I recently came across this fabulous solar powered “do-nothing machine”, designed in 1957 by American design duo Ray and Charles Eames (yet again via aeon.co):
Here you can find a few more photos of this phantastic machine. I very much like the idea that what on first sight appears like a “toy” that “does nothing” represents the very essence of creativity and innovation. In other words, it is ONLY by providing space and time for play or for “nothingness”, that the possibility for SOMEthing new is actually created. Think about it when you come across one of those articles that insist how bad mind-wandering is for children.
Here’s a “Nightcap” from Elmer Bernstein (who might have written the jazzy piece featured in the short movie):
Still live (Stillleben) ist maybe the better synopsis for our present days than “dead nature”. But lets listen to the fabulous Dorothy Ashby while we think:
What is life, what is nature? Certainly not something “orderly” or “ordered”. More like a heap of stuff some greek goddess on speed has arranged on her dining table in her delirium after coming home from a much too long olympian party-weekend. Voilà:
Beaver is drunk again. As usual …
So lets see what we have here … makes little sense, does it? Although it’s always good to have a pomegranate. I like to say pomegranate. The accent is on the “o” as I was once politely reminded by a native speaker. All these objects that our divine party-girl – lets call her Tachophilia 😉 – has spewn out of her cornucopia carry their story, some more meaningful than others. More will be added, some will be lost – it matters not. What’s more crazy than the cacophonic bonkersness of the heap for me is: disturb the heap, and everyone will go “woooooooaaaa, can’t touch the heap, give us back our normal heap, we don’t want the heap to change!”.
– Okidoki, Tachophilia, please give them back their usual heap.
Tachophilia: “But it was a fucked-up heap of junk, including a socio-economic system in which the rich get ever richer and the poor get ever poorer and which is built on a dogma of “always more” and limit-less growth and production, which is obviously ka-waaaazy for a world with limits, you realize that even when you’re on all the alphabet! That’s what they want back?”
– Yep, that’s what they want. They got used to unfair. Can’t touch the heap. Scared of all non-heap business. Want it back.
Tachophilia: “Ok.” (*boinc*)
Boinc is the sound when Tachophilia makes “evil” jump back into Pandora’s beauty-case and transforms humankind back into it’s state of denial, worshiping it’s own destructive powers.
At this point I could say “Good night, and good luck”, but friends of old, you should know me, I’m not as malicious as to send you to bed with such bitter thoughts, am I?
Instead, I give you two things: 1) a recipe for a nice Quarantini, and 2) more Dorothy to listen to while you sip your Martinez. Enjoy. Qui vit sans folie, n’est pas si sage qu’il croit.
P.S.: I’m 43 now. Please don’t expect this blog to make more “sense” in the future. 😉
Nach den Schneerosen, den Krokussen, dem Klee, der Kamelie und den Schachbrettblumen, haben sich die Hyazinthen, die Kirsche und der Mandelbaum bunt aufgehübscht. Diverse kleine Tulpen, Fritillarias, Johannisbeeren (Ribiseln) und der Flieder machen sich bereit. Es ist eben trotzdem Frühling:
Trinket alle daraus (aber hofft nicht auf ewiges Leben – es ist die Hölle).
Hier ist er übrigens gefunden, der “Heilige Gral”. Bernie’s search for the Holy Grail. Ist die Suche deshalb zu Ende? Oder: wurde sie jemals begonnen? Die Geheimnisse des Lebens sind – wenn überhaupt – immer ganz klein gedruckt, in Nebensätzen von längst vergilbten Büchern (und blogs), geschrieben in Sprachen, die niemand mehr spricht oder die wenigsten die Geduld haben zu erlernen. Meist frappieren sie in ihrer Ähnlichkeit zu Trivialitäten … wer hat denn die Blüten wirklich angesehen? Natürlich ist die “dragon scroll” ein leeres Blatt Papier, der Heilige Gral eine leere Flasche Wein. “Kommt noch etwas im Leben?” – Natürlich nicht! Oder solltest vielleicht zum leb’n vagess’n ham?
… et l’enfer, c’est les autres, comme vous le remarquez tous en ce moment à la maison:
Och när han kommer (“Vänta ett ögonblick! – Så säger ju alla!”), du kan ju försöka att spela schack med honom, men … jag rekommenderar att bara följa med honom, som med en gamla vän (Är du beredd?):
