We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to DieWe Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die

Voice of Sean: Ok, let me say this… If I lost my wife and, uh, the next day, a little bird landed on my windowsill, looked me right in the eye, and in plain English said, ‘Sean, it’s me, Anna. I’m back’ What could I say? I guess I’d believe her. Or I’d want to. I’d be stuck with a bird. But other than that, no. I’m a man of science. I just don’t believe that mumbo-jumbo. Now, that’s gonna have to be the last question. I need to go running before I head home.

While you wait for the others
To make it all worthwhile
All your useless pretentions
Are weighing on my time
You could beg for forgiveness
As long as you like
Or just wait out the evening
You’ll always ask me why
Yes you’ll only bleed me dry
So I’ll ask you kindly to make your way

And what was there
The perfect cleft
We all fall through

While you wait on the answers
That I’ll pretend to find
Keeping up with emotions
Still occupies our time
You could hope for substance
As long as you like
Or just wait out the evening
You’ll always ask me why
Yes you’ll only bleed me dry
I’ll ask you kindly to make your way

And what was left
The perfect cleft
We all fall through

And all we want

And what was there
And what was there
And what was there

This book doesn't exist. Could you please write it for me? I want to read it.

The Mundane Science Fiction Manifesto

• That interstellar travel remains unlikely; that Warp drives, worm holes, and other forms of faster-than-light travel are wish fulfillment fantasies rather than serious speculation about a possible future.
• That unfounded speculation about interstellar travel can lead to an illusion of a universe abundant with worlds as hospitable to life as this Earth. This is also viewed as unlikely.
• That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth.
• That there is no evidence whatsoever of intelligences elsewhere in the universe. That absence of evidence is not evidence of absence — however, it is considered unlikely that alien intelligences will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can.
• That interstellar trade (and colonization, war, federations, etc.) is therefore highly unlikely.
• That communication with alien intelligences over such vast distances will be vexed by: the enormous time lag in exchange of messages and the likelihood of enormous and probably currently unimaginable differences between us and aliens.
• That there is no present evidence whatsoever that quantum uncertainty has any effect at the macro level and that therefore it is highly unlikely that there are whole alternative universes to be visited.
• That therefore our most likely future is on this planet and within this solar system, and that it is highly unlikely that intelligent life survives elsewhere in this solar system. Any contact with aliens is likely to be tenuous, and unprofitable.
• That the most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet.

“The Infinite Library is an ongoing project by Daniel Gustav Cramer and Haris Epaminonda. It is primarily an expanding archive of books, each created out of pages of one or more found books and bound anew. The online catalogue serves as an index.”

Living well is the best revenge.

Debemos interrogar al ladrillo, al cemento, al vidrio, a nuestros modales en la mesa, a nuestros utensilios, a nuestras herramientas, a nuestras ocupaciones, a nuestros ritmos. Interrogar lo que ha dejado de sorprendernos. Es cierto que vivimos, es cierto que respiramos; caminamos, abrimos puertas, bajamos escaleras, nos sentamos a una mesa para comer, nos acostamos en una cama para dormir. ¿Cómo? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué?

Describa su calle. Describa después otra. Compare.

Haga el inventario de sus bolsillos, de su bolsa. Interróguese de dónde proviene el uso y el devenir de cada uno de los objetos que saque de ellos.

Pregunte a sus cucharillas.

¿Qué hay sobre su papel tapiz?

¿Cuántos gestos hay que hacer para marcar un número telefónico? ¿Por qué?

¿Por qué no venden cigarros en las panaderías? ¿Por qué no?

Me importa poco que esas preguntas sean fragmentarias, apenas indicativas de un método o cuando mucho de un proyecto. Me importa mucho que parezcan triviales o fútiles: es precisamente eso lo que las hace más esenciales que muchas otras a través de las cuales hemos intentado inútilmente decir nuestra verdad.

Mi chiste favorito de todos los tiempos

Someone: “The garbage men are here”
Groucho: “Tell them we don’t want any”.

Artículo sobre Ricky Jay en el New Yorker.

Ben Pieratt, editor del excelente The Book Cover Archive, ha listado a varios diseñadores de libros presentes en twitter. Hay varios superhéroes de las portadas en la lista, pero si se te ocurre alguno más, los comentarios están abiertos para ampliarla.

Para leer antes de viajar (en el tiempo)

Dos artículos muy prácticos que deberías leer antes de poner en marcha tu máquina del tiempo:

• Los Problemas Filosóficos del Viaje en el Tiempo
• Análisis de las Paradojas del Viaje en el Tiempo

Tres invitaciones para mi último proyecto, la Oficina Nacional de Asuntos Temporales.

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ONDAT-34MBZVBG

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PD: Si no sabes de qué va, lee esta página.

Un grupo de flickr con una enorme colección de objetos diseñados por Dieter Rams.

Although I liked Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play Willy Wonka. The script was good, but there was something that was bothering me. Mel Stuart, the man who was going to direct the movie, came to my home to talk about it.

“What’s bothering you?”

“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk towards the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees that Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk towards them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself … but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.”

“ … Why do you want to do that?”

“Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

David Pearson ha producido una nueva hornada de deliciosas portadas violeta para la cuarta entrega de la colección ‘Great Ideas’ de Penguin.

Fotos y citas de superhéroes.

You cannot fuck the future

Hugo: Had you vision as well as sight, you would recognize within me not only a man, but an institution and the future as well.

Steve: Fuck you, fuck the institution, and fuck the future!

Hugo: You cannot fuck the future, sir. The future fucks you.

Lies I've told my 4 year old recently

The mole men live in the subways.

The bird men live in the skies.

The monster doesn’t actually live under the bed (he’s hiding somewhere else).

If you sing enough, you will never grow old.

There are 71 flavors of snow, but only 63 flavors of water.

When we made you, we left part of ourselves behind so you would never be lonely.

Don’t worry, I lock up bad dreams in little cages.

Your shadow knows your secrets.

Time moves faster when close your eyes.

You knew everything, but then you were born and forgot, and now you have to learn again.

Be nice to your brother, he will always be your best friend.

We’re not lost.

Moms and Dads never really get lost.

We know exactly where we’re going.

Nicholas Feltron

Fanáticos de los mapas, los diagramas y las infografías: no os perdáis el tumblelog de Nicholas Feltron.

Guión cromático de Up, por Lou Romano

Además del precioso guión cromático que realizó para Up (¡y que no deberías mirar si aún no has visto la película!) Lou Romano ha colgado en su cuenta de Youtube un puñado de animaciones que se usaron para indicar la iluminación de cada escena del film.

Where the Wild Things Are

Cáspita, hay un nuevo tráiler de “Where the Wild Things Are”.

“My pictures are painstakingly created frame by frame on 35mm film. I get the whole film developed, scan it, then piece the final image together on the computer, making a large contact sheet. It’s only when the completed film strips are laid out side by side in the contact sheets that the final image appear.

Each work usually takes months to complete, as each frame is obsessively taken in sequence. No pasting together after the event, no cheating in Photoshop!
If I make a mistake or take a frame out of place I start the film again from the beginning.”

I don’t think about what camera I should use that much. I just pick up the one that looks nicest on the day.

Rhonda

Tengo unas ganas locas de probar Rhonda.

Track Your Happiness.org is a new scientific research project that investigates what makes life worth living.

Using this site, you’ll be able to track your happiness and find out what factors – for you personally – are associated with greater happiness. You’ll also contribute to our scientific understanding of happiness.

Slave

a slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

I had no dreams

and the whole world opened up before me because i had no dreams.

How to get started—just started—with any project that really matters to you.

Comidas Bonitas

Si estás a dieta mejor no entres.

SPECIAL ADVISORY TO FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, COMPETITORS, CONFIDANTS AND PRIOR SEXUAL PARTNERS of MR. WARE:

Every effort has been made to cleanse all pages of any incrimination or diatribe towards, against or around your person, though admittedly this book was assembled largely at night in the hot attic of the author’s ‘atelier’, and, as such, may accidentally proffer some mild error of judgment or prudence; please be assured that such cases are in no way intentional, even if they make Mr. Ware appear especially good by contrast and/or wholly rewrite the course of events as they actually transpired (now rendered, of course, obsolete.) We appreciate your understanding.

Islas

Islas
Islas
Islas donde jamás tomaremos tierra
Islas donde no bajaremos jamás
Islas cubiertas de vegetaciones
Islas agazapadas como jaguares
Islas mudas
Islas inmóviles
Islas inolvidables y sin nombre
Lanzo mis zapatos por la borda queriendo llegar hasta vosotras.

Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!

A THIRD cause of common Errors is the Credulity of men, that is, an easie assent to what is obtruded, or a believing at first ear, what is delivered by others. This is a weakness in the understanding, without examination assenting unto things, which from their Natures and Causes do carry no perswasion; whereby men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, feasibilities for possibilities, and things impossible as possibilities themselves. Which, though the weakness of the Intellect, and most discoverable in vulgar heads; yet hath it sometime fallen upon wiser brains, and great advancers of Truth. Thus many wise Athenians so far forgot their Philosophy, and the nature of humane production, that they descended unto belief, that the original of their Nation was from the Earth, and had no other beginning then the seminality and womb of their great Mother. Thus is it not without wonder, how those learned Arabicks so tamely delivered up their belief unto the absurdities of the Alcoran. How the nobleGeber, Avicenna, and Almanzor, should rest satisfied in the nature and causes of Earthquakes, delivered from the doctrine of their Prophet; that is, from the motion of a great Bull, upon whose horns all earth is poised. How their faiths could decline so low, as to concede their generations in Heaven, to be made by the smell of a Citron, or that the felicity of their Paradise should consist in a Jubile of copulation, that is, a coition of one act prolonged unto fifty years. Thus is it almost beyond wonder, how the belief of reasonable creatures, should ever submit unto Idolatry: and the credulity of those men scarce credible (without presumption of a second Fall) who could believe a Deity in the work of their own hands. For although in that ancient and diffused adoration of Idols, unto thePriests and subtiler heads, the worship perhaps might be symbolical, and as those Images some way related unto their Deities; yet was the Idolatry direct and down-right in the people; whose credulity is illimitable, who may be made believe that any thing is God; and may be made believe there is no God at all.

Salinger’s Design Clause

In the 1950s Salinger had a clause put in his publisher’s contracts that insisted only the text of the title of the book and his name were to appear on any future editions of his work, and absolutely no images. This hard line was particularly prompted by an early fatal experience with a publisher who covered a collection of short stories, then titled for Esmé – with Love and Squalour (after one of them) with a dramatic illustrated portrait of a seductive blonde. Salinger’s outrage is understandable: his Esmé is a precocious young girl of seven, and the story depicts a chance encounter and redemptive conversation with a solider on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, it’s instructive to see how various publishers and nationalities have dealt with Salinger’s legal one-liner over the past half-decade of reprints and new editions.

• musicish: a demo
• musicad: music that is written for advertising
• musicomm: music that is essentially just a commercial venture. eg x factor, american idol.
• musicough: music performed in concert halls
• musiclient: music written for dry functional events. eg british aerospace promotional videos.
• amusic: pop music
• musicall: unchallenging music that just wants to be loved by millions. eg andrew lloyd webber.
• musicamen: music with a religious function
• musicate: music that seeks only to replicate a genre.
• musicart: music that tries not to be music.
• musick: music used as a tool for oppression
• musicash: music performed live while an audience doesn’t listen
• musicable: music played by musicians for the principle enjoyment of other musicians.
• musicahh: music designed to calm the listener.
• musicaling: music for the under 10’s.
• musicle: repitetive music serving a public function. eg big ben.

Display typeface constructed from a personal tie collection. A large amount of the collection was acquired from my dad, the rest bought at flea markets, thrift stores with a few brand new purchases sprinkled throughout. I hope to soon extend this project to add alternates, numbers and ligatures as the collection grows.

So, you’re in love with one of your friends, but she has a boyfriend and probably wouldn’t have sex with you anyway.

What you will need: 1 x knife, 1 x ring, access to a sunbed, the ability to grow a beard.

Easy Solutions #1

Había un tío, lo llamaban Karamanlis, o algo así: ¿Karatoro? ¿Karavaka? ¿Karagüevo? Bueno, Karaalgo. En todo caso, no era un nombre cualquiera, era de esos que se te quedan, que no olvidas así como así.