I love ambiguity. I don't love having information rendered directional by being funneled through the kind of dogmatic opinions that stem from a need to be the rightest.

This person has a beautiful mind. I'm listening.

Designing Calm Technology. Looks interesting so far...

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27 May, 1999

I'm very worried about Dolly.

Henry Miller was an iniquitous old scamp, but I sure love his essay on bread. I've never read it before. I had to wait until I was a grown-up until I could enjoy his work, so I'm a bit behind.

I'm having a dreadful time verbalizing my ideas about design. You may ask yourself why I feel the need to and I ask myself the same thing, but once I realized that I couldn't do it, the question became irrelevant and I had to... Only I keep getting distracted by rich tangents. I tried sending my written blither along to a friend to see if he could tell me what I meant, but all I've heard from him is a pointed silence. I doubt he will ever speak to me again. I said unforgivable things like:

Blah blah blah... a solution that doesn't just conform to a set of banal constants, but within that set of givens establishes a microcosmos with its own set of constants through which every experience is filtered. In this way, focuses a specific set of references from a larger context. designer must be aware of all variations and scales of context from the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle (tangentially: a delicious solution because of it's scalability... it turns out that it's the formal verbalization of a manifestation of a phenomena we intuit) to the historical and social context. She determines (at both conscious and unconscious levels) what references / contexts are relevant, and proceeds to focus those to such a degree that those variables become constants within the solution. This renders the solution itself scaleable...blah blah blah.

It actually means something to me (defensively)... It's too bad the reckless combination of volatile metaphors doesn't trigger an explosion that extinguishes the miserable user... A sort of survival of the linguist.

BOOM!

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26 May, 1999

I want this dress. I tried it on and it's a very lovely thing. You can't tell from the image but the material is a heavy, black, silk shot with knobby silver streaks. The seams are diagonal and flare in subtle pleats at the bottom. The cut is immaculate and manages to fit smoothly in every curve despite the crazy diagonals. It is Very Good. Max Azaria is underrated. I appreciate decisive geometries in clothing.

Oh joy! Jeanette Winterson has a new book out: World and Other Places. Read it.

Elsa Davidson's essay in Feed came to mind when I read this review of Germaine Greer's new book, The Whole Woman. I haven't read any of Germaine Greer's recent stuff other than the essays in The Mad Woman's Underclothes... I'm disturbed.

I didn't realize that Lois Banner's In Full Flower is now out of print. Too bad. I enjoyed it.

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25 May, 1999

I have been sweetly and firmly put in my place. Alan Cooper is a fine writer. It's comforting to know there are people watching to prevent me from making an intractable ass of myself.

We had a meeting today at work that spawned all sorts of specious discussions about acceptable levels of violence in HC projects. Ellen and I decided to write up a proposal for an idea we've long cherished: Virtual Abattoir. It would be a real-time 3d game in which audio would play a crucial role. We already have three clever cinematic ideas for intro and transition movies... There would be all sorts of educational components as well... And we'd stress sustainability-- like making hot dogs and chicken feed... Leveling might be defined by the cut of meat. It would be family-oriented (you know, something for everyone). I can see the boxes now. Each copy would be bundled with a stick of beef jerky.

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24 May, 1999

Blast! How on earth do I describe what I do (or can and want to be doing)? The more accurate it gets, the more stupider and precious it sounds. I'm a designer. I design things, dammit-- in any medium. Why does that have all sorts of negative connotations for everybody? I refuse to have phrases in my job title that evoke me capering whimsically about in a black turtleneck. And WHY (I ask this in all CAPS in my head) does an ability to express oneself visually, automatically compromise one's credibility as a three-dimensional thinker in this industry?

I grind my teeth and frown furiously... Humph...

Eileen Gray made beautiful objects and places. It's all very soothing to my ruffled soul.

It also makes me happy to hear JAMA acknowledge the effect of thoughtful design upon the quality of our lives.

I can't spell. It's unfortunate.

N.B. whimsy (or any derivative thereof) is generally intended pejoratively in my world.

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23 May, 1999

A Momentary Vignette is a nice daily introduction to (or reminder of) the things and people that cut the blandness of the quotidian in our physical environment. And after some acrobatic free associations, I will now say that I have ambiguous feelings about AdBusters. Complacency is to be dreaded... but their solution is simplistic. Think about who funds the arts in the U.S.... and tremble. Also consider that advertising is the only medium through which most people in this country are consistently exposed to high quality design. Nike has undeniably raised the aesthetic standards of their target audience.

In my world, anything that provokes thought deserves to exist... Even the Guggenheim Bilbao building... Apropos of not much, they do have a very nice website.

I sat in bed and watched Pink Panther cartoons this morning. Oh, happy day.

This online rhyming dictionary was invaluable when I had to write 30 jump rope rhymes... You wish you had my job.

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21 May, 1999

For years I have intended to do a photo essay on Detroit. I swear that it will happen this summer. I've got to get to it before gentrification strikes. In the meantime, I found a good archive of buildings in the city. I remember looking out the window from the freeway, passing the high-rise projects and staring up at the shattered panes and flapping curtains. Detroit is achingly beautiful.

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20 May, 1999

A quote from Fast War/Slow Motion by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker:

...virtual war is one perspectival remove from experiencing the actual consequences of violence.

And, because I'm cranky today: a nice juicy Schopenhauer link from your source most defective in the powers of reasoning and deliberation.

I'm missing West Texas today. It's time to go back to Marfa. I need to go back again when there aren't any people (artsy or otherwise) around. I was there last year for the Art and Architecture symposium at the Chinati foundation. There were a lot of smart people there (and some who are grossly overrated... ahem), but Roni Horn's lecture was the highlight of the symposium for me. Her work is exquisite and spans a number of media.

--an interview
--some paintings (?)
--lots of photography from You Are the Weather
--another photo

Oh god! I can't stop. There's so much out there. I'm overwhelmed. Must go splash cold water on my face.

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19 May, 1999

An interesting review of Alan Cooper's book, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. It's interesting because of the architectural metaphors that pop up in the review (they are well used), and because of the phrases: User Hostility and Polite Software. Check out the passionate comments the book has provoked on Amazon. I don't know if I could bring myself to actually read the whole book though... I'll bet he's a lousy writer anyhow (I say, salting my food without tasting it).

I'm thinking about the section of The Sound and the Fury narrated by Quentin (Caddy's brother), in which he finally escapes time.

Spinoza on Machiavelli.

An elephant pun for yooou, Seth: Early elephants used 'swimming trunks' .

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18 May, 1999

Finally, a page with lots of images of paper money organized by country (thank you, Peter). It's not the famous page that I used to have bookmarked, but it does have all the same server problems. Some of my favorites:

The French 100 Franc note (and pretty much all the new French notes)

All the new Swiss notes too. Por ejemplo.

The New York Times Magazine was all about Women in the past millennium this week. I'm disposed to look kindly but matronizingly (how's that, William Safire?-- Never mind, it won't work. Patronizing has all the appropriate negative connotations I'm looking for.) on the fluff of which it mostly consisted because I read it while eating a tremendous breakfast and listening to live gospel music at Stubbs... Otherwise I might have been annoyed. It's not that it was bad. It contained lots of well-known historical data-- shaken up and formatted nicely. One odd thing: Everything was presented from a relentlessly European point of view. It had to be especially noticeable because I'm a white girl and, like most people, I am my own de facto average person. (In architecture school it was often noted that my scale people looked remarkably like me... And why not, I ask.). I s'pose we are counting said millennium from the birth of Christ... I'm still not convinced.

Another interesting dream. In ASCII text. It was all about describing a triangulated space, but it had primarily to do with the distance along the hypotenuse. In my dream, that side was 2-dimensional and composed purely of text. It doesn't make nearly the sense it did when I was asleep.

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17 May, 1999

I thought SubTropolis was a lot more interesting than it is. I pictured a crazy underground city with inverted skyscrapers and stadiums in which the spectators had to buckle themselves into their seats so they could hang upside-down to watch gladiators and drink milk though flexible straws... It actually looks more like a mall. Which makes me think of Lebbeus Woods... The stadium-- not the mall, that is. I looked and looked, but I can't find any of his shorter essays on the bombing and reconstruction of Sarajevo. It seems that everyone on the Internet has been exceptionally respectful of his copyrights. I would be interested to read War and Architecture. I haven't heard much about it, although Princeton Architectural Press seldom turns out a book that's not at the very least, a beautiful object. Radical Reconstruction certainly is. Needless to say, it's also rife with Content.

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16 May, 1999

From Othello:

My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her.

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13 May, 1999

Slantgirl is smart as whip. She is also filled with a healthy and articulate rage. Read her essay on hair. Cathy really liked her piece on Revolutionary Glamour (it's down momentarily). Apparently it inspired her to get the hair on her much-educated head coifed and coloured.

The entire text of Mina Loy's Lunar Baedecker. Chills.

MVRDV. Good work. Nice interview in Metropolis Magazine.

Last night I dreamed I was standing in a room that stopped at my waist. I looked out or over the bottom half of the windows and the trees were also severed at waist height. I was wearing only pajama bottoms. I felt very vulnerable... Nudity in dreams is always much more disturbing than reality... Really. Sometimes I have very abstract dreams: the section drawing of Guilt, the Devil Bounce Suits, the Logic Cake, the spacial/ temporal rendering of Distance. I need to read more Jung.

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12 May, 1999

Human Code is making a flip book containing, among other artifacts of the corporate culture, photographs and favorite quotes of all employees graced with even passably photogenic features. I thought I got off scott-free because even though I was coerced into having my picture taken, I was too harassed to come up with anything pithy to put next to my image. Never daunted though, our resourceful marketing group took it upon themselves to assign me a favorite quote. The result is something that Jonathan Swift probably wrote in Alexander Pope's yearbook right after graduation:

May you live every day of your life.

-Jonathan Swift

Speaking of the latter, I am bound to say that he was not a nice man. Anyhow, I was going to be filled with righteous indignation when I read my favorite quote, but then I read the one that Jennifer was dealt:

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

--Henry David Thoreau

There's just Nothing More to be Said.

Depressingly obvious. I s'pose it needed to be formatted for us.

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11 May, 1999

I used to walk in my sleep a lot. One morning I woke up and all the light bulbs in my house were unscrewed from their sockets and carefully lined up at the bottom of my bed. It made me contemplative for a while.

Bittersweets.org is good. Sometimes it's gooder than other times. Sometimes it depends on your frame of mind. My frame is sort of fluid at the moment. Ergo this reference to Alice in Wonderland, with which I have been reading myself to sleep lately. "Which reference?," you ask. "Don't change the subject." I say. I have also been reading Dashiell Hammet (check out this dictionary of hardboiled detective and bad guy terms). I cheerfully confess a weakness for antiquated detective fiction. It puts me right to sleep. I love all of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter books. I like the gently (read: sleepily) analytical nature of murder mysteries, but I think the language does a lot for me too. And that makes me think of Bertie Wooster. It says here that P.G. Wodehouse was the "greatest writer in English of this century." I don't know about all that, but you ought to try the random quote generator. You'll come up with all sorts of nuggets like the following:

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

or

I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express on the small of the back.

or

He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

See what I mean? Top that.

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10 May, 1999

I had an adventure this weekend. I drove to Mineral Wells to view (I also had other more nefarious intentions... I admit it. I like to break into abandoned buildings) the historic Baker Hotel. The Baker Hotel is a 12 storey sort of Spanish-style Art-Deco building that is visible from the hills several miles away. It is empty. It opened in 1929 and was the Southern resort of choice in the thirties. I met an old guy who talked at length about the building and it's history. He loves the building. It gave me shivers to hear him tell the story of the woman who leaped to her death from the 12th floor.

There's an interesting article in Feed right now that talks about the cinematic innovations in games. It's especially relevant to me because I'm tapping my fingers and surfing the web while my computer laboriously Smacks a 2.5 G .avi file that is the intro movie for the game I'm making. Smacker is a wonderful codec for vector files. It's great for compressing anything done in Flash. It uses delta compression which means that while you get minute file sizes, it's not so good for any cinematic conceits that involve panning (or any other full screen changes). Full-screen changes equal mighty spikes in the data rate (I say informatively).

And just for the record, body odor isn't so bad... Stinky people can be a LOT of fun to be around. Given the right context, body odor is a damn fine thing. And I enjoy the decadence of a Sherman's MCD a couple of times a year. I like to lick the outside before I get down to actually smoking it. The paper tastes of brown sugar. Mmmm.

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07 May, 1999

It turns out that Sauropods couldn't have held their heads upright. The structure of their vertebrae wouldn't have allowed it. Apparently they ate shrubs instead of tree leaves. And-- some guy told me this weekend that he never could imagine how their hearts could pump blood all the way up to their heads.

An interesting article from the Washington Post discussing literary irony in the context of some painfully literal current events.

Some comments from an interview with Derrida bring to mind Diane Elam's interesting book, Feminism and Deconstruction. It's dense. I need to dig it out and read it again in the context of who I am now. Last time I read it I was filled with Impotent Rage and had a shaved head.

New hairdo, new set of preconceptions.

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06 May, 1999

I went to the Archigram show at the SFMoMA on Saturday! It was super. At the start of the exhibition, there was a a dark room full of monitors and video footage of interviews with Peter Cook and Ron Herron, and collages of projects like the Walking City and the Plug-In City; all projected on a series of scrims. There were about four different audio sources running at the same time. I fell into a black beanbag in the centre of the room and let my brain saturate. What's better than an art movement with a superhero?

More delicious Archigram links:

-specific projects (such as those mentioned above, as well as Peter Cook's Prepared Landscape)

-images (some good Japanese Metabolist and Team X stuff too)

-Michael Sorkin on Archigram in Metropolis Magazine

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05 May, 1999

One has to determine one's audience in every instance. It doesn't make sense to try to design for all Users. Not all Users are looking for the same thing. I'm not looking for the same thing as a lot of users. I cheerfully admit that I'm seduced by an elegant, minimal design. I've also fallen hard for the skin and haircare stuff in the new Central Market South. It is REFRIGERATED! What could be niftier? I know it's probably the same old goop just packaged differently and slopped into a cooler thinghy, but in my heart of hearts, I don't care. I have fallen for it. I love the idea of putting fresh strawberries all over my face...

An interesting site (course outline) on information architecture. The course is a graduate level class taught at Carleton University School of Architecture.

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04 May, 1999

A straightforward plea to legitimize the design of information structures and interactions... As opposed to just sort of hoping that a structure or set of interactions will evolve de facto somewhere in the process of production. Sounds simple. Astoundingly difficult for some people to grasp.

As someone with a background in architecture, I can't imagine a more apt metaphor for the design of digital experiences. The considerations and the process are different incarnations of the same ideas:

User navigation- comprehensibility as a whole, user progress must be understood personally (i.e. where she's already been, where she intends to go) rather than with respect to the structure because the structure is not linear, although the user should always understand where she is within the structure (window/ natural light metaphor, i.e. user always understands ordinals, which provides orientation within the structure)

Structure- details of intersections of different media, structural systems and databases, what details are relevant to the user (i.e. what intersections are worth celebrating)

User interface- determines how the user experiences informational structure, e.g. is the structural development process evident in the intended use? Is it relevant? How are the priorities of the user and the designer different, and how does the designer sensitively acknowledge these differences?

I could go on... but I won't. Wait-- yes I will. Just one more free association: Think about the concept of hallways. I think it emerged with the Renaissance? I think it's mostly not a very nice concept and sets the stage for Louis Kahn's bad ideas about servant and served space.

Hmmm.

April