I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand—I use those words interchangeably—another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.

 

Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody’s else’s aesthetics. I think you’re born an artist or not. I couldn’t have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.

                                                                                 -Robert Rauschenberg

引自纽约时报的报道：

Two men, one a practiced French stuntman known for climbing tall buildings, the other a New Yorker who said he wanted to raise awareness of the dangers of malaria, scaled the 52-story New York Times Building in Times Square on Thursday just hours apart. Each was arrested when he stepped safely onto the roof.

The first, Alain Robert, the Frenchman, went up the north face of the year-old skyscraper in the morning, unfurling a bright green banner near the top. The words on the banner were illegible from the sidewalk, but from office windows inside the tower the message could be clearly read: “Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week.”

The other, identified by the police as Renaldo Clarke, 32, of Brooklyn, climbed the Eighth Avenue side starting about 6 p.m.

A spokeswoman for The Times, Catherine J. Mathis, said that after the first climber was arrested, two additional building security guards were assigned to patrol the area outside, on 40th and 41st Streets.

Both climbers grabbed onto one of the building’s most distinctive features, the ladderlike horizontal rods that form an exterior curtain surrounding the floor-to-ceiling windows. And then, in turn, they were off on a hand-over-hand trip up the face of a New York skyscraper, with no ropes or harnesses, a trip that left the cellphone-camera-snapping crowds that swirled below thinking of Spider-Man, or maybe King Kong.

。。。

昨日收到如下一封信

Dear Fellow Activist:

Today is World Environment Day.

Right now, Alain Robert, known as the French Spiderman, is risking his life in New York City climbing high into the skyline to raise awareness of the desperate need for real stewardship from world leaders on global warming ahead of next month's G8 meeting.

He says "The Solution Is Simple":

1 – Stop Cutting Down Trees. Plant More Trees.
2 – Make Everything Energy Efficient.
3 – Only Make Clean Energy.

The cost of action is a simple matter of math. The cost of acting NOW is far smaller than the cost of acting TOO LATE. But the time for action is running out, fast.

World leaders know this, but are still not acting fast or bravely enough. Last year in Bali, they failed to agree to ANY emissions reduction targets, but rather to two more years of more talk.
TALK is no longer cheap; but we can't afford any more of it instead of ACTION.

But there is hope in the changing of the guard among world leaders. America's next President could help lead the way.
There's reason for hope. We urgently need a global agreement for at least a 50 percent cut in emissions.

World leaders meet again next month at the G8 conference in Japan. YOU can help make sure they get the message. Go to http://www.thesolutionissimple.org and join your voice with ours.
Together we WILL be heard.

Together, millions of us can help make history on the most urgent and important issue of our lifetime. It's that simple.

Stay informed, stay inspired, stay active!

As always in solidarity,

Your friends at AnitaRoddick.com and IAmAnActivist.org