Month: September 2001 (Page 1 of 7)

At the top of the Hancock Building in Chicago is a bank of lights, just below the two giant radio towers. I saw when I was in Chicago this weekend that the lights now glow red, white and blue in three wide bands. I’ve found most of the flag displays over the last two weeks a little excessive, but for some reason I thought the Hancock lights were cool.

I think the American flag is great, and it means a lot to a lot of people. But the thing I fear is a sort of numbing effect. If every time you turn around, you see a flag in some form, doesn’t it begin to lose its meaning, its impact? That’s the effect I don’t want to see happen.

Sign at Four Star Video in Madison:

We are a straight-friendly establishment.
We totally support the right of people to pursue alternative straight lifestyles.

Great sign.

Well, Kevin has already scooped me with a post on the highlights of the Edward Tufte seminar we both attended in Chicago on Friday. But the ideas are so important that I’m willing to risk being called a copycat. Tufte (pron. TUFF-tee) is a genius when it comes to information design, and a wonderfully funny and engaging speaker. His web site is full of good stuff, and his books are classics. What struck me most in listening to him was that what he had to say was such clear common sense, that it only pointed up how little common sense there is in the world these days. The lessons to be learned from his ideas would be useful to anyone dealing with information (which, these days, is everyone).

So, I hereby present my quotes gallery from the day’s presentation:

On design
“Don’t be original – get it right.”
“Good design is clear thinking in action.”
“Great design is endlessly self-effacing.”

On business as usual
“Agencies, departments and programs don’t do things. People do things.”
“Yes, it is warmer in July than it is in December. That’s called the ‘executive summary.’ “

On presentations
“Why would anyone want to give a presentation that left no trace?”
“The biggest thing you can do to improve your presentation is to get better content.”
“Samuel Johnson said about ‘Paradise Lost,’ ‘None ever wished it longer.’ If that’s what he thought about ‘Paradise Lost,’ then what about your presentation?”

On computer and web interfaces
“No matter how good you think your interface is, it would be better if there were less of it.” (by way of Alan Cooper)
“It’s one damn thing after another – also known as a computer interface.”
“On the computer, all data has to pass through Bill Gates….which is the right metaphor.”

I’ve been in Chicago since Thursday afternoon, attending a conference given by one of the gods of information design, Edward Tufte. More on that later, but I thought you might be entertained to see some photos I took while on the trip.

Just finished watching the pilot episode of “Enterprise,” the new prequel Star Trek series, set 100 years before William Shatner’s Kirk shagged every green-skinned girl in the galaxy. It was quite good – small cast, creepy new villains, and a great choice of Scott Bakula as Capt. Jonathan Archer. I must admit that I loved the opening credit sequence – a montage of exploration images, leading up to a one-second shot of the new Enterprise ship blasting into warp. No dreamy spacescapes and gleaming ships gliding through wispy nebulas, just robust human history leading up to one historic moment.

Cool.

I think it’s fantastic that this franchise has finally gotten back to the wonder, the newness of exploration. You can see that excitement on the faces of the cast – imagine being on the crew of the first interstellar spaceship! It was also extremely cool to see James Cromwell’s Zefram Cochrane give the “go where no man has gone before” speech for the first time. I think beyond the boundaries of any syndicated sci-fi series, this culture needs more of that spirit of reaching out to something new, something outside ourselves. I know I’ll be watching.

I’m going to be out of town for most of this week, so posts between now and Sunday will be spotty or non-existent. In the meantime, you should take my advice and write an e-mail to a weblogger you enjoy. Here’s some ideas to get you started:

Tell Haidi how cool she is.
Tell Xkot you like toast too.
Tell Melissa you like her painting.
Tell Kevin you’re glad he’s still there.
Tell Mike things will get better.
Send Miguel your shoes.
Tell Suey you wish you were left-handed too.
Tell Arthur you have hope for peace.

Is it just me, or does Della Reese sometimes look like she has a big hunk of sauerkraut on her head?

Some interesting stuff about movies in this week’s Entertainment Weekly. The “Spideman” poster which shows the Word Trade Center towers has been pulled, even though the buildings don’t appear in the film. Paramount is digitally erasing the towers from the Ben Stiller male model comedy “Zoolander,” and postponing “Sidewalks of New York” with Edward Burns. Indefinitely postponed is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Collateral Damage,” where Ah-nuld plays a firefighter who battles Columbian terrorists after losing his family in a building explosion.

Now, I’m the first person to cheer the lack of another stupid Schwarzenegger vehicle polluting the theaters. But come on, people. Will the sight of the towers in a “Friends” episode cutaway (or even in a Microsoft Flight Simulator flyby) cause us to shriek in pain? Are we that fragile? Are we that unable to differentiate entertainment from reality? I don’t think so. And treating us like children who need to have our eyes shielded from even the most inocuous mention of this tragedy is an insult – especially from a national media that bombarded us with days of wrenching reality footage.

It happens every year. Like clockwork, around this time, I get an uncontrollable craving for candy corn. So I’m in the grocery store, and I buy a bag, like every year. And like every year, I take it home, rip it open, and eat several handfuls. And I feel sort of sick.

After that, I can’t bear to look at or even think of candy corn again. Until next year.

It’s sort of like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football (which, coincidentally, also happens in the fall). Every year, he thinks, this year she won’t pull the football out from under me. This year, she’ll leave it there. But she never does. I’m Charlie Brown and the candy corn is Lucy. Or something.

Ernie has alerted me that I missed the Pillsbury Kids Bake-Off on the Food Network yesterday. Damn! Sounds like great television.