I arrange things into artworks, including paint, wood, plastic, raspberry pi, people, words, dialogues, arduino, sensors, web tech, light and code.
I use words other people have written to help guide these projects, so I read as often as I can. Most of what I read is literature (fiction) or nonfiction on philosophy, art theory, ethics and technology.
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One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her …
I love Han Kang's writing and was delighted when they won the Nobel Prize. A couple of months ago a colleague gave me a book token for a favour I did them, and I picked this one up with it in a local book shop. Just started reading today.
Development as Freedom is a 1999 book about international development by Indian economist and philosopher …
A much more plausible explanation of the rapid increase in British life expectancy is provided by the changes in the extent of social sharing during the war decades, and the sharp increases in public support for social services (including nutritional support and health care) that went with this.
Sen is finishing a section here arguing that improved social services as a social good are potentially better for a country's life expectancy than an increase in GDP. They began this chapter with a look at different countries and how some have high life expectancy despite a low average income, and end here with a historical look at how the war years led Britain to introduce social policies that also improved loving conditions dramatically.
"How to Eat is the second in a Parallax's series of how-to titles by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh that …
‘It began as a way of drawing nothing – as near as I could get …
Anna Chapman Parker is an artist who thinks deeply about incidental moments. This wonderful book charts a year in her life where she draws weeds that she finds on her wanders. It features both her writing and her drawings, and also some other artworks as references.
Parker writes about what she draws beautifully, about her days and her time with her family. She also weaves in observations on art history, writing and culture that show a deep and acute understanding of her craft.
The drawings are wonderful, the anecdotes thoughtful. Although I am not generally a fan of the diary form of writing, this book masters it, moving easily from anecdote to theory to humour, treating each day as unique. The quality of writing helps this. The end result is a joy to read and one I will revisit again and again.
The classic chronicle of the impact disease and plagues have had on history and society …
This 1934 book is a history of typhus presented as popular science (and apparently as a biography, although it doesn't really follow any such form).
The first four chapters are pretty much unreadable. One Stanford University scientist in the 1930s grinds an axe about many different scientists and writers for about 80 pages of text. Once he finishes with this rant, it gets more interesting as he begins a historical exploration of the spread of disease, and in particular how disease and war travelled together.
The writing stays on point mostly, except for a few more veiled jabs at other writers and some questionable classist comments that are troubling even for that time (a 'humerous' anecdote about having the police arrest a homeless non-white man so that he could gather lice from him sticks out in my mind). The fascinating two chapters on lice are by far the best of …
This 1934 book is a history of typhus presented as popular science (and apparently as a biography, although it doesn't really follow any such form).
The first four chapters are pretty much unreadable. One Stanford University scientist in the 1930s grinds an axe about many different scientists and writers for about 80 pages of text. Once he finishes with this rant, it gets more interesting as he begins a historical exploration of the spread of disease, and in particular how disease and war travelled together.
The writing stays on point mostly, except for a few more veiled jabs at other writers and some questionable classist comments that are troubling even for that time (a 'humerous' anecdote about having the police arrest a homeless non-white man so that he could gather lice from him sticks out in my mind). The fascinating two chapters on lice are by far the best of the book, however, where Zinsser shows a real affection for the louse.
Another fascination of this book is how it is a historical document of a specific time and sentiment, between two world wars, recording the history of typhus resonates today, when vaccination has made it a much more sedate disease. Zinsser has great moments when writing about disease, and disease history.
This collection of essays by Sinéad Gleeson is deeply honest and opens her up in a way that I admire. Not many people will write about their lives, their grief, their abilities and their personalities with so much openness. Any collection of essays will have stronger and weaker moments, and some of these are wonderful but the prose didn't catch me for many.
Where I felt the writing was strongest was always when Gleeson was describing artworks. In these moments, they had a powerful sentiment and a clear love of the objects and ideas in art. The writing there is the most brilliant, and the most standout unique. In other moments, the more hurtful or difficult, the writing also becomes a little laboured, reflecting the themes but also making it harder to move through. While the book is admirably honest, the moments of joy popped out particularly for me.
This collection of poems by Longley has moments of beauty, particularly in the very short poems, which offer moments of beauty in succinct form. I am not really too knowledgeable on poetry, so am hesitant to write too much more.
‘It began as a way of drawing nothing – as near as I could get to that. No time to …
Development as Freedom is a 1999 book about international development by Indian economist and philosopher …
This was referenced in Deb Chachra's book 'How Infrastructure Works' and it sounded like it would present some ideas on economics that are new to me, so I got it out of the library.
The classic chronicle of the impact disease and plagues have had on history and society over the past half-millennium. Intriguingly …
The classic chronicle of the impact disease and plagues have had on history and society …
[Rats and lice] are sufferers even as we are, and quite as innocent of intentional malice. For though we acquire the disease from them, they get it from each other and from us. So there [->] would seem to be as much to be said on one side as on the other.
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I balk at some of the things Zinsser writes in this book about other humans, but this observation on the innocence of lice and rats in the spread of disease is very important and a credit to him.
The classic chronicle of the impact disease and plagues have had on history and society …
The effects of a succession of epidemics upon a state are not measurable in moralities alone.
‘It began as a way of drawing nothing – as near as I could get …
I have made many drawings of brambles on my walks...Those arching stems can't be contained on a single sheet of paper; they make the rectangle of a page absurd, and when I've tried a more distant view in an effort to fit the whole plant [->] in, the drawing looks weirdly polite, which couldn't be less appropriate for this irrepressible, thorny weed.
Quote breaks at [->] and page 128 is a full-page reproduction of a 6th Century illustration of a bramble, which is why the reference skips from p127 to p129
