Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Brief Ode to the Death of a Quirky Masterpiece

Hat tip to the Chicago Architecture Blog for this time-lapse gif of Prentice being demolished.


(Photos in gif from Dr. Robert L Vogelzang, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine)

Perfect is the Enemy

There has been almost 6 months of silence on the blog. Certainly this is not because nothing significant has occurred since December, and we have no lack of opinions on various events and news items since 2013 came to a close.

But once again, I've fallen into the trap of letting perfection get in the way of getting things done. (I place no blame on my co-editor, who has been busy with school!) There are more than 20 drafts of posts waiting in the wings, waiting for me to develop and polish and (needlessly) fret about accuracy, sources, photos, sketches. Waiting for perfection.

Perfection isn't coming. Perfection is too remote and aloof, too ethereal. And Good, (or worse, Good Enough) is shunned for "lack of follow-through." "Not committed." "Underdeveloped." "Rough."

Think of an empty page, and how intimidating it can be. What to write? Draw? Design? As an empty page, it is limitless possibility. It is in the realm of Perfection which is, alas, never to touch our own earthly one. The moment that paper bears a mark - ink, graphite, a fold, a cut - it has lost that unearthly aura of Perfection and is now merely Real.

But Real has a great deal to recommend it. Real is tangible. Real can be examined, critiqued, improved, deconstructed, displayed, built, published. Real can permit Failure to evolve into Success (or sometimes, new and different Failure). Real can extend the path from Good to Better.

So there may be some unpolished posts coming up in the next few months. So what? We'll have content. And the polish will come with the habit of making things Real.