Blog

Books: How Magicians Think (Joshua Jay)

See it on Amazon I recently heard Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, gushing on Joshua Jay, a magician and all-around magic nerd. Jay just came out with a new book on magic, titled How Magicians Think where he answers 52 questions that magicians are frequently asked.  I hadn’t planned on ma...

The Museum of Gaudy

Note: This post is part of my “Museums Project“, a collection of 200+ high-concept ideas for museums. Not to be confused with the museums of Gaudi. What's In The Museum The name says it all: we find really gaudy sh*t and put it in the museum. I acknowledge that “gaudy” is a subjective judgment, but...

Nobody Cares How Long It Took You

Two Friends, Two Films Imagine you went to a premiere of a friend’s new art film. The lights go down, the title sequence runs, and then the movie begins. On the screen you see a big white circle on a black background. It doesn’t move or grow. It just sits there. Thirty minutes later it’s still sitti...

TexaPicchu

Overview Some observations: Not enough people get outdoors to exercise, despite the health benefits and that most people enjoy the outdoors.The national and state parks are crowded and often booked up for months.Texas has a whole lot of land that isn’t terribly useful or scenic but is often very ine...

Why New Third Places Are The Future

The Third Place The phrase “The Third Place” was coined in 1999 by Ray Oldenburg, an urban sociologist. I can’t explain it better than wikipedia, so I’ll just quote it. Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home and those that one lives with. The "second place" is the workplace—where people may ac...