Prospero's Books

You're the closest one around

Last week I attended a workshop at the Eiteljorg Museum by photographer Ted Orland. Several of his aphorisms (almost verbatim, I think):

• Lead an interesting life. The art will take care of itself.
• Shoot first and ask questions later.
• Everything in the world has been photographed.
• God created Yosemite. Man created Yosemite National Park.
• Someone has to do your work, and you're the closest one around.

Stairway to Heaven

A few years ago, friends took Bette and me out to our city's leading rock venue, to hear their son's band. His girlfriend was assigned (or perhaps self-assigned) to be our host. An hour or so into the evening, she leaned into us and said, in one of the most condescending voices I've ever heard, "So are you enjoying this kind of music at all?"

"We invented this music," I replied.

(I did refrain, however, from launching into "We built this city on rock and roll . . . ," so I should get points for that.)

Anyway, check out the latest issue of the online comic strip XKCD. If you're a Boomer like me, it will do your heart good.

You can sing

If you can walk
You can dance.
If you can talk
You can sing.

--A saying from Zimbabwe (courtesy of Jim Wallis's God's Politics blog)

In 1995, after conducting training in Botswana, I made a side trip into Zimbabwe, mostly to see Victoria Falls, which were spectacular beyond words.

By chance, I saw Robert Mugabe reviewing troops outside my hotel, where regional chiefs of police were convening. And throughout my two-day stay I saw the devastating effects of Zimbabwe's recent history.

So I rejoice to find this little poem, a reminder of the deep spirit of the Zimbabwean people.

The great Globe itself

Far Explore has a beautiful set of photographs of Shakespeare's Globe, in London. Their quality is so high that I'm considering several of them for use as wallpaper or screensavers.

I've been teaching about Shakespeare's theatre for years, so when I first walked into the new Globe, I felt an especially eerie sense of deja vu, as if I had somehow walked into a familiar painting.

(Thanks to News on the Rialto for the link.)

A flight of winding stairs . . .

. . . or a snail's tongue, photographed by Stephen Lowry--one of the winners in this year's Nikon's Small World Contest.

"Equiknot"

My friend Karmen, at Chaotic Utopia, has posted, as last week's Friday Fractal, a beautiful piece inspired by both the autumnal equinox and ancient Celtic art, especially the "Celtic knot." Be sure to see it both still and animated.

Whence beautiful complexity?

At Gallery of Computation is a gallery of art works, by Jared Tarbell, that are uniquely generated by computer programs as you watch. They are stunning examples of a new level of artistic creation in which the artist does not create just one instance of beauty but instead creates a generative program that can produce infinite instances of beauty.

The fact that the each piece of artwork emerges from very simple rules makes the artist not less significant but more significant: not every set of simple rules produces something interesting, not to mention beautiful. If we glory in the infinitely complex beauty of Tarbell's work, how much more should we glory in the infinitely complex beauty of our universe, from subatomic particles, to us, to galaxies.

Whether we posit a creator behind that beautiful complexity (Freemasons refer to "the Great Architect of the Universe"), posit (with Tillich) a "ground of being" from which complex beauty can arise, or posit our universe as one particularly interesting instance among an infinite number of existing universes, the fact of our existence and the existence of beauty around us is surely worthy of adoration and gratitude.

(To see Tarbell's works, go to the Gallery of Computation. As words appear in the white space, try moving your cursor among them, clicking on them if you wish. Or click on "Thumbnail Gallery" to see a visual index. When you see a work you like, click on it. When you arrive at its page, you'll see a large static image of just one manifestation of the work. But don't stop there. Click on "Small," "Medium," or "Large" below the image and watch a unique art object evolve. Experiment with the sizes to learn which work best on your computer.)

(Thanks to Seed magazine for the lead.)

A little part of myself will survive

Yesterday Ingmar Bergman died, at the age of 89. I remember as a boy finding a whole new world in his films: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, and others. Yesterday's New York Times quoted Bergman on his life's work:

I want to be one of the artists of the cathedral that rises on the plain. I want to occupy myself by carving out of stone the head of a dragon, an angel or a demon, or perhaps a saint; it doesn’t matter; I will find the same joy in any case. Whether I am a believer or an unbeliever, Christian or pagan, I work with all the world to build a cathedral because I am artist and artisan, and because I have learned to draw faces, limbs, and bodies out of stone. I will never worry about the judgment of posterity or of my contemporaries; my name is carved nowhere and will disappear with me. But a little part of myself will survive in the anonymous and triumphant totality. A dragon or a demon, or perhaps a saint, it doesn’t matter!

(Thanks to M. Allen Cunningham for the quotation.)

Small world

At the intersection of science and art are the stunning microphotographs in the Nikon International Small World Competition. You can become part of the event by voting on the top entries.

One of my favorites (and one that more or less matches the color scheme of this blog) is the image I've included in this posting: a photograph, by polarized light, of part of a crosscut cedar leaf, magnified 200 times. The image was created by Christian Gautier of the BIOS/PHONE Photo Agency in Le Mans, Sarthe, France.

(Thanks to Developing Intelligence for the link.)

Come in! Wander around!

The Museum of Lost Wonder, Prospero's Books' 2006 Book of the Year, has a wonderful animated tour on its Web site.

I could live there.

Come in! Wander around! Push buttons!