I didn’t think we’d had all that much rain last night, but I’ve also never seen a puddle this large outside my parking garage, so I guess we must have. And you can tell from the high-water mark that the puddle was even bigger just shortly before I arrived. Especially considering how windy it was this morning, you can imagine how much had already evaporated. I wish I could have seen how much of the street it filled right after the rain ended.
Remember “Smooth,” the Santana–Rob Thomas megahit from twenty years ago? Rolling Stone has a fabulous article out today recounting how this unlikely collaboration between artists of such different musical genres and generations came about to result in the classic single that still gets radio play today and sounds as fresh as it did in 1999.
The article is titled an “oral history,” and it really is just that. Mini-interview recollections from all the major players alternate throughout the piece, each picking up the story’s thread at the spots where others leave off. I love hearing about the background involved in any artwork’s creative process; learning about all the moving parts and all the personalities and chance remarks and serendipities and near misses provides a much deeper appreciation for the finished result.
Record-industry legend Clive Davis is at the center of this hit, and by that I mean that he was sort of a locus or fulcrum that acted as the centering force and balance for the many creative activities conducted by multiple people that were needed to make this single happen. I’ve written about Davis before (“Thoughts on Patti Smith” and my post on the 1970 Oscars show are the only times I can recall off the top of my head) and remain in awe of his instincts. Of his genius! Davis understands music and people in a way that is absolutely uncanny.
You can link to that Rolling Stone “Smooth” article HERE. It’s kind of long, but definitely worth the time to read.
Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 4
— Read on brandonraykirk.com/2019/06/01/interview-of-jean-hatfield-at-sarah-ann-wv-2001-part-4/
😀
Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 3
— Read on brandonraykirk.com/2019/05/29/interview-of-jean-hatfield-at-sarah-ann-wv-2001-part-3/
In case you’ve read Parts 1 and 2 already (which I shared the other day) and are ready for the next installment.
Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 2
— Read on brandonraykirk.com/2019/05/28/interview-of-jean-hatfield-at-sarah-ann-wv-2001-part-2/
And here is the link to “Part 2.” If you’re a history buff, you might enjoy reading/following Brandon Ray Kirk’s blog as much as I do.
Interview of Jean Hatfield at Sarah Ann, WV (2001), Part 1
— Read on brandonraykirk.com/2019/05/26/interview-of-jean-hatfield-at-sarah-ann-wv-2001/
I follow some super interesting bloggers, and Brandon Ray Kirk always posts interesting history (lots of primary sources) from the West Virginia area. Here is a link to “Part 1” of an interview he did with a granddaughter-in-law of Devil Anse Hatfield, patriarch of the Hatfield family and possibly the most famous player in the Hatfield and McCoy feud.
So said John Mollo in his acceptance speech at the Oscars after winning the Academy Award for Costume Design in 1978 for his work on Star Wars.
What reminded me of this marvelous quote was a vehicle I walked past in the parking garage at work. Doesn’t its aggressive-looking front end remind you just a little of a stormtrooper’s helmet in the Star Wars movies?
And speaking of Star Wars stormtroopers, here is one of my all-time fave film moments.
Don’t you wish all exchanges with law enforcement and similar authorities could be managed so smoothly? 🙂
Today I learned the official name for a certain ubiquitous graphic painted on the bike lanes of city streets: “sharrow.”
A “sharrow”— in case you also didn’t know what to call this thing you’ve surely seen many times—is the “signage” designating bike lanes on city streets, which technically are “shared” lanes (with cars and other vehicles). Sharrows usually take the form of a white bicycle symbol topped by a directional arrow, which in Milwaukee always seems to be a double chevron like the one in the photo below.
“Sharrow Grand Street (Manhattan”) – Photo by Jim Henderson (Jim.henderson) via Wikipedia (public domain)
“Shared” plus “arrow” equals “sharrow.”
The photo I took this morning isn’t really a sharrow symbol at all, of course. But because the bike parked on the sidewalk was casting its shadow/outline into the street, it reminded me of those painted signs I see everywhere. Then when I wanted to refer to it in this blog post’s title, I realized I didn’t know what it was called and had to go looking. Now I know. And so do you 🙂
I took this photo two weeks ago because the reflected light was so striking.
And then I promptly forgot all about it until the other night when I was at Boswell Books to see Austin Kleon. As the event began, I took a photo of him. Later, while waiting in line to get my copies of his books signed, I scrolled through my camera roll and noticed this picture again. Briefly considered putting it up on my blog but decided against it because, really: another picture of office building windows?
Today I took a closer look, though. Maybe that photo wasn’t completely hopeless after all. What if I could manipulate it to focus more on the thing that had caught my eye in the first place?
So I cropped it to cut out the tree and the ugly ventilation grates up at the top. Which gave it a whole new personality! Suddenly it was less “office building” than a slightly absract collection of lines along a varying brightness spectrum that was kind of fun to look at.
If I stare at it long enough, for example, the dark gray lines start to look much wider on the left and narrower on the right. Plus they start to diverge, as though they’re rays coming from a point far to the lower right and then opening outward in shallow but ever-expanding angles as they move to the left and up. Kind of like the rays in the Japanese “Rising Sun Flag.”
Via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
All of which makes sense, I suppose, since I took the picture from a sideways angle. Perspective and all. Still, I don’t see that effect at first glance, only after I stop thinking and let my eyes relax.
Several years ago I posted a photo that similarly created some cool movement; you can see it here. It’s the first photo in the post, and you have to scroll up and down really fast to see it, but when you do, it looks like the building is breathing. The lower floors seem to expand and contract.
When I was a kid I realized that if I stared at geometrically-patterned wallpaper or floor tiles, crossed my eyes, and then slowly and carefully uncrossed them, I could pull that pattern closer to me almost as if I were looking through binoculars. It was like a new plane of existence had been created several inches to a few feet closer to me than the original wall or floor it was duplicating. If I reached out to touch it, the image vanished as soon as my eyes were forced to focus on the real physical object (my hand) that had invaded that temporary, illusory space. It fascinated me that I could create this completely false but very real-seeming image that floated in front of me like a photograph on glass.
I can still do this. Which statement reveals, obviously, that I still do do this.
Yeah, I’m pretty easily amused 🙂
If you enjoy optical illusions as much as I do, you should check out this site sponsored by The Optical Society of America. (Aside: They call themselves “The Optical Society” now, apparently not wanting to restrict themselves to America? But their acronym and logo still include the “A.” Kind of a metaphorical-allusion illusion right there, when you think about it 🙂 )
Last night after work I met my friend, Karen, for dinner on the East Side (which is how we Milwaukeeans refer to the area bounded by the lake on the east, the river on the west, Capitol Drive on the north, and North Avenue on the south; and even more ironic than North being south, while I’m thinking about it, is Center Street being several blocks north of North, like “center” of what?), followed by an author event at Boswell Books, featuring a talk and booksigning by Austin Kleon.
Kleon has written three books about how to build and maintain a successful creative practice. I’ve read his first two already (How to Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work) and look forward to reading his third, Keep Going, which I bought last night (and Kleon signed all three books for me, which is fun).
In the Q+A session at the end of Kleon’s talk, someone asked how he is able to be so productive. Kleon said he has three things he prioritizes every day: 1) getting his 10,000 steps in, 2) writing in his diary (which, when he’s on a book tour includes writing a letter to his wife, which he takes a picture of and sends her, while the original letter stays in his diary as an entry), and 3) writing a blog post.
“Also,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “I’m a big fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done.”
OMG, so am I! I discovered and bought the Getting Things Done book a couple years ago after reading in another book Drew Carey’s account of how David Allen and his book saved his career. I found that other book (Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength) in Google Books, and I think this link will take you right to that section so you can read it yourself. Carey’s story is super inspiring (gee, even successful people struggle with organization!) and a super-strong testimonial to David Allen’s list-and-folder time/project-management technique. I’m still a work in progress, but after reading through the book multiple times to reinforce my actual practice, I’ve finally internalized Allen’s methods and feel far more in control of my life since I began trying to use the flowchart in his book.
So all in all it was a very good evening, a nice midweek break. I got to see my friend, eat a nice dinner, get inspired about creativity, meet an author whose books I emjoy, and get my books signed by said author.
Below is a photo I took on the way home, facing west at the intersection of Van Buren and Juneau. 
The horizontal strip of glowing green light crossing Juneau in the distance is the skywalk connecting the parking garage to Fiserv Forum, the Milwaukee Bucks’ new arena. The red neon strip beyond that is the old Pabst Brewery sign, also stretching across Juneau at the western edge of downtown Milwaukee. Just immediately beyond the “Deer District,” which is what they’re calling the area around the new arena now, the old Pabst brewing complex has been renovated and repurposed as apartment buildings, hotels, restaurants, bars, and UW-Milwaukee’s School of Public Health campus.
No real reason for including this photo in today’s post. It just struck me as I was sitting at the traffic light that those two glowing bands of light represented an intriguing combination of old and new Milwaukee.
Katherine Wikoff 