Catagraph.us

“She observed a cube shimmering in the air below.”

I’ve recently gone attic mining. Even if you have an attic — or know where one may be found — there’s a good chance you’ve never ventured into its depths. Rightly so, I say, for there are unseen dangers. I speak, of course, of the awful old books which migrate into the attic when they have finished poisoning the bookshelves in the living room. If there is interest, I shall endeavor to provide examples tomorrow.

There are some small compensations. As it happens, mysterious cases also migrate to attics. Please note the clever camouflage adopted by these fine examples!

“Calliope climbed onto the narrow pipe…”

(Looks like those empire builders can’t leave their warren of pipes and strange machines alone for a second without a kid and a cat getting all up ins. Apologies for the bad cat anatomy — I know I can do better.)

I’m nearly finished with Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. I think there are some weaknesses to the arguments being made in the last chapter — and that’s really slowing me down. Most of the points he makes in the book seem quite well supported in comparison. More on that later — if there’s time.

Spent a great deal of time last night organizing my dusty collection of old computer parts. It’s ridiculous how such things adhere themselves to one’s person. There was a constant sense of deja vu. I know I’ve placed these parts into boxes before — fully intending to give them away — only to renege in the belief I might need those exact parts one more time. In this way, madness is perpetuated.

(Let’s ignore the fact that I had a legitimate need for a 1.2MB 5.25 floppy disk drive just the other day, shall we?)

“A strange machine pulsed with power in the room beyond…”

A couple of interesting developments today. If you look at the sidebar, you’ll notice a new link to my profile at inPRNT! — a great site which serves as a point of sale and print fulfillment service for the work of many talented artists.

Last night, I finally finished up revisions to Somewhere, A Home For Me (formerly titled Somewhere There Is a Home For Me). I also completed some small revisions to Calliope’s Book: Stop + Rest. Those changes should be mirrored on deviantART shortly.

I added a hoopty gallery page to the site yesterday, as well. It’s simple, but serves to publicize what I do.

Can you feel it’s going to be a strange week? I can.

A note today to all empire builders: If you leave your ancient temples laying about, then curious children and cats are likely to go within them. Who knows what will happen to them there?

Listening today (off and on) to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. Thus far, it seems a decent enough book and it’s about time someone conducted a thorough critique of commonly-held notions about the origin of success (particularly in the wake of Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s fascinating Black Swan).

Early in the book, Gladwell puts forth the figure of 10,000 hours as the amount of time needed to fully master a given area of study. That seems about right to me — provided the person “paying their dues” is engaging in the process in a focused way. You can’t master anything if you don’t engage with it whole-heartedly… or, perhaps, whole-headedly.

Just about two years ago, I started doing a daily sketch for the purpose of mastering the creation of art. According to Gladwell, the people who really excel practice their craft approximately 20 hours per week for about 10 years. Right now, I’m putting in about that much time — an hour a day in sketching and between two to four hours almost every night — but it can get pretty spotty when other things take precedence. How much further do I have to go at this pace?

Wait — don’t answer that. I really don’t want to know.