12.26.05

The Limit

Posted in Life at 11 am

Please. When I get brave enough to drink straight from the bottle, stop me.

Merry Christmas!

12.24.05

GapMinder

Posted in Life at 9 am

At Christmas-time, something like Gapminder can really put things into perspective for Americans.

12.23.05

The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible

Posted in Design at 10 pm

The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde (1900 — 1969) could also be known as the Zen of Design…

Imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine. You may choose your own favourite vintage for this imaginary demonstration, so that it be a deep shimmering crimson in colour. You have two goblets before you. One is of solid gold, wrought in the most exquisite patterns. The other is of crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour and drink; and according to your choice of goblet, I shall know whether or not you are a connoisseur of wine. For if you have no feelings about wine one way or the other, you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a member of that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you will choose the crystal, because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain.

Read the rest of this entry »

12.22.05

Writing Tool No. 13

Posted in Career, Media at 11 pm

Poynter Online – Writing Tool #13: Show and Tell

On the Ladder of Abstraction:

An old essay by John Updike begins, “We live in an era of gratuitous inventions and negative improvements.” That language is general and abstract, near the top of the ladder. It provokes our thinking, but what concrete evidence leads Updike to his conclusion? The answer is in his second sentence: “Consider the beer can.” To be even more specific, Updike was complaining that the invention of the pop-top ruined the aesthetic experience of drinking beer. “Pop-top” and “beer” are at the bottom of the ladder, “aesthetic experience” at the top.

Bartelby the Product

Posted in Career, Design, Life, Media at 7 pm

Over at Design Observer: writings about design & culture: Dmitri Siegel: Bartelby™

In his essay “Free Time,” philosopher Theodor Adorno explains how our time away from work has gradually been filled with economically productive activities masquerading as leisure. He further explains how we become habituated to this functionalization, so that when we have free time we don’t feel relaxed, but instead feel an anxiety to function, commonly known as boredom.

The article prompted me to see if I should add Bartelby to my Amazon wishlist… which I could but then realized that Melville’s work is almost all available through Project Gutenburn’s Archive.

Both the essay by Dmitri Siegel and the short story by Melville made for some great reading. However I’d like to learn more about Adorno’s work as that “Free Time” essay sounds like a major problem in my life at times.

12.19.05

Gustav and KRNK

Posted in Media, People at 10 pm

So I’m noticing how much I’m listening to KNRK again. Gustav has always been one of my most fav DJs of all time and happens to be a Depeche Mode fan in the extreme.

I remember when things went downhill with KNRK and the final blow when Marconi was summarily taken off of the air. At the time of the change from the Daria/Gustav morning show to the Marconi show there were a number of newspaper articles that detailed what was going on and more when Marconi was yanked.

I wondered if there had been any more recent articles looking at KNRK’s turn around. I googled for KNRK and Gustav and such and actually came across my own journal entry about Gustav, but there has not been much about the station lately which is a shame. The closest I’ve found is a podcast from Northwest Noise from 15 May 2005 and has turned out to have Gustav’s look back at the station. It’s GREAT. If you’re into KNRK’s music, you should listen to this podcast.

12.04.05

For the Pilots

Posted in Media, People at 11 am

A little Roy-Orbison-mellow, with a Nick-Cave-twist for the U of Portland women’s soccer team as they play in for the National Title against UCLA:

Just running scared, each place we go
So afraid, that Christine might show

Yeah, running scared, what would we do
If she came back and ran toward you?

Just running scared, feeling cold
Running scared, can’t stop that goal

Just running scared, afraid to lose
If she came back, which foot would she choose?

And then all at once, she was sprinting there
So sure of herself, her head in the air

While my heart was breaking, which one would it be?
Then she turned round and scored the goal on me

Go Pilots!