Thomassons This was 1982, the year that Gary Thomasson was batting cleanup for the Yomiuri Giants. Thomasson had the unfortunate nickname of "The Electric Fan", which, if you think about it, was exactly what he was. Night after night, he stood in the batter's box, whiffing mightily at the ball, down on three strikes every time. He had a fully-formed body and yet served no purpose to the world. And the Giants were still paying a mint to keep him there. It was a beautiful thing. I'm not being ironic here either. Seriously, I can't think of any way to describe Gary Thomasson but as "living hyperart". Genpei Akasegawa & Matt Fargo, Hyperart: Thomasson sportsthomassons
A loop eternal: Big Dog Backyard Ultra An Article www.theguardian.com Run a single loop measuring 4.16667 miles within a single hour. Now do it again. And again. Now keep doing it – starting a new loop on the hour, regardless of how fast you finish the previous one – until there’s only one runner willing or capable of doing so. Welcome to the simple – some might say sadistic – concept of the Big Dog Backyard Ultra in Bedford County, Tennessee. sportsrepetitionendurance
Seeing and Knowing An Essay from The Beauty of Everyday Things by Yanagi Sōetsu The results of intuition can be studied by the intellect, but the intellect cannot give birth to intuition. Scholars and criticsUnderstanding its essence knowledgeintuitionseeing
Scholars and critics Let us take a look at how one of these scholars or critics goes about his work. Let’s say he is going to write a commentary on a particular painting. If he is not a man of intuition, certain features will characterize his approach. First he will try to place the painting genealogically, or he will try to define the painting by assigning it to a particular school. He feels uneasy unless he succeeds in doing this. But more than anything, he is extremely wordy. He seems incapable of speaking of beauty without innumerable layers of adjectives. critique
Understanding its essence One can study an object and note its features, but that only touches the surface. A knowledge of an artwork’s properties does not lead to an understanding of its essence. understanding