The Ideabox is a new website whose goal is to develop and support creative community building projects. It’s still a work in progress, so be sure to check back for all the bells and whistles in the coming weeks. In the meantime, check out the site and vote for them at Change.org
Just (finally) finished setting up a separate site for Discount Soap. Check it out: http://discountsoapopera.com
We just launched new Harry and the Potters site. There are still updates and Easter eggs to come, so keep a lookout.
Also, as a rare treat, you can buy their t-shirts online until the end of the year (which is cool for me, since I designed five of the eight up there).
http://harryandthepotters.com/shirts/
For years now, I have followed Jon’s food misadventures in Japan with utter disbelief. Can any of this really be appealing to anyone? Today’s is probably my favorite/most disturbing yet. Of course, the beauty of New York is that almost every neighborhood has its own culture and unusual delicacies, you just have to know where to look.
Here’s a taste of what Crown Heights has to offer:
As someone who eats mainly pasta, this is pretty amazing to see
This would be pretty high on my list of neighborhood delicacies to try. Maybe this weekend!
You know it's probably homemade and really really good. Strangely tempting...
Today was the first day of the trial. I’m not allowed to talk about it at all, so some general observations:
1. The line for the metal detectors in the court house is much longer at 9:30 than 8:30
2. The people in the know at the court house call the metal detectors “magnetizers” (though maybe I’m already getting it wrong)
3. At one point or another everyone in the court room gets noticeably tired
4. It’s also fairly amazing to me how much the proceedings of the trial are geared toward the jury, which makes sense since we’re the ones everyone wants to win over — and we know so little about what the hell is going on. Like every five seconds something is being explained to us. Do the judges and lawyers and bailiffs really need to do all this explaining every time a new case starts? That’d drive me crazy. It’s fascinating how procedural the system is and how much the outcome depends on twelve randomly selected individuals who know next to nothing about the procedures involved. I guess that can be said for a lot of our representative democracy? Maybe I will make an effort to learn more about it… or maybe I will goof around on the internet more!
It’s official: I’m a juror. I am serving on a case in criminal court, and I’m kind of excited about it. Clearly, my level-headedness and innate sense of fairness shown through during the juror selection process, as I was the only one of the initial twenty NOT to be asked a direct question by the prosecutor or defense attorney. Either that or they both saw my babyface and thought: “pliable.” But I am not impressionable! I hold deep deep beliefs!
Like I said, I’m a little pumped about being on a jury, but it seems unfair that basically everyone else got the opportunity to say something peculiar/intolerant enough to get kicked off a jury. Would I be unduly suspicious if two people remembered small details of an event differently? Would I hold the testimony of a police officer in higher regard than a civilian? or expect more of them? Do I distrust cops, or maybe minorities? Well… no. But you should ask me anyway!
They just ran through all the juror exemptions. About half the room cleared out after she said that Non US citizens and convicted felons could leave, which seems a little unfair, no? Students and caregivers got to leave to.
The final exemption was my favorite: “If you do not understand English, you cannot serve as on a jury.” And people got up and left! Like lots of people! Was that like a trick? Were you supposed to wait until she said it in Spanish?
I think the next exemption should be: “If you have an outstanding warant for your arrest, or are delinquent in child support payments, you can leave through the door on the left, where the cops are waiting.” I bet we’d be surprised how effective that is.
Nothing says appreciation like a well placed ad
It’s juror appreciation week down here at Kings County Supreme Court! What do I get in my manilla envelope of appreciation? A photocopied certificate of appreciation, a handy little NY State juror pen, a trail mix bar, and an ad for tkts in downtown Brooklyn, which apparently has just been welcomed by MetroTech Center.
In addition to all these goodies we got to watch a pretty kickass juror orientation video that started out with some medieval dude getting tossed in the water (but NOT drowning, LAME!) and ended with Diane Sawyer telling us how exciting jury duty can be. Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for: Exciting! It’s like NASCAR in a courthouse!
Basically like an exciting car race
For the past year Norris has been stationed outside of my apartment, in front of Imhotep’s restaurant, with a table full of coconuts, seasoned pineapple, hot sauce, and various other goodies. He’d be there in all weather - always in some type of camoflauge, always very friendly. I had often wondered what the relationship was between him and the store - there are several TOE (table outside of establishment) in the area - and I more or less got my answer when Norris disappeared from in front of Imhotep’s and reappeared shortly after across the street in front of a competing healthfood store.
Since “The Move” I’ve broached the subject with both Norris and Tonde (landlord/shop owner) and neither were very forthcoming. To quote Norris: “I was over there, now I’m over here.” Well played, sir. Well played.
I was biking down Nostrand today when I was passed by an extra wide pickup truck (are they called muslce trucks?) and an SUV racing down toward Eastern Parkway. A little frightening since the SUV passed by in a flash about 5-6 inches away. From my vantage point it looked like the pickup truck won, for what it’s worth.
An excellent article by Bill Simmons about the Manny Ramirez trade a few months ago. Simmons posits that agent Scott Boras orchestrated a premature ending to the Manny-Red Sox relationship in order to get a commission, which seems reasonable considering Boras’ track record. As a bonus treat for DFW fans (and I think an intenional homage), Simmons goes footnote crazy.
Enjoy: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=manny
Maybe just coincidence and not some kind of mind-meld, but two days before I decided to start chronicling my experience as a gentrifier-slightly-uneasy-about-gentrifying, another Crown Heights blog appears covering similar ground. Keep your eye on Hipster Safari.
Crown Heights and Beyond made a smart observation that applies to my post the other day:
Sometimes I wonder if we were not talking about hipsters, how well these comments would fly.
I feel it’s deceptively hard to come up with a good definition for “hipster,” but somewhere in that definition gentrification would have to be mentioned. And in an attempt to understand what myself and others are doing to ethnic neighborhoods by moving into them, I’m trying to keep a record at the moment I feel it’s about to blow up.
I guess this is part of the problem with having an unclear relationship to hipsterdom. While I aver to be separate from and even dislike “hipsters,” I’m pretty sure I’d be classified as one. So really my posturing amounts to trying to belong to an area where I’m an outsider more than other outsiders with whom I share similar backgrounds, tastes, and means simply by virtue of being there slightly longer.
But as a for-all-practical-purposes-hipster, I’m allowed to be snide about them, right? Right?
When Jason and I moved into Crown Heights a year ago, it was always surprising to see another white person in the neighborhood. There’s a strong Jewish (Hassidic? I’m kind of embarrassed not to know) presence in Crown Heights, but not in our neighborhood (we’re north of Eastern Parkway - they tend to be south of it), so it’s rare to see even them. Now we’re seeing tight-pantsed, scruffy white kids all the time: on Nostrand, on the subway, in the markets. Just today Jason saw not one, but two separate bearded hipsters in the Keyfood rocking out on their iPods.
Crown Heights really is a hidden treat in Brooklyn—old beautiful buildings, cheap rent, an abundance of subway lines, and a surprising amount of culture shock—so it’s not surprising that it’s happening, and really, it’d be kind of dumb to pretend that we’re not a part of it. (Our pants are of a normal fit, is the big difference.) I’ve been wondering a lot the past year when and if a sea change would happen, and I’m not really sure that this is anything more than a blip. We’re still a pretty marginal group, and both Nostrand and Utica are so lively and thoroughly Caribbean, I don’t really see how that could change. But maybe I’m just telling myself that?
Hot Caribbean Pepper!
Today as I was walking to the market I noticed the same Caribbean Pepper hot sauce at a competing TOE (table outside of establishment) as Norris sells. I have to ask him about this. I’ve been under the impression that he makes it himself because they are so obviously not mass produced: they all have inkjet printed labels and are in jars still have bits of their old labels stuck to the original glue.
On the way back I stepped out of the way of an opening car door, only to hear the call of “Whiii-TEE!” after I passed. I shrugged it off as me mishearing something else since A) people on the street are generally friendly or at least non-confrontational and B) in the year I’ve been here I’ve only had one borderline comment shouted at me. That was when I was running down New York Avenue in my sweats and someone called out “Run, Forest, Run!” which got me a little freaked out, but later when I told Diana she thought it was pretty funny.
I’m pretty excited about The Watchmen movie, but after watching the trailer for a third time, I thought “Wow. This could be really really bad.”
Here is the fundamental flaw, as I see it: The Watchmen was a deconstruction of super hero comics at a time when the genre was trying to rediscover itself. Along with The Dark Knight Returns, it paved the way for a new kind of super hero book, and helped mainstream more complex comics stories in general.
The movie is being directed by Zack Snyder, the guy who brought us Abs, Red, Shield, which, while high on visual spectacle, kind of lacked in the groundbreaking narrative department. I have little doubt that it will attempt a faithful retelling of the story—and given the complexity of the original, most likely fail at it, either cramming in too many details to be coherent or glossing over important character and thematic arcs for the sake of a quick and easy story. Either way, I’m worried it will completely miss on the spirit of the original (a problem that so many adaptations run into). In order for this film to get The Watchmen right, it would need to deconstruct the super hero movie genre, rather than just perpetuate it. This could mean a number of things—purposely turning the movie inward toward character exploration, use of special effects as a critique of special effects, commentary on the absurdity of costumed vigilante justice, intentional parallels and contrasts with the comic book medium—but it probably doesn’t mean giving Dr. Manhattan killer abs and sexing up the Silk Spectre.
It’s interesting that The Watchmen movie will be coming out just a year after The Dark Knight pushed the super hero movie into full-fledged big “f’ legit Film territory by doing a lot of the work that The Watchmen did for graphic novels. Hopefully the film version can live up to the original’s high standards and the ridiculously high expectations set by fanboys like me.
As you may know already, David Foster Wallace was found dead in his home in Claremont, CA over the weekend. It’s difficult to know how to deal with the death of a favorite author in the age of celebrity. They are much less in the public eye as an actor, musician, or athlete by nature of their profession (and sometimes famously reclusive). We see less of them publicly, know less of their mannerisms and personal traits. And yet, in that lack of a public persona it is easier to project a personality onto them - to see their writing as a reflection of themselves, their unpolished public appearances as more authentic. We can convince ourselves that we know them without ever having met them.
I feel that it’s presumptuous of me to theorize about the roots of Mr. Wallace’s depression when all I know of him is what he’s written, but this passage particularly resonated with me in the wake of his death.
You become just what you have given your life to be. Not merely very good but the best. …you are doomed if you do not have also within you some ability to transcend the goal, transcend the success of the best, if you get there.
Then… and for the ones who do become the étoiles, the lucky who become profiled and photographed for readers and in the U.S.A. religion make it, they must have something built into them along the path that will let them transcend it, or they are doomed. We see this in experience. One sees this in all obsessive goal-based cultures of pursuit. Look at the Japonois, the suicide rates of their later years. …For, you, if attain your goal and cannot find some way to transcend the experience of having that goal be your entire existence, your raison de faire, so, then, one of two things will happen.
[...]
One, one is that you attain the goal and realize the shocking realization that attaining the goal doe snot complete or redeem you, does not make everything for your life “OK” as you are, in the culture, educated to assume it will do this, the goal. And then you face this fact that what you had thought would have the meaning does not have the meaning when you get it, and you are impaled by shock. We see suicides in history by people at these pinnacles; the children here are versed in what is called the saga of Eric Clipperton.
Or the other possibility of doom, for the étoiles who attain. They attain the goal, thus, and put as much equal passion into celebrating their attainment. This is called here the Syndrome of the Endless Party. The celebrity, money, sexual behaviors, drugs and substances. The glitter. They become celebrities instead of players, and because they are celebrities only as long as they feed the culture-of-goal’s hunger for the make-it, the winning, they are doomed, because you cannot both celebrate and suffer, and play is always suffering, just so.
What’s Organic About ‘Organic’? is a documentary by Shelley Rogers currently in production. It explores the current organic boom and what it means for organic food standards. I’ve seen some early cuts and she’s doing a great job with it, but she could certainly use your help with finishing it.
Purplestates.tv relaunched for its new season today, with my redesign. As the name suggests, Purplestates is trying to get past the imaginary Red/Blue divide in America and at the reality that people are more complex than the hot button election issues that politicians use to divide and conquer different voting blocks.
Click here to see the site
Jon may get points for the best garage ever, but check out this amazing CAR! Minis have nothing on this beauty.
It even fits in the smallest yard in Brooklyn!
The new fall events poster for Harvard Square. Look for it in the coming weeks.
I think we’ve all had this experience before. From Graphjam:
teeth!
Originally published in Round
What you are looking at right now is a representation of the Tokyo subway system. Millions of people use this everyday to work their way through the city and several different independent subway companies (there’s a key at the bottom to help you figure out which lines are run by which companies and thus which transfers require a new fare). If this is your first time looking at it most likely you are experiencing some combination of incomprehension and anxiety, maybe even fear. This is natural. But relax: you are several thousand miles away from this intimidatingly complex system - will not have to deal with it anytime in the near future, if ever - and you can rest comfortably on the outside and instead appreciate the grace of the lines and the interplay of the colors. You can take in the map as art.
I want you to think about the last time you looked at a subway map. I don’t mean the last time you focused in on Point A and figured out the least number of connections to Point B, I mean the last time - usually the first time you see a new map - that you stood before it, taking in the overall image and the mysteries it presents without shattering the surface to capture the pertinent information beneath.
Subway systems of major international cities reach a level of complexity that goes beyond casual knowledge, and their maps reach similar levels with respect to casual reference. You can’t just glance at the Tokyo map and figure out your destination. It takes a commitment - you have to focus in and concentrate. I’m not talking just any transit system maps. If you live in Baltimore it’s kind of hard to get lost in the complexity and beauty inherent therein when there is only one line.
The information needs to reach a critical mass. It needs to be teetering at the point of overload, where anymore subway lines, anymore congestion, would cause the map to stop being of any use to anyone and totally enter the realm of abstract art.
Let’s look at another one, shall we?
The London Tube map is the grandaddy of the current subway map aesthetic - all train lines running at 45 and 90 degree angles, eschewing geographical accuracy in favor of an approach closer to that of a schematic diagram. Created by Harry Beck in 1931, it threw out the notion that a subway map had to be constrained to the realities of the world above it in favor of a Modernist sensibility. Beck freed mapmakers to create beautiful, colorful, harmonious works of art.
The New York City transit system is second to London in terms of length, but has 100 more station stops. The current map isn’t much good for our purposes. The most recent mapmaker, John Tauranac, realized that a system as complex and wide stretching as New York’s needed to be represented along with a nod to the corresponding physical world so that the casual subway rider (you and I) would not just give up all hope when we happen to be confronted with said map and are trying to figure out how to get from Coney Island to Harlem. The map is almost actively working to suck you in and have you figure it out, engaging you as a friend rather than challenging you as art.
This was not always the case. We need only go back to 1972 to see the NYC subway map at its peak of obfuscation and beauty. Behold Massimo Vignelli’s New York.
It lasted only seven years before being dismissed as impractical and incomprehensible (as the city itself runs on a fairly consistent grid, the proportional anomalies were glaring and unappreciated), but remains a favorite among designers and subway buffs. Practical, no. But very beautiful, for precisely that reason.
Compare this to the other extreme, a map that is painstakingly geographically accurate and yet still manages to inspire a weird kind of anxiety by showing the system for the sprawling disaster it is.
When compared with these, the current map is almost a miracle of information design - but sadly falls short in the area of emotional impact. It sacrifices a beauty and mystery for clarity and accessibility, which maybe it should. Ultimately these maps are all meant to function as guides rather than intricate works of art. But in a world where art can be and is found in everything we see and do, why should subway maps not strive for the same?
OTHER MAPS YOU MAY ENJOY
Seoul
Paris
Moscow
Boston
Jason Brennan’s New York City
Oslo*
*I’ve been informed that this map is actually 1) out of date and 2) for trains and trams, in addition to the subway lines. But whatever, it’s way cooler than the new subway map they have
