George Kelly › Comments

Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want. Charlie Kaufman: But she thought you were pathetic. Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago. - George Kelly

You are an agent of history. History’s not done, you’re in it, and what you do or fail to do during your time is gonna make an enormous difference in what the planet looks like during your time and in the future. - George Kelly

[...] When Monk played someone else’s music, he would recast it in this sonic language. His versions were the result of painstaking labor. Each harmony was seemingly rebuilt from scratch, chosen with care and worked over, and every ornament, filigree, run and fill carefully considered. And yet the playing was also full of risk. You can’t help but notice the liveness of it, the sense of possibility and discovery, the chances taken and the rewards reaped. That risk lies somewhere in the dialogue between rhythm and improvisation—in the sustained buoyancy of pulse that is his signature, and in the real-time melodic invention that forms a counterpoint to it. [...] - George Kelly

"There is a strong biological basis to the aesthetics of sound," he said "Humans prefer tone combinations that are similar to those found in speech." - George Kelly

Drawing on my fieldwork experience in Inhambane, southern Mozambique, where I conducted research on mobile phone use amongst youth, my paper tackles issues of acceptance and rejection. As I sought to gain acceptance amongst youth I found myself participating in various controversial and, at times, dangerous activities that made me the victim of intense gossip and outright rejection by some. The fact that I came to the field accompanied by my husband and daughter only made matters worse. In this paper, I present the challenges of “being cool”, while also “being good”, and the repercussions of my research choices on my social standing. I then discuss how, instead of compromising my research, this predicament had a positive outcome by revealing social dynamics that might otherwise have remained hidden, namely the importance of concealment and the ambiguous role mobile phones play in deceit. - George Kelly

AT&T and Apple could both gain by swapping talent. Apple, send your marketing wizards to lend your partner a hand. It sorely needs help. AT&T, send some engineers to redesign the iPhone to make better use of the country’s fastest wireless network. - George Kelly

“Nokia faces competition everywhere,” says Sherief Bakr, a Citigroup analyst. “At the high end from Apple, in the midrange by Research in Motion, and by the Koreans and the Chinese in the low end.” - George Kelly

For the first time in 47 years of polling, the number of Americans who said that they have had a religious or mystical experience, which the question defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening,” was greater than those who said that they had not. (Question: Does the first time I saw Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video count?) - George Kelly

[...] In the nineteenth-century newspaper, the relationship between observer and observed was reciprocal: the newspaper described the city; the newspaper, in turn, was sustained by readers who were curious about the strangers that circumstance had placed proximate to them. So, I suppose, it is incomplete to notice that the San Francisco Chronicle has become remiss in its obituary department. Of four friends of mine who died recently in San Francisco, not one wanted a published obituary or any other public notice taken of his absence. This seems to me a serious abrogation of the responsibility of living in a city and as good an explanation as any of why newspapers are dying. All four of my friends requested cremation; three wanted their ashes consigned to the obscurity of Nature. Perhaps the cemetery is as doomed in America as the newspaper, and for the same reason: we do not imagine death as a city. We no longer imagine the newspaper as a city or the city as a newspaper. [...] - George Kelly

I was nervous about those trees. But I was told how to deal with it: The worst thing to do is run if a tree is falling because you'll lose your bearings. Trees go deceptively so far out that you could cross its line way off in the distance and it'll get you. The experts said if anything happens, the thing to do is just to watch it carefully. You've got seconds. Just watch it, and see where it's going, and then you can sidestep it. I thought I'd pass on that information. - George Kelly

[...] Monogamy can work beautifully but it's a constant moving and growing and changing thing. A marriage doesn't get fixed, it moves. I don't know if I'd call it an indictment of marriage, I'd call it an indictment of the assumption that monogamy is the one necessary thing. I had to change how I was married and become a person who can stand on her own two feet. To find out that I could be a singular human being and also be in a marriage was the only reason that our marriage was able to survive. [...] - George Kelly

Sure, linking to press releases isn't a terrible thing. But people don't sign up for Twitter to get updates on their representative's obscure pet project. That's what Web sites are for. Twitter is about glimpsing how a person thinks. - George Kelly

[...] To me, it's all flavors of delightful to ponder these rifts and hiccups, these jumps and thrusts of time. Because the danger is, you can give up. You can become thoroughly stuck in your patterns, your tastes, how you think it's supposed to be. You can attach yourself and your identity early on to various ideas, styles, modes of being, and never budge as the world evolves and dances on, and you just grunt and scowl and wonder what happened to the good ol' days. But if you remain open, you can circle back around and rediscover yourself in new and fascinating recombinations, as each generation comes forth, bearing startling new gifts. It's a simple truth, recast in a million variations: The delights and epiphanies, the loves and the gods, the deepenings and the awakenings? They find you when you are ready. And of course, vice-versa. Really, what more could you ask for? - George Kelly

[...] For the underlying DNA of journalism --accuracy, inclusion, clarity, storytelling, fairness and truth -- to live on it must now find a new host. To succeed, we must make sure diverse voices -- all voices -- are represented in digital and on the Web. So far, though, online journalism ventures haven't figured out that to not just survive, but thrive, they must reflect a changing nation. [...] - George Kelly

I went through a breakup when I was writing a lot of these songs. A lot of the songs are not about that, and a lot are about friends who have broken up. "A lot of it is very personal, a lot is deceptively fake. That's what songwriting is all about: massaging whatever it is into a great song. It's not about being my diary; I just want the songs to be good." - George Kelly

“All the airports kind of feel and look the same now,” Mr. Reitman said, grabbing one of the small burgers in the middle of the table. “Some are more beautiful, some are less beautiful, but for the most part you’re going to find a Starbucks in every airport. You’re going to get your coffee and the USA Today or New York Times in every airport. All the things that you want are there, so you can land anywhere, and you feel at home. You’re given the sense that you’re everywhere, but you’re nowhere; that you are constantly with your community, yet you have no community. There’s kind of a terrific irony to that.” - George Kelly

"We are in no shape or form at odds with Google," said William Dean Singleton, chief executive of MediaNews Group Inc., a private company that owns more than 50 daily newspapers, including The Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News. "There is no question that Google provides us with a large audience for our content, which we monetize with ad revenue." Singleton probably will block Google from showing more than mere snippets from two MediaNews newspapers, the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania and the Enterprise-Record in Chico, Calif., that plan to start charging to read some of their content early next year. The rest of MediaNews' newspapers will remain fully available to Google, according to Singleton, who is also the AP's chairman. - George Kelly

The sound quality is probably still not anything close to what I used to get from the vinyl copy of Fragile that I picked up a couple of weeks after Bill took me shopping. And it’s definitely not everything that I need. Nothing is. That’s part of rock and roll, too, I suppose, and something that Bill and my mother and I all understood that day, without understanding it. And like Nemo at my keyboard, I will sail on, through 20,000 leagues or pages, chasing that mystery, and all the others that I can hear, once again, in the music. - George Kelly

Engineers at Northwestern University have created virtual newscasts that use artificial intelligence to collect stories, produce graphics and even anchor broadcasts via avatars. The project, dubbed “News At Seven,” goes beyond simply regurgitating news stories gleaned from the Web. The system can generate opinionated content like movie reviews or pull the most relevant facts from a box score to pen a hometown sports story. The AI is even learning to crack wise, injecting humor into reports. - George Kelly

Engineers at Northwestern University have created virtual newscasts that use artificial intelligence to collect stories, produce graphics and even anchor broadcasts via avatars. The project, dubbed “News At Seven,” goes beyond simply regurgitating news stories gleaned from the Web. The system can generate opinionated content like movie reviews or pull the most relevant facts from a box score to pen a hometown sports story. The AI is even learning to crack wise, injecting humor into reports. - George Kelly

um, no. - jbrotherlove

The guests' other choice, which also paid tribute to both Indian and African-American cuisine, was roasted potato dumplings with tomato chutney, chickpeas and okra. - George Kelly

"I don't mind that I'm a rudimentary guitar player," she said. "Limitations make music interesting. When you go with what you've got, it can become something great." - George Kelly

For many years, Bloomberg viewed news as little more than an added service for Wall Street traders. To that end, Mr. Winkler demanded short, direct articles. He ordered reporters to avoid adverbs and adjectives, along with “but” and “however,” which he said muddled the clarity of sentences. - George Kelly

Titled “Digital Public Media Networks to Advance Broadband And Enrich Connected Communities,” Goodman’s comments examine a variety of current public media projects that rely on high-speed connections to reach and engage users, and observe that universal broadband service is needed to support further innovation in this sector. What’s more, she suggests that public media should be understood as a key asset to drive broadband adoption by a wide array of publics. - George Kelly

“Bruce is really good at articulating a profound definition of design so that it becomes a method of problem-solving,” says Warren Berger, whose new book, Glimmer , focuses on the transforming nature of Mr. Mau's thinking. “He's got the designer's way of turning everything on its head and challenging all the old assumptions. “Designers are also good at empathic research, at figuring out what people need, which is what Bruce will do in Sudbury. They're also skilled at visualizing the future in front of people, in rallying momentum by making people excited about the potential of what could be. “And they understand what to do to bring about change – it's important not to do it all at once, but to do prototypes and build failure into the process. To solve big problems and make big changes, you do it gradually, you don't do it overnight.” - George Kelly

If this Q & A were a song, it would be called “We Need A Lot More Rancheras (And A Lot Less Rock And Roll).” And, of course, it would take up a whole album side. - George Kelly

"Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition," Coupland says. "Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect. In times of information upheaval like right now, the attempt to locate patterns is one of the few ways to survive and not be dragged into the churn." - George Kelly

I thank the phenomenon of shuffling mp3 players, bouncing us between styles; the diminishing importance, and relevance, of genre boundaries; and the way in which music has become less about coolness, and much more about unbridled enjoyment. There is nothing strange about having a place in your heart for music that is improving and challenging, and another for huge, rousing sentiments that make you cry in taxi-cabs, long for a lover, or yearn to sing loudly, and proudly, with those you love most. And that's exactly what Don't Stop Believin' does, for the young and the old, and those who believe music reached its apotheosis with the concept of Adult Oriented Rock. - George Kelly

Every disaster movie derives its suspense from trying to guess which of the characters will survive and which will expire. One of the disappointments of "2012" is how predictable the crash-and-burn list turns out to be. As in many of these epics, the characters who have committed some kind of extramarital transgression are the ones marked for death. Cecil B. DeMille would have been pleased. - George Kelly

Programmers and publishers of online text: Please deliver us a long-overdue future in which we read – and write – in columns that move progressively sideways. After all, that's exactly the effect we create when we read an old-fashioned book and turn the page. - George Kelly

You can't tell a good story without conflict — the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories. - George Kelly