Warnings, Warners and Warnees

The gates are closed tight and triple shackled with (anti-snap, anti-bump, anti-drill, anti-extraction and anti-pick) locks and fortified with around the clock state-of-the-art electronics that are set to alert the long arm of the law at the first sign of trespass. But traditional wisdom holds that warning signs are required; as if they were a critical element in a comprehensive process of keeping the unauthorized at bay.

Warnings are perplexing things. So of course I felt it my duty to do an extensive, detailed, highly scientific investigation in my mind.

Types of Warnings
There are 7 different types of warnings: 1) Needed. There are honest, valid warnings of potential danger and impending doom. These include shouts like "Watch out for that falling piano that you're standing under because you're about to get squashed" (often shortened to "Watch out!") 2) Vain. Some tell only of a sense of self importance meant only to impress – like one posted on a gate or wall that doesn't really hold anything of value but the owner would like people to believe there is. 3) The Bluff. Example: home security protection signs on the front lawn of a premises not actually equipped with home security protection equipment. 4) Granny State. Some warnings are legislated postings, placed in order to inform a seemingly brainless public of common sense advice. 5) Derriere Protection. Warnings meant not for the well being of others but merely to satisfy fears of law suits. 6) Do That and You're Toast! Others are messages delivered in a blowhard fashion – a tough guy message of things to come if certain conditions are not met. A common response to which is often, "Oh yeah? Try it!" or "You and whose army?" And finally, 7) Satirical. There are those postings that are clearly meant as humorous, lighthearted parodies. "Warning! Attack Cat!" and "Danger! This dog has a gun and refuses to take his medication!" signs come to mind.

Types of Warnees
There are three ways people will react to warnings: 1) Adventurers. There are those lurking who would not just ignore warnings but take them as a challenge. They do things just because they're not supposed to. If there hadn't been a warning these lurkers would be happily doing something else. You try to warn them but there they go doing exactly what you warned them not to do. So you stop warning them and then something happens and what do they say? "Why didn't you warn me?"

Some defiers of warnings take out their frustrations on the very wall that blocks their way. This is evident in practically every urban setting. Their writing is in an ancient language called graffiti; one that combines logographic and alphabetic elements – reminiscent of the hieroglyphs of 3500 BCE Egypt. These inscriptions are often symbolic of petulant attitudes, tantamount in nature to a Monty Python taunt and are not, as commonly thought, an expression of their rebellion but perhaps more of a testament to their impotence. 2) Scaredy Cats. Then there are those who are excessively fearful and heed every warning, cringe at every expression of authority. These are the people who need and live for the superfluous posted flotsam of dire comings. Gullible, saucer shaped eyes take in every exclamation mark. Babes; all. Hiding under the covers in fear of life because nothing is without inherent danger. 3) The Indifferent. This describes myself. It's a rare time that I come across a scene and look for warnings that others have left. And when they are there I'll notice but would gladly live without most. I prefer the living in ignorance thing.

Indifference is bliss. It really is. Or not. Then again, who cares?

“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
per
G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE”
― Mark Twain

Minimalizing (Not Minimizing) The Classics

"I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am."
― Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

“Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.”
― Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon

“In front of them was the Square, containing a considerable quantity of inexpensive vegetation, enclosed by a wooden paling, which increased its rural and accessible appearance; and round the corner was the more august precinct of the Fifth Avenue, taking its origin at this point with a spacious and confident air which already marked it for high destinies.”
― Henry James, Washington Square

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I had a dream. All the designers in the world and all the people in the world that look at what designers do woke up one morning and agreed that textures are cheesy, drop shadows are to be dropped, ghosting is dead, fancy borders are too confining, and adding a glow to something is like putting lipstick on a pig – in fact, photoshopping anything is crime against nature. This would be a true nightmare for some, but we may be inching closer to it becoming a reality, or at least recognized as the difference between good and amateur design. With all the talk about minimalism and flat design these days it almost seems like you're an axe murderer who hides their mother's walker if you do anything to tart up a design. (The hate-on folks have for skeuomorphism these days is a taste issue, comparable perhaps to catching someone entering a folk festival with a disco ball.)

In the dream I secretly rejoiced that I would never again get a client requesting a day glow, fun fur background for their ad, or a pink faux leather texture for their logo.

I say secretly because one always wants to please but it's hard doing artwork when you're gnashing your teeth...

Top 3 Classic Comedy Tributes

Ethel Mertz: I refuse to go anywhere with someone who thinks I am a hippopotamus.
Ricky Ricardo: Lucy, is this true?
Lucy Ricardo: No, I just implied that she was a little hippy... though she has got the biggest potamus I've ever seen.

Basil: [Sarcastically] Rosewood, Mahogany, Teak? 
Mr. Leeman: I beg your pardon? 
Basil: What would you like your breakfast tray made out of? 
Mr. Leeman: I don't really mind 
Basil: Are you sure? Fine! Well, you go and and have a really good night's sleep then, I'm hoping to get a couple hours later on myself but I'll be up in good time to serve you your breakfast in bed. In fact if you can remember to sleep with your mouth open you won't even have to wake up. I'll just drop in lightly buttered pieces of kipper when you're breathing in the right direction! if that doesn't put you out!

Ralph: If any of the Racoons ever get sick, it'll be my responsibility to go and visit them.
Alice: Oh, that is a very important responsibility, Ralph. You better start now and find out what the visiting hours are at Bellevue.
Ralph: That did it, Alice - that did it. You have just broken the camel's back with that straw. You have ridiculed my brother Racoons. You have just made fun of something very big that's close to my heart.
Alice: The only thing big that's close to your heart is your stomach.

(11" X 17" poster format...)

Have been working on minimalistic formatting, type character selection and personality graphics in Illustrator. What better way to do that than to pick three of my fav sitcoms from my youth? Okay, John came in a bit later than Lucy and Jackie, but that wasn't his fault. Happy to have grown up with these three around. They don't make 'em like that anymore...

Talent: Energy + Direction = Vitality

Talent is energy. Brainpower fueling industry. It allows progress. You won't find talent on the stock market. But you'll find evidence of its work there. In success stories.

Talent is direction. It travels as steam, heating up things along the way you wouldn't think it would. But it does. Tap into it. You'll go places.

Talent: Energy + Direction = Vitality

Personifying The Unpersonable*

Some smoldering innuendo for your day: an assumption that matches only get to do it once and then instantly get dumped...

Of course this isn't true. Matches do not have sex lives. Maybe it is proof of a demented mind but I have cursed out the microwave when it didn't operate as wanted or happily proclaimed a certain pen a champion when it allowed me to do something I didn't think I could do; as if it could understand and correct or celebrate its behavior. But actually this personification of non-human objects, animals or other phenomena (weather, governments and other abstract concepts) is an ancient phenomena, if not art.

And they have a name for it. It's actually a form of anthropomorphism...

Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to non-humans and began being used by humans as early as the Upper Paleolithic era, about 40,000 years ago, when hunters would empathetically identify with hunted animals to better predict their movements. Folk stories and fables, including the famous ones by Aesop, used this technique "by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events". In the 19th century Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll employed anthropomorphic elements. Why, without this personification of the unpersonable (*new word) we wouldn't have Mickey Mouse or the great Far Side cartoons. How terrible that would be.

So the next time you call a chair stupid for stubbing your toe, relax. You are actually syncing up with an ancient art and just may be on the verge of understanding that matches could have sex lives... or the Higgs boson particle may just be playing hide and seek... or how furniture may not want to be moved...

Those Spires Amongst Us

So. Cardinals are meeting in Rome to begin the process of choosing a new Pope today. This is an ancient procedure precious to so many.

My thoughts go to the art and architecture the religious world has given to us throughout the ages; the attention to detail, and speaking of that, especially the symbolic nature of spires – structures that point up to the sky. The sky. Up. A wonderful direction in so many conceptual ways.

The sketch above depicts (roughly) a spire that has all these mini spires surrounding the big one, all topped with these metal finials. I like this spire in particular because it's like a whole bunch of 'ups' gathered together. With exclamation marks.

Spires originated in the 12th century as a simple, four-sided pyramidal roof and provide the same message as the pyramids. Pyramids weren't originally meant as just burial places for pharaohs. In fact, I have it on reliable authority that some Egyptians were sitting around one day and one guy said, "Hey why don't we leave a message for people in the future and build these things so big they can't help but notice. Something that no matter what language they speak, it says; "Up!" And they all went "Brilliant," got their chisels out and set to work. Then some pharaoh came around and said "Hey, I'd like to be buried in there, make me a room in the middle and seal me up in one when I die." Of course then the pharaohs took over the copyright and claimed it was all their idea. True story.

But what I really wanted to say is that people can be spires too. Not necessarily by standing on top of buildings with their hands together over their heads but by how their actions remind you there is an 'up'. And not by being bossy about it but simply by how what they do raises your spirits. When we recognize that is indeed what they're doing, we're never without folks who show you an upside. Like Italian actor Roberto Bellini. The lovely wacky energy of Bette Midler and fellow Canadian the late Leslie Nielsen, who once said, "Doing nothing is very hard to do... you never know when you're finished." And about the first person in my life that cheered me up was Lucille Ball, in black and white, no less. All these folks could be one of the mini-spires on the sketch above. You can probably name many mini-spires from your life who 'up' your days. Artists, musicians, actors, writers, thinkers... Michelangelo, daVinci, Mozart, Charlie Chaplin, Emmet Kelly, Barbra Streisand, Charles Schulz, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., maybe even the blackboard writings of Bart Simpson. What a wonderful gift these people all have. They remind us to see the upside. Like those ancient Egyptians with their chisels.

Maybe that's why they say people who do that inspire you. 

This Dusty Trail We Travel Upon

It is both fair gift and common curse; these steps we take. Our uncertainty itself fuels our most serious attentions. The surety of failure should we remain stagnant creates the determination to proceed. One step. And another. Footsteps echo our progress and reflect the vibrancy of our intentions. Our hearts are lightened by the heroics of our fellows, for we are not alone. We watch for each other. Tales are told along the way to allay our fears and wisdom is shown in what is spoken and, more importantly, what is not.

And when the sun breaks through every now and then, we enjoy a brief respite of a pleasure born of our pained ploddings.

Then we finally arrive: emerging scarred but not broken. Changed. Better. And we find that after spending all those years looking down the trail for the riches of our destination; that the journey itself was perhaps our reward all along.

Stirrer-Uppers

Dedicated to all the Stirrer-Uppers in the world. And we're all Stirrer-Uppers. Peace out, Rand

Two Dogs Barking At The Moon

Two men passed each other in the street one day. One mistook the look in the eye of the other as something of an insult and was instantly filled with rage. For perhaps he had grown up in a family that had taught such sensitivities, or he or someone he was related to had been hurt in the past by someone else who had the same look. Or his community, even society itself, had placed blame on these looks for the reason behind the hardships of their own kind. Who knows? Possibly his friends, through lack of understanding, had condemned these looks as those given by freaks or deviants and in fearfulness had labelled them unworthy. Whatever the reason he felt so outraged at this person and the look in his eye that he lashed out against him there in the street; abusing, hissing, spitting, demeaning, and cursing.

The other man raised his head to the sky and laughed and threw his arm around the angry one's shoulder and said, "You are RIGHT! I am all those things. Come now lad, I will buy you a refreshment and then another and we will share tales of our travels and families and we will eat and drink some more and laugh and find fair company and then, when it has grown dark, we will come back outside and you can tell me again what I am and we will both laugh and bark like dogs at the moon. Because what are these words? They are not you or I. These words are mere expressions of the outrage we both share at the unfairness of life: a common view we will have found in the ensuing hours. For there is no gain nor profit in either of us thinking the other is evil because of our looks, customs, beliefs or heritage. I may be different than you and you from me but by the end of this evening...

...we will be just two dogs barking at the moon!"  

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"Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Boiling Canadian Saps

It is commonly accepted around the world that we Canucks are a docile bunch who suffer our fools lightly (to a fault some would say). So you may be shocked to hear that once a year we take great glee in boiling our saps. But take relief. We're not actually gathering all our foolish together and sticking them into big pots set over open fires.

The saps we like to boil come from trees. Sugar maples in particular, although other varieties have their saps as well.

Each year at this time, as temperatures begin to get warmer during the day and dip below freezing at night; the sap begins to run, carrying the nutrients that have been stored in roots for the winter up into the limbs to prepare for spring. (You can usually time it by watching as ice fishing huts begin sinking into the lakes.) And taking a lesson from Native Americans who developed the technique long before written history, when the sap runs we tap into the trunks, collect and boil it down, thickening it into syrup roughly at a rate of 40 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of maple syrup. 40/1: much better than the odds of many lotteries or having a pleasant evening at your boss's house for dinner.

Sugarbush, 1958

Of course, I've tasted the sticky treat a number of times, even right in the sugarbush as a child. (I'm the little guy beside my mother on the right.) Culinary experts have tried to classify its taste and can only agree that there is no other taste quite like it. Scientists have tried to detail the formula but have been unable to break the code.

While there are cheaper syrups (mainly made from corn syrup) there is no comparison. Francophones refer to imitation maple syrup as sirop de poteau ("pole syrup"), joking that the fake syrup comes from tapping telephone poles.

So you can relax about the Canadians boiling their fools thing.

Not that I haven't, at times, thought about what we should do about our silly citizens.

But it saps the energy right out of me... :o)

Bootie Break

Drudgerius interruptus at the grocery store today as my eye caught a shelf of colorful kiddy's galoshes.

Man, boots like this make me wish I was a little kid again. Or my feet were a lot smaller...

On this first Day of March. As the encroaching warmer weather brings the rain that makes the puddles remember to take a moment and splash around a bit. Or a lot. But don't jump too high or too deep.

You might get a soaker.