For a long time, I said I wanted to live in an IKEA showroom. The sentiment is still appealing to me, even after some truly horrific “assembly” experiences with their furniture. “IKEA: the furniture of wishful thinking.” Anyway, I want to scrap that idea now because…
I’m moving into the Pantone Hotel in Brussels. An entire hotel colored in Pantone palettes is SUBLIME. I’m calling dibs on the “earthy, rich” (read: brown) room.
(Gizmodo)
Gizmodo has tipped me off to the upcoming 48 Hour Magazine project. To say that this looks like perhaps the best idea I’ve seen in a long time would be a gross (in all senses of the word) understatement. Basically, a bunch of passionate magazine and publishing people are getting together for a weekend and hammering out a creative, insightful, current collection of submissions from writers, photographers, etc around the world. No bullshit, no un-fun pieces – just a magazine for the sake of making one.
Like a beautiful summer day in the Pacific Northwest that you can carry around in your heart through the dreary-ass winter. Or maybe a hip flask is a better metaphor.
(Alex Madrigal on what this project is like for those in the business of magazines)
With all the talk of digital texts and magazines I’ve been rifling through as a result of the iPad’s launch, it’s refreshing to see a new take on producing a print product come together. As a lover of the magazine, especially in its most experimental forms, this will be exceptional. As one project founder, Mat Honan, basically pulls from my own childhood:
I grew up reading Rolling Stone, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Spy, and Spin. Magazines let me drop into a world without rednecks, and then hang out there for hours on end. While the Internet has largely taken over that cultural delivery vehicle role, I still find the experience of immersion you get from a paper magazine unequaled.
You can get involved, watch it live via UStream and, theoretically, buy the finished product when it’s all done. I know I’m excited for this to kick off in two days!
Did you know that in 1984, the year of my birth into this strange world, Honda asked influential musicians to promote their line of scooters?
Neither did I. But I love scooters and the 80s, so you can only imagine the joy I had at discovering this ad featuring Grace Jones while revisiting her ad for the Citroën CX:
Seriously, what the hell? And Devo:
I can guarantee you that my grandfather, eccentric as he was, did not base his 1984 Honda scooter purchase on this ad campaign (but, oh, how I wish he had!)
Yes, that is me on the back.
From the introductory post on my new blog about tablet computing, Case for the iPad:
The desktop computing paradigm is stale – yesterday’s bread. If you are a computer geek, you know this to be true and I can pinpoint a great example of why: I haven’t been excited about a new OS in years. New operating systems are the holiest of holies in PC terms and the last time I actually, truly cared that one was about to be released was April 29, 2005. I preordered Tiger from Apple and was beside myself with glee at the promise of much geeking out to come. And you know what? It was essentially the same thing as Panther in 2003. By the time I guardedly, I installed Leopard in 2007, hoping to be amazed, I discovered…meh.
The same can be said for all software. Adobe Creative Suite 5 is trundling down the pike and, I hate to say it, it stopped being compelling back around Creative Suite 2. Or maybe when it became a suite. Even hardware is less intoxicating, especially since Apple has said they have more or less perfected the shape of products and are committed to a long future of aluminum and glass. There’s a cynical commodification mentality that has set in and, in so doing, destroyed the sense of amazement that once surrounded computing.
(This is going somewhere, I promise.)
The most telling symptom of a stagnating paradigm, though, is my ever-growing fascination with mobile technology. An early 2003 love affair with Nokia’s European products morphed into a complete infatuation with the iPhone at its announcement in 2007. This was computing’s future, I just knew it. The power of information truly and easily being wherever we are – whether it takes the form of maps, music, the latest prices for tomatoes, a message from your mother telling you her flight is taking off late, what have you – is immense. It makes all knowledge and connectivity accessible in ways that it just can’t be with the computer. Biggest hurdle? The tiny (though, mercifully, improved on by iPhone and its touchy ilk) screen.
Enter the tablet. Most notably, the iPad. All the power of mobile, laid back, pervasive information with a screen worthy of the two-way, media-rich flow of the modern web. This is something important. I can feel it. And I want to make sure I document the birth of this truly new way of interfacing with the digital world that is going to reshape everything in…oh…three to five years. At least as far as it touches my immediate environment in higher education, that is.
(See, I told you we’d get there.)
To quote Fake Steve Jobs’ contribution to the Wired article, “How the Tablet Will Change the World,” that got me to finally put all of this into a single blog (an article that made me think “yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking” more than once):
An ebook reader that also plays movies and music? And browses the Web? No way. Can’t be done. Well, we did it. And you can fly three times around the globe and watch movies the whole time on a single battery charge. It’s amazing. Phenomenal. Exciting. Magical. Amazing. Beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous.
I was put on earth to restore a sense of childlike wonder to people’s empty, pathetic lives, and I must say that so far I’m doing a pretty outstanding job.
And that’s really the crux of what I’m on about here. The iPad – the tablet – makes me feel giddy and uneasy and like a million things are possible and like there aren’t enough hours in a day to explore each to the level it deserves. In short, how computing made me feel when I was a tremendously nerdy teenager tinkering into the early morning with a PowerBook 5300ce that I had bought with my lawn-mowing money, just for the fun of doing it. Just because it was new and uncharted and exciting.
To get the conversation started, I’ve collected the blog posts that I’ve been posting on my work blog and my personal blog since November 2009. I’ll be back with much, much more in the days to come.
Onward into the future,
Nick
On a recent excursion to Annapolis’s Capitol Comics, I stumbled upon a lovely hardcover collection of a comic I never knew existed: a graphic version of Philip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? Having always intended to read the book anyway, I figured I’d pick this up and give it a go.
Volume One – only published in December 2009, as it turns out, so I don’t feel that out of touch – covers the first four issues of the series and does so with a lush style and impeccable attention to detail that makes every single panel look like a photograph. As the four essays by science fiction authors included in the back are quick to point out, this is not Blade Runner. The original story never was, offering up more than Scott ever put in the film. With the addition of slick, poignant art, I think that the comic goes one step further than any version so far has (sorry, PKD.)
I’ll definitely be crossing the bridge again for Volume Two.
Tribute to Alexander McQueen from kamila Roberti on Vimeo.
This video gives an excellent overview of all that makes Alexander McQueen’s work for the last few years great. As originally posted on alexandermcqueen.com, which is well worth visiting.
The Museum of Modern Tweets is one of the most entertaining websites I’ve ever stumbled across. This is entirely because I make the same absurd pictures in my mind every time I read someone’s beige tweets. I wish I’d have found it sooner.
According to the artist/author, the site is updated every Tuesday “unless my hands fall off and my computer explodes.” Good work habits are hard to find.
But these nom-ably adorable zebra finches can – all thanks to a new art installation by French composer Celeste Boursier-Mougenot (website non-existent.)
Running at London’s Barbican Centre – and titled “Birds” – this sound experience asks the audience to walk through a curved room filled with forty free-wheeling finches, Les Paul guitars and cymbals filled with bird seed. The amateur musicians flit and flutter from space to space, making frenetic soundscapes worthy of the best experimental musicians.
Enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed the BBC America report over coffee and email this morning.
(Thanks for the image goes to Locally Toned)
Was anyone else so hooked on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics that they actually watched the closing ceremonies “starring” Avril Lavigne? We were.
(Are you also getting a surprise Olympic Quatchi mascot in the mail soon? Maybe that’s just me.)
Well, if you found yourself tuned into NBC’s coverage last night, you may have noticed the incredible spangly awesomeness that was the “Welcome to Sochi” animation. This thing was a bitch to find on the interweb today, but since I was off sick, I had plenty of time to dig around without mercy.
Success:
And, if you are absolutely smitten with it and would like to see it in much higher resolution, go here and jump to the 4:56 mark (apologies for SilverLight.) To quote one blogger:
Just to make Canada’s sloppiness look bad, we got treated to Glorious Mother Russia coming out to annihilate all of our brains with a precise, choreographed, sensory-overloading preview of Sochi 2014.
Yes. Yes, we did. And I want to be treated again and again. Bring on Sochi!
(Thank you to Mahalo & NBC Olympics)
If you’re curious, the winning search string was “ice cosmonaut ballerina snowboard.” Always a good sign.
And how often do you get to say that? It seems that a Dutch museum scored a mega deal when it bought this painting of tourists in Montmatre for a few thousand francs in the 70s. The buyer, Dirk Hannema was derided for having purchased other forgeries in the past and his reputation – coupled with doubts about the painting itself – kept this artwork from being recognized until now.
I think it might be one of my favorites from Vincent.
The BBC tells the whole tale in rapid fashion in one of their video news clips, should you want to know more.
(Thanks BBC & NRC Handelsblad)