Archive for February, 2009
Salutations
February 26th, 2009
Because there aren’t enough things about which to be neurotic, here’s a list of rules governing salutations in emails. Though I’m going to continue to ignore their suggestions, I have to approve of any document that references both Twitter and A Guide to Letter Writing for Ladies (1898). In terms of comprehensiveness, though, it’s still got nothing on Shapiro and Anderson’s 1985 classic, Towards an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic Mail (pdf, 1.8 MB).
Some Good Advice
February 24th, 2009
David Foster Wallace gave the commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005. In terms of good graduation advice, this ranks right up there with the fake Kurt Vonnegut speech. Infinite Jest just skipped a few spaces forward in my queue.
It’s also my birthday! That’s probably why these advice-laden speeches seem significant. I’m 23, which I think is a pretty okay age. Pictured above: an authentic photograph from my party.
The Hofmeister Kink
February 22nd, 2009
Back in the 1960’s, BMW started putting a little kink in the frames of the rear side windows of its cars, and they’ve retained this stylistic quirk ever since. The neat thing is that now everyone unconsciously associates this kink with a quality car, so virtually every other luxury car manufacturer has adopted it. You can read all about this phenomenon here. Memes are everywhere. Like in the back seat of your car RIGHT NOW LOOK OUT
Staying tangentially on the topic of design, I clearly need a new desk chair, since I just fell out of my broken one for approximately the googolth time.
The Circular Ruins
February 17th, 2009
Jorge Luis Borges, for both of my readers who don’t know him, was one of the best Argentine writers of the 20th century. I’m currently working through a collection of his short fictions, and it’s like reading a modern-day 1001 Nights. His writing is full of gems. It sparkles with wonder.
One of his justly better-known stories is The Circular Ruins. As it turns out, the complete text of that piece is available online for free. You should probably read it; it’s short, I promise, and if you don’t like it you can write negative comments on my blog, though I will delete them.
EDIT: I just finished El Hacedor/The Maker, and found this paragraph in the afterword:
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.
Lunch Bag Art
February 15th, 2009
Every afternoon, the man behind this blog paints a lunch bag for his kids to use the next day. Adorable! If I could paint, I would totally do this for the kids I will have in maybe 60 years or so.
Another good find by Mr. Harman.
Books On Design
February 12th, 2009
The School of Visual Arts in NYC put together a really fantastic design-related reading list for their Interaction Design MFA students. Included are a bunch of classics like The Design of Everyday Things and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, but there are also a bunch that I didn’t recognize.
Because, you know, there weren’t enough books in my reading queue already.
Bill Pickett
February 10th, 2009
Bill Pickett (1870-1932) was a cowboy with a very particular talent:
“He invented the technique of bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground. Pickett’s method for bulldogging was biting a cow on the lip and then falling backwards.”
He worked his way up from performing at county fairs to touring with the Wild West Show. He was eventually kicked to death by a horse.
A Bilateral Gynandromorph
February 8th, 2009
The world is crazy. The cardinal pictured above is a bilateral gynandromorph, which means it has both male and female sex chromosomes. This is the bird equivalent of a hermaphrodite. Not only is this bird’s coloration divided, but if we were to open it up we would find an ovary on the right and a testis on the left.
Here’s the blog entry which first brought this phenomenon to my attention; here’s an article describing it in more detail (skip to page #15).
Pork Cake
February 5th, 2009
Pennsylvania Dutch cooking is a marvel. Most recipes consist of a permutation of organ meats, butter, lard, and molasses, all either smoked or fried in more butter. Here’s a representative sample recipe:
Pork Cake
1 pound of ground pork
2 cups boiling water
2 cups sugar
1 cup molasses
1 pound raisins
5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon each of cloves and nutmeg
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoons soda
1/4 pound citron
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup gum drops, chopped
Pour boiling water over pork and allow to stand until almost cool. Add soda to molasses and mix with sugar, combine with pork and blend together. Sift flour; measure and add salt, soda and spices. Sift again. Add dry ingredients. Mix together well. Fold in chopped fruits, nuts and candy. Pour into large, greased loaf pans. Bake at 275º for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
- Taken from Mary Emma Showalter’s Mennonite Community Cookbook.
This recipe mixes ground pork, raisins, and gum drops. I’ve noticed that almost every ethnic group has some sort of distinctive food that members of the group eat with great gusto and everyone else finds atrocious. Scrapple would probably be the best PA Dutch equivalent, though there are plenty more. Examples in other cultures include nattou in Japan, grasshoppers in parts of Mexico and China, and British food in Britain. What’s up with that, people?