The Art of Doing

Why Making Something Simple Is So Complicated

Kara Walker goes down the rabbit hole of the history of sugar to come up with a simple idea, a colossal Sphinx.

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“A Subtlety” Or “The Marvelous Sugar Baby
an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined
our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World
on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant” -Kara Walker, May thru July 2014, Domino Sugar Factory

Kara Walker was asked to create a public work of art in the sprawling industrial ruin of the soon-to-be demolished Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, New York that dominates the waterfront across the East River from Manhattan.

Walker’s 35-foot tall, 75-foot long bright white Sphinx layered in powdered sugar, lording over the factory like a deity from an alternative universe, seems like an inevitability. After seeing it, it’s hard to imagine that she could have made anything else.

We’re always surprised (and a bit envious) when someone comes up with an idea so basic, so elemental and stripped down that it seems to have been plucked readymade from the collective unconsciousness—Warhol’s Soup Cans, the phony-hating Holden Caufield, the Empire State building, the iPhone, Twitter­. We sometimes imagine that the creators of these concepts must have conjured them out of thin air.

Think again. Continue reading “Why Making Something Simple Is So Complicated”

How Can You Learn to Think Like a Freak?

With their new book out, Freakonomics’ authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner teach you to “Think Like a Freak”

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For more on Stephen Dubner, read our chapter on him “How to Write a Runaway Bestseller,” in our book.

The Freakonomics Authors’ New Approach to Creative, Productive Thinking

The phenomenally successful Freakonomics platform–two bestselling books, a blog, a number one podcast, a radio show, and a consulting business–was built on the principle of looking at the world through the filter of economic theory.

Authors Steven Levitt, a behavioral economist, and Stephen Dubner, a journalist, believe that an “economic approach” to thinking shouldn’t just apply to economics, but to problem solving in general.

In their new book, Think Like a Freak, the authors show us that by applying these theories, we can all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally.

Here are three ways Dubner and Levitt encourage us to “think like a freak:” Continue reading “How Can You Learn to Think Like a Freak?”

What’s a Festival For?

Decades ago, a group of music lovers including Allison Miner, was on a mission to fulfill a quest that she, and she suspected others, were on for authenticity in a world that seemed increasingly manufactured. Forty-four years later, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is still at it.

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Lightin’ Hopkins, photo Micheal Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival lineup is presented as a musical genealogy from roots to branches

Decades ago, a group of music lovers including Allison Miner, a transplant to New Orleans, put on the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival at a few open stages and a gospel tent in New Orleans’ Congo Square. The festival’s mission was to present the music and culture of New Orleans and surrounding areas, and to fulfill a quest that Miner, and she suspected others, were on, “for authenticity in a world that seemed increasingly manufactured.”

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Mahalia Jackson, AP

Gospel great Mahalia Jackson wasn’t even booked for the event but showed up to perform because she heard about it.

Forty-four years later, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival has grown from a day-long event in the heart of the city to a sprawling 8-hour-a-day, 7-day, 12-stage, music, food, and cultural extravaganza at the Fair Grounds Race Course every early spring that attracts over half a million people.

Continue reading “What’s a Festival For?”