Futura v. Verdana

Here's what's been happening with Ikea's logo, and what a storm it's whipped up.

http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/2009/08/ikeas-font-change-prompt-backlash.html

Little Elephant

Just watched a Planet Earth episode. Animals heading for the Okavango swamp from the desert. Baby elephant gets separated from the herd. Long shot taken from a helicopter. Flat bleak landscape as far as the eye can see. No water in sight. The little guy is dutifully following its mother's footprints, but in the wrong direction. Breaks your heart.

The Fall of Icarus

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

-- William Carlos Williams

Time to Reflect

The man who told me this story is no longer in the land of the free. He is in a prison in a tropical country that for reasons of international relations and domestic politics shall remain nameless. It would not be indiscreet, however, to describe the country as being located in the narrow waist between the Americas, that the language of the majority of its inhabitants is a form of Spanish, and that its principal exports are unripe fruits and the less advantaged of its citizens.

Our protagonist, an American in his mid-fifties, was once a person of influence in the capital city of that country. Living there for decades, and enjoying the status and privileges of a well-to-do expatriate, he moved easily within the circles of the ruling class, which typically was made up of military men trained in the U.S. From within this oligarchy, through coups that might deniably have been directed from Washington, came the country's presidents. Once in a while, the country's leadership might comprise a junta of several officers who made a great show of sharing power, until the strongest among them gained enough control of the armed forces to send his erstwhile partners into exile in Miami.

In such a climate, rampant corruption kept pace with inflation, and the country's meager natural resources were exploited, converted, and then diverted into secret offshore bank accounts for the benefit of the oligarchs and their families. Our protagonist was then well placed to facilitate the process, and in so doing, he ensured that he also became a beneficiary. So lucrative was his enterprise that in time he became a prominent citizen of the country, acquiring a fine house in a guarded colonia, a beautiful wife, and several mistresses

All went well for a dozen years, until a new revolution brought to power a young colonel of peasant stock, a campesino who was legendary for his bravery and incorruptibility. That he was also a Marxist added to his luster in the eyes of the common people. This new leader and his devoted followers did what they could to clean out the Stygian stables of the impoverished country. Our protagonist was arrested, tried, and convicted of a number of crimes against the people, and sentenced to fourteen years' hard labor.

(End of story, until I can think of a better denouement.)

Barge Family

Like so many of Cartier-Bresson's pictures, this one captures a telling moment in the life of his subjects, in this case that of a barge family, probably in rural France. The vertical composition is dominated by the figure of a young man in the foreground, dark-haired and bare-armed, clad in dungarees, no shirt. He faces away from the camera, and is looking towards the entryway of a barge moored alongside a dock or canal embankment where he stands, and where a pair of sturdy bollards glint in the morning sun. Being closest to the camera, the man is slightly out of focus, particularly where his left elbow points straight at the camera lens.

The center of attention, the point of sharpest focus of the whole composition, is the figure of a baby, plump and naked in the clasping hands of its pretty mother, who stands with one bare foot on the threshold of the barge entry. Also framed in the door are an older woman, likely the child's grandmother, wearing a checked dress and a cap or kerchief, and between the two women, a dog. A second dog has already hopped ashore and is looking up expectantly at the young man, his master.

What can be seen of the barge's superstructure appears to be the living quarters and the raised wheelhouse, whose windows are partly obscured by the man's head. The pane of one window has a crack in it, and the simple roof over the door is of tarpaper held in place by wood battens. In the upper left of the picture can be seen the far bank of the canal, parts of buildings, trees, and walls, and the sparkle of water through the cracked window pane.

What is the story behind this picture? This is what I make of it.

The barge has just arrived and the young man comes ashore to moor it. His mother, the woman in the checked dress, has been busy in the small kitchen, preparing a breakfast of omelets, home-made bread, and coffee. Her daughter-in-law, after giving the baby its bath, smilingly carries it out to see its father. Grandma joins them at the doorway, and so do the two dogs. The young man, hands on hips, whistles to his child, as one dog jumps onto the sunlit landing.

The Paperclip - A Vignette

He stood there in the doorway of my office, squinting against the morning sunlight coming in through the window behind me. I was trying to get my presentation ready. It was Thursday and the Executive Committee was meeting that afternoon. All the bigwigs on the seventh floor would be there, there would be tons of questions, and it was my job to make sure that my boss was prepared with his answers, the very answers that I was making up while anticipating the questions. The numbers on the budget looked screwy to me, but there wasn't enough time to double-check them all. We'd just have to go with what we had.

He stood there with one hand on the doorframe. His other hand held a bent paperclip that he was using to clean his ear. 'Where you goin' for lunch?' he asked.

Without looking up, I said, 'Nowhere' and did not try to hide the irritation in my voice. It was eight-forty in the morning, and here he was asking me what my lunch plans were, when I didn't even have time for a coffee break.

'How's Moira?' he asked. He had straightened the paperclip and was now using it to pick his teeth.

'Fine, just fine,' I said. I wanted to tell him where he could go, but I held my tongue.

'And the baby?'

'She's fine. Everyone's fine.'

'Not in a talkative mood today, are you?' he said, wiping the paperclip on a paper napkin he must have picked up at the cafeteria. He leaned casually against the doorframe. 'Didja watch Seinfeld last night?'

Without looking up, I heaved a sigh. Not even a remote chance he would get the hint. He continued, 'That new Thai place on Sutter. We could try that.'

I could take no more. I don't explode easily as a rule, but this time I simply had to.

[more to come]

Popolo di Pekino

National Geographic - Sunday August 9

There will be a television program on the National Geographic channel this Sunday evening, August 9, that promises to be very entertaining. Here's the link to the website.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/drain-the-ocean-3639/Overview?source=banner_stngc_108

Is it August already?

Can't believe it's already the 6th of August.

Sixty-four years ago, the "Enola Gay" dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and changed history forever.