29 May 2009

Skeletons of steel scrapping the sky

'What happened in the city of New York when the skyscrapers was born is that buildings turned from crustaceans, which are supported by their walls to vertebrates supported by their skeleton. But the skeleton had to be made of steel. It's one of the great transforming moments of how we live on earth as human beings.' David McCullough

In Frankfurt we walked past an enormous skyscrapper whose sides were unfinished in patches, revealing a rough coating of concrete the same texture and colour of a nearby church. For a moment, I thought it was deliberate, but the beautiful symmetry was accidental and temporary. Much like life.

22 May 2009

And it's spicy too

I'm a great fan of chili sauces. None more so than Sriracha. There is a charming little article about a brand grown famous not through marketing, but reputation.

14 May 2009

Formative

Today, standing on the pavements during a fire alarm, we talked about movies from our childhood that we felt were the most formative. I mentioned the Red Balloon, a wordless, but dramatic, short film from 1956 that played repeatedly on television in the 70s. The films mixes solitude, joy, bravery and folly and it probably helped form both my melancholic nature and my love of Paris. And you can watch it online here.

5 May 2009

Stop and go

A Night in Hong Kong, stunning stop motion video.

I hate Comic Sans

A short film about the font Comic Sans, in response to Gary Hustwit's film, Helvetica.
Desiree Rogers and her clients, diagrammatically