Tuesday 7 May 2013

Here are fish

As I write, I'm listening to the music of the spheres. This is nothing new (the notion of the music of the spheres, that is - me listening to it is unusual) but Whitevinyl's (aka Luke Twyman) delicate and simple version has really touched me.


 I stumbled across this when someone on Twitter linked to the lovely Here is Today and I started picking through Twyman's back catalogue. The night before this happened, I'd been having a good whine to a friend.* "I feel like the angry old lady of the internet," I told him. "I'm starting to hate it all. Especially visualisations. And 3D printing. And interactive tables. Most of all, interactive tables."

And then along came a visualisation that cut me off at the knees.


It's the okay buttons that slays me. Every time you okay, you get another piece of context. Here is this month. Here is this year. Here is this century. ...


It gets me because it mimics, exactly, how I follow along if I am intensely engaged when someone is explaining something to me. They'll give me a concept. I'll nod. I'll look down at my hands, maybe draw a little pattern on the table-top. And then I'll say Okay. Okay. Give me the next bit. Hit me with it. Okay. Hit me. Okay. Okay.

And with that, the whine was over.

*It was markedly unfair to be whining on this topic to this particular friend, as he supplies me with a considerable amount of the wonder I come across.

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