Paola Antonelli Teaches Stephen Colbert A Thing Or Two About Applied Design

The charming Paola Antonelli, MoMA's Architecture and Design senior curator, talks with Colbert about interfaces, a vase made by bees, and an earthquake-proof school desk, all part of the newly opened Applied Design exhibition. 

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Creativity Top 5: Week of March 4

​Photon showers should be installed at Penn Station. 

The Real Work Of Writing: Elizabeth Gilbert Takes On Philip Roth→

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and share a little secret about the writing life that nobody likes to admit: Compared to almost every other occupation on earth, it's f*cking great. I say this as somebody who spent years earning exactly zero dollars for my writing (while waiting tables, like Mr. Tepper) and who now makes many dollars at it. But zero dollars or many dollars, I can honestly say it's the best life there is, because you get to live within the realm of your own mind, and that is a profoundly rare human privilege. What's more, you have no boss to speak of. You're not exposed to any sexual abuse or toxic chemicals on the job site (unless you're sexually abusing yourself, or eating Doritos while you type). You don't have to wear a nametag, and--unless you are exceptionally clumsy--you rarely run the risk of cutting off your hand in the machinery. Writing, I tell you, has everything to recommend it over real work.

As I have mentioned before I didn't discover Elizabeth Gilbert through her books, but rather through TED. I find her to be charming and witty in a way that motivates. In an essay for the wonderful Bookish site, quoted above, she takes Philip Roth to task for telling a newly published author who was waiting on him (Mr. Tepper above) the following: 

"I would quit while you're ahead. Really. It's an awful field. Just torture. Awful. You write and you write, and you have to throw almost all of it away because it's not any good. I would say just stop now. You don't want to do this to yourself. That's my advice to you."

A Simple Trick for Tripling People's Charitable Donations→

Offered a choice of donating 150 euros to one poor woman or 450 euros to three, research participants frugally chose the lower option 2-to-1. But they became much more generous and chose the 450-euro option 2-to-1 if they were also offered a choice of donating 500 euros to benefit just two women, say Enrico Rubaltelli and Sergio Agnoli of the University of Padova in Italy. In the second scenario, choosing the 450-euro donation was the most popular option because it allowed participants to help the highest number of people without giving away the highest amount of money. Charitable organizations should take heed, the authors say.

Source: The Emotional Cost of Charitable Donations

This inspires me to completely reconsider how the arts organization I collaborate with do fund raising.

PBS 2013 Online Film Festival Starts Today

PBS’ Online Film Festival, accessible beginning March 4 via all PBS digital platforms, You Tube and PBS social media channels, will showcase 25 short films that feature a diversity of subjects, voices and viewpoints.

The featured films were produced by a number public media partners, including Independent Television Service (ITVS), POV, Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), Vision Maker Media, National Black Programming Consortium (NPBC) and Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC). This year’s festival also includes films from PBS stations KCTS 9 (Seattle), KLRU (Austin), PBS SoCaL (Los Angeles), WGTE (Toledo) and WCVE (Richmond, Virginia).

You will have the opportunity to vote for your favorite short film from March 4 through March 22; the film with the most votes will receive the People’s Choice Award. The winning film will be announced in early April.

​