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Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron & Wine combines Sam Beam’s southern gothic imagery with a more lush pop rock sound. His previous album, The Shepherd’s Dog, showed hints of this change, going from a soft spoken singer song writer to genteel rock ‘n’ roll front man. Tree By the River, Walking Far from Home and Rabbit Will Run are stand outs. Big Burned Hand is driven by a deep, funky bass line with some angry lyrics. The album fades out with a shimmering jam on Your Fake Name Is Good Enough for Me. Themes of scorn, forgiveness, sin, nature and catharsis run throughout. He’s still a folk singer telling stories in his songs.
The sound and production have matured, and it seems curious as to what he’ll do next.
Note, the Deluxe version comes with two extra songs, Black Candle and Lean Into the Light. The former feels like it could have fit into the album with similar bass lines and progressions, but Lean Into the Light feels soulful, as if it was something to make the indie rock kids sway to the backing harmonies.
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The Tao of Photography –
Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing by Philippe L. Gross, S.I. Shapiro applies Zen concepts to photography, interspersed with quotes and anecdotes from photographers that were well known for their visionary approach to what they took pictures of. Each section contains principles, applications of the principles and suggested assignments one can do to apply the principles.
The biggest takeaways from the book are the principles of Great Understanding and Little Understanding. The former refers to the unconscious and receptive nature of self. In photography this applies to composition and feeling of the subject. Little Understanding focuses on the small and immediate, this being tools and equipment available to a photographer. You need both in photography. Often, photographers focus solely on gear and techniques that they forget to seek out something larger in their work.
One way to seek something larger, to filter out unnecessary details, is to constantly discriminate to see the most basic, essential aspects of a photographic vision. Discriminating is not the same as being critical. You actively choose what is needed, not why it’s not needed.
I’d definitely recommend this book to understand a different creative approach. The quotes from famous photographers and personal stories are insightful.
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Ex-Heroes – Peter Cline
“Ex-Heroes” (Peter Clines) tells of a world overrun by zombies, and individuals with super abilities take on a seemingly powerful zombie horde through the streets of Los Angeles.
Led by Stealth, an intelligent and quick female hero, the heroes took shelter within a movie studio compound and provide protection to those they can take in. After a botched mission, the heroes suspect a rival gang is growing more powerful, and yet, the zombies begin acting with intelligence. They begin to believe certain events are related as 60,000 zombies gather and moan outside their compound.
Ex-Heroes is a pulp amalgam of zombie, super hero and pop culture references. The writing is okay, and the plot moves well. Clines stops the story to intersperse first person origin accounts of how each hero came to be. Interesting, but the voice of the characters don’t seem to change.
This is a fun book, good for a mindless read.
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Growing is Forever
A gorgeously shot, deftly narrated and appropriately soundtracked video, Growing is Forever.
Growing is Forever from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.
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Google museum view
Google takes its street view concept to the world’s top museums:
Cameras mounted on a special trolley travelled through empty galleries after the public had left, taking 360 degree images of selected rooms which were then stitched together. So far 385 rooms are navigable, and more will be added.
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A Dream Speech Deconstructed
Nancy Duarte breaks down Marin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” showing why it worked that day and still remains powerful today.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech analyzed by Nancy Duarte from Duarte Design on Vimeo.
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Five months
Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt went from a simple idea–a tripod mount for an iPhone 4–to an actual, physical product, called the Gliph, in five months.
This turnaround, from idea to market in five months by two guys with no retail or manufacturing experience, signifies a shift in the way products are made and sold — a shift only made possible in the last couple years.
Provost details the whole process. What they did when, why, how, who they had to contact. It helped that they understood design, so they could relate to the people who would make their product real. Amazing stuff.
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The Art of Non-Conformity
The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World by Chris Guillebeau tells of how you can live the creative, purposeful life you want. His advice is pretty simple: get over your fear of failure, your fear of others’ expectations, and if you want it enough, you can find a way to make it work. Perhaps Nike said it best: Just do it.
Guillebeau has some cool stories to provide insight, both personal and of those he’s met. The most important thing he believes is doing things and learning by experiences. Education and reading can provide ideas and insight, but they’re informational tools. You won’t know what works unless you do it.
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Making ideas happen
Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, written by Scott Belsky, keeps the principle that an idea and the belief in that a central, well conceived idea is the core of making things happen. The book is broken down into three sections with practical tips and anecdotes to organizing and executing, connecting with others (he calls it building a community) and leadership. The tone is confident and some times cerebral, but grounded with enough stories to visualize what he’s talking about. Those stories can apply to individuals, teams in a corporate environment or non-corporate environment.
Organization and Execution
In the first section, Belsky suggests that when you have an idea, keep focused on it and create actionable steps to build momentum and confidence. Prioritization and identifying what’s essential is key in the beginning. It’s easy to keep adding to the idea, but you’ve got to be critical and keep to what matters.Community
Don’t be afraid to partner with others. Know yourself, particularly if you’re a Dreamer (someone who can think up ideas), a Doer (someone who can execute) or an Incrementalist (someone who can do both–these are rare, he says, and he compares them to polymaths). Share ideas with others to get feedback and refine the idea. Let people in to build something bigger than just an executed plan.Leadership
Know what really motivates people when it comes to doing things–play and recognition. If someone is doing something that doesn’t feel like work, that the task or project engages someone enough, they’ll do amazing work. Recognition for hard work also motivates people. Be sure to know what skills compliment each other, and know when to have a devil’s advocate to restrain a project from overreaching. -
Rock Gods – Forty Years of Rock Photography
Rock Gods: Forty Years of Rock Photography by Robert M. Knight is a diverse collection of photos that span his entire career. He’s taken pictures of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck and many more.
He focuses on lead guitarists, and his body of work shows that, especially with his live concert shots. Knight excels at the live concert photography. He says his approach is like a journalist or someone doing a documentary, where looking at the photos afterward they come to life in a more visceral way.
In Rock Gods, he tells stories about some of his memorable shoots. Greeting Led Zeppelin in Hawaii as they walk off they plane carrying the master reels to Led Zeppelin II. Meeting Jeff Beck for the first time, after years of trying. And as he’s known for, being the last photographer to shoot Stevie Ray Vaughn.
After paging through the book, I wanted more. More of his old concert shots, more of his more recent work. For photographers, viewing Knight’s work can tell a lot about composition and lighting–what worked, what moment created that visceral feeling you get from a concert photo.
