autumn leaves are dropping fast in these parts, and this photo is barely related to my ramblings below
Been thinking about the golden ratio lately.
The recent post about Radiohead’s latest album by Puddlegum might have started my mental wandering.
The piece is very well bunk, but a fun read in conspiracy theory mindset. This bit from the comments in particular pulled out a detail I hadn’t noticed:
The album title can be heard in the backing vocals of Reckoner. But, did anyone notice the IN RAAAAAAAIN IN RAAAAAAAIN IN RAAAAAAAINNNNN IN RAAAAAAAIN IN RAAAAAAAINBOWS starts precisely at the albums golden section?
(sidenote: I’m super enjoying the whole In Rainbows album)
A few days later I’m reading this article about the Vignellis (hat tip to Swissmiss for that one)
Once I stopped drooling over the photo of this extraordinary design duo’s apartment, I noted the sidebar lists their “peak” from 1965 to 1985.
This bothered me because I’d like to think the husband and wife team are still crafting stellar work. But maybe there’s something to it. Maybe we find a sweet spot in life where all cylinders are firing in properly and the result is the height of our craft.
I figure it possible to be elastic as well, growing or shrinking according to lifespan.
Or, it’s malarkey and I need to let it go.
Current music: My Morning Jacket “Golden”
The vignellis are awsome. As a kid in the 70s I was friends with the Vignelli’s kids. Their home at the time was an ultra-cool pad with every mod high-end design element you could imagine – I totally loved it! Around that time I once visited their studio where they were designing the interior of a church, I saw a cardboard mockup of the pews, I suggested they modify them to remove some of the dividers so that families could sit together, and they did that. As far as I know the pews are still that way (St Peters Lutheran under the Citicorp Center building in NY). That was my earliest usability design triumph.
But maybe there’s something to it. Maybe we find a sweet spot in life where all cylinders are firing in properly and the result is the height of our craft.
Or maybe this is the most public height of their craft–the part that resonated most with others thus far.
Or maybe (and this is where I’ll put my money) there is a sweet spot to each part of our lives. You have five careers, you have five sweet spots.
I think it only becomes an issue if you are rigid in your thinking, or if celebrity is your goal — either the kind you enjoy during your lifetime or the kind you can’t, after.
If you care more about being the purest expression of creation or art or whatever, how could each moment not be the best?
_very_ cool about St Peters Lutheran, Alex.
And Colleen, I heart you.