Ordered a Bowtie

I ordered a bowtie on the online. No returns. Looked like a good tie and the price was right, so there I was shopping for haberdashery on the internet.

It arrived as inconspicuously as possible, but the crime was blatant and it wasn't a pretty sight. It was a pre-tied, clip-in-the-back abomination.

There oughtta be a law against that kind of false advertising.

Data Architecture for Verbal Analogues

The Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus is another thing that makes me wish I had programming know-how to use my information design skills in user-interface stuff. This is a fantastic tool for anyone who is a visual learner with a thing for verbal patterns (i.e., me). Hello, creative tool.

Inspiration: Minimalist Wikipedia Banner

I looked something up on Wikipedia today only to be immediately confronted with a Wiki rarity: a banner ad. Oddly enough, it wasn't intrusive. In fact, it's well designed, maddeningly so considering how little work probably went into it. Granted Helvetica font face promotes itself, being one of the easiest faces ever to read and utilize. Even so, the colorful photo with the grizzled looking mug just got my attention without revolting it away again the way most banners do. There is something to be said for the way the text runs left to right, terminating in Wales's name and pointing the viewer's eye right to his plaintive yet confident expression in what looks like an innovative working environment, albeit of nebulous nature.

The point of the banner is to drum up donations to support the unwieldy user-supported behemoth Wikipedia, founded by Jimmy Wales.

I've mentioned before that I love bands like Spoon, who use minimalism to great effect in their particular creative discipline. I will try to share more examples of "less is more" in the future. That phrase, as an ethic and aesthetic, greatly accounts for the poignance of some of my favorite art, and motivates some of my own work as well.

Inspiration: David Airey's Subscription List

I have been drumming up creative energy for the last couple of weeks, and I have some things I will share soon.

In the meantime, however, I found myself caught in a Twitter riptide today (something that never happens to me, as I am a rather careful swimmer). After clicking, madly and mindless, to follow about eight or twelve different graphic designers' Twitter accounts, I happened across this little gem of a link.

He may have ended his entry title with a preposition, but I am not complaining. I could spend weeks compiling inspiring graphic design portfolios and sites, without achieving this. Good eye David Airey shares his graphic design blog bookmarks.

davidairey.com/design-blogs/

It's not all up my alley. But then, what is?

My Business Papers

I separate the discipline of writing, and the art of writing, and I set them like two irons out to the horizon, to the inconvenient northerly direction of colder moneys. It's been a while since it was my job to write at work, but I find myself again pondering the keys as my fingers linger over their printed plastic concavities. Clicketty-clacketty, the keyboard goes, and I am a train running over the rails. Not one, single, wooden railroad tie is important in itself. Or perhaps each is, but I pass them, take them for granted.

This is business writing; I make business papers. I leave nothing to the imagination. I run everything firmly along the bolted ground. Are these clicking letters noteworthy? Why do I line up these words, like miles behind me, in neatness, in rows, toward a distinct end? They don't make someone think; the thoughts are all had. They can make someone notice but can't make them see. The information is placed here, to go directly there, without mystery.

Is this my creative time, when my words may go where they will go? No. Will more destinations be opened up to the mind than the number of places I am refusing to let it go? No. This is the time when I must write linear thoughts into rectangular formats, bolding the main words, and adding the figures together, till there's nothing left to be thought about, on the subject, no hope but to change the subject to something entirely more interesting.

It takes all the art I can muster not to create - not feel around for inspirations - not grow, not change. Stick to the rails,

clicketty-clack, click-clack,

for the rails go only one

(click-clack)

direction, only one

(click-clack-click) place.

Clicketty-clack, click-clack, click-clack,

and that's my reader's destination,

click-clack, click-clack,

and I will put him to sleep with the swaying (click-clack) of the rectangular four-walled boxcar, with its right-angled, locked doors, and its dusty, uniform furniture.

When my passenger wakes he will wish to step down to the platform and stretch his legs, and thank the sky and the air for still being merely there in every explorable direction. He will want to do anything but ride on a rail. He will seek any activity but reading.

But till said arrival, necessarily, I will clicketty-clacketty-clickingly tick out and away to the hard iron skyline of my business papers.

Dromophilia (Love for the Road)

I will never end my affair with the curves of her California highway,
a strap casually hung over her spring green sundress, I-880 north.

Grassy laces that ripple with the breeze,

Bouquets of liveoaks cascade from her knees

She lies in the baby blue indigo sky,
Her hips and soft elbows rise on both sides,
And each bright white cloudlet is her whisped, loving sigh.

If she would oath never to stray, then by my oath, neither would I.

John Ballard 4/29/10

{ ed. note }

I originally wrote this spontaneously last Thursday while driving I880 N toward Sacramento. Downside of that is that I had to try to funnel my inspiration into a text message, while driving, that I intended to save as a draft. Carefully I word-smithed, with one thumb, glancing down frantically every half-mile, and pressed "Save as draft." My phone replied "Draft Box Full" and my poem was gone. I tried to recreate the moment through dictation, as a sound file on my phone, which was a terrible failure. I am afraid I am not a fan of my own speaking voice. So in truth this is a rewrite, not the original. But it is very, very close, and the differences are more in the articles and conjunctions than the adjectives, verbs or nouns, which my memory preserved nicely for me. So much to say, the spirit of the moment remains intact. It was one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen. Old friend Mr. Paul B.D. McNiel was my Sacramento airport arrival, and can corroborate the previous statement. ~J.G.B.

The Daily Drop-Cap

orry to drop such a simple post on you, but I found something delightful. I was looking for drop-caps (y'know, the big fancy letters at the beginning of classical or industrial text blocks) and I discovered that someone out there is daily meeting this need. The results are beautiful. I recommend giving their site a visit.

---

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{dailydropcap.com}

From Gabe: A Tortoise Housekeeping Issue

Dear members of The Tortoise Initiative,

A continuing dilemma has arisen from the fact that this blog publishes to our individual online profiles. Click here for an example. You'll note that once our feed is published to outside sources, (no doubt a good thing) there is no way to tell which of us authored which post. The dilemma is then whether to allow the ambiguity to continue, or to manually delete posts from sites such as Google when they republish there.

But the dichotomy is false, in that it can be circumvented, as Ali has been doing, tagging her titles "From Ali." This is both a quaint and efficient way of addressing the problem, and I propose we all do the same. Title your posts with a "From," adding each your own name and a hardy subtitle set off by the punctuation-mark colon, as I have demonstrated in this post's title, from here on out. I recognize this demotes our flowery titles to subtitles of a dull series, but such is the cost of greatness, gentlemen and lady.

Just to keep this inspirational on some level, I will add that in my rather fruitless momentary attempt to look into the proper use and history of the colon, I inadvertently caused this timeline [link] to come into existence. As a communications designer and an old soul, I am instantly stopped in my tracks, a child who has found a minutely life-changing new toy. Trivia and distractions abound, branching off in thousands of directions, all neatly arranged for the eye while expansive enough for the curious mind. Enjoy.

Interrupting Moon at Five A-M

The urgent moon awoke me, wide and full, wide and full
The cold bright moon awoke me wide and full
Fin'lly that entire stretch from my lungs to my mouth
Is an indian drum, dry, stretched o'r too much emptiness
Percuss, percuss, thumps throat on hollow chest

The heart beats not at all, must have forgot, I don't recall
The heartbeat doesn't beat, I don't recall
I look into the void where the moon-burn was before
The dusty lime-like drink is only warmed up by the heat
By radiator-wet forehead and feet

Wet drizzle, dry bed, unsettled place to rest my head
Unsettled, restless place to rest my head
Its coolness has been robbed away by discontent dark grey
Its cotton changed to hot rough wool on a sore moon-burned cheek
Throbbing globe, aching sphere, dull refuge keep

The Watch-Spring Metronomadic

Ardent hushed arbors, and
Gardens echo approachers
Sellers of squash seeds and thymes
Trollers of dirt roads to bleach-whitened she-town
Now pluck, tune and strum her taut laundry lines
Till she resonates out in her groves, dells and downs
Knock loose that dust, that fresh cedar smell
Smooth her neck with the cup of your palm, then
Resonate, ciliate the sense on our drums,
Pass o'er her pastures, you fingers and thumbs,
Bootleathern, healers, brushers of stealth-strings
Sneak to her, rescue from chilled retinue
Disquiet her nerve-rooted enamel houses
Her cold posts, winter lamps, and choral white porches
Vibrate those ivories, from placards to gums, and,
Picking out fruit-flowers of things yet to come,
Sing warm songs from elbows, given words by our sons
And dance future daughters in one-two's and three-fours!
'Nowned coolness 'verberates dappled by sun
While we major in C-sharp, three-octave chores
And a quiet, old B-minor-flat nods and hums

Gabriel Ballard, 3/19/2010

Inspiration: "Yr Cherry Bomb" Vid & Double Triple

I know it's old, but I just love this stuff - the music and the visuals. I think it's a remarkable, even textbook example of design synthesis with sound instead of text. The album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, from whence this single comes, was released in 2007.



Yet another incredible work by the ever impressive Double Triple. Looking at their design website makes me pretty much mad with design jealousy. Exception: I already had the minimalistic thumbnail concept drawn up for my own site before I saw theirs. Don't let me pat myself on the back for simple ideas anyone could have conceived. Also, can anyone tell yet, that I am a sucker for bright colors? *Looks around furtively.*

Graphic Design Whim: Musician Crushes

Inspiration

Shopping for shampoo and picking up a prescription for back pain at the local drug store last week, I heard a song by the Dodos over the loudspeakers. It was "Fables," a song I think is somewhat catchy, but I couldn't remember that it was in fact the Dodos who wrote it. In fact, trying to recall the artist was giving me fits of discomfiture. This distraction set me up perfectly to heed the pharmacy background music when the next song came on. As the first bars floated down over the mouthwash and toothpaste aisle, I was ready to lump it away in one of several despicable lite rock of top-40 pop categories. This is my usual way of coping with otherwise unbearably insipid ambient shopping music. But instead I found myself lured by cellos and and a woman's alto singing, "I hope you give yourself up too." I texted myself some of the lyrics so I could look it up when I got home. It gave me goosebumps and I found it very attractive. The song was "What Have I Done" by Anna Ternheim, a Swedish recording artist whose music I hadn't previously heard.

Being that I am male, a musician, and an amateur music critic, it only made logical sense that the sounds of beautiful female voices, belying remarkable female minds, encased in winsome female exteriors might cause me some inspiration. It was only a matter of time before said agitation would have me rattling my way back and forth over a computer keyboard in an effort to type my unrequited admiration out into the vastness of the internet. The result is a series of entries that will be published on my blog, in addition to aforesaid "Decade Music" project, entitled "Music Crushes."

Creation

It didn't seem fit for much literary effort, as the concept is more of a back page magazine feature than anything worth much thought. Besides, with a whim, to over-think is to kill. Rather than merely post pastiches of found photography and music video, I wanted some signature touch of my own. I drummed up quick two-step designs that combine fonts and patterns complementing each musician's style or image (or their own album art, if I feel like it). The first one is published as of this morning [link], and features Neko Case and the new favorite number by Ternheim. Next week's entry will feature Basia Bulat and Jenny Owen Youngs. Other artists sure to be mentioned include Leslie Feist, Zooey Deschanel, and Corinne Bailey Rae.

Mosquito Hawk

Caught a mosquito hawk in my shoe
Put her out on the front porch to fly at the moon
She'd achieved the bulbs over my bed over and over
and below I'd been cooped, ducking her flutter all day

Thought occurred to me
To wonder what she eats,
What she thinks about when she flies at big lights
Does she really eat bloodsuckers,
Or feel hearing or sight,
What's her calling, what purpose? what name?

She bounced off the top of my head a time or two,
Landed on the mirror, landed on the wall,
Alighted on the light fixture and the bedpost and my laundry
She clattered about in the leather of my loafer,
Rattling surprisingly raucous as I closed her in
Confined for a moment, dark for minutes
Battling the hide where I hid her
Then out in the night
in the wild I slid her

I caught a mosquito hawk
In my shoe
Put her out on the front porch to fly at the moon

Gabriel Ballard 2/14/2010