26 October 2011

October in pictures.

Another month, another color palette, strangely enough. October was one of the busiest months ever, which was part of the reason I was so light on picture-taking for the first half of it. I have to hand it to the iPhone, though – since buying one, my Flickr stream went from having just two photos by the middle of the month, to having fourteen.

Thank you for re-routing my bus and making me walk by this, MTA.

New.

deer and Sophie Calle.

1Q84

This came in the mail today:

IT CAME IT CAME

I don't think I have been this excited about a book, ever. About a year ago, I read that Murakami's latest novel was to be translated to English, and that it was so long that it would be coming out in two volumes. I got so excited that I tried to quickly make myself forget about it, because I don't deal well with anticipation.

When murmurs started up about 1Q84 again a few months ago, I immediately put the pre-order in my Amazon cart, probably got distracted, and forgot to check out, leaving it sitting there. I have 10 other books of his (8 novels and 2 short story collections); just as I was sorting through them all tonight (a very strange coincidence), Mister Toky knocked on my door, holding the copy he had pre-ordered for me with a smile. I hugged it and hopped around the apartment for a bit, read a random sentence fragment toward the middle, and then set it aside. Things are way too nuts right now to even consider starting a book of this length that I know will consume me, but in about 2 or 3 weeks' time... let's just say my friends might be seeing a bit less of me for a while :)

22 October 2011

F.lux and Ommwriter for your aesthetic productivity

F.lux and Ommwriter are two desktop apps that have been around for a few years but I just downloaded a few days ago. Both have worked wonders to prevent longer-than-usual hours behind a monitor from giving me zombie eyes.

F.lux
I was working with Joanna this week, and all of a sudden I saw her screen turn this peculiar shade of yellow. I mildly freaked out, thinking that her computer was short-circuiting, and she introduced me to F.lux. From their website:
During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun. F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
If you put in your zipcode, it will know when the sun sets in your neighborhood, and adjust the tinting of your screen to be less straining on the eyes – your usual bright, blueish white in the daytime, and more of a tungsten shade at night. Looking at the two shades together is pretty extreme, but I have mine set to change over the course of an hour and don't even notice the difference.

Ommwriter
Lauren wrote about this one almost exactly a year ago, and I remember her freaking out about how beautiful it was. Ommwriter is an experiential writing application that takes over your entire screen with soft colors and ambient music. It's a really pleasurable writing experience that allows for little distraction. My personal favorite are the typing tones you can choose from – it brings back fond memories of the ICQ typewriter sounds from the mid-90s. I burned the midnight oil and wrote three stories for Laura's upcoming zine, NY _____.* using Ommwriter this week, and it was so pleasantly different from using Word or Pages.



What are some of your favorite tools to help make endless nights more productive?

* Please help fund, there are only a few days left to help make this (awesome) idea a reality!

02 October 2011

September in pictures.

As I'm deep in making-things mode and my brain is hurting a little: Sometimes it's nice to look at stuff and not be so thinky all the time.

Loyalty and Blood

They changed the gases!

It's here!

Looks like September had a definite color palette. Bring it, Fall.
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