As reported on the BBC News website, UK furniture store Habitat (not to be confused with Habitat for Humanity) used Iran hashtags to drive Twitter users to its products. According to the site, keywords such as “Iran” and “Mousavi” were added to Habitat’s Twitter messages so people searching for those subjects would see the firm’s advertisements. (Thanks to @Ayfray for retweeting this story.)
The first song from the new album by hip Swedish indie rockers Peter Bjorn and John was premiered on Kanye West’s blog yesterday.
Entertainment Weekly has already named its Entertainer of the Year (incorrectly, too — Tina Fey should have topped Robert Downey Jr.), while Sports Illustrated and Time have yet to name their respective Sportsman and Person of the Year — although they’re no-brainers this year (Michael Phelps / Barack Obama).
So how about a font of the year? I don’t mean which font is the year’s best new design — there are other sites for that. No, which font best symbolizes the past year, was used most prominently and/or most effectively. In previous years, I could have named Interstate or Knockout or Meta or, going back, Bureau Grotesque. For 2008, the choice was as clear as the choice for U.S. president. No surprise then that Gotham, the font of 2008, was used most visibly and expertly by the Obama campaign.
It was a brilliant typographic choice. Don’t think type matters? Here’s a great explanation by brand expert Brian Collins, taken from the New York Times website, of how font choice shapes the message: “Put the word ‘change’ in Comic Sans and the idea feels lightweight and silly,” said Collins. “Place it in Times Roman and it feels self-important. In Gotham, it feels just right. Inspiring, not threatening. In the end, typography makes a real difference when it delivers words and ideas that are relevant to people. And for many, that seems to be the case here.”
I've been doing some reading about Gotham, its genesis (quite a young font – designed in 2000 by Tobias Frere-Jones for his Hoefler & Frere-Jones type foundry — it’s based on letterforms from turn-of-the-century signage), and its best uses. And in the tradition of classic typefaces, Helvetica in particular, it is highly adaptable and robust. Like the candidate himself, Gotham can be almost anything you want it to be, or hope it to be.
Here’s a blurb about Gotham from the Hoefler & Frere-Jones website: “Because Gotham’s forms come from the urban environment, the face enjoys a familiarity that’s rare among new designs. From the lettering that inspired it, Gotham inherited an honest and straightforward tone that’s neutral without being clinical, and authoritative without being impersonal. The result is a typeface that is friendly without being folksy, confident without being aloof. Like the ordinary lettering on which it was based, Gotham is simply quintessential.”
And now Gotham is everywhere. In just this past week, while I was on the lookout for specific uses of the font, I saw it in websites from Kia to Dell, new organizations like Feeding America, and it’s being used in the new ad campaign by the Toronto Public Library (and website too). So congratulations Mr. Frere-Jones, Mr. Obama and Gotham users everywhere. May your appeal be long-lasting.
I haven’t come up with a Sign of the Apocalypse in a while because, well, there’ve been so damn many of them. But here’s one from Sarah Palin, from the same speech last week where she talked about visiting the “pro-America” states:
“At those times on the campaign trail when sometimes it’s easy to get a little bit discouraged, when, you know, when you happen to turn on the news when your campaign staffers will let you turn on the news,” she said, prompting laughter from the group. “Usually they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, don’t watch. You’re going to, you know, you’re going to get depressed.’”
In light of Thursday’s tabling of amendments to Canada’s Copyright Act (which you can read about here), I offer two opinions on the thorny issue of copyright in the digital age.
From “Bits, Bands and Books” in the New York Times:
In 1994, Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product — software, books, music, movies — the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to “distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships.”
One of the central ideas of the Copy Left is that the Internet has been a catalyst for re-engaging with the culture – for interacting with the things we read and watch and listen to, as opposed to just sitting back and absorbing them. This vision of how culture works stands in contrast to what the Copy Left calls the “broadcast model” – the arrangement in which a small group of content producers disseminate their creations (television, movies, music) through controlled routes (cable, theaters, radio-TV stations) to passive consumers. Yochai Benkler, a law professor at Yale, argues that people want to be more engaged in their culture, despite the broadcast technology, like television, that he says has narcotized us. “People are users,” he says. “They are producers, storytellers, consumers, interactors – complex, varied beings, not just people who go to the store, buy a packaged good off the shelf and consume.”
A couple of incredible photos accompanying today’s tragic New York Times story, “Parents’ Grief Turns to Rage at Chinese Officials”:
Jiang Guohua, the Communist Party boss of Mianzhu, knelt Sunday to ask parents of earthquake victims to abandon their protest.
Family members at a memorial service for children who were killed by the building collapse at Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan county, Sichuan province.
From an interview with Scrabulous co-founder, computer programmer and matchmaker Jayant Agarwalla published in today’s Now magazine:
“An American fan asked if we can do something that would help him propose to his girlfriend. We set up the board [in Facebook] for him nicely. When she started the game, the letters WILL YOU MARRY ME JANE were pasted on the board, and she had the tiles YESNO on her tile rack. That was it – it was just a few minutes of work, but it was really great.”
From today’s Globe and Mail:
“Strolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman’s voice,” Clive Thompson writes in Wired magazine. “‘Who's there? Who’s there?’ she whispers. I look around but can’t figure out where it’s coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull. Was I going nuts? Nope. I had simply encountered a new advertising medium: hypersonic sound. It broadcasts audio in a focused beam, so that only a person standing directly in its path hears the message. In this case, the cable channel A&E was using the technology to promote a show about, naturally, the paranormal. I’m a geek, so my first reaction was, ‘Cool!’ But it also felt creepy.”
Court TV recently installed the “audio spotlight devices” in ceilings of bookstores to promote the network’s new murder-mystery show. A voice, whispering, “Hey, you, can you hear me? Do you ever think about murder?” was beamed toward customers as they browsed the mystery section in several independent bookstores in New York.
I’ve been watching so much American Idol lately that I can’t help but hear Simon and the other judges in my head as I listen to 19, the debut record of British breakthrough artist and Amy Winehouse-sound-alike Adele. “Too old fashioned.” “Trouble with song choice.” “Pitchy in spots.”
Okay, that last one isn’t true in the least; Adele’s voice — part folk, part jazz and all soul — is one of the strongest and most evocative that I’ve heard in a long time. In fact, she’d easily win Idol — it’s a “singing competition,” as the judges often note, and hers has star stamped all over it.
As a songwriter, however, Adele isn’t quite as successful. Of the 12 songs on 19, all, except for London tribute song “Hometown Glory,” are love songs (or heartbreak songs — the other side of that coin), with several veering from neo-soul towards easy listening.
But this is somewhat excusable; she is a teenager, after all (the 19 in the record’s title refers to Adele’s age), and the album’s high moments show she’s an artist with great potential. “Chasing Pavements” and “Cold Shoulder” achieve a timeless soul quality that has thus far eluded Winehouse. And “Melt My Heart to Stone” attempts to do just that, with a stunning, brassy vocal performance. A winner, indeed. B+
Adele: Cold Shoulder (mp3)
Adele: Melt My Heart to Stone (mp3)
From today’s The Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine:
The fundamental goal of copyright is not to secure profits but to inspire thought. Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution empowers Congress to write laws that “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
From a Reuters story printed in today’s Globe and Mail:
Can’t bear to let Fido rest in peace? This Korean company will clone him
RNL Bio, a South Korean biotech company is offering dog owners the chance to clone their pet through a service that can cost up to $148,000 (U.S.) for a puppy.
“These days, dogs are treated like family members. There are many owners who would rather clone a favourite pet than adopt a new one after it dies,” RNL Bio president Ra Jeong-chan said.
In an article in today’s Globe and Mail, Mitt Romney explains why he has “suspended” his losing campaign for the Republican presidential nomination:
“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win,” Romney told the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a conclave of hardcore conservatives.Disgusting.
“In this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”
The Toronto Raptors have had a knack for finding fan favourites. Last year it was Jorge Garbajosa. The year before that it was the Red Rocket, Matt Bonner (now with the world champion San Antonio Spurs). This year, it’s 27-year-old rookie phenom Jamario Moon.
It’s quite the story. The high-flying Moon, undrafted and unwanted, toiled for years in minor leagues with acronyms you’ve probably never heard of (CBA, USBL, ABA, NBA D-League, WBL), and even spent time with both a team in Mexico and the Harlem Globetrotters. For whatever reason, he barely got a sniff from the NBA, despite his above-the-rim skills, smooth shot, and defensive hops. Until this past off-season when Bryan Colangelo, the Raptors’ genius general manager, deprived of any draft picks, signs Moon to a two-year, rookie minimum deal. Out of nowhere — well, actually, from 1,600-strong Goodwater, Ala. — Super Jamario has burst onto the scene, logging big-time minutes for my club and tracking high on various rookie-of-the-year rankings (see NBA.com and SI.com).
Needless to say, Moon, who just a few months ago was still struggling to get by in the Continental Basketball Association, has looked like the happiest man on the court each game that I’ve seen. No wonder, as reported in a feature on Moon in last weekend’s Albany Times Union:
Moon signed a two-year contract with the Raptors for the NBA minimum, which for rookies is $427,163. Salary caps in the CBA are $120,000 per team. There are 10 players on a CBA roster. You do the math.
From a recent Arts & Crafts press release:
With the help of Reverb, Stars are going carbon neutral on their current U.S. tour. Buy a carbon-offset sticker at a Stars show, and help build clean, renewable energy sources. Proceeds from each sticker will neutralize the CO2 created from 150 miles of driving. You can help fight global warming by purchasing a sticker or a water bottle at a Stars show. For more information go here.
Frontline never ceases to educate and scare the hell out of me. Tuesday’s program, about the Bush administration’s increasing sabre-rattling over Iran, came close to stating that a war against Tehran could unleash another world war.
Don’t believe it? Just ask George W. Bush, who had this to say last week (as reported in Sunday’s New York Times):
Mr. Bush has repeatedly said the administration would not “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran. But during a news conference on Wednesday, the president went further, saying of Iran: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
Al Gore love is in full swing right now, with a new Draft Gore for President push (including a full-page ad in today’s New York Times) and a possible Nobel Peace Prize later this week (the winner will be announced Friday). I’m still reading his brilliant new book, The Assault on Reason, and it continues to amaze me. It’s essentially a history lesson: a reminder of the principles upon which the United States were founded, and how tragically far the Republicans have deviated from them (as they, perversely, wrap themselves in the Stars and Stripes and claim to be more patriotic than anyone else).
But why would Gore run for President again after he got so screwed back in 2000? Vanity Fair’s October issue includes a stunning report on how the media — especially the so-called “liberal” media (including the New York Times and Washington Post) — distorted and manipulated their coverage of the 2000 election in order to paint Gore as a dull, arrogant dweeb compared to George W. Bush (who was often called “a different kind of Republican”). Of particular interest in the report is how the media created the “I invented the Internet” story. Gore never said it, despite papers like the Times and USA Today attributing the quote to him. The distortion became, in Vanity Fair’s words, “a devastating piece of propaganda that damaged Gore at the starting gate of his run.” What’s most shocking is that Gore did have a tremendous input in pushing the Internet into the mainstream.
As a senator in the 80s, Gore sponsored two bills that turned this government program into an “information superhighway,” a term Gore popularized, and made it accessible to all. Vinton Cerf, often called the father of the Internet, has claimed that the Internet would not be where it was without Gore’s leadership on the issue. Even former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich has said that “Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet.”
How does he feel about it all? “I feel fine,” he says, “but, when I say that, I’m reminded of a story that Cousin Minnie Pearl used to tell about a farmer who was involved in an accident and sued for damages.” To paraphrase, at the trial the lawyer for the driver of the other car cross-examined the farmer, saying, “Isn’t it true that right after the accident, you said, ‘I feel fine’?” The farmer said, “Well, it’s not the simple,” before going on to explain that the other car rammed into him, throwing both him and his cow from his car. When a highway patrolman came by and saw the cow struggling, he shot him between the eyes. The farmer continued, “The patrolman then came to my side and said, ‘How do you feel?’...so I said, ‘I feel fine.’”
John Tory, former CFL commissioner (from 1996 to 2000) and current bungling leader of the Ontario PC party (headed, apparently, toward a spectacular defeat in today’s provincial election), interviewed in today’s Travel section of the Globe and Mail:
Have you had any scary, funny or otherwise noteworthy flying or travelling experiences that you can share with our readers?
I was coming back from Calgary from a meeting with the CFL board of governors. Some pranksters had filled my overcoat with cutlery from dinner. When I got to the airport security and walked through, it set off all the alarms — and I was forced to empty my pockets of knives, forks and spoons in front of a crowd of surprised onlookers.
In a bizarre and seemingly bone-headed move, the City of Toronto has approved a plan to “expropriate” the property belonging to the Matador, a rock-and-country club in downtown Toronto. Granted, the club doesn’t have a high-class reputation — I’ve heard it described as a “booze can” on more than one occasion — but it has a long history, playing host to Johnny Cash, k.d. lang and Neko Case, among others. And it’s housed in a classic, 93-year-old building that was originally built as a dance hall for Canadian soldiers billeted for duty overseas during First World War. (It’s got a great sign, too.)
But the city wants to tear it down to — get this — build a 20-spot parking lot. This is where the story gets truly absurd. City officials claim the parking spots are needed for the local businesses, especially the nearby YMCA. But a spokesperson for the Y told the Globe and Mail that the gym “doesn't need and has never requested parking from the city. ‘We are on a streetcar line,’” the spokesperson said.
Expropriation is rarely done. And if it’s done, it's not done to demolish a legendary building to put up a parking lot. Something’s rotten here, and it’s not the state of Denmark. For more information, check out these links:
Save the Matador
Toronto Star article
Globe and Mail article
Spacing article
Salon article on the “environmental disasters” of parking lots
I did something radical last week: I subscribed to a newspaper. The Globe and Mail, to be exact. It’s been years since I’ve had a newspaper delivered to my home. I either get my news online or read the papers (for free) at my work.
But ever since the Globe redesigned and added the new Life section, it’s been far more coveted in my office. I’ve resorted to taking it off people’s desks or grabbing all the sections I want when it first comes in (I get a head start at work by arriving at 8 a.m.). But I’m tired of asking, “Are you done with that yet?” and I’ve made the move back to analog. I know it might not be the most enviornmentally-sound decision, but it feels good to have a newspaper in my bag in the morning, not to mention the small thrill of finding it on my doorstep, especially on the weekend.
And the New York Times made an interesting and much-appreciated decision earlier this week: they’re making all of their articles from 1987 onwards available for free. Previous to this decision, articles that were two weeks old had to be purchased or were available by subscription.
Apparently the Times made the move because of all of us bloggers and our habit of pointing to their articles (something I do just a wee bit). Here’s an excerpt from the story explaining their decision:
What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.
“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com.
