Aesthetics & Pedagogy.
Tumblog of Bobby George.
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Happy Birthday, to my beautiful mother, Darlene. A few photos from the archives.
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The only “manual” I ever look forward to actually reading. P.S. I don’t read manuals.
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Book List
Yes, this is the first time I have posted such a list, reasons for which to follow. Lists, mind you, in my opinion, are primarily helpful for the people writing them. Sometimes they are helpful for others. In either case, lists offer consolation, as much as anticipation. They provide feedback, and provoke inquiries. Not unlike sketches, the movements involved are oscillations of the present, layered with ‘what is to come’. It’s always about coupling the comfortable, and the unsettling, in the exact same moment. Umberto Eco has more on this, as revealed by Brain Pickings.
Since this was the first year since 1998 that I didn’t read as much as I would have liked, I thought it might be helpful to share a few of the insightful books that I discovered or that were recommended over the past year. Amazon, where I purchase most of my books, has a new feature. They’ve updated their system to let you know, precisely, how many books you’ve purchased for the year. For reasons mainly owing to time constraints, and, dare I say, laziness, I’m down 10% for the year. The first time since college.
If there was one book that I found myself returning to this year, the award goes to Ways of Seeing, by John Berger. This is probably because I found Bento’s Sketchbook, such a lovely, inspirational, and enticing composition.
Okay, here’s the list:
1. Violence and Splendour, by Alphonso Lingis2. Bubbles, by Peter Sloterdijk3. Believe is Seeing, by Errol Morris4. Educating Life Forms, by David Cole.5. Semblance and Event, by Brian Massumi.6. The Manual7. Tracey Emin, My Life in a Column8. Sagmeister: Another Book, by Stefan Sagmeister9. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson.- You know, the night stand collection. Haven’t read, yet.
1. Zone One, by Colson Whitehead2. The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco3. Haruki Murakami, 1Q844. Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson5. The Angel Esmeralda, by Don DelilloWhat were you favorites of the year? Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear.
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Bento’s Sketchbook, by John Berger
My book of the year award goes to Bento’s Sketchbook, by John Berger. Here’s the official blurb about Bento’s Sketchbook: “The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza—also known as Benedict or Bento de Spinoza—spent the most intense years of his short life writing. A sporadic draughtsman, he also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notes—but no drawings.”
“For years, John Berger has imagined finding Bento’s sketchbook without knowing what its pages might hold, but wanting to see the drawings alongside his surviving words. When one day a friend gave Berger a beautiful, virgin sketchbook, John said “This is Bento’s!” and he began to draw, taking his inspiration from the philosopher’s vision.”
“The result is Bento’s Sketchbook—an exploration of the practice of drawing and a meditation on how art guides our gaze to the world: to flowers, to the human body, to the pitilessness of the new world order and the forms of resistance to it.”
With moments of resounding clarity and insight, Berger reveals that which remains imprisoned and mysterious. He strives to capture the ephemeral and fleeting. ”I began to make drawings prompted by something asking to be drawn.” What is aloof, but speaking to us, he actively tries to present.
“We who draw do so not only to make something observed visible to others, but also to accompany something invisible to its incalculable destination.”
Berger is our contemporary. As if accidentally, but that’s not quite right, Berger sets out to provide a new type of book, a book with images, texts, and quotes. Images of his own construction, quotes of the great Spinoza, salted with Berger’s stunning text and prose.
Further still, Berger sets out to articulate the conditions of exposition, of creation, and juxtaposition. “You lose your sense of time when drawing. You are so concentrated on scales of space.” It is with Berger, that we wish to share. ”I’m taking my time, as if I had all the time in the world,” shares Berger.
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While I’m making “year in review” type lists, here is a selection of iPhone and iPad apps that I particularly enjoyed. Some I found terribly useful, while others I really enjoyed their design, or concept, or the very ways in which they addressed, highlighted and reconfigured the possibilities of an app. It’s such a virginal field, with so many new developments in the works, that it makes it constantly exciting. Without standards, and otherwise highly adopted conventions, there is so much to be gleaned from engaging with this fledgling field.
1. Bjork: Biophilia and Solstice. (iTunes link)
We should probably get this out of the way, but I’m absolutely in love with Bjork. Her work touches me, in a way few others can. She’s always pushing the boundaries, and Biophilia is no exception, with its innovative, multifaceted, and multimedia explorations. It’s an entirely new and fresh app experience. Bjork is a stellar, dare I say, intergalactic story teller. She’s of the first order, and so is the app. Make your life a work of art, right?
2. Our Choice (iTunes link)
As the recipient of the coveted Apple Design Award, Our Choice is a really special app. It’s one of those rare apps that you unexpectedly open up, play around with, and instantly discover that it has opened up a new and previously unexplored trajectory within you. Yes, it has that type of effect. Besides helping us to better understand and position ourselves in relationship to the world, it also attempts to rethink the ways in which we engage with media. There is a conception of reading that views it as a passive exercise, but this app confirms what many readers know, in a novel and germinal way, that reading is an active experience.
3. Tweetbot (iTunes link)
The quintessential Twitter client. For something I use everyday, and yes, I use it every day, it’s extremely pleasing. Okay, okay, I’ll confess. I use it an inordinate amount. So much so that it’s probably unhealthy. In any case, it’s hard to find something that I enjoy using so much. It’s clean. It’s easy, and it’s oh so very friendly to use. I especially like the “Tiny” font option. It just speaks to me.
4. iA Writer (iTunes link)
See my previous post on the desktop client and the overall functionality and experience of this streamlined, and productivity enhancing app. Yep. It’s just that good.
Oh, and shamelessly, there’s a beautiful new Montessorium app. It’s called, Intro to Geography. If you haven’t checked it out, you need to take a look! Wink. Wink.
Lately, I’ve experienced an anti-social network tendency. It’s not entirely misanthropic, but, it is conditioned on focusing more. More on that soon, in another list…
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