March 2012
34 posts
6 tags
WatchTalking Heads’ (Nothing But) Flowers official music video directed by Tibor Kalman at M&Co.
February 2012
24 posts
8 tags
“Creating work that everyone can agree on as good taste is a good way to go...”
– Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins in response to the London 2012 Olympics logo from the latest episode of Design Matters.
3 tags
Come Talk To Me – Bon Iver
So good. This has...
10 tags
8 tags
“It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day...”
– David Foster Wallace’s closing words in his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. Today would have been his 50th birthday.
I’ve never read Infinite Jest (it’s been on my reading list for years but it’s size intimidates me) and I’ve only read a handful of his...
6 tags
“If it’s a success, if it works, they wanna replicate it. That’s the death of...”
– Anthony Bourdain on the state of television, creativity, boredom, from this interview with Fast Company.
7 tags
The Story and the Wonder
Today was my first time to the Natural History Museum. It was near the top of my list of places to go once I moved to New York last summer but life always seemed to get in the way. This holiday seemed like a fitting weekend to carve out a few hours to spend a few hours with dinosaurs and ancient relics of cultures past.
The museum welcomes a sense of wonder; walking past the Asian mammals to...
7 tags
A Conversation with Alfred Hitchcock
In 1964, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation filmed a two-part interview with Alfred Hitchcock that covers lots of ground with topics ranging from the technical aspects of making a movie, the nature of art, reflections on his favorite films, and the philosophies of storytelling. I’ve included both parts here for viewing.
I especially enjoyed his thoughts early in part one on the...
7 tags
“Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.”
– Anselm Kiefer
4 tags
“Even in our weird information-saturated world, there’s so much we don’t, and...”
– Adam Lashinsky, from Robin Sloan’s post, The Limits of Knowledge, over on Snarkmarket
5 tags
7 tags
10 tags
Sway: New Issue and New Site
After a bit of a delay, I’m excited to release issue four of Sway, the experimental zine I publish with Rory King. This issue’s theme is “yellow” and I edited and designed the first six spreads, focusing on the use of yellow in culture whether that be Van Gogh’s Yellow House, The Beatles’s Yellow Submarine or the 1988 play Yellow Fever, while Rory edited and...
6 tags
Time Doesn't Scale →
Seth Godin on the simple fact that just working more hours puts you ahead:
Just in time, the economy is now rewarding art and innovation and guts. It’s rewarding brilliant ideas executed with singular direction by aligned teams on behalf of truly motivated customers. None of which is measured on the clock.
John Cage doesn’t work more hours than you. Neither does Carole...
5 tags
7 tags
The Future of the Book Is the Stream →
Megan Garber muses over at The Atlantic that while the form of the book is changing, the way they are sold and experienced hasn’t really changed since Gutenberg. She argues that books will likely go the way of music and moves ala Spotify and Netflix and move to the cloud via subscription services. While I’m not necessarily sure this is the way I want to experience reading, I am fully...
6 tags
Sound is the Color I Know
The February weather is jumping back and forth between warm, Spring-like days and grey, overcast chilly days here in New York. The new year brings new music and and the change in weather brings a change in attitude. I made a little mix to get through the month and anticipate the coming Spring.
It’s called Sound is the Color I Know and you can download it here.
It’s sixteen songs...
4 tags
“To my mind, criticism at its core is merely the act of revealing links between...”
– The New Inquiry’s Editor in Chief Rachel Rosenfelt
6 tags
7 tags
A list of people I admire who keep/kept pursuing...
I hope to be like these gentlemen when I’m 80, continually and relentlessly pursuing my craft and my passions.
Woody Allen
Massimo Vignelli
Paul Rand
Julius Shulman
Milton Glaser
Clint Eastwood
Dieter Rams
Erik Spiekermann
Dave Brubeck
John Berger
9 tags
“You always have to keep pushing to innovate. Dylan could have sung protest songs...”
– Some of my favorite passages in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography are where Jobs is ruminating on creativity, life, and philosophy. One of my absolute favorites was in the final chapter of the book, Jobs is reflecting over his life and work and he shares this story about Bob Dylan...
7 tags
“The secret of success is concentrating interest in life, interest in sports and...”
– From the beautiful 1928 letter to Jackson Pollock from his father.
5 tags
Rethinking The Oreo For Chinese Consumers →
NPR has a great piece on how Kraft Foods had to rethink the Oreo to appeal to Chinese consumers:
It turns out that if you didn’t grow up with Oreos and develop an emotional attachment to the cookie, it can be a weird-tasting little thing. And this started a whole process in the Chinese division of Kraft of rethinking what the essence of an Oreo really is.
They started experimenting...
7 tags
