http://vimeo.com/37796909
Can’t…stop…watching…
All 54 of William Safire’s “Fumblerules of Grammar”—humorous, self-contradictory rules for writing—are over at Lists of Note.
While you’re there, be sure click on “Johnny Cash’s To-Do List” on the right.
Here’s a little time-waster that’ll make you feel superior: the Bad Opinion Generator. My favorite so far comes from William Helton, who, back in 1970, told the world that “mankind also faces the ominous possibilities of armies of asexually produced identical soldiers….”
Tired of the rain last week, the missus and I took leave of our fair city to see what other locales might have to offer. Here’s what we found…
What’s left of Winona, scene of a devastating explosion in 1907 that pretty much leveled the entire town.
The area north of Palouse Falls, looking south toward the Blue Mountains.
And, of course, the falls themselves.
A Nuttall’s cottontail…
…and a pair of American white pelicans floating in the calmer waters of the Snake River.
I was saddened to learn over the weekend of the passing of Stanley Ross. Stan was at the helm of Ross Printing Company for many years after its founding by his father, George. Today, his son Alan and grandson Benjamin continue to lead the company.
Stan was one of the first printing salesman I met when my career began and the finest I’ve ever known. Always the consummate professional, he was sharply dressed and affable, and I admired his taste in cars (Mercedes). In a gentle way, he knew how to take care of his customers while at the same time being firmly in control of his printing operation. When I first struck out on my own—prior to forming AMD—he was quick to offer my name and services to his contacts. I’ll never forget his kind, hand-written note, received when my father passed away so many years ago.
When I think of Stan, the first word that comes to mind is “integrity.” I learned a great deal from him by simply being in his company. Not long ago, I had the opportunity to visit with Stan and it seemed like we picked up right where we had left off—reminiscing about long-ago clients and projects as if it had all happened yesterday.
Thank you, Stan. I will be forever grateful for our friendship.
Today would have been Michael Brecker‘s 63rd birthday. A tenor saxophonist whose résumé includes stints with Frank Zappa, Sly and the Family Stone, and Miles Davis, Brecker was, according to his bio at allaboutjazz.com, “among the generation of jazz musicians that saw rock music not as the enemy but as a viable musical option.”
Here he is on his final album—released shortly after his death from leukemia in 2007—joined by Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, John Patitucci, and Jack DeJohnette:
[audio:https://helveticka.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/01-The-Mean-Time.mp3|titles=01 The Mean Time]As Archaeologists of the future sift through the shattered remains of our once great and glorious culture, they’ll no doubt wonder what in the Sam Hill happened to us.
This, that’s what.
Which reminds me of my ad agency days. We had a client who disallowed the use of the word but. Not in copy, not in headlines, not anywhere. Why? “Because,” he told us, unable to hide the exasperation—and impatience—in his voice. “It’s negative.”
“This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, a lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder’s head. Fortunately, I’m adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind, you know, uh, limber.”
Over at More Intelligent Life, Robert Lane Greene takes a look at how the word dude went from pejorative to mainstream.
What might prove to be the remains of a group of 15th-century Franciscan monks has been found just six inches below the surface.
Alien space wreckage lands in Siberia. C’mon. What else could it be?
“California is known for being the only place in the world with bioluminescent millipedes.” Not all that surprising, really.
Five hundred new fairy tales have been discovered in Regensburg, Germany. You can read one of them—”The Turnip Princes”—here.
“Mysterious booms” in Clintonville, Wisconsin have authorities “flummoxed.” That’s right. Flummoxed.
Christopher Shea takes a look at what a group of social scientists and evolutionary theorists—along with the Google Books team—have discovered about word usage.
Published in Science,…[it’s] the best-yet estimate of the true number of words in English—a million, far more than any dictionary has recorded (the 2002 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has 348,000). More than half of the language, the authors wrote, is “dark matter” that has evaded standard dictionaries.
From Good Report comes this story of the first dual living organ donor who’s walking across America to inspire others to the cause.
And here I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for tipping the barista yesterday.
Friday, March 16, near High Drive and 31st. If I’d been thinking—instead of distracted by the pretty sunset—I would have tried to include Jupiter and Venus in the frame. They were just to the left and maybe 6–8 degrees above the horizon. Shot with an iPhone 4S, naturally.
Charles Murray’s latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010, has been getting a lot of attention of late. In it, he argues that the upper and lower classes have diverged so far that they no longer share core values and beliefs—and that a new upper class of super-wealthy, over-educated elites has cloistered themselves in a social and cultural bubble.
So. Are you in that bubble? Take the quiz and find out—and be sure to report back. For what it’s worth, I scored a healthy, middle-America, God-fearin’ 75.
File this story under “Duh.”
The European Chess Union, in what surely is a calculated response to this stunning turn of events, isn’t taking any chances: they’ve placed restrictions on cleavage.
It’s somehow fitting that today, Pi Day (3.14—get it?), we write our 400th blog post. Why? Because 400 is both a self number and a Harshad number.
As for the fact that we’re a creative design firm and 400 just happens to be the HTML status code for a bad client request? Never crossed our minds.