STEAMTHING

I’ve been reading (re-reading, dog-earing, margin scribbling) the book THE WRECK OF THE HENRY CLAY which is a collection of wonderfully discursive posts from Caleb Crain's blog STEAMBOATS ARE RUINING EVERYTHING. On every other page there is an idea so compelling, an opinion so original, a reference so obscure that I am constantly itching to share it. Frankly, this is one of the most entertaining and informative books I’ve read all year. The posts range in subject matter from deckled edges in book production, to the causes of the rise in autism, to the correct word for describing a bat in flight ("wamble"), to Milan Kundera's possible communist collusion (of course the author, infuriatingly, speaks Czech as well as French), to tree climbing, to the seasonality of deer flatulence. Also included in the collection: a talk entitled "How is the Internet Changing Literary Style" which should be required reading for anyone who participates online in any capacity; an interview with the late and much missed David Foster Wallace in which our hero holds his own in a discussion of Cantorian set-theory and Platonism; and, what may be the most devastating piece of climate-change poetry I've ever read. Crain is one of those rare writers (rare in general, but even rarer online) who always seem to have la citation juste available to him, not because he is a proficient googler, but because he is so outrageously well-read and deep-thinking.

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SUMMER COLD

Tamara is a Genius, or: Things that Show Up in My Mailbox

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Hot Type

450 typographical "Tart Cards"
commissioned by Wallpaper










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via stephhhd's photostream

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Radical

The Radical Thinkers Series from Verso. Designed by Rumors. The design firm, not the singles bar.

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COMING SOON...

The Faster Times

ps. The music section might just
be worth reading.

wink, nudge.






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Valse D'irritation

What recourse does a musician have when a cell phone rings in the middle of his recital? Well, if you're the mega-technician and forgotten masterworks revivalist Marc-André Hamelin, you play this:

Valse D'Irritation

Or, there's always

This Fugue

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Mechanical Warfare

I was at the U.S. Intrepid today (don't ask)...and came across some cover design, US army style.

"You WILL make that TYPE BIGGER, maggot."
"Sir, yes Sir!"
"You call this Kerning? You ARE a disgrace to the uniform."
"Sir, yes Sir!"
"Do I look SWISS to you, grunt?"
"Er, what, Sir?"
"Do. I. Look. SWISS. To. You? You slimy little..."
"Sir, no, I..."
"Then why in the sweet name of ALL that's HOLY, am i looking at a GRID, son?"
"SIR, SORRY SIR!"
"You LOVE yer country, soldier?"
"Sir, yes Sir!"
You've READ Chip Kidd Book One?"
"er..."
"You disgust me. Drop and redesign Geek Love."
"Sir yes sir..."
"...in PAGEMAKER 4, maggot!"
"Aw, Dang."
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Tilt-shift

Some very pretty tilt-shift video courtesy of THE UNIQLO calender

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Ye olde portfolio site, after many years of unflagging service, has been put out to pasture.

There's a holding site up now.
(courtesy of the talented Ben Pieratt)




I'll announce when the new site is up.

In the meantime- if you have to look at book covers then click here.

If you wanna see more of them:

look at these.

And much more importantly, if you wanna see EVERYBODY'S jackets: check it

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A new interview, with James Morrison at
Caustic Cover Critic.

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Strays

Single letters, unannounced and unaccompanied, have been showing up like wayward orphans at my door of late. First came this "P," which appeared, enigmatically, in my bedroom. And when I transferred it to my office door, it picked up a companion- a blue underdot just as mysteriously. This small addition effected the creation of the neatest logotype imaginable for...me? This logotype, which I never would have been able to concoct on my own, combines my first initial with both a question mark and an exclamation point, and that seems just about right.

Then along came "X."

First, the whole Salomon Kalou kerfuffle. The Ivorian Chelsea striker celebrated a goal at Middlesborough by crossing his arms into an "X" sign, thereby expressing his feelings about such disparate causes as: the plight of his compatriot the embattled writer Antoine Assalé Tiémoko; the closing of Guantanamo Bay(Camp "X-ray"); support for a variety of prisoners, political and otherwise, (the crossed hands equalling cuffs); and/or his love (as Russell Brand would have it) of Trebors X-tra Strong Mints...

This was followed by the Blackwater rebranding itself as Xe, though the "e" seems unimportant and afterthought-like. (This "Xe," in typical, elliptical Blackwater fashion, should evidently be pronounced "Zee." So, why not "Z" you ask? Why the war in Iraq, why George W. Bush ("W!") why covert renditions...why indeed.)

...and...

"X's" abound in a wonderful book just sent to me by Princeton Architectural Press:

THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT DESIGN by David Barringer



in which the author tells us (in a truly virtuoso essay) everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, about the letter/symbol "X," including the fact that it stands for both everything and nothing, a point that harmonizes nicely with what I had already learned during Salomon Kalou's ill-advised goal celebration. You can buy it here if so inclined (and you should be!).

(and while we're on the topic of letters and goal celebrations... remember Larry Johnson's "L" gesture during his four-point play against the Pacers in '99? I do.)

ANYHOO... on to "E..."

and check out this bad boy that showed up in my mail this afternoon courtesy of one Mr. Jason Fulford:



Indeed my mind HAS been blown, as I read Plutarch, and delved deep into the hieratic nature of the "E." Suffice it to say that this "E" is as semantically, philosophically, symbolically rich as any letter can claim to be. I'll never look at the fifth letter of the alphabet the same way again. So thanks for that Jason. And for the rest of you, if you don't mind reading sentences such as "The dragonessa's sidekick was Hera's spite-child, the monstrous Typhoeus" then you can read this piece on the "E" at Delphi.

P's out.


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Pick up Caleb Crain's
THE WRECK OF THE HENRY CLAY,

A chapbook of his posts from STEAMBOATS

"When the electromagnetic-pulse device is detonated, I will be the only blogger in America with backup."

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Efficiency

Christophe, who runs Rotorelief, and I have hilariously broken conversations on the phone- he in France, me in NY. However we always seem to be on the same page when it comes to our graphic sensibilities. When he decided to reissue the complete works of Vivenza, the singly-named noise artist whose works came to prominence in the eighties, he used one word to describe what he wanted out of the record sleeves: "efficiency." I'm not completely sure I understand what he means by this word, if he is mistranslating, or simply wants the sleeves to use the fewest possible elements- but in any case, these (below) are the upshot. (N.B. for those of you who have contacted me wanting to buy the posted records- they take a while to ship overseas, and as Christophe is a small business owner, it behooves him to ship in bulk. The records that will be available for public purchase at the end of the month are ETHER, P.231 & Lt. Caramel, P.231 & Vox Populi, the first of the Vivenzas and the M.B. record. The others will be rolling in over the summer. So contact Christophe if you want'em- or contact me and I'll see what I can do! They are limited editions so hurry)












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Recall

I'm working with a young Russian poet, Vera Pavlova on a new collection for next Spring. She is incredible, and something of a superstar in her native country. We have decided to print an entire poem on the front-of-jacket, and chances are it is going to be this one. This poem has become something of a koan for me over the past week. There is something very enigmatic and Heart Sutra-like at the poem's core. (I need to remember to ask if "recall" has the same dual-meaning in Russian as in English.)


If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.

—Vera Pavlova

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More Vinyl

A two LP set



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Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Ruby and I went on a rare foray to B&N on Saturday and look what we found- Ruby's profile! Here's the original cover with partially obscured uncentered type and an OPAQUE silhouette before everyone started to weigh in on how Ruby's image should be transparent (which between you, me, and the rest of blogosphere, really damages the concept. Look at how ABSENT she is in the original?) The author wanted the type centered. Oh well- as Bob Marley said: "He who fight and run away, lives to fight another day."

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Some new stuff up on the Banksy site.


via NOTCOT

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Deborah Digges

I wrote a little poem this morning:

JUMPING DEATH

Suicides
remind me of astronauts.
Who but the alien brave amongst us
would want to fall
upwards,flung out
of our embracing orbit,
into that un-
encompassable,
well before the time
when we all,
by dint of cataclysm,
shall be forced to?


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Vertical Interview

A new interview...(Thanks, gentle readers, for reminding me to post it) This one is about Vertical Books:

FACEOUT BOOKBLOG/VERTICAL INTERVIEW


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Elektroschutz

As if rampant inflation and the rise of The National Socialist Party weren't bad enough: Elektroschutz in Bildern, 1931



So many ways to give yourself an electric shock in pre-war Germany....

Elektropathologisches Museum

and, of course, the Flikr Set

via WFMU
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oooops

I've been a big fan of the popular website FFFFOUND! since it's inception. The site is chock-filled with interesting design, curated (for the most part) by users with wide-ranging visual interest and impeccable taste. The way the site works (for you three or four people who don't already know) is this: There are images chosen by various user-members on the main page. By clicking on an image, you are told in effect: "If you liked this image, you may like these as well..." and you are subsequently led to other images related by subject-matter, or style. It's a kind of visual free-association.

Here's the rub: this associative system invariably leads me, without my knowing it, to an image of a naked lady.

It just seems to happen that way. And reconstructing the path it took to get there helps not one whit in my understanding how I ended up with full-frontal nudity. It's sort of like a game of telephone where X shares a trait with Y, and Y shares a trait with Z, but X and Z have little in common. And, I know, I KNOW- Maybe it's just me- maybe I have answered the site's Rorschach test in this particularly perverted way. But I assure you- I always start out honorably, wanting to take in some design inspiration... and the female form is the inevitable result. But of course, isn't this just the way of the internet in general? Perhaps.

(I would also submit that my OTHER obsessions, like, say, species counterpoint, don't arise in this or any other internet context merely because I am interested in them. I've never accidentally come across a picture of Palestrina or Orlando di Lasso on ffffound. Sex, as we all know, is clearly on everyone's mind. And, incidentally, for what it's worth- I had assumed naked dudes would turn up as often, but they don't.)

I decided to do a little experiment, and see how many steps it would take me to get from a piece of my own graphic design work on ffffound to a page with a sexy woman; and then, how many steps it would take me to get from the nude lady in question back to a different work of my own. I chose design work of mine that is maximally abstract and contains no erotic subtext whatsoever (or so I thought).

Well, the results are in, and I seem to average between 3 and 4 steps removed from the unclothéd female body. Click on the chart below to see how I fared in my first outing:



(Now, as I look at this chart many questions arise- the first and most pressing of which is: why on earth, if someone liked the jacket for Roberto Calasso's "K" would they enjoy that torso/stereo system cited from the Kanye West blog. Some questions are better left unanswered.) N.B. here I was consciously trying to end up with nudity so the results are somewhat skewed...


Now this game could work with anything- see how many clicks it takes you to get from Abraham Lincoln to a picture of a muscle-car. How many clicks between a "Keep Calm and Carry On" variant and a chunky geometric font without counter-holes (why, oh why are these so prevalent?). I think there's a really decent drinking game in all this. The only thing of which you can be sure is- whatever path you choose, you will eventually have to look at a beautiful woman. But I suppose there are worse things in life....

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I know it's not quite May, but
the trees in the park
were beginning to bud, so...


The trees are coming into leaf 
Like something almost being said; 
The recent buds relax and spread, 
Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

Is it that they are born again 
And we grow old? No, they die too, 
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh 
In fullgrown thickness every May. 
Last year is dead, they seem to say, 
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. 

Mr. Phillip Larkin-

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"I've always said politics is like the circus: the worst job is cleaning up after the elephants. We're just beginning to find out how true that is." —JAMES CARVILLE

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WHAT DOES A RECTANGLE SOUND LIKE?

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A recent cd (for a change) That I designed. Once again, for Rotorelief Records.
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