit regulations in order to promote home- improvement projects and ultimately address the housing shortage. Though this initial retraction applies only to structures less than twenty-five square metres in area and up to four metres in height, there’s been already an incredible creative volume of living spaces eked out within these parameters, celebrated in a picture book, as Quartz features. I think that such codes ought to only be relaxed in small, livable and sustainable increments to foster wonder and inspiration.

pause for station identification

Happy Holidays, and please enjoy while this interpretative dance troupe presents to you their version of the Yule Log!