The Velvet Monkees

Who were the Velvet Monkees? They were a small and very exclusive gang formed in a shopping mall in Amsterdam in the spring of 2004. Their colors were basic, black velvet shirts over a white T, jeans, white shoes and a black skully.

They were last seen on the London tube discussing their outfits and have never been heard of since. Rumor has it they are in various cities throughout the states leading normal lives as designers, teachers and corporate monkeys.

11 months

11 months ago on October 29, 2004, I quit smoking.
I was finally ready to do so.

WOW! Didn't see that coming!

What a day! Spent a lot of the day pushing back, which is fine, but I found most of it unnecessary. People overthink things and try to take advantage. Sometimes it is hard being friends with somebody. Selfish people suck!

So what does today's picture have to do with anything I am saying? Somewhere, beneath this pile of rocks is where I am today.

Tomorrow is another day!

Good things come in three's

Millenium Park in Chicago is an international showcase for public art and green space in an urban environment. Frank Gehry designed the new music stage, top, and bridge.

Another great piece is the Cloud Gate, known locally as The Bean, by Anish Kapoor. The sculpture has since been completed, in that, the seams you see here have been polished away.

Lastly, the Crown Fountain, designed by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, features two 50-foot high glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. The towers are activated with changing video images and lights, and water cascades from the top of each, and surprises many when the face spits a stream of water into the pool.

Birds do it. Bees do it.

Even giant Galapagos tortoise do it! And from their speed, they may still be doing it!

I'm tryin'!

I know it is past noon and there aint nothin' new here to read or see! Seems Blogger aint feeling up to letting me upload images, so I am resorting to a written post today! I have a really great picture of two Galapagos tortoise I want to share with you. They are in the Honolulu zoo and I saw them the last time I was there in 1991. I think you will all enjoy the picture. Hope this all gets worked out soon!

Tapioca

(tăpēō´ke), widely used starchy food, obtained from the fleshy root of the bitter cassava or manioc. The roots, which resemble sweet potatoes and are eaten in much the same way, yield cassava starch, a staple food in the tropics. The cassava is native to Amazonia and has long been cultivated there by the indigenous population. It is now a major food source in many parts of the moist lowland tropics.

Cassava roots are also fermented to make an alcoholic beverage, are the source of tapioca , or Brazilian arrowroot, and are utilized in other ways, e.g., for cotton sizing and laundry starch. Most cassava flour is made from M. esculenta, sometimes called bitter cassava because of the presence in the raw roots of prussic acid in sufficient quantities to be deadly. This poison is dispelled by long cooking or (for flour) pressing.

Sweet manioc varieties can be boiled and eaten. Some cultivated varieties with a lesser acid content, called sweet cassava, are edible raw and can be used for fodder. Cassava is classified in the division Magnoliophyta , class Magnoliopsida, order Euphorbiales, family Euphorbiaceae.

Tapioca is sold in flake or flour form and as the pellet pearl tapioca. Tapioca flour is widely used in place of wheat flour in regions where it is grown, e.g., South and Central America, Africa, the West Indies, and parts of India. When cooked it becomes transparent and increases in size. It is used to thicken puddings and soups.

And that is probably more than you ever thought you needed to know about tapioca.

This post is for Dave who loves tapioca, but knew nothing about it.

Boston Common

While in Boston I sepnt an afternoon in Boston Common just enjoying the day. Well, I was reading a book, listening to music and watching people, all sorts of people walk through the common. As they walked by, I quickly thought of snapshot histories of many. A man carrying flowers but not looking happy must be on his way home to apologize. A couple that looked very mismatched, he a skater type boy, baggy pants, big chained wallet odd hair; she pretty, clean cut, neatly dressed. I am sure her parents are not happy her needing to support him. And he doesn't like having to "dress up," wearing jeans that fit, when they go out with her work friends. It was a fun afternoon.

Everything I do always comes back to me

Stefan Sagmeister presented some of his work at the AIGA National Conference. Part of his talk was his year off self exploration. During that time off he discovered several things about himself and what he does, and put it down on paper.
Here is his list:
• Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
• Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
• Being not truthful works against me.
• Helping other people helps me.
• Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
• Everything I do always comes back to me.
• Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
• Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.
• Money does not make me happy.
• Traveling alone is helpful for new perspective on life.
• Assuming is stifling.
• Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
• Trying to look good limits my life.
• Worrying solves nothing.
• Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
• Having guts always works for me.

He then took some of these and gave them a visual interpretation. Those creations were later used in .copy magazine as section dividers.

Wanderin' Eyes

Not every moment of the AIGA conference was stimulating and I found myself looking at the changing light on the ceiling of the Hynes Convention Center. I also liked the shadows from the cables and lights and how they silhouette against the grid of the ceiling. The huge half dome light fixtures started to look like a huge eye staring down on the crowd.

Granary Cemetary

Some say it is morbid, but I really like visiting old cemetaries when I travel. Granary Cemetary in Boston, is home to Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and other great citizens of Boston. I like to see the stones, the icons, the type and what they say. The stones here are thin slabs of stone rather than great monuments. Their age is seen by the way they are all tilted and askew like a mouth full of bad teeth.

The AIGA Conference in one long run on sentence per day.

Thursday started with a trip to see the Sappi sponsored Penguin exhiit at the New England aquarium, followed by Ansel Adams with Kara at the Museum of Fine Arts until it was time to go to the opening session where Richard Grefé welcomed the nearly 3,000 attendees, he then introduced John Hockenberry who is actually funny for a newsman who then turned the mike over to Murray Moss of the store/emporium/conglomerate MOSS in NYC who shared with us his 10 favorite things; Juan Enriquez then shared with us how screwing around with nature and tampering with DNA is a good thing, which I suppose it is in some cases like developing milk which can carry amazing antibodies but I still do not like the idea of breeding three winged chickens, just doesn't make sense, then Leila and Massimo Vignelli read from their book, that's right THEY READ FROM THEIR BOOK, John Hockenberry then closed the evening and sent us out into the Boston night. Dinner at Atlantic Fish with Julia, Dave, TIna, and Richard, Dave's co-worker I am not speaking in the third person of myself, and myself.


Friday: Hockenberry, don't call him Frankenberry, started the day with his cow bell again and lead the talk to introduce Barney Frank who spoke to us about Design and CIvic Leadership; Errol Morris picked up the ball and, oh wait, he cancelled; Ellen Lupton then shared Typophillia: Love, Death and Typography, yes, there is a difference between inch marks and quotes, DJ Spooky aka Paul Miller shared culture and design with us and renamed the group AIGA, pronounced AY-ga, Hockenberry then sent us to lunch the afternoon sessions found me in a session moderated by Steven Heller and a panel made up of Armin Vit, Speak Up, Jen Bekman, Michael Beirut, Pentagram and Design Observer blog, and Jason Kottke, really interesting their varied views on blogs and how they all tailor the use of them for different needs; afternoon session Kara Murphy presented her project along with three other groups for Designers Without Clients, not to be confused with Men Without Hats although equally entertaining; Speak Up hosted a party at 33 and I, once again, got sick in Boston!

Saturday: John rang us in with cow bell and introduced Milton Glaser, of which nothing more needs to be said about that other than he has a great recipe for spaghetti from his mother, the man is a LEGEND followed by Nicholas Negroponte, from the media lab at MIT told us how he will be building $100 computers and paying designers based on how much code they can REMOVE, Ben Karlin, Daily Show and Emmy winner, and Paula Scher, Pentagram, took us through their collaborative process of the making of America, John Stewart's book, Ze Frank shared with us his love of Airline Safety Cards and it is really scary but very funny, then we all met a man who is changing the world, for real, Bill Strickland, do some research and you will be inspired, although his secret is really good smoked salmon, Hockenberry wrapped things up for the morning and that afternoon I found myself listening to Ze Frank and his Pedagogy of Play; followed by the closing remarks of JH, Mark Pine of NASA and the Griffith Observatory in LA, Stefan Sagmeister, who needed the only reboot, and Richard Grefé and Hockenberry closed the show and sent us off to the Museum of Science for the closing party.

Sunday: Town meeting, blah, blah, blah, we went to breakfast while Julia went to the airport at 5 am, Mr. Atwood picked Tina up, Eileen headed out of town in her pick and Dave and Richard left for the airport at noon, leaving me to the afternoon in Boston.

It was an inspiring three days! It was great seeing all me mates from school and those who I really last saw two years ago at the last conference in Vancouver.

BAHston bound

Off to Boston for the next few days for the AIGA National Conference.

Plecostomas

His name is Poseidon. I really do not know if it is male, I assume it is. I know it is silly to name a fish, but he is about 8 years old, has moved with me and is easy to identify. It is not like I have a school of identical fish where each fish is named! He measures nearly 13 inches from tip of nose to tail, they say they get to be about 12. But the best thing is he does his job well and keeps the tank clean.

What walks down stairs?

Alone or in pairs and makes a slinkety sound? A spring! A spring! A marvelous thing! Everyone loves a slinky!
I know it was, and actually still is, a favorite of mine.

What was your favorite toy?

Four Years Later

After 9/11, a friend and fellow designer, Justin Ahrens, created this wonderfully simple mark to remember the events of September 11. I wanted to share it on this fourth anniversary.

Styrene, Bulb and Watt

Styrene and detail, Paul Cocksedge, 2003

What do they all have in common? Paul Cocksedge, an amazingly innovative lighting designer. He makes lights go on by placing a flower in a vase. When the flower dies, the light does to. He also created a light where you actually draw the circuit, thus turning the light on, with the use of a pencil. No wonder he won the designer of the year in 2004.

For more about Paul Cocksedge go to design museum

Environmental Artist

Andy Goldsworthy is an AMAZING artist. Nature is his medium. He sculpts with earth as it dries and controls the cracks. Paints with leaves (as seen in image above). Weaves twigs together in elaborate webs. Stitches leaves together with grass and sets them loose into a running stream. Creates sculptures from ice and snow. Then he watches as nature takes over and how the pieces change and evolve in light, structure and form. His book titled TIME chronicles many of his pieces.

Gardens of Glass

Dale Chihuly, Gardens of Glass, Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, 2002

Glass. I have now blown glass three times. I have made paperweights, small vases and most recently a Roman bottle. Blowing glass is magical. The medium, molten glass, is essentially liquid. You're sculpting with liquid. It is seductive, and moves like thick honey, constantly moving until it cools to about 900 degrees, and the moment freezes in the glass.

One of my own

Field of Violets Vase, Richard Zeid, 2004

So you think you can spell!

Words. I really like language. And I like puzzles and games. I am not a huge fan of crossword puzzles though! But Scrabble…now we're talking! I recently kicked some butt as evidence of the score sheet. It seems I served up a healthy serving of humble pie from the shocked look on the faces who witnessed the win. I believe the exact, or really close, words were "Nobody ever beats mom!" THAT only made the victory sweeter!

If you were a tree…

I always imagined I would be an oak. They have a presence. A strong, reliable tree that is often a foundation in a forest.

What kind of tree would you be (see comment for what your tree means)?

Lycopene

ly·co·pene: noun
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary lycop- (from New Latin Lycopersicon, genus of herbs) + -ene
: a carotenoid pigment C40H56 that is the red coloring matter of the tomato

Lycopene, which is present in grapefruit, tomatoes, and watermelon, have been linked to reduce the risk of some cancer.

I really do not like tomatoes. Never have. I will eat them as a sauce, but raw? Forget it! Not even chopped up in a salad or on a burger. And don't try hiding them inside a sandwich wrap or burrito! I will find them and pick each piece out. I do like grapefruit and watermelon.

"Solitude" Richard Zeid Graphite on newsprint 1983

In The Thick Of It

A friend of mine, Cheryl, lives in Baton Rouge. She works at WAFB, the CBS affiliate, and sent me this email. Here is an excerpt of someone in the thick of it.

"I cannot begin to express the level of devastation that we have down here. New Orleans is destroyed. You've seen the video. I won't elaborate any further. I'm tired of describing it. Working in television at a time like this is exhilarating, rewarding, humbling and very, very ... very difficult. We've been working 16-20 hour days since Sunday and can't get away from it. It's all we see, it's all we hear, it's all we think about. We've had wall-to-wall on air coverage since Sunday afternoon ... we never thought we would still be going at it 5 days later.

The government response has been shameful. It is still shameful. New Orleans needs an unfathomable amount of help. There are still an estimated 300,000 people left in the city who need to be either rescued or "recovered." So far today they have rescued 5,000 people. Day in and day out it is 95+ degrees. At that rate, there is going to be at death toll in Louisiana alone in the high 5 figures ... if not 6. The tragedy is and will continue to be immeasurable.

Baton Rouge is on the precipice of an enormous change. Well, let me take that back ... we've catapulted over the precipice already. We've will nearly double our size in less than a week. 500 homes were sold in Baton Rouge yesterday (September 1) and there are absolutely NO rental units available as of today. Major corporations are purchasing long vacant office buildings and other kinds of space to move their bases of operations to Baton Rouge. It's very overwhelming. No one here has ever had to deal with this kind of situation before. I'm not sure how we're going to manage. It will be a fascinating study in urban development that's for sure.

Anyway ... it's taken me 3 hours to write this email because I keep getting interrupted with phone calls and emails ... people looking for their missing families ... people looking for a place to go ... people asking what they can do. My name is on our website ... so I'm easy to find and they know that a TV station has people and resources. Our newsroom is a riot of ringing phones. It's insane ... and it's not going to stop. No time soon."

The more things change. . .

a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man
- e e cummings


George Bush doesn't care about black people!
- Kanye West

Right Knee - June 30, 1983

Findings:

Film of the right knee show a bony protuberance of the postero-lateral aspect of a the lateral femoral epicondyle. The cortex is intact showing no evidence of bone erosions or periosteal reaction.

Additional bony projections are seen at the posterior portions of the metaphyses of the tibia and fibula.

The knee joint spaces and marginals are normal.

Conclusion:

Multiple, benign exostoses are demonstrated in the right knee. this may be a hereditary disorder and may involve other regions of the body.

I guess my mother's shoulder surgery, requiring a plate and 8 stainless steel screws, was weighing on my mind.

How a friend, David Craig, an artist from Baton Rouge, sees me.

INTERdependent

I recently read these words.

"As an interdependent person, I have the opportunity to share myself deeply, meaningfully, with others, and have access to the vast resources and potential of other human beings."

The words came from the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. So now it has a name, INTERdependent, and I have a place to give and receive. A place where we can all learn from each other.