August 2007 Archives
If I want to watch a movie while I work, it gets difficult when you can't automatically float the window above others. And I think, why doesn't every window have this option? Then I found Afloat.
Note: it works with almost any window (If you want to watch a movie from iTunes, just reveal it in finder and open it in Quicktime. Afloat works there.)
Happy birthday to Permanent Records--one year since the opening of our favorite little record store down the street. Congrats Lance, Liz, and Zaireeka.
Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth house in Illinois (55 miles SW of Chicago) is sadly fighting flood waters from the neighboring Fox River. In an effort that will help preservation, the landmark had recently been raising some money by leasing the space for filming an ad featuring Brad Pitt, and what I consider to be an absolutely humiliating music video by Kenny Chesney. Humiliating for the house. Not that I find Brad Pitt in a Japanese jean company ad particularly fitting for Mies's masterpiece, but seriously, what does corporate pop-country remotely have to do with modernism? All signs of cynicism and elitism aside, it cannot be denied that this video looks downright ridiculous.
Music as landscape? A beautiful, chilling trailer for an upcoming Sigur Ros documentary called Heima. Well done.
Great pulp book covers turned into even greater photographs. (Use the next/back navigation at top right.)
Looks like a documentary is in the works on Theo Jansen, a dutch artist who creates massive anthropomorphic wooden sculptures that walk when blown by the wind. It's hard to imagine until you see one in motion. This should be a really fascinating film.
"There has been little development of the toaster since the start of the century, whilst other appliances have developed and improved incorporating new technologies and thinking, toaster have remained relatively untouched." The boring toaster epidemic has been cured.
An abandoned Chicago candy factory, disguised as a hospital, was blown up today for The Dark Knight Batman film. I went there for my lunch break, and while I came to early for the explosion, I saw a huge set, the director, and what I thought at a distance was the Joker in a scrub. We'll see.
Every so often I hear a song, and I see the song happen in my mind. It is usually the odd song--the one that doesn't quite fit the album, the one that is noticeably slower than the rest, odd sounds, new themes. It's the song that takes a life on its own. On the most recent Arcade Fire album, Neon Bible, I immediately identified the song as "My Body is a Cage".
The entire album is a grand, sometimes epic tidal wave of Springsteen-esque narratives. It all has a story. But only this song--the song shoved to the end of the album, the song with an elephant pace in comparison to the run-as-fast-as-you-can beat of most of the album--was cinematic. This song was a film, and I had seen it before. It played vividly in my mind every time the album reached that brooding 11th track.
It was the archetypal golden and dusty spaghetti-western scenario. There were the vast landscapes, the extreme close-ups of wrinkled eyes and sweat, and the burningly slow rhythm of anticipation before the gun draw. All of these things added up, and I finally realized this was a Sergio Leone film.
After a good 2 weeks of listening to this song many times a day, I had figured it out. I dug through my movie collection to find what I considered the archetype of western films, which so happens to be my favorite one, Once Upon a Time in the West. I flew to the end of the film and found it. It had the elephant pace, the extreme anticipation through incredibly long camera shots so signature to Leone's work, landscapes, and close-ups, all in the climactic conclusion to an epic story. The song and the film had everything, and I put so much of the credit to them. I'm just glad I was able to introduce the two to each other. Genius, meet Genius.
I definitely have a few more music films in my mind. Here's to hoping for the day I get a camera in my own hands.
Penguin does it right again. Pentagram redesigned Kerouac's "On the Road", for the UK anyway.
A remake of 3:10 to Yuma with Christian Bale (and Russell Crowe...meh) releases September 7th. Just in time, Sony Pictures is rereleasing the original 1957 western in a widescreen transfer. I'm loving this resurgence of westerns-done-right. Lets hope it follows the follows the footsteps of The Proposition, Unforgiven, and even Open Range (a surprisingly great one). Next to come are the Cohen Brothers' No Country for Old Men -- which I'll consider a western -- and the one I'm most looking forward to, PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood. It's gonna be a good year for the showdown.
In one of the 41 short films (!) that will be included with the upcoming Helvetica DVD release, Wim Crouwel talks about his proposed New Alphabet for digital media from the 1960's. I've always cringed at this typeface, but I've also been curious as to why it was considered so revolutionary. Very informative. I can't wait to find out what the other 40 shorts are about. (from swisslegacy)
Apparently a Joy Division documentary has been in the works, unrelated to the Anton Corbijn film. It premiers at the Toronto Film Festival Sept 7th. Definitely curious.
Great review of Anton Corbijn's upcoming movie "Control" at one of my new favorite websites. Yes, chances are, it isn't coming to a theatre near you. But lets hope.
I've been enjoying this Wilco podcast, where members of the band will run a lengthy selection of favorites from the band and others. Some great abstract listening there. (Link will open in iTunes)
The Maison de Verre--a beautiful industrial-modernist house in Paris is featured in NYTimes this morning. Be sure to watch the slideshow to see details. It reminds me of my other dream home.
The essay I linked below by Andrew Waggoner about silence comes at an appropriate time, as I've been thinking about silence a lot lately. Not audio silence, but rather visual silence. Recently this city of São Paulo banned all advertising. All advertising. Think for a second about that. I wasn't able to imagine it.
Initially I thought it sounded wonderful, like it would bring an instantly refreshed awareness of nature in the urban environment. Without the bombardment of retouched models, cellphone headsets, screaming typography, and the storm of logos we see every day in our urban surroundings, our eyes would instead focus on what's green, the condition of the streets (litter would be much more noticeable without the distraction of a six foot Gap model beside it on the bus stop), and perhaps even architecture would be a little more beautiful--uncluttered and raw.
But since this ban in São Paulo has taken effect, I've seen only visual evidence that proves me wrong. Without imagery of people, the colors of typography, and glowing signs, somehow the city becomes eerily less human. The lack of these things accentuate how unnatural the existence of architecture is. Granted, São Paulo is not a city known for it's structural achievements. Chicago might not look quite so lifeless, and it already has dramatically less advertising that the former São Paulo, but (and I hate to say it) the city would certainly feel a little less like home.
Here is a commercial (ironic?) for a television station that uses footage of post ad-pocalypse São Paulo to demonstrate how great their channel is without advertising too. Is their station also as creepy as the city?
These photo sets are becoming a regular thing around here. Regardless, here is a fantastically extensive pool of old paperback book covers. I can smell the dust.
I'm probably way too excited about this, but NBC is soon to bring back American Gladiators. And here I was getting worried that it would never return. I know you were too. You're my boy, Malibu!
The colonization of silence is complete. Its progress was so gradual that even those who watched it with alarm have only now begun to take stock of the losses. Reflection, discernment, a sustainable sense of tranquility, of knowing where and how to find oneself--these are only the most obvious casualties of marauding noise's march to the sea. Much more insidious has been the loss of music itself.
This is something to ponder: a video demonstration of "Content-Aware Image Resizing". I'm skeptical about its use with photographic images (it just seems wrong right?), but using it for graphic website elements could open up some doors for web design I imagine.
Brian Dettmer transforms books into cavernous mindscapes with a knife. I can't begin to comprehend how this is done. Jen Stark's work with construction paper equally mind-blowing. [from GB]
Stupid warning labels. Example: "This product moves when used" on a Razor scooter. Genius.
Word of the day: ambigram. [via coudal]
The architects' relationship with "competition work" is seemingly the same thing designers call "spec work". Though architects do get paid, the work itself usually ends up being three times the amount. As far as I'm concerned, that's working for free. In both cases, it is bad news.
Khoi Vinh on why web design should not be treated at all like print. Plenty has been said on this topic before--he acknowledges this himself--but it's always nice to be reminded, especially from someone who would know best (Khoi Vinh is the art director for nytimes.com).
Congratulations to SABER for his mention in the latest (Sept/Oct) issue of Print Magazine, and to fellow designer and good friend Nice Outfit for the launch of SABER's new website. The article isn't yet, and probably won't be available online, so here's the write-up in case you have trouble finding a copy: 
Los Angeles graffiti legend SABER was barely 20 years old in 1996 when his fellow vandal GKAE challenged him to paint the world's largest graffiti piece. A year of dangerous night missions and 100 gallons of house paint later, SABER's full-color piece on the sloping banks of the L.A. River (a location made famous in Grease) entered the annals of street immortality. Of course, fame, even by the anonymous standards of graffiti, comes with a big bull's-eye. In 1999, the long-notorious New York graffiti writer JA made a special trip just to spray-paint all over it, but SABER (who, to give an idea of the piece's scale, is sitting on the top section of this B in the center of the photo above) soon restored the piece to its former glory. Now 10 years old, SABER's football-field-size section of the L.A. riverbed is a graffiti Methuselah--one you can see clearly on Google Earth near where Interstate 5 and 10 intersect with the river, and read about in Saber: Mad Society, the artist's monograph now out from Gingko Press.
Now between Print magazine and my wildly popular weblog (sarcasm), the new site is sure to soon be overwhelmed with hits. Great stuff guys.
Not Coming to a Theater Near You: "...this site assumes a bias towards older, often unpopular, and sometimes unknown films that merit a second look." Film reviews of obscure films, on quite a handsome website. I'll cut out a chunk of the weekend for this one.
Designer Eric Spiekermann points out the similarities between current Apple product design, and Braun products 45 years ago. The iPhone calculator comparison proves it's no accident. Really cool.
Compact Disc format is 25 years old, and possibly soon to retire. I just wonder, what will this mean for music packaging? The lo-res cover jpg that comes in the iTunes store just isn't enough. I hope there will always be a demand for haptic packaging, but how about a means of web-packaging too? Buy the album on iTunes, and you get access to a website that is filled with artwork, interactive, notes, lyrics, possibly videos, extra downloads, etc.
The closest, albeit half-hearted, attempt I've seen to do this was Beck's The Information that released on iTunes with a Flash "interactive booklet". The extent of its interaction was a couple of links to song lyrics. It tried too hard to behave like a printed booklet. The actual printed booklet that came with the CD was more interactive than the digital one, which was pages of empty grid that came with stickers, inviting listeners to make their own album cover.
In a word... groundbreaking.
I had to look this up when I noticed the typeface on my new Apple keyboard was no longer Univers 57. Apparently, as of the 2003 iBooks, Apple has been switching the typeface on their keyboards to VAG Rounded. That's news to me. More about the typography of Apple Inc. on Wikipedia.
"The problem, as Seegers outlines it, as that the fine arts worked too well. Bravo got such a big audience that its corporate owner - NBC Universal - wanted that big audience for its more mainstream fare." NPR story on a television channel for the arts, called Ovation TV, trying to go national.
I've been listening to Steve Reich's music, on loop, for almost two weeks now. I'm not sure any other sound could be so conducive to working hours at a time. It walks the fine line that keeps my interest, but disappears as I focus on whatever I'm working on at the moment. It breathes with you... and before you know it you've worked for three hours, you love what you've done, and you have no idea how you did it. I love it.
To give back a little, I've managed to get lost for the last three hours rounding up some interesting videos connected to Steve Reich in one way or another. Enjoy:
Continue reading Reich in Motion.
I didn't enter the Apple store today with intentions of buying anything, but as soon as I placed my hands on the new keyboard I knew I was taking one home. I couldn't believe how much easier it was to type on. It's a dramatic difference from the cavernous keys of the old keyboard. It doesn't hurt that it looks like a work of art either.
Chicago Magazine has an interesting list of "Ten Modern Masterpieces" of architecture that have apparently revived the city from state of structural staleness in the early 2000's. I'll have to add some of these to the list of buildings I have yet to see, but my personal favorite of these that I have been to is the State Street Village on the IIT campus. Chances are, if you visit me in Chicago I'll drag you to see it... on the way to the Rem Koolhaas campus center of course.A notable quote from an accompanying article, The Chicago Effect:
We [Chicago] have powerful politics, which count when you are trying to build an ambitious building. We have a public that knows about architecture. Most important, Chicago harbors a preternatural distrust of "style," a word that, in architecture, refers to a set of formal characteristics that can be imitated and later discarded. Here, passing fashions are a distant second to the pure pleasure of a well-built building.
That's truly something to love about this city.
The Chicago Tribune's website has finally received a redesign. The old website, next to the New York Times, New Yorker, and CNN sites, was always the ugly cousin with a haircut from the early nineties. Building on the same design for years, it was expanded and altered bit by bit until it became a navy blue mud-pit of navigation and ads. As much as I want to have pride for the local paper here, nothing could convince me to attempt using that website.
I've been waiting for a redesign (even daydreaming about doing it myself) since I moved here, but the haircut I was hoping to see didn't happen. Just a lot of hair gel.
There are some improvements--wider page, centered, and css finally--but disappointingly, that's about where it ends. It's still nearly impossible to just scan the page. Once again they've traded the opportunity to trust a smart grid and white space to clearly organize the content, for a design that naively relies on rules, strokes, boxes, and background colors. Most of the time I spend on the site is used to decipher the layout and gain orientation, when it should be spent reading, no?
In the editor's notes of the site they opened comments, and the comments have flooded in. Must be embarrassing how unanimously negative they are (though I do find any "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comment to be ridiculous... the site was terribly broken).
Classic. A beautiful flip clock screensaver. [click the first disc on the left, titled "FLIQLO"]
Wikipedia defines common symbolic connotations of the color Red as:
Passion, strength, energy, fire, love, sex, excitement, speed, heat, arrogance, ambition, leadership, masculinity, power, danger, gaudiness, blood, war, anger, revolution, radicalism, socialism, communism, aggression, summer, autumn, stop, Mars (planet), respect, Gemini (star sign), December.
Red is also associated with the Nazi party, AIDS, Red Cross, emergency, dynamite, and roses. Most of the words are extreme, a lot are even negative. All of them are likely to draw some amount of emotion from a person, and the color red itself can have a physical effect on the body--increased blood pressure and heavy breathing.
The one thing that is clear from all of this is that red is not funny...
Continue reading Red is Not Funny.
"As an aesthetic principle, quirk is an embrace of the odd against the blandly mainstream. It features mannered ingenuousness, an embrace of small moments, narrative randomness, situationally amusing but not hilarious character juxtapositions...and unexplainable but nonetheless charming character traits. Quirk takes not mattering very seriously." Suitable name for what most would probably call "you know...that weird kind of humor".
What a surprise! Julie and I were mentioned on the Coudal feed today about the Marian Bantjes print I recently got for my birthday. Yes, the present is lovely to say the least.
The Helvetica film releases on DVD November 6 in a regular and deluxe limited edition. Pre-orders are $5 off and shipped a week early. I'm looking forward to it.
"Signs that you'd be hard pressed to read at 700 feet were legible at 900 or 1,000 feet," Montalbano said. "People were really freaked out". A great six-page article in the Times about the story behind Clearview, a typeface that will slowly replace all road signs in the US.
On a related note, here's a gallery of current traffic signs.
Blasting the Myth of the Fold. Reassuring to say the least. I refuse to believe that people don't scroll down websites by second nature now. If one honestly feels that nobody will take the time to scroll their site to learn more... maybe they should evaluate the quality of their content.
It seems too often now that I discover a master artist because of their death. Martin Scorsese on the recently passed Michelangelo Antonioni. Now I need to see these films.
"Klimas breaks recognizable objects so they become something else, and stops us just at the moment of transformation". Photos by Martin Klimas. [tmn]
A book of Radiohead artwork by Stanley Donwood, who has been doing their album covers since The Bends, is being released in October. I hope it might include some of his recent work exhibited in London. It is almost impossible to imagine these are etchings.
I'm not a writer. I think that was apparent with my previous attempt at keeping a blog running on a whopping one (maybe two) posts a month. jtylercity.net was on life support.
Continue reading Year Two.
You've reached the first post ever. You must be bored. Go google something.
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