Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees

What Hacker News says

1. swengwDec 2016
   Most recommended:

   - Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others.

   - Lawrence Weschler - Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. A quality biography of Robert Irwin based on interviews over decades, and helps you learn to appreciate minimalist art to boot.

   - Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

   - Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions

   - Burton G. Malkiel - A Random Walk Down Wall Street

   - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah. Saw myself in several of these characters

   - Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba the Greek

   ---

   Also good:

   - Jack London - John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs. Illustrates all of the interesting ways in which a person is tempted to drink: when someone else buys you one, when it's cold outside, ...

   - Danny Bowien - The Mission Chinese Food Cookbook. Lots of stories between the recipes.

   - David Byrne - How Music Works

   - Meg Jay - The Defining Decade

   - Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast

   - Magdalena Droste - Bauhaus 1919-1933

   - Arimasa Osawa - Shinjuku Shark

   - Zadie Smith - Changing My Mind

   - Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

   - Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

   - Marie Kondo - The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

   - Haruki Murakami - The Strange Library. A fifteen minute read.

   - Tim Ferriss - The Four-Hour Workweek. Good tactics for saving time; bad business advice.

   - Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle

   - John Berger - Ways of Seeing

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2. msutherlJul 2016
   So glad "Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees" is here – one of my favorite books and the reason I became an artist ... and then stopped being an artist.

   One of my most referenced parts of the book describes an entire year Irwin spent in Ibiza (IIRC) alone and not speaking to anyone in his late 20s. The insight he gathered that year really determined the rest of the career and enabled him to step outside of the zeitgeist of the time (abstract expressionism) into something totally different.

   If you're in LA, you can see a garden he designed at the Getty Center. If you're in New York, you can visit DIA Beacon, which he also designed (or non-designed really). And if you ever get a chance to see his artwork, I highly recommend it.

   Such restraint, such slowness.

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3. GregBuchholzJun 2014
   >Or Paul Valery: "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees." Practically a cliche.

   A great book that puts this to practice is "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". Some of the first exercises are to free hand copy a line drawing, while the picture you are copying is upside-down. The theory being that the symbol-interpreting portion of the brain then doesn't exert much influence on the drawing. It was pretty amazing to see the difference this makes. Anyone who is interested in learning how to draw, but doesn't think they have the talent should check out this book.

   http://www.bing.com/search?q=drawing+on+the+right+side+of+th...

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4. msutherlDec 2013
   Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of The Thing One Sees, on Robert Irwin's life: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520256093?tag=morgasuthe-20

   Many lessons in discipline, joy, and taking time to see.

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5. nsfmcSep 2010

     "even with innate talent you will still have to work hard at it."
   

   Word. I responded to an earlier post that this sort of thing is a learned skill. About a year or two ago, i started a font blog[1] so that i could learn about typefaces and also so that i could become better at making type specimens.

   It worked, at least until i got busy with school, but it actually made me understand type and it also had the effect of making me use typeface outside of my comfort zone. I welcome submissions, so let me know if you want to take a stab at writing up a typeface / specimen.

   Just as with programming or, for that matter, anything, practice in seeing[2] and using type is really the winning ticket. The more you do it, the better you get. I know, lame, right? But how do you get better? You research, you try, you fail, you get feedback, and you get better.

   [1] http://fontasm.tumblr.com [2] Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees (978-0520049208)

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6. earlyriserDec 2016
   This is the book Cassie & Craig recommend in the interview: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Forgetting-Name-Thing-Sees/dp/... Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Expanded Edition

   Do you know if there's a French version of this? For a gift. I couldn't find in my web search.

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