Tuesday, May 5, 2009

This morning I wrote about pragmatic absurdity.


And just a moment or two I ran across Allison Arieff's blog on The New York Times: http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/searching-for-value-in-ludicrous-ideas/

In it she talks about an urban planner/inventor/designer/thinker/absurdist called Steven M. Johnson. Arieff quotes Johnson and I think the quotation is germane. “America has been falling into a depression, a psychological depression, for many years. Yet this is a land of pioneer inventors. It annoys me that an untrained person like myself can think up products easily... and yet the nation seems to sit helplessly passive and wait to be saved somehow.”

Anyhoo, as Minnesotans like to say, take a gander at Johnson's work.
And think.
And laugh.
And do.
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6 comments:

  1. Tore ClaessonMay 5, 2009 at 10:28 PM

    Maybe the name of the blog should be "Will All America Become Detroit?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. george tannenbaumMay 6, 2009 at 6:57 AM

    Or "Has America Become Detroit?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. LauraMay 6, 2009 at 12:05 PM

    Or "Which will go first, Detroit or America?"

    ReplyDelete
  4. TeenieMay 6, 2009 at 12:41 PM

    When did we all stop having fun?

    ReplyDelete
  5. george tannenbaumMay 6, 2009 at 1:52 PM

    There's no room for fun on a timesheet.

    ReplyDelete
  6. jeavesMay 6, 2009 at 7:36 PM

    You ad people talking about time sheets reminds me of first year highschool art class. "Now everyone start painting something creative. If you dont finish in the 55 minutes you will have marks deducted.GO..."

    I ended up with
    A+ for the semester but my midterm report card actually said "This grade of D is not his true mark but a reflection of his attitude or lack of it during structured class time."

    My parents didn't know how to respond to that one.

    ReplyDelete