Slabs of water

Jan 24, ’12 5:20 AM

While the covers of seemingly every surf publication are plastered with technical flying aerialists there is a revolution connected with riding waves that extends well beyond that realm.

The video below captures, in slo-motion elegance, a wave in Tahiti called Teahupo’o. If you’re a surfer you already know about this wave. It’s an oddity to us on a few different levels. If you’re not a surfer, buckle in… this isn’t a special effects reel.

While I wouldn’t want to suggest the real story with wave riding is connected to motor-assisted, tow-in surfing this video captures one mutation well. It offers a succinct look into one chapter of where surfing is today… the search for rogue monsters in the form of salt water.

Waves like Teahupo’o are called slabs because they are freaks of nature, they don’t look like normal waves. A typical wave crests and breaks. A slab folds over onto itself and does so with a masssive, thick lip above the surfers head.

Oddity indeed.

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The original information architects: Ray and Charles Eames

Jan 19, ’12 7:47 AM

Before there was Google, Jobs or Nick Fenton there was Charles and Ray Eames.

This is the story of two castaways who find their muses and end up influencing design, information presentation, furniture, photography, interiors, multimedia exhibits, games and in the end… modern society.

These are quite possibly America’s two most relevant designers and the film Eames: The architect and the painter tells this story.

3 thumbs up (and streaming free on Netflix at the moment).

 

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California’s flag in three acts

Jan 13, ’12 8:22 PM

Heraclitus supposedly uttered the phrase “everything flows (everything changes)” about 2,500 years ago. It’s one of those timeless truisms and it applies as much today as it did then.

We tend to think that icons like the California flag have always had same format as they do today. We are almost always wrong. We simply haven’t taken the time to look at history.

I believe that to better see the future, to not be caught off guard by large-scale shifts, one must have an insatiable appetite for history. So one evening during a spelunking trip into Wikipedia’s caverns I came across the history of the California flag.

An abridged version of the story is that 1836 rebels took land away from our southern neighbors (Mexico) and used the Lone Star flag to illustrate that break. A single star on a white background. You’ve got to admit that first flag in the stack to the left offers a near-perfect visual declaration of independence.

Ten years later, in Northern California, the first flag was seen with a bear on it. The star, reportedly created/added with blackberry juice, was added as a nod to the south. It’s good to know the friction between northern California and southern California isn’t new.

The single stripe, originally made from a four inch piece of flannel provided the same border we see today.

Another interesting tidbit is that the first bear flag was designed by good ‘ol Abe Lincoln’s wife’s nephew.

Also in the trivia camp, note the lack of hump on the first bear used (middle flag). It’s thought that the first representation of the bear on that flag was a black bear and not the grizzly we see today.

The hump was added to the bear, fonts shifted a bit and although there are a few versions of the bear used today… the current version has been the same for the last one hundred years.

But… I’m sure it’ll shift a bit because… everything changes, everything flows.

Geek out here.

Go even deeper here (pdf).

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The Delfonics blow your mind

Jan 8, ’12 5:45 PM

If I ever think a negative thought about the 70s I’m vowing to watch this video again… and again.

1973 never looked so fresh.

The Delfonics.

Epic.

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Original gangsters: The Specials

Jan 4, ’12 7:26 PM

Before reggae there was rocksteady (a genre worthy of at least it’s own blog post) and before that was ska.

Or to go in chronological order… 50′s hopped-up ska paved the way for 60′s slowed-down, harmonizing rocksteady which in turn birthed 70′s reggae.

And as always… worthy gems are always circled back on and revisited, re-explored… reinterpreted. So it should have come as no surprise that in the late 70′s, in the midst of an ocean of sappy, crappy, derivative ballad rock bands came a two-tone block party.

The Specials, so tight.

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Swing punk: Benny Goodman

Dec 31, ’11 7:03 AM

At the suggestion of our piano tuner we rented The Benny Goodman Story (1956 film with Steve Allen and Donna Reed).

Oddly enough it felt like it could have been The Iggy Pop story… or The Joe Strummer Story. His story is one where the status quo is challenged via a new musical approach.

Something deep inside me respects people who challenge things and eventually, via commitment to something larger than themselves, change the world.

Every individual included in Apple’s Think Different campaign falls into this bucket. Steve Jobs and Lee Clow missed a few people… I’d throw Iggy, Joe and Benny into the same bucket as Pablo and Hensen.

Born in 1909, he was a lad when the massive force of the Roaring 20s hit. Popular music at that time was classical waltzes. Benny drew from every source he could find (mostly from New Orleans players), did the equivalent of tearing the roof off… and invented Swing.

He and the people around him created the taproot that later became Jazz. He called his alternative approach to music making “hot” music. When looked it within the context of the music around at the time it was, indeed, hot.

Benny was a punk… a Swing punk.

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Jack Coleman’s lens

Dec 28, ’11 12:27 PM

In the same vein as The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun, Litmus and Sprout this upcoming surf flick looks worthy.

Any director that doesn’t stop at simply filming surf hacks, flyaway airs and calling the result a surf film is a friend of mine.

Pour some watercolors on things, layer in some new sounds.

Do something unique. Create something that hasn’t been done.

Jack Coleman‘s got a brand new bag.

Polyester – “official surf film trailer” from jack Coleman on Vimeo.

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Lunatic, Liar or Lord

Dec 23, ’11 2:30 PM

If I updated my Facebook status and called myself “Savior of all mankind” you’d think I’d lost my mind. You’d call me nuts, a liar and probably then do the modern equivalent of walking away… unfriend me.

This is the simple point behind the essence of Christmas.

We’ve lost our perspective, we’ve co-opted and bent the meaning of what happened two millennium ago. Worse, we’ve connected it with an economic growth chart.

Christmas isn’t about buying things for people. It’s not about black Friday sales, two-for-one coupons or PayPal transactions.

It’s not about lying to our kids about Santa Claus coming to our homes, eating cookies and leaving swag behind. It’s not about blockbuster movies, red and green, twinkling lights or bad sweaters.

Christmas isn’t even about making an annual trek to church.

Christmas is about relating to a person who was born a few thousand years ago. There is a question embedded in this man’s existence; a response required to the claims he made; he was either deluded, lying, or telling the truth.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” – C.S. Lewis

Lunatic, liar or Lord?

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The layers upon layers of José Parla

Dec 21, ’11 7:34 AM

Nice studio visit with José Parla. He gives viewers a peak into what is behind the seemingly endless scribbles and tags.

If Jackson Pollack had a spray can and markers…

The dawn of desktop publishing in the 90s, birth of the web tools in the 00s, proliferation of social network-fueled sharing in the 10s… everyone has professional grade tools in their hands. We’re all connected. We’re all creating. We’re all scribbling.

Jose Parla: The Concord Project from inkblot media on Vimeo.

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Post modern flag for Europe

Dec 17, ’11 1:00 PM

In 2001, when Brussels became the center of the European universe, architect Rem Koolhaus was asked to come up with a flag design for the newly formed union.

He delivered “the barcode” to the left.

I adore it.

A unique element of the flag was that it was designed to change, morph, and evolve. As new Member States of the EU came online their colors would be added without space constraints.

Brilliant.

Of course we also know the design which was chosen. I’m fond of this one as well.

Simple, elegant and timeless. The color pallet that suggests a historic stature.

The member state issue (adding stars when new members join) wasn’t taken into consideration. The twelve stars mirror the twelve founding members. Also interesting this flag was created in 1955, a full 30 years before the European Union came into existence. More on that history here.

Both designs have their merit but the Koolhaus design is… perfect.

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