Random Stuff
esiegel | August 23, 2015“the way to create art is to burn and destroy
ordinary concepts and to substitute them
with new truths that run down from the top of the head
and out of the heart” -Charles Bukowski
When it comes to destructive forces that are also mesmerizing and impossible to look away from, it's hard to compete with fire. Have a listen to Josh Ritter sing about one of the most common, destructive types,
Wildfires,
but consider that there's often a beauty to the destruction that's rarely captures.
Image credit: Stuart Palley, from his instagram feed at https://instagram.com/stuartpalley/.
Photographer…
esiegel | August 16, 2015“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.” -R. Buckminster Fuller
If you want to improve yourself in any area of life, it's going to take hard work to get you there. Have a listen to The Avett Brothers as they sing about it in their song,
Hard Worker.
But in some arenas, pushing yourself to your limits can wind up getting you catastrophically injured!
Image credit: YouTube / Andreas Knudsen.
If you've ever tried to max out your weight or do just one extra rep past your…
esiegel | August 9, 2015“I’d rather create a miniature painting than a Taj Mahal of a book.” -Mohsin Hamid
Life is big and intimidating in a lot of ways, but sometimes it's the small things that make us feel the most vulnerable, powerful, fragile or alive. Have a listen to KT Tunstall as she sings her song,
Miniature Disasters,
while you consider the "life-in-miniature" art of Tatsuya Tanaka.
Image credit: Tatsuya Tanaka of Miniature Calendar; original via http://miniature-calendar.com/.
By taking everyday, familiar-sized objects and recasting them as props in a creative scene, he manages to express a certain…
esiegel | August 2, 2015“Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.” -Earl Nightingale
When you think about the obstacles facing us in the world today, it's easy to look to advances in technology as the panacea. If there are waterways that need crossing, you'll build what architects have been telling us to build for generations -- as Lucy Wainwright Roche would sing -- a
Bridge.
But not all bridges are built the same.
Image credit: Flickr User Pratham Books.
In the state of Meghalaya, India, one of the wettest, rainiest places on Earth, the rivers…
esiegel | July 26, 2015“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery — air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’” -Sylvia Plath
The modern world can often make you feel like you'll never find anything good "playing by its rules" in it. This feeling is evoked, tremendously, in the songs of Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and in particular in this one,
The Southside of the World.
But artist Brian Kane is doing something to bring us back to nature, even in an urban setting.
Image credit: © 2015 Brian Kane, via http://briankane.net/healing-tool/.
Through a form of art known as "…
esiegel | July 19, 2015“Well, this is a thing unheard of. An Elf would go underground, where a Dwarf dare not. Oh, I’d never hear the end of it.” -Gimli, Lord of the Rings
When you think about the different elements present here on Earth, I hope you think about the different ways they bind together, combine, and add value to all we do. Extracting them is a great difficulty, as Uncle Tupelo will sing to you in their song,
Coalminers.
Image credit: Theodore Gray, via http://theodoregray.com/periodictable/Posters/index.posters.html.
For each pure element, there's an abundance in our Solar System that's relatively…
esiegel | July 12, 2015“Life is a festival only to the wise.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last weekend, I was actually away from the blog for a few days, something that hasn't happened except for one brief trip in March. Only this time, it was 100% for fun, as I was away at the 25 annual High Sierra Music Festival.
Image credit: Pulse Radio, via http://pulseradio.net/articles/2015/04/10-music-festivals-that-won-t-br….
For some, festivals are about the people, the atmosphere, or seeing your favorite bands. But for me? The best part was the discovery of new acts that I had never heard before. I'm so pleased, the weekend…
esiegel | June 27, 2015“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.” -Bruce Lee
One of the greatest tricks that filmmakers use to enhance what can be shown in apparent real-time is that of stop-motion. Frame-by-frame, objects or people are carefully posed, enabling you to create an animated wonderland of feats otherwise unattainable by the people in question.
Image credit: Mortal Kombat 3.
But as far as epic karate fights go, Collider Digital has taken this to an…
esiegel | June 21, 2015“A princess is many things, and a raptor is one of them.” -Laura Cooper
For those of us who love the movies, there are two things that are indelibly etched into our memories -- not necessarily together -- as Galactic, featuring Chali 2na, sing to us, if we
Think Back.
I'm referring, of course, to Disney princesses and the terrifying velociraptors of Jurassic Park.
Image credit: Laura Cooper, via http://xpwebcomic.com/gallery/.
But this weekend, I'm proud to highlight the work of Laura Cooper, who decided to combine these two together in brilliant form, creating velociprincesses for many…
esiegel | June 14, 2015“Laughs don’t come in barrels. They come from inside you as your body’s response to delight.” -Pinkie Pie
Every once in a while, a constraint is placed on an artist, musician or creator that results in something more powerful than you would have ever found otherwise. Have a listen to Keller Williams' wonderful song,
Slo Mo Balloon,
while you consider the constraint inherent to... balloon animals?
Image credit: Masayoshi Matsumoto, via his tumblr at http://isopresso.tumblr.com/.
Artist Masayoshi Matsumoto has begun creating balloon creatures -- animals, plants, even humans and fantasy…
esiegel | June 7, 2015“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti
If you want to learn something -- whether it's abstract or concrete, solving a problem or creating something -- that you don't already know, it often involves ridding yourself of your preconceptions of how such a thing ought to work. Often, it outright involves unlearning or overriding something you previously thought was true. Have a listen to Ray Lamontagne, as he…
esiegel | May 31, 2015“The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that’s the theory. 900 years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.” -Steven Moffat
They say that the best things in life are free, and I'm a firm believer in that. In fact, that's part of the reason I think the stories I'm always telling -- about the Universe, how it is, how we know it, and how it came to be -- should be free as well. But I'm not going to lie: in terms of effort, time, energy, and (for my contributors) money, telling…
esiegel | May 24, 2015“I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reason can be found.” -John Forbes Nash, Jr.
Yet logic and reason -- when applied correctly -- can get us incredibly far. Have a listen to Supertramp singing their unique hit,
The Logical Song,
while you consider the islander problem from TV's Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Image credit: E. Siegel.
“There are 12 men on an island. 11 weigh exactly the same amount, but one of them is slightly lighter or heavier. You must figure out which. The…
esiegel | May 17, 2015“That’s what you get for being food.” -Margaret Atwood
Sure, we need food to live. But in our world of highly processed, easily-accessible foods, unless we're doing the prep and cooking ourselves, it's easy to lose touch with what the raw ingredients are actually all about. Have a listen to Australia-based band, The Middle East's amazing tune,
Pig Food,
while you consider the artistic achievement of the Dutch duo: Lernert & Sanders.
Image credit: Lernert & Sander, via http://lernertandsander.com/cubes/.
By taking 98 different foods and constructing 2.5 cm cubes out of them, they'…
esiegel | May 10, 2015“The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.” -Grand Moff Tarkin
Sure, the Death Star was the most fearsome battle station in the Universe, for a time. Capable of destroying a planet with a single blast from its (certainly antimatter-based) super laser, it was the most powerful force of destruction, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Image credit: Lucasfilm / Star Wars: Episode IV, a New Hope. (Motion Picture); imgflip gif by E. Siegel.
But what about when the war ended? Surely, as we all…
esiegel | May 3, 2015“When I was a kid, my world was five streets long. I never got away, except in books. I lived a thousand lives through books.” -George R.R. Martin
If you aren't enthralled by Game of Thrones (or for you bibliophiles, A Song of Fire and Ice), have I ever got an introduction for you. First, enjoy the Forte Tenors sing their tribute to the title theme of the show -- in high Valyrian -- along with a spectacular spectacle of a music video:
And then imagine this spectacular world... in the Walt Disney Universe!
Image credit: Fernando Mendonça, of Bran Stark with Hodor.
Quite fantastically, two…
esiegel | April 26, 2015“People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Humans are part of the natural world, and yet although the natural world is hard and unforgiving in many ways, it's also abundant and generous. It all depends on your point of view and what your reaction to it is. Have a listen to Ben Harper's delightful, bittersweet tune,
Welcome to the Cruel World,
while you think about the upcoming summer, and the potential treats bound to ensue…
esiegel | April 21, 2015The biggest, most surprising revolution that came along with the development of quantum theory, quantum mechanics and later, quantum field theory, was the overthrowing of the idea of a deterministic Universe, replacing it with a Universe where only a probability distribution of outcomes could be theoretically known, even if you knew all the initial conditions of a system.
Image credit: Institute of Physics (IOP), via http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/apr/16/alice-and-bob-comm….
But one of the most intriguing concepts to come along with this was borne out through Niels Bohr's…
esiegel | April 19, 2015“Exploring this set I certainly never had the feeling of invention. I never had the feeling that my imagination was rich enough to invent all those extraordinary things on discovering them. They were there, even though nobody had seen them before. It’s marvelous, a very simple formula explains all these very complicated things. So the goal of science is starting with a mess, and explaining it with a simple formula, a kind of dream of science.” -Benoit Mandelbrot
Sure, there are things we can say or describe, whether mathematically, physically or in words. But sometimes, you need a lot more…
esiegel | April 12, 2015“My love for you would blot out the sun like a cloud made out of yogurt. I hope you brought a spoon.” -Jarod Kintz
There's so much we take for granted in the world, that often we don't appreciate how important sticking together is. Let Robert Plant and Alison Krauss remind you, with their joint song,
Stick With Me Baby.
By the same token, sticking together isn't something that's always desirable.
Image credit: Fox News, via http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/03/24/8-uses-for-yogurt-containers/.
Sure, how convenient and simple it is to have something as labor intensive delivered to you in…