The Traveling Bonfires’ “Vagrant Wind”

The Traveling Bonfires return to Asheville with a one-hour poetry reading featuring founding members Pasckie Pascua and Matthew Mulder.

Friday, January 22, 2010
7:00pm
Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe Street, 55 Haywood Street City/Town: Asheville, NC

nikography:

i went to school for graphic design, and did not spend my nights getting drunk. instead, i worked my ass off, spent most of my outside-class time learning/trying/doing as much as possible, and then got an awesome job after graduating.

protip: if you’re lucky enough (and i mean it when i say lucky) to be in college, you should be spending all available time learning, trying, making things, messing things up, experimenting and READING. (seriously. they make sketchbooks with words in them already. they are just called books.)

i didn’t waste a single day. and neither should you. build your momentum and go with it.

for the but-i’m-an-artist’s: you want money? learn a technical skill related to your field and get good at it. then get better at it. jonathan harris built wefeelfine on the weekends while working a full time job. just sayin’.

final note: i had a BLAST in college, and miss it like crazy. working hard does not mean no-fun-allowed, it means relax harder 🙂

orginal image via synecdoche

The 7 Components Of Design

(via vanseodesign)

dear tumblr

i really, really need to quit you… you’re interrupting my work…

2 Moral Lessons

Moral #1: “If you work hard, stay focused, and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life.”

Moral #2: Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.

Donald Miller

Field notes

somedays i miss smoking. then i walk to starbucks, order a coffee & enjoy that burnt java taste. reminds me of unfiltered camel cigarettes.

Downtime

I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime.

Donald Miller

Taking requests

For those who are familiar with my work, is there a poem I wrote that you would like me to read at Friday’s poetry reading at Malaprop’s? Email me at coffeehousejunkie@gmail.com to make a request and I’ll dedicate the poem(s) to you during the reading: http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=433391

Field notes

putting together my reading set list for Friday’s reading.

a dying part of the graphic arts

nikography:

so, i work at a company that makes videos. that means lots of props. since it’s much easier to just make something like a giant fake ticket with custom text than edit/composite it in later, there’s lots of fun stuff to be made.

in the world of digital art/graphic-making, this is totally dying. why make something to photograph when you can just composite the image from assets on the screen?

because it never. looks. as. good. (seriously!)

examples that will always fail: why hand draw type when you can just pick a handwriting font? why write on a box when i can just draw on the box with my tablet? why take a certain photograph when i can just digitally change his/her hair color and possibly move that arm over somewhere else…

answers: because the handwritten effect is lost when every duplicate letter looks exactly the same. because it will always look like you just drew on a box with your tablet and skewed it (and no layer blending property can achieve the correct texture). because the photo will always be just slightly off.

so, if you want to make some text out of yarn or whatever. don’t go looking for a photoshop brush, just friggin’ do it. on your desk, on a big white piece of paper. your results will thank you.

Cool or fool

somethingchanged:

Cool

  • Taking party photos and printing them for your friends instead of blogging them.
  • Reading cookbooks like novels and not necessarily cooking the recipes.
  • Introducing two real life friends you know will love each other.
  • If you see a solo tourist trying to take their own photo in front of a landmark, stopping and taking it for them.

Fool

  • Flashmobs put on by commercial enterprises or organisations.
  • Stories about Twitter in newspapers.
  • People who say “I’m sorry I haven’t posted on Twitter/my blog for so long I’ve been soooo busy.”
  • Marketing and online strategy blogs that are completely removed from the real people who make up the internet.

Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast – Episode 014

This episode features an essay titled “The Hunger.” Listen to episode 14 here.

Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast – Episode 014

This episode features an essay titled “The Hunger.” Listen to episode 14 here: http://ping.fm/GnC9W

Field notes

join me on Jan. 22, Fri., 7pm, i’ll read new & selected poems.

Field notes

five or so years ago i would post something on my blog almost every day. now i type 400 or so words almost every day & then delete them…

Field notes

just returned from a very production meeting @starbucks & now processing notes gtd style

Field notes

should not start my morning by reading articles about online marketing & social media stats. coffee & pancakes first. priorities, man…

Digital Isolation

On-demand services can rarely satisfy our old-fashioned desire to sometimes be surprised. We’ve read too many reviews and PR quips about the show before clicking to download it – we know exactly what to expect. What’s lost in this process is the joy of stumbling upon something new and exciting—the accidental discovery. Lost, too, is the thrill of the chase for that elusive something that, in ancient history, led members of our species to many a dusty shelf or bin in an old fashioned brick and mortar store.

On-demand media exerts conflicting pressures on us. It draws us away from our co-workers and neighbors while simultaneously connecting us to a global community thousands strong. It dilutes the dwindling pool of cultural touchstones we share, but in doing so, exposes each of us to a vast ocean of possibility. It gives us virtually anything we could ever want at our fingertips, but threatens to overwhelm us with such abundance.

We Are United in Our Digital Isolation, PopMatters (via somethingchanged)

“Good ideas rarely come in bunches”

Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.

Paul Rand: “Good ideas rarely come in bunches”

Field notes

i really need to quit tumblr… this is becoming a highly addictive behavior….

There is no such thing as a free book

beattitude:  i currently have 44 books checked out and 20 on hold. guilt, check. anticipation, check. time to read these books? um. theconceptlibrarian: magicmolly:

Engaging with the New York Public Library taps into all sorts of unexpected economic anxieties and pleasures.

Ordering books online to be delivered to your local branch brings a feeling of great wealth. For example, figuring out how to nab brand-new books with minimal wait time is akin to having an endless credit line at Barnes & Noble, while picking up a stack of freshly-delivered oversized art books and rare scholarship is like winning access to an antiquarian’s private collection.

The feeling warps when you go home and log into your NYPL account to tally up the damage. This is when you see that you have 13 books checked out, and several are due within the week, and two of these cannot be renewed because someone else has ordered them. With this discovery comes a troubling sense of indebtedness.

There are two ways to respond: ignore the debt (while fighting back a tide of guilt) or quickly pile up all half-read or non-essential books and run back to the library to return them. Dumping an armload of books lightens the psychic load and provides a measure of relief when you check your account to see that this time you owe only 9 books, and these all have a solid two weeks before they begin to accrue fines.

Oddly enough, the logical extension of this method (returning all of your books at once and immediately) does not bring about feelings of relief, but rather feelings of poverty. With no books checked out, it becomes clear that you have nothing to lose but also nothing to gain.

A good balance is to have six books out and at least twelve books on hold, so that a sense of satiety (the six books) is matched with a sense of anticipation (the twelve books on hold) which combines to overshadow the lingering sense of debt embodied in your six homebound library books.

Q.E.D., I think.

We treat our spiritual lives like the round of golf

‘Church isn’t boring because we’re not showing enough film clips, or because we play an organ instead of guitar. It’s boring because we neuter it of its importance. Too often we treat our spiritual lives like the round of golf used to open George Barna’s Revolution. At the end of my life, I want my friends and family to remember me as someone who battled for the Gospel, who tried to mortify sin in my life, who found hard for life, and who contended earnestly for the faith. Not just a nice guy who occasionally noticed the splendor of the mountains God created, while otherwise just trying to enjoy myself, manage my schedule, and work on my short game.

-Ted Kluck, from Why We Love The Church: In Praise of Institutions And Organized Religion

HT: Pyromaniacs: I Lose, You Win (via nickbogardus) (via papertowngirl)

Readers Change Publishing Game

After suffering declining revenues, layoffs and widespread closures, magazines and newspapers need to do something to reinvent the future of publishing.

Could New E-Readers Change Publishing Game? – PC World

Has anyone mentioned the fact that an e-reader could just be replaced by an iphone or black berry?

(via fluffynotes)

You will become literature

ireadintothings: You will become literature, and you’re already a poem in my head.