As a society becomes increasingly affluent, wants are increasingly created by the process by which they are satisfied… This higher level of production has, merely, a higher level of want creation necessitating a higher level of want satisfaction.

If the individual’s wants are to be urgent they must be original with himself.  They cannot be urgent if they must be contrived by the process of production by which they are satisfied.  For this means that the whole case for the urgency of production, based on the urgency of wants, falls to the ground.  One cannot defend production as satisfying wants if that production creates the wants.

The fact that wants can be synthesized by advertising, catalysed by salesmanship, and shaped by the discreet manipulations of the persuaders shows that they are not very urgent.  The latter are effective only with those who are so far removed from physical want that they do not already know what they want.  In this state alone men are open to persuasion.

And, by the way:

And, finally, some entertainment from George Carlin:

Kiedyś uwielbiałem zarówno albumy koncertowe, jak i składanki “The Best Of…”.

Kiedyś, czyli jakieś 15 lat temu. W latach 80. i 90. takie płyty były dla zespołu pewną nobilitacją. Nie każdy mógł sobie pozwolić na album live i nie każdy zasługiwał na “Greatest Hits”.

Dziś mamy okres szybkiego zysku i jeszcze szybszego eksploatowania gwiazd, gwiazdeczek oraz naszych portfeli.

Dwa przykłady:

1. Iron Maiden. W pierwszych 16 latach działalności na dziewięć albumów studyjnych przypadł jeden album koncertowy. Dzięki temu, wydany w 1985 roku “Live After Death” był rarytasem – długo oczekiwaną przez fanów płytą słusznie uznaną za jeden z ważniejszych albumów w historii zespołu. Obecnie system wydawniczy Maiden wygląda następująco: płyta->podwójny album “the best of…”->podwójny album koncertowy. I w koło  Macieju. Oczywiście zespół twierdzi, że chodzi im o młodszych fanów, którzy nie znają starego materiału… Jasne…

2. Gosia Andrzejewicz. Ostatnio wygrywa w kilku rankingach. W tym na najgłupszy tekst oraz w moim prywatnym – na najszybciej wydaną płytę “The Best of…” Młoda gwiazda, a raczej jej absolutnie genialny management stwierdzili, że dwa albumy to w zupełności wystarczająca liczba, żeby dokonać podsumowania kariery. Informacja stara, ponieważ od czasu “debestofa” zdążył się ukazać nowy album, ale i tak duży szacun za wydawniczą odwagę. Po cichu liczyłem, że po “The Best Of…” ukaże się złota kolekcja, a nie “Wojowniczka”.

Tyle gwoli przegadanego wstępu. Był mi potrzebny do recenzji nowej płyty Marillion ponieważ zgadam się z Mariuszm Hermą i zdanie “nie lubię składanek” nie jest tym, od którego chciałbym zacząć recenzję.

Marillion ma u mnie praktycznie nieograniczony kredyt zaufania. Tworzą muzykę trudną, to prawda, ale nie nagrali jeszcze słabego albumu. Mieli oczywiście lepsze i gorsze okresy, ale hasło MARILLION oznaczało pewien wysoki poziom, poniżej którego nie zeszli nigdy.

Marillion - Less Is More

Gdy na długo przez premierą “Less Is More” usłyszałem, że będzie to kompilacja starszych utworów w wersjach akustycznych trochę się skrzywiłem. Okazało się jednak, że zespół nie poszedł po linii najmniejszego oporu i na “Less Is More” zabrakło “Kayleigh”, “Lavendera” czy “Uninvited Guest”.

Muzycy wybrali bardzo ciekawe utwory z albumów na których śpiewa Steve Hogarth. Od “Happiness in the Road” przez “Anoraknophobię”, “marillion.com” po “Afraid of Sunlight”. Nie zabrakło też kilku utworów z kultowego “Brave” oraz z “Seasons End” – pierwszej płyty nagranej z Hogarthem.

Jednak na “Less Is More” nie dobór utworów jest najważniejszy, tylko wykonanie i aranżacja – a te są absolutnie mistrzowskie. Pomysł na nagranie aksustycznej płyty w najmniejszym stopniu nie ograniczył instrumentarium do gitar akustycznych, do czego przyzwyczaiła nas seria “MTV Unplugged”.

Oprócz gitar i fortepianu na albumie pojawiają się m.in. ksylofon, cymbały, dzwonki, harfa mechaniczna, harmonia, gitara portugalska, organy rurowe, dulcitone oraz dziesiątki mniejszych instrumentów perkusyjnych i strunowych.

Muzycy to rozbudowane instrumentarium wykorzystali do granic możlwiości. Idealnym przykładem jest znany z “Anoraknophobii” “Quarz”, gdzie w oryginale głównym motywem była bardzo ciekawa linia gitary basowej. Na “Less Is More” jej rolę przejęły… cymbałki. Takich zaskoczeń na tej płycie jest wiele. Widać, że Steve Rothery i spółka na łatwizną bynajmniej nie poszli. Nagrali album, który pozwoli odkrywać Marillion na nowo. Album bardzo melancholijny, niezbyt prosty w odbiorze i wymagający od słuchacza skupienia. Jednak za czas mu poświęcony odpłaca się pięknymi dźwiękami i pozytywnymi emocjami, których na “Less Is More” nie brakuje.

Dla fanów absolutny mus. Dla tych, którzy Marillion nie znają, bądź znają z radia (Radio Zet i RMF puszczają całe dwa utwory) to dobra płyta, od której można śmiało rozpocząć przygodę z muzyką tego zespołu.

Primeiro foi  Rachel Bilson usando a sua preta em todos os lugares em que aparecia, agora foi a vez de Leighton Meester  aparecer com a sua It bag pelas ruas de NY…

Com casaco TopShop($125),cachecol DKNY($145),bota Azzedine Alaia e bolsa claro que era 3.1 Phillip Lim Studded Bow Bag. Se preparem,porque pelo visto agente ainda vai ver muiiitas dessas bolsas por aí…

Sept 14, 2009 6 minutes to midnight.

8:15am…Drop off my son at first day of Kindergarten…with Mama and the baby along for the ride of course…get to work early, park on sidewalk in front of the shop (because I can), stroller out, baby out, girls off for a run, keys, door, alarm, office light, list ready…bank, post, Garibaldi Graphics…STOP!  Did I hear that?  What was that?  Did the reno workers in the suite upstairs drop something through one of the four new holes they’ve drilled in my open concept ceiling?  Or is it….no…yes, it is, “Drip!” the one thing that can put an end to any perfectly planned and functioning day, water.

Move everything, bucket too big for the corner, use the cut off pop bottle we use for filling the mop pale because it fits in the sink, wipe, move, there it is, “Drip, plop!”  Call the neighbors upstairs, call the strata manager, call the emergency number and suddenly 8:30 something has faded to 10:00am and nothing is done, time to open the shop. 

Meanwhile, moving piles of boxes away from the drip and counting cash bring reality back to the forefront.  10:00 something, still not open, run boxes upstairs to storage, no time to chat with strata guy whose daughter started kindergarten today too, meet the girls back from their run, trade keys, doors open, DVD, music, lights (already on), TV, open for business.

The drips stop and in the ensuing chaos my office has shifted fully to one side of the room, the side with my desk of course, and the “OCD” of unmentioned childhood instinctively turns on the nesting gene (either that or the excess estrogen father’s generate when a baby is born…it’s true) that leads to sorting, tossing recycling and/or re-use-it centering every item on my IKEA Expedit shelving unit of timeless design. 

 I pile old Skate, Surf and Snow Magazines on the Pique Newspaper rack outside in a new enviro concept – ‘Free-use-it’, buyer’s guides, notes, paper, more paper and some other paper I should never have printed to recycle, a broken bike tool to trash, a bag of old banners, doubles of other tools I have never used, old phones and calculators to Re-use-it, and finally, when the smoke clears…mop the floor and I’m ready to get to work.  (This took most of the day by the way…not too many customers on mid shoulder season chilly rain, cloud, sun days.)  And then I found it; the October 2007 Masters of Design Issue of Fast Company Magazine I bought at YVR on my first independent business flight and think to myself, By Design…this all happened by design.

The statement, “by Design” has a god-like sense of perfection.  “By Design”…like it has always been or better yet like it was meant to be.

Rewind to the 70’s.  I remember as a kid coloring with a pencil, light, dark, shadowy shades of grey that created the impossible imaginationscape of a child.  The pencil, by design, was the infinite; it was simplicity and complete purity.  It still is.  Like Ansel Adams seeking perfection in black and white in his darkroom (if you haven’t seen his autobiography find it), I knew at 4 or 5 or maybe 6 that I had vision…that the picture I was drawing had the potential of purpose and intent, that the picture was there to tell ‘you’ how ‘I’ see, how I feel.  Emotion; there is something so simple and yet seemingly so impossible to capture.  Adams said anyone can take a picture.  10% is being in the right place at the right time but the other 90% was developing the image to help people see what he saw.  By design there is so much more to art and design than we see firsthand after the creation is complete. 

I bought the magazine amidst one of the most physically creative times.  After the better part 17 years working the seam for fortune 500 retailers I was about to demolish the core of a 14 year old photo shop, built by a guy who laid the tiles on the floor by hand himself, and literally build my first business from the ground up (or ceiling down as the case turned out).   With the mastery of seasoned builders (my sister and my brother in law) in a week, just 7 days, by design, my design was there.  (Yes, 7 days…sound familiar? Ha, ha!)

By design the hand of god graces the Sistene Chapel and now 500 more years of history meet to bridge heaven and sky at the point where their fingers touch.  Someone said, “Surfing big waves is too thrilling to be an egocentric thing.”  It is so true…the same can be said for design because in the moment, in the rapture of the creation, in bringing the vision to life simply nothing else exists.  Not time or tide, nor any other conscious thought, pride or motivation, or even being for that matter…there you are alone and complete. 

Less is more…so much more.  When we let the experience create the invisible, the impossible, the rest will follow by design.

Hello all, or one, or whoever might happen to read this.

First of all, my apologies for my lack of updates recently.  I suppose it is not very “professional” to leave one’s blog un-updated for so long.  And I enjoy writing.  It gives me a release valve for all the built-up pressure of words and thoughts and ideas that accumulate in my brain over the course of the day (or in this case, weeks).  But as with so many things I enjoy, it still requires practice.  And practice requires a certain amount of discipline.

I would consider myself a person of grand ideas but with sometimes unrealistic expectations or patience for such ideas.  Ultimately, I have a persevering personality, so good and even great things do get done.  But they do not always happen when I want them to, nor do they always attain the level of achievement I desire.  For the past few weeks, I have had auditions, callbacks, classwork, and other personal goings-on that have distracted me from this blog.  But fortunately they have also distracted me from myself.  Instead of constantly raking my mind for new grand schemes that are inevitably overambitious, I have become preoccupied with the demands of the current moment because the current moment has required it.  In others words, I’ve finally had a dose of practicality.  Thank God.

That really is what the last couple of weeks have taught me – simple practicality.  As one of my acting professors told me on Friday during a class improv, “Just work on the simple stuff.  You can break the rules once you’ve learned the simple stuff.”  So if I’m worried that I’m not extending myself enough, (knowing me) I’m probably overextending.  Less is more.  Quality, not quantity.  Find something to do, and do it well.  Practicality.  This is a good thing for me to learn.

Any discussion of world poverty that does not come round to demanding a radical change in our habits of consumption and waste, our tastes, our prolifigate standard of living, our values generally is a hypocrisy.  There are no technical answers to ethical questions.

And on that note, I would invite you to read Deva’s post here.

~ ~ ~

Goldian VandenBroeck (editor), Less is More: An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity, Rochester: Inner Traditions International, 1978, pg. 87.

So I’ve updated the look of my blog – what do you think thus far? I definitely think LESS is MORE! ;o

Cx

Been a busy couple of weeks, so I’m going to leave the deep and meaningful for a quick observation on packaging for kids. In brief, less is more: costs less, cause less mess, makes customers happier.

Yogurt tubes are a great idea – convenient packaging for on-the-go snacks for kids.  Why do they fill them up so much?

Another full tube

Another messy outcome

When you tear off the top, you invariably get large globs of yogurt in your lap and on your fingers.  Can reduce a kid to tears.  If you’re opening the tube (often requires too much dexterity and strength too open for kids under 4) you get covered.  Particularly annoying if driving and defeats the purpose of convenient packaging.  I ‘m going to write a letter to Horizon and Stonyfield today to suggest they increase the size of the package or put less in them.  Either would be fine with me.  Fill to bursting is not a good solution.  Could cost them less in the long run, and result in cleaner, happier customers.  Isn’t that a win-win?

A smarter design retains torn off top

Be nice if they copied the idea from Clif Shot Energy Gels and made the tearing a little easier and had a strip to retain the torn off piece (see phot0).  But let’s just start with the level of fill.

Same goes for portable juice boxes.  Check out this video.  Again, too much fluid is the culprit.  They might as well call these thing juice pistols.  Insert straw, give to child. Child grabs with hands that are still learning how to grip at the appropriate level of force, juice goes all over their outfit, they cry, and you have to put on a new outfit and start again.  In the video they’re flogging a non-squeezable holder to put the juice box into.  That’s one way to solve the problem, but doesn’t address the cause.  Might be better to put a 1-way valve on the container that only opens when they suck on it.  Would make serving easier, as pulling off the straw and unwrapping it adds time and effort.  When you’re dealing with kids, every second counts.   Guess that’s going to take some more letters.

Finally, the ultimate evil – blister packs.  Is shop lifting so bad that we all have to endure these insanely strong and sharp packages?  I think there’s beenso much passion here for so long from so many (see the comments on this blog), that that things might actually be starting to move in the right direction.   Obviously, less would be more here as well.

Believe it or not, this article entitled “Less is More” points a way toward what is needed to solve all the problems on our planet, and our own problems.  We can get better results with less energy and effort!   This article will at least begin to show you how.   Here is the link:  Less is More    Can you see any applications of this principle in your life or your business?

Uma das editoras mais bafo desse mundo é a Kate Lanphear ! e o glamour assim como o da Taylor Tomasi começa pelo cabelo né gente!PRESTENÇÃO!

Adooro loiro platinado! meu sonho capilar é ter essa cor nas minhas madeixas !Só que platinado exije um corte escandalo,paciência, cuidado e ca$h, tudo o que eu não estou esbanjando no momento!haha

Mas gente estava reparando, acho que o novo pré requisito pra ser editora de moda e suas variaçoes é ter cabelo maravilhoso + sapatos escândalos + usar muito preto! Vocês não  acham?!ADORO

Bom voltando pro assunto Kate  (tem um post que a Lívia fez  sobre ela no Glamour paraguaio!), ela já trabalhou na Vogue Austrália e na Haper’s Bazar, e hoje é diretora senior de moda da USA Elle…Tadinha né! morro de dó de quem tem esses empregos horriveis…

VAI VENDO!

Kate é das nossa!Além de MUITO preto, kate quase sempre usa  calça comprida,jaquetas e blazers,e tachas várias tachas! Só usa acessórios absurdos!

PODERRR!

ok see, if you didnt know about it already – im going to spill the beans.  its all about the minimal, not mini-mall, but the minimalist.  sure youve heard less is more and all that but just saying minimal or minimalist is even more minimal than saying less is more.  do i need to say minimalist once more ? OK minimalist.

Tudo começou com essa foto, que reacendeu a minha vontade de ser ruiva que tinha morrido depois de ver tanta gente com uns tons “estranhos” de ruivo por esse mundo (um momento de reflexão para esse cabelo  gente):

Foi então que fui saber quem era essa cabocla aí de cima haha!

É a nossa bff TAYLOR TOMASI que era editora de acessórios da Teen Vogue, e  foi para Marie Claire, onde é editora de acessórios e estilo!

E eu muito louca já tinha postado( e não lembrava) essa foto dela aqui no blog no post das anabellas

Bom e aqui vão os clicks dela por Paris,Milão,Ny etc…

Porque se usa tachas, já é nossa amiga!

E agora o nosso momento Nelson Rubens (BOMBA BOMBA BOMBA!) haha! Taylor se casou no final de 2008 em Dallas! agora prestenção nos detalhes gente!

Porque quem trabalha com moda não chega de mercedez nãão bêm, se joga no taxi!(isso porque ele pediu ela em casamento dentro de um taxi!)

e de lembrancinha agente se contentando com as havaianas (ADORO BRINDES E PRESENTES E AFINS GENTE HAHA) menina no casamento dela foram keds prateados!

a noiva!

VAI QUE TÁ RYCA CATITA!

Facts seem to me to point more strongly than ever to the importance of voluntary poverty today.  At least we can avoid being comfortable through the exploitation of others.  And at least we can avoid physical wealth as a result of a war economy.  There may be ever-improving standards of living in the United States, with every worker eventually owning how own home and driving his own car; but our whole modern economy is based on preparation for war, and this is surely one of the great arguments for poverty in our time.  If the comfort one achieves results in the death of millions in the future, then that comfort shall be duly paid for.  Indeed, to be literal, contributing to the war (misnamed “defense”) effort is every difficult to avoid.  If you work in a textile mill making cloth, or in a factory making dungarees or blankets, your work is still tied up with war.  If you raise food or irrigate the land to raise food, you may be feeding troops or liberating others to serve as troops.  If you ride a bus you are paying taxes.  Whatever you buy is taxed, so that you are, in effect, helping to support the state’s preparations for war exactly to the extent of your attachment to worldly things of whatever kind.

Goldian VandenBroeck (editor), Less is More: An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity, Rochester: Inner Traditions International, 1978, pg. 84-85.

It’s that time of year.  Pruning time.  We have some fruit trees on our acreage, and last year I was talking with a landscaper friend who told me about the benefits of pruning our trees.   After a hard freeze is the best time for pruning.  The tree sap is greatly slowed by the cold, resulting in less harm to the tree itself.

The task of pruning involves the ‘cutting away’ of branches from the tree that have grown, unchecked, during the year.  They serve no good purpose, these sprawling branches, and only spread the tree out over more space, resulting in the tree being much less effective.  Pruning also includes cutting away the little ‘sucker’ shoots that sprout from the base of the tree, and pull fruit-bearing energy away from the tree, just to sustain these little shoots.  They tend to be ‘life-drainers’.    Hum-m-m-m.

So, last year, I went out to my apple trees and did the deed.  I pruned.  The benefits of pruning weren’t immediately noticeable.  Then spring came and the blossoms and leaves were so much fuller in the pruned version of my trees than they had been in the larger, more strung-out versions from last year.  And THEN came harvest season..……my, oh my!!!  A tasty bumper crop of apples like we’ve never seen before!

So….CUTTING BACK yields richer, fuller results down the road?  I think I get the picture!  Life Editing.  The benefits of doing some ‘pruning’ in your life might not be evident right away, but definitely, in time, you will reap a more bountiful life.

Leslie White: October Night (2009)

Full moon;

my ramshackle hut

is what it is.

Here Issa reveals the simplicity of his small hut with the simplicity of a haiku.  All things are intricately bound together and mutually dependent, whether we recognise this or not.  No thing is independent of anything else.  In haiku, this is precisely what is recognised. This is why the juxtaposition of images is so crucial to this peculiar poetic form.  Issa may be poor, but he doesn’t forget the beautiful full moon!

The best and most important things in life do not really belong to us or to anyone.  We simply participate in the unfolding of moments in time and we bear witness to them.  Haiku is one way of becoming aware of this unfolding.  As a way of life and perception, haiku is the cultivation of this awareness.  Haiku, as a poetic form, is a kind of thanksgiving to simply being, an recognition and acknowledgment of the cosmos in its myriad beauties and mysteries.

A poor box;

four or five pennies,

evening rain.

~ ~ ~

Robert Hass (editor), The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson and Issa, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994, pg. 166, 184.

Full screen slideshow featuring more from this set here, limited run prints here.

If clarity is the communicators trump card [click here for that post] then this should be the communicators golden rule:  Less is more.  I’m sure that you’ve either attended a conference, heard a coach, or listened to a preacher and came away asking yourself or someone else, “What did they say?”  More often than not the reason is that the communicator sinned against the rule of less is more.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from my own communications and said, “I spoke for 40 minutes, and I didn’t have a point.”  I probably had MANY points, but not one, singular, clear, focused main point.  I don’t know why we, as communicators, think that the more content we have, the more points we make, or the more we talk; the more we think we will be heard.  marketing people [who are way more intelligent about this stuff than I am] will tell you that a sure way to lose an audience with someone is to give them too much information.  So the next time you are going to communicate something to a group of people, give a sales pitch, or motivate a team, ask yourself 2 questions:

1) what am I trying to say? &

2) how could I say it using less, yet more effective, wording?

E vamos falar do assunto que eu mais adoro falar para o (meu) delirio e emoção desse Brasil!! que é sobre ela a lindja absoluta preparada MIROSLAVA DUMAAAAAAA! HAHA!

Gente achei fotos mais recentes da nossa musa e tenho que confessar que…acho que agora ela está se vestindo de um jeito mais maduro sabe,mãs mesmo assim ainda é absoluta…

Vai vendo!

Amei assim do fundo do coração esse último look com jaqueta jeans e  outra de couro por cima! E semana que vem tem post falando e mostrando quem é essa mocinha ai do lado dela!

Gente para quem não sabe esse moço(?) com ela na segunda foto é o MARIDO dela!Olha eu acho que você merecia coisa melhor heim Miroslava…MÃAS  NÃO SE PODE TER TUDO NESSA VIDA NÉEE…

(Gente me ajuda! eu não sei o que fazer, porquê se coloco foto por foto fica um post super longo e se faço montagem as fotos ficam super pequenas! o que vocês preferem?!)

É muita ryqueza com Y!

Agora um minuto de silêncio para a headband Chanel…

TE QUIERO!

Varmasti hieno ilta faneille on luvassa 6.11. Tavastialla kun Marillion saapuu paikalle akustisen kiertueensa merkeissä. Marillionin uusin levy Less is More sisältää nimenomaan akustisia versioita vanhoista lauluista. Lippuja on vielä saatavissa ainakin   Tiketissä.

Mine, thine: “This dog is mine,” said those poor children, “that is my place in the sun.”  Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.

Goldian VandenBroeck (editor), Less is More: An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity, Rochester: Inner Traditions International, 1978, pg. 62.

The blatant claims that advertising sometimes makes leaves me feeling hopelessly confused about how they are slowly defining what our quality lives must be… I cannot relate to it because somewhere I realise the futility of it.

Our parents were infants too, their parents were infants and every being to have breathed fresh air on this planet was an infant   by all means, and trust me to say this, they all grew up with cloth nappies and homemade blankets. But no, today, we need various brands of nappies so that grow up well and happy. It is almost like as if you would never grow up to be the right person without them. Suddenly homemade food is not as good and nutritious as some biscuit company would have us believe. And I am more than sure that people who chewed away with datun or neem sticks instead of the innumerable toothbrushes and toothpastes have the entire set of 32 calcium intact and I have more of my generation visiting the dentist at pre-ordained intervals. Milk powder is better than milk, kurkure’s are better than pakoras, colas are better than water, bath fittings are better than sculptures, red hair is better than black hair, dentwhite is better than toothbrush and toothpaste, soaps for cleaning utensils have more real lime than maybe lemon juice and the list is endless. Bahhhh!!!!!. Are all these claims for real? They are not even logical metaphors!!

Courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/yfumxq6

I see this woman in the train with a child at her bosom. She knows nothing about nutrition because she does not look like someone who has even had food for the entire day. I cannot define her clothes to you because I simply cannot put it in words. She loves the child who suckles at her breast but the look on her face says that she probably was forced into motherhood. The child endlessly cries because she has nothing in her body to feed him. I do not need a Kodak camera to capture her image because she is too strong a representative for an entire segment of population who belong to this land and trust me, for whom ads are nothing but a mockery. She makes me feel foolish for talking about target audiences, because the target audience that I am talking about is so minute, so negligible, almost a speck. But it still makes me want to believe that we are all living pseudo lives where the lines between reality and virtual reality are far too thin to distinguish and where maa ki banai roti is not as good as McDonald ’s happy meal!

Our ideas are all warped and ideologies gone for a toss. Big words, huh! What to do? I am not too satisfied defining life and characterizing my personality in kellogs and liveons’ and mountain dews and sprites. I want to remind myself that life is not so frivolous and trust me the ‘MORE‘ we get to know about life in real, the ‘LESS‘ it is…