Observations (& Inspirations)

November 14, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

Zen in action: no tree, no mirror, no dust

Zen - no tree no mirror no dust — Hakuin Ekaku, The Sixth Patriarch’s Rice Mill, Edo period (1603–1867 AD)

Bodhidharma left his robe and bowl to his chosen successor; and each patriarch thereafter handed it down to the monk that, in his wisdom, he had chosen as the next successor. Gunin was the fifth such Zen patriarch. One day he announced that his successor would be he who wrote the best verse expressing the truth of their sect. The learned chief monk of Gunin’s monastery thereupon took brush and ink, and wrote in elegant characters:

The body is a Bodhi-tree
The soul a shining mirror:
Polish it with study
Or dust will dull the image.

July 24, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

Sweet and sour: Orwellian sugar ads of the 1960s

This happy ice-cream imbiber appeared in a pro-sugar ad that appeared in the May 10, 1971, issue of TIME Magazine. Below this photo, the ad helpfully suggested: “Enjoy an ice cream cone shortly before lunch.” Then the ad launched into some positively Orwellian copy about the glorious benefits sugar can provide you, the ~~unwitting dupe~~ thoughtful “consumer”:

May 19, 2014 By Martin McMurray

A Brief History of X (1895-2014)

A group of U.S. experimental aircraft (X-Planes). In the center, the Douglas X-3 Stiletto; around it, clockwise from bottom left: Bell X-1A, Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, Convair XF-92A, Bell X-5, Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, Northrop X-4 Bantam.

Patient X

I first encountered the X modifier in my youth. As an aviation enthusiast I was introduced to the radical X-3 Stiletto. The Douglas Aircraft Company designed and manufactured the X-3 Stiletto experimental jet aircraft for the U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The NACA was the precursor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

X-Plane it to me

The X-3 looks like a personification of the beaked-nose white spy from Mad magazine’s Spy vs. Spy, with its a slender fuselage, a long tapered nose, and ultra-modern white-on-white paint scheme. The United States military developed a series of experimental airplanes, helicopters and rockets — collectively referred to as “X-Planes” — that were used to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts:

April 7, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

Such desiderata of desiderata. Many antiquary. So curiosa. Wow.

Francis Peck - Desiderata Curiosa — Desiderata Curiosa: Or, A Collection of Divers Scarce and Curious Pieces Relating Chiefly to Matters of English History. By Francis Peck, M.A., 1779. Thomas Evans, London

Or, what do an 18th Century English antiquarian, an early 20th Century Indiana lawyer, Adlai Stevenson, Commander Spock and an obscure 1970s singer have in common?

March 26, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

A “Generic Brand Video” that tells the truth about the worst in branding and advertising

This brilliant parody of a blandly generic corporate brand video began life as a poem by Kendra Eash in McSweeneys, This Is A Generic Brand Video:

March 20, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

Symmetry and one-point perspective in the films of Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson

kubrick-anderson — Image: ProVideo Coalition

Here are two beautiful video compilations that demonstrate quite vividly Stanly Kubrick’s love of symmetry and how the director made use of one-point perspective in his films, and the influence he has had in this regard on the contemporary director Wes Anderson.

March 7, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

How HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey” got his name…and no, it’s not IBM minus one

The HAL 9000 computer is one of the stars of Stanley Kubrick’s science-fiction film masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the novel it is based on by Arthur C. Clarke. Legend has it that the name HAL was derived because each letter comes one place before IBM in the alphabet. Arthur C. Clarke has always denied this, and the true origin of HAL’s name is recounted on the HAL 9000 Wikipedia page:

February 13, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

The cinema and visual poetry of the Lettrists of Lettrism (AKA Lettrisme or Letterism)

Littrist cinema — Stills from Maurice Lemaitre’s *Le Film Est Deja Commencé?* (1951). Image from Vertigo (see below).

Lettrism (or Lettrisme or Letterism) is a French film and visual poetry movement that enjoyed a brief heyday as the avant-garde du jour in 1950s Paris, and is often associated with the French Revolutionary Student Movement of 1968. Founded by Elvis lookalike Isidore Isou (born Ioan-Isidor Goldstein, 1925-2007), Lettrism influenced other forms of art and poetry in Europe and Latin America up to the present and likely into the future, even as most Viners and Snapchatters remain unaware of this strange fold in the space-time continuum of art.

February 1, 2014 By Jay Jurisich

Describing the color white to a blind person

Einstein and the Swan — Einstein: Wikimedia Commons | Swan: Robert Woeger

A memory of a newspaper clipping

I have been searching online for years for this story that’s been half-submerged in my memory, with no luck. The story concerns one Albert Einstein, a blind man, and a swan. I finally found it in an old journal entry dated June 8, 1985. The story is but a fragment that I cut out of a newspaper and saved. However, I have no idea which newspaper it came from, and I can’t find this exact version of the story anywhere:

January 11, 2014 By Zinzin

Blackbird (rehearsal outtake), by Paul McCartney

A great video of Paul McCartney rehearsing Blackbird in the studio, c. 1968 Beatles White Album sessions. Love the close-up of the wingtips toe tapping.

Blackbird
By John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

December 20, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Word of the Year for 2013: Selfie

jj-selfie - December 2013 — A “Happy Holidays” *selfie* by Zinzin’s founder and co-creative director (*I, me, mine…*)

Happy Holidays everybody. The Word of the Year for 2013, according to both the Oxford Dictionaries and Geoffrey Nunberg, is selfie. Listen to Nunberg’s commentary on Fresh Air — Narcissistic Or Not, ‘Selfie’ Is Nunberg’s Word Of The Year — which he concludes:

I give the critics a lot of the credit for making “selfie” a contender for word of the year. When we look back on 2013, we’ll recall this not just as the year when everybody was posting pictures of themselves on social media, but as the year when nobody could stop talking about it.

November 28, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Everyday mysteries: Saul Leiter, a master of lyrical color street photography

Saul Leiter, perhaps the most famous non-famous New York street photographer, has just passed away at age 89. A pioneer who worked mostly in color in an age when street photography was still a predominantly black and white medium, Leiter captured the ineffable details than can only be seen and appreciated if you slow down and pay attention. Notes the obituary in today’s New York Times:

October 10, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Chips, chips: Via Con Me, by Paolo Conte

No matter how dark of a mood might ever overtake you, I defy you to not be happy when you hear this song. It’s wonderful…. Chips, chips!

The accompanying video scenes, though unrelated, fit the mood quite nicely. They were taken from the films, “Top Hat” (1935), “Shall We Dance” (1937) and “Swing Time” (1936), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

August 29, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

The art of Tom Waits: Saved and “Named” Seeds (Heirloom Tomato)

WAITS/CORBIJN ’77-’11 is a new book of photographs by singer/ songwriter/ actor/ poet/ artist Tom Waits and photographer/ director Anton Corbijn taken over the course of a 35-year friendship and collaboration. Notes the publisher’s blurb:

August 5, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

What do Gertrude Stein and Jay-Z have in common? Picasso, baby.

If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Gertrude Stein, “If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso” (1923). The artist gets artisted upon. Upon the artist. Visited by she who by her by she who so by words visits upon. She who by words. Artisted upon visit upon by words she who by words unpaints his paint.

Observations (& Inspirations)

Observations (& Inspirations)

Patient X

X-Plane it to me

A memory of a newspaper clipping

If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso

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