Inspir.es

"I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the..."

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:53:23 -0500

“I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us. I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how—because we can’t write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That’s what has driven me.”

- Steve Jobs

Beirut - Goshen You’re the face in stone, through the...

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:56:00 -0500

Beirut - Goshen

You’re the face in stone, through the land I own.
You never found it home.
You’re not the girl I used to know.

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Casual Work Environment

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:36:41 -0500

Andrea: helllo dave are ou there?
Tim: Is that French?
Tim: Oh, NVM. I saw your email. It's drunk :)
Andrea: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, i'm very drunk and i'm tryring to fugures our how ot turn off adds'
Andrea: i'm taking a vacation from friday-monday
Tim: Haha, I'll get your ads.
Andrea: dear tim, i love you very mush
Dave: Wowza

Palace Brothers - All is Grace The blessed grace of waking...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:20:04 -0500

Palace Brothers - All is Grace

The blessed grace of waking up—of breathing in the sheets. And hello to you, at the window, hello to you.

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"The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies;..."

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:47:00 -0500

“

The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

”

- Steve Jobs - Fortune, Jan 24, 2000

If you need inspiration to drop out of an Ivy League school and...

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:21:00 -0500

If you need inspiration to drop out of an Ivy League school and move to the middle of nowhere, I’m your man.

Just do me a favor and tell your mom first, okay?

Al Green - I Want To Hold Your Hand Download

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:32:00 -0500

Al Green - I Want To Hold Your Hand

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"Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in..."

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:04:36 -0500

“Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion.”

- Walter Benjamin - One Way Street

Iron and Wine - Die If you haven’t seen Beginners yet, you...

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:56:00 -0500

Iron and Wine - Die

If you haven’t seen Beginners yet, you should.

This song isn’t in the movie. But it’s a good, sad song. And Beginners is a good, sad movie.

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We skipped out on the gambling/whores/Prada stores of Las Vegas...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:05:07 -0500

We skipped out on the gambling/whores/Prada stores of Las Vegas to go see Hoover Dam last weekend. Here’s a poorly assembled panorama of Peter spelling HOOVER.

My late-20’s will be remembered as the phase of my life...

Tue, 24 May 2011 11:59:00 -0500

My late-20’s will be remembered as the phase of my life where I did boring things in fun places.

One True Thing

Fri, 20 May 2011 13:08:33 -0500

One True Thing:

Sometimes when I ask people about the majors they picked in college, I get an answer—regardless of the major—akin to “because it’s like, just so fundamental, you know?” The neuroscientist thinks, the brain, the brain! Everything starts with the brain. The writer thinks, where would we be without language, without the ability to communicate our ideas? The investment banker thinks, money runs the world, and he who commands it shapes the entire planet. The environmentalist thinks, none of this would matter if we didn’t have an earth to live on. The designer thinks, everything is designed and design can solve all the world’s problems.

"Darwin’s notebooks lie at the tail end of a long and fruitful tradition that peaked in..."

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:18:44 -0500

“Darwin’s notebooks lie at the tail end of a long and fruitful tradition that peaked in Enlightenment-era Europe, particularly in England: the practice of maintaining a “commonplace” book. Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters — just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. The great minds of the period — Milton, Bacon, Locke — were zealous believers in the memory-enhancing powers of the commonplace book. In its most customary form, “commonplacing,” as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. There is a distinct self-help quality to the early descriptions of commonplacing’s virtues: maintaining the books enabled one to “lay up a fund of knowledge, from which we may at all times select what is useful in the several pursuits of life.””

- Where Good Ideas Come From

If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard.

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:49:28 -0500

English muffin pizzas on the grill

Hammock

Raised bed garden

Chandelier

If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard.

What Should I Do With My Life?

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:45:00 -0600

What Should I Do With My Life?:

I wanted to be an engineer. My uncle Jack was an engineer, and I love my uncle Jack.

When Uncle Jack’s family visited from Minnesota, he and I would play catch. Sometimes we’d even play a modified, capitalist version of the game 500. Jack would throw a tennis ball (or baseball, as I got older)…

I wrote this for the Real HQ blog.

Slow Club - Let’s Fall Back In Love And although you are...

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:13:00 -0600

Slow Club - Let’s Fall Back In Love

And although you are so near
In everything you do
All your doubts and fears I hope some day stop haunting you

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Close encounters on my walk to the grocery store…

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:29:35 -0600

Close encounters on my walk to the grocery store…

Everything is One Big Christmas Tree - The Magnetic...

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:26:00 -0600

Everything is One Big Christmas Tree - The Magnetic Fields

Nein, vielleicht ist Alles nicht ein Traum
Ist Alles ein Albtraum? Nicht, nicht!
Alles ist ein großer Tannenbaum
Rotierend im Weltraumgeschichte

In English?

No, maybe not all a dream
Is all a nightmare? No, no!
Everything is a big tree
Rotating in space history

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"The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of..."

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:34:00 -0600

“The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.”

- David Foster Wallace - A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

Matt's Dream

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 01:09:00 -0600

Matt just sent me an email about a dream he had last night. A dream that painted a “perfect picture of our friendship and respective personalities” he said - and I agree.

Here’s Matt describing his dream:

We were both going to Alamo Drafthouse to see Black Swan (a movie I really want to see). We were walking up just as the movie is starting and we see a disheveled man sitting there - waiting for tickets to a shitty movie that won’t be premiering for 2 days. It’s like Twilight or something but he’s been camping out for a week already so he’s obviously crazy in love with the movie.

Anyway, I’m heading inside so I won’t miss any of Black Swan but you start talking to the guy about some bullshit like why he’s so interested in the movie and how this obsession affects his life blah blah blah. I peek inside the theatre and the movie is starting so I begin to act like my usual “have to be on time for everything” self and go back to find you and hopefully drag you inside.

By this point, you’d decided to perform a “social experiment” with the gentleman outside and have lost any and all interest in the movie we were going to see. You’ve discovered he’s not very well off and this movie is one of the few things he enjoys in life. So you, realizing as much as me how stupid the movie is, proceed to offer him money to not watch the film ever.

In the end you pay him several THOUSAND dollars to leave and go home and never see this movie. The whole time I’m dumbfounded that you would waste so much money on something so crazy.

I’m pretty sure I called you a dumbass and then I woke up.