The eyes of a traveler We’ve all heard that travel broadens the mind. But beneath this cliché lies a deep truth. Things stand out because they’re different, so we notice every detail, from street signs to mailboxes to two you pay at a restaurant. We learn a lot when we travel, not because we are any smarter on the road but because we pay such close attention. On a trip, we become our own version of Sherlock Holmes, intensely observing the environment around us. We are continuously trying to figure out a world that is foreign and new. Too often, we go through our day-to-day life on cruise control, oblivious to huge swaths of our surroundings. To notice friction points – and therefore opportunities to do things better – it helps to see the world with fresh eyes. When you meet creative people with lots of ideas constantly bubbling to the surface, you often come away feeling that they are operating on a different frequency. And they are, most of the time. They have all their receptors on — and frequently turned up to eleven. But the fact is, we are all capable of this mode. Try to engage a beginner’s mind. For kids, everything is novel, so they ask lots of questions, and look at the world wide-eyed, soaking it all in. Everywhere they turn, they tend to think, Isn’t that interesting? rather than, I already know that. By adopting the eyes of a traveler and a beginner’s mindset, you will notice a lot of details that you might normally have overlook. You put aside assumptions and are fully immersed in the world around you. In this receptive mode, you’re ready to start actively searching out inspiration. Richard Saul Wurman, Understanding Understanding Like designing things for the first time travelcliché
The language itself has been weaponized It’s quite difficult, to fight back against the seeming wisdom of axiomatic “truths,” when the language itself has been weaponized through the power of pattern. Through rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, and consonance. The last time I was in England was at the invitation of Nomensa, to give a talk at a conference wherein I encouraged the audience to discard an axiom that I feel has done users of the English language more harm than good through endless and glib repetitions. Like “Curiosity Killed The Cat,” “You Are Not Your User” sounds so good that we keep on saying it, without appreciating what we’re reifying through repetition. The pleasure of repetition, the pleasure of pattern matching, the pleasingness of Kuh Kuh Kuh consonants on the one hand, and of the round vowelly Yuh Yuh Yuh on the other make these things we say seem true because they sound and feel so good to say. Dan Klyn, Sermon for WIAD Bristol 2021 understandinggroup.com repetitiontruthlanguagecliché
The debris of someone else's thinking A cliché isn't just a familiar, overused saying. It's the debris of someone else's thinking. Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing cliché
The way an oyster does A Fragment by Kay Ryan www.csmonitor.com Her poems, [Kay Ryan] says, don't begin with a simple image or sound, but instead start "the way an oyster does, with an aggravation." An old saw may nudge her repeatedly, such as "It's always darkest before the dawn" or "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "I think, 'What about those chickens?' " she says, "and I start an investigation of what that means. Poets rehabilitate clichés." poetrymeaningcliché
barnsworthburning.net A Website by Nick Trombley barnsworthburning.net What this site isColophonContact meShortlist of interesting spacesBehind the scenes Five barns worth burningExtract (n)Kicks Condor: barnsworthburningNodal pointsMonoskop collectionsnotetakingconnection
What this site is A kind of commonplace book. A kind of digital garden. A kind of Zettelkasten. The front end to a brain. Part research, part dissertation, part art project. A kind of essay, in the sense that it is an attempt. ...but at what? What is a commonplace?A Brief History of the Digital GardenZettelkastenare.naHighlighterThe Art of Looking SidewaysReading DesignEssayerGlaspMaintenance and Care gardens
Colophon airtable stores the majority of the content for the site. the front-end is written using svelte and its companion toolset, sveltekit. it is hosted as a digital ocean app. figma was used for some of the design – the rest was done in code (as I increasingly believe it should be). it is typeset with IBM plex sans Designing with code
Contact me You can reach me using this Airtable form – I would love to hear from you. I'm also on LinkedIn.
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