“Soil is crammed with bacteria. Its earthy scent is the smell of the chemicals they produce. Petrichor, the smell released by dry ground when it is first touched by rain, is caused in large part by an order of bacteria called the Actinomycetes. The reason that no two soils smell the same is that no two soils have the same bacterial community. Each, so to speak, has its own terroir.”
From “Regenesis” by George Monbiot
Ai Weiwei unveils cage-like Arch installation in Stockholm:
Appearing to break through the steel bars that surround them, these characters represent the “free passage of all populations, and appealing for a world without borders,” said creative foundation Brilliant Minds, which organized the installation.
This is a beautiful sculpture by Ai Weiwei. The foundation Brilliant Minds was created by the man who became unfathomably rich by founding first Pirate Bay and later Spotify. Someone should put a sticker on the Arch that says paid for by musicians everywhere.
I am reading Ai’s book “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows”. For me the book became really interesting after he arrived in New York, in February of 1981.
There were tens of thousands of artists in New York, but only a few dozen who were making money. For a certain subset, art had become a
target of speculation and just part of the race to find the next new thing.
Art had long been a consumption commodity, a decoration catering to the
tastes of the rich, and under commercial pressures it was bound
degenerate. As artworks rise in monetary value, their spiritual dimension
declines, and art is reduced to little more than an investment asset, a
financial product.
and
Around this same time, a couple of pictures of mine were part of a group exhibition in the East Village. When the show closed, rather than take the pictures home with me, I just chucked them into a dumpster. Dumpsters are everywhere in the streets of New York City, and you could probably find a number of masterpieces in them. I must have moved about ten times during my years in New York, and artworks were the first things I threw away. I had pride in these works, of course, but once I’d finished them, my friendship with them had ended. I didn’t owe them and they didn’t owe me, and I would have been more embarrassed to see them again than I would have been to run into an old lover. If they were not going to behanging on someone else’s wall, they didn’t count as anything at all.
I highly recommend the book.
Creativity – Questlove
A Man Called Ove – Backman
Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants – Mathias Enard
While the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue
The Janissery Tree/Yashim – Jason Goodwin
The Snakestone/Yashim – Jason Goodwin
The Tourist – Olen Steinhauer
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
The Nearest Exit – Olen Steinhauer (audio)
An American Spy – Olen Steinhauer (audio)
Salvation of a Saint – Keigo Higashino (audio)
The Cairo Affair- Olen Steinhauer (audio)
The Bellini Card – Jason Goodwin
Havana Fever – Leonardo Padura
Havana Blue – Leonardo Padura
The Baklava Club – Jason Goodwin
An Evil Eye – Jason Goodwin
A Rising Man – Abir Mukherjee
A Necessary Evil – Abir Mukherjee
Smoke and Ashes – Abir Mukherjee
Grab a Snake by the Tail – Leonardo Padura
Fall – Neal Stephenson
Incident at Twenty-Mile – Trevanian
The Girl from Berlin – Ronald H. Balsen
The Eiger Sanction – Trevanian (audio)
The Loo Sanction – Trevanian (audio)
Why Buddhism is True – Robert Wright
Outsider in Amsterdam – Willem Van De Wetering
Rock and Hard Places – Andrew Mueller
Tumbleweed – Willem Van de Wetering
As you can see I prefer reading to movies or TV. I might make it to 35 or even 40 books this year… :-)
I have read several books by Douglas Rushkoff. His observations are always smart, deep, inspiring. His latest work is called Team Human. I just started reading it.
“Survival of the fittest is a convenient way to justify the cutthroat ethos of a competitive marketplace, political landscape, and culture. But this perspective misconstrues the theories of Darwin as well as his successors. By viewing evolution though a strictly competitive lens, we miss the bigger story of our own social development and have trouble understanding humanity as one big, interconnected team.”
Excerpt From Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/team-human/id1397987309?mt=11
My 2012 reading list, in no particular order. Could not put “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” down and finished it yesterday, a little after midnight.
√ – simply means that I read the book. The unread titles are at the ready, mostly in the form of hardcovers and paperbacks, some bought used but most bought at Collected Works, which is a fantastic bookstore in Santa Fe.
Spiegel und Maske (1970-1983) – Jorge Luis Borges √
Momo – Michael Ende √
The Offensive Traveler – V. S. Pritchett √
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco √
Angelmaker – Nick Harkaway √
The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway √
Peter Høeg – Das Stille Mädchen √
A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway √
Alif the Unseen – G. Willow Wilson √
The Secret Race – Tyler Hamilton √
Gods Without Men – Hari Kunzru √
1Q84 – Haruki Murakami √
Buddha in Blue Jeans -Tai Sheridan √
Distrust that Particular Flavor – William Gibson √
Lying – Sam Harris √
Years of Red Dust – Qui Xiaolong √
Ratking – Michael Dibdin √
Vendetta – Michael Dibdin √
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell √
Tribal Peoples – Stephen Corry √
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan √
Le Freak – Nile Rodgers √
How Music Works – David Byrne
Cabal – Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon – Michael Dibdin
Cosi Fan Tutti – Michael Dibdin
Some Remarks – Neal Stephenson
The Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Twan Eng
Ninja – 1,000 Years of the Shadow Warriors – John Man
The Quantum Universe – Brian Cox
