Play Me, I'm Yours

"Street pianos are appearing in cities across the world. Located in skate parks, industrial estates, laundrettes, precincts, bus shelters and train stations, outside pubs and football grounds, the pianos are for any member of the public to enjoy and claim ownership of. Who plays them and how long they remain is up to each community. The pianos act as sculptural, musical, blank canvas's that become a reflection of the communities they are embedded into. Many pianos are personalised and decorated.

"Questioning the ownership and rules of public space 'Play Me I'm Yours' is a provocation, inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment.

"‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ provides an interconnected resource, an empty blank canvas, for the public to express themselves and share their creativity.

Website is here - TONS of Quicktime links!

The most brilliant people that you will never meet are introverts.

From an interview with one of my scholarly heroines, Sister Wendy Beckett:

Who would you most like to sit next to on a long-haul flight?
I would like to sit next to somebody holy who would share my desire not to talk. Perhaps Saint Thérèse of Lisieux would fit the bill.

Here's the link for the quote above.

Looks like you've blown a seal.

This handout picture released on Tuesday by the animal park of Nuremberg shows Mike, a male sea lion. Officials say Mike, 19, has died of exhaustion after over-exerting himself during the mating season in an animal park in Nuremberg, Germany. The Californian sea lion and the father of 12 offspring through three different females (Farah, Tiffy and Soda) showed signs of tiredness at around midday the day before.

(Getty photo courtesy of Stadt Nuernberg / July 21, 2009)

To be precise, it is now Wesley Willis Tower.

Big day in the Windy City this Friday, as the Sears Tower is renamed after Chicago's most beloved busker, Wesley Willis.

He DEFINED the "Creative Process." 

Godspeed, Wesley, Godspeed.

"What have we learned so far?"

Hello, this is Ann.

By trade, I am considered an artisan, meaning I make my living by bringing ideas into some sort of tangible manifestation. My relationship to the things I create is that I just facilitate their existence, that when I'm making things, I don't necessarily know what is going to happen. Such is my relationship to chaos.

For this past week, I've been waiting to see how this blog will manifest itself. In my mind, a blog can't be all self-indulgent navel-gazing, it has to have a reason for existence, an impetus to push it along. All art says something, otherwise we are just proverbial monkeys throwing typewriters at the wall.

Over the weekend, I thought that the underlying fuel under this blog was going to be anger, because what was compelling me to write was fury, or frustration, or just plain bitching.

The more I considered it, the more I realized that this wasn't really the underlying motivation. It is not anger that compels people to blog, it is passion. What saddens me, what makes me angry, are abuses against things that I am passionate about. To reveal these passions is quite an intimate thing to share with unseen strangers.

My intent is ask for awareness. If people could only see the art and beauty that surrounds them, if they just would just fucking pay attention, they wouldn't need to gobble everything up looking for the next thing to consume when they feel hollow. They would savor these small silent exquisite moments in life and cherish them.

Are blogs shouting into the wind? I don't know. I never allowed myself to shout into the wind before. It is both frightening and thrilling to do this, hopefully I can justify your bandwidth.