By Samuel John Klein of Portland, Oregon - Graphic Designer without Portfolio, aspiring artist who dawdled too long.
I lost a friend today over this site--a good friend, one of my best friends. Losing friends was always a risk of doing this site, and in a way I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. I don't think I can get this friend back; I've been told not to respond to the email, though I'm going to try anyway.
I've never liked running uncivil websites, ever. In fact, I've never run one, other than OMI. I've never had a website quite like it. The problem with OMI has always been that the more I censored, the more open to lawsuits I was. And I have no legal defense team, no corporate owner with big pockets to rescue me. There's only me. I know this is a concept that's really weird-sounding to some of you, but I'm telling you, that's the way the legal precedents stand now.
Moving to accounts-only posting has helped a great deal with the nasty drive-by posting. But I can't do this any more. A broken heart can do what a purple-faced news director or corporate lawyer cannot.
So I have to stop doing this. End of day tomorrow (when the current ads expire) I'm taking the site offline. I would like very much for someone to take over OMI. I think it's important that a site like this continue, but I don't have it in me any more.
For instance, consider the design of the Big Ten Conference's logo, pictured right. The oldest Division I collegiate athletic association in America, it has a brand-recognition second to absolutely nobody (except maybe the Ivy League). But in 1990, Penn State joined the constellation, making the membership not ten schools, but eleven. Last month the City Council waived the sign code to allow the large red neon rose that will twinkle during the festival. That waiver meant a lively discussion and a lone "no" vote from Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who said she was "beyond troubled" that the sign proposal didn't go before the city's Historic Landmarks Commission.
The Zine Standard Deviation by J.V. Whimper (jvwhimper@gmail.com) bills itself as "Science for you, not for them", and lives up to that promise. The main feature of the hand-sized zine, "Caffeine from Green Coffee Beans", noting that green coffee beans (unroasted, that is) have more caffeine in them than roasted, is an experiment designed to see if the high-test beverage can be extracted and consumed via one of two cold-brew methods. Short answers: yes and yes (though it be tasting as crap), and the buzz is quite real.
Therefore all are neither useful nor necessary straight periodic systems appearing in the Internet, but simply only sense-free arrangements after an outdated sample.
His döppelgänger has emerged. Yin to the yang, the self-proclaimed Jackson Pollock of type (I shudder, I do), Les Kerning does everything Max does not. He has hot girlfriends in cute underwear. He wears hoodies. He hangs around gritty urban alleys. He mixes Comic Sans and Wingdings in newsletters.Have you seen my brother's "manifesto"? Sheesh, give that guy some aviator sunglasses and a hoodie - he could be the "Uni-typographer".Well, he's just as opnionated as his brother, that's for certain.
Not that GR's music is hard to follow or uneven in quality (it isn't, and it sure as hell isn't!). Gerry Rafferty has been one of the smartest singer-songwriters in music history. Most people know him from his days in Stealer's Wheel ("Stuck In The Middle With You"), or his work beforehand with The Humblebums (which was him and then-musician, now-comic-and-TV-star Billy Connolly), or of course the AM radio classic "Baker Street" (you know, the one with That Sax Solo™) from his huge album City To City (the 1977 chart monster that was the number one album in America for about two and a half weeks in July of that year).
Just on a whim, recently, I cruised the Wikipedia entry on Gerry Rafferty and found a link to the Moonlight and Gold message board, established by Iconian refugees. It's quirky and interesting, just like the Icon message board was, with great discussions and scary discussions and people just having fun being Gerry fans. I've registered. It's great to be back home.
world-famous London Tube Map. You can get a look at the whole magila here (Transport for London guards the copyright with the ferocity of a lion, an ire I wish not to arouse ... the illustration right is sized really teeny, for illustration-y purposes). It's not only much loved and much imitated, it lends itself to a great deal of ... well, pastiche and parody.
Or maybe it was something in Warhol's deliciously odd and culture-vulture-y art that suggests inspiration from such a gestalt thing as the Tintin vibe.
Anyway, I told you all that as introduction to this very short clip I just located on YouTube, in which Hergé dashes out a signature Tinitin-and-Snowy sketch to (apparently) a fan with a pen in just a handful of quick strokes (follow the link there ... I tried embedding the video but my version of Firefox just shows a big white box).
For starters, most of the street-name signs don't comply with new federal regulations adopted for America's aging population. The font on the signs is too small and their ability to reflect light at night is way beyond warranty.
SEEKING: CARTOGRAPHERS OF ANY SKILL LEVEL to assist in locating a sense of place. Curiosity, open eyes and ears, and a sense of humor a plus. Open to maps on paper as well as movement, music, narrative and video. Please send a draft of how you "map out" your experiences, discoveries, and psychogeographical landsapes to: mostlandia@gmail.com. Willing to barter with homemade ice creatm. Sincere inquiries only.
And Wisconsin has “Live Like You Mean It,” which sounds less like an invitation to vacation than a self-improvement project. As a matter of fact, besides being an old Bacardi slogan, it is also the title of a motivational book whose authors promise to guide you toward “a meaningful, fulfilling, and happier life with results worthy of legacy building.”
I don’t know about you, but when I want to get away from it all, I do not want to take my legacy along with me.
Kelli Trumble, the secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, said she was heartened that the new slogan already has an “amazing” 90 percent awareness rate in the state, although it’s pretty easy to get attention when you have a radio news anchor in Milwaukee blogging “Wisconsin: We have a lame slogan ... AND WE STOLE IT!”
The Red Fish sector covered NW and N Portland, from approximately the crest of Forest Park east to a line more or less alone Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd/Union Avenue. Locations in this area included Saint Johns, the Portsmouth area and the North Portland Peninsula, the trendy Northwest district, the and the Northwest industrial district.
The Purple Raindrop (no, not "Purple Rain", no joy for Prince fans here) covered an arc from approximately Martin Luther King Jr Blvd to a line more or less parallel to and a little south of Northeast Sandy Blvd. Destinations in this area included Portland International Airport, Parkrose, Hollywood, Woodlawn, the golf courses along Columbia Boulevard, Rocky Butte, and classier Northeast areas such as Irvington and Alameda.
The Blue Snowflake had at its northern boundary that aforementioned line south of Sandy and swept down to a line more or less between Burnside and Southeast Stark Street. East of what would eventually be I-205, the area covered everything from Burnside/Stark up to the Columbia River, all the way out to Gresham. With the advent of MAX service and the establishment of a full-service Transit Center at Gateway, all Blue Snowflake routes terminated there and were removed from thier Mall stops, those stops becoming local service/Union Station service.
The Brown Beaver sector served in the main the working-class SE part of Portland, specifically that part south of the Burnside/Stark corridor and east of the Sellwood/Moreland area, extending also all the way out to Gresham; essentially any route that was going to SE but wasn't eventually bound for Milwaukie and points south.
Like the Red Fish, The Green Leaf sector covered an area on both sides of the Willamette River, serving Johns Landing, Sellwood, the eastern 2/3rds of Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, the suburban corridor along McLoughlin Blvd including Jennings Lodge, Oak Grove, River Road and such, and also such SW desinations as Tualatin and Wilsonville. If you wanted to go to Marylhurst College or Canby, you boarded a Green Leaf route.
The Yellow Rose took in the neighborhoods of inner and outer SW Portland, such as Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, Garden Home, the Vermont Street area, the Washington Square Mall, PCC Sylvania and Lewis and Clark College, and outlying communities like King City, Tigard, and Sherwood. It also served suburban SW areas that lay, generally speaking, south of Scholls Ferry Road.
To complete the circle, the Orange Deer sector took in everything from about Scholls Ferry Road north to the Tualatin Mountains (Forest Park). Everything along the TV Hwy/Canyon Road corridor and the Sunset Hwy was in this district. This took in Beaverton, Cedar Hills, Cedar Mill, the Cornell Road corridor, Bethany, Tanasbourne, Aloha, Hillsboro, and Forest Grove. If you were bussing it to the Zoo or OMSI (when it was up on the hill), you took the 63-Washington Park, from the Orange Deer shelters.
Out on new street-blade patrol today, inspired by a tip from Isaac Laquedem who mentioned there's a new blade set at SW Barnes Rd and 57th Avenue (thanks, Isaac!)
