Read the post before you watch the video if you like. It’s right here 👉 “Go Your Own Way”
If you’d rather I read it to you, I am happy to do so.👇 Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
Yes, it is a long video this week, thanks for noticing. I had a lot to say about desire and paths than I realized. Evidently, I find talking to myself to a camera to be quite therapeutic and different to when I talk to myself in the shower. (It doesn’t echo as much and I can give Fergus the Fern his 15 minutes of fame every week.)
Already rambling. Apologies.
As you can probably tell, the concept of applying a ‘desire path’ mentality to your life—creative or otherwise—tickles me. But I do want to make something clear which I perhaps didn’t drive home enough in the video. If you think you’re on the wrong path and feel that you should change it, think about HOW to change it without, you know, detonating everything. Or to put it more simply—don’t quit your job without a plan.
That’s all I’m gonna say. Seriously, I said enough in the video. Enjoy the supplementary materials below. If you’re curious about whether mere snippets of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” gets flagged on YouTube, I did a test upload and it passed all checks! Which reminds me, all my Behind the Streams video’s and the Field of Streams podcast are on my YouTube channel if you ever want to share them on the socials. I’m using it as a library. 🫡
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ Desire Paths
They exist is the real world and in technology and product design. Where will it end! (It will never end—just cut across—make your own desire path.)
From Wikipedia:
Images of desire paths have been employed as a metaphor for anarchism, intuitive design, individual creativity, and the wisdom of crowds.
Here is a Reddit thread filed with desire path images. 👈
A TED Talk that talks about desire paths and technology. Well, anything we design for humans, really. The intersection between design and user experience.
Some written stuff:
“Desire paths: the illicit trails that defy the urban planners” - The Guardian
“What desire paths can tell us about how to design safer, better public spaces” - ABC News (Australia)
👩✈️ Writer’s who buck the punctuation system
Cormac McCarthy, whom I adore, was not a fan.
I can’t find the full Oprah 2007 interview with him on YouTube—which is not surprising, because it’s Oprah and she is a media mogul—but there are a couple of excerpts on Oprah.com 👈 I can’t embed them so you’ll have to watch there. They have been chopped up and play one after the other. The third one that plays has the James Joyce and style stuff, which this quote is from:
“James Joyce is a good model for punctuation. He keeps it to an absolute minimum. There’s no reason to blot the page up with weird little marks. I mean, if you write properly you shouldn’t have to punctuate.”
Here’s a five minute excerpt on YouTube.
At once point, my 18 minute ramble above included the name of the author who inspired Cormac to murder his punctuation as brutally as he does his characters. That writer was MacKinlay Kantor, who won the Pulitzer back in 1956 with the novel Andersonville. I had never heard of him but found this story—an excerpt from a book written by his grandson.
👩✈️ Architects in movies
After only being able to remember two movies with architects as the main characters, I looked up some movies. Of course there are a bunch, but even after looking at the list, there aren’t that many what I would consider memorable.
Tom Hanks and peak Steve Martin. Top of the list for me. I forgot Keanu was one in The Lake House.
Topic adjacent read: Ten Architecture Movies every Architect Should Watch
👩✈️ Random
I was trying to figure out how to use this in the video this week because this is spectacular. I couldn’t, so here it is.
Thanks for listening/watching and sharing this week. If you want to comment on any of the concepts in last week’s post—or just in general—feel free to leave a comment for the Captain (it me.)
I remain, as always, your faithful Noodle of the Sea. (Yes, I’m still going paddling out in the ocean a couple of times a week. Here is a photo of my whale encounter. It was both thrilling and terrifying.)
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
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