Happy Anniversary, Helvetica!

Its Helvetica's 50th Anniversary this year. In light of the occassion, I found this quote, which I find particularly succinct.

"Helvetica=Toblerone. A simple classic that's Swiss in origin (like a Toblerone). Easy to digest (like a Toblerone). My favourite character is capital 'A' (uncannily similar to a cross section of a Toblerone). M'mmmmmmmmmmm Toblerone"

-Richard Murray, Royal Mail Magazine

Peeing your pants

So I got free tickets for Brandon and I to see Eagle vs Shark tonight. I cannot wait. Its half of the comedy duo Flight of the Concords from New Zealand. Too friggin' funny. I crack up whenever I watch just the trailer. Here's the trailer to Eagle vs Shark.


Also, Flight of the Concords debuts on HBO Sunday night. Its maybe even funnier. Here's a tidbit from the first show:


Want to watch the whole first episode? Go here:
http://www.hbo.com/conchords/?ntrack_para1=leftnav_category0_show4

Why, Oh Why?

Why do I always want this Monterey cheese dip? And its IMPOSSIBLE to find in NYC. Which I originally thought was a sign that I wouldn't be able to find good Mexican food here. I mean, most people here call it a Mexican restaurant when its really a Spanish restaurant.

But last night, we went out with Richie, and he suggested this Mexican Radio place in NoLIta. It beat the pants off of pretty much ANY Mexican restaurant I've ever been to. Fantastic margaritas, too! And as if we were sufficiently stuffed, we went and had dessert at the Chinatown Ice Cream factory.

But I still miss the cheese dip.

Raw Milk

My sister is a great mother and she's so smart! In the process of trying to make things most healthy for her kids, she buys almost all organic foods. She also reseached the dairy part of a diet and found that the pasturization and homoginization of dairy product is not very healthy. I hate to think about all of the allergies and health issues everyone has now. (Could that really be a coincidence?) Anyhow, she and a few of her friends buy thier dairy and poultry direct from farmers. You should try the raw milk sometime! It actually tastes like MILK (unlike the grocery store stuff).

So I thought that I would check it out in New York state to see where I can get it. Well, the laws make things nearly impossible for these farmers, so its nearly impossible to buy raw milk in NYC. The farms that have it are about 3 hrs outside the city and its illegal for them to transport the milk to be sold. However, there's a network of people who bring it in from farmers in Pennsylvania, and so it may be possible after all!

If you're interested, you can join the Traditional Nutrition Guild -- a non-profit org that distributes raw dairy & organic meat products from farms outside NY State. Read all the many details here: http://www.wprice-nyc.org/ They have multiple deliveries in NYC during the week and on Sat. Yearly membership is $20.

If you're into it, but not THAT into it, you can always go to the Green Market on the weekends and buy meats and dairy direct from them! Union Square obviously has a Green Market, but so does Ft. Greene and Park Slope at the Grand Army Plaza (in the BK). In Union Square, try Hawthorne Farms' yogurt (best you've ever had) and raw milk cheeses -- Hawthorne makes raw milk as well, but are unable to bring that to the Union Square Green Market. And Ronnybrook's milk is only $2 for a bottle. Not bad at all. The meats are more, but well worth it.

I'd talk more about beef and pork, but Brandon doesn't eat that stuff, so we rarely (no pun intended) have it around the house.

Getting smart

Tonight I begin summer classes at the School of Visual Arts. I have enrolled in a Flash class. I took one a few years ago, but I didn't really use it as much as I should have and managed to lose some of my knowledge. So this should be helpful, and I can take the follow up, more advanced class next semester, if I so please. Its just too interesting and versatile of a program for me to NOT know it back and forth.

I also enrolled in a Business of a Design Studio class, which is the class that begins tonight. I'm quite excited.

Fafi's World

French graffiti artist (yes, I'm into graffiti) Fafi has the most awesome sketches. She develops her own original characters, as well. Like Fafinettes (the character with the wooden leg), Birtaks and Hmilos, and other creatures. She's got a fantasic website.

The Hunt for the Radical, Young Graffiti Defacer

I was looking at New York Magazine online and noticed something that looked familiar. Have you noticed the big splashes of paint across all of the great graffiti in the last few months? Its kind of hard to miss. Well, this article may be of interest to you.

The Vandalism Vandal

Who’s been splashing the city’s most prized graffiti? The hunt for the radical, young—and possibly lovelorn—conceptual-Marxist street-art supervillain.

By Sam Anderson

Shepard Fairey, Soho, splashed in January. Photomontage by Matthew Huber

I. MEDITATIONS ON A STREET-ART SKIRMISH:
Graff beef! Fetishized commodities! Counterrevolutionary fucktards!

SEE ALSO: Untitled Series, The Splasher, 2006–2007

The first good look I got at one of the Splasher’s actual splashes was at a place called the Candy Factory, an abandoned brick wall at the south end of Soho that’s become, over a couple of generations, one of the most important nodes of illegal art in the city—a shabby outdoor Louvre of wheatpasted posters, stencils, and stickers squeezed between a construction zone and a parking lot. The view changes almost daily: Its prime spots are probably fifteen layers thick. On the day I went, at the center of the mess stood a Technicolor poster of an anthropomorphic pickle-shaped rainbow; above him, there was a portrait of a little Swiss-looking girl innocently playing a flute. And above her, in the upper right corner of the wall, was a sad, frowning candy corn, looking even sadder because someone had flung white paint over its face—a ragged spray that covered one cheek and part of his nose. Near the splash was a poster-size manifesto, partially torn, apparently declaring the candy corn’s crimes against humanity. It was titled AVANT-GARDE: ADVANCE SCOUTS FOR CAPITAL, and it read, in part:

REVOLUTIONARY CREATIVITY DOES NOT SHOCK OR ENTERTAIN THE BOURGEOISIE, IT DESTROYS THEM. OUR STRUGGLE CANNOT BE HUNG ON WALLS. DESTROY THE MUSEUMS, IN THE STREETS AND EVERYWHERE.

The manifesto ended with a warning: THE REMOVAL OF THIS DOCUMENT COULD RESULT IN INJURY, AS WE HAVE MIXED THE WHEATPASTE WITH TINY SHARDS OF GLASS.

So began my tortuous descent into the curious case of the Splasher—a scandal that had gripped the city’s underground art scene for months...

My First Blog

Being the first posting on my blog, I suppose I'll start off with something simple and inspirational (to me, at least).

I was reading my new PRINT magazine on the subway today and there is an article about Lituanian art. Who would have guessed that they would have such an amazing design scene in such a small country? Well, I would have guessed it, too, since it seems like all of the hottest designers seem to be emerging out of the Netherlands and Eastern Europe. Anyhow, the article is about Pet Punk, a two person design team. Check them out at PetPunk.com, if you're interested.

They also introduced me to my favorite new quote:

"The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless voice cannot change history."
—Czeslaw Milosz (a Lithuanian-born Polish Nobel Laureate)

More to come soon. Stay tuned.