Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Insightful and entertaining New Yorker profile by Alec Wilkinson. I can still vividly recall seeing the White Stripes at The Pageant in 2002, a blazing tricolor duo that owned that room from start to finish.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
What a time for this deeply affecting Mohsin Hamid novel to appear. Here’s Jia Tolentino on The New Yorker’s website:
The novel feels immediately canonical, so firm and unerring is Hamid’s understanding of our time and its most pressing questions. Whom are we prepared to leave behind in our own pursuit of happiness? Whom are we able to care for, whom are we willing to care for, and why are our answers to those questions so rarely the same? At one point, Saeed points out to Nadia that millions of refugees previously came to their own native country, “when there were wars nearby.” Nadia replies, “That was different. Our country was poor. We didn’t feel we had as much to lose.” Comfort, she knows, can anesthetize one against concern for others.
This is my first Hamid book, and I’m impressed. Looking forward to catching up with some recent interviews.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Finally saw this extraordinary movie, piercing and tender and unforgettable. Catching up on some interesting pieces about it, including this one.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
I'm pleased to be speaking to the St. Louis chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators on February 23 about the refreshed messaging and identity platform my team introduced for Forest Park Forever in 2015.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
I've really been missing new Knausgaard material, as I've been waiting for the next translation... and suddenly I saw this new book being reviewed. Grabbed it from the library and gobbled it up in a few nights. Knausgaard and fellow writer Fredrik Ekelund exchange emails during the most recent World Cup. The topics are soccer, literature, childhood, family, yearning, memory... and on and on. Totally unique and enjoyable.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
I have endless gratitude for and pride in the America that welcomed refugees I would be lucky enough to get to know and love, with my wife and her parents at the top of the list.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Intelligent, upbeat conversation about how Dash is working toward a more humane engagement with technology.
Loved this World Book Club episode, with informed and curious readers asking Karl Ove Knausgaard about one of my favorite works of literature in several years. We shouldn’t be surprised that he’s a thoughtful and candid interviewee.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
I'm such a believer in how Fried and his Basecamp colleagues position themselves for productive work. (Also great: this blog post about how the team made decisions about what Basecamp can solve and chooses not to solve.)
Saturday, December 31, 2016
I loved this book: a visually rich and smartly narrated collection of case studies exploring all parts of creative communications (logos, naming, typography, photography, illustration, messaging, client presentations…).
Bierut is an intelligent thinker and a terrific, crisp writer (beyond his obvious world-class design chops). Yet he knows the readerly pleasure in having an accomplished instructor (recall the book’s title) chronicle his own missteps en route to delivering a gem.
Here’s a passage I underlined and circled, a lead-in to a section on logotypes and symbols:
Everyone tends to get overly excited about logos. If you’re a company, communicating with honesty, taste and intelligence is hard work, requiring constant attention day after day. Designing a logo, on the other hand, is an exercise with a beginning and an end. Clients know what to budget for it, and designers know what to charge for it. So designers and clients often substitute the easy fix of the logo for the subtler challenge of being smart. When we look at a well-known logo, what we perceive isn’t just a word or an image or an abstract form, but a world of associations that have accrued over time. As a result, people forget that a brand-new logo seldom means a thing. It is an empty vessel awaiting the meaning that will be poured into it by history and experience. The best thing a designer can do is make that vessel the right shape for what it’s going to hold.
Enjoyed this short essay by Elif Batuman: “How to Be a Stoic."
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
From "The Secret Life of Time," published in The New Yorker:
Years ago, long before I had children or was even married, a friend with children said, “The thing about having kids is that after a while you forget what it was like before you had them.” The idea was shocking. Busy enough with my own life, I couldn’t envisage a future self whose comings and goings were circumscribed, apparently happily, by the wants and needs of people half my size. But that’s what happened. As I grew into the role of parent, I sometimes felt as if I were taking apart a ship and using the planks to build a ship for someone else. I was building a ship across time, out of my time.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
In September of this year, I was honored to be part of “The William H. Gass Symposium: International Writing” at Washington University in St. Louis. I joined Lorin Cuoco, who co-founded the International Writers Center with Gass in 1990 and was its associate director until 2001, in giving some opening remarks, then discussing Gass’s work with William H. Gass Fellow Matthias Göritz and Ignacio Infante, associate professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish at the university.
I spoke about my work editing and publishing ReadingGass.org, The Ear’s Mouth Must Move: Essential Interviews of William H. Gass and Abstractions Arrive: Having Been There All the Time. To say I was in impressive company is an understatement. Don’t miss the other videos all housed here together.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Exciting news here in St. Louis: Studio Gang-designed residential tower to go up just east of Forest Park. Love knowing the architect from this 2014 New Yorker profile I enjoyed will be enriching my home city.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Lovely essay.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvvjWhFlV38?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
“Fractured Lands”: An extraordinary, deeply affecting single-article issue of The New York Times Magazine. Unforgettable.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
I’ve long chuckled at Roz Chast’s cartoons in The New Yorker. This graphic memoir, the first such book I’ve read, was so much more than a chuckle: funny, yes — but direct, deeply poignant, sharply observant. It’s hard to think about someone more perfectly born and raised to write (and draw) one specific book. Having finished the book, I’m looking forward to listening to this “Fresh Air” interview with the author.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
The official flag for The Refugee Nation, a team of ten refugees currently competing in the Rio Olympics, draws its colour scheme and design from lifejackets. Designed by Syrian artist and refugee Yara Said, the flag is a vivid orange with a single black stripe.
Learn more about this beautiful effort.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
From Michael Auping’s Seven Interviews with Tadao Ando:
The idea of a center is an interesting one, and one that is more of a Western concept. Roland Barthes made a comment on visiting Japan that it is a country that doesn’t seem to have a center; great depth, but no center. I think I carry that aspect of Japan with me. For me, the center of a building is always the person who is in it, experiencing the space from within it themselves. The challenge is in allowing each person to be the center, to be generous enough with the space to allow them to feel they are the center.