Right Reading

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Month: October 2008

Friday roundup

By

On October 31, 2008

In links

“Every separation is a link.” — Simone Weil

Duly quoted

  • “Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn’t have the votes to win.” — McCain campaign manager Rick Davis

Recent inlinks

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I go Pogo

By

On October 30, 2008

In politics

I go Pogo

Someone gave me a Pogo book recently. Among memorable campaigns, the possum’s ranks high. Howland’s comment above reminds us that it’s a good thing for Obama that Democrats now control the secretary of state position in several swing states.

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Doubleday Publishing announces big layoffs

By

On October 29, 2008

In books

The NYT is reporting that Doubleday Publishing will lay off 10 percent of its employees. The company denies the move is related to delays in the delivery of a new novel by Dan Brown, the author of the DaVinci Code. I hope that’s true because I don’t care how popular that book was, if ten percent of your staff is depending on the writing of Dan Brown, you are already in trouble.

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Tailored messages

By

On October 28, 2008

In politics

nice dudsWith one week to go, Barack Obama is unveiling his closing argument.

The McCain campaign, meanwhile, is still working on their clothing argument.

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UPDATE, 11/05, via Newsweek …

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family–clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

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Left face / right face : Gary Busey

By

On October 27, 2008

In art and illustration, psychology

Gary Busey

This is the latest in my left face/right face series. I noticed Gary Busey has a very asymmetrical face. The original photo is in the middle. The image on the left is composed of the right side of his face repeated, and the image on the right is made up of two left sides.

I don’t claim it means much, but it’s like light through a spectrum. All those colors equal white, and these faces put together equal, well, Gary Busey, I guess.

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Friday roundup

By

On October 24, 2008

In links

“Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre.” — Thoreau

Duly quoted

News of the day

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Two weeks until election day

By

On October 22, 2008

In politics

advantage obama in electoral college

Impossible not to talk politics now. So let’s look at the electoral map. It’s hard to see how McCain can pull this one out. Even Ohio + Florida don’t seem to give him enough, assuming:

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The Neon Boneyard

By

On October 21, 2008

In typography

jackpot modern at the neon boneyard

This great photo is from a series by Andy Clymer devoted to Las Vegas’s Neon Beonyard, where neon signs go to die be preserved for posterity.

The Boneyard, according to Jonathan Hoefler of Hoefler & Frere-Jones, is “a project of the Neon Museum, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of one of the nation’s great lettering traditions, the neon boneyard is of course located in the Las Vegas desert: an ideal climate for preservation, and convenient to the center of the energetic neon carnage of the 21st century.”

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Ghost type: Brignole Estate General Merchandise

By

On October 20, 2008

In typography

ghost type: general merchandise

I wonder how old this ghost type is. Located on an old building in historic Sutter Creek in Amador County in California’s Sierra Nevada (the town takes its name from John A. Sutter, who owned the sawmill where gold was found in January 1848), it reads “Brignole Estate General Merchandise.”

According to a history of Amador County published in 1927, “Bartholomeo Brignole … an energetic and scholarly young Italian, came to California in 1850, and mined successfully in the hills about Jackson and Sutter Creek, returning to Italy to claim his bride, afterward establishing their home in Sutter Creek in 1863. In that year, the business was founded where it is today, and is the oldest active mercantile establishment in Sutter Creek. ”

So the store was still operating in 1927 — but for how long afterward?

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Off the grid

By

On October 6, 2008

In whatever

shed

I might be without internet for about a week. I haven’t built up a reservoir of posts because I’ve been working on other stuff, so posting will be light. Be back soon.

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Careless

By

On October 1, 2008

In whatever

We all know we should keep our webware up to date to avoid security vulnerabilities. But some of us get careless sometimes and let things slide.

Bad idea. Hackers entered this site through my publishing wiki. The wiki had not been very active lately (it’s hard to get a gaggle of publishing people together on anything), and I hadn’t been giving it a lot of thought. I think the hackers might have entered through a vulnerability in the wiki’s search function. The vandals weren’t particularly technologically sophisticated, but they defecated porn links all over the site. I was up until 3:00AM cleaning up the mess.

Everything should be okay now (it’s possible I might have overwritten a few of the latest revisions to some pages). Since the wiki wasn’t getting a lot of use, I might redo its most useful content as plain html pages for the moment.

Many thanks to Dusk Peterson for calling the attack to my attention!

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The Island at the End of the World

By

On October 1, 2008

In books, graphic design

Penguin Books and Creativity magazine recently ran a Hearts and Minds Talent Competition for which entrants designed the cover of a book by Sam Taylor, described as “a chilling novel about the near future, where most of the world has been destroyed by catastrophic floods.” There were many strong entries. Shown below are four of the twenty-five finalists. At lower right is the winning entry by Matt Taylor. At upper left is the first runner up by Pillow Fort. The one at lower left was designed by Alan Vladusic and the one at upper right by John Rice.

island at the end of the world penguing book cover design competition

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