We got some snow yesterday and during the night, so I shoveled and ploughed snow for 45 minutes this morning, getting exercise. Now the official depth of snow is at 53 cm. Next it will be getting colder, but it won't stop snowing. Here are some photographs taken this morning.
I don't have much to say, so I'm referring to The New York Times, which published an intriguing article on the so-called American dream, under the title Who Killed the Disneyland Dream? What caught my eye was the following on page 2 of the article: "In 2010, our system incentivizes high-stakes gambling — “this business of securitizing things that didn’t even exist in the first place,” as Calvin Trillin memorably wrote last year — rather than the rebooting and rebuilding of America."
In the Middle Ages our philosophers started to think where there exists such a thing as "sheepness", or whether there are just individual sheep. In other words, whether the category of sheep exists outside the individual specimens which belong to that category.
And now we are building our civilization on such categories, and derivaties of categories, and derivatives of those derivates, and so on, ad nauseatum. The power of abstraction. Terrifying.
Alan Briot posted at Luminous Landscape an interesting article titled Rethinking Talent, in which he wrote: "For me, if there is such a thing as talent, it is the ability to make the best use of your time, when doing something you deeply care about, by engaging in regular practice, study and dedication. Talent is also seeking help from people who are where you want to be, because the experience of someone who is more experienced than you is one of the most valuable assets you can find. Finally, talent is not giving up when faced with difficulties. Talent, in other words, is the ability to focus, work hard, seek guidance and not give up."
Somewhat different view to talent is provided by the story of a nanny, Vivian Maier, who took 100,000 photographs, never showed them to others, and was discovered after her death to be a world-class street photographer. A view on her photographs is found at the "B" blog by Blake Andrews. Wikipedia has the fundamentals of her story.
Of what I have seen of Maier's photographs, there are a handful images which really make an impression. First-rate work. However, not all images picked by the current owner of her work, John Maloof, are of such a high quality, at least in web-sized images. But Maloof has apparently gone through only a part of the vast body of work, so there is a lot to anticipate. However, I suspect that someone else would have made different choices on what photographs to show to the public.
In any case, what does Maier's story tell of talent? Well, at least that there is a lot of talent in the world which has not been discovered, maybe even photographers who are not personally aware of their talent.
I have been reading detective novels written by Rex Stout, about the fictional detective Nero Wolfe, an overweight genius who supported his culinary and gardening interest by doing detective work. What is remarkable about this series of novels, which appeared from 1934 to 1974, is the feeling of calm in the middle of activity.
In fact, it is interesting how these detective novels, often dealing with murder and similar acts of violence, manage to convey a feeling of relaxation to the reader. I thought about this for a while, until I stumbled onto the explanation: Nero Wolfe (and his sidekick Archie Goodwin) never does more than one thing at a time.
Wolfe maintains an almost total focus on the one thing. If he is eating, then no business topics are allowed to be discussed, and often the eating (of products of high culinary art) is done in silence. The same applies to working with his belowed orchids in the garden. Also, when doing the actual detective work, Wolfe doesn't do anything else: he thinks, often closing his eyes.
And in addition, there is the division of work, so that Goodwin does most of the legwork, what he likes very much to do, and Wolfe does the analysis.
In fact, what is contained in these book is a textbook description of creativity. Rex Stout describes in fiction what is required to be creative. In fact, you can use terms such as flow to describe how things happen in the books.
However, there is some evolution happening in the books. The earliest ones are the most relaxing, the last ones are a bit hurried, partly because of new technology - there is mention of radio phones and such things. But still, the overall feeling of calmness stays in the books all the way.
These books describe exactly the same things as many current writers on creativity stress: specializing, not multitasking, taking time, never working on a deadline, focusing, experimenting, and so on. Worth reading!
I was planning to make a posting with no trees in the photographs, but it turned out I didn't have many such photographs. It seems that trees are everywhere. Creepy, isn't it?
We got plenty of new snow today, which meant physical work. I ploughed and shoveled snow for 1 hour 20 minutes during the morning, and almost for an hour during the afternoon. Plenty of exercise, as snow had to be lifted upon 1-2 meter tall heaps. Here are some impressions on snow. I'm starting to have a rather close relation to the stuff.
We are getting more snow, 10-20 cm during the next 24 hours. Because of the wind, the -10 °C temperature outside feels the same as -19 °C. The snow flakes are rather small and thus not so visible in these photographs, except in the last one, in the headlights of a car.
There has been plenty of time to listen to music, for example concerts recorded from the digital tv. (An excellent invention in that it allows you to be really selective in what you view and when.)
A Christmas concert by Sting at the Durham cathedral was excellent, but of course a show of this kind requires a big machinery to happen. Nonetheless, authentic musicians there. However, Fenee Fleming who performed here in Finland in the Finlandia house (another concert from tv) didn't manage as well with the popular music pieces she included into her program. It is seldom that an opera star can really work with popular music.
Two positive surprises were the new album "Shake, Shake, Shake" by the Finnish band Lemonator, and "High Violet" by The National. Excellent, both, but of course this is a matter of taste, as with all music.
I have been listening a lot to Kari Tapio, a Finnish singer who died suddenly a few weeks ago. He has been called the "blue-white singer", referring to the colors of the Finnish flag. He is one of the singers who the so-called common people identify strongly with. And indeed, what a voice he had!
There are some color combinations which go really well together, such as green and gold. And so does red and white.
"Rauhallista joulua" is a way of wishing Merry Christmas in Finnish. And here are some photographs to go with the wishing, taken while going for a walk with the wife.
Yesterday we had -25 °C, today -15 °C, but because of the wind it hasn't been much warmer. However, it is promised to get warmer, and we'll get more snow as well, perhaps even 20 cm within the next couple of days. Deep winter.
Well, I went ahead and bought the tripod I mentioned earlier, Berlebach 3042. It isn't lightweight (and definitely not cheap), weighting 4.5 kg with the Manfrotto video head, but it works just as a tripod for star-gazing should. Stable, easy to set up, and relatively easy to adapt to shorter and taller people (such as children and adults). I got mine from the Ursa astronomical association (info in Finnish here), where I got some expert instruction as well.
After moonrise we went out with the children to have a look at the sky. It was -24 °C outside, so we couldn't stay out long. Despite the light pollution and some thin clouds we managed to catch a good look at the Moon, and at Jupiter as well. I think I saw one of the Jupiter moons as well, but maybe I was mistaken. And a wooden tripod really is good when it is so cold, awful to think about operating something made of metal, makes one shudder.
Trees and snow are an excellent combination, for taking photographs. Here are samples from today. Well, one of the photograph contains cranes, but they are a bit like trees, aren't they?
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