iBerry

David Lynch meditates, and he meditates hard. Beginning his practice in earnest after it helped him solve a creative problem during the production of his breakout 1977 film Eraserhead, he has continued meditating assiduously ever since, going so far as to found the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and Peace and publish a pro-meditation book called Catching the Big Fish. It might seem nonsensical to hear an artist of the grotesque like Lynch speak rapturously about voyaging into his own consciousness, let alone in his fractured all-American, askew-Jimmy-Stewart manner, but he does meditate for a practical reason: it gives him ideas. Only by meditating, he says, can he dive down and catch the “big fish” he uses as ingredients in his inimitable film, music, and visual art. You can hear more of his thoughts on meditation, consciousness, and creativity in his nine-minute speech above.

If you’d like to hear more, the video just above offers a nearly two-hour presentation at UC Berkeley with Lynch as its star. You’ll also hear from outspoken quantum physicist John Hagelin and Fred Travis, director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition Maharishi University of Management. Some of what they say might make good sense to you: after all, we could all use a method to clear our minds so we can create what we need to create. Some of what they say might strike you as total nonsense. But if you feel tempted to dismiss all as too bizarre for serious consideration, you might meditate, as it were, on other things Lynchian: backwards-talking dwarves, severed ears on suburban lawns, alien babies, women living in radiators, sitcom families in rabbit suits. He’s certainly pitched us weirder concepts than meditation.

Related content:

David Lynch Talks Meditation with Paul McCartney

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi Explains Why the Source of Happiness Lies in Creativity and Flow, Not Money

David Lynch’s Surreal Commercials

Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on literature, film, cities, Asia, and aesthetics. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall.

David Lynch Explains How Meditation Enhances Our Creativity is a post from: Open Culture. You can follow Open Culture on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and by Email.

If you head to SFMOMA’s café on Third Street in San Francisco, you can order up some Damien Hirst “Amylamine” lemon velvet cake, Donald Judd tomato soup, and Mark Rothko Toast. The Rothko Toast comes painted with apricot butter along the top, and wild blueberry jam along the bottom, creating an edible imitation of Rothko’s painting known as “No. 14, 1960.” The painting (see below) hangs at SFMOMA, the West Coast’s first museum devoted to 20th century art.

via BoingBoing & sfist

Mark Rothko is Toast … and More Edible Art from SFMOMA is a post from: Open Culture. You can follow Open Culture on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and by Email.

We’ve shown you Pakistani musicians playing an amazing version of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Classic, “Take Five”; also Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ performed on a Gayageum (a traditional Korean instrument); and then the Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” played with  traditional Chinese instruments. There’s nothing better than these felicitous meetings of east and west. So, today we present a Middle-Eastern flavored version of Radiohead’s 1997 hit “Karma Police,” which originally appeared on the album OK Computer. The video above features Tel Aviv-based singer Rotem Shefy on vocals, Leat Sabbah on cello, Yaniv Taichman on the oud, and Ori Dekel on percussion. This video emerged from a Kickstarter campaign that was successfully funded at the end of 2012.

via Metafilter

Related Content:

Radiohead-Approved, Fan-Made Film of the Band at Roseland for 2011′s The King of Limbs Tour

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Gives Teenage Girls Endearing Advice About Boys (And Much More)

A Middle-Eastern Version of Radiohead’s 1997 Hit “Karma Police” is a post from: Open Culture. You can follow Open Culture on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and by Email.