The Errant Æsthete

Venez vite, je goûte les étoiles!

Attributed to French monk Dom Pierre Pérignon upon his discovery of Champagne. It’s typically translated into English as:

Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!

Although Pérignon made important advances in sparkling wine production, a reproducible process for making sparkling wine (of which Champagne is one variety) was actually first described by an Englishman, Christopher Merret, some thirty years before. In a paper presented to the Royal Society, Merret noted that the addition of sugar to wine would result in a second fermentation, which made the wine sparkle.

Continue reading ‘Drinking the Stars’

So much of commerce these days is blind: online shopping, tech-support in Bangalore. We hope there is a person at the other end of the transaction, but it could be a machine; often a not very well programmed machine. The phone-sex industry, however, thrives on being faceless and intensely personal at the same time. Phillip Toledano’s new book Phone Sex (July 2008, Twin Palms) takes us into the boudoirs of nearly 30 phone-sex operators so we see their faces and also hear their stories—each operator gives his or her take on the business.

“I am a straight male who speaks to women. They want me. They want me to talk to them, and to take them to another world. I’m good at it. I’m a pro. A ladies man. I speak to younger women. I speak to older women. I speak both Spanish and English. I have been thrown offers left and right. They want me to meet up and have my way with them, but I keep it only to phone conversations.”

An interview with Invisible Creatures designer, Don Clark, including a tutorial about layering brush textures. [via Link]

Kevin Kelly on a fascinating concept called scenius. As defined by Brian Eno:

Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.

Kelly lists four factors that are important in nurturing scenius:

1. Mutual appreciation — Risky moves are applauded by the group, subtlety is appreciated, and friendly competition goads the shy. Scenius can be thought of as the best of peer pressure.

2. Rapid exchange of tools and techniques — As soon as something is invented, it is flaunted and then shared. Ideas flow quickly because they are flowing inside a common language and sensibility.

3. Network effects of success — When a record is broken, a hit happens, or breakthrough erupts, the success is claimed by the entire scene. This empowers the scene to further success.

4. Local tolerance for the novelties — The local “outside” does not push back too hard against the transgressions of the scene. The renegades and mavericks are protected by this buffer zone. [via link]

Forty-one Senate Republicans stayed in lock step with the oil industry Tuesday as record gas prices have big oil rolling in profits at consumers’ expense. Even as they face another tough election, Republicans in Congress refused to allow a tax on oil companies’ “unreasonable” revenue. — MORE –

An unusually large number of classic characters for children are being freshened up and reintroduced — on store shelves, on the Internet and on television screens — as their corporate owners try to cater to parents’ nostalgia and children’s YouTube-era sensibilities. Everyone from Mickey Mouse, Scooby Doo, Strawberry Shortcake and the Care Bears is being reimagined for the 21st century. “You want a dark, Goth version of Tweety Bird? Have at it,” noted one Warner executive.

Visions for Coney Island Differ: Breathtaking Rides, or Shopping? Whatever the outcome, nostalgia lingers. You can almost smell Nathan’s red hots.

The stunning Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire is due to be completed in 2011 and will tower over the Sears Tower by more than 500 feet. This entire site is breathtaking, including the panaromic views from the 140th floor. [via link]

An absorbing read on the branded university of the future.[via link]

Out of BoingBoing, Alex Holden tells how he made this steampunk Dalek out of junk, shampoo bottles and paint. More on Steampunk Art EA 11/19/07, EA01/27/08

Adbusters.org invites “you to create a flag – free from language and well-worn clichés – that embodies the idea of global citizenship.” Deadline: December 1, 2008. [via designobserver]

Maud Newton’s extraordinary essay, “Conversations You Have at Twenty,” can now be read online at Narrative Magazine. The essay took second prize in the magazine’s Love Story Contest and will be published next year as part of the Cross My Heart, Hope You Die anthology.[via Link]

The stories of a few classic skyscrapers that were never built tell us much about what motivates architects and their clients.

Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Competition
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Berlin, 1921

Chicago Tribune Tower Competition
Adolf Loos (right), Eliel Saarinen (far right)
Chicago, 1922

Office Tower at Grand Central
I.M Pei
New York, 1956

Mile High Illinois
Frank Lloyd Wright
1956

Sino Tower
Paul Rudolph
Hong Kong, 1989

Hyper Building
Paolo Soleri
Mojave Desert, 1996

7 South Dearborn
Adrian D. Smith and William F. Baker Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Chicago, 1998

New York Times Tower Competition
Frank O. Gehry, Frank O. Gehry & Associates and David Childs, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
New York, 2000

EcoTower
Ken Yeang, TR Hamzah & Yeang
London, 2000

Nicholas Carr for The Atlantic has penned what we’ve all been thinking:

“For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price.

As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

Opinions (if you have one) are most welcome. A yeah or nay will suffice as well.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, here’s everything you need to know about the democratic race for president — in eight blessed minutes. Kudos to Slate for winnowing it down to the unvarnished essentials. [Slate]

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Stunning photography of the Space Shuttle lift off from above and below. As close to a religious experience as you can get. [via link]

Now here’s a topic to rachet up your next soiree: Who’s Smarter: Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberger? Opinions welcome and there are plenty to ponder over at the source of this piece at the Times, from Larry and Sergey to Steve Jobs.

Chris Gilmore makes intricate life-sized art entirely out of cardboard. Bikes, microscopes, cars, typewriters, wheelchairs, etc. [via link]

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What could be tantalizing than a few true confessions to while the hours away. Salon’s staff is recommending summer books that transport you to new places without making you go through airport security. {Amen!} Previous weeks featured thrillers and chick lit.

In this third installment, the spotlight is on first-person narratives: a young reporter sets out on ill-advised “American safari” across the West; David Sedaris humorously dabbles with the darker sides of his life; a former British punk recounts her musical youth; an alcoholic leads us through his recovery process; and a writer describes his attempts (via knitting, musical theater and sex) to be the gayest man ever.

Continue reading ‘Summer Reads: True Confessions’

Looking for someplace special to spend the Fourth of July? Foreign Policy investigates five fabulous destinations where a summer getaway is next to impossible. Naturally, their inaccessibility makes them all the more exotic.[via link]

Always worth a look: Jonathan Glancey’s Guardian blog Classics of Everyday Design.

Item No. 17 - The Yale Key

I can’t remember a time, except as a young child, when I didn’t have a Yale key somewhere in my bag or pocket. This is hardly surprising. The Yale pin-tumbler cylinder lock, and the keys that open it, were first patented by Linus Yale Jr (1821-1868), an American, in 1861. An improvement was made in 1865, but ever since the Yale lock and key has been more or less as it was 140 years ago. Today, it opens front doors around the world. [via designobserver]

Reuters award-winning photography team reflecting five years of reporting the war in Iraq.

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