Friday, April 25, 2008

Amy Tan on Creativity and All Matter of Things

Amy Tan on TED. This is an amazing talk. It's not short like YouTube. It lasts all of about 20 minutes or so. Remember when sitting and watching one amazing lecture for 20 minutes wouldn't have seemed like a long time? When my kids were little I read an article about Sesame Street, the wonder show that was supposed to teach kids letters and numbers and all matter of interesting concepts. The article I read was on the printed page. The letters didn't transmogrify, an A becoming an apple, an aardvark, an airplane, all in dazzling colors. They just sat there and formed words. I thought, hmmmm, time to turn off the television. So for eight years it was off. Here it is, lots of years later and, at least around my house, we've all got our heads stuck in our computers and I think we're becoming YouTubed: Definition - unable to watch anything for more than three minutes.

Amy Tan is brilliant and funny. It's worth every minute if you can find the time to listen. If you find a transcript let me know. I'd like to read it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent talk by Tan. Still don't know how she does it, though.
This one's a good one also, by Aubrey de Grey. Some think him a kook, but some of his stuff makes sense. I think people would take him more seriously if he would shave off that beard.

Anonymous said...

Excellent talk by Tan. Still don't know how she does it, though.
This one's a good one also, by Aubrey de Grey.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39

Some think him a kook, but some of his stuff makes sense. I think people would take him more seriously if he would shave off that beard.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Am I glad I decided to stay in spite of a slow load time. She's amazing as a speaker, and the surprise ending was well worth the wait and the time invested. Thanks for bring it to my attention as I might have missed it otherwise.