Quote of the Day

The things we care about are the things we make art about.  We frame them with our attention.  Art is proof of care. 

-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 82

Quote of the Day

What an artist chooses to write or make drawings or songs about, can draw our attention to certain worlds.  It tells us that somebody takes something seriously, perhaps finds it beautiful or threatening, and invites us to rethink how we feel about it. 

-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 82

Quote of the Day

Art is how adults play.  Art is the continuation of play into adulthood.  We keep playing as adults because we need to keep learning.  Play is research.  In art we research our feelings. 

-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 72

Quote of the Day

Art is effective because it is safe.  You can read a novel and experience the horror of a prison or the beauty of deep love -- but you don't have to endure the real-world consequences of those things.  You can shut the book.  You can leave the gallery.  You can stop dancing, close your eyes, exit the movie theatre.  You can go away and you can get back to your life.  But you can take with you some memory of the feelings you had and that can change you. 

-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 35

Quote of the Day

Art can have a tremendous effect on the world -- that is why dictators have been so eager to lock artists away or employ them as propagandists. 

-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 35

Quote of the Day

There are many examples of art changing the course of history, advancing revolutions, bringing stone-cold people to tears and horrifying conservative parents. 

-- Brian Eno and Bette A., What Art Does, p. 35

Bookin' It in 2025

For a plethora of positive reasons, I was only able to finish reading a mere five books in 2025.  They are as follows.

1. Emerging from the Cracks: My Journey to Authentic Living by C. H. Danton (second time)
2. Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson 
3. Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni (second time)
4. Keith Haring Pop Up Book 
5. 107 Days by Kamala Harris

Quote of the Day

Act like you belong, until you do belong. 

-- Cameron Crowe, on the best piece of advice he's ever gotten

Quote of the Day

When I was starting to write, James L. Brooks told me, "Buddy, think of the privilege we have.  We got the greatest job in the world.  We get to tell stories."  I still feel that every day. 

-- Cameron Crowe 

Quote of the Day

Glenn [Frey of the Eagles] was such a student of how to slip into a room and make everybody part of your sport, which is "Let's all do great stuff together." 

-- Cameron Crowe 

Quote of the Day

You’re never going to get the story done or delivered in time if you’re that guy who is there for a dual purpose. And I think there’s a kind of journalist that gets filtered out of the process pretty quickly if you realize that they’re there to make friends more than write something from the heart. 

-- Cameron Crowe 

Quote of the Day

"Do you know who Billy Strayhorn is?" I said no.  (Max Roach) kept playing music -- beautiful music -- on the piano.  He finally stops and says, "If you don't know Billy Strayhorn, you don't know anything about the drums."  I was 12, and I didn't really know what he meant by that.  But I know now.  He meant that ... you first and foremost are a musician, and you need to learn about music ... and open your mind and ears to all the possibilities ... Then you're able to play music instead of just playing drums.

-- Joe Farnsworth