Sierrag's blog

Vox Hunt: Symmetry

Show us symmetry.

Walking from Gstaad

Not quite, but close.  (It's not quite centered, either.)

The best policy?

Both lying and being honest can cause problems. When being creative, you really have to lie to yourself that you think you are doing something new. If you are truly honest with yourself, you'll just look at the work of Klee, Mondrian, Duchamp, etc. and realize it's best to just keel over and disappear.

By lying to yourself, you are often able to innovate. You trick yourself into believing you are headed into something exotic and wonderful where no one has gone before. You imagine the thrill and seethe in the selfishness of seeing the chest of gold for the first time. You bask in your own glory that you are truly right and everyone else is wrong. And if you stay there too long, nobody will care for you. You are stuck in your own world. Your happiness is your happiness. That is that.

From Maeda's Simplicity blog.

QotD: Favorite Poem

What is one of your favorite poems?
Submitted by marvel is my pen name.

I made these a while ago and then totally abandoned the project of pairing favorite photos with favorite Eliot lines.  You'll probably need to click through to get a better view of the text, sine this is the largest image size Vox accommodates. 

Portrait of a Lady | Opera Garnier, Paris

Burnt Norton | Pont Alexandre III, Paris

Burnt Norton | Park an der Ilm, Weimar

This doesn't answer the QotD, but whatever.

What came first, the music or the misery?

When I was in high school, my life had a soundtrack.  Mix tapes and CDs were all the rage, and I listened to the radio every day.  I purchased my first non-classical, non-Beatles album (No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom).  Special songs attached themselves to memories: school dances, late night finishing the newspaper, friendships and romances.  Certain tracks still remind me of high school days, including music on my '90s iTunes playlist and every track on every Raygun Logics mix.

While some music sends me down memory lane, other songs that used to mean so much have faded in importance.  Things that were part of my soundtrack have re-entered the iTunes rotation without significance, no longer bringing tears to my eyes or inspiring that special sequence of dance moves.  While music has that special ability to conjure up remembrances of people, places and events, I love it too much to lose one track to a memory I'd rather forget.  Sometimes it takes a while, but I've been able to reclaim once-significant tracks for their clever lyrics or exquisite guitar work, putting aside old remembrances for the love of the song.

Other people are not that lucky, and the website Ruined Music chronicles stories of songs that will never be the same because of the painful memories they represent: Shostakovich just isn't the same after coffee with a Danish cellist; a high school senior crushes a freshman's heart and ruins Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence"; even a Beatles tune (!), tainted by the realization that the song spoke of a love that has since ended in divorce.  The stories are funny, angry, heartfelt and sad.  They remind us that music, just as often as it has the power to heal, can sometimes hurt, too.

Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable or was I miserable because I listened to pop music

So true

In the wider art world, traditional scholarship is beginning to accommodate science a little more willingly. But some experts say the friction between the two is not only about turf wars but also about fundamental differences in culture. In a 2005 discussion sponsored by the Getty Trust, Richard Stone, senior conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, argued that part of the problem was that “art historians basically do not collaborate” while science demands it.

“Collaboration is regarded by many in the humanities as equivalent to playing tennis with the net down, somehow an unsporting activity,” Mr. Stone said.

A Pollock, in the Eyes of Art and Science , New York Times

Vox Hunt: So Meta

Show us a photo of someone else taking a photo.
Submitted by ydnar.

Untitled-9

Charles and I are sitting in Union Square, waiting for Phil to show up.  Feeling kind of antsy (coffee does that to me), I pick up my Lomo and Charles starts shooting with his D-80.

DSC_0063

By this time, Phil has spotted us, and he greets us with a hint of disdain.  "Aw, you're taking pictures of each other at the same time!  How, um, cute."  So of course, the cameras both turn to him.

DSC_0065

"So, what's up, guys?" he continues.  "Where are we going?"  Silence, but for camera shutters clicking.

Untitled-3

"I can't believe you just answered my question by taking a picture of me."

Vox Hunt: It Better Be Good

What's the first image that comes up when you Google your name?

At Cover B

On Sunday I met up with one of my old bosses from Cover B in Berlin, who's in town this week for a trade show.  Over platters of colorful Korean food, we discussed the changes that the company has seen over the past three years since I left.  The office has invested in a great deal of new machinery to speed up the production process, including a lasercutter for the leather that has forced my old boss to learn CAD.  Cover B keeps pushing forward, and I'm excited to hear about what the future has in store for the company.

This picture comes up on the first Google web or image search for my full name.   Stanford thought I would make a good poster child for the Berlin internship program, so they sent a photographer to take pictures of me at work.  Here, I'm with the first handbag I designed, Venus, which continues to be one of their best-selling items.  No royalties for me since I was a lowly intern at the time, but I can at least enjoy the fact that I have designed something marketable and desirable.  It's not my favorite bag (hello, Teatime) but it was an inspiring and challenging experience that I'm still proud of today.

The woman who strayed*

It was if the audience, not the poor courtesan Violetta on stage, who suffered from consumption.

Tonight's performance of Verdi's La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera was superb, marred solely by a winter bug that kept the audience coughing through three hours of great music.  I decided to line up for student tickets on the spur of the moment (a seat in the eleventh row!), so I hadn't realized that tonight's cast featured a veteran soprano and rookie tenor, both with solid tones and great emotion.  I was happy to see a Violetta who was neither breathy nor whiny, which is common in the other productions I've seen.  Rather, soprano Hei-kyung Hong's consumptive coughs did not interfere with her singing, and her Act IV recitatives were sensitive, yet clear and convincing.  Tenor Wookyung Kim was an equal match with a voice big enough to compensate for his short stature. 

At any rate, you know me and opera--I love the stuff.  There is something about Verdi's score that gets me every time: I get chills, my heart swells, and I am in love.  That's the best way to explain it.  And the sets!  I enjoy La Traviata because half of the scenes are lavish parties which seem so fun to design (and attend).  This was the first time I'd seen an audience clap after collectively gasping at a set as it descended from the ceiling.

Speaking of set design, below is a clip from the 1982 movie  of La Traviata, starring Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas and directed by the producer/set designer of the Met's current production.  Domingo begins this section of Act I with the aria Libiamo ne' lieti calici.  It's not my favorite selection but it's probably the most recognizable music in the opera.  And it's a drinking song!

Stratas & Domingo - La Traviata

*traviare: to stray

You know you've left the Valley when...

Classmate So what does your boyfriend do?
Me He works at a startup. 
Classmate A what?
Me Oh, you know, a software startup.
Classmate ...
Me A startup company?
Classmate ...
Me Check out this button.  It has a rabbit on it.
Classmate ...

Can you tell by the new banner

that I'm working really, really hard on my thesis proposal?