Check this out: Richard Wagner and Arthur Conan Doyle share a birthday today, which, coincidentally, is the same day Sun Ra arrived on Earth from Saturn.
Oh—for you millennials who might be reading this, I should probably explain that Wagner is responsible for the single greatest work of art ever created, while Doyle is the reason Benedict Cumberbatch is a household name. And Sun Ra is, well…Sun Ra.
Happy birthday, gentlemen. The world would be a lot less interesting without you.
So. You’re an Egyptian Fatimid in the 11th Century and you need to get a load of spices, gold, slaves, and exotic animals over to a customer in Delhi. How? According to the Incredibly Detailed Map of Medieval Trade Routes created by Redditor martinjanmansson, it looks something like this: Cairo > Qolzum > Quesir > Aydhab > Aden > Salalah > Baruch > Ujjain > Gwalior > Siyadoni > Mathura > Koli > Delhi.
Don’t tell CK, but I think I spent two hours playing with this thing today.
Did you catch Tim Cook’s commencement speech at Duke? No? Sounds like you didn’t miss much.
Poet Voice: “scourge of the open mic and the Pulitzer podium alike.”
Yes! Classical music has finally been weaponized.
“[O]ccasionally at night, when the full moon is bright, I do what in the physics community is the intellectual equivalent of turning into a werewolf: I question whether quantum mechanics is the complete and ultimate truth about the physical universe.”
On a bicycle trip on Corsica as a young man, J. Robert Oppenheimer read Proust by flashlight.
“When a new thing…is presented us our first criticisms are not our truest, best, most homefelt, or most lasting but what come easiest on the instant.”
That’s from Gerard Manley Hopkins, the…idiosyncratic English poet and Jesuit priest whose letters I’ve been reading of late (after having gone through much of his poetry). Want a taste of his verse? Here’s the last stanza of “Inversnaid”:
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Anyway, a couple of days ago—and roughly 140 years after Hopkins wrote the line we started this post with—Rob Long tweeted on learning of the death of Tom Wolfe, “One lesson from Tom Wolfe’s genius: to write a great novel, to capture a time, you must first sit quietly and pay attention to the world. As it is. Stop talking, listen, and take notes.”
I guess the message here is that our first impulse is often wrong; that, a truer, better, lasting response to anything, really, comes only after quiet reflection. That’s harder these days, I suppose. But still worth remembering.
Hey, get a load of this, from our friends over at the Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation:
Spokane’s Mid-century Modern Survey, Social Media and Website project is the winner of the 2018 award for Outstanding Achievement in portraying historic preservation work in the Media. The Spokane Historic Preservation Office at the direction of the Spokane Historic Landmarks Commission received a grant in 2015 to complete a comprehensive survey of mid- 20th Century modern architecture in Spokane. The resulting information became accessible and appealing through the creation of a website and Facebook pages. To attract users, there was a new mid-century modern architecture ‘find’ added to the Facebook page each week. The social media campaign was successful and reached over 250,000 people. The Spokane Mid-Century website is informative, visually fresh, beautifully illustrated, and easy to use.
That’s us! I mean…we had a part in all that. We wrote a news release and everything. Right now, as I post this, they’re handing out the award in Olympia, and Megan Duvall will (hopefully) be wrapping up her acceptance speech. Congratulations to Megan and her team!
Shots fired: The most recent edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association states that two spaces should follow the punctuation at the end of a sentence.
“Although comprehension was not affected by punctuation spacing,” reads the abstract, “the eye movement record suggested that initial processing of the text was facilitated when periods were followed by two spaces….”
So. Science for the win, right?
Not so fast.
“[A] closer look at the research suggests that the only reasonable interpretation is that double spacing after a period remains bad,” says Angela Chen. “It’s ugly, it doesn’t help when it comes to what matters most (reading comprehension), and the experiment that supports its benefits uses an outdated font style.”
Of course, none of this matters unless you believe—as all civilized people do—that the act of reading is much, much more than just information delivery.
From yesterday’s New York Times:
Robert N. Hall’s legacy can be found at almost every checkout counter—that little red blinking laser scanner that reads bar codes on milk cartons, boxes of light bulbs, price tags dangling from a new jacket and just about everything else that can be bought in a store.
A product of his inventive labor can also be found in most kitchens nowadays: the microwave oven.
Yet for all the widespread familiarity of what Dr. Hall wrought as a remarkably ingenious physicist, his death, at 96, on Nov. 7, 2016, gained little notice.
Yeah, I know, it’s been a month since we last posted anything—a new record, if I’m not mistaken. But we’ve been busier than a Nottingham nightclub on ladies night, so you’ll have to forgive us. We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled programming shortly; until then, here’s a lyric from a Jason Isbell song, “Elephant,” that’s been haunting me of late:
I’ve buried her a thousand times, given up my place in line
But I don’t give a damn about that now.
There’s one thing that’s real clear to me: No one dies with dignity
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow.
It reminds me of a line from Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge: “Nothing is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to delight in it while we still have it.”
Why so glum? I dunno. I’ll do my best to post happy thoughts tomorrow.
One of Spokane’s finest architects recently retired, closing his office and walking away from a 42-year career. Quietly. Unnoticed. And without fanfare.
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Steve Clark for more than twenty years. We first met in 1996 when my wife Linda and I interviewed several local architects to design our new home. Steve was an easy choice, having designed some of the most beautiful homes in the region. He not only held to design principals that we shared, but also embraced our modest budget.
We spent several months working closely with Steve on our project. He listened. He challenged us. It was a great collaboration, and we’ve remained friends ever since. I don’t often use lofty accolades, as I fully understand the weight of them. But in all of my years working in this business, I’ve never met a finer designer. Ever.
Watching Steve pack up his things as he emptied his office (of course he never threw anything away) is a reminder of how fleeting our careers are. And how important it is to stick to your principles—every single day—so that, when the time comes, you can step away with your professional integrity still intact. Steve did just that. His life’s work and career achievements are both notable and far too many to list here. Thankfully, Linda and I are reminded of his talents every time we pull into our driveway.
Let’s talk about anyway, any way, and anyways. Because there is, in fact, a difference.
Anyway is an adverb that means “regardless” or “nevertheless.”
Though Skooch apologized for being late with the coffee, Aaron beat him anyway.
It can also signify that a story is being resumed.
Anyway, I think Shirlee has been partaking in the Devil’s lettuce on her lunch breaks.
Any way, on the other hand, is a phrase that refers to method or means.
Courtney suddenly realized that the key to her success was to emulate Aaron any way she could.
Note that, in the above example, in any manner could replace any way.
As for anyways, well…it’s best to drop the s. Though it may have its roots in Middle English (a corruption of anywise), these days it’s generally considered dialectal, and therefore not appropriate in formal writing.
While police are investigating reports of zombie raccoons in Youngstown, Ohio, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is “surprised by the extent of the spread” of virtually untreatable “nightmare bacteria.” Meanwhile, mothers are resorting to tasers to get their kids to church, disgruntled baseball fans are hurling fried chicken at underperforming players, and Jesus himself, apparently no longer able to perform miracles, has to rob Pizza Hut for sustenance.
There’s good news, though: The word “but” just might save us all.
Today’s miscellany is all about music. So if you don’t dig on tunes, you can go ahead and stop reading right now. But then, if you don’t dig on tunes, we can’t possibly be friends, which means you wouldn’t be reading this blog anyway.
“I played Carnegie Hall twice before I was 13,” says Saul Chandler. “If I could forget about music I would.”
Speaking of Carnegie Hall performances: “At one point, an older woman approached the stage, took off a shoe, and banged it on the stage, imploring the ensemble…to stop.”
And speaking of disastrous openings, there’s a new recording of Brian Ferneyhough’s La Terre Est Un Homme. You can listen to a live performance from 2011 here. (You’re gonna want to turn up the volume.)
And speaking of revolutionary radicals, want to take a stab at guessing who “the most perfectly original composer of the past 200 years” might be? Would you believe…Debussy? Me neither.
Using a handy Polaroid Spectra camera, I took a series of “clowning around” photos of visitors to our design office in early 1989. I have no idea why—or where I came up with the silly clown mask worn by some brave clients, salesmen, printers, typesetting and art supply delivery folks, friends, and family. Somehow that mask just made me laugh. It still does, nearly 30 years later.
During annual report season, we’d always look for a good location to photograph the company’s top executives. We’d get permission to roam around the headquarters—or an off-site location—with the client and the photographer (in this case, J. Craig Sweat) to take a few test portraits.
This 35mm film strip and enlarged test photo were taken in early 1990 for The Washington Water Power Company (now Avista). That’s me (left) with the client’s project manager, Pat Lynch. We’re doing our best imitation of both the chairman of the board/CEO and the president/COO. The actual executive photo is above Pat and me, in a spread from the the company’s 1989 annual report. Remarkably, even the hand positions are similar.
“Good work is always rare, because the iron law of talent is that a few have a lot, some have some, and most have none.”