TINY FLYING GOATS (THE ZINE)

Busywork, Art and Prehistoric Artifacts

6 March 2010
Gateway of Ezion Geber
Image by uair01 via Flickr

Old Stuff at School

When I was a student of art history at university, the oldest art I learned about was, I think, that of ancient Greece. I also took a course in the “Architecture of St. Paul the Apostle”, which seemed like it was about something more aged than ancient Greece, on account of everything being indistinguishable heaps of sandy rocks, but St. Paul the Apostle and the architecture in which he was hanging out were, logically, a product of AD times. (I actually paid so little attention in this course, it’s almost like I didn’t take it…. reading the New Testament and looking at slides of dusty heaps of stones… not so interesting to me at the time). Anyway, yes, ancient Greece. Having lived near several Museums with respectable Egyptian galleries, I’ve poked around ancient Egypt as well. But I never really looked at anything older. Never took any courses in prehistoric art of any sort, nor did I have anthropology or science requirements that made me go there. Which was good, since I didn’t think that stuff was very interesting — didn’t have the wow-factor of, say, Medieval art.

Old Stuff at Home

Lately though, I’ve started to see something it it. I have been listening to The History of the World in 100 Objects podcast from BBC Radio 4. (Available on iTunes, with more info here), which begins with discussions of quite a few prehistoric objects. I’ve also, over the past few months, been watching whatever documentaries I come across about early humans. This all started when I saw population geneticist Spencer Wells’ fascinating documentary on how we’ve recently been unraveling the early migrations of humans out of Africa using DNA.

I think why this period (prehistory) has been attracting me is a because of its reductionism. Not that life was simple then, or that early people were less capable or clever than contemporary ones — rather, we know so little about that time that we can only ferret out (what we perceive to be) the important aspects of prehistoric lives in broad strokes on a vast and gappy timeline. And these things, or achievements, if that’s how you want to characterize them, can make us really think about what we do now. What we’ve evolved to do — and whether these activities make our lives more complicated or simpler and better. When did people start to talk? Did it make things better, or add undue complication? Was it worth it? What does that tell me about verbal communication today? Monogamous couples, staying put instead of being nomadic, building shelters instead of relying on caves, cooking food, eating meat, hunting in groups, planting seeds, domesticating animals, wearing clothes… all this and so many other big and small steps in becoming who we are today. Better, worse, what if it were different?

My to do list

The other day I was driving somewhere, doing some errand or other, in a bit of a driving coma. I thought fleetingly about all the things on my to do list, my very populated white board back at home. I felt a slight bit of apprehension about getting the to do items done. Being in a slightly altered state as I was, suddenly all these tasks I was meant to do, which I’d been carefully collecting, curating and crossing off, seemed intensely arbitrary. Why these tasks? Why email this person? Why email at all? Why have a computer? Why work with computers? Why design a business card for my friend? Why write in my blog or promote my design firm? Why even have design firm? Why lock myself into doing all this busywork?

OK, there are reasons, at least if I’m participating in the framework of human society in which I live. And I do tend to do that. I need to make money, I like to make my friends happy, I design things, I use computers. That’s what I do. I need to buy coffee because I’m addicted to it and like it. I need to send emails to share information. You know the drill. Arguably, none of these things are about survival on the basest level, and aren’t strictly necessary. Some of them would be very difficult not to do, with the way things are in the world (like making money), but I expect I could go off in some wilderness, eat nuts and berries, live in a cave, keep warm under a pile of leaves, that sort of thing. (Now, I know I’m not the wilderness type and have a problem with mosquitoes, but we’re talking theory only.) But assuming I had the base survival things under control, wouldn’t I want more? Wouldn’t I want to have some clothes that felt good next to the skin or to wear a nice shiny rock I found on a cord around my neck? Wouldn’t that make me happier? Would making these not-strictly-necessary items which gave me aesthetic pleasure be busywork? Or would it, in a sense, be art? Does it even matter which, if I have the inclination (instinct?) and it adds to my joy at being alive? I posit that it does not.

Meanwhile, in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania…

That’s why I find episode 2 of The History of the World in 100 Objects so moving. It’s about a stone chopping tool made 1.8 million years ago and found by Louis Leakey in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. It’s a heavy rock, chipped just so to make it useful for a number of cutting tasks. And it is the oldest object we know of that demonstrates human’s capability to design. In the podcast, naturalist David Attenborough says:

This object is something created from a natural substance for a particular purpose, and in a particular way, with a notion in the maker’s mind of what he needed it for. Is it more complex than was needed to actually serve the function which he used it for? Do you know, I think you could almost say it is. Did he really need to do one, two, three, four, five chips on one side and four on the other? Could he have got away with two? I think he might have done so. I think the man or woman who held this, made it just for that particular job and perhaps got some satisfaction from knowing that it was going to do it very effectively, very economically and very neatly. In time, you’d say he’d done it beautifully but, maybe not yet … the start of a journey.

The maker of this chopper went, perhaps, one step beyond the point where the tool would serve its purpose, to make it also pleasing to the eye and well-fit to the hand. When I upgraded to a Good Grips vegetable peeler after years of using the standard plain metal kind, I was acting on the same impulse, as was the person who designed the Good Grips peeler.

So what’s my point?

Maybe it’s a silly thing to have gone on about, since most of us, especially us blog-writing, blog-reading types, are, generally, members of the framework of modern human society. We don’t live in the woods and make decisions relating only to survival. Most of us have completely bought into the validity and necessity of our to do lists.

But once it a while, it’s good to question it. Question it all. Reaffirm that you’re still on board with making tools with extra chips to make them fit in your hand better. That design and art, and purposeful, technically non-necessary actions add beauty, meaning, pleasure (what have you) to your life and those around you. That they’re worth doing. If they aren’t — if there’s anything on your to do list that isn’t necessary (for survival, or its modern equivalents) or doesn’t add joy to life, you might want to just cross it off now.

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TOPIC » Design, History, Lifehacking/Self-Dev
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Happy vs. Crappy: Notes on Products and Packaging

1 March 2010

Preface

At the risk of redundancy in having two regular features that utilize the word “happy” in their title, I hereby announce the start of another regular feature in which “happy” is a word in the title.

In the great editorial tradition of such esteemed publications as TV Guide and PETA’s Animal Times with “Cheers and Jeers” columns, I thought I’d make some layman’s observations on various companies’ positive and negative contributions to more sustainable products and packaging under the taxonomic classifications “happy” and “crappy”. Granted, PETA almost always seems to give “cheers” to Pamela Anderson’s wearing of bras made out of lettuce and cabbage, and I although unable to compete with that journalistically, I’ll just do what I can.

I say a “layman’s” view because I’m not a packaging or product designer, or a material scientist or chemist (despite many in my family tree). This is just what I see, as a consumer and observer, as seemingly good and bad stuff going on in the world of things on offer. I don’t know how to do Life Cycle Analysis. I’m not, necessarily going to talk about purposefully, consciously green products (check out Inhabitat for that, it’s an awesome site) but just regular old stuff I see for sale or happen to come by one way or another.

OK, enough introduction.

Happy: Refillable Sharpies

Plastic pens drive me crazy. I love them, horribly, painfully, indefatigably, but I know they are wrong. I know I should be using my lovely heirloom fountain pen (which sips ink from glass bottles ever so daintily) all the time, and perhaps pencils and should stop buying any sort of non-refillable, non-recyclable, filled-with-god-knows-what-chemicals writing implements. I’m working on it. I put a moratorium on the number of such offending tools I’m allowed to have at one time (I get to fill the 4 jars on my drafting table and the 1 glass on my desk. When they’re full, that’s it). It’s hard for an artsy-fartsy/designer type person like myself. I was raised to love the fruits of the art and office supply stores. (My gentleman friend has been making his way through a 20-pack of Bics for the past 5 years or so… he still has lots left. He doesn’t own paperclips either, and is good at sitting still).

Certain pens, though, one needs. Or at least one thinks one does. So imagine how pleased I was to see, at the office supply store, (where I wasn’t buying anything, I swear) a refillable, stainless steel Sharpie marker! A return to refillable pens is certainly a positive step towards designing things we need with a systems mentality.

Now, that said, it doesn’t seem like Sanford (the manufacturer) is necessarily taking the refills back for reuse, recycling or anything else — and that’s not very systems-thinking at all. Indeed, their web marketing centers on the “luxury” quality of the pen, not any sustainability benefits. While a Material Safety Data Sheet is available for the product, it’s quite vague. It basically says you can huff Sharpies or write on your skin and eyes under “normal conditions”. And the ink is non-toxic. Doesn’t mean too much.

So this product is a “happy” in that it’s a baby step. Sharpies are popular and, dare I say, even seem trendy of late (since they started innovating in the product line so aggressively over the past few years), so it’s good to see them, perhaps, leading the way with a non-disposable product. Keep pushing that envelope! (Can a pen push an envelope?)

Crappy: Dixie Grab’N GO Cups

Also at the office supply store, and featured in a TV commercial that I happened to catch only to be shocked by its environmental callousness, are these disposable cups from Dixie. I’m not sure how new this product is, but the ad framed it as a clever new invention. It’s shocking a company would bring something like this out at this time (but I guess people still want it, and I guess Georgia Pacific, Dixie’s parent company has to do something with all those trees they cut down.(I’m not going to read their whole Sustainability Report and try to figure out whether they’re being cool or not… I don’t have the knowledge to really determine it fairly. You can read it if you want, though.) (And, full disclosure, I have used papers they manufactured for design projects in the past.)

At Staples, you can get 50 of these cups and 50 lids for $20. They’re touted (twice, in the 5 product benefit bullet points) as being a great alternative to “costly” double cups. Wait… a disposable paper cup is great alternative to two disposable paper cups? Well, I guess…

Bur really, in this day and age? Paper cups and plastic lids meant to last the duration of the morning commute, at best? Not cool.

Reusable hot beverage vessels are not that difficult to come by, deal with or know about. Their benefits are easy to understand. They can save not just 2 cups, or 1 cup, or 50 x 2 cups, but all the cups. You can even put a lid on a reusable hot beverage vessel.

Really. Why bring out this product now? Why encourage this behavior? The French would be appalled. (Well, actually, I believe most of the rest of the world is fairly flabbergasted at North American’s need to drink hot beverages while mobile… but I have to admit I like to make sure I have a coffee with me when entering potentially coffee-less environments, such as long meetings… especially as a non-milk-drinker, it is best to come equipped with your own pre-soy-milk-infused concoction).

Since I’ve bothered to go to the Dixie website to see what I can find out about this product, I would like to add, what’s with this web copy?

These are no ordinary cups. Just like you, Dixie cups work double-duty. They’re easy drinkware, for everything from tea for two to galas for gazillions. And they’re hygiene heroes, teaching kids the importance of rinsing with their own cup. And not just any cup. A Dixie cup.

That’s it…

Though a normal sort of “Cheers and Jeers” column would have 3 or so of each, I talk way too much. It would just get silly long. More for next time!

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TOPIC » Culture, Sustainability
COMMENTS » zilch

An App that Makes me Happ-y (round 2)

17 February 2010

This is a pretty simple one. Well, I guess all the little apps I put on my list to write up are simple, only, once they fall into the pile of prolixity which is my mien, they may seem not so simple. But this one, really, it’s simple.

Today’s app is Free Ruler. It’s a ruler. You can get it here, for free.

How often have you been designing or coding up a website only to wonder, “how many pixels is that”? Or, how many times have you been working on something when someone, say, an art director type person in your life, asks, “Is that actual size?” and you realize you’re not really sure? Or, how many times have you been browsing the web and wondered how wide someone designed their site? How many times have you wondered just how many point that type you already turned to outlines in Illustrator is?

OK, I will admit you may have answered “zero times” to the questions above. But these were awkward situations and conundrums that once plagued me. Not so with Free Ruler trustily stowed in my dock!

You can drag it around your screen You can convert units. You can measure vertically or horizontally or both at once. You can make it more or less transparent. You can get it to tell you the exact measurement at the place you’re pointing your cursor. You can tweak it to give you accurate measurements for your actual monitor. You can lock it in place. You can get it to convert units for you. You can use keyboard shortcuts. And, it looks pleasingly like a ruler.

See, it was pretty simple. I use this thing a lot. Maybe you wouldn’t. That’s ok. I also really like metal drafting rulers with cork backs. But I can’t get those into my monitor.

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One Kind Word

15 February 2010

I’ve had two reminders lately about the power and importance of feedback. They both sparked lovely little lightbulbs of goodness in my head, so I thought I’d share.

Gamechanging

I was just listening to a conversation in the Gamechangers Roundtable series (which, by the way, I highly recommend), amongst Jonathan Fields, Chris Guillebeau, Pam Slim, and Reese Spykerman with Elizabeth Marshall and Sarah Robinson. Reese, the designer of the bunch, who’s always tweeting interesting and smart things and creates some really wonderful websites, said something at the end of the conversation that struck me. I’ll have to paraphrase, but it was something like this: The minute someone stops and engages with you, take time to think about it and appreciate it, because it is a gift.

How I internalized this — and I hope I’m not misinterpreting — is that when someone bothers to look at what you you do and then, goes on to bother to tell you why they like it, or what they like about it, or how it effects them, or anything along those lines, it’s vital that you concentrate, and listen to them, and appreciate back that they have taken time, out of their no-doubt busy life, to connect with you. They have gone one step beyond, probably several steps beyond, what was required of them. And have made the world, or your life at least, that much better.

Chock up one more point in the universe for EM Forster’s “only connect”.

This is a reminder, too, to reciprocate. When something strikes you, appeals, influences, challenges, inspires — jot its creator a note. Or say a kind word. It doesn’t have to be public, you don’t have to become part of the 3% (or whatever it is) of blog readers that actually comment on blogs. It can be an email, a call, an in-person conversation, a direct message on Twitter or Facebook, a card in the snail mail. Depends on the circumstances, your relationship and your proclivities. But don’t just think it, let them know. (Is that someone’s advertising slogan?)

This happened to me

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a few days, actually. I know I’m detrimentally sensitive, but I was noticing what a big difference a kind word can make, even, or especially, in the world of work. (And the opposite is also true — despite my training, my “hardening” in art school critiques as a youth, one unkind word can ruin my day, or my feelings about a project).

I’m pretty embarrassed about this story, but I’m going tell it anyway.

This is what happened. Last August, I did a family portrait photo shoot for an acquaintance. The “client” knew I was busy with my design work and that photography isn’t my main thing, so she expressed a vague timeline for having photos in hand by “the holidays”.

“No problem,” I thought. It was summer. If the holidays start at the end of November, I have scads of time to edit the photos and get her a DVD. So I procrastinated a bit, but not horribly. It took me a couple months to edit the photos. But I finally finished and put up a website to show the client. I told her I’d be glad to send her a DVD of everything, so she could make Christmas cards, or whatever. It took her a little while to get back to me. She said she’d love a DVD.

That was about all she said. As I’m a bit insecure about my portrait photography (I’m really an artsy-fartsy alt-process pinhole kinda photographer, not one who does truly realistic, portraity stuff), I took her brevity to imply that she was disappointed with the shoot, but figured she might as well get copies of the photos, since she paid for them.

Feeling bad about the quality of my work, it took me a few weeks to put the DVD together and put it in the mail.

A week or so later, the client emailed to say that her daughter broke the DVD before she could load the photos, could I send another?

It took me a few weeks to do that. And then, that DVD arrived broken. Stupid me. I didn’t package it well. We went through the dance again, the client asked for a new dvd, it took a while, I sent another, this time well-packaged. A few weeks later, she got back to me. She received the DVD, but it wouldn’t work in her computer.

By this time, not just November, but Christmas had come and gone. I’d felt progressively worse and more and more lame with each DVD malfunction. I put together another DVD, tested it, packaged it in a ton of bubble wrap, included a card with an apology and sent it off again.

This time, not only did the client get a DVD she could work with, but she wrote back thanking me, saying the photos were beautiful and that she’d definitely be ordering some prints.

I’d been feeling awful about this whole project for almost six months. And with that one simple email, no more than 3 sentences in total, she blew away half a year of cobwebs and self-doubt.

I don’t relay this story to criticize my client in any way. If anything, I’m sure I’m the one who looks the worst through it all — unable to complete a simple task properly and keying my self-image to irrelevant external factors. She was just being succinct and businesslike. I was reading too much into everything.

However, what I learned from this experience, and why I related such a long boring story to you just now, is that it’s really important to give people feedback, especially good feedback. It’s important for me to do that for other people. Even if I think someone’s far more clever than me, with a much better developed ego that doesn’t need praise and reinforcement, give them a true, kind word anyway. How do I know how it will effect them? Certainly it couldn’t hurt.

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Travels in Time and Space

14 February 2010
A page from Medizinal Pflanzen (Koehler's Medi...
Image via Wikipedia

Space

I’ve had this recurring dream new and then, as long as I can remember: I suddenly realize I’m in another country, and the idea that I can go out and explore and see all new things and have all new experiences is the most magical feeling imaginable — akin to (but even better than) waking up on your birthday as a kid and knowing that all day, everything will be special and for you.

Sometimes, in the dreams, I’m going through the paces of some banal, day to day existence, in some familiar, expected place, when the revelation of where I am and how excited I am to go out and thoroughly experience my surroundings hits me with overwhelming, epiphanic force. It’s a sleeping wake-up call, reminding me that even the usual might be hiding some magic with the right spirit of adventure applied.

Sometimes, I wake up determined to begin to explore my own city, where I’ve lived for years, with the open eyes of a tourist. To visit the ends of town where I never go and see them as if they are exist in foreign territories I’m making my own by bringing them into the realm of my personal experience.

Time

In high school, I don’t remember having a strict curfew. There was some specific time or other that I was supposed to be home, and certainly I was always to be easily located and accounted for (though luckily this was before cell phones were a glimmer in their parent’s eyes).

When I went off to college several hours away from home and lived in a dorm, I had an important realization: I could go out whenever I wanted. Granted, being shy and not a party-type person and living on a rural campus with no means of nighttime transportation, even into town, I didn’t really have anywhere to go in the traditional sense. It wasn’t that normal notion of teenage rebellion. Rather, the revelation was: If I want to get up at three in the morning and go climb an apple tree in the orchard and sit there listening to my walkman until the sun rises, I can.

It was a realization about freedom and autonomy. About making decisions, however unconventional, and that no one could tell me “no”.

My Mum

At the end of ten years of caring for her own aging parents 24/7, then several long overdue surgeries she needed, my mum was released from being a virtual prisoner in her own home. She realized that without the obligations and the debilitating pain of the previous ten years she had garnered a new freedom. But she was so out of practice, she didn’t even know what that meant.

In an effort to remind her that now should do whatever she wanted and be the master of her own life, I told her the story about sitting in the orchard in the middle of the night in college, because I could.

She said, “I’m surprised you didn’t get raped.”

Now, what kind of thing to say is that? This is no slight on my mum, she said it without thinking. She grew up in a more conservative time, in a more conservative way than me. She was never, necessarily, encouraged to embrace non-conformity in the ways she allowed me to. She grew up during the Cold War, when being conventional and living in fear and fatalism were de rigeur in polite society.

That said, she always tells me she lives vicariously through me. She always wants to know what I’m doing, not out of nosiness, but so she can imagine a freer life. It’s ironic, as I’m excruciatingly boring most of the time — I sit in a chair and design stuff at a computer. I go to meetings with clients. I have dinner with my gentleman friend. I play with the dog. I talk endlessly about the dog. But this is just a phase of my life at the moment. One where I get some shit together so I can move on and and more adventures.

I’m hoping, my mum will have adventures too. She’s starting to, now, a year after become free. It takes practice, for some of us, to get into the mindset. It takes our subconscious to remind us in dreams, or a remembrance of the impulsivity of youth.

You can do whatever you want. Go where you want, when you want. Even without money and time for real travel, you can explore the world with fresh eyes every day. You can wake up excited for the experiences the day holds instead of waiting subserviently for nuclear annihilation, real or metaphorical.

So see what you can do with apple-tree-climbing. You might wake up in another country.

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An App that make me Happ-y (#1 in a series)

10 February 2010

This is a really old school topic. It’s so what I used to love to read in the paper version of Macworld 10 years ago. I always loved reading about the fun and productive add-ons you could could get for your Mac (and install with Font DA Mover! Remember?)

In honor of all that, I’d like to give some kudos to a few little Mac apps that make my life better. Since, apparently, I am exceedingly verbose, I will just write one up at a time, and make this an ongoing series.

Today’s gem is: MsgFiler:

This is a really simple plug-in for Apple Mail (did you know there were such things‽). It lets you use a keyboard command to file messages into mailboxes.

That may not seem that exciting to you, and if you’re a refugee from Outlook or someone who uses Mail in what I’ve been told is the “normal” way, it might not even make sense. But to me it’s huge. As far as I’m concerned, this little plug-in has single-handedly made me stop pining for Eudora (no pun intended… though that would be one geeky pun!), and that is no easy feat. I loved Eudora. Oh so much. I was such a “power user”. At some point though, after a few years of OSX, I decided my life would be simpler, less expensive and more compatible with my colleagues if I switched Mail.app.

The paradigm for most users of Eudora goes like this: all your incoming messages stay in your inbox. You click them to read them (I think there was a preview pane, but I never used it… I didn’t like having the messages be readable before I was ready like that). Once you’re done with them, and don’t want them in your inbox anymore, you hit Apple-F, for filter. With this one magic keystroke, Eudora would file all the selected messages into their permanent storage folders, however you’d chosen to set them up those folders and map characteristics of messages to them (using Filters). You could have a complex tree of clients, projects and friends, or just one big “read” folder. Whatever you wanted. Bye bye. Messages that need dealing with are in In, everything else is put away, according to sender or subject or date or whatever crazy methodology floated your boat. Oh, so neat and tidy.

But with Mail, setting up Rules makes the messages fly right into their assigned mailboxes by default when you receive them, whether you’ve read them or not. Sure, there’s a little blue dot to indicate there’s something unread in a folder, but who wants to go around reading things in all sorts of different folders and keeping track of what needs doing? I like having the things to deal with all in my inbox until I file them. I could do that, by not setting up rules that put things in mailboxes, but then I had to use my mouse to manually drag each message I was done with to its ultimate resting spot. And that was annoying, in a carpal tunnelly sorta way.

This drove me crazy about Mail for ages, until I found MsgFiler. It doesn’t work exactly like Eudora, in that you don’t set up filters ahead of time (which can be a time-consuming, and frankly endless task). Rather, you hit your chosen key-command (or Apple-Option-T to repeat your last task) and you get a list of mailboxes in which things can be filed. This works wonderfully if you throw everything, like I do these days, in one great big “read” folder and rely on searches to find old stuff*. I especially like the Apple-Option-T thing. Now I feel, properly like a Mail power user. Phew. One less thing to stress about.

MsgFiler is shareware. It costs $8 to buy, and certainly you should do that if you like it as much as me. Or half as much. It works with all those different Leopards. Get it here: http://www.tow.com/msgfiler/

* BONUS: Finding Stuff in Mail

You might be wondering how I can deal with throwing all old messages into a “Read” folder, when Mail’s find feature is somewhat notoriously wussy. Using the find field in the toolbar of Mail only allows you to input one criterion, which is usually a pretty useless way to find an email, if, for example the sender has sent you more than one, or more than one sender have sent you emails on the same topic, or, indeed, you don’t know or remember all the facts. This frustrated me for a long time. Luckily, somewhere I read this fabulous tip:

Create a Smart Mailbox (use the little + sign in the sidebar). Call it something like “Robust Searches”. Whenever you need to search on multiple criteria, edit this Smart Mailbox (right click or contol-click it and choose edit in the contextual menu). There you go. What a smart mailbox.

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WWII and Giving

7 February 2010
Berliners watching a C-54 land at Berlin Tempe...
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I caught the tail end of an interview with an author of a book about the Berlin Airlift on Bob Edwards Weekend this morning. He mentioned that because of the Airlift, Berliners thought of the American soldiers as “angels in uniform”. It struck me as a stark contrast with what’s going on today. It seemed a reaction to a governmental philosophy that reflects a better way to be, to live, to operate.

I’m not saying it’s not complicated. Along with keeping civilians in Berlin alive, we also bombed the hell out of their city (and of course, the German government was doing unspeakable things and dragging many of its people into it). The Airlift had a big propaganda component, too. But it also was the most ambitious humanitarian relief campaign in history, as far as I know.

Despite my undivided attention to Ken Burns’ The War, I don’t even know very much about it all. Indeed, I’m pretty sadly ignorant of the details of political history between about 1900 and 1980, though I have been learning.

I’m not sure anyone, especially not us everyday people, really knows much about what’s really going on with our present day government and its wars. Or undeclared wars. I don’t say this in a conspiracy-theorist kind of way, or even to be especially accusatory of non-transparency from the reigning administration. It’s just complicated, and much is kept under wraps for strategic reasons, and I don’t read a lot about international policy. I know we do provide humanitarian assistance to the war zones we’ve created of late (as well as to war/disaster areas that aren’t even our fault). But I don’t hear tell of Afghans or Iraqis or Pakistanis calling our military “angels”.

I should probably read the book Bob Edwards was talking about, and not speak out of my impressions of history and politics alone. But, it seems to me, that the Berlin Airlift was a big old going-beyond-the-call, giving to and helping of people because it is the right thing to do kind of event.

Not to belittle the horrors of war and the complicated nature of humanitarian aid campaigns, but I do think this has parallels with the smaller things. The decisions we make in day-to-day living. In fact, look at what Mr. Godin wrote today. It’s a little snarky, and he’s talking about business/marketing. But same thing.

I see it more and more, this realization that Giving (without expectations) is the way to be, the way to live. I’ve always been prone to act this way, but now, seeing it codified so much more often, it seems more and more important as a code of conduct. Not a gimmick, a lifestyle. And good things come of it — the universe is abundant, you know that. Don’t worry about the “getting” part. Don’t worry about reciprocation part. It will all work out. And way better than if you’d worried about it.

I think it’s really interesting that this has been infiltrating the world of business and marketing more and more. Interesting and good. A positive development. A lot of people (or corporations… or are corporations people?) don’t get it. But they’ll be forced to, eventually, or will become obsolete. At least that’s my hope. The fact that so many of my fellow entrepreneurs, designers, marketing gurus, business thinkers, activists, etc., do get it warms the cockles of my heart. Really. Makes me feel part of something positive and progressive and good. A movement. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood or the Bauhaus. Idealists, yes, but I love idealism.

There are even books that try to explain this idea to more conventional (business) thinkers. Tim Sanders’ Love is the Killer App is written rather cloyingly, and can get slightly smarmy, but it makes a lot of good points — and importantly, “normal” people seem to understand it and get inspired by it. Michael Port’s Think Big Manifesto also has some of these qualities (though it’s a painfully repetitive read).

All of you out there who write blog or publish a zine or make art because you want to improve the world and give people cool, interesting thoughts and images — all of you designers, like me, who refuse to put more crap into the world, only pointful stuff — all of you who will sit and talk to someone over coffee for a couple hours and help them figure something out, and enjoy doing it — all of you who act out of compassion not expectation of returns — thanks! Let’s keep doing it. Let’s make this the movement. Let’s make this how we change the world and what we’re known for in history. I’m down with that.

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Why I Love Groundhog’s Day

2 February 2010
Closeup groundhog (Marmota monax)
Image via Wikipedia

There are many American holidays celebrating dead guys. Mssrs. Lincoln, Columbus, King, Washington and their ilk. Then the holidays commemorating war-related happenings: Veterans’, Memorial and Independence days (and Superbowl Sunday?). There are the pagan and other religious observances such as Halloween, Easter, May Day, Xmas and similar of varying degrees of obscurity. But lo, there is only one holiday devoted to the supremely worthy topic of rodents.

Personally, I’m very fond of rodents. The rodents of the squirrel-containing Sciuridae family, especially, have a fuzzy, toothy place in my heart.

Groundhog’s Day gives us a chance to reflect on our fine furred friends. No war and peace, no martyrdom and stigmata, no question of imperialism or patriarchy. Just lovely little small-headed, puffy-bodied fellows who live in holes. If that doesn’t put you in a place of lovingkindness, I don’t know what will.

The Early Years

I have a long history of celebrating Groundhog’s Day with the pomp and seriousness of purpose which is its due. I like to recount each year, by way of celebration, some of my early exploits.

In high school, the true brilliance of this day became clear to me. At that time, I had a revelation, as follows: Groundhogs are brown and look like they’d have deep voices. Ian Curtis wore brown pants and had a deep voice. Special Dark candy bars are dark brown and deep, dark chocolate. Thus, the traditions of wearing brown, eating Special Darks and listening to Joy Division were born.

(Unfortunately, after the revelation, I roped my friend into celebrating with me, and we cleverly, we thought, brought our candy bars and tape deck to a seemingly secret rendez-vous spot between some very large shrubberies in a public park bordered by a busy road. Later, we were to discover that the spot between the shrubberies was not so secret, when my stepmother, who’d spotted us there from the road, interrogated us about illicit drug use.)

Another year, after becoming a Groundhog’s Day celebrant, I built a 4-foot-high groundhog in my bedroom out of brown towels, tomato caging, paper and a brown felt fedora. I paid it my respects.

Yet another year, I launched a massive campaign at my high school to convince everyone to wear brown on Groundhog’s Day, and the stodgier the better. (I’m not sure how stodginess got conflated with everything else, except that it is my way.) I met with limited, though surprising, success when 3 or 4 friends, beside myself, actually followed through and wore brown (though one of them was prone to wearing brown German-style knickers regularly). I wore a brown polyester 60s thrift store dress with brown polka-dot trim that some old lady had inevitably died in, and spent a terribly uncomfortable day amidst the scratchiness — but considered it some sort of self-flagellation in the name of groundhoggedness. After all, monks also wear brown.

More Modern Practices

While becoming vegan in the mid-90s curtailed my Special Dark eating (also, the subsequent discovery of actually good chocolate from far less dubious origins), and becoming a goth curtailed my brown-wearing for some years, I’ve always found ways to celebrate the Day of Groundhogs come hell or high water.

During the years I was in a band, I was generally fairly successful in getting at least some of my bandmates to don brown for the occasion. Generally, as I was in charge of our band mailing list which announced shows and releases of recordings, I would write epic narratives of praise for groundhogs (imagine that!) and share them with all of our fans. Indeed, these massive missives became somewhat infamous after several years.

Recent Years

In a spate of exceptional good luck, nay, blessedness even, I’ve had the excellent fortune to encounter quite a few live groundhogs in the past few years. First, while at the Museum of Science, crashing a live animal demonstration meant for children, I was privileged to get up close, and quite personal with an exceptionally fine groundhog. Elbowing small children out of the way, I’m afraid I quite monopolized him, asking myriad groundhog questions of the presenter and, eventually, attempting to hatch a plot to kidnap and befriend the unsuspecting groundhog (foiled, it would seem, by my gentleman friend).

Last year, I believe, I began to see groundhogs now and then in the wild. Chiefly, I have spotted them in the rural areas north of Boston, and also in New Hampshire. Inevitably, such a sighting results in an abrupt u-turn and/or sudden backing up of the vehicle in which I am traveling then an extensive search on foot for the suspect in order to indulge in a photo op (generally unsuccessful).

Most excitingly, it would seem that there are now several groundhogs living in the area where my doggie goes for walks with his father. My dog, being rather a peaceful (or oblivious) sort, does not tend to notice this, but on several occasions, my gentleman friend has photographed the hoggies. He has also seen them swimming in the canal. He tells me that one of them is definitely named “Groundy”. They live in quite an impressive hole, I might add.

Other Traditions

Now, the odd thing is, when Groundhog’s Day comes up, people seem to think, immediately of one of two things: Punxsutawney Phil or that movie. I don’t go in for either.

I see, this year, that PETA is calling for a “robot replacement for groundhog” and I can’t say I think that’s a bad idea. First of all, how awesome would it be to have a robotic groundhog? I would definitely want one of my own. I think it would be a thousand percent more entertaining and useful than a robot vacuum cleaner. Secondly, yeah, poor Phil. They make him wake up insanely early when he has hardcore hibernating to do, and they shine bright lights on him. It’s not something a Marmota monax (or a person such as myself with a quasi-vampiric schedule and aversion to bright light) would relish at all!

The whole thing with seeing his shadow or whatever, I never can remember what that’s about exactly. It seems like not quite the right thing to be asking a groundhog, and certainly not at the right time. Why not get a sundial or a barometer? Groundhogs have things to do. They are busy. I do not believe they wish to waste time prognosticating when, dur, obviously, in early February, there’s going to be more winter. At least in New England. It’s not like one year winter is going to end on February 2nd.

The Groundhog’s Day movie? Well I’ve heard it’s good. Seminal even. But somehow I can’t bring myself to watch it. I feel, somehow, as if it might be sacrilegious.

Very Interesting Information about Groundhogs

  • Groundhogs and woodchucks. One and the same.
  • Groundhogs whistle when they’re scared, to alert other groundhogs. (Leading to their alternate name, “whistle-pig”.)
  • Groundhogs are mostly vegetarian, but not averse to chomping on a few bugs from time to time.
  • Groundhogs live in burrows and are master-excavators.
  • Groundhogs can both climb trees and swim.
  • Groundhogs’ binomial nomenclature is Marmota monax (can I tell you how much I love the phrase “binomial nomenclature?). They’re in the Family Sciuridae with the ever-be-knighted squirrel and in the finely-named Order Rodentia. And they’re mammals, animals, all that. You know.
  • Although some people think groundhogs are destructive, mean or otherwise bothersome, I think they are adorable and extremely clever.
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13 things I have learned playing Bejeweled Blitz

25 January 2010

I am not a video game person. I enjoyed Atari Pac Man, Frogger and Jungle Hunt at a friend’s house as a wee one. I played, off and on, Zelda and Super Mario Brothers from the time my sister purchased them and a Nintendo player things sometime in the 80s until this year, when the Nintendo finally broke, but I never made significant progress. Never rescued any princesses.

Academic Considerations

While I was in Memphis for the AIGA conference last fall, I walked into the lobby of the Marriott and observed some men watching a football game on a big television. It was only much later that I realized that there was no football game, they were playing one of those newfangled 3D video games that look so alarmingly realistic. I’ve seen talks about the design of Rock Band but have never had any impulse to play it (I don’t do karaoke either — though I was a singer and guitarist in a real band for many years). Basically, I’m a flaming Luddite when it comes to the enormous, ubiquitous world of the modern video game (or is that gaming?) industry. And I’m ok with that.

Confessions

I do, however, occasionally latch on to simple little games on my iPhone or desktop computer. I went through a Tetris phase, and Bejeweled, and something called Super Nisqually then Scrabulous (when it was still cool), and proper Scrabble, and Bananagrams on Facebook, then back to Bejeweled — this time, the Blitz version you play on your phone against your Facebook friends.

Lessons

Each game is just a minute, so it’s low-commitment. Of course, I find it impossible to play fewer than 8 million gazillion games in a row, so the time-commitment does tend to add up. Luckily, it’s not a total waste of time. I’ve decided that playing Bejeweled Blitz on the iPhone against my Facebook friends is a wonderful experience, equivalent to a certain type of meditation, and full of hidden wisdom and lessons. Here is what I have learned:

  • To succeed, you must maintain a zen-like mono-focus. Just Bejeweled, nothing else. Be mindful only of Bejeweled.
  • Sometimes you have to look past the pretty shiny things to the bigger picture.
  • You must ignore physical urges, do not scratch your nose or brush your hair back. Push through the pain. Focus.
  • Always look ahead. Don’t wait for or watch the results of your last action, always look to your next action.
  • Use strategy, but don’t get bogged down by using strategy. Sometimes it’s better to just jump right in with what you know, take the opportunities you see before you… they could lead to something.
  • Just because something’s scary (the man’s voice, the crashing sounds) doesn’t mean you should be scared. Look at it as exciting, not scary. Be empowered.
  • Allah will provide. There are always jewels that will match somewhere on the board, even if you think there are not. Look in unusual places (i.e., around the edges, especially at the top).
  • Competition can be fun, if you don’t get too caught up in it.
  • Looking at lots of shiny jewels and thumbnail pictures of your Facebook friends right before bed might make you have some strange dreams.
  • Sometimes, you have to cut your loses and restart. You’re only wasting part of a minute to finish an unpromising game, but so what! Be selfish. Restart if you want to. Keep up the excitement level in your life.
  • You can pack a lot in a small area if you design it well. I’m perfectly happy with this user interface on my phone.
  • Aesthetics are important to the overall experience. I really really like looking at shiny sparkling jewels.
  • Somehow, in the intervening years between when I last saw them (high school) and today, my high-school friends have become preposterously skilled at Bejeweled. Although I don’t know what they’ve done with their lives (that they didn’t post on Facebook) I’ve got to respect them for that.
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    Why is this a zine, not a blog?

    22 January 2010

    Ok, it is a blog, technically. But I’m calling it a zine for several reasons. (And maybe, eventually, I’ll make it look more like a zine, and less like a blog… but today, going live is goal number one…)

    The dangers of reading all those books and blogs about blogging

    First of all, I know too much about how you’re “supposed” to write a blog and that is not necessarily what I have in mind to do. In a way, it takes the pressure off. Blogs are all about diving deep in your niche — letting your sustained interest take you further and further into your topic — perhaps for years on end, and eventually, creating a massive resource about said topic for your readers. That’s cool — I love blogs like that. I read a lot of them. I admire the authors endlessly for their dedication to their subject and their ability to concentrate so singlemindedly.

    Some stuff I like

    I, however, seem to be more of a serial obsessor (and maker upper of verbs). I know myself — I go very deep on a thing for a time, then it fades. It could be the year I collected antique buttons, spending evening after evening sorting them according to different taxonomies, learning how to test their material composition, going to antique button events in seemingly made-up rural enclaves with terrifying elderly button ladies, excitedly waiting for my new issue of the National Button Society journal. It could be my bout of making anything and everything into a pinhole camera (mint tins, cookie tins, toothpaste boxes, old cameras, Polaroid Land cameras, film canisters, hotel rooms, large public monuments…) and reading about camera-construction and taking all manner of workshops. The obsessive crocheting year, the genealogy, papermaking, making buttons out of clay, German new wave cinema, bookbinding, screenprinting, Australian movies, the jewelry upcycling, the various historical screenplays, user experience, design research, design management, typography, dog photography, deconstructing clothes to make sewing patterns (yes, I have a pair of homemade leggings, based on a store-bought model) (oh, and here’s a great book, if you’re into that sort of thing) self-actualization, Getting Things Done, lens making, cyanotype and van dyke brown photo printing, Polaroids, HTML. I can’t begin to remember all the deep dives I’ve taken — but most seem to last between a few months and a few years. Most linger as something I remain interested in and come back to and still do. But the very serial nature of my obsessions makes me completely terrified of committing to a single topic or niche for a traditional blog.

    Another reason I don’t want to call this a blog, is that I’m afraid I may defy the generally-accepted wisdom to write simply and clearly without too strong an accent and to stay on message. I definitely agree with that for my clients and for more traditional “marketing” endeavors, all round. (Mr. Godin has a concise bit about your writing accent, and I would argue even more strongly that in marketing copy, the accent, or more correctly, the “voice” needs to born out of a strategic decision about what’s right for the audience.) But, for me, part of being “authentic” (oh, overused but still crucial and valid word) is reserving the right to sometimes be a bit florid. A bit purple or convoluted in my prose. Sometimes I use a lot of big words. Sometimes I talk like someone in sixth grade in a Boston suburb in the mid-80s. Sometimes I think I’m a Victorian novel. Or at least English. So, take me or leave me. I can’t be (or don’t feel like being) held responsible for keeping it syntactically simple. Ideas are another matter.

    What’s my point, even?

    Also, my primary goal here isn’t really marketing. Yes, I certainly want to attract and get in touch with awesome people who need my design and strategy services. Working with awesome people is pretty damn gratifying – especially when you get to do creative work for them that helps them to fulfill their business or personal objectives and makes them happy. And especially when it’s a give and take and you both learn and teach. That’s my MO in having Clove Orange, the design concern. But my primary goal (if I even have a goal) in having Tiny Flying Goats, the zine, is expression and two-way communication.

    The end of analog

    There’s a big piece of paper taped to the coat closet door that says “BLOG” on the top. With the Sharpie and gluestick stationed nearby, I’ve been scrawling ideas and pasting pictures on there for the past six months. My boyfriend keeps asking me, “you know blogs are supposed to be online, right?”

    Despite having taken a terrific writing workshop with Grammar Girl a year or two ago at Kripalu (a hippie yoga place — great for taking workshops, but has become unduly expensive of late) where we all sat on the floor in our socks and practiced writing for different kinds of social media in our paper notebooks, I do actually know that blogs are generally online. I was just, as I was saying, afraid of commitment to a niche.

    Now, what was I talking about?

    The annals of Annie history

    Ah, yes. The final reason that this is a zine, not a blog, is because back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was one of those DIY zine people. (Actually, ironically, I’ve always hated the word “zine” but, it is what it is. It means what it means.) It was called “Tear Down the Sky” (the name is an obscure Boomtown Rats reference, rather than the nihilistic sentiment it appears to be). I devoted myself to this project all through high school and college, and it reflects my developing, somewhat crazy brain, my growing interest in design (though even the final issue is an embarrassing typographic nightmare), and the evolution of the technology available to everyday people for publishing (it moves from a cut and paste, typewritten photocopy through an odd, halftone and offset phase and then to Mac Classic and Xerox Docutech). But, overarchingly, it represents an unbridled, uncensored passion. (I’m working on doing a reprint of an issue or two of Tear Down the Sky, despite the embarrassing factor on the design… will let you know what happens with that.)

    This was, somehow, before my understanding of the world and self-consciousness was fully developed. It was before I knew too much. It was before I felt compelled to write a thousand word apologia as the first copy in a new project. I wrote about what moved me, or what came to mind. Though some issues had themes, I didn’t really worry about it too much. I drew lots of weird pictures. I roped in friends when I could, but mostly just did it all myself. It kept me very occupied, and it made me very happy when people appreciated it. It made me very happy when people wrote me letters because of it (on paper, imagine that!) In fact, I met one of my dearest and most influential friends through such a fan letter. It was cool. It was authentic. So this is my new zine. Hope you like it. Write comments or email me if you do. If you don’t, don’t read it. I’m the first to admit it’s not for everyone. Maybe not for anyone (but me).

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