Red Floor

 A few of my relatives in Kolkata still have red oxide floors in their homes. Visiting them is like time travel because those floors are such a rarity these days. They generally have the teak and mahogany furniture along with a lot of brass and copper utensils in the kitchen. I love that they have not allowed themselves to modernize and turn pedestrian.

Somewhere along the way, red oxide floors slipped quietly out of fashion. Mosaic, marble, vitrified tiles took over. Oxide floors came to be seen as old-fashioned, even embarrassing, a sign that a house hadn’t “kept up.” The irony, of course, is that what was dismissed as dated turns out to be remarkably aligned with contemporary obsessions: eco-friendly materials, low maintenance, longevity, and a tactile sense of place. What we once abandoned in the name of progress now looks classy and signs of the home-owner's pride in their heritage.

The Hindu article traces how oxide flooring still survives in pockets of India carried forward by a shrinking pool of skilled workers and architects willing to insist on it. It’s not staging a comeback so much as refusing to die. The barriers are practical: the process is slow, it’s done in situ, and it demands craft. There’s no shortcut, no factory finish to hide mistakes. In a world optimized for speed and standardization, not many will go the extra mile for this kind of nostalgia. My parents did not even give it a passing consideration when they build their home in Kolkata. To them it was just impractical.

I've always loved how beautifully these floors age. Unlike tiles that chip or marble that stains, oxide floors mellow. They grow smoother with time, acquiring a soft sheen that makes the home feel warm, cozy and lived in. They give a sense of permannce and stability that I always valued in my world. 

Arresting Vision

My uncle first showed me a book of photographs by Raghu Rai when I was in high school. I remember being completely mesmerized as we turned the pages, each image arresting complete attention. I had received a camera as a gift that year and this was his way of teaching me how to really see things. How there is extraordinary potential in the mundane even sordid that makes up life. Rai took pictures of people in settings that we would not ordinarily consider noteworthy but what he saw through the lens transformed it into the sublime.

That was the story of every photograph in the book. How the essence of the moment was captured to such a degree of perfection that you'd never look at the scene in real life the same again. And yet as I tried to find the magic in ordinary things, inspired by that book, I came to realize how extraordinarily difficult it was. Rai seemed to have eyes that opened up the scene in a different dimension that it did not ordinary mortals. I loved reading this essay about him. His passing brought back memories of a time long gone and how my uncle had used his photographs to teach me how to see and feel about the world around me. He talks about this notion in this interview.

I feel God has installed the biggest computer in every one of us. And this most terrific, unbelievable computer’s storage space can be expanded to anything. It’s a storehouse of ideas, pictures, sounds. What is bad about this big computer is that we can’t reformat it. When your sensor is freed of influences it will reflect something that is refreshing and honest. And creativity lives beyond ideas, concepts and philosophies. Philosophies are born and realized later. First it’s a moment when you make yourself available to the situations mentally, spiritually and physically. That’s when the whispers happen, when nature begins to speak, when the signals from daily life begin to rejuvenate you and tell you another kind of story. That is the process that a creative person lives for. So when you are going through a moment of revelation, if you have the ability to click simultaneously, that is the magical moment you’ve caught.

In all the years of me taking pictures with that first camera upto today, there may have been only a couple that truly captured the spirit of what I had experienced in the moment when the picture was taken. The rest is just flat and devoid of that magic I first experienced leafing through that book full of photographs by Raghu Rai. While I will never meet the bar, I feel fortunate that I learned very in life what it is to be extraordinarily good at seeing the world.

Museum Strike

Sad read about the circumstances leading to museum's staff staged a spontaneous, rare, and powerful strike that forced the Louvre to close its doors, leaving thousands of bewildered tourists stranded. This action wasn't just a simple labor dispute; it was a loud, clear alarm bell signaling that the sheer volume of visitors had pushed the institution's infrastructure and its dedicated employees to a breaking point. I had been there over ten years ago and while the crowds were astonishing specially around The Mona Lisa, it had not felt close to the brink.

The core of the "Louvre strike crisis" the article suggests was a fundamental imbalance: record-breaking crowds versus chronic understaffing. In the years leading up to the 2019 strike, the museum’s annual visitor numbers had swelled to over 10 million, a monumental figure that dwarfed the capacity the museum was designed for. While the overall number of visitors skyrocketed, the staffing levels for essential roles like gallery attendants, security guards, and receptionists, had actually been reduced or, at best, remained stagnant. This meant a small, dedicated workforce was left to manage an unprecedented torrent of humanity, leading to what unions described as "untenable" and "suffocating" working conditions. This part as a visitor, I had largely missed. Maybe that is how its meant to be. You get to see the Louvre and you have a so much ground to cover. Its very unlikely that you have the bandwidth to mull the working conditions of the museum staff. They would go largely unnoticed.

The human toll of this imbalance was significant. Staff reported extreme fatigue, being constantly exposed to noise and trampling, and suffering insults from frustrated visitors. The Mona Lisa's room became the epicenter of the crisis, often hosting chaotic and dense throngs of people jostling for a glimpse, making the task of protecting the priceless artwork and managing the flow a daily "physical ordeal." Beyond the strain on employees, the overcrowding raised serious security concerns. Guards struggled to monitor for petty theft or even distinguish abandoned suspicious objects amidst the crush, highlighting a dangerous lack of adequate emergency evacuation measures in the most crowded areas.

This crisis exposed the Louvre's precarious position as a cultural institution caught between its artistic mission and the relentless commercial demands of mass tourism. Union representatives voiced a deeper concern: the Louvre was at risk of transforming from a place of contemplation and culture into a "cultural Disneyland." Their strike was a plea to redefine the museum’s mission, moving away from a single-minded focus on maximizing attendance toward a commitment to providing a "culture of quality for all," which necessitates a respectful and safe environment for both the art and the people who protect it. There was no culture of quality from what I could tell. You could get in and then fight the crowds and do your best to have some kind of an experience. I have been to far humbler museums and come back with lifelong memories but such was not the case with this one. I have just been there and that seems to be the pinnacle of the whole experience.

Rising Tides

To make the invisible threat of climate change tangible, TV 2 Denmark took a Danish design icon, the Copenhagen bench, and gave it a jarring, functional update. In collaboration with the city, they created the "2100 Edition," a series of benches elevated by exactly 85 centimeters. This isn't an arbitrary height; it represents the UN Climate Report’s projected sea-level rise by the year 2100. By physically lifting a familiar object out of reach, the campaign moved the climate conversation from abstract data to a literal disruption of the Danish streetscape.

Each installation featured a copper plaque with a haunting message: "Flooding will become part of our everyday life unless we start doing something about our climate." Placed in prominent locations, these "un-sit-able" benches forced citizens to confront how their daily material world will be altered. It was a masterclass in using physical metaphor to bridge the gap between a distant, complex problem and a visceral experience. Ironically, the internet is now full of photos of people climbing up to sit on them anyway. It seems sitting on the "un-sit-able" has become the gauche, touristy thing to do, which makes you wonder if the point was actually made or if any real action will follow.

The physical metaphor of the chair calls to mind the Buddhist parable of the burning house. In the story, the Buddha describes people awakening in a home consumed by flames; he argues that one should not waste precious time on abstract questions about the fire's origin or the nature of the wood. Instead, one must direct every effort toward the immediate task of putting the fire out. The Copenhagen bench is designed to serve a similar purpose: it bypasses the noise and political debate to point directly at the fire.

Yet, as people pose for photos on their elevated perches, the question remains whether the bench will actually harken to the burning house or just remain a quirky work of art. There is a real risk of it becoming dissociated from its meaning and purpose, a curiosity to be climbed rather than a catalyst for change. It’s a reminder that even the most jarring metaphors can be absorbed into the background if we aren't careful to keep the "fire" in focus.

Seeing Beauty

The essay explores a surprising intellectual overlap between Jane Austen and Charles Darwin built on their shared fascination with beauty and the natural world, even though they wrote in different genres and eras. Both were meticulous observers: Darwin as a naturalist cataloguing life’s diversity, and Austen as a novelist parsing the social universe of her characters. Their work grapples with how and why beauty exists in a world explainable through natural causes. 

Austen’s novels are steeped in “the natural,” consistently using the word across her six major works to describe character traits, emotions, and social relationships. Her keen attention to sensory details and human behavior mirrors the empirical observational style of early natural scientists, positioning her as a kind of literary naturalist who treats people and their social ecosystems with the same precision a scientist brings to biological specimens. 

Darwin, for his part, struggled with the problem of ornament and excess in nature. features like the peacock’s extravagant plumage that seem to go beyond what natural selection alone would demand. The article notes that in, The Descent of Man, he ultimately resolved this by showing how such beauty could evolve through sexual selection: traits that are costly for survival may still confer reproductive advantage because they appeal to mate preferences. 

The author notes that if one reads Austen and Darwin side by side, the reader will see a shared preoccupation: how beauty and ornament, whether literary, social, or biological, fit into a naturalistic explanation of the world. Austen’s narrative attention to fashion and social detail both reflects and critiques the aesthetic sensibilities of her age, sometimes aligning with and other times resisting a strictly naturalistic reading. The result is a rich, two-sided conversation across literature and science that keeps alive questions about the role of beauty in nature and culture. Interesting read about similarities that I had not considered before the author of this essay pointed it out.

Finding Beauty

It was absolutely mesmerizing for me to pore over the details of these paintings of corner-stores. Would be amazing to see the actual paintings I am sure. The South Korean artist Lee Me Kyeoung has spent decades celebrating the humble charm of corner store. With delicate pen and acrylic ink on paper, she lovingly renders small markets nestled into mountainsides, streetscapes, and rural villages from Australia to Turkey, including Vietnam, Nepal, Mongolia, and Türkiye. 

I could help but wonder how she might render some a corner store in the corner of Kolkata where my parents live. The one that came to mind is a hive of activity but it does not look pretty. I cannot think of a way to imbue it with beauty but I am not artist. 

Each of her drawings, is like a distilled visual tribute, capturing the store's structural character and the surrounding flora, from cherry blossoms to persimmon trees, reinforcing the universal beauty in these modest, community-centered spaces. Her her attention to detail and emotional resonance is quite remarkable.

They often spotlight the stores against stark white backdrops, allowing every nuance to stand out. The weathered signage, stacked crates, leaning bicycles, mismatched chairs, and layered crates. This minimalist framing draws viewers into each scene, inviting reflection on the cultural significance and quiet continuity embodied by these disappearing storefronts steeped in local history and daily life 

Such a poignant reminder that the seemingly ordinary can carry profound stories and timeless beauty.

Making Whole

I found this story about the MIT-developed method for restoring classic paintings using AI very heart-warming. It is a striking example of how technology can serve both art and history. By dramatically reducing the time and cost required for restoration, from months or years to just hours, his innovation opens new possibilities for galleries and museums to preserve and display works that might otherwise remain hidden due to damage or limited resources.

There is something deeply moving about the idea that cutting-edge technology can help us reconnect with the past. The ability to digitally model a painting’s original appearance and then apply a reversible, protective mask means that restorers can experiment and correct mistakes without fear of harming the original. This respect for the artwork’s integrity is crucial, especially as we consider how future generations will interact with our cultural heritage. This part of the solution is truly amazing. If mistakes are not irreversible, it is easier to take chances. 

The world’s most visited art museums alone hold millions of artworks, and many more exist in smaller and regional institutions. It is safe to assume that a non-trivial number of these, potentially thousands, may be in need of restoration due to age, accidents, vandalism, or environmental factors. Now there could be path for these distressed paintings and a chance for the world to see the art so far hidden from view.

Leaving Room

I had the chance to watch a very well-known Bharatnatyam dancer while on a work trip. It just so happened she was performing the night I was there and there was plenty of time to get to the theatre after work. This was the first time I had seen her perform but was familiar with her reputation. To say that she was dazzling is an understatement but what left me feel unsatisfied in the end was her choice to breathe new life into a very traditional art form. For someone whose first introduction to the dance came from watching friends perform at their Arangetrams, my expectations were quite different from the modern show that unfolded on stage. 

There were passages there were her brilliance shone and yet before you could fully immerse in it, she would have moved on to more modern interpretive moves that broke the spell. I understand that western audiences might prefer they way she choreographed the dance but folks like me missed out. On the way out of the auditorium a couple of young ladies (most likely university students) were chatting about how they had seen her perform back home and how different that experience had been. They had presumably come for an encore and were disappointed. For a few minutes, I bonded with them on this sentiment. We concluded that she had to do the "showy" stuff while abroad to be relevant to the folks who came to watch her. One of the two women was a dancer herself, a relative novice but far more educated on the subject than me. She had a much longer catalog of things that missed the mark.

On the way back home, I was thinking about this immensely talented dancer who had dedicated her whole life to the art. Even that was not enough to please everyone - and we are not talking about experts and connoisseurs - this is just regular folks with merely passing familiarity with her subject. It helped put in context the mountain of feedback I received on some work product recently. It was a bit overwhelming but it was easy enough to take action on most of it and I did. This woman is way too talented for that - she has a searingly clear vision about dance, she would not be here but for that. 

Beyond Number

My former co-worker C is an Excel artist too just that he uses it in more conventional ways as a data scientist. When I first started in that team, I was introduced to C as the one with all the answers and the reasons for those answers. It sounded cryptic at the time but I understood why that was said of him within a couple of months. If you did not understand a number and asked C for help, you would get a deep-dive that would leave you deeply impressed. He knew so many layers of detail about every cell of the summary tab of his fabled spreadsheet, that you would leave dazzled. 

And there was always more to add if you came back with another question another time. It was if we were looking at the spreadsheet in completely different ways. He probably saw shape, form, color, and texture in each cell where someone like me only saw numbers. That was the only way to explain how he explained things. When C moved on to bigger, better things, he was replaced by someone more "traditional". A sharp data science guy who saw the numbers, could make sense of it all, and could competently do the job. None of us has any complaints about him but this was no artist like C for sure. We learn to adjust our expectations with time. 

“I never used Excel at work but I saw other people making pretty graphs and thought, ‘I could probably draw with that,’” says 73-year old Tatsuo Horiuchi. About 13 years ago, shortly before retiring, Horiuchi decide he needed a new challenge in his life. So he bought a computer and began experimenting with Excel. “Graphics software is expensive but Excel comes pre-installed in most computers,” explained Horiuchi. “And it has more functions and is easier to use than [Microsoft] Paint.”

Artsy Washroom

 This women's room would be worth visiting like a trip to the museum - almost too beautiful to be actually used. The idea of bring art and function together is wonderful and inspiring

The artist-designed washrooms epitomize the achievements of Arts/Industry—an ongoing, decades-long collaboration between art and industry conceived by former JMKAC Director Ruth DeYoung Kohler II. Launched in 1974 as a means of supporting artistic exploration, Arts/Industry gives artists from around the world the opportunity to create new bodies of work using the facilities, technologies, and materials of Kohler Co.

Made me think about other useful collaborations that could come about between large manufacturers and artists to create things of beauty and utility. A restaurant interior done as a collaboration between a national furniture company and local artists so the end-product showcased the product the company would like to market and sell, but the restauranteur was able to imbue local, bespoke touches to the interior that spoke to their identify and attracted clientele. 

Good Intention

A nice story about good intention and honest effort that don't yield the desired results. While the regular person does not usually concern themselves with return of  museum artifacts to the country they were removed from, there are elements of this story that we can all relate to:

Using state-of-the-art technology in a warehouse-like workshop, digital archaeologist Roger Michel and his team are recreating the hotly contested Parthenon marbles.

The idea behind it is simple — make exact 3D replicas of the marbles and donate them to the British Museum in exchange for the return of the original sculptures to Greece.

But when the British Museum shut down an official request by Roger's team to go and get the 3D scans, the team decided to get them anyway, "guerilla-style"

At work a junior employee has a good idea that they are passionate about and are happy to invest their personal time in building (for the greater good of the company - not for any reward other than the greenlight from management to proceed). Their idea is either ignored or shot down. The employee is relentless and decides to go ahead anyway - with or without sanction. They get the job done, the results are great and they never missed a beat on their assigned work. 

A great situation all around one would imagine. But as it often turns out, this thing that the "over-zealous" employee has built does not sit well within how decision-makers in the company see the puzzle pieces fit. So the thing gets cast aside, never adopted and put to practical use. The junior employee moves on with their life. But not everything is in vain. Someday, the efforts of their guerilla artists maybe the reason the Parthenon marbles find their way home. Likewise, someone in the company might dust of  the junior's employee's project and see great success. These events will unfold at a time that the people who pushed for change do not control.

The issue with the Parthenon marbles can appear simple or complex based on perspective. Did the marbles come into British possession by legal means or were they removed without proper authorization. Does a lawful action that took place in the past, make it irreversible in the present when the tide of public sentiment has turned. While nearly not as complex, some of reasons that are not immediately obvious sealed the fate of the junior employee's project. 

At work the junior employee might have been better served to understand why stakeholders were not as enthused about his idea as they should have been. The guerilla artists with their plan for the Parthenon marbles could have partnered with likeminded organizations to create grass-roots support for their plan, demonstrated how the British museum would have nothing to lose and everything to gain. 

Creative Arc

 Until an artist develops their signature style that is easy to recognize, they are not significant and likely not making much money. Once they have achieved this elusive goal life does not get much better as this essay shows

Robert Beatty, a Lexington, Kentucky-based artist and musician, echoes this sentiment, mentioning several experiences when major corporations tried to strong-arm him into making work for less. “I can name so many companies who simply hired somebody to copy me when I said no to their measly budget,” he says, listing examples from fast-food conglomerates to major tech companies that publicly claim to champion creativity, yet have unashamedly exploited his work. He adds “I think at this point creative agencies just get me to sign NDAs about projects they never intend to hire me for so I won’t call them out when they poorly imitate my work.”

And all this is not even counting the effects of AI where the style can be poorly imitated and almost no cost. All of this converges into lack of incentive for artists to fully exercise their creative muscle and if they do, make their output publicly available. The only option left is for artists to hold paid viewings for their work with no ability for patrons to record or copy anything. If a big corporation wants them to do work for them - the same rules of engagement apply. The issue is that every artists would have to abide by the rules of engagement - a guild or union approach, for the community to have more power in negotiations with entities much bigger than them - even collectively. That seems to be quite an impossible goal to achieve.

Mona Lisa

Seeing Mona Lisa live has to be one of the most underwhelming experiences I've had. The quality of the art is not something you can even remotely focus on given the crowds taking their selfies, jockeying for a millimeter to squeeze into the space where they can take a clean shot.

You join the crowd, get into the flow as you find it, see what you can unable to comprehend what the fuss is all about. Very quickly it becomes evident that there is no point to whole exercise at all - it is impossible to experience any art under these circumstances. You could check it off your bucket list (if it was on there) and get on with your day and life. It's great to see that a separate room is under consideration for Mona Lisa. 

.. museum-goers complain about waiting in line for hours, the stuffy conditions, and only getting to spend a few seconds viewing the painting, which is housed behind bulletproof glass.

One recent analysis of visitors' online reviews of big museums and their most lauded artworks cited the Mona Lisa as "the world's most disappointing masterpiece," owing to the negativity of nearly 40% of reviews.

It would be best to let in a few people at at once and time-box their visit at least for some part of the day. Those who want to have a better experience will go through the trouble.

Writing Out

Long essay on the fate of mid-tier writers in Hollywood that has some interesting insights based on what part of the discussion you are most relate to. I found this little tidbit about how data is shared or not most useful:

..As for the data-sharing agreement, a closer look reveals it to be, as deWaard put it, “very limited, and very fragile.” The studios will share viewership information with a limited number of WGA administrators for high-budget shows. The guild can then release that information only in a summary form, which, in the words of the contract, aggregates the data “on an overall industry level.” The guild cannot share any information at all on the performance of individual shows. A WGA representative told me that there would be no secondary process for writers to obtain that data.

Obviously, if a writer is trying to negotiate better terms for themselves, this level of data sharing is a joke. Its sharing in name only with one side holding all the cards close to their chest. It made me wonder if writers could find an alternate way to collect the data they actually need to further their cause. Nothing prevents the WGS from running polls and surveys asking viewers to respond to the question that needs answering - How important was the quality of the screenplay in the show that you liked best. That alone should yield some useful results. 

“Hollywood is based on giving audiences what they might not know. Any attempt to drive risk out of that process is sooner or later doomed to failure.” His words played off an old adage by the screenwriter William Goldman. “Nobody knows anything,” he wrote. “Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for certain what’s going to work.” But investments in the alchemy of the creative process do not perform well in quarterly reports.

What is true for Hollywood is true for many other businesses. There are investments that need to be made that do not perform well in quarterly reports and yet those are the right ones to make for the company as well as for the customers it serves. All too often these investments are never made with predictable outcomes. 

Separate Worlds

Seeing these AI generated versions of Nike shoes made me think about the future of design. Humans would need to come up with entirely new things that the AI has never seen before and cannot extrapolate based on what it has. As interesting as the sneakers are, none of the designs are beyond the ability of a human artist or designer if they had been given the brief of coming up with a collection of dainty shoes on the framework on a sneaker. This begs the question if the human designer should make their creations available in the public domain for AI to get inspired by and speed up its process. Should they want pictures taken of their creative projects such as this restaurant designed using unwanted things. 

I was at an art and craft fair recently and just about every vendor had prominent signs posted asking visitors not to take pictures. The exceptions to this were few and far between and typically those were the stalls that did not bring anything particularly unique to the party - it was the typical hand-made jewelry, pottery, decorative items for home and yard. Wherever there was some bit of unique and proprietary, the signs to not photograph were front and center. While that kills the opportunity for social media popularity and word of mouth marketing, it presumably protects the artist from making their product part of the training data set for the AI. I hope there will be a point where the AI and human-made would being two different genres entirely, with the tools to tell the two apart clearly. Each would have its place in the world but they would not suck the air out of the other's life and eco-system. 

Making Art

Read this Kurt Vonnegut quote today and it made me smile. My father has always sung for pleasure - never a professional but good enough to perform at smaller venues. It was always his escape from all that he did not like or could not control or both

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

He created my earliest taste in music on which everything else was layered and built over time. I associated the sound of his voice with the ability to escape to a happier place. To this day, it is his way to disrupt a difficult situation - he can break into song unexpectedly and suddenly there is a diversion from the problem at hand. I do believe those are all things created as Vonnegut says.

I often ping him requests to send me recordings of old Hindi songs I grew up hearing him sing. It is my way of clinging to a time long past and forcing him to engage with the world instead of checking out, feeling old and redundant. I don't know how much of a reward he finds in music but there is certainly a lot it gave me all my life. 

Behind Times

Loved reading this interview with the the only guy who is still in the floppy-drive business. He speaks for many in niche and supposedly dying businesses when he says: 

..I’m not exactly a person with great vision. I just follow what our customers want us to do. When people ask me: “Why are you into floppy disks today?” the answer is: “Because I forgot to get out of the business.” Everybody else in the world looked at the future and came to the conclusion that this was a dying industry. Because I’d already bought all my equipment and inventory, I thought I’d just keep this revenue stream. I stuck with it and didn’t try to expand.

This interview reminded me of a water-cooler conversation I had been part of in my second job out of college. Being as green as I was then, I listened to the my older and wiser colleagues as if their word were the gospel. Specially, the ones who delivered only occasional wisdom and with great conviction. That morning the conversation was around how a developer stays sharp for all time to come so that they be employed as a developer. The consensus opinion was you move on the management and leadership roles over time and allow young people to be be developers. 

There was one contrarian opinion to this. P was a soft-spoken lead developer, well-liked and respected by his team. He said he was confident he could retire being a Powerbuilder developer and make steady and decent money the whole time. That was his lane and he was intent on sticking with it. You could hear a pin drop after those words were said. Had anyone less respectable than outstanding than P would have been greeted with howls of ridicule, we just dispersed mildly confused by what he had said. P would be in mid 60s now and if he is still inclined to find work he would be right - there are jobs of that skill even today. 

Museum Visit

Effective or not, the idea of being prescribed free museum visits by a doctor to help with mental health issues sounds wonderful  

Like exercise, an afternoon enjoying art can cause an increase in serotonin levels, Hélène Boyer, the vice president of the Montreal-based medical association Médecins Francophones du Canada, told the Montreal Gazette’s Brendan Kelly in 2018. The art exposure program is particularly promising for those who can’t exercise due to age or disability.

Museum visits with a loved one can make for indelible memories. You share in the experience of something beautiful and thought-provoking. Sometimes the discussion that follows creates value of its own. That event becomes part of your story with that person and is revisited fondly over the years. I lost one such loved one a couple of years ago. We had been to a museum dedicated to dolls. Given the difference in our age, we saw the exhibits very differently. I was too young to appreciate craftsmanship or history - it was all about the endless variety of dolls. From my own experience, it seems like the value from a visit to the museum can last life-long, beyond the mental health benefits in the near term this article refers to

About Writing

My friend A shared this video with me and I absolutely loved it - how to dissect the a story and understand the good and bad news in life in the words of Kurt Vonnegut. Watching it prompted me to look for more advice from Vonnegut on how to write well. The best piece of wisdom for me was about not taking liberties with language a musician and take with jazz or an artist with cubism. A writer simply cannot to that to be understood and understandable as Vonnegut says

If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledly-piggledy, I would simply not be understood. So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.

And there was wisdom in this other article related to his views on writing and being an author. In a way, it explains why I struggle to read fiction with the level of difficulty growing in proportion to time lived in America. I was a very different kind of reader back when I was growing up and lived in India. Seeing that many of my relatives who were avid readers when I was a child still enjoy fiction gives me reason to believe age is not a factor in my troubles with loving fiction but my domicile is

What do you need to be a writer in America? An audience! You don’t need to supply useless information. Readers don’t need to know how many freckles are on a lady’s thigh and what she had for breakfast!” 

“It’s OK to let them know right away where your character’s going to end up. But then make your character clearly want something so your readers will have to find out how the character gets there.”

Whimsical Spaces

Ran into this post about a cute and whimsical house with rather unique flourishes. The pictures made me wonder if any home could be imbued with some mystery and magic. Add a trompe de l'oeil where its completely unexpected and gives pause. What is inside our home reflects on who we are as people - there is a psychology to it. “The concept of personal space and how we dress it is not this whimsical idea about where you live. It has a profound effect on you.”. I have a couple of personal spaces - one is my home office where I spend the workday and the other is the couch near windows that overlook greenery in the yard. The couch is functional but comfortable.

My workspace is full of things that have to do with J - artwork from earliest childhood to when she left to college and books I gathered over the years. And I am very much about being clutter-free which it turns out has to with conscientiousness - I suppose that would describe me. I would like more whimsical touches around my space (in theory at least) but it is unlikely to make me feel comfortable and at home. So while I feel attracted to the idea, it may not represent who I am.