Danbusha

Rafael Moneo, Lost in Translation

In an interview last month with Esquire's Eric Spitznagel, Michel Gondry talked about his newest movie, The We and the I, and about how time travel is depressing.

ES: In your real life. If you, Michel Gondry, found a time machine and could go anywhere, to any period in history, where would you take it?

MG: I would travel back a few years ago and fix some screw-up I did.

ES: A personal or professional screw-up?

MG: In my personal life.

ES: Can you be more specific?

MG: I would come back and say yes to a girl. That's all. Actually, I find the whole idea of traveling back in time to be profoundly depressing.

ES: Really? Why so?

MG: Because I know the future. Living in the past, it would feel weird to know what's going to happen next. You couldn't escape it. That future's already in your head. You know it doesn't get better.

ES: You'd rather not know about the future?

MG: The future is about hope. If you travel from the present to the past, you don't have that hope anymore. You know how everything turns out.

ES: There are no surprises.

MG: No surprises, exactly! To me, that just sounds so... depressing.

Tags: Eric Spitznagel   Michel Gondry   movies   The We and the I   time   time travel

I've spent part of the last couple of days trying to figure out what Thomas Keller is getting at here with his distinction between passion and desire:

It's not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it's about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you'll be a great cook. If it's only about passion, sometimes you'll be good and sometimes you won't. You've got to come in every day with a strong desire. With passion, if you see the first asparagus of the springtime and you become passionate about it, so much the better, but three weeks later, when you've seen that asparagus every day now, passions have subsided. What's going to make you treat the asparagus the same? It's the desire.

"Follow your passion" is something you hear really often in tech/design/startup circles, so it's interesting to see Keller take it to task.

Tags: Thomas Keller

Abel Rodríguez waxes floors for a living in Los Angeles and takes two weeks of vacation a year to work gratis for Real Madrid when the European football club trains in Los Angeles every summer. He had always dreamed of seeing Real Madrid playing their Spanish rivals Barcelona in Madrid, so his family persuaded him to go. He went. With no hotel or ticket to the game, he sat outside the club's training complex for hours until manager José Mourinho spotted him as he was leaving..."Stop! It's the guy from Los Angeles." Thus began Abel Rodríguez's magical journey.

You never know when karma will come back and reward you for something. For seven summers Rodriguez worked for free for Real Madrid, even when the club was willing to pay him for his efforts in Los Angeles. Now he was about to experience the thrill of a lifetime.

Oh man, I've got something in my eye.

Tags: Abel Rodriguez   Jose Mourinho   Real Madrid   soccer   sports

The 25 Greatest Quotes About Writing: “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong...

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From the folks over at Tumblr Storyboard, shot an interesting vignette about barista Mike Breach who began experimenting with small coffee and milk foam portraits in a hotel kitchen where he works. Breach draws quick, intricate portraits that are enjoyed by a single person for only a moments before being consumed. He says the drawings in and of themselves are “kind of a joke” but he’s more concerned about the brief connection he’s able to make with an individual and how it impacts their day. Luckily he snaps a quick photo of each one which you can see on his Tumblr. (via vimeo)

“Before you mock the idea of a constitutional amendment, consider that hardly anyone is happy with our unstable status quo: gun enthusiasts fear their rights are under constant threat; gun-control advocates point to the danger of illegal guns and easy access to firearms.

It is actually quite unusual for gun rights to be included in a constitution. In our historical study of constitutions, my colleagues and I identified only 15 constitutions (in nine countries) that had ever included an explicit right to bear arms. Almost all of these constitutions have been in Latin America, and most were from the 19th century. Only three countries — Guatemala, Mexico and the United States — have a constitutional right to arms. Of the 15, ours is the only one that does not explicitly include a restrictive condition. Of course, many Americans, and a minority of the Supreme Court, believe that our “militia clause” amounts to one such a restriction — an interpretation the court rejected in 2008 when it ruled that the Second Amendment protected the individual right to bear arms.

What would happen if our right to gun ownership were explicitly protected and balanced against a concern for public safety?”

Rewrite the Second Amendment | NYT

Adidas Women SS13: all in for #mygirls — made by girls, for girls.

More of this, please.

”’Well, I don’t know what will happen now,’ King tells the crowd. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.”

King’s eyes shine as he speaks. He shifts his weight from foor to foot, swaying to his own hypnotic cadence. His voice is soft, subdued. Then louder. He’s building to a shout.

“I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve s-e-e-e-n the promised land.” he says, stretching “seen” is his best preacher’s voice to punctuate his vision. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about a thing. I’m not fearing ANY man. Mine E-Y-E-S have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

The audience is on its feet. King turns from the pulpit and and walks to his colleagues. They embrace him with hugs and slaps on the shoulder as he collapses in his seat.

It’s 10:30 p.m.”

Martin Luther King’s Last 32 Hours

“1. If nothing else, one ought to know how to treat a comma. Abandonment or abuse of the comma muddles discourse, and this lack of respect is akin to neglect, to a lack of appreciation, to an unreasonable rejection of the very foundation of all worthy human interactions.

2. Even in its more seemingly prosaic applications, appearing to be little more than punctilio, the comma possesses great power. Consider, for the moment, the salutation of a written letter.

Dear Benjamin,

That graceful comma is more than ornamentation, more, too, than mere formality. The great missives of history have all begun in such a fashion. But in addition to its magnificent legacy in the history of letter writing, the comma gives us pause to build our anticipation or steel ourselves in preparation. It may tempt us, tickling the foot of that final letter, or it may attempt to hold us back, to warn us before we tumble and fall upon the following line. A comma used thus implies the letter was written with care, with a sensitivity towards its awaiting audience.”

Benjamin Samuel: The Comma From Which My Heart Hangs