ROB POLIVKA

Francie and me at the park this morning.

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:03:16 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Francie and me at the park this morning.

Photo

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:00:32 -0500

"As one of the folks who worked on the old Gmail design for a long time, I feel a bit like a father..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:14:01 -0500

“As one of the folks who worked on the old Gmail design for a long time, I feel a bit like a father watching his daughter get a lower back tattoo.”

- drklahn on Metafilter

hicockalorum: “I am a snowlake” - thought hedgehog in cold...

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:39:23 -0500

hicockalorum:

“I am a snowlake” - thought hedgehog in cold delirium.

I’m a sucker for drawings with a lot of snowflakes in them.

“Beep” our little girl was born today!

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:56:29 -0500

“Beep” our little girl was born today!

book-aesthete: Little Fur Family Brown, Margaret Wise New York,...

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:30:25 -0500

book-aesthete:

Little Fur Family
Brown, Margaret Wise
New York, Harper & Bros. 1946.

Color illustrations by Garth Williams. 8.2x5.6 cm. (3¼x2¼”), original white paper boards with color pictorial front cover, fur cover, original two part box with a circular hole in the middle of the furry animal on the front part with actual fur showing through. First Edition.
An unusual children’s book, which still has the rabbit fur book cover. Later printings were substituted with an artificial fur cover.

B-A Note: I seriously debated whether to post this. A children’s book about furry animals, bound in real fur? What were they thinking?

kochalka: Flutteringly.

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:21:31 -0500

kochalka:

Flutteringly.

rockstarninja: is it just me or is Thor channeling some serious...

Sun, 06 May 2012 23:42:26 -0500

rockstarninja:

is it just me or is Thor channeling some serious Nicolas Cage here.

bigweek: If All of Earth’s Water was put into Single Sphere.

Sun, 06 May 2012 23:22:15 -0500

bigweek:

If All of Earth’s Water was put into Single Sphere.

merlin: 10,000 Singers - Symphony No. 9, Fourth Movement (“Ode...

Sat, 05 May 2012 23:56:29 -0500

merlin:

10,000 Singers - Symphony No. 9, Fourth Movement (“Ode to Joy”) (Osaka-jō Hall, 2011)

What it says on the tin. Ten-thousand (non-professional) Japanese singers, wailing the shit out of some Ludwig Van.

Pretty amazing.

Sanity Break: 10,000 member choir sings Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”

In this video from Osaka, Japan, a 10,000 member amateur choir performs the “Ode to Joy” section of Beethoven’s Symphony Number Nine. The concert is an annual event, but this year’s performance — recorded in late December 2011 — was dedicated to the victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Jump straight to 06:40 if you just want the money shot. But, don’t miss out on some of the wide, crowd shots. It’s shivery.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Heavenly one, your sanctuary!

An uncommon last name helps filter out a lot of junk mail.

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:45:07 -0500

An uncommon last name helps filter out a lot of junk mail.

magicfran: Meg Park

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:22:22 -0500

magicfran:

Meg Park

kochalka: Happiness

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 22:20:46 -0500

kochalka:

Happiness

Photo

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:41:54 -0500

americanchickens: Illustration crush: Tomi Um.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:29:52 -0500

americanchickens:

Illustration crush: Tomi Um.

Children’s Book page 11 in progress.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:54:11 -0500

Children’s Book page 11 in progress.

kochalka: Sweet Boy

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:30:56 -0500

kochalka:

Sweet Boy

Self-Imposed Rules

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:46:00 -0600

(Persevere Bar & Restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland)

Sometimes I wonder if making little rules for myself actually works to improve my habits. Most times as soon as I deviate from the rule, I have an “aw, screw it” attitude and give up (for a while at least). Maybe it’s better to self-impose guidelines. Surely it’s better to just keep going no matter the failures. Word of the year: persevere!

Go to Bed

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:12:40 -0600

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is just get some sleep.

Publish the Sketches

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:01:11 -0600

I’ve been making notes of things I’d like to write about for quite a while now and it’s time I actually wrote about them. I feel like I’ve had a revolution in my thinking about creativity lately thanks to people like Merlin Mann and conversations with my brother and other friends, so I want to get these ideas out there before they stagnate.

One of the biggest things is this: I’m coming around to the idea that it’s better just to create, create, create even if the work is not necessarily up to the highest standards. Stop the ruthless self-editing.

But I’ve been sitting on that idea for months and not writing about it or doing much of anything creative—only valuing the thought of it. Even my plan to express my excitement at the “New Creativity” has fallen victim to my old ways of procrastination.

So I’m just going to get started without too much forethought or self-editing.

I plan to make this a notebook of ideas and thoughts about being more creative and integrating all aspects of life and art. I hope I can better understand the things I care about by writing them down—even if my expressions aren’t all the way there or the execution is clumsy. This will be a place to work out ideas.

I like the thought of pushing an idea around to get to the truth. I feel like Dostoevsky did that a lot. He expressed a point of view, pushed it pretty far in one direction, then came at it from the other side and pushed it back maybe a little too far. Then back from another side, and again and again making tiny refinements. This is the kind of thing I want to do—here and everywhere.