Cherry Picking is the Enemy of Soul
Matt over at 37Signals recently used this title for one of his postings. I really liked his point on art and design. The premise:
In “A Talking Head Dreams of a Perfect City,” David Byrne describes what he loves in different cities.
There’s an old joke that you know you’re in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it’s the other way around you’re in hell. In an attempt to conjure up a perfect city, I imagine a place that is a mash-up of the best qualities of a host of cities. The permutations are endless. Maybe I’d take the nightlife of New York in a setting like Sydney’s with bars like those in Barcelona and cuisine from Singapore served in outdoor restaurants like those in Mexico City. Or I could layer the sense of humor in Spain over the civic accommodation and elegance of Kyoto. Of course, it’s not really possible to cherry pick like this — mainly because a city’s qualities cannot thrive out of context. A place’s cuisine and architecture and language are all somehow interwoven. But one can dream.
Byrne’s article is fascinating, but so is this inital warning about singling out individual elements — the idea that cherry picking is a pipe dream. Qualities cannot thrive out of context. Everything is interwoven.
He goes on to say:
The sum is often greater than the parts
In today’s isolate then cut-and-paste world, it can be tempting to go around trying to single out just the best parts of things. Think of the “show three comps” method of delivering designs to a client. Inevitably the same thing happens: The client picks a few elements from design #1, a couple from #2, and a few others from #3. Then the designer(s) try to frankenstein these pieces together into a “perfect” hybrid — which turns out to be quite imperfect. All that cherry picking destroys any sense of cohesiveness. The end product looks like a collage instead of something unified.
When you cherry pick, you lose integrity. You lose the below-the-surface aspects of what makes something great. You cut the invisible strings that hold the whole thing together. You wind up with a mash-up instead of something that’s got soul.
Of course, the entire identity of post-modernism is this cherry picking and self-referencing. This is why so much post-modernist work fails to stand on its own - until you get what it’s referencing, it is difficult to see its value. At one extreme of music sampling, this is the case as well. The sample is often not chosen because of its inherent beauty but because the musician is interested in the collage of cultures. Unless you get this, a sampled bar of music looped over and over again seems sterile.
It’s the Saturday after New Years Day in Chicago, Illinois. The first thing I thought when I stepped outside to go for a walk and grab a cup of coffee: it’s so quiet out.
A conversation about winter almost always settles first on how you feel about the cold and then how you feel about the snow. However, I love winter for two reasons outside of those parameters. The quiet stillness outside gives me creative headspace. A time for my ears, which work 24 hours a day, 365 days out of the year, to relax. Secondly, the smell of crisp, clean air. The smells that float to the nose under winter conditions are absolute and un-compromised. These are experiences you simply can’t have anywhere else.
photo credit: Carey Primeau
Darwin
There is no question that humans, as currently constituted, will be dramatically different when the next few centuries come to past. This is no result of natural selection, rather it will be the product of choices made today by the people of today. That’s what our brains are for. However, what a selfish adolescent thinks will be good for her future is very different than what a compassionate and experienced adult does. In the extreme they are two different futures - one that is motivated by the ego and one that is motivated by the human race as a whole.
Mark Slouka | Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school | Harper’s Magazine
via opalandtheidiot
‘One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said “We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I’ll make one. I’ll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like the trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I’ll make a sound that’s so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in thwww.tumblr.coml who hear it in the distant towns. I’ll make me a sound and an apparatus and they’ll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.”’
— Ray Bradbury, The Fog Horn
via ewilcox
![People see skin as the shoreline of our identity. You are water. I am land. It’s a convincing argument. I see you over there and I am right here. The visual borders seem conclusive just as they do in the picture above.
But I can hear you. The vibrations that emanate from your body literally resonate through space and travel into my head. Your scent travels far beyond the physical outlines of your skin. In fact, I can feel your presence even before I have cognitive evidence that you are in the same room.
Beyond the senses, you exist in my memory. Even when you are not here I can recreate you, remember you and even imagine you here. You don’t end where the epidermal layer of your skin meets the air around you; you only end when I’m not conscious of you here.
[photo: G1 cell-photo]](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_koun8zlfI61qzzio5o1_500.jpg)
People see skin as the shoreline of our identity. You are water. I am land. It’s a convincing argument. I see you over there and I am right here. The visual borders seem conclusive just as they do in the picture above.
But I can hear you. The vibrations that emanate from your body literally resonate through space and travel into my head. Your scent travels far beyond the physical outlines of your skin. In fact, I can feel your presence even before I have cognitive evidence that you are in the same room.
Beyond the senses, you exist in my memory. Even when you are not here I can recreate you, remember you and even imagine you here. You don’t end where the epidermal layer of your skin meets the air around you; you only end when I’m not conscious of you here.
[photo: G1 cell-photo]
Packard Plant, Detroit, Mich
Ford's Wixom Assembly Plant, Wixom, Mich
The New York Times ran these pictures today in an article entitled When Auto Plants Close, Only White Elephants Remain. In sum, the story notes that out of the 22 major plants closed since 2004 by GM, Ford and Chrysler, only 8 have found buyers. These buildings end up an empty shell of undeveloped land that strain the communities they reside in and the companies that own them.
The first picture is one of the few plants built in the actual city of Detroit. The Packard plant has been abandoned for 50 years; it is a symbol of the hopelessness and blight that ensnare east Detroit after decades of opulence. The New York Times ran the photo even though it is largely irrelevant to the article itself outside of supporting some worst-case scenario of these buildings sitting unused for a half century. More significant than the evidence it provides, this plant helps build a meaningful narrative into the article. It has an inherent romantic beauty that clearly tells the story of a bygone era. Most articles about “Detroit” - even if they aren’t about the city itself - have a picture like this because the subject is thoughtful and meaningful. Anybody who has been to the city itself knows the amazing architecture that can easily be seen throughout.
Motor City Industrial Park is prominently displayed on the concourse of the Packard plant. An unnecessary ode to the city. An undeniable mark of civic pride. The nickname. The size of the letters. This isn’t just any city, the is the Motor City. Detroit Power.
The second picture (roll over the image to view) is a more contemporary suburban plant. No notable architectural details. No aesthetic concerns. No pride. Completely functional, this plant absolutely conveys the type of work that goes on inside.
So if a plant from 50 years ago tells a story just by the way it looks, what will the plants of today tell the next generation about this one? Comments welcome.
[Packard Plant Photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters]
[Wixom Plant Photo: Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times]
