“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” — Henry David Thoreau
“The first page sells that book; the last page sells your next book.” — Mickey Spillane
“Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.” — Samuel Butler
“I like terra firma – the more firma, the less terra.” — George S. Kaufman
The video below raises some interesting questions about the nature of art and who or what is an artist. A group of computer scientists had Rembrandt’s paintings analyzed by computers. The computers crunched the data and determined what elements were part of a typical Rembrandt painting. Once the information was thus analyzed, the computer was tasked with creating a Rembrandt painting of its own.
The result was quite remarkable and perhaps anyone who was an art scholar would declare that it was a heretofore unknown Rembrandt. The video, The Next Rembrandt, is very interesting in both concept and the questions is raises.
Published on Apr 5, 2016
“Blurring the boundaries between art and technology, we set out on a challenge to see if the great Master can be brought back to life to create a new painting.”
“Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog.” — Unknown
“If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.” — Bette Davis
“When you really trust someone, you have to be okay with not understanding some things.” — Gordon Atkinson
“You win some, you lose some, and then there’s that little known third category.” — Al Gore
What publication are you reading if you see the following in print?
- naïve
- teen-ager
- coöperate
Well, if you must know, it is The New Yorker
Mary Norris is the copy editor for The New Yorker and she has some rather interesting tidbits to share about editing, language, readers and writers.
As an example, Ms. Norris pointed to the following sentence that appeared in the magazine:
“Last Tuesday, Sarah Palin, the pre-Trump embodiment of populist no-nothingism in the Republican Party, endorsed Trump.”
She was apparently raked over the coals, so-to-speak, for not catching the error [Did you?].
Mary Norris also quoted E.B. White’s comment about commas in The New Yorker: “They fall with the precision of knives outlining a body.”
If you enjoy exploring the English language in this way and learning about the process of editing, I urge you to watch this engaging presentation by Mary Morris via here TED talk.
You can watch the presentation HERE.
Mary Norris is author of Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.” — Latin Proverb
“Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.” — Ali Ibn Abi Talib
“The power to question is the basis of all human progress.” — Indira Gandhi
“He who laughs, lasts.” — Mary Pettibone Poole
As the photo below demonstrates, it is often hard to tell by a quick look whether the tide is coming in or going out!
“It is such a secret place, the land of tears.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing.” — William Arthur Ward
“To all my doubters, thank you very much because you have also pushed me.” — Usain Bolt
“When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn’t know it had a name.” — Lyndon Johnson
The Venus Flytrap is one of nature’s cunning predators even if it doesn’t have a brain!
From the YouTube Video Page:
“Hungry Venus flytraps snap shut on a host of unfortunate flies. But, despite its name, flies arent the flytrap’s only meal. As long as its prey is roughly the right size and touches two of its hairs within twenty seconds, the plant will dine on any insect or spider that comes its way. Glands in the lobes then secrete enzymes that break the dinner down into a digestible soup. Ten days later, the trap pops open to reveal nothing but a dried out husk.”
“Who depends on another man’s table often dines late.” — Italian Proverb
“When my circle got smaller, my vision got clearer.” — Unknown
“Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with the part of another; people are friends in spots.” — George Santayana
“I usually take a two hour nap from 1 to 4.” — ‘Yogi’ Berra
“Pickleball is a ribbon of dreams, a tale told by a genius, full of sound and fury, signifying everything! The ferocious triumph of the human will to excel is a thing of beauty to behold. All four players should be proud.” Keith via comment on – 15 Shots to Kitchen Line
This is the first paragraph of the post highlighted above…
“The Pickleball Channel uploaded this video (linked below), that shows how it took Alex Hamner and me 15 shots to make it to the kitchen line (24 more shots to win) straight to their Facebook page on February 22, 2016, and at the time of this blog post the video had 121,270 views with 1,433 people sharing this video!”
Click to see VIDEO
Watch this amazing pickleball point between Alex Hamner & Jennifer Lucore and Mona Burnett and Bonnie Williams at the Grand Canyon State Games.
As Keith’s remark above implies, pickleball can be an art form when done at this level! Great job!
You can read the entire story at Jennifer Lucore’s Blog post and don’t forget to look at the comments as well!