This is the coolest thing you’ll watch all day. Heck, I’ll wager it’s the coolest thing you’ll watch all month.

Here’s the synopsis, in case you need more convincing:

“A film created by Carl Schlesinger and David Loeb Weiss documenting the last day of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times. This film shows the entire newspaper production process from hot-metal typesetting to creating stereo moulds to high-speed press operation. At the end of the film, the new typesetting and photographic production process is shown in contrast to the old ways.

“There are interviews with workers at NYT that are for and against the new technology. In fact, one typesetter is retiring on this final day as he does not want to learn the new process and technology.

“This is the first time the film has ever been available in HD from the original 16mm master film.”

Go on. Watch it. Watch it right now. Your boss will totally be cool with it.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the design life the writing life  |  make a comment

About five years ago I read a book entitled White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche. In fact, I mentioned the book on this very blog. Let me quote myself:

“It’s about the massive storm of 1910 that shut down the rail lines in Stevens Pass just west of Leavenworth, and the resulting avalanche that swept two trains and a hundred people into the canyon below Wellington. The author, Gary Krist, is a novelist, and that makes a huge difference: instead of a dry historical account, you get a beautifully crafted story, with characters, plot, and a climactic chapter that is simply breathtaking. And not a word of invented dialogue, either.”

Last week, I finally got a chance to visit the site of the disaster. And it’s every bit as chilling as you might imagine.

After a 700-foot elevation gain over the first mile, the trail levels out, following (for the most part) the old Great Northern rail bed.

At about the 3.5-mile mark, you enter a massive concrete snow shed. It was built in 1911—the year after the avalanche—on the site where the two trains were hit by a wall of snow, ice, mud, and rock 14 feet high and a quarter of a mile wide. Toward the end of the snowshed, an overlook indicates the precise location where the trains went down. Naturally, I interpreted that as an invitation. So I skirted the fence, picked my way through some dense overgrowth, and descended (via a rope someone had thoughtfully left behind) to the bottom of the Tye River Canyon.

And there it was: the 106-year-old wreckage of Passenger Train 25 and Mail Train 27, scattered over hundreds of yards across the forest floor. While some of the passengers had been killed instantly, others survived the impact—only to suffocate under several feet of densely packed snow. It was four months before the last body was recovered.

People say the place is haunted. I don’t know about that. But there’s a stillness there among the trees that’s, well…unsettling. Not sure I’d want to be there when the sun goes down.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)

Aaron has been on vacation all week, and now Courtney is home sick, so I have been required to write a blog post. If you know me, then you know how much I am enjoying this right now.

So, this one’s for Aaron – Man vs. Punctuation.

And for Courtney – since her world might be technicolor right now.

posted by: Shirlee Roberts-Downey  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

If you’re a regular reader, you already know of my love for the Grateful Dead. If you’re not a regular reader, well…I dig the Dead. (Also, if you’re not a regular reader, why the hell not?)

So you can probably imagine my joy at receiving this a couple of weeks ago. Fifty-nine songs totaling five and a half hours on five CDs; artists as varied as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Vijay Iyer, and Marijuana Deathsquads; a truly epic performance of the entire “Terrapin Station” suite featuring So Percussion and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Really, it’s a monumental achievement — and, as if that weren’t enough, it’s all for a good cause.

Care for a taste? Here’s the National performing “Morning Dew”:

Morning Dew

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

So I didn’t pay much attention to the Olympics—sorry, the Games of the XXXI Olympiad™—but I’ve gotta say, these are some pretty cool pictures from the final weekend.

Before you check them all out, though, take a moment to scroll down to number 31. Now read the caption.

“An athlete takes a photo of their medal as fireworks explode during the Closing Ceremony on Day 16 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at Maracana Stadium on August 21, 2016.”

Did you catch that? An athlete takes a photo of their medal.

Sounds like a case of pronoun disagreement to me. Forget about all about the hand-wringing over gender-specific pronouns: the athlete in the photo is clearly (to my eyes anyway) a woman.

What’s wrong, then, with “An athlete takes a photo of her medal…”?

I mean, back in the good old days when the U.S. of A. would square off against Eastern Bloc commies, you’d sometimes wonder whether, say, the captain of the East German women’s water polo team had forgotten to shave that morning. And these days, there’s the whole “I identify as a [fill in the blank]” conundrum. So I can see why the editors over at The Atlantic might want to be extra careful.

But man, does it make for a clunky photo caption.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Fascinating New York Times Magazine article: “The untold story of the fight over the legacy of ‘H.M.’—the patient who revolutionized the science of memory.”

The story of the war over Henry’s brain didn’t begin in a fancy conference room on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but that’s where one of its climactic battles would take place. It was March 2013, and there were more than a dozen participants, an impressive roster of scientists and administrators affiliated with four major institutions — M.I.T.; Mass General; the University of California, Davis; and the University of California, San Diego — as well as two major grant-­giving organizations, the Dana Foundation and the Simons Foundation. But the essential participants, the chief antagonists, were Suzanne Corkin and a man named Jacopo Annese.

Meanwhile, more than 200 members of the “international scientific community,” including faculty at MIT, have responded to the article.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

The next time you find yourself near Basel, Switzerland, be sure to stop by the Basler Papiermühle. Earlier this week I blogged about its most famous artifact; today I’m noting (and showing) a few other reasons to pay a visit.

If you appreciate paper making, printing, and all the old-school equipment and craftsmanship used in the process, then you’ll enjoy this museum. Located in the heart of one of the most famous design communities in Europe, it’s also a working and functioning facility. Which is to say that it has an amazing gift shop.

It’s also worth noting that the Paper Mill’s logo was designed by none other than Max Miedinger, who, along with Eduard Hoffmann, created Neue Haas Grotesk—which later became…Helvetica.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment