MungBeing Magazine: Design

Forward -- On Design

A popular maxim is that good design should go unnoticed. This is quite true on a functional level as in, say, website design. A poorly designed site will attract negative attention while a nicely designed site will do its job without calling attention to itself. The problem is that the maxim implies that if design is noticed then it must be bad design. But I think that noticing good design is a satisfying and worthwhile activity. Sometimes you really do just need to stop and marvel at the beauty of an elegant piece of work. I don't think there's anything wrong with that and, in fact, I think it can be pretty inspiring. It's always nice to see work that has been created by people who know what they're doing.

This issue of MungBeing is not meant to be the end-all, be-all regarding design. Rather, I think it serves to note how design influences the art we create, how the art is designed, how artists perceive design, and how we perceive things that are designed well. And there are some great examples of design in here to be sure!

To explore the world of design in greater detail, I would like to recommend the following sites:
Design Observer is an incredibly thought-provoking and well written site featuring some of the great designers of our time. Their insightful commentary demonstrates quite effectively how good design influences our culture. It was through their "Observed" column that I was alerted to Hall Monitor, a beautiful site dedicated to reviewing album cover art. And it was through Hall Monitor that I finally found a little respect for Phil Hartman. Not for his voice work or his SNL stint, but because he designed the cover of Steely Dan's "Aja" album. And Poco's "Legend". Beautiful covers. He was a graphic designer before he moved into on-screen work. And what is graphic design? "It's designing fishing lures for catching humans and you get to use glue sometimes." (according to Ray Larabie, interviewed in this issue). To read more about the world of typography, Creative Characters is the new MyFonts monthly newsletter dedicated to people behind the fonts. Typo is a bi-monthly magazine in English and Czech. And finally, to see the great-grand stepuncle of MungBeing, the Aspen Magazine archive is now online.

So with that, I would like to welcome you to MungBeing issue #16. I'll see you on the other side. Enjoy!

Mark Givens
Editor-in-Chief,
MungBeing Magazine

Announcements -- Extra Golden

The new Extra Golden album "Hera Ma Nono" is out, as mentioned last issue. It's a doozy!

A short promotional video can also be found here: Thrill Jockey

Announcements -- Roger Manning performance in Berlin

from House of World Cultures:

"Roger Manning, active since the 1980s, is one of the pioneers of anti-folk, a punk rock troubadour whose aggressive acoustic music cuts with razor-sharp political lyrics. With the exception of one song on "Drinking From Puddles", a collaborative production with Cat Power, Lydia Lunch and others, Manning has largely withdrawn from the music market. He lives as a web designer in New York and most recently joined the political fray in the effort to rescue the pacifistic broadcaster Pacifica Radio Network."

David Peel and The Lower East Side / Roger Manning: Contentious Pacifists
Greenwich Village - Folk and Anti-Folk Concert

Fri 26.10.2007 21:00h
House of World Cultures
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin, Germany

Admission: 13 �, concessions 10 �, combined ticket for all folk concerts 50 � available at the House of World Cultures and at eventim.

Announcements -- The Power of 10

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, October 5th, 7 - 10 PM.
Exhibit runs from Oct. 5th-Oct. 30, 2007

Gallery hours: Tuesdays AND Saturdays 1- 5 PM and by appointment.
The gallery is located at the rear of 1617 S Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20009

Mark Planisek, Sondra Arkin, Willem de Looper, Stuart Greenwell, Rogelio Maxwell, Kathryn McDonnell, Bill Miller, Albert Schweitzer, Judy Southerland, Rocky Wang

link

Information can be found here.

Announcements -- Natalie Oswald Show

Natalie Oswald paintings at Artdamaged Gallery.
2727 SE 21st Ave.
Portland, Oregon

October 5th to November 1st, 2007

-- Heresy: A Journal Of Love and Contempt

Heresy: A Journal Of Love and Contempt
Volume I
8.5 x 11, 28 pages

A new zine by jody franklin.

This volume collects some of MungBeing editor jody franklin's best recent essays, all of which explore fringe ideas, heresies and philosophies from a unique, challenging and slightly offbeat perspective. With articles reprinted from MungBeing, notes for a book about Burning Man, plus never before-seen iconoclastic illustrations and comics.

Details about contents, payment and shipping can be found here: http://www.eschatonmedia.com/heresy.html

-- Freedom of Expression Petition

Last year, Michael Dickinson, a British Stuckist artist in Turkey and a frequent contributor to MungBeing Magazine, was arrested and held by police for 10 days for displaying 2 collage pictures of Turkey's Prime Minister as America's pet dog.

*'Best in Show' one of the offending collages*

Charged with 'insulting the prime minister' under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, he faces a two year jail sentence if found guilty. We at MungBeing throw our support fully behind an artist's right of free expression. Any laws that stifle an artist's creative and artistic expression must not be allowed to persist. Michael's court date is October 8th, 2007.

View the petition here.

Details will be forthcoming.

A huge thank you to everyone who added their name to the list and helped to raise awareness of this terrible injustice.

-- MungBeing Site updates

There have been several additions and refinements to the MungBeing site. Most notably there's a new "dog-ear" function there on the right. At the top right of every page there are symbols to click that will allow you to save your place, dog-ear the page if you will, so when you return to MungBeing you can pick up where you left off.

Most of the other refinements are behind the scenes tweaks and more are on the way. Watch this space for further developments.

Learning to Work Together (Study 2)

"Learning to Work Together (Study 2)" by Chloe Lewis, 2006

Design

Goodbye, gumball rocket fin!
Goodbye, bonehead dreams of flight!

The angry box has lumbered in
Goodbye flirtatious tail light!

The Golden Age of the Miracle 5

"The Golden Age of theMiracle5" by Dave Ortega, Cel-vinyl paint and ink on animation cel, each 12.5" x 10.5", 2007

These cels are part of a set of 70 and were exhibited in a group show in February at the Rhys Gallery in Boston, MA featuring the art superhero group I belong to, theMiracle5.

Inspirations from an Octahedron

I am a bead weaver. I weave beads together with a needle and thread. I am especially fond of beaded beads, which are clusters of beads that, in sum, make a single bead with one or more holes through the center of the cluster. As a beaded bead designer, I will show you how I use octahedrons to design beaded beads, and discuss some of the unique design challenges, namely structural integrity and thread coverage, in the process.

The regular octahedron has 8 faces, 6 corners, and 12 edges. Gamers who use dice know it as the eight-side. Each of the eight sides or faces is an equilateral triangle.

Figure 1: The Regular Octahedron

When I sew beads into the shape of an octahedron, I imagine placing one bead on each of its12 edges. Since three edges form each face, the beads are sewn into triangles. The thing that's nice about regular octahedrons is that the faces are all triangles, and when I sew three beads into a triangle, the result is more stable than sewing 4 or more beads in a circle. Figure 2 shows the basic beaded octahedron, made with 12 round beads. From a structural standpoint, it's not a very good rendition. This octahedron squishes this way and that, and the thread is clearly visible. Desirable or not, the thread becomes a design element. My personal taste is to show off the beads, not the thread. So, now we have a problem to consider, a design challenge. Can we do better?

Figure 2: Beaded octahedron, view from vertex (left), face (center), and edge (right)

To improve on the basic design, longer oval beads can replace the round beads as in Figure 3. The beads are packed more closely together making this octahedron a little more structurally sound than the first, and while less thread shows than before, the thread is still obvious. So although I found a way to make a beaded octahedron more stable, the problem of thread coverage still remains.

Figure 3: Beaded octahedron, view from vertex (left), face (center), and edge (right)

If a set of graduated beads replaces the 12 beads in the octahedron, then more thread is covered. Figure 4 shows how smaller beads near each vertex cover the thread there. Consequently, I think this is a design improvement. However, more beads on a side remove some of the structural integrity of a single bead on a side, so these beaded beads still have a little squish. Therefore, while visually satisfying and, as I found, the regularity makes them easily stackable in an obvious way (Fig. 5), this design does not answer both of our concerns and could still use some improvement.


Figure 4	Figure 5

Considering again the basic beaded octahedron (Fig. 2) let's see if we can find another way to deal with the exposed thread while retaining, or even reinforcing, the structure itself.

There are other ways to add more beads to the basic octahedron (Fig. 2). The structure in Figure 6 is one example. This structure has 12 large beads as before, plus 24 smaller beads. Here, the smaller beads are placed off-center, between the beads instead of at the end of the large beads. The smaller beads do well to cover some of the thread, but this structure alone is still quite squishy, so it doesn't really solve our design challenge, at least not yet.

Figure 6: Improved Beaded Octahedron: Inner Structure of the Octahedral Cluster

The reason the structure in Figure 6 is important is that the 24 smaller beads provide new locations for sewing on more beads, making it a versatile inner structure upon which to build. One possibility is the Octahedral Cluster in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Octahedral Cluster, view from vertex (left), face (center), and edge (right)

Now we have a formidable design that solves our design challenge. The Octahedral Cluster beaded bead shows virtually no thread. Also, the small beads fit snugly into the spaces between the larger beads so that the finished beaded bead is structurally sound. It is very round from every angle and maintains its shape remarkably well. With a sound design, I made the necklace in Figure 8. Hand made glass beads, a silver S-clasp, and some Chinese button knots complete the piece of jewelry.

Figure 8: Casual Clusters, an Octahedral Cluster Necklace

One of the wonderful things about beaded objects is their scalability. The Octahedral Cluster in Figure 9 is a whopping 5 cm across, absolutely huge for a beaded bead.

Figure 9: Huge Octahedral Cluster in Rock Quartz, Rose Quartz, and Glass

There are other possible additions to the inner structure of the Octahedral Cluster (Fig. 5). A beaded bead that I call "El Cubo" is one worth mentioning because it solves our design challenge of thread coverage and structural stability. Figure 10 shows the basic El Cubo. This is the simplest version because the two types of largest beads are round. These largest beads are the 24 light pink crystals at the corners of the cube, plus 12 larger white crystals (on the inside) just peeking out through the space between the seed beads. These 12 white crystals correspond to the 12 beads in the basic octahedron (Fig. 2).

Figure 10: El Cubo in Pink Crystals

Replacing the pink round crystals with beads shaped like lentils gives a different effect shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11: El Cubo with Wings, view from vertex (left), face (center), and edge (right)

Composed of smaller and fewer beads, El Cubo is scalable to a smaller size. The beaded beads in Figures 12 and 13 use real gemstones. The Peruvian blue opal and amethyst (the 12 beads on the inside) beaded bead is just 13mm at its smallest diameter and 17mm at its largest. The ruby and citrine bead is all of a millimeter larger.


Figure 12: El Cubo in Peruvian Blue Opal	Figure 13: El Cubo in Rubies and Citrine

The blue El Cubo in Figure 12 has a coloring in which the 8 corners are in two different colors: 4 are white opals with silver seed beads, and 4 are blue opals with blue seed beads. I more obviously exploited this coloring in the necklace in Figure 14 using blue and gold for the two colors. This necklace features El Cubo with a playful use of matte and shiny beads to highlight the coloring. Blue and gold are the colors of the University of California school system, and as my alma mater is UCSB, I named the necklace after our school mascot, the Mexican Gaucho. Go Gauchos Gold!

Figure 14: El Cubo Gaucho in Blue and Gold Glass

I'd like to end this discussion of "Inspirations from an Octahedron" with El Cubo Grande (Fig. 15), the largest El Cubo I have made. Over 2 inches across, this beaded bead is pretty heavy, and probably too large for jewelry.

Figure 15: El Cubo Grande and an Icosahedral Cluster

El Cubo Grande in Figure 15 supports an Icosahedral Cluster, a close neighbor to the Octahedral Cluster (Figs. 6-9). The Icosahedral Cluster was inspired by an icosahedron, but that is a whole different story.

For more information on these and other beaded beads, visit BeAdinfinitum.com

An Assortment of Characters

"Assortment of Characters" by Albert Schweitzer, 2007

Birds

My friend Don was always in some sort of pain. The other thing about him was that he never had any money. But even with the pain, he used to tell me, and even without the money, he had everything he needed: two cars (at least one of them always worked), a place to live (right next to me), and a boss at the restaurant who forgave him his faults (and I think shared a few). He also had several prescriptions for drugs which, judging by the times he gave me some, made a lot of the pain okay.

When we hung out together, it was always a good time, even though I always had to pay for everything. Not that I had much money of my own, just more than him. I remember one time we were at the bulk buy store, and he really wanted to buy this whole crate of beets. You'd have to know Don to know how he could make buying a whole crate of beets seem like a good idea. Borscht, he said, and something about niacin, and something about pituitary health, and about this being the "peak of the season." It was just like Don to know about the peak of the beet season. Times like that he'd get this look in his eye - real animated, real honest, almost electric. I'd start out thinking "Beets, huh?" and end up thinking "Hey, beets!" Then I'd open my wallet.

His personality was only one of the reasons I hung out with him. A bigger one was that he basically lived right outside my front door, so there wasn't actually much choice. We rented these bungalows on an overgrown hillside in Lincoln Heights. His was two stories, but mine was further up the hill in back, so that my front porch seemed to reach out toward his bedroom windows, which were always open. I couldn't come or go without his knowing it - that is, if he was awake and conscious, which was sometimes.

I suppose the other reason I hung out with Don is that he let me put it to his old lady. That's the way he described it, not her. "Put it to her, Ernie, really put it to her. God knows I can't." I don't know if that was actually true, but that's the way he'd say it. He get one of those looks in his eyes. Maybe he was just fucked up. Don hid behind his addictions sometimes, and really, who was I to judge? I figured that as long as Sylvia didn't mind - and I guess she didn't - why not? His cowardice might as well be my adventure.

Truth be told, even though we'd hook up sometimes, I don't think Sylvia liked me all that much. For one thing, when we fucked it wasn't that great. Maybe this sounds shitty, but if Don hadn't been so strung out most of the time, I probably wouldn't have been close to her at all. Not that she wasn't my type, she was just different. She'd talk about stuff I didn't care about, and think about stuff I didn't understand. Which maybe makes you wonder what she saw I me. I wondered. I suppose maybe she saw me as a part of Don's problem, or maybe part of her problem with Don, and since I was a relatively undemanding part of that problem, sometimes she'd rather deal with me than with him.

Actually, I only got with Sylvia a few times, and even then, when we were actually doing it, the whole situation was a little bit embarrassing. Like this one time. I remember I was home taking the day off and I heard Don yelling next door. Like I said, nothing unusual there, he had a lot of demons. So I started yelling back. Just stupid stuff. We always used to get into these great yelling fights, not about anything at all. Anyway, we were screaming back and forth, and suddenly he got quiet, like he thought it wasn't that fun anymore. Then I heard this "sssssss" noise, and suddenly all hell broke loose on my porch. He'd lit a pack of firecrackers and thrown them at me. Nearly killed this neighborhood cat.

Anyway, I ended up going over there to see if he had anymore firecrackers or anything in his fridge. We'd been out a few days before and bought a case of Dutch wheat beer. I'd never had wheat beer before. I guess he didn't want to talk, because he didn't come out of his room. Sylvia was taking a nap on the couch. She was pissed about being woken up by all the noise, but she was even more pissed about some shit Don had pulled the night before. We had a long talk about Don and why he always pissed people off, and after a little while we ended up fucking right there in the living room. Even though Don was right upstairs. I knew he wouldn't come down, but still. It was like we were alone, but we knew we really weren't. Then, right as I was coming, I heard Don start laughing hysterically up in his room. Awkward, right? We both pretended not to hear him, but I left pretty quick afterward. I never did try any of that beer.

Deep down, Don was a very generous guy. Everybody would have thought so, if only he'd had some stuff to prove it with. The way he looked at the world is, if you had something and he needed to use it, no big deal, he'd have it back to you before long. Or if he was making some dinner he'd automatically invite you over, or if he had a fresh carton of cigarettes, he'd give you a couple packs. He gave me a couple packs once, and I don't even smoke. I thought so then and I think so now: it's a great way to approach the world. It's just that he never had all that much.

Of course, you try to remember people at their best, because everything that's good tends to slip. You know? For example, for a long time right toward the end, I guess Don stopping going in to work, and at some point I guess he got fired. He never told me. I figured something was up when he disappeared for a couple days, came back, and then split again for about a week, which was weird. When he got back, he told me he'd been visiting some friends out in the desert. Maybe that was even true - he had plenty of friends I didn't know about. I think his mom lived out there, too. After he got back, he mostly stayed in his room, sleeping and smoking cigarettes and watching the TV and keeping to himself, which was like him. Even the nights were quiet, which was a nice change, even though I knew it might be a bad sign.

What I wish now is that I hadn't gotten into this bad problem with Don. In a funny way it ended up involving Sylvia, too, which isn't fair, because the problem was really mine more than either of theirs.

There were a lot of little things that led up to it, I suppose. Like, I used to go out with this really funny girl named Kelly. She worked at a movie theater. We had some great times, and dated pretty seriously for about two months, which is a long time for me. It's weird though, because I remember she was really funny and we did some great stuff (like got totally drunk on the beach one night and found an arcade up on the pier and turned the photo booth around so it opened into the wall), but when I picture her now I always see her angry. She hated her job, so sometimes I used to go in and work her shift for her. The boss didn't really care, as long as someone was there when the shift began. You didn't have to be brilliant to serve corn and cokes.

Anyway, one night Kelly didn't go into work, and I didn't cover for her. Later she said she told me about the shift, but I don't remember that. Instead of working for her, I was down at the bus station, meeting a friend of mine who was coming in from Oregon. The bus was late, and I ended up having to kill about three hours in the downtown terminal, and when the bus finally came in he wasn't even on it. Meanwhile, Kelly's boss at the theater decided to call her because she was late. Since she thought I was covering her shift, she figured it was alright to answer the phone. Her boss was really pissed, and when she tried to disguise her voice and pretend to be her sister (she doesn't have a sister) the boss told her she was fired. "Tell your fucking sister she's fired," he said. The guy was a dick. He grabbed her ass one time after work. She just laughed at him, and he hated her from then on.

The point is, Kelly went looking for me after that, because she was mad and wanted to break up. When she found out I wasn't home, I guess she went over to see if Don knew where I was. Don must have been in great form that night, because he proceeded to get her totally wasted. By the time I got over there, she was fucked-up on anti-anxiety drugs and pot. The TV was blaring and she pretended not to know who I was. Cute. Don thought the whole situation was pretty funny, and he started going on and on about how it was like this one movie he'd seen, about a group of guys who think they're criminals, only they end up ripping off each other. I think his point was basically that you can't trust anyone, and at the moment he must have been feeling like some kind of badass.

The thing about that night was, Don didn't let me forget it. For weeks after that he'd go on and on about his "affair" with Kelly, about how they'd fucked before I got there, how he'd never been better and how much Kelly had enjoyed it. He was real specific, too, telling me how he'd gone down on her and how she kept grabbing his hard-on. I don't think he was trying to piss me off, really, I think he was just trying out this fantasy that had occurred to him. Like I say, he hadn't been getting out much, and that night might have been the first time in a long time that he'd been alone in a room with a woman. Other than Sylvia, of course.

I didn't care either way. Kelly and me never really spoke again because of her being pissed off about losing her job. She started dating this gay guy from the fashion institute. And even if Don had fucked her, it wouldn't have messed me up much. I would have been a little surprised, though, because I don't think she ever really liked him.

So this is what had been going on at the time. The next thing that happened (this was about a week later) was that Sylvia showed up late one night at my place with someone she introduced as her friend. This friend was kind of cute. In fact, she kind of looked like Kelly, maybe a little heavier. And that's why I figured that Sylvia brought her over, to cheer me up or to ease my broken heart. There had to be some reason, because Sylvia had never come over before. She hadn't even stepped onto my porch, and here she was late one night standing there with a friend. I invited them in and made like a good host.

After about a half hour Sylvia said she had to go check on something, and she left. So there I was with this girl I hardly knew, trying to make small talk, which I'm not real good at. I remember suddenly thinking that my place looked like shit. I'm not much of a cleaner, either. But this girl -- I want to say her name was Monica -- she was really friendly, and we drank a bunch of beers while I played her some cartoon mashups this DJ friend of mine used to make - Hekyll and Jekyll meet Foghorn Leghorn, that sort of shit, if you can imagine it - and before long there we were, doing it on the floor in front of my TV. You know how sometimes if you live in a shitty place and you stomp your foot on the floor or bump the wall or something, the whole place shakes? My DVD player was going batshit, mashing up the mashup.

Now here's the part where things get a little embarrassing, but I think it helps explain all the weird feelings I went through later. Monica and I were making out pretty casually at first, no big deal. After all, I half expected Sylvia to come back any time. But suddenly Monica pulls back and takes off her t-shirt. The first thing I notice, I mean besides her tits, was this tattoo she had on her shoulder. I couldn't really tell what it was, it looked sort of like a bird, or maybe a ghost, about an inch or two long, only it wasn't done very well. Then, while I'm checking out this tattoo, she takes all my clothes off. I tried to help, but it was like she was on a mission. She kept pushing my hands away, saying "I'll do it, I'll do it." I remember thinking, man, she's done this before. It wasn't long before I was naked and she was looking at me like, "Well?"

I'm not telling you about all this because it made such an impression on me at the time, but because how everything kind of turned out later. I remember being naked a long time before Monica finally stopped clutching at me and rolled back so I could pull off her pants. I also remember how knocked out I was by her panties. They were red, but faded, like she washed them wrong, and they were so small they were hardly there. You know how panties can be really, really small? Considering what was going on, I don't know why they made such a big impression. Something to focus on, maybe. I remember thinking "Are those really practical?" Stupid, right?

Anyway, on her thigh right below where the panties came around her hip was another tattoo. It looked just like the other one, only it was maybe done a little better. Monica played with me for a long time before she took off her panties and we did the rest of our mashup thing, messing up the DVD. I was worried that she'd get me off too fast, she was so physical, but I did alright. We went two times, and then about three in the morning was started to go again, but then she sort of stopped and said she'd better go. Then she put on her clothes and took off, just like that. Back into the dark.

A few days later I was over talking to Don. He looked really bad, like he used to look sometimes when he was really strung out. He was losing a lot of weight, and he looked pale. Like I said, it turns out he hadn't been going to work, either. To take his mind off things I told him about my night with Monica, about how I'd been with this girl I hardly knew (I boast a lot, but I'd never really done that before), and how I wanted to thank Sylvia for hooking me up with her. That's when I found out that Monica was Don's sister.

His fucking sister. Boy, was Don pissed. I guess it's one thing to jump a guy's girlfriend, it's something else to roll his little sister. Even if she did look just like my ex. If he wasn't so strung out, he probably would have killed me. As it was, he just got real pissed and lunged at me a few times. He wasn't up for a whole lot of punching. Then he started moaning and groaning more than he usually does. I felt sorry for him and wanted to do something to help, but it seemed like since I was the source of his problem (along with mixing hard liquor with anti-psychotics) I though I'd better just leave. I remember thinking how I'd never seen him look so sad.

A few more days went by without much going on, and then one night I ran into Sylvia walking back from the market down the hill. Everyone in our neighborhood goes to this one old market because it's open late and it's run by this friendly elderly couple. I think they're Armenian. I asked how Don was doing, and she looked at me real funny and said "Why?" I told her about how I'd fucked his sister by accident and she sort of grinned and said yeah, Don had mentioned it, but she didn't think I should worry about it too much, because Don would probably forget about it in a few more days.

I could see she wasn't going to tell me much more than that, I started to think maybe she was a little jealous or something, so I asked her how come she didn't tell me Monica was Don's sister. She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye that she must have stolen from Don, and after a few seconds said I should follow her home. So I did.

When we got there she didn't say anything. She just went into the living room and took off her pants. Not even looking at me while she did it. I didn't know what was going on. I thought it was pretty weird that Sylvia would ask all about my sex life and then take me home to fuck or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing.

She sat down half naked on the couch (one thing about Sylvia is that she never wears panties) and lifted up one of her legs. Look, she said, and she pointed to the inside of one of her thighs. And right there was this tattoo, more or less the same size and shape as the ones Monica had. I couldn't believe I'd never seen it before. I mean, like I said, Sylvia and I had done it all, pretty much. But I'm sure I never saw that tattoo before that moment. I guess I hadn't exactly been looking around, if you know what I mean.

"Don gave me this," she said. "Two years ago when we first started living together. It's a skill he has. He uses a needle and thread and this ink he makes from seed oil. He mixes it with ashes." It was quiet for a minute, then she said, "It's supposed to be a bird, but if you look at it upside down, I think it looks more like a ghost." She looked down at here tattoo and frowned a little bit, like she was worried it might fly away or something. "I actually like it a lot."

I didn't say anything for a minute. I didn't know what to say. All I remember thinking is something like "Oh." Just "oh." I suddenly found myself imagining all the places I'd rather be than standing right there staring at Sylvia's open legs. "That's good," I finally said, as if I wanted her to know that her liking her tattoo was the only thing that mattered to me in the whole wide world. Maybe that was even true, right at that moment. "If you're going to have a tattoo, you might as well like it," I said, but that didn't sound any better than saying nothing, so I sort of turned around and walked out.

After that it seems like I didn't see Don or Sylvia for a while. I got a job as a cook, and so I was busy most nights, which was the only time Don was ever up anymore. At some point pretty soon after that he moved out, and I think Sylvia moved somewhere else. A few months later someone told me about going to Don's funeral. One of these days, if I can figure out where it is, I'm going to go see where he's buried.

It was really weird the day the new people moved into his house.

Head Study for Josef Albers

"Head Study for Josef Albers" by Andrew Taggart, Gouache on found photograph, 2007

My Life, by Design

Inspiration

When I was a child, I wanted to be a designer. At the time, I didn't distinguish between Art and Design. I told my Grandmother that I knew I was too small to be an artist, but that I was one anyway. Living on the Space Coast, I attended school with the astronaut's kids. My elementary manuscripts were illuminated with fantastical drawings of houses and machines. I was going to be the first architect on the moon.

Exploration/Ideation/Evolution

I studied drafting throughout high school. My senior year, I gathered my sketches, my blueprints, and my dreams, and sent them off to the local School of Design. I had no idea how amazing it was that I was called in for an interview. It wasn't that I felt a sense of entitlement; I was simply ignorant of the ways of the world.

College quickly made me aware of my ignorance.

I took a course called "The Profession of Architecture" as a freshman. It served its intended purpose and frightened me away. Unfortunately, only from architecture. I was still convinced that I wanted to be a designer.

I transferred to Product Design, dreaming up Martian dump trucks. Closer, but not what I wanted. Then I wandered into "Environmental Design", a delightfully vague field which allowed me to squander years dabbling in painting and sculpture. I was a right brain student in a left brain school.

A Designer has a goal, an Artist has a journey.

Presentation

I am a fan of Intelligent Design. Meaning, I think design should be intelligent. As I argued with my product design classmates, a toaster should only be aerodynamic if you plan to throw it out the window. Form follows function is the application of Occam's Razor, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one." K.I.S.S!

Before I could devolve to the level of finger painting, I drifted out of school. I landed in photography. I grew up, got married, developed an allergy to photo chemicals, moved across the country, got divorced, changed fields, moved to Paris, launched a photo-based webcomic, moved back to North Carolina, got married again, and here I am.

Evaluation

Every day, I follow the Design Process. I create, generate alternatives, take them apart, and build again on the ruins. My materials change constantly. Words, relationships, images -- I fuse them together, bending them to my will, creating something new.

The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura - 1906
"Art, to be fully appreciated, must be true to contemporaneous life. It is not that we should ignore the claims of posterity, but that we should seek to enjoy the present more. It is not that we should disregard the creations of the past, but that we should try to assimilate them into our consciousness... Would that we loved the ancients more and copied them less!"

Editor: I would like to ask you to take a look at the ending again. I wonder if you'd like to answer any of these questions:
1. Do you now distinguish between Art and Design?
A Designer has a specific goal and has to figure out the best way to get there. An Artist has a journey. Art is the exploration, not the arrival.

2. Has your path changed?
Definitely. I've wandered far afield, exploring my art. But through design, I can find my way home.

3. Are you the first architect on the moon?
Not yet. But I am the only cartoonist/photographer/poet/quilter/cook/mime on my block.

4. What do you mean by "I follow the Design Process?"
The Design Process is the way that I was taught to approach Design. The headings in this essay are taken from the basic steps. Define the goal or problem, explore constraints and solutions, create and test prototypes, judge your solution. Then identify any remaining problems or the next goal and start the process over. It seems to be universally applicable.

Editor: I'm not quite sure about the quote at the end. What are you trying to say there?
This is a vestige of the first draft. The Book of Tea had great meaning to me as a student, encouraging me to look away from traditional solutions, but as the essay evolved, the closing quote lost its relevance. It is extraneous and should be removed.

Design

Design, strong design sense, so strong as to have it be inflicted upon society.

Boxes, boxes, boxes. Feeling all boxed in. Why, oh why, can't it be more like your curvaceous form? Curvilinear. Rounded and soft. Womb-like. Womb! Wommmmmmmmmb. Womb! Wommmmmmmmmb. Womb!

Wommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmb! Heh heh. Yeah, nurturing. Not necessarily about the going back but the going there. Now! I mean, I like my Mom as a person and all, just want very little (next to nothing, nothing at all, get me?) of that Freud gambit. Yer Muddah! How's yer Mom? Call yer Mom lately? What's she like? Tell me more. Might need her for my retreat. Just to curl up, don't let those walls close in with their rigid imposition. They move in like they are another section of a torture chamber, not one that's run by some mad criminal genius who constantly cackles rubbing hands together in anticipation of plan's fruition. Nawww, this casts a colder eye as the walls move so slyly and noiselessly creeping up. Perhaps I can combat the inherent design of this room, of my mind, by tucking in the sheets as I lay under them, my new home. Must find way to securely nail down sheets to bed on the outside while remaining inside and under the sheets as protection from bad stuff. Once this method has been invented I must patent it while remaining under the sheets. And just stay there for a while, for a long while, maybe for ages, let there be some decay. Decay is so reassuring, do designers put a decay clause into their blueprints? The decay can't happen right away, it's got to grow, wear at and cover all the severity, soften things up a bit, wear away the sharpness.

Maybe that's what people want. People want to pigeonhole so badly, compartmentalize, it's easy to market, no time for platypus. They say, "You suffer from a lack of focus." No, that's just my strong sense of design....

Located in Vegreville, Alberta, the world's largest Easter egg is actually not made of egg, it is man made of aluminum, weighs 5000 pounds, is 31.6 feet in total height and is 25.7 feet wide. This 'bigger is better' egg form is of a traditional Ukrainian design and is the first computer modeling of an egg. Its colours are bronze, silver and gold to symbolize Prosperity. The gold stars in its pattern represent Life and Good Fortune whereas the three sided stars represent The Trinity. The silver wolf's teeth pattern represents Security as it is dedicated to the One Hundred Year Anniversary of The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Built in 1975 this egg is located east of Edmonton on the Trans Canada Yellowhead Highway. As a boy growing up in Northern Canada, my family traveled little so visiting this attraction was quite a big deal. I walked around it many times in my youth. I tried to approach it, to get close to it.

The world's largest Easter egg has one serious design flaw. One cannot go inside of it and dwell healthily within its curves.

Watercolour Collages

the heart and the truth

Is it the curve of his lips that form that perfect line - between the teeth. The way the tongue frames his words when he speaks, it�s the breath of when he�s silent and the way his lips part when he smiles. The arch of his spine to the straight line that makes him stand up high. The broadness of his shoulders, pushed back, the way he walks on by. In the bend of his chest - where your fingers caress and following his beating heart. The fast to slow, the constant go, the patterns like a drum of passing that flows for all, around and around and abound all the way down to the belly that is shows the hunger he has for life. With the touch of his hand, and the way he grasps that make him want. The strong fingers that defines what he holds in the strengths of all he desires. The shape of his eyes - the light that gleams in the way that he reveals, the heart and the truth and all the vulnerabilities in his life. That make the human more human.

Collage

"Seduction" by Nelly Sanchez, 16x23,5 cm, canvas, papers, sewing thread and sequin, 2007

Recipes

The Barber's Closet was a Madison, Wisconsin institution. Located down a stairwell and behind a secret panel in the venerable Hotel Washington, also home to Rod's, the Club de Wash, and Cafe Palms, the Barber's Closet mixed a diverse and happy clientele with a diverse and mean drink. The atmosphere alone kept the patrons happy but the booze added a delightful glow. This beloved building was tragically lost in a devastating blaze in the early hours of a dark and freezing morning in February 1996.

Fortunately for you, the MungBeing readers, a copy of the infamous Drink Menu was discovered deep down in the murky depths of the Cache Cow Archives. The original copy was salvaged by a peculiar sailor named Kenny and his boyfriend Paul in the last few months of The Barber's Closet's life and has been stored, seal unbroken, for eleven years. It is with a mixture of profound sadness and nervous excitement that we are offering to you the last remaining vestige of this long-lost and much loved watering hole, available in the coming months, one piece at a time.

With only one further ado, MungBeing Magazine proudly presents the Barber's Closet Drink Menu!

Here is a detailed description of Glass Classifications and Garnish Specifications.

Previous Chapters
Part 1

Recipes -- General Cocktail Recipes

Old Fashion

12 oz. Tub
1 tsp. Bitter's
1 tsp. Sugar
1 cherry
1/2 orange wheel
Muddle.
1.5 oz. Liquor
Stir
Fill with ice
Fill with mixing agent to 1/4" below rim of
glass
2 short straws
Garnish: Butterfly

Rusty Nail

7.5 oz. Rocks Glass
Fill with ice
1.0 oz. Scotch
1/2 oz. Drambuie
1 short straw
Garnish: None

Bloody Mary

12 oz. Tub
2 tsp. Duffy's
3 Shakes celery salt
3 Shakes pepper
1 Shake salt
Dash Tobasco
Dash Red Hot
Squeeze 1/4 Lime
1.5 oz. Vodka
Stir
Fill with ice
Fill with Tomato juice (or V-8) to 1/4" below rim of glass
2 short straws
Garnish: Pickle and Olive

Gin Rickey

8 oz. Hi-Ball
Fill with ice
1.0 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. Rose's Lime
Seltzer to 1/4" below rim of glass
1 short straw
Garnish: Squeeze 1/4 Lime

Lynchburg Lemonade

12 oz. Tub
Fill with ice
1/2 oz. Jack Daniel's
1/2 oz. Triple Sec
Lemonade (or half Bar Sour, half Seltzer) to
1/4" below rim of glass
1 short straw
Garnish: Squeeze 1/4 Lemon

Maiden's Blush

7.5 oz. Rocks Glass
Fill with ice
1.25 oz. Gin
1/4 oz. Triple Sec
1/4 oz. Grenadine
1 short straw
Garnish: Squeeze 1/4 Lemon

Midnight

In a blender cup
1 level scoop ice
3/4 oz. Apricot Brandy
3/4 oz. Triple Sec
Squeeze and discard 4 pieces of Lemon
Blend
Pour to 1/4" below rim of glass
Garnish: Float 1/2 Lemon wheel

Greyhound

12 oz. Ice Cream Glass
Fill with ice
1.0 oz. Vodka
Grapefruit juice to 1/4" below rim of glass
1 long straw
Garnish: None

Harvey Wallbanger

12 oz. Ice Cream Glass
Fill with ice
3/4 oz. Vodka
O.J. to 1/4" below rim of glass
1/4 oz. Galliano
1 long straw
Garnish: 1/2 Orange wheel

Madras

12 oz. Tub
Fill with ice
1.0 oz. Vodka
Cranberry Juice to 1/2" below rim of glass
O.J. to 1/4" below rim of glass
1 short straw
Garnish: Squeeze 1/4 Lime

Moscow Mule

12 oz. Chilled Copper Mug
Fill with ice
1.5 oz. Vodka
1/2 oz. Rose's Lime
Ginger Beer to 1/4" below rim of glass
1 short straw
Garnish: Squeeze 1/4 Lime

Energy Studies

"Carnac Energy Study" by Matt Bray, Oils on Canvas, 20" x 48", 2007

Declining and Falling

CONSTANTINE II, CONSTANS I, CONSTANTIUS II, MAGNETIUS GALLUS and JULIAN

Upon Constantine's death, his three surviving sons, Constantine II, Constans I, and Constantius II succeeded to the Imperial honours as Constantine had arranged and the Empire was divided between them. The eldest, Constantine II took as his share Britain, Gaul and Spain, Constans the remainder of Europe and North Africa, and Constantius II assumed rule of the East. A theoretical allegiance was due to Constantine II as the eldest of the brothers, but the reality was that complete and utter independence from one another was the very anatomy of these reigns. A few years of mutual and uneasy co-existence founded upon mutual suspicions and uneasy scenarios ensued until in 340, Constantine II attempted to extend the theory of his pre-eminence into the realms of reality. He mustered his soldiers, their hob-nailed boots following well-trodden trails to Italy, and there attempted to impose his superior majesty upon Constans. Constans refused to submit to this fraternal presumption, and in the field of battle near Aquileia, stained his sword in the blood of his brother and transfixed the further advance of his sibling's ambition. Constans assumed the sole rule of the West, his palace at Milan enriched with the plunder and the spoil stripped from the ruin of Constantine's rashness strewn about the crimsoned grass. Indeed Constantine's insouciance consisted of being lured into an ambush and there cut down, the measure of Constans' victory that could not have been achieved exposed to the perilous outcome of battle.

Triumphant, Constans settled down into a decade-long round of revelry in his palace at Milan, the license of his title suitably indulged, fruits out of their natural season compelled to his table, the wines snow-cooled, the fare of the most exotic sort piled in heaps before Constans' inwardly drooling and leering face, the attending priest vainly counseling temperance and the care to watch the advance of his pride over his invincible arms. But these martial feats were increasingly due to the valour of the German ever so recently fetched from the frosty morass of his homeland to bear the unpleasant burdens of war hateful to the effete Italian. A recent importation of bellicose young Teuton captives and their virile and masculine appearance that fired the passions of the poly-sexual Constans were introduced into the palace, and one of their number, an ambitious creature, sought to erase his barbaric past and adopted the civilized name of Magnetius and was appointed by dint of his biceps to posts of military authority at length culminating in the position of the Frankish Master of the Guard. He became the focus of some rustic bands of soldier that found the concept of hereditary monarchy odious and perceived benefit in naming their own sovereign who would far better reward their partiality and rid them of the onerous duty of serving a degenerate prince. Magnetius consulted his aims that tended towards the throne, and he observed the habits of the Emperor and carefully discerned a fitting moment to strike. In 350, the merry court of Constans made an excursion to Gaul, and Magentius discerned an opportunity. Constans was frequently given to quitting his throne room for recreation in the forest, there to hunt, and rather more frequently, in the concealment of the woods, to engage in unsavoury dalliance with a chosen warrior. Magnetius, long nourishing a chance to overthrow his master whom he viewed with contempt as an effete, debauched Roman, took advantage of one of these Imperial absences, to call the guard to a lengthy and extended banquet where Bacchus was summoned to bless the usurpation. Flagons and flagons of wine were brought to the table and drained, and as an eye's glimpse fogged, Magnetius excused himself and retired to an adjoining room; upon his return he was attired in local swathes of purple and rustic trinkets pressed into the service as Imperial regalia. Encouraged by drunkenness and example, a general roar acclaimed Magnetius Emperor. Still in the woods, a few messengers, made forward in their intrusion by the emergency, approached Constans and informed him of this stunning development. He disdained a defence of his title and instead easily opted for flight. The partisans of Magnetius discovered Constans' escape and they gave chase, soon locating the son of Constantine cowering in a church; as the contempt that had long been privately entertained over the very thought of Constans, now was expressed in a public manner as he was deserted by his soldiers and ministers that might have defended their master and Constans, his glimpse of the road before him slicked and blurred by a thick mist of tears, attempted to flee southward to a port in Spain from where he might sail to the East and beg the aid of his brother. At the foot of the Pyrenees, a group of horsemen overtook Constans, who cried out in alarm and sped into a nearby country church, esteeming that its sanctity would defend him, grabbing at the altar cloth, declaring sanctuary. The blades of his pursers still descended upon the son of Constantine, regarding that the affront of the divine would be palliated by the death of the wanton and the licentious.

The destruction of Constans accomplished, Magnetius sent emissaries to the last surviving son of Constantine, Constantius II. Magnetius' messengers, kneeling before the Emperor of the East, extolled the virtues of and the wisdom of an alliance with his brother's slayer. Bade to rise, the messengers described the danger of a rejection of the offer of alliance and the sure destruction of Constantius that would follow. Constantius retired to consider the matter, and fortified by a draught of wine that nourished a forbidding countenance, and an affected outrage over the murder of his sibling, Constantius returned to the messengers with a stern look affixed to his face, and communicated his refusal to recognize Magnetius and a promise that his ill-gotten title would be stripped from their master by force of arms. The messengers performed the adoratio and retired, as Constantius reflected that the deed of his words would be delayed until he could conclude a peace with Sapor II of the Sassanian Empire which had again invaded seeking the elusive prize of Syria. As terms were arranged in Constantinople with a Persian embassy in Gaul, Magnetius, apprised of Constantius' answer called to arms the virile peasant of Gaul, and the hearty and belligerent Frank and Allemani and quickly streamed through the Alpine passes and passed into the vast green plains to the eastward, there to espy the forces of Constantius and pounce upon them in a descent of blade, steel pronouncing the intention of Magnetius to assume the rule of the entire Empire, the thought of partition to perish with Constantius. The battle was won, but it was tarnished by the capture of Philip, Magnetius' skilful and exceedingly valuable Master of Cavalry. He was esteemed a treasure, was spared chain and binds and threats and encouraged to share the tent of Constantius and his even his supper. Blandishments flowed as wine and it was at length decided to entreat Philip's defection that was at length attained, Constantius beamed and even deigned to refill the goblet of Philip with his own semi-divine hands.

Magnetius was deprived of a crucial weapon, and encouraged by the intelligence and secrets that wine washed from the mind's keeping of Philip in regards to his former master, Constantius forced another battle near Mursa in the Balkans. The Frank and Saxon were transfixed by a flight of oriental arrows, and Magnetius, spurring his horse through the fields of the fallen, at once bellowed a sudden command to retreat that was not concluded until the Alps had again been re-passed. Magnetius retired to Constans' former palace where he consoled himself with the echoes of the inebriated acclamations of his accession. This reverie was shattered with the word that another figment of royalty in spectral purple had been raised up in Rome. One Nepotian, a nephew of Constantine, was made Emperor of the West, expressing the disgust of the nobles of the city over the rule of an odious Frank. Magnetius cast aside his indecision and again stoked a martial impulse, sending forth a detachment to descend upon the paltry force mustered on behalf of Nepotian outside of Rome where Nepotian and his pretended army yielded to the sword. A few surviving cohorts of Nepotian, however, animated by thoughts of revenge, set out on a grueling ride to the camp of Constantius in the Balkans. Arriving, they dismounted their lathered horses and cried out the destruction of Nepotian and then offered further information on the forces of Magnetius. They were at once directed into the Imperial presence and quickly invited to join the army of Constantius that had been slowly following in the wake of Magnetius' retreat. Magnetius and the bulk of his legion had meanwhile joined up with his victorious detachment in the north of Italy, seeking redress with Constantius. Another clash of arms resounded in the plains of the Po River and Magnetius was irrevocably ruined, as his forces, every last iota of their dispositions and intentions well known by their adversary were handed over to calamity and destruction. Anticipating a doom that clove closely to his horse's pounding hooves, Magnetius tore away the purple from about his shoulders, racing through the Alps and seeking shelter in Lyon in Gaul. The gates of his sanctuary opened to admit him but it could offer no further solace or remedy to his situation. Despairing, Magnetius called for his sword, and duly fell upon it. He escaped the grim reprisal of Constantius that hurled down the axe and the sword in every location and upon every last suspected partisan that once acknowledged the invalid rule of Magnetius, and displayed to the world the utter ignorance of Constantius of such terms as forgiveness and mercy.

Once more the Empire was in the hands of a single man, dogmatic and inflexible in his piety. Constantius' religious adherence was to Arian Christianity, the creation of one Bishop Arius who had denied the equality of Father and Son in the Trinity, Christ reduced to the useful role of redeeming wax shaped by the hands of loving God. The opposing party, the Athenasians, who stressed equality of the Hypostases or the Persons of the Trinity, were harried and persecuted. Synods spewed forth decrees and edicts that branded the Athenasians infamous and impious and delivered them into the hands of the Inquisitor. Constantius again inwardly beamed, having done the duty of his God, and turned again towards his other duty, that of being Emperor in splendour and ensuring the full and lavish observance of court protocol. This had developed in a profusion of ceremony evolving in complexity since the primitive days of Diocletian and a great weight of regulations had alighted upon Constantius. In order to yet further separate the Emperor from the profane world of mere mortals where an assassin's blade or a phial of poison might impair his authority and display the mortal condition of the Emperor, who ultimately still wished to die peacefully in bed to the faint murmur of monks, an encrusting array of protocol and pomp served as a cordon of guard with weapons more sure and stalwart than the pikes and spears of earlier reigns. Constantius sat rigid and unmoving upon his throne, visage blank and mask-like, this marble flesh hewn by Etiquette. About this parody of humanity, incense swirled about as a fog, teeming in priests and eunuchs, the reverent dim of the chamber illumed by the wan light captured and spat out by the dense crust of gems upon his robe, the hems of which, stiff as the face of their wearer, awaited the kiss of adoring lips and inwardly was assured the sanguine careers of earlier Caesars would not serve to describe his own.

In 351 Constantius, his mediocre abilities taxed by the war with Magnetius that aggravated his perennial malady of Bewilderment, sought remedy in the re-division of the Empire. Constantius had two nephews, one Gallus and one Julian. Gallus was the elder of the two siblings and was suddenly summoned out of the villa-prison that the boys had been committed through the jealousy of their Imperial uncle and the whispers of his ministers. The years of forced confinement had laid savage hands upon Gallus and left the boy a misshapen creature, cruel and violent, and utterly incapable of the upcoming tasks of the purple. His elevation in status was soon followed by his marriage to one Constantia, herself a beastly perversion of femininity, a Fury athirst for blood. Constantia only encouraged and advanced the reign of Gallus' sadism, gratifying it with the profit of her vicious labours. Soon their palace in Antioch was filled to surfeit with instruments of torture, and a frequent supply of the unfortunate citizens of the city were snatched off the streets to assure their usage. This quickly alienated the populace from Gallus and Constantia, and made a rickety structure of their thrones.

This conduct was communicated to Constantius, who feared the possibility of revolt in the East and the abridgement of the days of Constantine's dynasty and he approximated as much of a frown as decorum allowed but was otherwise occupied with the destruction of Magnetius. After the usurper's fall, Constantius returned to the matter of Gallus, regretting his elevation, and dispatched emissaries to Antioch to respectfully entreat Gallus to more properly govern his violence and to instruct him in responsible administration. Subservience was to be the measure of their conduct, but upon reaching Antioch and entering into the palace and passing the engines of Gallus' brutality, the messengers forsook their instructions. Contempt and warning were hurled upon the glowering Gallus and Constantia who revenged their affronted titles and persons through the embassy's speedy arrest and punishment in the hands of their guard, eminently schooled in the refinements of bodily anguish. The unfortunate messengers of Constantius were beaten, slashed and dragged through the avenues of Antioch before at last being cast down into the jagged chasm of the Orontes River.

Constantius was moved to a protocol-permitted outrage upon the receipt of these tidings and resolved upon the fall of Gallus. Constantius was quite mindful, however, of the protection that would be afforded his aggressive nephew through the blades wielded at court and the spears thrown out from an army camp in Gallus' service, cast forth for suggestions, and through reverent mumbles discerned through lips pressed to the mosaic-festooned floor, it was at last decided that Gallus would be lured to Constantius' court in Milan through missives that sought Gallus' presence in the West as an esteemed guide and council. The discerning Constantia at once recognized these letters as a warrant of death and the ruin of her position, but her passing shortly thereafter and the confounding of her hope of raising his distrust ensured the insensible Gallus was reassured by their tone after his destruction of Constantius' mission and made rapid preparations for his departure. Gallus embarked in the midst of a most luxurious procession to the West, stopping at several cities along the way to host games and dispense a lavish charity to the indifferent and the fickle that soon abandoned him. It was lost on Gallus that his procession lessened in numbers as it moved further to the West, until at length its denuded condition at last obtained his notice. He was then stripped of his royal status and raiment, his silken carriage exchanged for an oxcart laden with filthy straw, his remaining entourage replaced by a cordon of guards who grew ever more stern as Gallus sank into the station of a prisoner. He was confined in the fortress of Pola in the Italian northeast and confirmed the possession of the axe shortly thereafter, Gallus' screeching form bearing its hands tied behind its back in the manner of the meanest criminals.

Constantius' remaining nephew, Julian, the milder and intellectual sibling of Gallus was at once summoned from Athens, where he had been allowed to foray after the elevation of his brother, there to study in the physical and mental decay of the city where the labour of comprehending Plato had become quite as Herculean as restoring pillars felled by the Goth. Julian was consumed with affright, made his journey to Milan anticipating that he too would become the sport of the executioner and then arriving was placed into an unnerving confinement. Outside his cell, raging debate wafted upon the air as a burning aromatic in regards to this remaining nephew of Constantius, the last of the race of Constantine. The inert Imperial expression bore no trace of partiality to either side of the argument that advanced Julian's elevation or urged his execution, until Constantius' wife Eusebia opined the difficulties and odious exertions that would be the lot of a sole rule. This offended the wide streak of indolence that dwelt within Constantius and at length he intervened to spare Julian's life. The cell door was thrown open, and the uneasy Julian was escorted, not to the block, but to the throne. There, prostrate upon the floor in a perfect adoratio, Julian was presented with the title of Caesar and the hand of Helena, Constantius' sister. Rising, the incredulous Julian was informed his domain would be the green woods beyond the Alps, there to adopt a nature of valour and smite the Frank.

Julian hastened to Gaul, quite in time to be confronted indeed with the inroads of the Frank, who had again breached the Rhine, seeking to feast upon the plenty that had been labouriously restored to Gaul during the preceding 50 years of peace. Julian's philosophical background and his devotion to Apollo and not Mars excited much concern in his army, and prompted considerable pleasure in Constantius whose jealousy for Julian could almost be discerned upon his blank countenance, and reflected pleasantly upon the satisfaction that the destruction of Julian might afford. All, however, would be most surprised by the unexpected martial prowess displayed by the former student of Athens. Julian easily put aside Apollo's lyre and donned the mantle of Ares. His old Roman simplicity, the issue of the temperance and contempt for discomforts he had absorbed in his philosophical studies of which Marcus Aurelius would have approved, served him well in the chill and arduous fields of Gaulish battle. Julian cast aside etiquette and the perks of his high station to join the melee in the mud and to tread upon it as a victor speedily earning the affection of his soldiers and the enmity of Constantius.

By 360, Constantius, after he had viewed the unexpected successes of Julian with fury and seething envy, attempted to greatly narrow the purple on Julian's robe after Julian had vanquished the Frank, driven him back beyond the Rhine and had even inflicted the harms of war upon their own domain, in an advance marked by a line of flaming hovel and only halted by the vast and impenetrable forest of the German interior that stoutly opposed further invasion. Julian conducted treaties with the defeated chieftains, commanded their obedience, the release of Roman prisoners from a woodland confinement and enlisted many of the Franks into his army, suffusing it with a fearsome belligerence, eager for conflict before Julian re-passed the Rhine to restore a violated Gaul. The woodsman was enjoined to fell a plenty of trees and the shipwright bade to construct a fleet of boats with which Julian endeavoured to sail across the channel to Britain, there to collect grain and check the foray of famine that followed in the train of the Frankish raids, winning the devotion of all. The tidings brought him, Constantius soon nourished a fear that Julian might use his powerful army to gain the sole mastery over the Empire, as his own soft and effete Oriental legions, bound in custom and protocol's care could never oppose them. It was quickly resolved that Julian must be separated from these sword-wielding illustrations of valour through an Imperial command to quit their Gaulish camps and march to the East. The order was communicated, and it begat not obedience but mutiny, an outrage and a tumult that threw the camps of Gaul into a disorder over the very thought of serving an effeminate Asian. At length the discordant clamour resolved itself into a clear exclamation of Julian's rise to the Imperial status. Julian faced this development with unease and concern, and retired to his tent, not stirring from it for three days as he consulted himself and discussed at length with his friends and ministers over the acceptance of such an irrevocable honour. The delay of Julian's answer ill-suited the wild temperament of his soldiers and their harsh cries and guttural bellows rose with each succeeding day sounding more and more ominous to those closeted in the tent until it was quite clear that the continuance of Julian's days depended entirely upon his yielding to the troops. At last, Julian emerged from his tent, arms outstretched, acceptance on his lips. At once, the purple was upon his shoulders, draped to a thunder of clanging metal and intermixed Latin and Frankish. Julian again retired into his tent and summoned stylus and papyrus, composing rapidly a missive to Constantius protesting that the title was forced upon him and proposed accommodation. The jealousy of Constantius would not admit one nor accept the other. He was compelled to break off the latest Persian venture against Sapor II in the East and in a flurry of preparation, carriages and carts to bear provisions and cupbearers attached to a vast train of horses, Constantius, the full panoply of his court in attendance, began a ponderous march to the West. He was still deep in Asia Minor when Constantius' contraction of a fever compelled a halt, and soon thereafter it manifested the severity of a mortal condition and Constantius expired. In 361, Julian, the once timid and mild philosophy student of Athens was now sole master of the Roman world.

Marquesan

"HivaMo'o2" by Michael Uhlenkott

Aesthetic Adaptation

Cellulose living in bourgeois champagne, smoking sex,
dwelling candy like substances once believed divine.
With rotted wits and addictions that exclude a fix --
all bow out with atramendous nonsense.
Past the age of reason, to a second renaissance,
names are spoken of scholarly--biographies are given --
and analogies made--but, when recorded and calculated,
it shows we have reached the Vacuous age
where many philosophers have dreamed of life and
wake into death, leaving their kiss of logic.
But after the kiss is no longer felt, we live
like virgins in a world of availability and certainty,
where everything has been done, and redone;
a tedious prolongment of a revolution's regurgitated acclaim,

a revolution grown tame.

The world was civilized until the concept of beauty was
aroused, and when beauty became a theory, it created a profession
referred to as Art that in its hierarchy of perfection over-oiled
it's pores and exploded into rowdy blackheads of confrontation
that became the source of soul investment.
The Banker's Wife has pennies for eyes and dollar
signs caught between her teeth. She smiles for what lays hidden
behind those mischievous lips, a smirk of greed and selfishness.
Why else would Bill Gates own the domain of da Vinci's name?
Because aesthetics bake in the billionaire's pie,
kneading the dough to fit inside the lines,
the redundant reassurance of a human's fingerprint in time--

Art never died.

Collages

"A Signed Copy of an Angel's First Recording" by Bruce New, Hand-Cut Collage/Photomontage, 16x20 inches, 2007

Typodermic Font Sugar

Ray Larabie is a font designer. His work can be seen any time you walk down the street and every time you browse the web. He has designed over 400 different font families and is regarded as one of today's greatest living font designers. His wry wit reveals itself in everything from the names of his fonts ("Pastor of Muppets" a Metallica-inspired face) to their very descriptions ("For tender moments: think 'Stud'.", "A pile of mouldy potatoes? Let's make a font!'" or 'Snowa is a snowatized snow font with added snow for an ultra-snowy effect. It's awfully handy for when you need to type words such as 'snow' or 'snowy'."). Ray Larabie is always on the move and always up to something new. He worked for many different video game companies until leaving it all behind to focus on what he truly enjoys the most: designing fonts. And the written world is a much more attractive place because of it.

Mark Givens: What was the first video game you worked on?

link

Ray Larabie: My first game was Alien Fires on the Amiga in 1986. It wasn't a huge seller but a good introduction into the games business. I preferred working on the Super Nintendo above all other consoles.

MG: You worked on the SNES?

RL: In 1992-93 I worked on NES/GB WWF King of the Ring, The Incredible Crash Dummies for SNES/Genesis and countless cancelled games. Then it was on to PC games. Quarantine, Roadwarrior, Dark Colony, Grand Theft Auto: London. I was a pixel pusher and later an art director.

MG: Grand Theft Auto: London was for Rockstar, right? What was your role for that project?

RL: All the artwork except the interstitials is all me. I was art director but I don't think I was good at it. It's a really technical job and I'm kind of old-school. I miss the short, snappy projects of yesteryear. Waiting 3 years to see a product in shrink wrap surpasses my attention span.

MG: You started designing type in the early 90s but only recently took it up as a full-time career. How has the transition been from art director to full-time font designer been?

RL: At first I was a bit worried but as I increased my font output, I realized that I could actually earn more money this way. I miss the interesting technical challenges and the people I worked with but I lost interest in games years ago. I don't even play them anymore, except for a few hours of Dig Dug a few months ago.

MG: So, what is "graphic design" and why is it so gosh-darned popular?

RL: It's the craft of making things look nice so people will buy them. It's designing fishing lures for catching humans and you get to use glue sometimes.

MG: Should Graphic Design be part of a Business curriculum or a Fine Arts curriculum?

RL: Business. Fine Arts is a good way to learn how to put a spin on design to sell it so maybe it's business too.

MG: What do you think of Web 2.0 design?

RL: I like it so far. It seems like more thought is being put into the presentation of information. I think it'll be better once we all decide on a consensus on a common interface. I think it's similar to the old Web the way it took almost a decade to realize that everyone instantly understands tab menus. It's interesting to watch what's happening at Facebook. They just added a whole bunch of new apps and it looks like a huge mess... but they're finding ways of dealing with it. I think that's the best way to do it. Just do it and clean up the mess later.

MG: That Facebook stuff is pretty cool because they just opened up the platform; it's open source now. That's really made a huge difference because they've given the tools to the people and a bunch of creative programmers are developing tons of cool stuff.
Along those same lines, do you think affordable production tools, namely home computers and desktop publishing (DTP) software, adversely affected the overall field of design by turning the tools over to people who are not proficient in design?

RL: I like to think readers have become more sophisticated in their tastes. It's easy to blame the designers but it all comes down to what the public will or won't accept. Buyers have a pretty good eye for what's lame and what's not. Of course, they'll turn a blind eye if the product is good enough. For example, if Roomba came in an awful package, I'd buy it anyway. But when choosing laundry detergent, the design decides what opens the wallet.
Bad design isn't a new thing. You can look at old Esquire issues and see design brilliance but looking at lower end magazines of the seventies will reveal entire articles printed in Souvenir. So, I don't think bad design started with DTP. Anything that lowers the bar for admission is a good thing in any media. YouTube is good for TV, iTunes/myspace is good for music in the same way Fontographer was good for fonts. If people can get into the business easier and shake the foundations, it's all good.

MG: That's a good point. So it's more of the "do it and clean up the mess later" thing again? Lower the bar, let everyone in and the good stuff, the designs that work, will rise to the surface through the flood of muck and mire. Is that about right?

RL: In a world of shelf space scarcity, it's bad business to open the gates and let anyone put a box on the shelf. But these days it costs nothing to keep extra stock. Just a few kilobytes on a server. So, why not let anyone get their foot in the door. Some people will make a font and decide it's not their thing. Once in a while, someone like me will play around with a font editor and never stop. What's critical is filtration and presentation. It seems pretty clear that the old font selling system is almost dead: submit fonts, hope they're accepted by an unseen judge or panel of judges, wait half a year or more for them to be released. Control of product needs to be in the hands of the creator and the customer. People can try to guess which fonts will succeed but only the market knows the real answer.

MG: What are the main differences between a typographer and a font designer?

RL: A typographer is a designer who uses type. Some people stretch the term to encompass anyone who has ever used a font. A typographer is a designer who is qualified to use type properly. Like pornography, you know one when you see one, I guess.

MG: Do you design exclusively for computer monitors?

RL: I mostly do display fonts. I test mostly onscreen. When I make text fonts, I test on paper. But I'm not a typographer. I've heard many typographer bitch about font designers who aren't typographers but they can bite me. You don't have to be a typographer to make fonts in the same way you don't need to be a classically trained musician to make a hit song.

MG: Are font designers the punk rockers of the type set?

RL: Non-typographer font designers are apparently the lowest of the low, so I guess you could draw a punk analogy, but I feel like I'm in a hair band.

MG: What are some of the unique problems confronted by computerized type design?

RL: I wish there was a more practical way of dealing with hinting. Making fonts look great at small sizes onscreen is a big technical hurdle.

MG: What is hinting?

RL: Hinting is a program included in a font which determines how it will be displayed at low resolutions. They're really hard to write which is why there are so few fonts that look great on-screen at small resolutions. The Microsoft core fonts have exquisite hinting so they look great at any size. Even Comic Sans is readable at tiny point sizes on-screen. Hinting is really hard to do and it requires weeks, sometimes months to do well. It's not economically viable for me. I'd like to be able to push pixels around and then let software reverse engineer it into a hinting program. It's probably not possibly but that's what I'd like to see.

MG: What is the smallest font that should be used onscreen?

RL: Lucida is really crushable. I think I can still sort of read it at 1 pixel high.

MG: Do you draw type designs on paper?

RL: Very rarely. Usually I don't even sketch the idea on paper. I know other designers use dead trees which is exactly why I don't do it. Occaisonally I have drawn fonts but I think it's pretty obvious: Mango, Flyswim, Whiterock etc. Fonts that are supposed to look hand drawn.

MG: Do you do calligraphy?

RL: No. I tried it but I lack finesse. It's the reason I failed as a classical animator. I smudge graphite, I press too hard on the pencil, I do everything wrong. So, I stick to the trackball.

MG: Are you right- or left-handed?

RL: Right-handed. Palm computers blew away the final crumbs of grace from my handwriting.

MG: Which style of type do you enjoy seeing the most?

RL: I think the more interesting type is coming from younger people who are just figuring it all out on their own. I'm interested in trends so I like seeing things at the leading edge. So, whatever I like now, I won't like next year. Right now, I love the hand drawn, ball-point pen, high school binder look.

MG: Your designs utilize a great deal of cultural references. Are you a pop culture buff?

RL: I am. I really try my best to stay on top of things.

MG: Do you play any instruments?

RL: I play guitar very poorly. Just rhythm guitar and pentatonic noodling. I want to get an Omnichord because I really want to know what it sounds like with a wah pedal. That's gotta be fun.

MG: Can you tell us a little about Cinecav, your closed caption font family?

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RL: Cinecav was the culmination of all my years working on console games. I've used many different off-the-shelf fonts so I'm very familiar with the problems that can occur on poor quality sets. Before I started Cinecav, I had a look at some of the existing CCTV (closed caption television) fonts and I didn't see any real improvement. So, I designed something that simply looks better on TV. I tested it, made adjustments and tested it some more. I think it's better than the other CCTV fonts out there. TV manufacturers probably like to imagine people in lab coats running around looking into microscopes designing a scientifically better font but it really comes down to making a nice font that looks good. But why not do it with some style? There's no reason a font has to be ugly to be readable. Some other companies offer what looks to me like a random selection from an old font catalogue. I like the idea of a consistent set of fonts with common characteristics because I think it helps with a television's brand identity.

MG: What do you mean a "television's brand identity"?

RL: Check out the XBOX 360. There's a font family that's consistent through all the menus. Most TV on-screen displays are lame by comparison. TV manufacturers put little effort into providing a good looking user interface. Cinecav comes with a compact font called Cinecav UI, intended for use in OSD menus. So, a TV set can have a cohesive set of matching fonts instead of a random scattering of old fonts. It feels like a complete design. TV set designers seem to spend a lot more effort on the design of the outside of the set than they do on the inside. People don't notice it because they're used to seeing poorly designed user interfaces for home electronics. Once they all start looking good, the badly designed ones will stand out. Just watch.

MG: How does your clarity testing compare to that of Clearview, the redesigned road sign type?

RL: Cinecav is a stylish matched set. Clearview is real science. When you're dealing with traffic it's all about saving lives so you can't mess around. I'm glad 3M ponied up the cash for that project because it was long overdue. I think we'll see Clearview being used for a century or so at least.

MG: They did some great tests about comprehension at high speeds, recognizing words and (more importantly) word shapes, when a driver glances at a sign. Cool stuff. How did you test Cinecav? Was there any high speed driving involved?

RL: Unfortunately, I can't test for every possible screen configuration so I used a worst-case scenario. This is what we'd do when making console games. Grab the worst TV set you can find and make sure you can read it. I used a curbside clunker, a tiny VCR-TV combo set, a smallish high-def picture tube, an LC monitor, an old iMac, a few runs on a plasma set. The curbside set was the most useful for testing. I tested alongside Helvetica at the same size just to have a constant measuring stick. Now that it's done, I use it all the time for watching fansubbed Japanese dramas with VLC media player. It's really easy to read... kind of soothing with those subtle rounded corners.

MG: Your type gets used a lot in a wide variety of places. In fact, the MungBeing logo uses a very slightly modified Pricedown. Where else have you seen your type in public?

RL: I see it every time I take a walk. Designers love free fonts with no commercial restrictions, y'know?

MG: Your free fonts are unrestricted? There's no "not for commercial use" clause or nuthin'?

RL: That's right. There are a few restrictions for distribution such as including fonts with software but otherwise, no restrictions. When I was working on Fontsugar.com I was surprised to see that this was a rare occurrence. I had assumed that most free fonts were really free but I hadn't looked into it.

MG: That's great. I really believe in that sort of thing. So your fonts are free to use and I've read that font designs are un-copyrightable. Can you tell us a little about that? Are there any advantages or disadvantages to this?

RL: I'm no lawyer as you can tell from my less-than-spectacular shoes. I like the current state of font copyright. I don't want someone suing me because my font looks a bit like theirs. There are no downsides. Font copyright is just fine the way it is.

MG: So, where have your free fonts appeared?

RL: The Torino Olympics was a kick. The Catch Me if You Can opening was a nice treat.

MG: Catch Me if You Can used Coolvetica, yeah?

RL: Yeah. Nobody told me about it so I didn't get to see it in the theatre. If you're going to use one of my freeware fonts in movie credits, please let me know so I can at least catch it in the theatre. C'mon.

MG: Have any of your fonts shown up in any odd places?

RL: I think it's kind of peculiar how I made Sofachrome to look like the Pontiac font. Then Toyota used it for some Echo decals. Now it can be seen at Mazda dealerships. Do they know it's basically a Pontiac font?

MG: If there were a fantasy league for type designers, who would be on your team? Who do you think would be your biggest challengers? What if each jersey had to be set in a style designed by the player? Would that change your roster?

RL: Ryoichi from Flat-It, Jeremy from Insigne, Joe from JoeBob, Xavier from Emigre, Eric from Process Type, Frantisek from Storm and Tomas from Suitcase. Together they will trounce all comers. But the real challenge isn't from other designers. It's old fonts. Old, dusty fonts sell more that new ones.

MG: Yeah, but they also make the jersies look crummy.

MG: Why do you think the English are obsessed with Eric Gill? Do you think he was funnier in person than he appears in print?

RL: Fact: all Brits are issued Gill Sans at birth. It's not so common in Canada so I don't mind it. I usually think, "Oh, at least it's not Helvetica." But after a few visits to England I can see how it would grate on the nerves. It's everywhere. Deleting it from your font folder wouldn't really be so bad, would it?

MG: Have you seen the movie "Helvetica"?

RL: Naw. Not my kind of thing. I bought a Helvetica book a couple of years ago and it pissed me off. If I want to see Helvetica, I'll walk around the block. Giving it more attention just makes the problem worse.

MG: The first encounter I had with an anti-Helvetica sentiment was from an instructor who said, "Remember, if it's written in Helvetica, you don't have to read it."

RL: Recalling that encounter just gives more attention to Helvetica. You need to drink those bad memories away. Let's talk about Univers.

MG: OK, when they make the movie "Acros the Univers," who do you think will play Adrian Frutiger?

RL: George Clooney for sure. When I googled for pictures of Frutiger, I realized that there are no pictures of me standing near huge drawings of fonts. Future generations: Please make fake pictures of me posing next to giant type specimens using Photoshop CS 23.

MG: Do you remember the Summerford poster for ITC Garamond - red type set in Garamond that said "HELVETICA"?

RL: I remember. It was funny in an art school kind of way I guess. A fat guy falling into a bass drum. Now that's funny, especially with a ga-bowm sound effect.

MG: Did you put any of that into GTA: London? Do you have any screenshots of your work in that project?

RL: I don't even have a copy of the game. I just did the cars and the city tiles so there wasn't much room for comedy, except for the "dog's eggs" on the sidewalk. If you hit the handbrake on some dog poo, you can make big brown skidmarks. In the future when people are playing videogames and pulling the handbrake on piles of feces making hilarious skid marks, they should remember who the real pioneer of videogame poop-skidding was. Ray Larabie: fecal emergency brake visionary.

MG: I think it was John Berry who argued that there was no such thing as "plain text" in that the type has been designed and therefore the presentation of text, even in its simplest form, relies on some sort of design. [It was. However, a more convincing and helpful version of this link, for our purposes, is made by Joel Spolsky when discussing character encoding and the challenges presented there. - ed.]

RL: When I copy and paste text from a PDF to Notepad and into a Word document for all practical purposes, it's plain text at least somewhere along the journey. I do think typographers exaggerate the degradation of communication aspect of type. Humans are good at adjusting to poor lighting, sound etc. You'll always have the audiophile who insists that you can't live without a certain quality of speaker and the typographer who insists that the fidelity of text is of great importance. Meanwhile, most of us get on with our lives with cheap headphones and the default font for email.

MG: Do you think maybe some typographers focus on the craft of typography while font designers focus on the people who will be using the font, like architects designing buildings for other architects and not for the people who will have to live in the building?

RL: Yeah, there's a lot of that going on. It's kind of a "scene" I guess. I don't think impressing other type designers directly corresponds to more font sales. What really matters to me is what designers want and not all of them are typographers. I don't think it's a matter of typographer/font designers making impractical fonts; I think it's the opposite. They know what works better than anyone. But being in the "designers out to impress other designers" scene can limit the audacity of font designs. That audacity (see Scrubby/Rinse) is becoming my niche. I think it's impractical to please both camps. That is why I think I'm on the outside of the font designer scene... that and the fact that I'm not a typographer or particularly well spoken when communicating with them.

MG: Have you noticed any similarities in skills or hobbies (besides typography) between type designers?

RL: We all seem to be fans of less than stylish clothing. Is that a hobby? [Yes, yes it is. - ed.]

MG: Is there a rivalry between calligraphers and type designers? Do you think there'd have to be a separate fantasy league for calligraphers or would they be allowed to play in your league?

RL: I'd like to see a big playoff game in their hometown where the calligraphers lose and there's a big riot afterwards and hundred of calligraphers are killed. That would be hilarious. Not at first. It would be tragic. But years later, we'd look back and laugh.

MG: Do you go to any of the type conventions (AIGA, SOTA, ATypI, ISTD)?

RL: I went to a few Typecons but it's more of a typographer/dead tree lover scene. I don't really know the names of the people the companies involved in type so I always have to pretend I know what people are talking about. I did a presentation for the Toronto Type Club reviewing what I've done in the last decade. That was fun. There was a Typecon about 2 hours away from where I live but I skipped out. I really should socialize with other font people but time away from FontLab is time wasted, y'know?

MG: Do the calligraphers all sit at the same table and whisper?

RL: Kind of. They sit with the graphic designers too.

MG: What do you think they talk about? Do you think they talk about the graphic designers when they go to the restroom? If their conversation were turned into a graphic novel, what font would they speak in? If your life were turned into a graphic novel, what font would you speak in? Who would illustrate it?

RL: My experience with calligraphers suggests that they're not very professional about answering email or returning phone calls. In fact, 100% of the time, they fail to respond to email or return phone calls. I guess business is really good for calligraphers or they automatically ignore font designers. I assume they're part of some kind of secret society like the one depicted in Eyes Wide Shut. Calligrapher dialogue in a graphic novel would be hand lettered. My comic speech bubbles would be set in Bleeker. It would be illustrated by Tom Wilson (Ziggy).

MG: What's next for you?

linkRL: I just launched a new freeware font site called Font Sugar - that took about a month to piece together and I like how it turned out. It simply features fonts that Ray likes. So if people are trying to come up with an idea for a font, they can flip through my small selection and they're probably going to find something cool and dust-free. I tried to keep it fair but I tried to avoid out-of-style and overexposed fonts, leaning toward newer releases.

MG: Font Sugar is a wonderful resource! I notice quite a bit of Nick Curtis and, not surprisingly, a lot of fonts that I've downloaded over the years but I also discovered a bunch of interesting stuff, well organized and described nicely. Have you received any other feedback?

RL: Yes, I've had a lot of positive response. I think it's a handy site for people who need a quick idea for a font. If a client asks you to name a few cool sans serif fonts, can you fire off ten off the top of your head? If so, then you don't need Font Sugar. If all you can come up with is Helvetica and Arial then you need Font Sugar.

I still make custom fonts but some of the more technical jobs are handled by Ascender Corp. This gives me time for creations like Meloriac. So, look forward to a year of heavy font output.

MG: Meloriac is beautiful.

RL: Oooh. Thanks. It's rare when a font just appears in my head and it actually comes out the way I imagined it. Usually I get to a "trouble letter" which I hadn't anticipated which spoils the whole effect but Meloriac was magic.

To learn more about Ray Larabie, please visit Larabie Fonts or Typodermic.