text:
static bool running = true;
int filterLength1 = UNDEFINED;
int filterLength2 = UNDEFINED;
int frequency = UNDEFINED;
Mode mode = ModeUndefined;
double signalPower = 0;
double volume = (double)DEFAULT_VOLUME;

// Prints the usage of the program to the screen
void print_usage()
{
	printf("%s%s%s%s%s%s%s", "\nUsage: airwaves_fm -m [mono/stereo] -f [87500000 - 108000000] -o [2-200]\n",
			"\t-m is the MODE which can be mono FM radio or stereo FM radio, default mono\n",
			"\t\tStereo FM radio has a greater audio quality, but it's much more CPU intensive than mono.\n",
			"\t-f is the central FREQUENCY which can be in the interval [87500000 - 108000000], default 89000000\n",
			"\t-o is the ORDER of the filters used which can be in the interval [2-200], default 50\n",
			"\t\tBeware that high order filters are VERY intensive for the CPU. An order around 50 is a good compromise between speed and quality.\n",
			"To correctly quit press \"q\" and then ENTER\n\n");
}

// The thread function that listens to the keyboard commands
void *io_thread(void * args)
{
	// Initialize variables
	SocketManager * socketManager = (SocketManager *)args;
	unsigned long int max_command_size = MAX_COMMAND_SIZE;
	int command_length;
	char * runtime_command = (char *) malloc(max_command_size);

	// Infinite keyboard input listening loop
	while (1)
	{
		// Clear command buffer
		memset(runtime_command, 0, max_command_size);

		// Get the new command
		command_length = getline(&runtime_command, &max_command_size, stdin);

		// Skip if unable to read command
		if (command_length < 0)
		{
			printf("Unable to read command!\n");
			continue;
		}

		if (strncmp(runtime_command, QUIT_COMMAND_STRING, strlen(QUIT_COMMAND_STRING)) == 0)
		{
			// If "quit" command was received, quit program
			socketManager->DisconnectFromDevice();
			exit(0);
		}
		else
		{
			// Get the possition of the command separator '='
			char * ptr = strchr(runtime_command, COMMAND_SEPARATOR);

			// If '=' was not found, command is invalid => skip
			if (ptr == NULL)
			{
				printf("Invalid command!\n");
				continue;
			}

			// Go to the first char after '='
			ptr++;

			// Check if the command is related to frequency
			if (strncmp(runtime_command, FREQUENCY_COMMAND_STRING, strlen(FREQUENCY_COMMAND_STRING)) == 0)
			{
				// If command is a querry, print the frequency and continue
				if (*ptr == COMMAND_QUERRY)
				{
					printf("Frequency is %d Hz\n", frequency);
					continue;
				}

#ifdef TESTING_RESULTS

				if (strncmp(ptr, FREQUENCY_INCREMENT_STRING, strlen(FREQUENCY_INCREMENT_STRING)) == 0)
				{
					frequency += FREQUENCY_INCREMENT_STEP;
					if (frequency > HIGHEST_FREQUENCY)
					{
						frequency -= FREQUENCY_INCREMENT_STEP;
					}
					else
					{
						SocketCommand frequencyCommand(Command::SET_FREQUENCY, frequency);
						socketManager->SendCommand(frequencyCommand);
						printf("Frequency set to %d Hz\n", frequency);
						sleep(1);
						printf("Signal power is %f dB\n", signalPower);
					}

					continue;
				}

				if (strncmp(ptr, FREQUENCY_DECREMENT_STRING, strlen(FREQUENCY_DECREMENT_STRING)) == 0)
				{
					frequency -= FREQUENCY_DECREMENT_STEP;
					if (frequency < LOWEST_FREQUENCY)
					{
						frequency += FREQUENCY_DECREMENT_STEP;
					}
					else
					{
						SocketCommand frequencyCommand(Command::SET_FREQUENCY, frequency);
						socketManager->SendCommand(frequencyCommand);
						printf("Frequency set to %d Hz\n", frequency);
						sleep(1);
						printf("Signal power is %f dB\n", signalPower);
					}

					continue;
				}

#endif

				// Get the new frequency because the user wants to set it
				int new_frequency = atoi(ptr);

				// If the frequency is valid, set the new frequency,
				// print it, print signal power and continue
				if (new_frequency >= LOWEST_FREQUENCY && new_frequency <= HIGHEST_FREQUENCY)
				{
					frequency = new_frequency;
					SocketCommand frequencyCommand(Command::SET_FREQUENCY, frequency);
					socketManager->SendCommand(frequencyCommand);
					printf("Frequency set to %d Hz\n", frequency);
					sleep(1);
					printf("Signal power is %f dB\n", signalPower);
					continue;
				}
				else
				{
					// If frequency is invalid, skip
					printf("Invalid frequency! Frequency must be between %d and %d Hz!\n", (int)LOWEST_FREQUENCY, (int)HIGHEST_FREQUENCY);
					continue;
				}
			}
			// If the command is "power=?", print the power and continue
			else if(strncmp(runtime_command, POWER_QUERRY_COMMAND, strlen(POWER_QUERRY_COMMAND)) == 0)
			{
				printf("Signal power is %f dB\n", signalPower);
				continue;
			}
			// Check to see if the command is related to volume
			else if (strncmp(runtime_command, VOLUME_COMMAND_STRING, strlen(VOLUME_COMMAND_STRING)) == 0)
			{
				// If the command is querry, print the volume and continue
				if (*ptr == COMMAND_QUERRY)
				{
					printf("Volume is %f\n", volume);
					continue;
				}

				// Get the new volume because the user wants to set it
				double new_volume = atof(ptr);

				// If the given volume is valid, set it, print it and continue
				if (new_volume >= LOWEST_VOLUME && new_volume <= HIGHEST_VOLUME)
				{
					volume = new_volume;
					printf("Volume set to %f\n", volume);
					continue;
				}
				// If the volume is not valid, skip
				else
				{
					printf("Invalid volume! Volume must be a real number between %d and %d!\n", (int)LOWEST_VOLUME, (int)HIGHEST_VOLUME);
					continue;
				}
			}
		}

	}

	return NULL;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	// The socket manager responsible for communication
	// with the rtl_tcp program
	SocketManager socketManager;

	// The command listening thread
	pthread_t IO_thread;

	// Start the command listening thread
	pthread_create(&IO_thread, NULL, io_thread, &socketManager);

	// Declare and initialize some variables
	int option;
	int signalLength = (int) ( (float) RAW_SIGNAL_SAMPLE_RATE * (float) SIGNAL_BLOCK_PERIOD * 2);
	double * filter1;
	double * filter2;
	double * coeff = (double *) malloc(sizeof(double));
	char filter_location[300];

	// The input buffer in which the samples are received
	unsigned char * inBuffer = (unsigned char *) malloc(signalLength);
	memset(inBuffer, 0, signalLength);

	// Initialize the sound player that uses Pulse Audio Library
	SoundPlayer soundPlayer(NUMBER_OF_AUDIO_CHANNELS, AUDIO_SAMPLE_RATE);

	// Parse the initial frequency, mode and filter orders
	while ((option = getopt(argc, argv, "m:f:o:")) != -1)
	{
		switch (option){
			case 'f' :
				frequency = atoi(optarg);
				if (frequency < LOWEST_FREQUENCY || frequency > HIGHEST_FREQUENCY)
				{
					frequency = UNDEFINED;
				}
				break;

			case 'o' :
				filterLength1 = filterLength2 = atoi(optarg);
				if (filterLength1 < LOWEST_FILTER_ORDER || filterLength1 > HIGHEST_FILTER_ORDER)
				{
					filterLength1 = filterLength2 = UNDEFINED;
				}
				else
				{
					filterLength1++;
					filterLength2++;
				}
				break;

			case 'm' :
				if (strcmp(optarg, "mono") == 0)
				{
					mode = ModeMono;
				}
				else if (strcmp(optarg, "stereo") == 0)
				{
					mode = ModeStereo;
				}
				else
				{
					mode = ModeUndefined;
				}
				break;

			default:
				print_usage();
				return -1;
		}
	}

	// If no initial parameters was given correctly, print the usage
	if (frequency == UNDEFINED && filterLength1 == UNDEFINED && mode == ModeUndefined)
	{
		print_usage();
		exit(0);
	}

	// Set default frequency if a good one was not given
	if (frequency == UNDEFINED)
	{
		frequency = DEFAULT_FREQUENCY;
	}

	// Set default filter order if a good one was not given
	if (filterLength1 == -1)
	{
		filterLength1 = filterLength2 = (int)DEFAULT_FILTER_ORDER + 1;
	}

	// Set default mode if a good one was not specified
	if (mode == ModeUndefined)
	{
		mode = ModeStereo;
	}

	// Allocate the filters
	filter1 = (double *) malloc(filterLength1);
	filter2 = (double *) malloc(filterLength2);

	// Initialize the Socket Manager
	socketManager.Init(LOCAL_IP, PORT);

	// Disconnect from the device in case a previous connection
	// is still active
	socketManager.DisconnectFromDevice();

	// Connect to the rtl_tcp program with initial params via socket
    socketManager.ConnectToDevice(frequency, GAIN, RAW_SIGNAL_SAMPLE_RATE, true);

    // Check if the mode is stereo
    if (mode == ModeStereo)
    {
    	// Declare the signal blocks buffers
    	Complex * initializedInputSignal = NULL;
    	int initializedInputSignalLength;
		Complex * decimatedFmSignal = NULL;
		int decimatedFmSignalLength;
		double * demodSignal = NULL;
		int demodSignalLength;
		double * shiftedDemodSignal = NULL;
		int shiftedDemodSignalLength;
		double * lprSignal = NULL;
		int lprSignalLength;
		double * lmrSignal = NULL;
		int lmrSignalLength;
		double * leftSignal = NULL;
		int leftSignalLength;
		double * rightSignal = NULL;
		int rightSignalLength;
		double * leftFinalSignal = NULL;
		int leftFinalSignalLength;
		double * rightFinalSignal = NULL;
		int rightFinalSignalLength;
		short * audioSamples = NULL;
		int audioSamplesLength;

		// Read the first filter from file
		sprintf(filter_location, "%s%d%s%s%s", "filters/filter_order", (int)(filterLength1 - 1), "_freq", STEREO_FIRST_FILTER_FREQ ,".dat");
		int filter1File = open(filter_location, O_RDONLY);
		if (filter1File < 0)
		{
			printf("Could not open filter 1 file!\n");
			return -1;
		}
		for (int i = 0; i < filterLength1; i++)
		{
			if (read(filter1File, coeff, sizeof(double)) < 0)
			{
				printf("Could not read filter 1 coeff %d\n", i);
				return -1;
			}

			filter1[i] = *coeff;
		}
		close(filter1File);

		// Read the second filter from file
		sprintf(filter_location, "%s%d%s%s%s", "filters/filter_order", (int)(filterLength1 - 1), "_freq", STEREO_SECOND_FILTER_FREQ ,".dat");
		int filter2File = open(filter_location, O_RDONLY);
		if (filter2File < 0)
		{
			printf("Could not open filter 2 file!\n");
			return -1;
		}
		for (int i = 0; i < filterLength2; i++)
		{
			if (read(filter2File, coeff, sizeof(double)) < 0)
			{
				printf("Could not read filter 2 coeff %d\n", i);
				return -1;
			}
			filter2[i] = *coeff;
		}

		// Start the main signal acquisition, processing and playing loop
		while (running)
		{
			// Read a 250 ms buffer from rtl_tcp via socket
			if (socketManager.ReadFromSocket(inBuffer, signalLength) < 0)
			{
				printf ("Could not read samples from socket!\n");
				return -1;
			}

			// Instantiate a signal object from the received block
			Signal::initSignalFromSocket(inBuffer, signalLength, &initializedInputSignal, &initializedInputSignalLength);

			// Decimate and filter the initial signal
			if (Signal::decimate(initializedInputSignal, initializedInputSignalLength, &decimatedFmSignal, &decimatedFmSignalLength, filter1, filterLength1, STEREO_FIRST_DECIMATION_FACTOR) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Compute the signal power before demodulation
			signalPower = Signal::computeSignalPower(decimatedFmSignal, decimatedFmSignalLength);
			signalPower = Signal::toPowerDb(signalPower);

			// FM demodulate the signal block
			if (Signal::fmDemodulate(decimatedFmSignal, decimatedFmSignalLength, &demodSignal, &demodSignalLength) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Filter the demodulated signal
			if (Signal::decimate(demodSignal, demodSignalLength, &lprSignal, &lprSignalLength, filter2, filterLength2, 1) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Shift the spectrum of the signal
			if (Signal::shiftFrequency(demodSignal, demodSignalLength, &shiftedDemodSignal, &shiftedDemodSignalLength, STEREO_SHIFT_FREQUENCY, STEREO_DEMODULATED_SIGNAL_SAMPLE_RATE, -1) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Filter the shifted signal
			if (Signal::decimate(shiftedDemodSignal, shiftedDemodSignalLength, &lmrSignal, &lmrSignalLength, filter2, filterLength2, 1) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Generate the left and right signals
			if (Signal::FmLrGenerate(lprSignal, lmrSignal, lprSignalLength, &leftSignal, &leftSignalLength, &rightSignal, &rightSignalLength, volume) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Downsample the left signal
			if (Signal::downsample(leftSignal, leftSignalLength, &leftFinalSignal, &leftFinalSignalLength, STEREO_SECOND_DECIMATION_FACTOR) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Downsample the right signal
			if (Signal::downsample(rightSignal, rightSignalLength, &rightFinalSignal, &rightFinalSignalLength, STEREO_SECOND_DECIMATION_FACTOR) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Produce the final interleaved audio signal
			if (Signal::produceFmStereoAudio(leftFinalSignal, rightFinalSignal, leftFinalSignalLength, &audioSamples, &audioSamplesLength) < 0)
			{
				return -1;
			}

			// Send the audio signal block to the sound card
			soundPlayer.PlaySamples(audioSamples, audioSamplesLength * 4);
		}

    }
    // Check to see if the mode is mono
    else if (mode == ModeMono)
    {
    	// Declare the signal blocks buffers
    	Complex * initializedInputSignal = NULL;
    	int initializedInputSignalLength;
    	Complex * decimatedSamples = NULL;
    	int decimatedSamplesLength;
    	double * fmDemodulatedSamples = NULL;
    	int fmDemodulatedSaplesLength;
    	double * decimatedFmDemodulatedSamples = NULL;
    	int decimatedFmDemodulatedSamplesLength;
    	short * audioSamples = NULL;
    	int audioSamplesLength;

    	// Read the first filter
		sprintf(filter_location, "%s%d%s%s%s", "filters/filter_order", (int)(filterLength1 - 1), "_freq", MONO_FIRST_FILTER_FREQ ,".dat");
        int filter1File = open(filter_location, O_RDONLY);
        if (filter1File < 0)
        {
        	printf("Could not open filter 1 file!\n");
        	return -1;
        }
    	for (int i = 0; i < filterLength1; i++)
    	{
    		if (read(filter1File, coeff, sizeof(double)) < 0)
    		{
    			printf("Could not read filter 1 coeff %d\n", i);
    			return -1;
    		}

    		filter1[i] = *coeff;
    	}
    	close(filter1File);

    	// Read the second filter
		sprintf(filter_location, "%s%d%s%s%s", "filters/filter_order", (int)(filterLength1 - 1), "_freq", MONO_SECOND_FILTER_FREQ ,".dat");
    	int filter2File = open(filter_location, O_RDONLY);
    	if (filter2File < 0)
    	{
    		printf("Could not open filter 2 file!\n");
    		return -1;
    	}
    	for (int i = 0; i < filterLength2; i++)
    	{
    		if (read(filter2File, coeff, sizeof(double)) < 0)
    		{
    			printf("Could not read filter 2 coeff %d\n", i);
    			return -1;
    		}
    		filter2[i] = *coeff;
    	}

    	close(filter2File);

    	// Start the main acquisition, signal processing and sound playing loop
    	while (running)
    	{

    		// Read a 250 ms samples block from the rtl_tcp program via socket
    		if (socketManager.ReadFromSocket(inBuffer, signalLength) < 0)
    		{
    			printf ("Could not read samples from socket!\n");
    			return -1;
    		}

    		// Instantiate a signal object based on the raw signal block
    		Signal::initSignalFromSocket(inBuffer, signalLength, &initializedInputSignal, &initializedInputSignalLength);

    		// Filter and decimate the signal block
    		if (Signal::decimate(initializedInputSignal, initializedInputSignalLength, &decimatedSamples, &decimatedSamplesLength, filter1, filterLength1, MONO_FIRST_DECIMATION_FACTOR) < 0)
    		{
    			return -1;
    		}

    		// Compute mean signal power before FM demodulation
			signalPower = Signal::computeSignalPower(decimatedSamples, decimatedSamplesLength);
			signalPower = Signal::toPowerDb(signalPower);

			// FM demodulate the signal block
    		if (Signal::fmDemodulate(decimatedSamples, decimatedSamplesLength, &fmDemodulatedSamples, &fmDemodulatedSaplesLength) < 0)
    		{
    			return -1;
    		}

    		// Filter and decimate the demodulated signal
    		if (Signal::decimate(fmDemodulatedSamples, fmDemodulatedSaplesLength, &decimatedFmDemodulatedSamples, &decimatedFmDemodulatedSamplesLength, filter2, filterLength2, MONO_SECOND_DECIMATION_FACTOR) < 0)
    		{
    			return -1;
    		}

    		// Generate the final audio signal
    		if (Signal::produceAudio(decimatedFmDemodulatedSamples, decimatedFmDemodulatedSamplesLength, &audioSamples, &audioSamplesLength, volume) < 0)
    		{
    			return -1;
    		}

    		// Send the audio signal block to the sound card
    		soundPlayer.PlaySamples(audioSamples, audioSamplesLength * 4);
    	}
    }

    return 0;

}


The founder of the Bosch Group, Robert Bosch , described an important value of the HR philosophy of the company:" It is my intention, apart from the alleviation of all kinds of suffering, to promote the moral, physical and intellectual development of the people" which is greatly integrated into the employee development in the Bosch….
1) Identify and discuss the major issue(s) in the case Supply chain management is the coordination of all supply chain activities involved in enhancing customer value and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. It represents a conscious effort by the supply chain firms to develop and run supply chains in the most effective & efficient ways possible….
It is quite clear that effective management is a crucial part of any business' organisational strategy and effective managers are the ones create an effective management system. The argument about "good managers are made or born" is continuing for decades since and the role of managers is concerned. But the idea is changing through time….


>The Chinese New Year is one of the most celebrated holidays in the world, with almost a sixth of the world's population observing it.
>It is the largest annual use of fireworks on the planet, beating the likes of Bonfire Night and the Fourth of July.
>It is also responsible for the biggest annual migration, with over a billion people travelling to see their families.
>You're not supposed to shower on the first day of the Lunar calendar, for fear you'll wash away the good fortune.
>Welcome to the Year of the Pig!


text:
A stallion is an adult male, ungelded horse.

Stallion may also refer to:

In the military
 ADI Stallion, an American home-built utility aircraft
 Helio Stallion, an American STOL utility aircraft
 SS-N-16 Stallion, a Soviet anti-ship missile
 , two US Navy tugs
 Ashok Leyland Stallion, a range of trucks produced for the Indian Army

In business
 Stallion Group, a Nigerian multinational conglomerate
 Stallion Bus and Transit Corp., an American bus manufacturer and distributor
 Stallion, South African name for the Toyota Kijang series of pickup trucks and minivans
 Stallion, code name for the HTC Inspire 4G smartphone

Arts and entertainment
 Stallion (band), an American pop rock group
 The Stallion, a series of five songs appearing on the 2003 Ween album All Request Live and originally recorded across the albums The Pod, Pure Guava, Chocolate and Cheese and Craters of the Sac
 Stallion (Gobots), a figure in the Gobots toyline
 Stallion (Suikoden), a character in the Suikoden series of role-playing video games
 Stallion, an American gay-themed adult magazine
Megan Thee Stallion, an American rapper

Sports teams

United States
 Baltimore Stallions, a former Canadian Football League franchise based in Baltimore, Maryland
 Birmingham Stallions (1983-1986), a former United States Football League franchise based in Birmingham, Alabama
 Boise Stallions (1999-2001), a former Indoor Professional Football League based in Boise, Idaho
 Buffalo Stallions (1979-1984), a former Major Indoor Soccer League team
 Dallas Stallions (1999), a former American professional roller hockey team based in Dallas, Texas
 Houston Stallions (2010-2012), a former indoor football team based in Houston, Texas
 Las Vegas Stallions, a former National Premier Soccer League team based in Las Vegas, Nevada, established in 2013
 New Jersey Stallions (1996-2004), a former team in the United Soccer Leagues, originally the New York/New Jersey Stallions
 Oklahoma Stallions, an American Basketball Association team based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
 Springfield Stallions (2006-2007), a former Continental Indoor Football League team based in Springfield, Illinois
 St. Louis Stallions, a proposed National Football League team to be located in St. Louis, Missouri

Elsewhere

 Marconi Stallions FC, an Australian association football club
 Brampton Stallions (2001-2006), a former Canadian Soccer League team
 Saskatoon Stallions, a Canadian minor league baseball team
 Doncaster Stallions (1969-1970), a defunct English motorcycle speedway team
 Northallerton Stallions, original name of the Catterick Crusaders, a rugby league team based in  Catterick, North Yorkshire, England; also known as the North Yorkshire Stallions in 2011
 Coastal Stallions, a former Fijian rugby union team
 Waicoa Bay Stallions, a New Zealand rugby league team
 Sialkot Stallions, a cricket team based in Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan
 CDU Stallions, the sports teams of the Cebu Doctors' University in Mandaue, Philippines
 Stallion Laguna F.C., a Filipino association football club

See also
 Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion, an American helicopter
 Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion, an American helicopter
 Sikorsky CH-53K Super Stallion, an American helicopter
 The Italian Stallion (disambiguation)
 The Young Stallions, former American professional wrestling tag-team

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
/**
 * Camera that flies to ray-picked point on scene object
 *
 * Usage example
 * -------------
 *
 * someNode.addNode({
 *      type: "cameras/pickFlyOrbit",
 *      eye:{ x: y:0 },
 *      look:{ y:0 },
 *      yaw: 340,,
 *      pitch: -20,
 *      zoom: 350,
 *      zoomSensitivity:10.0,
 *      showCursor: true
 * });
 *
 * The camera is initially positioned at the given 'eye' and 'look', then the distance of 'eye' is zoomed out
 * away from 'look' by the amount given in 'zoom', and then 'eye' is rotated by 'yaw' and 'pitch'.
 *
 */
require([
    SceneJS.getConfigs("pluginPath") + "/lib/gl-matrix-min.js"
],
    function (glmat, jquery) {

        // Create target indicator div

        var label = (function () {
            var text;
            var body = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0];
            var div = document.createElement('div');

            var style = div.style;
            style.display = "none";
            style.position = "absolute";
            style["font-family"] = "Helvetica";
            style["font-size"] = "14px";
            style.padding = "5px";
            style.margin = "4px";
            style["padding-left"] = "12px";
            style["border"] = "1px solid #000055";
            style.color = "black";
            style.background = "#AAFFAA";
            style.opacity = "0.8";
            style["border-radius"] = "3px";
            style["-moz-border-radius"] = "3px";
            style["box-shadow"] = "3px 3px 3px #444444";
            style.left = "0";
            style.top = "0";
            style.height = "auto";
            style.width = "auto";
            div.innerHTML += 'Foo';
            body.appendChild(div);
            return {

                // Shows label, but only if text has been set
                setShown:function (shown) {
                    style.display = shown && text ? "" : "none";
                },

                // Sets canvas position of label
                setPos:function (pos) {
                    style.left = "" + pos.x + "px";
                    style.top = "" + pos.y + "px";
                },

                // Sets text in label
                setText:function (t) {
                    text = t;
                    div.innerHTML = "<span>" + text + "</span>";
                }
            }
        })();

        SceneJS.Types.addType("cameras/pickFlyOrbit", {

            construct:function (params) {

                var lookat = this.addNode({
                    type:"lookAt",

                    nodes:[
                        {
                            type:"name",
                            name:"noname",

                            // A plugin node type is responsible for attaching specified
                            // child nodes within itself
                            nodes:params.nodes
                        }
                    ]
                });

                var indicatorPos;
                var indicatorVis;
                var indicatorSize;

                if (params.showCursor) {

                    // Red sphere to indicate current point-of-interest. We'll update the
                    // position of this whenever a new 3D position has been ray-picked.
                    // This will be the position about which we'll orbit.

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            destruct:function () {
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Classic uptempo Motown girl sound! Fits the Berry Gordy formula so perfectly that it should have been a huge hit. Features a terrific bubbling bassline and mesmerizing finger snaps!
19 Apr 01 ·scrubbles: Ooooh, I dig this song - gotta love those Smokey Robinson lyrics! "A little bad comes along with every good/You've got to take the bitter with the sweet."
07 Dec 05 ·Swinging London: Reminds me of 'Don't Mess With Bill'. Quite an old fashioned sound for 1967...The Marvelettes didn't seem to really keep up with the times. Good though.
Oh, the breathy coquettishness of it all!! When she asks "Would you like some of my tangerine?", I just melt.
07 Dec 05 ·Swinging London: This was also done by a group called The Sopwith Camel' in 1966...that's good too.


This whisky was announced in November 2018 alongside three other limited edition expressions: Fukano Vault Reserve 1, Fukano Vault Reserve 2 and Fukano 6000. All four limited edition expressions are a combination of whiskies between the ages of 3 and 11 years old. Some of the whisky was first matured in casks and then moved over to be kept in different tanks for up to 16 years to rest. After tasting each tank individually, the brand created four different combinations from the tanks. This release is meant to celebrate the history of Hitoyoshi, Japan. The label art was created by local artist Junishi Oda. 1,200 bottles were produced globally and it is bottled at 40.4% ABV.
"This is an intriguing blend of younger and older whiskies, but it comes together really nicely. The palate is mellow and rounded, with notes of vanilla, rose, cedar, and pear. A pleasant, fruity sweetness lingers on the finish. It's a mild and elegant dram, recommended for enjoying neat."


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You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Creativity' category.
Handmadeness
May 27, 2012 in Aesthetics, Creativity, Current viewings | Tags: artist books, craftsmanship, Dennis Dutton, Jan Baker | 7 comments
Denis Dutton, the recently deceased author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times a few years ago in response to the auctioning of one of Damien Hirst's infamous medicine cabinets:
The pricey medicine cabinet belongs to a tradition of conceptual art: works we admire not for skillful hands-on execution by the artist, but for the artist's creative concept. Mr. Hirst has a talent for coming up with concepts that capture the attention of the art market, putting him in the company of other big names who have now and again moved away from making art with their own hands: Jeff Koons, for example, who has put vacuum cleaners into Plexiglas cases and commissioned an Italian porcelain manufacturer to make a cheesy gold and white sculpture of Michael Jackson and his pet chimp. Mr. Koons need not touch the art his contractors produce; the ideas are his, and that's enough.
Sophisticated gallery owners or curators normally respond with withering condescension to worries about the lack of craftsmanship in contemporary art. Art has moved on, I've heard it argued, since Victorian times, when "she'd painted every hair" was ordinary aesthetic praise. What is important today is not technical skill, but skill in playing inventively with ideas.
Dutton uses the rest of his piece to demonstrate that objects that are well crafted, made by hand (in the most positive sense), and beautiful have always played a role in our species' history, a point of view expounded in more detail in his last book.
The importance and role of craft and handmadeness are on my mind these last few weeks after having viewed the final exhibits for three different MFA programs. Based on the work featured in these three shows, it is clear to me that each program has a tacit—or in some cases, explicit— attitude about the importance of craftsmanship in contemporary art.
Invoking the Roberta Smith taste test* (my personal version of Occam's razor for navigating the world of art) I give a high five to Rhode Island School of Design. Yes it is a great art school with extraordinary resources and easy access to different disciplines and programs. But respect for the hand and the craft is evident even when the work is taking a counter position. A RISD value, "to encourage generative thinking and making" is clearly evident in this show.
Beyond the sprawling MFA exhibit however is additional evidence of how the school views handmadeness. Quietly on display in RISD's spectacular library (situated inside a massive bank building brilliantly repurposed by Office dA) is an exhibit of handmade books by the students of Jan Baker. Baker has been teaching a book making class for 25 years and her collection of student samples is close to 500. Baker has chosen 200 and painstakingly created a "displayscapes," lovingly populating the museum cases with these exquisitely crafted works. Arranged by themes—story telling, travel, animals, food, alphabets for example—each display cabinet invites your eye to explore a miniature world of artistic mastery. Baker has color coded each piece by the decade in which it was done, pointing out that much of the meticulous cutwork had to be done by hand. "These older works were made long before we had a laser cutter." I could have spent hours excavating inside each one.
Displaying artist books has been frustrating curators for a long time, and Baker is equally stymied by how to share objects that are designed to be held in the hand, paged through slowly and carefully. Her kimono-like styling—a page open here, a pop up offered there—is more enticing than most artist book shows I have seen. But the longing to jimmy the glass and reach in to hold these gems is constant.
The show is up through July. The displays are on several levels, so be sure to visit all of them, including the window box in the Special Collections wing. This is an unforgettable exhibit.
*The Roberta Smith Taste Test:
What's missing is art that seems made by one person out of intense personal necessity, often by hand.
January 16, 2012 in Creativity, Psychology | Tags: groupthink, solitude, Steve Wozniak, Susan Cain | 10 comments
Door into my zone of privacy, my studio
I know, it is easy to feel a bit of smuggish pleasure when an above-the-fold article in the Sunday New York Times articulates just what you have been saying for years.* Certainly I am not the only artist out there voicing advocacy for the way of solitude. There are many of us in that phalanx (metaphorical only!) who spend most of our days working alone and know that is the only way we can do what we do. But Susan Cain, author of an upcoming book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, has brought the topic to a larger audience.
From her article, The Rise of the New Groupthink:
Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.
But there's a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They're not joiners by nature.
In her article, Cain highlights the necessary introverted approach of Apple's cofounder Steve Wozniak. And given the current spike in interest in Steve Jobs and Apple, this telling of the story is important:
The story of Apple's origin speaks to the power of collaboration. Mr. Wozniak wouldn't have been catalyzed by the Altair but for the kindred spirits of Homebrew. And he'd never have started Apple without Mr. Jobs.
But it's also a story of solo spirit. If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.
Intentionally so. In his memoir, Mr. Wozniak offers this guidance to aspiring inventors:
"Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me … they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone …. I'm going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team."
I am looking forward to reading the book. And for a few more converts—or at least more respect—for the hermet's life.
*Here are a few previous posts on Slow Muse that touch on the value of solitude:
Stand Alone: More on Solitude
Scaling Solitude
A Translucent Network of Minimal Surprises
Sages of Silence and Fear
Breath Me, Light
In the Hive, and Out
Silence's Non-Narrative
Seasonal Surrender
Being Schooled
Ways of Working
September 22, 2010 in Art Making, Creativity | Tags: Art, Art Making, Carolyn Kastner, Georgia O'Keefe, Judith H. Dobrzynski, Real Clear Arts | 4 comments
At some level, everything is of interest to the eye…a view of one corner of my studio space
How do artists work? In a recent posting on Real Clear Arts, Judith H. Dobrzynski makes the case that as mysterious as the creative process is, it is that which people most want to know. And that interest exists in spite of the fact that most artists don't really even know what their process is.
Some may say they know and wax on about their creative process. But in my experience the best you can do is create a convenient narrative. Our mind (or part of it) wants to be able to sense a path or a plan, to grab on to some sense of order in even the inchoate zones like creativity. But whatever story you tell it is just one version of the journey that actually lives in a Rashomon of valid narratives, all of them incomplete.
For example, Dobrzynski includes a quote from Georgia O'Keefe about her process:
I have picked flowers where I found them, have picked up sea shells and rocks and pieces of wood where there were sea shells and rocks and pieces of wood that I liked. When I found the beautiful white bones on the desert I picked them up and took them home too. I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.
(This appears in the catalog for an upcoming show in Santa Fe, O'Keeffiana: Art and Art Materials.)
Dobrzynski goes on to describe O'Keefe's way of working:
O'Keeffe was very organized. She placed her drawings in named file folders, took photographs of her still subjects from many vantage points in different light, trimmed her brushed meticulously, and so on. Associate curator Carolyn Kastner, who organized the show, told the Associated Press that she looked hard for something "messy," but could not find a thing.
There is value in seeing an artist's work space. It is yet another clue in the back story but just that—only a clue. Over the years I've visited hundreds of studios, and each tends to speaks to the highly personal journey that is happening in that work space. Mondrian came to his studio every day in a suit and never spilled any paint on his attire, an approach I have always found resoundingly impossible to imagine. On the other end of the spectrum, some artists epitomize the old saying, "An artist is just someone looking for somewhere to store stuff" and have studios that might qualify as reality TV hoarding. My friend Nancy Natale has posted dramatic "studio before" and "studio after" photos right on the home page of her wonderful blog, Art in the Studio. She may have changed teams at some point.
And as for me, I don't know for sure which team I am on either. My studio has two parts—one is ordered and relatively presentable, the other wildly chaotic, messy and (in my mind) chock full of possibility. I always seem to opt for the both/and.
Leave Them Kids Alone!
July 29, 2010 in Art Making, Creativity | Tags: Art, creative process, Mind the Gap, Wendy Perron | 1 comment
Is there just TMI when it comes to the creative process? Some think so, especially in the full tilt confessionalism of blogtown.
On Mind the Gap, one of my favorite art/culture blogs, Wendy Perron from Dance Magazine is quoted on this topic:
There's an annoying new trend of blogging about the process of making a dance. I am talking about young choreographers, anxious to be in the public eye, who think that writing about what happened that day in the studio will somehow 1) bring them a wider audience and/or 2) make them a better choreographer. I realize a blog is a good way to keep your website alive and to involve your potential audience. But explaining how you make a dance, the problems you encounter and how you solve them, is not going to help either you as the choreographer or your potential audience.
In agreement. The current proclivity to language everything—from personal material to the creative process that belongs outside that "explain everything" domain—is increasingly problematic. There are costs, some of them unperceived.
Mind the Gap's response brings up issues that I feel strongly about, like the "pre-verbal place" that needs to be protected:
Perron's original post is worth reading in full, as in it she gets deeper into specifics on exactly why she worries about this reliance on words when it comes to creating fresh art. Her thoughts were really interesting to me, particularly because she's cautioning young artists to pull in the reigns and that's not a message I come across very often. Usually it's about how to be more, do more, and say more, all in the hope of reaching more, teaching more, and selling more.
So, to blog or not to blog about process, that is an interesting question in the messy rule-breaking world of creative expression. Did Perron intend this as dance-specific advice, particularly needed due to its physical nature? How important is the "pre-verbal place" in other types of creative work? I personally thought Perron's admonishment to knock the blogging off was a little harsh, but the seemingly always-distracted-by-blinking-technology side of me understands that she has a point.
Several people have asked me how blogging has affected my real work in the studio. It is a complex question for me and one for which I do not have a pat answer even after four years. Sometimes I say I use it as a linear counterpoint to the inchoate nature of my painting life. Or that it de-hermetizes me and makes it easier to embrace open-heartedness. Or that my love of poetry and of provocative ideas serves to clarify my intentionality. That the process of writing is palate-cleansing (palette-cleansing?!!)
All these responses feel true but none feels complete. Maybe it is just a case of e) all of the above. And while I have not used this blog to parse the creative process into logical, languaged form, I do enjoy observing that pre-verbal place from a safe distance. It is like watching something quite unexpected and at times mesmerizing, but doing so from behind the bushes.
Enabling Through Limits
June 4, 2010 in Aesthetics, Art Making, Creativity | Tags: Carroll Dunham, constraints, Creativity, innovation, open innovation | 3 comments
Icicle propagation on a building facade in Pittsburgh: Living with constraints
A few months back I posted a quote from the artist Carroll Dunham that has a great deal of meaning for me:
The most basic thing to say about painting: it's a limiting condition within which absolutely anything goes. But it's a negative premise. It's not, "I like painting because it's so wonderful—it can do all these wonderful things." It's more, "I like painting because it's so limited, it's so uptight, so old and so flat and so rectilinear." Within that, you're good to go.
Recently I have been reading a lot about innovation, from breakthroughs in open innovation to high yield collaborations. Although a lot of my reading has focused on how innovation plays out in corporate settings (it is all of interest to me regardless of the context), the parallels to my personal experience are still relevant.
For example, this passage is from Jeffrey Philips on the blog, Innovate on Purpose:
What happens in with a tight brief, or a well communicated set of criteria, is that the team is then liberated to innovation within those criteria, or to achieve something incredibly new and different within that criteria. Since we all need a villain to slay or some fixed point to pivot from, having some fixed criteria or goals mean that we can then assume those goals are fixed and find all manner of outrageous ways to satisfy those criteria or goals. That's when the really interesting ideas start flowing. Good ideas then lead to a decision making process based on the established criteria or constraints. This is a two-fer. You get better idea generation, better engagement and a team that can more easily choose the best ideas, since the constraints were clearly identified.
If you want a team to really excel at idea generation, set a big problem or goal for them, define the strategic opportunities and establish some key constraints. Then, allow them all the degrees of freedom possible outside of the constraints, and wait for the great ideas to come.
The role of constraints—be they within the confines of painting or within a team setting—continues to fascinate me. Given my personality proclivities that chafe at the very thought of limits (in that oft-circulated challenge to describe yourself in just six words, mine was "Don't tell me what to do"), I have never tired of the limits that painting imposes on visual expression. Although Dunham is being both truthful and tongue in cheek in his comment above, I have never flinched from staying right there in the middle of that "limiting condition within which absolutely anything goes."
Fitzgerald and Creativity
May 14, 2010 in Creativity, Writing | Tags: A.R.T., Creativity, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatz, The Great Gatsby | 7 comments
I have never been keen on the idea of a creativity elite. Since 1959 when C. P. Snow wrote his legendary essay "Two Cultures" about the breakdown in communication between the sciences ("the white coats") and the humanities, other us/them dichotomies have emerged. Creativity is one of those, highlighted in recent books like Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class and the Rays' The Cultural Creatives. And my ongoing dialogue with my friend Bose about what constitutes creativity has kept this topic particularly active over the last few weeks.
An earlier post about the difficulty of measuring creativity has also been rattling around in my head. I have a personal life full of amazingly talented artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers, but I have always considered my highly analytical, business-oriented partner Dave to be one of the most creative people I know. When I first read the well publicized creativity exercise used to promote open source innovation, 40 uses for a brick, I realized that's the way Dave has always approached everything, from business problems to planning a family vacation. He sees connections that others often overlook and has an ability to keep propagating new ways of seeing.
This is different than what happens for me in the studio. And yet there is some common elemental source at work here—a shared language, a common fragrance. Parsing it any more than that seems like an unnecessary excursion. But it is my nature to leave plenty of life's unnamed experiences only partially exposed, respectful of what is inchoate and just a little mysterious.
What set me off this morning was a back issue of the New Yorker with an article about F. Scott Fitzgerald's painfully unsuccessful attempts to make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Having just recently been enamored and awestruck by experiencing The Great Gatsby performed verbatim in a production of "Gatz" at the A. R. T. (and written about here), I was a bit unnerved by this unsettling account. It is about the harsh reality that creativity doesn't always spill over. It has its limits, it has those domains where it cannot scale. In other words, it is a story about human longing and human limitations, of how the gap between the two can be a terrain of extraordinary misery and suffering.
Billy Wilder described Fitzgerald's foray into Holllywood as "a great sculptor who is hired to do a plumbing job," with no clue how to connect the pipes and get the water to flow. How could the author of one of American literature's greatest novels be so off in another form? In Slow Fade, Arthur Krystal does a decent job of putting it into perspective:
Fitzgerald drew his faith not from camera angles or even plotlines but from sentences; and what draws us powerfully to his work is the sensitive handling of emotional yearning and regret. When he was revising "Gatsby," he characterized the burden of the novel as "the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world so that you don't care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory." As Arthur Mizener….pointed out, "it is precisely this loss which allows Gatsby to discover 'what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.'" Perhaps Fitzgerald could have captured this heightened state of awareness in a script, but was this what the studios were looking for? Fitzgerald's vision of becoming a great screenwriter was no more realistic than the likelihood of his returning a kickoff or writing a hit Broadway show. But, then, Fitzgerald was not one to give up on dreams; if he had, he could not have written so beautifully, so penetratingly, about their loss.
Reading this left me with a willingness to surrender to the "chop wood, carry water" that so characterizes a lifetime of work, be it in an overtly creative field or not. This isn't a negative view; rather it is accepting where we might be brilliant and where our own personal river runs thin. Fitzgerald's life happens to exemplify two extraordinary extremes. But that is often the nature of genius.
May 9, 2010 in Aesthetics, Creativity | Tags: Creativity, Nandalal Bose, Rex Jung | 3 comments
Siva drinking World Poison, Nandalal Bose (Photo: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi)
I have been participating in an ongoing conversation with my friend Supratik Bose about the nature of creativity. Over dinner a while ago he told me he didn't believe something could be deemed creative unless it demonstrated market value. Bose, trained as an architect and the grandson of India's most beloved artist of the 20th century, Nandalal Bose, doesn't make that statement lightly. I on the other hand will argue that point for the rest of my life.
Our debate is lively and robust however, so I don't want it to come to a "agree to disagree" stalemate. I told Bose to read Lawrence Weschler's unforgettable account of one man's mission to transform an artist laboring for years in obscurity to international renown. ("Shapinsky's Karma" is a chapter included in Weschler's book, A Wanderer in the Perfect City.) Bose told me to read Nancy Andreasen's The Creative Brain, which I am currently doing. And this weekend he sent me the link to an article in the New York Times, Charting Creativity: Signposts of a Hazy Territory, by Patricia Cohen, which is full of timely news on this immense, unfathomably complex and provocative topic.
"Creativity is kind of like pornography — you know it when you see it," said Rex Jung, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque. Dr. Jung, an assistant research professor in the department of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, said his team was doing the first systematic research on the neurology of the creative process, including its relationship to personality and intelligence.
Like many researchers over the past 30 years or so, Dr. Jung has relied on a common definition of creativity: the ability to combine novelty and usefulness in a particular social context.
As the study of creativity has expanded to include brain neurology, however, some scientists question whether this standard definition and the tests for it still make sense. John Kounios, a psychologist at Drexel University, argues that the standard "has outlived its usefulness."
"Creativity is a complex concept; it's not a single thing," he said, adding that brain researchers needed to break it down into its component parts. Dr. Kounios, who studies the neural basis of insight, defines creativity as the ability to restructure one's understanding of a situation in a nonobvious way.
Everyone agrees that no single measure for creativity exists. While I.Q. tests, though controversial, are still considered a reliable test of at least a certain kind of intelligence, there is no equivalent when it comes to creativity — no Creativity Quotient, or C.Q.
While Rex Jung and others are doing their scientific level best to come up with some kind of meaningful measure—Jung calls it a "Composite Creativity Index"—I'm going with the naysayers who say it can never be nailed down, dissected or completely comprehended.
I like the description of the difference between creativity and intelligence:
One study of 65 subjects suggests that creativity prefers to take a slower, more meandering path than intelligence.
"The brain appears to be an efficient superhighway that gets you from Point A to Point B" when it comes to intelligence, Dr. Jung explained. "But in the regions of the brain related to creativity, there appears to be lots of little side roads with interesting detours, and meandering little byways."
Although intelligence and skill are generally associated with the fast and efficient firing of neurons, subjects who tested high in creativity had thinner white matter and connecting axons that have the effect of slowing nerve traffic in the brain. This slowdown in the left frontal cortex, a region where emotional and cognitive abilities are integrated, Dr. Jung suggested, "might allow for the linkage of more disparate ideas, more novelty and more creativity."
And bless that Bose. One has to be a class act to send along an authoritative collaboration of the opposing point of view since this claim also appeared in the article:
Dr. Kounios…said that Dr. Jung was doing original and interesting work, but he maintained that trying to find a correlation between creativity and a single area of the brain is an "old-fashioned approach."
"Creativity is a collection of different processes that work in different areas of the brain," Dr. Kounios said, so the creative act must be broken down into tiny pieces. He also rejects utility as part of the definition, arguing that there can be brilliant and creative failures — what he calls near misses.
I'll take all of them in—the near misses, the creative failures, the byways and the detours.
A bit of background on Nandalal Bose from the San Diego Museum of Art which mounted a traveling exhibit of Bose's work for the first time outside Asia in 2008:
Nandalal Bose was born in Bihar, India, in 1882. At the beginning of his career in 1905, he was one of many artists and visionaries who sought to revive the spirituality and cultural authenticity of Indian art after 50 years of colonial rule and westernization. In 1919, Bose became the first director of the art school at the new university founded by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in rural Bengal. Here, traditional Indian teaching methods were favored over British-style education.
For the following three decades, Bose began to experiment with a variety of indigenous Indian, Japanese, and Chinese techniques. His work consisted more of scenes of nature and tribal and village life, as well as devotional subjects. It was his portrayal of village India without dependence on Western materials or styles that captured the attention of Gandhi and catapulted Bose to the status of national icon as the only artist Gandhi patronized.
Nandalal Bose
April 26, 2010 in Art Making, Creativity, Wisdom | Tags: Creativity, David Foster Wallace, Susan K. Perry, Virginia Woolf, writer's block, Writing in Flow | 3 comments
Desert landscape near Alice Springs, Australia
I've gone through creative dry spells. Everybody does, but when it is happening to you, it is hard to not take it personally and forget that the condition is common. It is easier to talk about it when the episode is over. It's a little like childbirth: Give me a while before I tell you about how it was to deliver an 11 pound child.
Reading through the rich responses to Jerry Saltz's recent posting on the reality of being an artist (here) started me thinking (again) about the highly interior and intensely private nature of the struggle for flow. So many artists owned up to and spoke about their experience with such candor, and I was deeply touched by many of their words.
One writer included a link to Susan K. Perry, a psychologist and writing consultant, who is also the author of Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced Creativity. Over the years Perry has collected a list of the most common fears that lead to creativity blocks:
The worry that the work isn't good enough
The fear that I have no talent.
The fear that, if anyone notices my work in the first place, they won't like it.
The fear of appearing foolish.
The fear of not being able to finish a long project, or of dying before it's done.
The fear that I've wasted my time.
The fear of offending somebody.
A terror of leaping into the abyss of the imagination.
Feeling I'm in over my head, that I won't be able to do this without appearing stupid.
The fear that I'll run out of ideas and never be able to produce anything again.
Does anyone ever conquer all of these demons? Probably not. Virginia Woolf wrote, "Is the time coming when I can endure to read my own writing without blushing—shivering and wishing to take cover?"
Perry points to another writer's insights:
The brilliant writer David Foster Wallace, who, like Woolf, committed suicide, was interviewed in 1997 on NPR's Fresh Air. Asked by Terry Gross whether, when he was a teen tennis player, his self-consciousness interfered on the court, he said, yes, of course. He went on to wonder whether perhaps those listening have "this part in their brain" that allows them to turn off thoughts of "what if I double fault on this point, or what if I miss this free throw, or what if I don't get this strike with the entire bowling team hanging around."
Wallace at first figured "this stuff" doesn't occur to professionals, then added, "but when I hung out with pro players for the tennis essay, it occurred to me that they have some kind of muscle that can cut that kind of thinking off." Such self-consciousness, he said, is "literally paralyzing. You can end up like a bunny in the headlights." Wallace couldn't turn it off and gave up tennis.
One of Perry's suggestions for dealing with the feeling of being frozen by a fear: Trivialize the task.
I adopted it as one of my mantras because it really works. For a writer, for example, what this means is accepting that a creative career or a creative life is a long evolving process, not a single product—and certainly not an unpolished draft of a product.
It helps to think of yourself as playing at whatever you're doing. If it feels like work and nothing but work, maybe you're doing it wrong. Because you can't fail. You just try again, or you try something else, or you try in a different way.
In a different post Perry compares creativity to making love. That's extra credit reading.
Open Hand, Open Mind
April 6, 2010 in Creativity | Tags: Creativity, Garr Reynolds, innovation, Stuart Brown, TED talk, Tim Brown | 1 comment
A moment of homage to the hand. My hand. Your hand.
I started the morning reading about the relationship between a person's problem solving skills and their ability to work with his or her hands. The correlation is significant enough that some recruiters look for cerebral problem solving candidates with car repair experience on their resume (if only!) In a stimulating post about work and play by the author of Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds has assembled a good selection of videos about how important play is in every aspect of our lives. Tim Brown (from IDEO) gave a TED talk in 2008 that is worth watching, particularly to see how he engages playfully with his audience (walking the talk in a particularly refreshing way.) Also worth a watch is another TED talk (gotta live TED!) by Dr. Stuart Brown who states his point of view quite directly: "The opposite of play is not work, it's depression."
There's some definite playfulness in another book I'm reading, Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals. Their blog, Signal vs Noise, is a lively and interesting place to visit as well.
And thanks to my Tweeter buddy James Burke for alerting me to Reynolds' site. It's a steady flow of stimulating stuff.
January 8, 2010 in Aesthetics, Creativity | Tags: Aaron Rose, Art, Beautiful Losers, Creativity, Jaron Lanier, You are Not a Gadget | 7 comments
Margaret Kilgallen at work
A provocative article on Slate reviews Jaron Lanier's latest book, You are Not a Gadget. Written by Slate senior editor Michael Agger, the essay digs into many of Lanier's ideas and just says No. Lanier, one of the leaders in the early days of virtual reality and an respected Wired alum, is not a fan of Web 2.0, the hive mind, or where things are going in that online space. "He was the guy with the dreadlocks and the giant V.R. goggles perched on his forehead, the epitome of the hippie-shaman-guru strain in tech culture," says Agger.
One of Lanier's contentions is that creativity in music has suffered in the era of web access. It is all retro, says Lanier, and he challenges listeners to distinguish between music being made now and what was showing up 10 years ago. Although a somewhat distanced observer of that particular world, I feel he may have a point.
But this passage really caught me:
Lanier is a survivor and has good instincts: We need to be wary of joining in the wisdom of the crowds, of trusting that open collaboration always produces the best results…But his critique is ultimately just a particular brand of snobbery. Lanier is a Romantic snob. He believes in individual genius and creativity, whether it's Steve Jobs driving a company to create the iPhone or a girl in a basement composing a song on an unusual musical instrument.
The problem is that the Web is much bigger now, and both Jobs and the bedroom oud player must, in their own ways, strive for attention from the hive mind.
Individual creativity vs the collective hive. The 19th century (and therefore outdated) "Romantic" notion of the artist as soloist, loner, isolate. The collaborative-heavy hegemony of the Web. These are just a few of the questions that are forming a new topology of creativity.
Pluralist to the core, I have always opted for "e) all of the above." There are so many ways to make, create, invent, engender—who can say what's sanctioned, what's appropriate? But is that very idea an outdated notion as well?
I recently viewed the documentary, Beautiful Losers, by Aaron Rose. The film is a subtle and understated portrait of a group of (mostly) disaffected skateboarders, graffiti artists and musicians in the early 90's who eventually turned to visual art. Brought together by a shared lack of pretension and the desire to just have fun, eventually they became their own art movement. Mostly self-taught and suspicious of the superficiality of the mainstream art world, they were committed to an extraordinarily fierce brand of self-expression. And while many went on to be very successful, that was not the driving intention.
There is a sweetness and uncomplicated quality about the film as well as many of the artists it features. It is an art underworld version of "build it and they will come": The teeming audiences of kids that filled the ad hoc gallery shows in the early days found their way there without the aid of Facebook, Twitter or Gawk. Could it happen like that now? Probably not. The accelerated pace of the hive mind would make the slow, organic incubation that these folks enjoyed (and I would say, needed) less likely.
But then again, maybe these pervasive cybertechnologies will constellate a new kind of creative outpouring. We're in the middle of watching this unfold, so it is hard to know for sure. But like I said, my tendency is always to go with e).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The distinguished baritone Robert Honeysucker was once arrested for attending a concert.
It was 1962 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was performing in Jackson, Miss., at a hall that was not open to blacks. Mr. Honeysucker, an African-American student then in his sophomore year at Tougaloo College, showed up at the concert knowing the potential consequences. The morning after his arrest, when asked by a local sergeant why he had come, he replied with a calm defiance and a certain self-sustaining dignity: He was there because he was a music student and wanted to hear one of the best orchestras in the world.
This broadly humane approach, navigating the sometimes murky domains of life and art by the light of a deeply felt personal truth, earned Mr. Honeysucker countless admirers over the course of his acclaimed career as an operatic baritone, recitalist, and oratorio singer.
A fixture of Boston's musical landscape over some four decades, Mr. Honeysucker died in a Milford, Conn., hospital Oct. 7 after suffering a heart attack while en route to New York City, according to his wife, the pianist Noriko Yasuda. He was 74.
Mr. Honeysucker, who used his deeply resonant baritone to conjure a vast range of heroic, tragic, and comic characters, lived in Cambridge and performed at one time or another with nearly all of the region's major classical music and opera organizations, as well as with national and international ensembles.
"Bob appeared regularly with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops from the late 1980s onwards, at Symphony Hall, at Tanglewood, and on the Esplanade," said Anthony Fogg, artistic administrator of the BSO. "Whether singing 'The Rake's Progress' or 'Porgy and Bess,' Beethoven's 'Missa Solemnis' or spirituals, he radiated a sense of quiet dignity and elegance, matched by his burnished and beautiful vocal color."
While frequently spotted in local opera productions, Mr. Honeysucker was a versatile performer, and his annual concerts devoted to the American songbook — with soprano Nancy Armstrong, violinist Daniel Stepner, and gambist Laura Jeppesen at the Museum of Fine Arts — became a local institution. "We were a real family," Armstrong recalled. "Those melodies just hit you at the heart. And his sound. There's no one who had his sound."
Reviewing one such MFA performance in 1993 under the headline "If only Broadway still sounded this good," Boston Globe classical music critic Richard Dyer singled out Mr. Honeysucker's "dashing appearance, big personality, actor's understanding of character and situation, easy rhythm, relaxed style, and clear diction." He added: "Once in a while he will soar up to a full-voiced high G or even A that will make your hair stand on end."
Mr. Honeysucker's work on the opera stage could leave an equally strong impression, especially in the roles for which he was best known such as Rigoletto, Sharpless, Germont, and Iago. In particular, he had a gift for making operatic expression — the least "natural" of art forms — seem like an organic exteriorization of a character's inner life. In a 1999 Boston Phoenix review of Puccini's "Il Trittico," the critic Lloyd Schwartz wrote of Mr. Honeysucker's masterful portrayal of a Seine barge captain "who realizes he has lost his wife to one of his own dockworkers. [Mr. Honeysucker's] aching sadness, his profound inwardness, and the beauty of his singing added up to one of the most moving performances I've ever seen."
Speaking by phone, Odyssey Opera artistic director Gil Rose recalled conducting Mr. Honeysucker in a particularly memorable production of Verdi's "Luisa Miller" for the now-defunct Opera Boston. "He was a real Verdi baritone who knew how to hold the stage vocally and dramatically," Rose said, adding that "when conducting Bob, you always felt like you were in partnership. And I think the groundswell of affection for him comes from that quality. He really sang with people in a way that endeared him to all of his colleagues."
This portrait of Mr. Honeysucker as a particularly generous collaborator and as a mentor to younger singers, was reinforced in recent Globe interviews with many local singers. Among them was mezzo-soprano Lynn Torgove, who met Mr. Honeysucker at the very beginning of her career. "I couldn't have done it without Bob," she said. "With the confidence that he gave me, and gave to so many others, I flew. Whenever Bob was performing with you, you were the most important and most special person in his world."
Mr. Honeysucker was also an accomplished oratorio singer, well-known for his performances in Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and Handel's "Messiah," and he was revered as a teacher, with affiliations at Boston Conservatory and the Longy School of Music. In addition, he taught at Brandeis University and Tufts University, and served as assistant director of the Community Music Center in the South End.
"He taught you to really feel the music — you couldn't fake a note, you couldn't fake an emotion," recalled Anna Ross, a private student. "He taught the way he sang."
Robert Honeysucker was born in 1943 in Memphis and came of age in the South of the 1960s, which he once described as "a decade of defiance, hope, and challenge." He became active in politics and social issues at an early age, joining the youth division of the NAACP. When he was still too young to vote, he worked in voter registration efforts prior to 1960, when John F. Kennedy was elected president. ("JFK was my Lincoln," he later recalled.) While an undergraduate at Tougaloo College, Mr. Honeysucker befriended the activist Medgar Evers, who brought him to demonstrations and encouraged his deepening commitment to the civil rights movement.
Meanwhile, Mr. Honeysucker majored in music education and voice, trying hard to focus on his studies at a time when drive-by shootings and cross-burnings were not hypothetical dangers. He was deeply shocked in 1963 when Evers was assassinated in his driveway by a white supremacist.
After graduating from Tougaloo, Mr. Honeysucker received a master's degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before returning to Mississippi in 1967 to teach voice and conduct the choir at Tougaloo. A year later, on April 4, 1968, professional triumph and national tragedy converged as Mr. Honeysucker was set to lead his choir in a Carnegie Hall performance alongside Duke Ellington and his orchestra. As Mr. Honeysucker was walking onto the Carnegie stage, a manager informed him in a whisper that Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. An announcer then shared the news from the stage.
"When he said that MLK was dead, there was such a sound of anguish and pain … It sounded as if Carnegie Hall wept," Mr. Honeysucker recounted earlier this year during a speech at the Maple Street Congregational Church in Danvers. "The choir was numb, some cried. But we performed that night with great focus and intensity."
Mr. Honeysucker came to Boston in 1972 for additional graduate studies at Boston University, and later with Donna Roll, who teaches at Longy. Over the years, according to Roll, Mr. Honeysucker struggled palpably, if often privately, with the lingering obstacles that faced many African-American singers aspiring to roam beyond the few roles available to them in Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess."
"Many casting directors or stage directors have a preconceived idea of how things should be," Roll said, "and very often they don't see people of color singing those roles. Especially outside of Massachusetts, Bob found places where he was not asked to sing because of that. It could be very infuriating and hurtful to him. When he worked with African-American students, he would tell them that the only way to deal with this is to move on from it — to have great preparation, great technique, and to give 200 percent."
Mr. Honeysucker's life experience also informed some of his artistic choices, and he recorded five discs supported by Videmus, an organization dedicated to increasing awareness of repertoire by African-American composers and women. His discography also includes releases on the Centaur, Ongaku, and Titanic labels. In later years, his concert tours brought him to Japan, to London's Wigmore Hall, to Berlin's Theater des Westens, and across the Persian Gulf.
A service has been held for Mr. Honeysucker, who in addition to his wife, Yasuda, leaves two sons, Alan Honeysucker Sr. of Baton Rouge, La., and Damian Honeysucker of Ocala, Fla., and four grandchildren. Two previous marriages ended in divorce.
For many colleagues and audience members, Mr. Honeysucker's sheer vocal endurance through the decades became almost as striking as the performances themselves. "He had this eternal voice that never aged," said Torgove. "A few weeks ago, he sounded the same as he did in 'Orfeo' in 1987."
Armstrong added: "There was nothing I could compare his voice to. It was just this soaring resonance. You can still hear it."
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.


The National Weather Service says that Hurricane Rosa has the potential to bring heavy rain to the Imperial and Yuma Valleys.
The increasing moisture associated with the hurricane might bring scattered showers as early as Sunday , becoming more widespread Monday and into Tuesday. Rainfall totals of 1 to 1.5 inches are currently forecast across most of south-central and southwest Arizona and southeast California. NWS says some locations may receive close to 2 inches by Tuesday. The heavy rains could cause localized flooding. Chances for rain in the Imperial Valley appear most likely Monday through Wednesday. Hurricane Rosa is currently tracking off the Pacific Coast of Baja California , Mexico.


text:
Crises Reveal Our Character
By Joe Chesser
What would you do if you were fired from your job and put in prison because your employer's wife told horrible lies about you?
What would you do if you had run for your life because you helped defend a neighbor from an injustice?
What would you do if you were offered something you greatly desired but knew was illegal and life-threatening to obtain?
What would you do if suddenly you discovered that all that you had believed in the past was not true, and instead of serving God you were actually fighting Him?
What would you do if you were offered a considerable amount of money to betray a friend?
What would you do if you found out that the woman to whom you were engaged became pregnant before the wedding, and you knew it wasn't your child?
These are not hypothetical questions. They really happened, and the answers to these questions reveal the type of character each person possessed at the time the crisis occurred. You can probably identify each of the people in the above scenarios: Joseph (Jacob's son), Moses, Eve, Paul, Judas, and Joseph (and Mary). Some of them faced the crisis with faith and resolve, and withstood the challenge. Others failed. But what these examples teach us is that when crises occur, our character will be revealed.
All of us have faced and will continue to face many challenges in our lives. They may be strong temptations; they may be difficult choices; they may be heart-breaking health issues. And many of our crises are not personally our own – they may involve our spouse, parents, children, family or friends. Still, they are heavy burdens.
As we reflect back on 2020, it's easy to see that there were countless crises that shaped, molded and revealed our character. Not much we can do about them now except to determine that in 2021 we will learn from our mistakes and enhance our strengths.
How we handle crises reveals who we really are. It also reveals how we have prepared for the inevitable challenges. We may not know exactly the kind of crises that may be coming in 2021, but they will come. How we prepare today for them will determine how these crises affect us. Roy Disney once said, "When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier." Our three basic optional responses to crises are: 1) Joseph was able to overcome the crisis with Potiphar's wife because he had already established his values, even as a teenager; 2) Moses overcame a poor decision by developing spiritually while in the wilderness; 3) Judas allowed his crisis to destroy him.
What will 2021 reveal about your character?
- Joe Chesser preaches for the Fruitland Church of Christ, Fruitland, MO. He may be contacted at joeandareva@yahoo.com
Labels: Adversity, Holiday, New Year
If the Devil Had a Social Media Account
Simon the Samaritan Sorcerer
Blessings and COVID-19
The Family Name You Carry
BulletinGold on Facebook
The Most Valuable Book
Anger (#1)
Coping in 2021
Following the Pattern in the New Year
New Year Predictions That Will Come True
Removing Our Debt
Accomplishing Your New Year's Resolutions
A God Who Makes All Things New
The Silence of the Season
The Apostle John
Waging the Good Warfare (1 Timothy 1:18)
Beautiful Walk
We Understand Commitment
Will the "Sinner's Prayer" Save Me?
Treasure in an Old Jar
Why Calamities?
Blind Eyes
Self Will or God's Will?
The Unwritten Gospel
How Much Like Jesus Do You Want to Be?
Mountains and Beaches


text:
By dahosek	writing
"Saint Anthony in West Hollywood": The Story Behind the Story
My newest story, "Saint Anthony in West Hollywood" is up now at The Rappahannock Review.
I began with a vague notion of a saint in the modern world, or perhaps someone who was delusional and just thought he was the saint, leaving the tr uth purposefully indeterminate. I had no idea which saint or where. Then little by little, things came to me. Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, and West Hollywood, which gave me some idea of the other protagonist of the story.
I have a bizarre fondness for second person, partly because my first published story was in second person, and partly because for this piece, it's planned as part of a collection where the POV has a subtle coding to something about the story and "Saint Anthony in West Hollywood" fits into neither category. Just as well, I think that the second person fits it nicely.
There's an interview with me (my first ever) accompanying the story.
Thanks to those with whom I've workshopped this story, Aaron Frankel, Paul Gee, Diane Gilette, Davy McNell, Laura Nelson, Gwen Tolios and Matt Zakosek. The first draft of this was begun at a writer's retreat hosted by Sister Julia Walsh where, for the first time, I read in public an unpublished excerpt of my work, in this case, the opening scene of this story.
Tagged aaron frankel, davy mcnell, diane gilette, gwen tolios, julia walsh, laura nelson, matt zakosek, paul gee


text:
Stormont Executive confirms nightclubs will close on Boxing Day, but no financial compensation agreed
Christopher Leebody and Allan Preston
Stormont Ministers have confirmed that nightclubs in Northern Ireland will close on Boxing Day, while no financial package to support businesses has yet been agreed.
It comes as Northern Ireland recorded its highest ever daily number of Covid-19 cases.
First Minister Paul Givan, deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill and the Health Minister Robin Swann announced the latest measures on Wednesday evening.
Ms O'Neill thanked the public for taking steps to protect their families in the run up to Christmas.
"As the situation stands today, Omicron already accounts for 40% of our Covid cases and it will become the dominant strain within a matter of days," she said.
With the infection rate expected to rise sharply in the coming weeks, she said the Executive had agreed "a proportionate" package of measures.
From December 27, the guidance is for mixing in a domestic setting to be limited to three households.
There will be a renewed emphasis on working from home as well as a legal requirement for workplaces to take reasonable measures to facilitate social distancing of two metres.
Workplace Covid testing will also be "strongly encouraged".
Measures around face coverings will be strengthened, with a legal duty on all businesses to take reasonable steps to minimise the transmission of the virus.
Being seated in hospitality settings will become a legal requirement, with a maximum of six people at a table.
As previously reported, nightclubs will be closed from 6am on December 26.
Indoor dancing and standing events will not be allowed.
Ms O'Neill said it was clearly "an evolving situation" which would be kept under continuous review, with the Executive set to meet again on December 30.
On financial support for businesses and individuals, she said: "We will continue to press the Treasury for financial support because that gives us more flexibility in managing the situation as we see fit here, not depending on what happens in England."
She added: "We are developing a financial package, details of which to follow, in terms of how we can support businesses and workers through this challenging time."
The Health Minister Robin Swann said he welcomed the Executive's agreed position.
He said there was a dual threat due to the sheer speed of the spread of Omicron, but also because of "unprecedented" workforce disruption in health and other essential services.
Encouraging the public to get their boosters, he said it was now easier to get a vaccine than it ever has been before.
"If you're still unvaccinated, please don't wait any longer," he said.
Mr Swann said it was likely that cases of Omicron would peak in Northern Ireland in mid-January, with hospital admissions depending on the severity of the variant.
"That uncertainty should not breed complacency, we must take the threat extremely seriously."
Mr Swann said the precautionary approach would have been to impose tougher sanctions, but the Executive's options were "extremely limited" given the absence of a furlough scheme or other financial package.
Asked if the Executive would have gone further if more money was available, Mr Givan said the conversion rate of those who were infected and then hospitalised was still at a low figure of around 1 %.
Ms O'Neill described the measures as "reasonable and proportionate" given what was currently known about the severity of Omicron.
She said the money issue was "a huge challenge" and Northern Ireland did not have the additional money that was available in England and Wales.
"We are going to design a financial package based on what we currently have, but I will continue to fight the fight with the treasury if further interventions are required.
"We must have the back of the worker…without the finances available to back this up it makes all these decision points very difficult."
No restrictions have yet been placed on sporting events, meaning thousands will still be able to attend events in the coming week.
Mr Givan said he would encourage those attending events not to car share.
Reacting to the announcement, Hospitality Ulster's Chief Executive Colin Neill said: "Announcing business closure without financial support is contemptable and shows no consideration for staff and business owners.
"Businesses closed, additional restrictions imposed and supply chains impacted with no support - what sort of situation is that to force upon those who are crying out for help?"
He continued: "Business owners and staff have been left high and dry about their future over Christmas. Do our Executive Ministers not see what state the hospitality sector is in? It's not acceptable to have to wait until December 30 and have so many people worrying over the holiday period."
D-Day for Executive to decide on Covid restrictions, officials want 'significant intervention', hospitality braces itself
PSNI prepares for new Covid curbs as all officers are put on 12-hour shift pattern
It comes as the vaccination and booster programme have been stepped up in recent weeks, including the opening of the a mass vaccination centre at the Titanic Exhibition Centre.
On Tuesday the Health Minister Robin Swann revealed up to two thirds of Covid-19 patients in hospital aged under-50 are unvaccinated.
He said vaccination was the key to avoiding "severe restrictions".
It comes as Northern Ireland has recorded it's highest ever daily total of new positive cases with 3,231 recorded in the last 24 hours. A further three deaths linked to Covid-19 were also recorded.
Coronavirus Northern Ireland: Record daily high as 3,231 new cases reported
Chief medical officer Sir Michael McBride has previously said that the variant is likely to become the dominant strain in Northern Ireland in January.
The Treasury has announced additional funds of around £150m to help Northern Ireland tackle Covid, although DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has warned it is not enough to deliver a furlough scheme.
The Department of Finance has developed proposals that ministers will be asked to consider, such as additional business grants and extra help for sectors like close-contact services, which may be affected by a reduction in footfall due to the spread of cases.
Music promoter Joe Dougan manages the Limelight in Belfast, he said the latest decision showed that nightclubs had become the "whipping boy" of coronavirus measures.
"I think the Executive are in a difficult situation, it's been developing pretty quickly over the last two weeks," he told the Belfast Telegraph
"England still haven't made a decision and there still isn't an official line out there about how serious the Omicron strain can be compared to the Delta strain.
"The point I've been trying to make is that our industry has been completely closed for 87 weeks and only open for the last seven.
"We were completely unable to trade and this is supposed to be the busiest week of trade for us.
"Between Christmas and New Year is absolutely crucial, the end result of this I believe will be no reduction in Covid.
"All night clubs have a very robust entry procedure that doesn't allow anyone on the premises that isn't double vaccinated or able to present proof of a negative lateral flow test."
He added that revellers would now be likely to flock to unregulated environments like house parties where Covid will be able to spread.
"That's not just between similar age ranges, but intergenerationally which is much more dangerous," he said.
"It's hugely disappointing for this industry although we did anticipate this. But after such a long time of being unable to blow it's a hammer blow for the industry."
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