Richter: Painting What's Fun
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Do you know what was just great? — To notice that such a stupid, absurd little act like copying a postcard can result in a painting. And then the freedom to be able to paint what’s fun. Deer, aeroplanes, kings, secretaries. Not having to invent anything any longer, forgetting everything one understands by the concept of painting: colour, composition, spatial depth; and everything else that one knew and thought. That was suddenly no longer a prerequisite for art.
<div class="
image-block-outer-wrapper
layout-caption-hidden
design-layout-inline
">
<figure class="
sqs-block-image-figure
intrinsic
" style="max-width:500px;">
<div style="padding-bottom:100%;" class="
image-block-wrapper
has-aspect-ratio
">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/62f03-image-asset.jpeg" alt="" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="" />
</div>
</figure>
</div>
Above: My own snapshots of a photograph in Atlas (partial) and Richter’s resulting painting, “Sekretärin” (partial), which we saw in Dresden in 2010.
Jason Fried on a Reader's Motivation
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Customers come to learn something, research something, consider something, buy something. If they are motivated, they may not mind spending 5 minutes reading. They want to read, they want to know. They’re OK investing their time to find something out if they really care about the answer.
The Ecosystem Known As Reading
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Andrew Piper, writing in Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times:
Books will always be there. That is what they are by definition: there. Whether in the classroom, the library, the archive, the bookstore, the warehouse, or online, it is our choice, however, where books will be. It is time to stop worrying and start thinking. It is time to put an end to the digital utopias and print eulogies, bookish venerations and network gothic, and tired binaries like deep versus shallow, distributed versus linear, or slow versus fast. Now is the time to understand the rich history of what we have thought books have done for us and what we think digital texts might do differently. We need to remember the diversity that surrounds reading and the manifold, and sometimes strange, tools upon which it has historically been based. The question is not one of “versus,” of two antagonists squaring off in a ring; rather, the question is far more ecological in nature. How will these two very different species and their many varieties coexist within the greater ecosystem known as reading?
The Risks of Rereading
Sunday, February 10, 2013
I really like this bit from Katherine Boo, taken from her interview for the New York Times Book Review’s “By the Book” series:
I was working my butt off trying to investigate the violent deaths of some homeless children, under circumstances that had been covered up by the police, when I reached the section of “2666” entitled “The Part About the Crimes.” It begins with a relentless, near-forensic account of corpses and injustices (closely based on the murders of poor women in Juarez) that opens out into this fevered exploration of both the psychological cost of paying attention to the tragedies of others and the social cost of looking away. That section of the book undid me so thoroughly that I’ll probably never reread it, even though I surely grasped only a sliver of what Bolaño was trying to say. And I suppose that’s the built-in sorrow of my life’s most profound encounters with books, beginning with “A Wrinkle in Time” in third grade. To reread what you loved most at a particular moment is to risk the possibility that you might love it less, and I want to keep my memories undegraded.
Asimov: Why Wine
Thursday, January 24, 2013
From Eric Asimov’s How to Love Wine, which I quite enjoyed:
To assert that tasting notes amount to an “intellectual dissection” of a wine is to ignore the fact that the more specific the description of flavors and aromas, the less one is actually saying about a wine and what it has to offer. People drink wine for many reasons. It makes them happy, it cheers them up, it is delicious, it makes meals better, it is intoxicating, it enhances friendships, it serves a spiritual purpose, and that is only the beginning. Wine can be transporting. It can, in one glass, embody culture, science, economics, personality, history, and much more. Fine wines stimulate conversation. We may be moved to debate what makes it so fine. But very rarely, if ever, does a true intellectual dissection of wine consist of sticking one’s beak into a glass and reciting the components of a cornucopia.
Remnick: "Scenes from the Inauguration"
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Not content with being The New Yorker’s EIC, David Remnick remains — even in “a few thoughts” blog post sent from a returning train — one of its sharpest writers.
Yep, Retailers Can Have Editors-in-Chief
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The Independent profiles Jeremy Langmead, the former editor of Wallpaper* and Esquire.
For a little over two years, Langmead has been editor-in-chief of Mr Porter, the men’s fashion division of Net-a-Porter. It now produces a weekly online magazine, The Journal, in addition to a 40-page print edition called The Mr Porter Post (soon to grow to 80 pages), an electronic missive that goes out three times a week, an annual paperback and an iPad app called The Tux (featuring an interactive guide to knotting a bow tie).
As to whether this is “journalism,” a question this article (and this one) poses, I think it’s clearly not. It’s not independent. What it can be, though, is compelling and creative, thoughtfully structured and well-edited. It’s not “brand journalism,” as some people put it. It’s content with a strong editorial sensibility.
Favorite Photos From Our Year in Europe
Saturday, January 12, 2013
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/fdc28-schenkenberg-europe-1.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-europe-1.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-europe-1.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/d27d5-schenkenberg-familia.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-familia.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-familia.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/19e72-schenkenberg-mies-barcelona.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-mies-barcelona.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-mies-barcelona.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/1bd2a-schenkenberg-jewish-museum.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-jewish-museum.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-jewish-museum.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/b99ca-schenkenberg-pernzlauerberg.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-pernzlauerberg.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-pernzlauerberg.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/3a02b-schenkenberg-berlin-bode.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-berlin-bode.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-berlin-bode.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/8c4e6-schenkenberg-dresden.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-dresden.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-dresden.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/277d0-schenkenberg-calella.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-calella.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-calella.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/4a937-schenkenberg-gradiska.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-gradiska.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-gradiska.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="margin-wrapper">
<a class="image-slide-anchor content-fill">
<img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/40283-schenkenberg-laktasi.jpg" alt="schenkenberg-laktasi.jpg" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="schenkenberg-laktasi.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
</div>
#block-yui_3_17_2_1_1484599181470_475466 .sqs-gallery-block-grid .sqs-gallery-design-grid { margin-right: -20px; } #block-yui_3_17_2_1_1484599181470_475466 .sqs-gallery-block-grid .sqs-gallery-design-grid-slide .margin-wrapper { margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; }
Feeling nostalgic about our time living in Europe during 2010 and 2011, I decided to post a few of my favorite photos from that time. Having done so, I’m now also feeling lucky.
