Peter

[pelberg]

systems.

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

- MLK

[pelberg]

Habits.

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” - Aristotle

[pelberg]

Games

Suits defines playing a game as, “...the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”

- Bernard Suits

[pelberg]

The Old Mind

“They [people] cling to life as they have already experienced it, and this habitual attachment bring fear of death.” 

- Masanobu Fukuoka

[pelberg]

Expectations

If you expect a bright world on the other side of the tunnel, the darkness of the tunnel lasts all the longer.

- Masanobu Fukuoka

[pelberg]

Generalists

“We’re generalists hopelessly in love with details. Fortunately for us it’s also the national style, as American as cherry pie (how to cook it really well, where to find organically grown cherries, how to grow cherry trees, when to prune and pick…). It is karmic, isn’t it?”

- Stewart Brand

[pelberg]

Systems

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.“

- John Gall

[pelberg]

I have a theory: What seems in balance to us, whether aurally or visually, comes from a distant, primal memory of something in nature. When something rings true, it's because it harkens back to some truth in the universe. You just know it when it happens. With artists, you can see it happen. A band will be playing and something starts happening and everyone starts looking at each other in a certain way. It's by no means an exact science. It's just a feeling that is.

Rick Rubin

[pelberg]

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is to not wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the rain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself...if you just get to work, something will occur to you.

Chuck Close

[pelberg]

People...often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull's eye. Of course with everyone else aiming there as well that makes it very hard and expensive to hit. I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it. You make the niches in which you finally reside.

Brian Eno

[pelberg]

HONEST ART

I think a lot of artists kinda mess up b/c you don’t know much about them after a certain point in time, so i try to just, i realized none of my music will sound the same if i just write songs actually about my life. After 2 years you should not be in the same place you were.

- Tyler, The Creator

[pelberg]

HIP HOP & CONSUMERISM

Hip-hop was the first form of music that glorified…what name brand it was; it’s the greatest vehicle to move products.

- Virgil Abloh

[pelberg]

SHOW, DON’T TELL.

“I think for a lot of the OVO camp, we can say it so much better with music than we can in real life. 

So why even bother try putting things in words? It only dilutes the potency of the art.”

- Oliver El-Khatib

[pelberg]

Two Types.

Type 1: They are frenetic. They optimize for movement, of any kind.

Type 2: They are deliberate. The sacrifice speed for impact.

[pelberg]

Connected.

I think 99% of all meaning is in plain view for everyone to see.

The remaining 1% of what the originator intended is lost through its transmission.

When you align with another person on what that 1% is, you have a connection.

[pelberg]

San Francisco.

In San Francisco, the city’s natural canvas is breathtaking. The landscape does not require human intervention to elevate its aesthetic. People operate comfortably inside of it and focus their energy on injecting beauty into the spaces they can’t touch.

[pelberg]

Time Travel.

I wonder if time travel is not really about a vehicle that will physically transport us, but rather amassing enough documentation of the present, so in the future we can stitch all of the pieces from the past together and revisit them.