World Building in a Crazy World

Many of you are probably familiar with Jonathan Harris.   He is, in my mind, a genius.  While he has created a number of fantastic projects, he seems to have gotten the most press for We Feel Fine, an interactive exploration of human emotion, which also just recently became the We Feel Fine book.  If you haven’t checked it out, do.

More recently, he created a series of vignettes titled World Building in a Crazy World, which are based on a talk he gave at UCLA as part of the Mobile Media Lecture Series.  When I first came across them, I was in a cozy hotel in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome wrapping up a two week vacation and mildly dreading heading back to NYC.  After reading them, my mind shifted; I wanted to dive back into the projects I was working on and see how I could make them better.  I became “less concerned with how the world is, and more with how the world could and should be.”  As Jonathan sees it, the series is about the current state of the digital world.  As I see it, the vignettes are about life and how to be more conscious of how we live it.

Think about his points.  Soak them in.   Apply them to your life where it feels right.  I did and I’m a better person because of it.

Quotable: Charles Eames

“The details are not the details. They make the product.” -Charles Eames

The Eames.  They were innovative, modern, practical and classic.  Their house was built 60 years ago in the 1949 as part of the Case Study House Program.   It took just one-and-a-half days for eight workers to build the frame from 11 tons of steel and cost just $1 per square foot.

au revoir simone

It is very rare that a day goes by where I don’t feel blessed, fortunate or lucky.  It is only 3:28pm on this Monday afternoon and I have already felt that feeling a handful of times; it helps that I woke up to gorgeous sunny skies.  After opening the curtains, I made a delicious breakfast of fresh ricotta, thinly sliced tomatoes, fresh basil leaves and a drizzle of aged balsamic on toasted whole wheat bread.
But I’m not here to tell you that I’m in a good mood or had what I deem the perfect breakfast.  What I’m here to write about is how damn lucky I am to have so many talented and amazing friends.  Tonight, after an event at The Eldridge with the Dining and Libations Society, I’ll make my way out to Williamsburg to cheer on Au Revoir Simone, an amazingly talented group of musicians.

Our friend, Erika, who plays in the band, graduated with us from Skidmore College and we’ve been fortunate to stay in touch with her since then.  Tonight they are surprising people and doing a small show in Williamsburg.  Then they head off to Europe to release their new album, Still Night, Still Light.

Congratulations lovely ladies.  This is an amazing journey to watch from the sidelines!

You can preorder the album here.

Red Antler

I recently met the fine folks over at Red Antler, a strategic consulting group.  They’re a talented team and have worked on projects such as the email newsletter The Tasting Table and the upcoming conference 99% with Behance and our friend Tim Yu at Cool Hunting.

The Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography

The fine folks at Humble Arts Foundation have recently published The Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography, which features one of Dan’s images.  “The Collector’s Guide is an invite only, unique 180–page source book distributed to collectors, art dealers, gallery directors, photo editors, museum professionals, and independent curators. Published biennially, The Collector’s Guide aims to further Humble’s mission by bridging the gap between ambitious early-career photographers and often-unapproachable photography professionals and art institutions.”

We were lucky enough to score two copies of it at this year’s  and they are beautifully designed and contain some amazing photographers including Timothy Briner, Brian Berman and Carlo Van de Roer.

You can pick up a copy here.