noticings

September 14th, 2009 by Steve Curati

A friend and his friend invented a game when they were young. I never played the game but I remember it involving a tennis ball (or a number of tennis balls), an oversized rag doll, and a series of spaces. I think you had to somehow manoeuvre one or all of the balls to the doll.

There was a strict set of rules defining how the game should be played. Well, actually, the set of rules wasn’t very strict at all. Whenever a player did something that wasn’t in the rules, a new rule would be defined, named and added to the rulebook. Over the years the game evolved, becoming more and more complicated as the rulebook became larger. By the time I discovered the game, only my friend and his friend knew the rules well enough to be able to play, but that didn’t really matter.

Which is to say that inventing games is good. And noticings is a good, simple game, concocted by Tom Armitage and Tom Taylor.

All you have to do is take pictures of things you’ve noticed, geo-tag them and upload them to flickr tagged ‘noticings’. And that’s it. You get points for each noticing and bonus points for noticing something near another player’s noticing. You now also get bonus points for being the first noticing in a particular neighbourhood. The game is evolving as the Toms get a feel for how the players are using it.

And of course it’s extra nice when your noticing gets noticed…

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Dave Brubeck with young Russian violinist

“During a visit to Moscow in the 80’s, Dave Brubeck met the faculty and students in Moscow Conservatory. While he was improvising on a “Ei, uhnem”, a Russian folk song, a young man downstage stood up to play Stéphane Grappelli-style violin jazz with him.”

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“I have only my talent for drawing, so I drew.”

austinkleon:

Ronald Searle, Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole

47 jewel-like drawings by Ronald Searle made for his wife, Monica, each time she underwent chemotherapy. On New Year’s Eve 1969, Monica Searle was diagnosed with a rare and virulent form of breast cancer. Each time she underwent treatment, Ronald produced a Mrs Mole drawing ‘to cheer every dreaded chemotherapy session and evoke the blissful future ahead’. Filled with light and illuminated in glowing colours, the drawings speak of love, optimism and hope. Like the mediaeval illuminated manuscripts such as the 15th-century Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, to which the title of this book refers, the 47 drawings are on an intimate scale and were never intended for publication.

When asked about the drawings, Searle said, “I have only my talent for drawing, so I drew.” Here’s a little more about them:

Prior to the cancer shock the couple had bought a decrepit house in the south of France and, despite her illness, Monica continued to devote her time making this house a home.

Devastated with his wife’s diagnosis Ronald did the only thing he knew how to do to cheer her up. .. draw.

Before every chemotherapy session he gave his wife a painting. Monica was depicted as a mole, a very happy mole celebrating life in their new home. (The Mole idea came after their discovery of a large celler that they made into a cosy room)

‘Everything about them had to be romantic and perfect,’ says Ronald. ‘I drew them originally for no one’s eyes except Mo’s, so she would look at them propped up against her bedside lamp and think: “When I’m better, everything will be beautiful.”

Searle died last week at 91.

(Images via bluedoorbooks)