Here is the second edition of the Snore & Guzzle radio hour, this time a collection of waltzes, American primitive, Bachianinha’s, mellow 70s AM gold, gospel soul and classical.
I can’t even pretend to have a cohesive thread for this month’s post. The above photograph is the conference room at the Albers Foundation, home to the work of Josef and Anni Albers. Granted, it was a Sunday when I visited, but the conference room was one of the most tranquilized spaces I’ve ever experienced, and looked out onto a pond through a panoramic window. The foundation was exotically tidy. Molly and Fritz were kind enough to show me around. Fritz administers the landscape at the foundation, and has built a treehouse as an assignment, and a sidewalk inspired by the Goldberg Variations (one of Josef’s favorite compositions). Molly is a former archivist, and a good ambassador for the legacy of Josef and Anni, in addition to being someone that everyone in town seemed to recognize - the liquor store owner, someone walking around town, the barista at the coffee shop….
Finally, I’ve come up with a way to sell prints of posters. If you see an image that you like on this site, I can very likely arrange for a print.
This is a poster we did for Dreamland Faces, who will be playing at the Dryden Theatre on Friday, May 9th. They’ll accompany a slate of rare films curated by Patti Doyen.
Here is an illustration of chanteuse Francoise Hardy. No rhyme or reason for this one. It’s inspired by an image of her taken from the original program for John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966), in which she has a small role.
This is a poster I made for a show that didn’t end up happening. But, I still wanted to make the poster, so I removed the text and blew it up. This one is inspired by the packaging for a set of ping-pong paddles from the 1950s that I saw in the Jam Handy film, American Look. (Gratitude to the wizard Peter Lazarski for help in translating the idea into vectors).
And here is a flyer we did for the band Le Loup, who recently played a very very lively performance at the Bug Jar.
Much of this month was spent concentrating on a series of films oriented around graphic design, and led to the viewing of many, many credit sequences. Here are 2 of my favorite, the first is by Stephen Frankfurt and the second is by Pablo Ferro, who impressed Stanley Kubrick with this trailer for Dr. Strangelove.
The following are some thoughts on Edwin Land & the development of the SX-70 camera, followed by general Snore & Guzzle updates.
“I’ve now taken up that little SX-70 camera for fun and become very interested in it. I’m feeling wildly with it…I’m very excited about that little gadget which I thought was just a toy at first. I was using it to extend my vision and let that open new stylistic paths that I haven’t been down yet. That’s one of the peculiar things about it that I unexpectedly discovered. A practiced photographer has an entirely new extension in that camera. You photograph things you wouldn’t think of photographing before. I don’t even know why, but I find I am quite rejuvenated by it… It’s the first time, I think, that you can put a machine in an artist’s hands and have him rely entirely on his vision and his taste and his mind.”
~Walker Evans, 1973
In February, 2008, Polaroid announced it was closing its instant film factories in Massachusetts. However, they’re not folding up shop just yet. Their enormous log of patents is likely to keep them in business on the sub-licensing alone. The availability of instant film has already bloomed overseas, and boutique shops in Europe and Japan are already overwhelmed with orders.
However, I’m not especially interested in the sustainability of Polaroid’s instant film. I’m much more interested in the man behind the industry, and the science involved with crafting the SX-70 camera. Polaroid was essentially a one-man-band, all played by Edwin Land.
Edwin “Din” Land held 535 patents, second only to Thomas Edison in volume. At age 17, he dropped out of Harvard in order to return to research in New York City. There, he invented a method for creating large sheets of polarized material. (This is much more complicated than you might think. Polarization of light was a well established phenomenon, but the application was long in coming. Polarized sheets involved getting microscopic crystals to all orient to the same angle, and then solidify. Shifting the angle of a prism is one thing, shifting the angle of something you can not physically maneuver.) At age 18, he patented the method, which began a lifelong career of creativity in the sciences.
As a man, he was private and elusive. In his 500 page biography by Victor K McElheny, there are exactly 7 pages of information indexed as “private life.” Here are Land’s thoughts on research…
“You want to be alone, with just a few friends. You want to be undisturbed. You want to be free to think, not for an hour at a time, or three hours at a time, but for two days or two weeks, if possible, without interruption. You don’t want to drive the family car or go to parties. You wish people would just go away and leave you alone while you get something straight. Then you get it straight and you embody it, and during that period of embodiment you have a feeling of almost divine guidance…”
Land was a great polymath and prodigal inventor, who devoted his life to doing “good work.” A short list of his titles and accomplishments might include: inventor of polaroid (used in sunglasses, 3-D glasses and photography filters, to name a few uses); developer of the U-2 spy plane (used to spy on Russia during the cold war); shrewd entrepreneur and director of a company that once employed 21,000 staff; and lastly, lecturer, writer and theorist on the topic of color theory in relation to cognitive science (he was a confidante and patron of Semir Zeki, one of the greatest neurobiologists to study perception and the brain). But mostly he considered himself a scientist. And the SX-70 was his most ambitious theory. When he set out to develop an all-inclusive camera that integrated a dark-room into the body of camera, there was no certainty his hypothesis would ever work.
The SX-70, released in 1972, was the result of 2 decades of research and development, and an estimated 200 million dollars of investment. Land essentially bet the entire company on this project.
The SX-70 was a deceptively simple looking camera, banded by polished chrome, and adorned with fine-grain leather. Inside, it was another story.
The camera was a complex blend of transistors (more than any previous camera), electronics, chemistry, optics and sleek design. Almost every component of the SX-70 represented a new invention: the ground glass viewing lens; the adjustable lens focusable from a shallow depth of 1.2 feet to infinity; the self-contained chemistry of the film itself, which was robust enough to deflect water and cold temperatures; and a flashbar developed by GE specifically for the camera. Unlike previous models, Polaroid relied on the development of their own batteries (which were embedded in each roll) and their own negatives for the SX-70, rather than relying on Kodak (the only North American company to ever do so). The new negatives were contained in the sturdy plastic sleeves we know today — previously they were peel-apart, and the final product often curled. Between the top layer of the film and the backing was an indescribably complex layering of chemicals that was designed to “turn on” the development process, and then “turn off” the developing picture several seconds later (using alkalinity as a chemical stopwatch), permanently fixing the photograph.
Land was what some might call a workaholic. However, that might sound like a trifling word in respects to his actual nature. He might be more accurately described as obsessed. He famously went 18 days without changing his clothes in order to solve a problem. Apparently, at Harvard, his wife took responsibility for writing up lab results because Edwin became disinterested after the problem had been addressed. He never received a formal degree from any institution, although he would later receive honorary degrees from Harvard and MIT (among others). His dedication to work sounds border-line autistic, in the sense that his intense concentration on the task at hand created a serious rift between his interior life and exterior. However, little documentation of his social life exists, and he was adamantly opposed to subjecting his family to public scrutiny. Only his work remains.
Instant photography was designed as the ultimate democratic tool in photography. Anyone could use it, and achieve the same results; an expensive lab was not required, nor proficiency with camera techniques. All it took was a good eye. Note Walker Evan’s observation, “It’s the first time, I think, that you can put a machine in an artist’s hands and have him rely entirely on his vision and his taste and his mind.”
And yet, the development of the cameras would alienate him from much of society. He would reportedly tune out any information not directly related to polaroid, and frequently dismissed colleagues that didn’t share his vision. The irony is that the humanization of photography led to a distinctive misanthropy from the inventor.
However, it’s hard so say what Edwin Land was really like. The quote on research above ends with Land describing the aftermath of the research process, where one has to enter back into society, and attempt to “become human” again. But what did being human mean to him?
Land’s Essays are now out of print. Photographs of him reveal nothing. In this photograph, he doesn’t even appear to be looking at the polarized sheet posed in front of him, he seems to be looking at nothing.
Charles & Ray Eames made a promotional film for the Polaroid SX-70, which was unveiled for its inaugural run in 1972. Here is a clip…
This brings me to some of my own personal work. On April 17th, I’ll be hosting a retrospective of the Eames’ work at the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House. The event is part of a series I curated called “Graphic Design in Film.” Here are some excerpts from a booklet I made for the program…
Oh, and I recently made a radio show. Actually, it’s just a podcast and it’s just over an hour long. I thought some of you may enjoy it. Contact me if you want to know the playlist.
And lastly, here is a poster I designed for the band Ra Ra Riot.
They say the human eye can perceive 10 million colors. Just thought I’d share that number with you. Here is a picture of the wall of polaroids in my room.
This is the 3rd incarnation of the Snore & Guzzle website. In November, the database was hit with a seriously unkind bug that wiped out a good 80% of data. I’ve done my best to recapture most of it, but there may be some inaccuracies between the original site and the current site. Please let me know if you find any suspect information.
The stamps in the new header are real stamps. They are from my Grandfather’s stamp collection, which he compiled during the teens and twenties, and which I later inherited. I don’t recommend removing stamps from an antique stamp collection, but I also wouldn’t recommend recreating the look in photoshop. I’ve always loved the graphic design of stamps. There’s something special about the application of pictures, letters and numbers in a micro-miniature space. There’ s very little room for superfluous detail and whatnot.
Together with my friend Julia Nitzsche, we restored the stamp book. The binding had been carelessly tamped together with duct tape, which we removed and replaced with a canvas binding.
The winter months breed projects like this. And thoughts of many more.
Some of the more recent projects are posted on the left.
There are brief correlating explanations once you open the thumbnail in lightbox.
I did want to highlight two projects. In an ongoing effort to reduce the use of plastic, I wanted to create a canvas bag for groceries. The conception was about as far as I got, and Abby McCarthy took it from there. She crafted a durable grocery bag with virtually no plans. I designed the buttons, but Abby did the rest. Check the photos for details.
The other project was completed quite some time ago. It’s an advertisement for muffins that I drafted for one of my favorite diners. I sent it to them anonymously, but they nevertheless posted it on their wall. As far as I know, they still are unaware of the responsible party.
The rest of the pics are posters that I’ve done for shows since November.
A few more updates…
1. The Society Page (gossip column) has been updated, and now contains the first two columns ever written, previously available only in print.
3. The EWPG is on hold, and no longer exists under the S&G banner. But, it will have its own website shortly, which should suit it better.
4. There are several new mp3s posted, and more soon to follow.
5. All the images on the “design” and “photography” page should be easier to navigate. Once you open an image in lightbox, you can navigate forward and backward with the arrow keys or by clicking the corresponding buttons that appear.
I was recently reminded of a book proposed by Nicholas Gurewitch. In 2005, he wrote to me about flying dreams…
“I’ve been talking with people about it lately, and everyone has a different strategy. Some people hold their breath and levitate slowly from the earth. Some people simply jump really, really far, and it simply feels like flying. Some people jet up like Superman. I once discovered, in my childhood, that you simply had to stand in a doorway and look upward.
No pressure to make one or anything, but I get a kick out of imagining a book with detailed diagrams that describes each distinct method of dream flight. Diagrams would be Davinci-like, possibly in pencil, with mathematical descriptions of trajectories, etc.”
And further. A passage from the Swiss writer Robert Walser, excerpted from his short story “Winter.”
“Recently, I dreamed I flew over a round, fragile sheet of ice, as thin and transparent as a windowpane, and curving up and down like glassy waves. Beneath the ice, spring flowers were growing. As if raised up by a spirit, I floated back and forth and was pleased by the effortless motion…”
Perhaps a project for next Winter.
While you browse, here are a few more sounds to accompany you.
In December of last year, this website took a hit from which we are still reeling. A virus wiped out a good chunk of data, and then an attempt to restore things wiped out an even bigger chunk. Alas, we are now trying to rebuild the site and - if all goes well - it will be better than ever before. Expect evolution. Thanks for your patience and please check back soon to see progress. I imagine the official re-launch date will be February 1st, and until then the site will remain a beta version. I will send a notice when Snore & Guzzle is back up on its feet.
October has been characterized by a strange and unusual number of coincidences and interconnections.
I was reading Michael Pollan’s, A Place of One’s Own, which references the book, Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. His description of this book piqued my interest…but not enough to track it down. Shortly thereafter, I was doing research in a library dedicated to film and photography and this title jumped out at me randomly. The book is more related to philosophy and literature and was written by a French scholar whose background is in the sciences. Yet, there it was, in the photography library. Back to this in a moment.
It’s Apple season in the Finger Lakes region and the orchards are heavy with red and green apples. I went apple picking…twice. And it made me think of another book by Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire which has one of the finest descriptions of apples I’ve ever read:
“Slice an apple through at its equator and you will find five small chambers arrayed in a perfectly symmetrical starburst—a pentagram. Each of the chambers holds a seed (occasionally two) of such a deep lustrous brown they might have been oiled and polished by a woodworker.”
I like how it starts the sentence with the word “slice.” Any sentence that starts with the word slice already has my attention.
I went apple picking with my friend Abby, and we brought a block of sharp Vermont cheddar cheese out into the orchard. There were two big furry dogs guarding the orchard from deer and they followed us around while we collected apples in the basket. The cheddar and apple combo reminded me of Phil Davis’ Top 10 list, which I am only now beginning to appreciate. Speaking of which, The List of 1,000 Things that Quicken the Heart is now… Done. There are new lists from Saraswathi Anna Subbaraman, Megha Barnabas, Tyler Brogan, Danielle Wingerden, Christina Myers and Katherine Stathis.
A big thank you to everyone who contributed — I thoroughly enjoyed reading every single entry. It took about 2 full years to complete (across 2 different residences, 2 websites and several different computers), and was done entirely by word-of-mouth. My plan is to print the list on scrolls of paper, roll them up, and distribute in old glass soda bottles. However, in the meantime, I will continue to collect lists. It’s too much fun to stop now. But the name of the list will change. It will now be called, “10,000 Things that Quicken the Heart.”
Also in October — after many months of consideration — I put together a mix for friends of Sleepytime, or Naptime songs. I made a prototype last winter, (the cover of which can be seen here), but it took about a year to hone it to the version that now exists. The cover is a snippet of an image from a matchbox label. The original size is about 1/4 of an inch large. Here is the cover, and here is the tracklisting. I’d be interested to know what other folks would put on a naptime mix.
While considering songs for the naptime mix, I was re-listening to songs by Louis Armstrong. Ultimately, I discluded all brass sounds from the mix, but I came across a song that closed a loop that had long been open.
Over the summer, I was listening to some records by M. Ward and I came across a song called “Let’s Dance” on his album, The Transfiguration of Vincent. This song opens with a few bars of a tinny-sounding piano. I knew that I had heard the melody before, but after filing through a number of suspects, I could not place the origins. Finally, while re-listening to the Big Band recordings of Louis Armstrong, I came across, “If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight,” and things clicked. The solo piano interlude is sampled throughout M. Ward’s song. (And not credited on the liner notes, by the way) “If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight,” is a beautiful, downbeat, late-night jazz song and — despite the ellipses in time — fits in nicely with the mood of Ward’s ballad. Oh, and only in retrospect did I notice that the lyrics for “Let’s Dance” come from David Bowie’s version! It’s a nice antidote to Puff Daddy’s sampling (”Been Around the World”) of Bowie’s song.
For work work, I’ve been doing research on Charles & Ray Eames for a film series on graphic arts. Composer Elmer Bernstein - friend, colleague and confidante of the Eames - did the majority of the music for their industrial films. I converted some of these tracks for the mp3 section.
Another project I’ve been working on is a screening of F.W. Murnau’s FAUST (1927) at the Dryden Theatre. We’ve booked the Willem Breuker Kollektief — a 10 piece jazz ensemble from the Netherlands — to perform a new score for the film. The new score brings some welcome lightness and comedy to Goethe’s well known story; I had the opportunity to design a new poster for the event, and I was hoping to do something like minded. The film — and any publicity related to it — is otherwise heavily mired in dark, gothic German imagery, and I wanted to create something with the opposite personality. Originally, I was hoping to use a black ink illustration on a red background, but ended up using paper cut-outs.
The Kollektief plays Tuesday, November 6th, 2007, at 8 p.m.
There will be much more to report in December, but for now, I’ll leave you with a quote from Poetics of Space.
“When a poet tells me that he ‘knows a type of sadness that smells of pineapple,’ i myself feel less sad. I feel gently sad.” (Gaston Bachelard)
Some big news to report. But, to get you in the mood, a little music.
Last Friday, my friend Kelli Shay Hicks and Kyle Hamlett (from the band Lylas) played live on Doug Schulkind’s “Give the Drummer Some” program on WFMU. This is a great show, and I’m a devoted listener, so take a moment to check out Kelli’s performance, or some of the archived programs. I re-sampled a single song from her performance for your listening pleasure. It’s a cover of Jimi Hendrix’ “May this be love,” a song that Kelli confesses to having loved since high school. There’s an unusual story about Doug’s show and another musician, that
I’ll relate in a moment.
Now, ahem…The List of 1,000 Things that Quicken the Heart is almost completed. Thanks to Molly Wheeler, I just posted list number 98, bringing the total list to 980. Two more entries will complete the List of 1,000 Things that Quicken the Heart.
To inspire people, here are 2 more lists from myself…
10 (more) Things that Quicken the Heart of Michael Neault
10. Cyrk posters
9. Really soft grass
8. Small gauge film projected in unlikely places
7. Bedtime stories
6. Donuts that are not from a chain
5. Water reflecting shadows on other surfaces
4. Sleeping in sleeping bags when you’re not camping
3. Old time radio programs
2. Jellyfish at the aquarium
1. Crispin apples in autumn straight from the tree
And as a complement to this list, here is:
10 Trifle Annoyances that Irk the Heart of Michael Neault
10. Santa Fe, the typeface
9. Synthesized strings in recordings
8. Pill-y sweaters
7. Olive Garden decor
6. Velour
5. Cheap spaghetti
4. Seaweed
3. overzealous dog owners
2. Softball
1. Bottle returns
Feel free to contribute your own irksome lists in the comments section.
In other news. A new gossip column has been posted on the Society Page. Also, Arthur Magazine featured Becky Stark and Lavender Diamond on the cover of their renaissance issue. Snore & Guzzle was fortunate enough to have the first interview with Becky back in 2003, when she was performing primarily solo. This interview was published in a zine I was doing called Or-Else. For no particular reason, I sent an issue to Doug Schulkind, which included a CD of Becky’s music. I really liked his show, and thought he might enjoy the music as well. I was not expecting to hear anything back, and I didn’t. Until 3 months later… My friend Jason called me and said, “I was just listening to WFMU and some DJ said they were looking for you!” Apparently, Doug had received the CD, enjoyed it, but lost the magazine and all contact information and was looking to re-connect.
I’ll leave you with a quote from designer Paul Rand that I heard in the documentary, Conversations with Paul Rand.
“Art is not a goal. You don’t say, ‘I’m going to do some art.’ You just do whatever it was you were going to do. But you never call it art… Art is when you’re lucky.”
Since the site re-launched on July 30th, life has been bustling. I went on a road trip out west with my friend Wei, and posted a few select polaroids in the photography section. There is one picture we shot at Crater Lake, Oregon. The color doesn’t come across as well as I’d like at 72 dpi, but you’ll get the idea. They say that at the dawn of color processing, Kodak sent apology letters to their patrons, stating that they were having problems with balancing the blue. Because the blues are so hyper-real, they thought they were mistaken with the chemical color balance. No one had ever seen color photographs of Crater Lake before. It may be the bluest place on Earth.
Here is Wei looking at that Polaroid, while it was developing…
I like the scientific reasons for its blueness (which makes me think of William Gass’ On Being Blue). According to the park’s website:
“The dramatic color of Crater Lake is the product of its great depth, the purity and clarity of its water, and the way light interacts with water. Water molecules absorb the longer wavelengths of light better (reds, oranges, yellows, and greens). Shorter wavelengths (blues) are more easily scattered than absorbed. In the deep lake, some of the scattered blue light is redirected back up to the surface where we can see it.
Since the lake is filled almost entirely by snowfall, it is incredibly pure. Sunlight is able to penetrate the waters of Crater Lake to great depths. Researchers using an instrument called a “Secchi disk” can easily determine lake clarity. They simply lower the 8-inch black and white disk into the water, and measure the depth at which the disk is no longer visible from the surface. For most lakes, readings deeper than 100 feet (30 meters) are rare, but on June 25, 1997, scientists recorded a world record clarity reading of 142 feet.”
The rest of the month was filled design-related activities. The poster concepts for the past 3 shows have all yielded curious stories and put me in strange situations. Here’s the story…
For the show on August 6th, we had 3 different bands, all completely unrelated styles; thrash-synth-punk, rock & roll and bluegrass pop. I wanted something that was going to reflect the intensity of Childbite, the playfulness of Arrah and the Ferns, and the 70s-ishness of The Sister Lovers. My original idea was to find a photograph of Bjorn Borg, the sartorial inspiration for Richie Tenenbaum (spec what I mean here. I found a ridiculous autobiography by Borg, but I couldn’t find the perfect image of him. However, I found a great overhead shot with Jimmy Connors. He’s grounded, and the sky is framed out, as if it were from the referee’s perspective. I like how the frame is completely filled with the grass. For the design, I reversed Connors direction in order to direct the eye and cropped the photo for balance. Take a look.
We had a last minute booking of the Japanese minimalist pop band, Lullatone. I’ve always admired Lullatone’s design sense, and their band photo is one of my favorites. The photo portrays Shawn and Yoshimi, the two musicians comprising Lullaton amidst a shower of colorful raindrops. Yoshimi stands in the foreground holding a sign that says, “Lullatone,” written with a schoolgirlish, sans-serif type. Shawn stands in the back ground with a blue umbrella and a sign with a raindrop symbol and a musical note. There is an equal sign between the two. The sign is a neat little semiotic device and creates another, lyrical dimension to the design.
For Lullatone, I wanted something spare, fun, and reflective of their music, but not a ripoff of their own design sense. I tossed around some ideas with my friend Nicholas Gurewitch and Jon Moses over an extended lunch, and we came up with something that (I think) is effervescent, coy and bold. Nick did the illustration, and I did the layout. Originally, we were going to screenprint on foam, but had to re-strategize due to deadlines. The final product is fine-art printed with an Epson inkjet printer. Printing was done by Museum Photographics, who occupy a studio in the Cascade District. This printing company is run by one gentlemen, who is a former conservator at the photography museum where I work. After being fucked by Kinko’s one time too many, I vowed to never ever return. We made posters and postcards for the show and the final design looks like an advertisement for an inscrutable European bathing product.
The last design for this month, was also the most intensive. Croquet Shows is hosting YACHT, Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend on August 26th. In the pitchfork preview of this tour, they said something to the effect of, “Expect lots of bright colors.” I’m not sure what that means. Are they suggesting that these bands have a predictable color palette? I’m not really sure what that would be, but I guess we’ll find out. Like Lullatone, YACHT has a keen sense of design and identity – I believe he doubles as a designer. So, it was important to create a poster that was not piggybacking on something previously established, but not to abandon it completely. For this show, the vision was to create a feeling that I can’t really put into words. You’ll just have to look at the poster. However, actually capturing this feeling turned into quite a task.
Recently, at a junk shop, I came across some vintage crocheting magazines from the 1970s. The “fashion” spreads were excitingly amateur and garishly eye-catching. For this show, I wanted to find a vintage visual featuring homespun fashion, similar to what I saw in the crochet magazines. My intention was to find something that was over the top, but not so over the top that it would be implausible to find something similar in today’s fashion. For visual research I turned to the always-reliable downtown public library. Starting with the reference desk, I asked the librarian for “vintage knitting publications from the 1970s.” There wasn’t too much from that era because apparently, they pulled up short in circulation. The librarian said, “They just weren’t all that popular.” From there, she suggested Vogue and McCall’s, but I wasn’t looking for something middlebrow or professional. She said, “Oh, you want something tacky.” Well, not exactly. In the end, I looked through many DIY short-run publications, (including some on Macrame and Bargello), Sears catalogues from the 60s and 70s, and finally, magazine clippings from their “costumes” folder in the “image collection.” All told, I probably looked through a couple thousand images. It was tough to narrow it down because there was so much rich material, but I finally selected the following image because of its strange clash of aesthetics. The image is from an advertisement for a woman’s sweater, but the original ad is a peculiar combination of collage, kitsch and pencil colorization. I think the final product is 70s meets 20s vis-à-vis the aughts. Thanks to Christian Schimke of Form Collective for some keen consultations.
Here is the final product:
Here are a few rough designs that didn’t make the cut:
I’m off to Nashville to do research at the country music hall of fame, returning just in time for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Home Movie Day at the Dryden. You can read about other things that happened this past month in the Society pages. We’re getting ever closer in my quest to find 1,000 Things That Quicken the Heart. There are now, 900 things that quicken the heart. I’m currently working on some new music posts, so expect to see some fresh material by the end of the month.
There are many new updates to report. But first, a daydream.
Sometimes I dream about a unified hi-fi system that would be amplified throughout the city where I live. High-end European speakers would be installed in all the trees, cafes and markets; even inside office buildings. The PA would be managed from a sequestered room in my house. I would have total DJ control. I feel like it would be a good thing for the city.
I like to imagine the sounds being piped throughout the city networks, binding everyone together, not unlike the way everyone feels when someone very famous is assasinated. My first selection would be The Mamas and the Papa’s “Twist & Shout.” The Mama’s and the Papa’s have been my own personal soundtrack for the past couple months. They’ve been setting the mood of the world for me. In “Twist & Shout,” John Phillips transforms the Lennon/McCartney composition into something beyond a very good pop song. His voice is detached and cool, yet sensual, with heat inside, and when he says the words, “move a little closer,” he really means it.
Stream the song…
Here’s what new at Snore & Guzzle:
1. The Society column for August has been posted and there is chatter of haircuts, visits to the country and bowling.
2. There is a new addition to the mp3 section. I’ve been wanting to post something about the soundtrack for The Guatemalan Handshake for the past several months, and I finally got in touch with the appropriate parties to make it a legit posting. There are some very good songs posted here, including tracks from Gretta Cohn, David Wingo and a very special song by Danny Kaye.
3. Some interesting design work came my way. But more on that further down…
4. The List of 1,000 Things that Quicken the Heart has been updated. New lists from Sarah Joy Gackle, Surly Tran, Adriane Smith and Rachel Cerkovnik.
We did lots of shows with Croquet in August. Here are some pictures.
Here is a publicity photo I did for my friend Joel.
Here is a picture of Jona from YACHT having his hair cut by Angel, from Dirty Projectors.
After many many months of planning, our 1980s series is finally playing at the Dryden. In support of the series, I worked with Peter Lazarski on developing a flyer and t-shirt. My initial idea was to develop an illustration of someone shade-tipping and use that image as a micro-logo. However, Peter had a better idea. He came came up with the concept of developing a couple dozen iconic 80s images. The series is called “Music, Fashion & Culture in the Films of the 1980s,” so we wanted something that was related directly to the films, but also something that would relate to culture as well. We collaborated on which icons we should use, and Peter made vector images of our selections. I’m not sure how he does it, but Pete really nailed some of these icons. Shirts will be available soon.
In other design news, I was challenged to make the best Belle & Sebastian mix in the world. To accompany the mix, I designed a cd cover that imitates their own artwork. The photographs I used came from about six different books, and one yearbook. I knew exactly what style of photo I wanted, the only problem was: there was no way to do a search for it. I wanted grainy images of scholastic european youth. So, I just started browsing through the George Eastman House photo library. I found most of what I was looking for in a book called, Young Hungary.
“My conviction is that we can say excellent things without using a barbarous vocabulary: lucidity is the sovereign politeness of the visitor. I do my best to achieve it.”
This is a quote from French entomologist Jean Henri Fabre, who wrote these words more than a hundred years ago. There are several layers to this statement. At once, he’s speaking from the perspective of a writer, but also that of an environmentalist.
Fabre was often referred to as the “incomparable observer.” He was known for his patience in the field, and considered “time” to be a scientific tool, just like a microscope. He would sit by the pond for hours watching the water insects and trying to glean information about their tiny existence.
The curious thing about this statement is his transposition of language and nature. His reference to the “visitor” makes me think about his dedication to the preservation of nature, but here, he is applying it to the environment of language. It’s as if he were comparing language to virgin wildlife, and comparing writing to that of man, traveling through that land.
Yet, morally, he suggests nothing more than “lucidity.” Lucidity, as I interpret it, suggests lightness and clarity. He also speaks of “politeness.” For most of us, it’s a bygone ideal, and here it comes off as understatement, but it’s
interesting word choice—to say the least.
This is the front page of the latest Snore & Guzzle evolution. The site is a work in progress, so please check back for developments. Many of the topics from the previous site have carried over, but some have been lost, or pruned in the transfer.
However, there is a trove of new content…
1. New gossip added to the “Society” page
2. Two new stories in “Books”
3. The electronic word preservation guild (“EWPG”) has been reorganized for easier browsing
4. New posters and crafts have been added to the “Design” page
5. Subscribe to the site via RSS feeds
6. “Mp3” blog now un-privatized + new content
7. The list of 1,000 things that quicken the heart is growing
In honor of the new site I’ve indulged myself in writing about Monsieur Fabre, who is a writer I greatly admire. You often hear the phrase “word choice,” well, Fabre knew how to choose words. And he took the time to do it correctly. I hope to write further on this insect-loving scribbler, but for now, this should serve as a teaser.
“The eggs of certain warblers are tinted with an exquisite carnation, like that of
roses still in bud.” ~ from Souvenirs Entomologiques, 1891
However, it’s hard so say what Edwin Land was really like. The quote on research above ends with Land describing the aftermath of the research process, where one has to enter back into society, and attempt to “become human” again. But what did being human mean to him? 
