It feels odd to write about analog cameras these days. They seem old fashioned and out of date to someone like me. Perhaps that’s why young people embrace them. If you too would like to embrace them (or at least know more about them), Yanko Design has two recent articles you might want to check out:
Kodak even has a translucent one in their mix, because why not.
Do they take good photos? I guess “good” is in the eye of the beholder/photographer. Still, worth a look.
I don’t write as much about the 80s these days, possibly because the media has shifted their nostalgic articles and stories from that decade to the one that follows. So I have decided to combine both decades in this one post. Hey it’s my annual indulgence, so bear with me. 🙂
The fashion giant Giorgio Armani passed away last week. While his greatness spanned decades, he really dominated the 80s with his flowing and beautifully cut clothing. There was a number of things written about him on the day of his death, but this piece in Wallpaper I found was the best. I’d also recommend this older piece that explains why 80s Armani still matters. And while I was a huge fan of his back in the 80s, as this piece in the New York Times showed, the man never stopped.
I was not the only fan of Armani obviously. Scott Schuman a/k/a The Sartorialist had a special Instagram account dedicated to him. Worth visiting.
If you are in the mood for more great photos of the 80s, I think this photo essay is excellent: the 1980s turned out to be magic… david bailey on the era of excess in pictures.
Not as many photos in it, but this essay on The Cameron Public House and 1980s Toronto is a fine remembrance of the beginning of an era at that famous Torontoian establishment. Another famous Toronto establishment, By the Way cafe, also began then. Sadly that restaurant will be closing after 40 years. It won’t be quite the same on the corner of Bloor and Brunswick with it gone.
If you want to know what we were eating in the 80s, read this. If you want to know what were listening too, go here.
One of the people I was listening to back in the day was Tracey Thorn. Nowadays she has a reoccurring column in The Independent where she writes about our current times, such as this: seeing endless faces in the city brings me comfort and relief. Always worth a read. Check out her books too.
Did Tracey Thorn go to clubs like the Limelight in London? Possibly. Did I go into one of the clubs that Sharon Smith captured with her polaroids of NYC nightlife in the 1980s? Definitely. Was I happy to see ‘The Breakfast Club’ stars reunite for the first time in 40 years? You know it. Am I glad that Giancarlo Esposito found happiness and success after a difficult struggle? Most certainly.
Moving from the 80s nightclub scene to the 90s, I give you this story on the famous cafe tabac in NYC. If you had gone during that time, you might have seen Kate Moss there. Zara had a special collection devoted to her not so long ago: Collection Kate Moss. This led to coverage in places like British Vogue and The Guardian. It may be the reason why someone decided to write this: why fashion keeps selling us the 90s.
PeeWee Herman was another celebrity who rose to the top in that era. Even if you are not a fan of the 90s or Herman, I recommend a recent documentary on him…it’s brilliant.
Finally, here’s a piece on technology that was big at the end of the 20th century. Also big at the end of the 20th century: Friends. For fans of that 90s show, here a recent review of friends at 30…inside story writers and producers tell all. More friends at 30 sitcom cultural phenomenon here.
In an age when the default design approach for devices tends towards minimal and digital, it’s great to see devices that go in a different direction. Take this device:
If it weren’t for the dial, you might have a hard time determining it is a very fun FM radio. I love it. It reminds me of Italian design from the 1980s.
Or take this analog device:
It’s a brilliant way to know the weather outside! I highly recommend you go here to really get a sense of well it is designed and all it can do.
Check out the link for the radio as well. It’s also innovative in it’s design.
Summer’s starting, and when the weather gets hot, you need something cool. These links below aren’t cool in that way, but they are cool nonetheless:
For example, this moped design by teenage engineering is definitely cool. Other cool transportation is this solar-powered chocolate factory supplied by a sailing ship.
When people first started putting things on the Web, virtual tours were very cool. Guess what? They still are. Check out this recent virtual tour of the Basilica Santa Maria.
The great Gina Trapani has built a page showing her Life in Weeks. Cool stuff. Speaking of the Web, here’s some cool stuff you can do with the web site, Bluesky
If you need a cool place to get away, how about these Postcard Cabins? Some of them are awesome. Also awesome is this clip of an Olympic gold medalist runner dominating the 100m at her kids sports day event! Any time someone says they would have a slim chance against an elite athlete, show them this.
It’s getting hot out there. Stay cool.
Open Benches is a map of thousands of “memorial benches – added by people like you”. Just type in a search request and see if anyone has dedicated a bench to someone or something, like people and their dogs. For example, this bench was dedicate to Veronica Calver.
You can find examples all over the world, including my town, Toronto. Thanks to the folks who put together this wonderful crowd sourced project.
P.S. If you want to first get a commemorative bench or tree in Toronto, you can get more information on that, here.
Once I got an Apple Watch, it was hard to wear any other time piece again. In some ways that’s great, since my Watch can do anything other wearable time pieces can do. And then some. That said, I do miss wearing other time pieces.
For example, the Timex Ironman watch. When I was seriously into running I wore my Ironman until it literally stopped working. I’m glad to see Timex still sells the versions of the ones I had, the original TIMEX IRONMAN Flix 100 Lap watch and the updated TIMEX IRONMAN watch. I liked the updated version, but the original was a watch I loved.
Another watch I loved was the Pebble. It too was an original, as far as smart watches go. Then Apple released their watch and like many people, I swapped my Pebble for Apple. Some time after that, the Pebble company itself disappeared, until now. As the new developers proclaim: We’re bringing Pebble back! For fans of it, and even those curious, check out that link.
Another smart watch — as in design smart — is this Casio sauna watch with 12-minute timer (shown above). It’s a watch I didn’t even think I needed, but fans of saunas likely will.
Finally, this device from the flipper zero creators (shown below) seems almost too smart. But for people who work constantly in an open office and need to get people to leave them alone while they focus, it could be just what they need.
The folks at Stone Island make very nice, very expensive clothing. They also did an interview with one of my favorite people, Philippe Starck, here.
Fans of Starck, check it out. (Here he is, wearing their parka. Some of the 100 questions/answers also appear).
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Of all the people I follow and pay attention to on the Internet, Austin Kleon may be my favorite. I look forward to his newsletter every Friday: it’s always the same format, and always good and often great.
While he does a lot of great things digitally, I admire his creation of analog material, like zines. In this post, What does a seed look like?, he’s shows us one of the handmade zines he created. In another, More light!, he provides the reader a zine to print and make. While here in this post, Love is not a gadget, he has created both a zine and a cassette tape.
Seeing all these zines of his got me making my own again. There’s something about handcrafting anything — from zines to cassette tapes to…well, whatever you prefer! — that is very satisfying. I’d encourage you to follow our lead and create your own…it’s not hard!
I’d encourage you to read more Kleon too. Maybe start with this: Study something you love in depth!
Here’s a list of random good things I thought worth sharing this fine Friday:
This Muji fountain pen shown above is one of my favourite writing instruments. But don’t take my word for it, read this: Mini-Review: Muji Fountain Pen – The Well-Appointed Desk. If you can’t find the Muji version of the pen, this pen is also good: Platinum Preppy. (You can order one here.)
This is a really good use of AI: it helps turn waste wood into usable lumber.
I posted this on Bluesky and people loved it: you can go here and listen to different forests!
This piece on the friendship of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien is wonderful.
Do you want to watch some feel good movies this weekend? Then click on that link.
Speaking of movies, it turns out that people love going into the Criterion Closet. It’s a good vehicle.
This is a good story: “Vienna”, a 50-year-old Billy Joel B-side, is now one of his most streamed songs. (Click here for the story.) I was a fan of the song ever since I heard it half a century ago. Glad so many young people love it still.
Also a good thing: finding out that there is a causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being, according to this study done in Japan 2020–2022.
Finally, I love the furniture of Phillip Keefe (seen below). Is it functional? Is it art? I know for one thing: it’s cool and it’s well made. Very good, if not excellent.
Sure, gardens are great when the weather is warm, but what about when it is not. Well then you want some winter flowers. Indeed, here are 25 Winter Flowers: Cold-Loving Plants to Plant in Winter. I was amazed how many types there are. After seeing them, you may want to order some seeds and plant them too. Like those iceland poppies, shown above.
P.S. For more on cold weather gardening, see: How to garden in the winter | Smart People I Know
(Image from Eden Brothers. They sell those poppy seeds and much more)
Is enjoying the colours of autumn (tho’ today’s temp is summer! :))
Twitter may be no more, but twitpic still lives! Photos I posted on twitpic back in 2008 still exist. To see what I mean, check out the link to the photo above with my accompanying tweet that went with it.
Back then, you didn’t have the ability to post photos directly on twitter, so new services like twitpics allowed you to do that. Of course that all died off as twitter grew and added photo posting into their core features.
What’s amazing to me is
Anyway, fascinating to me that this archive still exists. Long after Elon ruined twitter and turned it into X. So check it out while you can.
P.S. For more context on twitpic, I wrote about it in 2008 here and here. And here’s one more from me: Saturday coffee at Indigo at yonge and Eglinton, Toronto
All taken from a Blackberry. 🙂
Just as he did for Obama, you can find his latest imagery for Harris by Fairey, here.
I’d add it’s smart he did this. I’ve been seeing all sorts of remixes of his old work, applied to Kamala Harris. It’s good to see his version.
(Art by Shepard Fairey. Reference photo by Lawrence Jackson / Biden for President is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; For personal, non-commercial use only.)
How great is Teenage Engineering? Let me count the ways. Or devices. In this case, three very special devices designed by them.
Device #1: the play.date
First up is the Playdate, a unique game playing device with a black and white screen and a crank. Is it any good? It is according to this: Playdate, all it’s cranked up to be (The Verge). You can read more about it, here:playdate – teenage engineering.
Device #2: Rabbit R1
For the second device, there is a chance you’ve heard of the rabbit, “ a pocket companion that moves AI from words to action”. I have one and I like it. Is it good AI? Yes. Is it brilliant design? Definitely.
If you’ve only ever read disparaging things about the device, then read this: Rabbit R1 Explained: What This Tiny AI Gadget Actually Does (CNET) and this:I just spent my first day with the Rabbit R1 — here’s what this AI gadget can do | Tom’s Guide.
Device #3: the EP–1320 medieval.
finally for the third device, you might exclaim, what is that?? Well let the folks from Wallpaper explain: Teenage Engineering EP-1320 Medieval: back to the Middle Ages.
What I love about the 3rd device is a) who knows what kind of market there is for this if any, and b) they don’t care, they made it anyway!
I love how different these devices are from most current handheld devices. The form factor is different, the colors are bold, the inputs are unique. They are small pieces of equipment, but they are not minimalistic pieces of equipment. I love them.
For more of teenage engineering’s great products, go here. For the longest time I wanted to have something from them, but most of their musical devices would be wasted on someone as non-musical as me. (Although if I ever get around to building my own computer, I am getting this:)
I wrote recently about the one million check box site and how it became a collective craze. Will the fridge poetry site succeed it? Time will tell. Meanwhile take a few minutes to check it out and perhaps add your own poetic whimsy.
P.S. I am surprised the one million check boxes all got checked off. Crazier things have happened, I guess.
Even if you don’t care for cars, you have to admire the one above. It is more of a work of art than a vehicle. Even the motor is beautiful! To see what I mean, head over to Uncrate and check out the photos of this beauty.
And hey, it was up for auction. So if you got $8.5 million lying around, it could be yours.
One of my favorite works of art in Toronto is The Pasture: nine bronze cows lying restfully on a field of grass. If it was located in another section of Toronto, might be less remarkable. But being in the heart of the financial district and all it represents, there is a superb tension between the cows in their field and the people in their offices. In the offices people are working hard, stressed, standing and walking. The cows are doing none of that.
If you ever in downtown Toronto near the Toronto Dominion center, I recommend you check out this fine work of art. It is an oasis of calm.
P.S. I remember when this sculpture first went in, for I was working at IBM and this sculpture went in right around when the IBM Tower on Wellington was established.
I love this: truly a vending machine for our times! Instead of scratch tickets that promise us fortune, these scratch tickets promise us fame! Well, if not fame, then many more social media followers. I guess that counts for fame in this day and age.
For more on this amazing vending machine go here.
P.S. Dries is a brilliant artist / technologists: check out the rest of his site, here.
I get it: it’s Monday and you are busy. Fine. But if you need a break for any reason, then check out these 10 cool / fun /interesting / useful links:
Ok get back at it. Happy Monday!
Well this is fun:
Go check out the YouTube channel for PostmodernJukebox for more such goodness.
If you want to improve your vocabulary, bookmark this link: Word of the Day from The New York Times. It’s not just any old word, either: it seems to be one that appears often in stories in the Times.
Highly recommended.
Image is by Cindy Lozito, who does all the illustrations. They are fantastic.
What is that, you say? Let Open Culture explain:
The music collective Playing for Change is back. This time, they have Jackson Browne performing his 1970s hit, “Doctor, My Eyes,” supported by musicians from Brazil, Jamaica, India, Puerto Rico, France and beyond. Browne is also joined by Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel, who played on the original 1972 song, and they still sound amazing.
They really do sound amazing. So many musicians I have loved have lost their voice, but Browne sounds as good as he ever did.
Don’t believe me? Here he is in 1978 doing it live:
First off is this piece, on how Lego is finally sells braille bricks. That’s great. Second is this interactive piece on the history of Lego and the various colors they use for their bricks. It’s really well done, and somewhat surprising.
Both pieces are worth a look.
While the Bitter Southerner General Store has lots of great stuff on it, I especially loved the Apparel section. I mean, how can you not love a T shirt that says “make more biscuits”? That right there is as much a commandment and a way of better living than anything I know.
On the more serious side, there is this great message:
Powerful and wise.
Finally, I think this is simple and beautiful:
Can’t you just taste that sandwich? Love it.
People often seem flummoxed when they win the lottery. They wanted to win, and now that they have, they don’t know what to do with their winnings. I get it. I’ll confess that I’ve thought about it before and I was flummoxed too.
Well that was then. Now I know the first major thing I would buy. It would be this baby: the 1989 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet (shown above).
I remember coveting that car when I was younger. And for under $200k, it’s a deal. 🙂
Any day you buy a lottery ticket is a day you could walk away rich. Be prepared!
What do you get when you pair a Blackberry-like device with a Raspberry Pi?? You get the Beepberry Pocket Computer!
I mean I just love the thing! Do I know anything practical I can do with it? No. Does that mean I shouldn’t lust after it? Also no. 🙂
The brains behind it is the same as that behind the Pebble watch, which was a great device IMHO. I suspect this is as well.
I’m not a watch guy, but Timex’s Reclaimed Ocean Plastic watch (above) got my attention. According to uncrate.com:
Its lightweight 40 mm case is made from upcycled, ocean-bound plastic collected from the coastlines by fishermen. The waste is then washed, shredded, and shipped to Switzerland on carbon-neutral transportation, where it’s repurposed. The material gives the piece a speckled texture and is complemented by a matte black dial with contrasting white handers and numerals.
Given that “at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year”, this sounds like a smart use of materials by Timex.
If you want something more classic, here’s a story on the Hamilton eatch featured in the latest Indiana Jones film. I had one like it: it’s a fine timepiece.
Finally, if you are an Apple Watch owner like myself and want to go with an aeronautic theme, consider the MobyFox NASA Apple watch bands, seen below:
The map above looks much better if you go to the site that has it fullscale: night train map.
I love the design of the map. I love the idea of taking night trains around Europe. I even love that you can get a poster of it. I love it.
Go check it out.
I loved the series, Ted Lasso, and I was sad to see it end. The last season, it’s third, was a bit of a head scratcher though.
The first season was the one people really loved. But I felt that Jason Sudeikis wanted to make the Ted character more than the 3D Ned Flanders we saw in that season. That explained what happened with Ted in season 2 and to some degree in season 3. However I think people became frustrated with that: they wanted the Ted of season 1, even though the character became less of that as time went on.
Indeed in season 3 I just saw Ted fade away. He was barely in the last of the show. All the other character become the focal point and many of them had their own series within the series.
Of course this made sense in the end. Ted Lasso the series became like Ted Lasso the character. Just like the character, who believed the coach took a backseat to the players and the fans, the show became more about the other actors and less about Ted.
Will there be a season 4? I’m not sure. Like the character, Sudeikis doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. Maybe there could be a new season about the football club AFC Richmond. They certainly set it up that way. Let’s see.
For more on Ted Lasso, here’s a good write up in the Atlantic.
Here’s an absolutely cranky write up in The Guardian about how Ted Lasso, the nice comedy, became utterly dreadful television. As Ted might say, “Ouch”.
“Succession” also ended its series. So many people loved it and I can see why: it sounds really well done. As for me, I can’t watch shows featuring despicable characters. Succession was filled with them. Here two pieces, one in the Washington Post and one in the New York Times that align with my view of the show. But hey, to each their own.
Besides Ted Lasso, the other show the ended this month was “Somebody, Somewhere”. Unlike Ted, it has been renewed for a third season. Yay! Here is a piece on how it is the warmest comedy on TV. More praise for the show from the New Yorker. I can’t wait to see what the show does next.
Lists are a tricky thing to blog about. A good list is addictive: you want to go through every thing in the list and you are satisfied afterwards. A bad list is tiresome and you want to abandon it halfway through.
I hope you find these lists to be of the good kind. In a way, these lists are also a list! I hope you don’t abandon it. 🙂
Fans of Teenage Engineering and their designs might be interested in their new CM-15 microphone seen in the photo above. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it cool and well designed? Also yes.
These two links from Uncrate and design-milk have more details on it. Audiophiles will especially want to take a look.
I just love all the things they make, and wish I were musical enough to really appreciate them.
I can write what the Open Infrastructure Map is by using the words of its creator:
Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world’s infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database. This data isn’t exposed on the default OSM map, so I built Open Infrastructure Map to visualise it.
But the best thing to do is tell you to head over to it and zoom in on areas you know. Being from Cape Breton, I did just that, and I was wonderfully surprised by how much detail was there. I think you will feel the same.
Highly recommended.
Apparently, there are two French versions of the Simpsons: one for France, and one for Quebec. This is great for two reasons, I think, as this piece explains: The French version of the Simpsons is oddly fascinating | indy100 | indy100:
Brilliant/brillant!
It’s an intriguing idea.
If you are not familiar with the idea, let me explain with this quote pinched from one of the links below: “Victory gardens are gardens grown by civilians during times of widespread food insecurity. The gardens were encouraged by the Canadian government during the world wars, as a way to feed both civilians and troops.”
In time of high inflation brought on to some degree by the pandemic, such a garden might help in several ways. But heck, if you want to stick with growing flowers to lift your spirits, that’s ok by me too.
For more on this, see these two pieces over at CBC.ca: How you can start your own ‘victory garden’. Also: It’s not too late to grow vegetables for your victory garden.
If you need more help on growing your own seedlings, check out that piece at Lifehacker.
Onward to victory over the pandemic, and inflation, and more!
I had been thinking about the Pennsylvania hotel recently. I first started thinking about it when I read this: Discovering another vintage two-letter phone exchange on a West Side sign. See the bottom? Things like MU 2-2655 were how phone numbers looked in the Big Apple (and other places too). Forget about area codes like 212.
One of the most famous of these old two letter phone exchanges was PEnnsylvania_6-5000 (PE 6-5000) for two reasons. One, it was the number assigned to one place and one place only: the Pennsylvania hotel. Two, Glenn Miller wrote a famous song about it, called…PEnnsylvania_6-5000. (My Dad loved this song, and whenever I hear the title, I can hear him shouting out with the band: PEnnsylvania 6-5000!).
Sadly, having a storied presence as well as being famous is not enough to survive. The Times has a piece on how its going to be demolished soon. That’s a shame. I hope the don’t regret it like they do the demolition of Penn Station.
As you can see from the photo being held, it was a massive hotel, and one deserving of its own exchange.
I highly recommend you read that piece on it in the Times. It had quite the run.
Now let’s join in with the the Muppets as they do their version of the famous song:
Once upon a time, web sites were simple. Now they are complicated and sometimes bloated. Just go to the web site of news organizations like CNN or the New York Times and you will know what I mean.
But there is a way to avoid that. Just go to the light/lite versions of their web sites. This is lite CNN. This is a lighter New York Times (TimesWire) And here is an aggregator site that does something similar for a number of topics, like tech: The Brutalist Report – tech.
If you want to find more sites like that, check out: A List Of Text-Only & Minimalist News Sites at GreyCoder.
Kudos to companies that build lightweight versions of their web sites. Not everyone has high speed Internet connectivity. And not everyone needs lots and lots of information. Keeping it simple is cool.
(The title is an extract of the original title for the computer magazine, Dr. Dobbs Journal. It’s original title was: dr. dobb’s journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia (with the subtitle Running Light Without Overbyte))
I’ve been a fan of David Byrne and Talking Heads for many a years and have written about them often. (See those links.) And I am writing about them again, because according to Pitchfork, the “1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense, is going to get restored in 4K and re-released theatrically by A24”. Not only that, but “a deluxe edition of the Stop Making Sense soundtrack will come out on vinyl and digitally on August 18.” This got me very excited!
When I was younger, I would love to wander up to the Bloor Cinema in Toronto and watch Stop Making Sense. As a rep movie theatre, it would often play it on the weekend. Even when the Bloor was renovated and turned into the HotDocs theatre, it still plays the film from time to time. And I still love to go see it. I’ve lost track of how many dozens of times I’ve enjoyed it. And now you and I can soon enjoy it in 4K! Woo!
P.S. For people who don’t know of the film, see this: Stop Making Sense .
Here’s the YouTube trailer for the re release…it’s great:
I love that the music for it is Naive Melody…my favorite song in the film.
As someone who developed a love of indoor plants over the pandemic, I have to say I was blown away by the biOrb Air 60 Terrarium. Sure, it’s pricey, and even a little big, but for anyone who has a few bucks and some space, it could be a cool addition to your home.
Check out that link to Design Milk and get more details on it. It’s cool.
A reminder of how great WiReD magazine was — and how often it was wrong — can be found in this fine piece by Dave Karpf: A WIRED compendium.
I bought the first copy of WiReD when it came out, and was a buyer and collector for some time. It was everything I loved in a magazine: smart and stylish and full of ideas.
WiReD was a perfect title for it too. The publication was about how the world was becoming interconnected through the rapid build out of the Internet, but it was also about how our brains were changing as a result of it. It covered both of those areas well.
Dave’s piece also covers some of my favorite things it got wrong, from the promise of PUSH technology (companies HATED Pointcast for flooding their networks and soon worked to shut that it down) to digitally encoded smell (right?? yeah, no) to a cover on how Second Life was the future (hey, I thought that too).
WiReD got plenty right, too. But more than right or wrong, it captured the zeitgeist of the 90s and early 2000s and generally provided insights into how information technology was affecting us.
If you have only read the magazine recently, you might not get what the fuss was all about regarding it. Check out that summary from Dave Karpf: you will get a history lesson and hopefully a glimpse of WiReD and why it was so great.
(For more on it, I also recommend Wikipedia)
It exists:
Standing 20 stories tall, The Wood Hotel is the world’s tallest hotel mainly made from wood. Located at the birthplace of cross-country skiing, Skellefteå in Swedish Lapland, the 205-room property was built from locally harvested spruce and pine which smells awesome and absorbs more CO2 than it uses.
Now that’s cool. Would love to stay there. Would love to see more tall buildings built this way.
For more on it, see this: This 20-Story Hotel in Sweden Is Made Almost Entirely from Wood
Smart People I Know 