One day your writing will get featured on a site like Reddit and you’ll go from 5 readers to 5000 in a matter of hours, and they’ll all tell you how much your writing sucks. And most of them will be right! Learn how to respond to constructive criticism and filter out the trolls, and you can write the next great American novel in edlin.
Heartbreaking sequence from Dogtown and Z-Boyz about skateboarder Jay Adams that beautifully illustrates an unfortunate truth: those with the most slavish devotion to their art, rarely have the life management and self-promotion skills to capitalize on their talent.
“You get one chance at doing this. And if you miss it, you don’t get it again. And that’s the hardest part of it, that’s the hardest part. It’s hard for me to even see it, because I see it in a guy like Jay Adams and I go: he should have had it all. Jay should have had it all. And it makes me so sad that he didn’t… because he was… he was better than all of us.”
“Hand with Reflecting Sphere” by M. C. Escher
“Slightly darkened streets of Tokyo” by darwinfish105
After the nuclear power plant accident, Tokyo continues to voluntarily conserve power. Tokyo night was darkened slightly. But the streets are still filled with people and cars.
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty book cover
I suddenly realize that I’m feeling a little bit tipsy. It is this moment that you must understand, this moment that you do not understand, because you have lived this moment in your own way but never in the way that I have lived this moment, the way that I always live this moment. This is the moment that sets us apart, you and me, husband and wife, alcoholic and not. This is the moment where you switch to soda, but I do not.
—Mark Pilgrim, Champagne toast
Stefan Goldmann on the state of the industry for techno artists.
Being a “musician” is increasingly becoming a profession for those coming from inherited wealth or being mercantily exceptionally clever. It’s less then ever a question of the intrinsic quality of the music. What used to be done by professional enthusiasts now becomes the domain of the artists — turning them into designer, PR dude and distributor. It all subtracts from the time spent actually creating music.
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Since the indies mostly lost their capacity to fund musicians, the artist’s required initial investment has become higher again. Usually people argue there will have to be some sort of day job then. As aforementioned, that would be perfectly fine if being occupied all day with something not relevant to music didn’t actively hinder you from devoting yourself to developing your artistic edge. Your mind will be occupied with other stuff instead of exploring the areas of sound where it gets deep. To be able to create stuff that outlasts two weeks, you’ll need to go full time at some point.
