civic humanism

i tore this page out of the november real simple
last time i was at the doctors office...

the way i see it

i read this quote (upside down) standing in line at starbucks the other day. i liked it so much that i debated asking the barista for that cup in particular (it looked to be the tall size...) and thought about just taking a pen out of my purse and writing it down. i did neither. thankfully, it just happened to be the cup he grabbed.

hopkins holiday cards cont.

glass half full

i was assigned this quote for a little alignment study in typography. the document had to be 8.5 x 11 with 2 inch margins, a standard red background, and only 24 point futura book. elements to play around with? the text can be black and white, and use different weights. i was bummed that i got a quote that seemed so negative. (and inaccurate. i like to think that all graphic designers love what they are doing.) but i went with it.

by the time i got to version 18, i was starting to loose my ability to distinguish between arrangements that worked well and arrangements that just work. cathy came over last night, so i snatched the opportunity to show them to another set of eyes. (it's important to seek the perspective of a sculpture major every once in a while...) and when i told her i didn't like the quote, she was suprised. she said that wasn't how she interpreted it at all. she thought it was really empowering. that it wasn't accusing designers of secretly hating design, but instead that they want their design to be doing bigger things. hmm. i hadn't thought about it like that. my glass was half empty.

after that i figured i should probably google scott stowel. (i don't know why that wasn't the first step. sometimes adobe just sucks you in and you forget about things like, say, research.) turns out he's the owner of open (um, internship! please!) the group responsible for the design of my favorite good magazine. (which, on a side note, now has mini good "field guides" each week at starbucks that you should check out...) and just like that, glass half full.

summer slices of life: sunday

“We fancy it rhetoric when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kinds, rich men, poets, who are not.”

“I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, - but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the hear appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.”

“We must go alone. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and I have all men’s. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or foly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must be not mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock once at thy closet door, and say, “Come out unto us.” But keep thy state; come not into their confusion.”

exchange

jackie and i have set up an exchange system of sorts. i'll make sure she has some art in her life (not that she struggles to fit in the artsy side or anything...) and she'll make sure i have some good old liberal arts in my life (because lord knows that is sort of missing from mica.) together, we have the best of both worlds.

in the first round of our summer exchange, i gave her boys of baraka, a copy of a james baldwin story i read in critical inquiry, the latest issue of the urbanite (tackling crime and violence in cities), and a slew of cds that i meant to send her months ago. the truth is, i need her mind on this stuff too. i reached a point this year where overload stopped being a good thing, and started to make me shut down. instead of feeling energized about all the possibilities, i felt stuck. i need jackie's over-analyzing action on this one.

and in exchange she gave me some fun things to read. the writings of robert motherwell and a reading called "value and meaning." (what more is there, really?)

so tonight i sat down and started in on it. epiphanies x 100. thank you, jackie.

i've been noticing things lately. like, i've been to i don't even know how many tigers games in my life, and suddenly i am bothered by the comerica park microcosm created in the city of detroit. i notice the predominately white crowd (which i happen to be a part of...) and i wonder why the african americans i see are either (1) outside the gates begging for change, (2) working the concession stands for minimum wage, or (3) playing center field. there is very little mixing. maybe that's what bothers me most. this separatism seems to only be defacto segregation. (like my brother's baseball game yesterday at southfield lathrup. how did we get to today, to where we can have such insanely segregated schools and cities?) i guess that's just society. i should shrug it off. so it goes.

but that kind of sucks. usually when my mind goes in too far in that over-analyzing direction i stop myself. there have been times at mica when i've brought up diversity on campus and have been challenged. and i don't know whose ignorance to blame (me or them...) but i am too much of a people pleaser to continue to push that button. even when class discussions turn into diversity debates, i sort of envy the people who are blind to it all. the people who have no worries and wonder why everything has to be about race. and that's where i've been stuck wondering if there is any merit to thinking things should change. there's a fine line between the way things are and the way things could be. and when you operate in that middle ground, it would be stupid not to question your motives for action. sometimes the trust i have in my own truth is not enough. and i need to look for outside reassurance/motivation/inspiration. something that always seems to come in due time.

"the greater the diversity that gets unified, the greater the organic unity; and also the tighter the unity to which the diversity is brought; the greater the organic unity. a monochromatically painted canvas would show a high degree of unity, but since no diversity of color, form, or theme would thereby have been unified, it would not possess a high degree of organic unity. thus a resultant organic unity depends of two things, the degree of diversity and the degree of unity to which that diversity is brought. the task of achieving organic unity is difficult because these two factors tend to vary inversely and so pull in opposite directions. the greater the diversity, the harder it is to bring to it a given degree of unity. something has intrinsic value, i suggest, to the degree that it is organically unified. its organic unity is its value." - robert nozick, "value and meaning"

the "value and meaning" chapter, excerpted from "the examined life," also had some quality connect in context quotes.

"value involves something's being integrated within its own boundaries, while meaning involes its having some connection beyond these boundaries. the problem of meaning itself is raised by the presence of limits. thus, typically, people worry about the meaning of their lives when they see their existences as limited... to seek to give life meaning is to transcend the limits of one's individual life."

"meaning can be gained by linking with something of value. however, the nature of the linkage is important. i cannot give meaning to my life by saying i am linked to advancing justice in the world, where this means that i read the newspapers every day or week and thereby notice how justice and injustice fare. that is too trivial and too insubstantial a link. (still, knowing external things and understanding how they are valuable may constitute a nontrivial link.) the greater the link, the closer, the more forceful, the more intense and extensive it is, the greater the meaning gotten. the tighter the connection with value, the greater the meaning. this tightness of connection means that you are interrelated with the value in a unified way; there is more of an organic unity between you and the value. your connecton with the value, then, is itself valuable; and meaning is gotten through such a valuable connection with value."

so much to process. just starting to squeeze out that sponge...

good words.

emblems

most nights are spent waiting for something to happen. by that i mean something to justify your existence. and by that i mean a way to make life better – even if just for one night – because everyone needs to sleep. well, not everyone. and those that don’t, spend most nights waiting for something to happen.

it rarely does. so you stop waiting and starting thinking. of a way to fix things – and by this i mean control. weeks/years/records/bands/apartments later, when you finally realize that control is a lark and no one else gives a rat’s ass, things fall apart completely.

that’s when you realize simple is good, and it’s time to get some sleep. (or) that’s when something happens.

matt pond PA
from the emblems liner notes