5 February 10
I'm not one for writing down the product of brain activity while sleeping but once and a while the neural playback of recent events is so amalgamated that it has to be shared. So I tried that this morning, relaying the events from my dream state to the Rocket Scientist. After I was done she looked confused and then became annoyed that I had just taken valuable time out of her morning.
Not satisfied with her reaction I decided to take things to the web wherein I run the risk of annoying even more people but as I always say: If you're riding a train wreck, go big.
It started with an early afternoon walk in a nice, quiet neighborhood. The streets were clean but not sterile. The pavement was uneven here and there where trees had decided they had the right-of-way. The sidewalk led to Main street lined with an assortment of shops and restaurants. There were people everywhere, shopping, eating, walking back to work. It was a peaceful scene of a small American town, the kind that Hollywood likes to create.
As I was walking through I noticed that up ahead a group had gathered and was growing larger. I moved closer to the commotion and saw that a woman in dirty, tattered clothing was pacing angrily in front of a store. She had a sign that looked like it had seen many months in the sun and in the rain. Occasionally she would yell angrily and make violent motions while tears streamed down her face. She talked but made no sense.
Police started to walk in from all around to take up strategic positions. The onlookers were pushed back to a safe location while they continued to talk quietly and stretch their necks for some kind of view. One of the cops started to talk to the distraught woman, making hand motions to show he meant no harm.
I pulled away from the crowd and walked over to a policeman who was standing alone. He turned out to be the Chief.
"What's going on," I asked?
"Oh, it's just another Flash developer who's down and out and blames HTML 5," the Chief replied, "we're going to try and get her to safety and hopefully recovery."
We both looked on as his co-workers inched their way forward towards the demonstrator. Their arms outstretched, they grabbed her while she kicked and cried. As they got her to calm down the crowd started to disperse and then the buzz of the alarm clock pulled instantly away from the scene, down Main street, over the uneven sidewalk, and back to reality.
Have I just foretold the future? I'm not sure, but I can tell you this much: it's time to put radishes back on the cuisine quarantine list.
30 January 10
This morning my attention was directed to the following article at Salon Magazine:
"Obama vs. House GOP: Best TV ever. The president smoothly mocks House Republicans, in an entertaining U.S. take on the prime minister's question time."
If I could kick a website in the ding ding my foot would already be behind my back and swinging forward with all the might I could muster, toe pointed forward, poised for a sure shot.
Salon (and they're not the only ones) ought to be ashamed for stating such a smug opinion on yesterday's meeting between the Whitehouse and the House of Representatives. Yesterday we witnessed a rare event that should be celebrated with a fervent demand for an encore and another and another. It should not be treated like a simple media event wherein tallies are made and a victor is announced. The entire point of the session was to but an end to the daily soundbyte sniper hunt and talk candidly without the interruption of pundits who are paid to pour gasoline on a tire fire.
It's easy for all of us to cynical (including the media) about what was said yesterday but we can't expect politicians to change overnight. We have had such a vicious decade of division that is not going to simply go away. Like all wounds, this will take time to heal and it is on us to stop running back to our ideological bunkers to dissect what was said into triumphant taking points.
Every voter in this union should take some time this weekend to thank their representatives for participating in yesterdays Q&A and encourage them to conduct more open sessions until it becomes a routine of our political culture, a structural thread in our evolving democracy. Write to the President and write to your members of the House. Meanwhile, we should harass and snub media outlets who seek to continue opening the divide between neighbors because civil discourse would likely mean lower ratings with declining advertising revenue.
Yesterday's open door talk wasn't perfect but it was a start. Lets go team go.
12 January 10
There's nothing worse than bland food. The only thing that trumps it are bad comedians.
Therefore, I propose that Leno is as funny as Subway is tasty.
8 January 10
To kick off a great year Cameron is doing something a bit different with his annual promotion over at Authentic Jobs. Normally I don't dedicate an entire post to such events but I do like to support a good cause every now and then.
To participate use code AIRBAGTEN. Hire someone cool, help a village develop a source of fresh water. Win, win.
You may also join in and donate to the campaign independent of posting a listing. Cameron and the Team AJ are hoping to raise $5,000, which is enough to fund the development of a freshwater well in one village.
6 January 10
The Society of Publication Designers recently did a feature on the art direction for the Riverfront Times, an alternative weekly available in the St. Louis area. In this piece they celebrate the work of senior art director, Tom Carlson.
In short, they say, "He does a lot of smart, cool work."
Carlson's best covers at Riverfront Times are complete self-creations, made with stock imagery and Carlson's own technical skills. What photography he uses on the cover is generally by former staff photographer Jennifer Silverberg, and is made-to-order to Carlson's creative direction. "My cover philosophy is object-oriented. I like to go for visual solutions with clarity and directness that render text all but unnecessary. I tend to avoid decorative type choices and use type that just is, and let the words (when we have them) do their job."
See for yourself and I think you'll agree, Tom does a lot of smart, cool work.
The article continues to offer a reason as to why Tom is able to be so crafty with his art and design.
As free papers, these weeklies are removed from the restrictions of newsstand sales and subscription renewals. With improved printing and reproduction capabilities (although their art directors would probably disagree about the quality), these papers have been able to get much more sophisticated in their cover designs, now oftentimes rivaling and surpassing other, slicker publications in their regions.
Wow, if that's the case then the Riverfront Times must love the web. I mean, if they can produce work of that caliber because they are free from the restrictions of sales and subscriptions, imagine what they can do without the shackles of printing and distribution. At a place that obviously celebrates really great design their website must glow like a thousand angels! And with Tom at the helm maybe a newspaper has finally awoken from their Adobe GoLive '99 slumber.
Oh look, as it turns out the Riverfront Times is just another newspaper that is living in the past and waiting for that Internet thing to go away and to stop bothering them. Pity.
29 December 09
After all the travel I did this year I'm going to hop on Kottke's meme. Long story short, I had to endure airport security way too many times. There was a time when I was flying an average of two flights every week. That said, Jared "Travel Machine" Spool made my flight schedule look like a series of grade school field trips. Still, I've got enough free drink coupons to last for a long, long time and a handy A-List Membership card that lets me jump to the front of the line for Federal Flight Safety Processing Happy Fun Time.
Here is a list of the places I traveled to and stayed in for one or more nights in 2009.
Aliso Viejo, California 1
Emeryville, California 1
Palm Springs, California 2
Palo Alto, California
Pasadena, California
Walnut Creek, California 2
Yountville, California
Fort Collins, Colorado
Boston, Massachusetts 2
Albany, New York
Eugene, Oregon 2
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2
Austin, Texas
Seattle, Washington 2
Tacoma, Washington
Sadly, I wasn't able to make my annual trip to Las Vegas in November—a problem I hope to remedy not too long after New Years.
1 Permanent residence.
2 Visited multiple times during the year.
21 December 09
I bring to you a few gems from a recent interview with Garrison Keillor with Tom Peters (more like ghost interview really, apparently Tom was too busy to talk to Garrison but that's Ok it's what Mr. Minnesota says that's important here).
Thoughts on post college life yesterday vs. today:
When I started out writing for the New Yorker I was living in a farmhouse in central Minnesota, because it was so cheap. It really removed a lot of the pressure of having to sell-sell-sell. I loved it there. I was desperately lonely, but that's not a bad thing.
I was sitting in a room upstairs at a desk that was a sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood across two used file cabinets, looking at an Underwood typewriter, and typing on yellow paper. It was a contemplative life that had great, deep pleasure. I wouldn't know how to recover it today.
This, for me, is how the world has changed, that a man sits at a desk in utter silence, and the phone line is simply the phone line. Somebody calls, and you don't have to answer it. You sit in silence, and hours pass and you tap-tap-tap-tap at a typewriter. I will never, ever recover that life. It's gone forever. And the college students I know will never know that life.
On direction (and potentially management):
[Bob] Altman had the courage to remove himself a little bit, distance himself from the people in the scene, and to be a sort of reassuring, paternal presence. He gave them that freedom. You knew that all of those performers had an internal critic. He didn't need to add his own critical persona to it.
On acting in the movie A Prairie Home Companion:
When you're on the screen with Meryl Streep, you are furniture and you might as well just accept that fact.
Regarding U.S. Senators:
He was a U.S. Senator. You cannot tell these people what to do. They all see themselves as the future President of the United States.
On writing:
As you get older, you learn how to throw it out without much thought, without much pity. You look at a piece that you've written, and you take those first three paragraphs, and you dump them. You just rip them out. Usually, that's the part that needs to be thrown out, the big windup, the big introduction. The first page almost always can go. You learn to do that without regret. I edit myself much more quickly and mercilessly now than I ever could have 20, 30 years ago.
On becoming a nation of individuals as a brand (which is a notion and product line that Tom Peters created and promotes):
I think that the decline within manufacturing in this country is a terrible loss, and a cultural loss. I don't want us to become a nation of authors, humorists, and writers of sonnets. For one thing, I don't encourage the competition. But I just think that it's a terrible cultural loss for the country, as well as an economic loss, to lose the ethics of physical work.
My father was a carpenter. He worked with his hands. He was gifted with his hands. This was a life for him that had great dignity and meaning. This should be fostered. I hope that people don't follow my lead. I am a man who, in many ways, leads the life of a ten-year-old child. It's a very immature life. You have adults around you who are steering the ship.
Of course to really appreciate these quotes you should sit down and read the entire piece.
