There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
There is no editing stage.
Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing
what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even
if you don't and do it.
Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
Once you're done you can throw it away.
Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
Destruction is a variant of done.
If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
Done is the engine of more.
(From Bre Pettis. Posted more as a reminder to myself than anything else...)
One encouraging thing about the world as it stands is that it seems that many people around the world are making connections with each other that are more horizontal and global, if that makes any sense. Is shared interest taking precedence over narrow self interest after all? Are we starting to use the internet to create a global culture? I'd like to think so (he says with fingers crossed...)
And at least we're getting some really cool music out of the deal in the meantime. (Is it just me, or is this the Best Stevie Wonder Song Ever...?)
I'm sure of it. Safer at propping up high-voltage electrical cable than the 15-foot bamboo ladder sticking out of an oil drum that I saw along the same stretch of highway last winter, anyway. Y'see, this contraption has safety stripes...
A photo allegory of how it feels to be starting up a routine (exercise, painting, learning Chinese, um...blogging) after a long break. Oh, and it's the only Basset Hound I've seen in China to date.
Okay, so this woman has a book to sell, but hey, maybe "buying less stuff, saving limited resources, sharing with people, and making the world a better place" could, in fact, use a more snazzy marketing label.
Yes, it's Surrealism Appreciation Week here at Slow Boat! I would've started it yesterday, but the date (10/10/10) seemed a bit too rational. What is Surrealism Appreciation week? Simply a chance for me to clear out a big batch of strangely random (or randomly strange) thoughts and observations that have been floating around the Slow Boat ocean like so many millions of pieces of discarded plastic. A veritable North Pacific Garbage Patch of ideas, in other words, though nowhere near the size of Texas, and far less toxic to wildlife.
What can you expect from La Semana del'Amico du Surrealisme?
Unashamed appreciation of Chinglish!
Random pictures posted with no explanation whatsoever!
Links to websites of little to no apparent consequence.
A seeming disregard for logic and chronology!
Thoughtful meditations on the nature of the Surreal, the Strange, and the Ugly, and the difference between them both. If I get around to it.
In other words, nothing too different from what you usually see on this site, but with a fancier pretentious label attached. Fnord. Let the games begin!
(disclaimer: "Surrealism Appreciation Week" is not limited to, or constrained by, the commonly understood term of "week" meaning a period of seven consecutive days of twenty four hours each. Early termination or undue extension of this arbitrary period of time is constrained only by the questionable discretion of the author of this blog.)
Speaking of creativity, anyone that interacts with people under the age of 14 - or over the age of 14, come to think of it - should check out Howtoons, the World's Greatest D. I. Y Comic Website. Every time I go onto the site, I think, "Dang, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for anyone to be bored." (Though some of the common household items they use aren't so common here in China.)
We've been invited out to an indoor swimming pool this afternoon, so if you'll excuse me, we've got a submarine to build...
Interesting take on creativity by author Steven Johnson (plus, I'm a sucker for these animated whiteboard illustrations of lectures that seem to be popping up lately...)
Two basic thoughts - 1) Good ideas are often slow hunches that take a long time to incubate and develop. 2) The best ideas are when one person can build off of another person's hunches - so connectivity is important here.
So, really, I'm not puttering around on the web, I'm umm, using the power of connectivity to allow my Great Ideas to incubate over time!
Along the same lines as my previous post, (but put much more memorably), an oldie but a goodie from our friends at the Onion: God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule.
From the article -
"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"
...including this way cool video that's been making the rounds lately. I played it over and over again yesterday (umm, for the kids, of course...), and am going to show it to my classes. Just Because.
Ah, it all started so simply. Jane and I planning curriculum for last spring's semester, starting with a lesson or two about maps and giving directions to strangers. A highly abbreviated transcript of our conversation: Jane: "Wait a sec, what was so interesting about maps, anyway?" Me: "Well...what if we had the students walk around our town and find out the answers to stuff that we still don't know about? They could make their own maps - heck, we could even make an atlas out of the deal."
Little did I know that yes, I've got to me more careful with my suggestions. We both taught the same map-based curriculum with our Oral English classes last fall, but it was Jane and her students who fundraised, revised, scaned, and edited the material into a thousand full-color copies of the Hongguang Guidebook, a 37-page English-language atlas of our area. Scans of the actual book are forthcoming (hmmm, maybe we should wait until after the book release party?), but in the meantime, here are a couple of student maps that I uploaded a while back to give you some idea of the project.
The New District of Xihua University...
Every kind of flower on campus!
Our local convenience store/supermarket
And one of my favorites... Lover's Dating Places! As the map's authors state,
"The aim of the map is that, on the one hand, it helps lovers to find the perfect dating places. Oh the other hand, it helps passengers [passers-by, ed.] and the lovers to avoid feeling embarrassed."
A - recent? - video of banjo great Earl Scruggs, joined by Steve Martin and a guy who looks like Peter Frampton (?). (Yeah, I like lots of other music too, but I think bluegrass is way too underrated...)
In honor of summer wrapping up (isn't it Labor Day somewhere over there?), I'm cleaning out the "links that I post someday" pile - some dating as far back as March - ulp. Don't worry, you can still try them. I've tested them all, and none of them contain botulism.
An interview with one of my former teachers, Bill Ayers. You may remember Sarah Palin's caricature of him from the 2008 presidential campaign, but this is a great introduction to a fascinating educator and a warm and concerned human being.
Speaking of education, what if we had educational reform that really worked? Here's one interesting idea. Also, the science of making up stuff, which is a (very very true - I lived it) critique of No Child Left Behind (...shudder...)
A collection a day. Really cool Stuff (as in things. and more things.) And I thought I had too much time on my hands this summer...
The old and the new, together in one photo. Or lots of photos. Top Secret America. A huge article from the Washington Post about America's intelligence systems that I want to read, haven't gotten around to yet. Or maybe I have. It's Top Secret.
Did you know that the Soviet Union had their own Space Shuttle? Cool (and somewhat sad) pics from the now-mothballed launch site for a machine that never launched.
In praise of doing nothing. Don't know if I got around to posting about the Cult of Busy, but it's worth checking out. Or maybe you should go outside and play frisbee instead...
Revisiting the food pyramid Why do salads at McDonalds cost more than burgers? A clue: we make it that way...
People making bird sounds. Really, they sound like birds. Check it out first, then read the text to see how they did it.
Math is beautiful:
Wow, it feels like I just cleaned out my junk drawer! Thanks everyone, for your indulgence and support...
Brooklyn artist Peter Feigenbaum turns buildings from old train sets into 80s era ghettos. Can't get the image to load here, so you'll have to click and see for yourself.
