Realign

Things will be changing a bit around here. New posts, as you might have noticed, have been scant the past few weeks. I’m working on pulling all of the lengthier essays into their own place for posterity and archiving, and will be using this Tumblr as a filing cabinet for interesting scraps of content and a sketchbook for ideas. I’d like this place to be a tangle of things I enjoy that braid together through their archiving to produce the ideas and examples that will be formalized in the longer written pieces. I think a nice example of that is my friend Austin Kleon’s tumblr. I’ll post again once the new site with essays has launched, but until then, I’ve found this animated gif of jellyfish and I thought you would like it.

Louis CK’s Shameful Dirty Comedy

I’ve been thinking about Louis CK lately. I’m a fan of his show on FX, and I’m so happy his recent adventure in distributing his newest comedy special himself has been a rousing success. But my thoughts are going elsewhere to wonder why he has blown up in popularity in the past couple years, and why his comedy seems to resonate with these times. It always feels like there’s a comedian willing to address contemporary concerns with insight and honesty for each moment in time. All the greats had their focus: Richard Pryor and Chris Rock had race, George Carlin had absurdity, and I think Louis has hit on some sort of subterranean undercurrent of emotion that I didn’t realize might be swelling until I listened more closely: shame.

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I was asked to speak at the AIGA National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on October 13th as part of their Emerging Designers Symposium. This is the talk I gave.

The Particle

This morning I crawled out of bed incredibly early. I guess I’m not used to the sun being this bright or I’m still on New York time. I lurched out of bed at 6:30am and started wandering through a bunch of dirt plots a few blocks from the hotel looking for some coffee. I walked into this tiny coffee shop that served crepes, the sort of place filled with locals. People come in, say hi to the dude behind the espresso machine by name, and he’s already working on their drink. Same thing every morning, and I’ve just accidentally inserted myself into these people’s ritual. So, I’m sitting there eating my crepe and this guy named Jim walks in and immediately says to the man behind the counter: “Hey Nick, I’ve got a puzzle for you this morning.”

“What’s that?” Nick replies, and Jim starts talking about moving faster than light.

“You know they have that thing now that can shoot particles faster than light, so they actually show up before they’re shot out of that gun. Totally crazy stuff. I guess if you go faster than light you can essentially time travel.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. So, I was thinking on the way over here this morning. Suppose the rest of the world still goes on like usual around that little tiny particle, but it’s shooting through space so fast that time hiccups. So, you think that the particle actually shows up in the same place in relation to the Earth’s position, or just in general to the universe?”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know. I was just thinking that if you were to time travel an hour into the past, the earth would be in a slightly different spot in the universe because it rotates and goes around the sun. So, if you disappear then reappear, are you going to be standing in front of the espresso machine like you are now, or are you going to reappear outside, because the earth shifted under your feet and cruised through space while you were time traveling?”

“What the fuck are you talking about Jim? Did you just get back from the sweat lodge?”

“Yeah.”

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The Storm and The Line

And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in.

—Haruki Murakami

I remember waking up on that day in early March. I can see myself wiping the sleep out of my eyes, splashing some water on my face, and going for my morning run. I had a flight to Texas to give a lecture. I planned on using the day in airports to begin writing my book. I would start at the beginning, I would write it in order, I would take my thoughts for a walk and get them out and onto the page. I would finally start to lace my ideas together in a way that made them better.

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Sharing and Giving, Collections and Gifts

This morning I launched a new blog called The Mavenist. Allow me to digress.

Most of our blogs, our new digital mantelpieces, are a collection of the things we find. Our collections are made public—others are given access, and we call this sharing. But it is an odd sort of sharing, where what we have found is indeed made available to others, but it is not quite a gift. A collection and a gift may both live in boxes, but they are different because the intent of each is conflicting. A collection is made for me (even if I let you look through it), while a gift is chosen for you. To truly share something is to give a gift, and if I am keeping an online collection for me, how can I make it a gift for you?

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