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Today in History

Sir Francis Drake, sailing off the coast of north-western California, arrives at Nova Albion, 1578:

In this bay we anchored…The people of the country, having their houses close by the water’s side, showed themselves unto us and sent a present to our general. When they came unto us they greatly wondered at the things which we brought. Our general (according to his natural and accustomed humanity) courteously entreated them, and liberally bestowed on them necessary things to cover their nakedness. Whereupon they supposed us to be gods, and would not be persuaded to the contrary. The presents which they sent unto our general were feathers, and cauls of net work.

Their houses are digged round about with earth, and have from the uttermost brims of the circle clefts of wood set upon them, joining close together at the top like a spire steeple, which by reason of the closeness are very warm. Their bed is the ground with rushes strewed on it and lying about the house; they have the fire in the midst. The men go naked; the women take bulrushes and comb them after the manner of hemp, and thereof make their loose garments; which, being knit about their middles, hang down about their hips, having also about their shoulders a skin of deer, with the hair upon it. These women are very obedient and serviceable to their husbands.

From The Folio Book of Days (Folio Society, London: 2002).

N.B. While for some the exact location of Drake’s landing is in dispute, it’s pretty clear he landed in what’s now Drakes Bay.

Spokane Scene no. 19

sunset

Noticed the sky was on fire while on my evening constitutional yesterday. Figured I’d better take a photo, in case no one believed me. Doesn’t appear to have left any permanent damage, though—everything was cool when I looked west this morning.

Word of the Day

carapace (noun) A thick, hard shell made of bone or chitin found on animals such as turtles, crabs, and armadillos.

To survive at helveticka, Aaron learned that a protective carapace was necessary not only to blunt the blows of criticism aimed primarily at his writing (not to mention his attire and taste in music), but also to stifle Courtney’s frequent encomiums to someone called “Queen Bey.”

Poetry Break

angelhand

shizukasa ya
iwa ni shimiiru
semi no koe

the stillness—
soaking into stones
cicada’s cry

Matsuo Bashō
(1644–1694)

From The Haiku Handbook (Kodansha, 1985): “Matuso Bashō…made his living traveling around the country, teaching people everywhere he went the art and craft of writing renga, or linked poems.”

Le Sigh

There’s a particularly obnoxious trend I’ve been meaning to write about for a while now, but hadn’t yet found an example egregious enough to make my point.

Until today.

Let me set this up: A month or so ago I received my limited-edition boxed set of the Grateful Dead’s July 1978 concerts, two of which were at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. I happened to be there last week, and, as you can see, it’s pretty spectacular:

mesa

So with Red Rocks on my mind of late, I naturally clicked on this Denver Post story this morning. It purports to reveal the ten “most memorable concerts in Red Rocks history.” (Let’s be honest, though. Any list that doesn’t put the Dead’s July 8, 1978 show at the top really shouldn’t be taken seriously.)

I digress. The Post mentions the “stunning vistas and naturally honed acoustics”; that the venue’s reputation “has a way of forcing artists to deliver their best while practically begging for crystal-clear live albums and heroic videos”; and that “the music, mood and weather often combine to produce the feeling of something legendary.”

So far, so good. Then you get to this line:

“Here’s a curated list of the most memorable Red Rocks concerts — the greatest, the most disastrous and the most influential — in honor of the venue’s 75th anniversary season, culled from decades of Denver Post coverage.”

Did you catch that? A “curated list.” So, well…a list. There’s nothing curated about it, you pretentious twits. Just like there’s nothing curated about Internet clothing subscriptions, online retailers, or beer dinners—whatever those are.

No, this is what a curator does:

“…collect, exhibit, interpret, maintain, and protect objects of historical and aesthetic importance primarily in museums, libraries, and private collections.…Both graduate education and practical experience are required for people who wish to become curators. Aside from an extensive knowledge of history and art, it is useful to have a basic understanding of chemistry, restoration techniques, museum studies, and even physics and public relations.”

Not to mention that the very word curator comes from the Latin for “to care for.”

This conflation of list-making with the type of work that often requires a PhD is a pervasive menace. And it’s not just me, either.

“Nowadays, every person picking out a new collar for their dog is a curator,” said EWU professor of history Larry Cebula, whose wife, incidentally, bills herself as a curator of vintage barware. (Oh, hey Renee—have you found us a mid-century decanter and some rocks glasses yet? We have a couple of bottles of Rittenhouse Rye that need a good home.)

Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Over the last couple of years I’ve striven mightily to reduce the level of snark directed at public grammar/syntax/spelling/usage errors. No, really—I have. Everyone makes mistakes, after all. But for some reason I can’t seem to extend that forgiveness to governmental entities. (Remember this?)

Maybe it’s because of my profound dislike of the political class. Or maybe it’s because those of us under the government’s thumb ought to at least have literate masters. Doesn’t matter. Just feast your eyes on this:

chubbpark

See that? “EXCEPT TO RETREAVE HARVESTED ANIMALS.”

It got me to wondering: Maybe retreave is actually a word—not an alternative spelling of retrieve, but rather something related to hunting and “harvested animals.” You shoot a deer, you treave it, and then, for reasons unknown (to me anyway), you need to treave it again: retreave.

Alas, it isn’t so. While Google returns 89 million hits on retrieve, it yields only 18,000 for retreave—primarily from comments sections in obscure forums, where people aren’t known for accurate spelling. So it’s a simple error; a misspelling. And here I thought I’d discovered a new word to add to the helveticka lexicon.

ALI, ALI, ALI…

Ali1

The passing of Muhammad Ali reminded me not only of watching some of his great boxing matches as a kid with my dad—an avid boxing and wrestling fan—but also of another project we were involved in several years ago.

Ali2

Ali3

Back in 2002, we were commissioned by Portland-based Formations Inc. to provide signage and display concepts for the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Formations had been selected to provide exhibit design and fabrication for two floors of the six-story building, and I suspect we were asked to participate simply to augment their conceptual output.

For a flat fee, we focused on specific areas of the center, and were given total freedom to develop ideas without consideration for fabrication and installation costs—an especially enjoyable (and very rare) assignment. The 93,000-square-foot building opened in late 2005, but without any of those ideas.

May The Greatest rest in peace.

Our Annual Politics Post

Twice this past weekend, I was asked who I was going to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. Both of my interlocutors were laboring under the assumption that I simply must choose between either the Democratic or the Republican candidate.

Nonsense. “If I actually voted,” I replied, “I’d go third party.”

Now, I figured that flirting with a third-party nominee would raise some eyebrows. But what really rubbed someone’s rhubarb was the first part of my answer: “If I actually voted….” See, the offended party subscribes to the notion that, unless I vote, I cannot complain, and that my opinions related to politics are therefore invalid.

Admittedly, I was taken by surprise. Not only was she in thrall to a logical fallacy, she’d apparently never heard George Carlin’s take on the subject:

“I don’t vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, ‘If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain,’ but where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote—who did not even leave the house on Election Day—am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created.”

Boom.

The way I figure it, if either party wants my vote, they damn well better run a candidate worthy of it. Until then, I’ve got far better things to do with my time.

We now return to our regularly scheduled (and decidedly non-political) programming.

Six Years in the Making

In 2013, one of the most ambitious projects our firm has ever produced opened at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture: an interpretive exhibit entitled SPOMa: Spokane Modern Architecture, 1948–73.

The exhibit was an outgrowth of an extensive article about Spokane architect Moritz Kundig that we had developed three years earlier. During the article’s research phase, we discovered Moritz was part of a local—and incredibly talented—mid-century modern movement.

In addition to Kundig and a few others, the SPOMa exhibit featured the architectural achievements of Kenneth W. Brooks. On June 14, I have the honor of sharing a little bit about the late Mr. Brooks. I hope you will join me.

HB, FDM

Famoudou Don Moye, drummer and percussionist for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, turns 70 today. What better way to celebrate than with a little funk from the group’s 1985 album The Third Decade?

Funky AECO

From his bio over at allaboutjazz.com:

“His recordings have won him the praise of critics at such esteemed publications as Rolling Stone, Down Beat, Melody Maker, The New York Times, Audio Magazine and Stereo Review. He was the winner of the Downbeat International Critics Poll in 1977, 1978 and 1982, and the New York Jazz Poll in 1979 and 1980. He received performance grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in both 1974 and 1981. He lives in Chicago, with his wife, Gloria, and their son, Bongo.”

Many happy returns, Mr. Moye.

Q&A with Aaron!

Leave it to Linda to ask the pertinent, pressing questions of the day. Like, “Should I wear the Manolo Blahniks or the Jimmy Choos?”

Today it was  something I could actually answer: “Is there such a thing as gurgitating?”

It stands to reason that, according to the rules of root words and prefixes, to regurgitate is to simply gurgitate again, right? Well…not necessarily:

re- pref. 1. Again; anew: rebuild. 2. Backward; back: react. 3. Used as an intensive: refine. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin.]

My dictionary tells me that regurgitate comes from the Medieval Latin regurgitare; re- + gurgitare, which means to engulf or flood. That brings us to gurgitation. Yes, it’s a word:

gurgitation n. A whirling or surging motion, as of water. [Late Latin gurgitare, to engulf (from Latin gurges, gurgit-, whirlpool) + -ATION.]

So where does that leave us? Hell if I know. So I checked with Courtney, who assures me that, after a night of tequila shots, all three definitions of re- apply to gurgitation. The tequila reappears again and again—backward from the direction it originally went in—and boy, is it ever intense.

Got a question for Aaron? Contact him directly at helveticka world headquarters. The higher the denomination of the accompanying bills, the more quickly you can expect an answer.

Revenge of the 80s

Big news here at helveticka world headquarters: a MacGyver revival is in development. The setup from CBS Studios is almost as over-the-top as the original:

“A reimagining of the television series of the same name, following a 20-something MacGyver as he gets recruited into a clandestine organization where he uses his knack for solving problems in unconventional ways to help prevent disasters from happening.”

As the great aphorist Stephen King once said, “Sooner or later, everything old is new again.” Except, of course, for CK, who’s gonna have a pretty full plate if this thing gets green-lighted.

55, 56…and counting…

mexican_mine_office_blog

In the summer of 1988, the year our firm was founded, we landed two very important projects: annual reports for The Washington Water Power Company (now Avista Corp.) and Hecla Mining Company. At the time, print was king and annual reports were at the top of the designer food chain—high page counts, high production values, high stakes. The completion of this year’s for NOVAGOLD was our fifty-fifth annual report since 1988, with our fifty-sixth following a few days later. In the mining sector alone, we’ve produced thirty-seven. In addition to collaborating with great clients, these reports have taken us to several locations—mostly remote—throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. While I’m not sure our experience qualifies us as annual report specialists, I can attest that, twenty-eight years later, we continue to view ARs as high-privilege projects.

Print Is Dead! Long Live Print!

“There are no two ways about it,” wrote John C. Abell in a 2011 article over at Wired. “E-books are here to stay.” Sure, they were “fundamentally flawed,” but that didn’t stop him from poking fun at the “ambiguous tactile argument” from some “late-to-never adopters.”

At the time, I thought Abell was full of it. Reading between the lines, he seemed to be predicting the demise of print. On the one hand, he acknowledged that “books are legacy items that may never go away”; on the other, he wrote that they “have been forever marginalized as a niche medium.”

Well…it looks like we’ve already hit peak digital. The publishing industry “suffered a bad attack of technodazzle,” writes Simon Jenkins. “It failed to distinguish between newness and value.”

Tech isn’t always the answer, it seems—particularly when there was never a question in the first place.

Bubble Circus!

If any of our readers out there feel compelled to compensate me for all the work I do to deliver fresh, incisive content every week, I wouldn’t say “No” to a setup like this. Problem is, I wouldn’t get any work done.

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