Could Designers Save Print?

Rowland posted an amazing piece yesterday on his blog that raises a lot of interesting observations and points. As I commented to it, I really want to believe that designers could save the newspaper.

But can we?

Or would we even be allowed to do so?

In my mind the issue is two-fold: One, there are too many people out here who call themselves “designers” and are hired as such because they took a few Powerpoint courses and somehow know what “RGB” and “CMYK” mean (“Why, ‘Red Gray and Blue’ and ‘Cyan Magenta Yellow and Khaki’, of course!”). Are these people really going to save print? Two, and more importantly, the newspaper publishing industry is perhaps as bad as the financial industry in which I worked for so long in terms of giving their designers power over and ownership of the communication of their corporations’ messages. Essentially what I mean is, no matter how high up you are in your corporation’s Pantheon, just trust that your “designalist” (if s/he is good) will communicate the message effectively.

I think the solution resides in the heads of the heads of the newspaper corporations, i.e., hire designers who know what they are doing. And then give them the power to run with it. That is why you hire us: because we know our jobs better than you.

Trust us on that.

That is how designers willcould save print.

[Image courtesy of Getty Images.]

Filed under: Design, Editorials , a-list, linkage, pimpage, publishing, questions

Start Spreading The News

This is a photograph of me taken way back in the “I don’t know when ’90s,” by my boyfriend at the time, Gavin. We were living in this lovely brownstone out in Never-Never-Land-Brooklyn. It took us hours to get to and from work twice every day. If I came home at three in the morning alone I was invariably cat-called “maricón” by straight Latino guys smoking pot on their buildings’ front stoops, and laughed it off. Once I was followed home on the subway by a guy I totally thought was intending to rape me, due to his behavior and words and overtures. But whatever. As a city, New York treated me far more kindly than this one.

I like this photograph because it reminds me of that time, and of that city, and of that me. That me who would venture from Brooklyn to the West Village at four in the morning to comfort my friend Blake. That me who stupidly thought he could live on a publishing salary right out of undergraduate school, with no experience. That me who thought he had everything, and somehow lost it, or finally realized that he never had it, along the way.

That me who was never afraid to jump into the abyss.

Alone.

It also reminds me of how much of my life I actually did not take the chance to live there.

I’m not leaving today, but I will be soon, so start spreading the news: you can take the boy out of the city…but the boy will always come back. If only to jump into the abyss once again.

So if anyone reading knows of any good rentals or shares available beginning around September 01?

I am definitely game.

Filed under: New York , a-list, defining moments, home, memories, photoblogging, self-portraiture

On The Fingers Of One Hand

One of the most memorable conversations I remember having with my mother involved the topic of friendship. I had just completed my first year of undergraduate study and was home on winter break, having dinner with her at her favorite North Shore restaurant and dishing the goss. I was bemoaning the fact that I found it difficult to make friends. “Meeting” people, i.e., acquaintances, was one thing, because I was good at it (and anyway who can’t do that?), but making friends? That was proving to be difficult for me.

She set her cutlery down across her plate in the proper manner, and gazed out of the window that was beside her favorite table, watching the people passing on the sidewalk outside, and thinking. She then emitted one of her hilarious barks of laugh (which I believe I inherited from her), reached for her rare dry martini with three olives, took a sip, and said, “Darling. As you grow older, and if you are truly lucky, you will realize that you can count your real, true, close friends, the ones to whom you can entrust your life, on the fingers of one hand.”

She set her martini glass down on the table with a definitive tap and a triumphant, kind gaze at me.

As usual, I argued with her. Something along the lines of, “Oh, come on! Are you seriously telling me that when I’m 35 I’ll have no more than five friends of the type you describe? No way.”

She laughed again. “You may scoff now, Darling,” she said, smiling her trademarked wry smile and picking up her silverware, “but you’ll see. And it won’t matter that they are so few. Because they will be the friends who truly matter. And when you are asked by someone, unexpectedly, to name them off of the top of your head, without thinking, you’ll find, I’m sure, that they number five or less.”

This was a woman who did many, many things, in the society circles and the art circles and the academic circles. So I asked her, in my cagey way, “Fine, then. Name yours.”

And she did. Without thinking. Ticking them off using only the fingers of one hand.

At the time, I believe she was nearing 60.

[Those five women she named, by the way? They were all at her bedside while she was dying.]

I was reminded of this conversation during a far different one this evening, with my straight male BFF from our Scary Larry College Days. We discussed a host of topics, as usual, with us, from rocket launcher designers to François Ozon films to Sodom and Gomorrah to mothers to memorial services. During one course of our varied conversation I mentioned my best friends in another context that prompted him to ask, “Right, because who are they? Me, duh, and Remington, and Anaiis, and The Painter, and…?”

And…actually? Unexpectedly, off of the top of my head, without thinking? That was it.

Because, when it comes down to it? The people who know me best? With whom I would entrust my life? And who know that I want half of my ashes inurned in my family’s mausoleum on Lake Michigan and the other half scattered into the Pacific at The Place Where All Souls Leave The Earth? While Blondie (I’m thinking “Die Young, Stay Pretty,” just to be sarcastic, and to provoke laughter) is playing in the background? Those are them.

I smoked a cigarette in the oddly still early island morning after our conversation had ended, and thought of how right, yet again, my mother had been.

And of how blessed I feel to have these people in my life.

And of how oddly unsurprised I am that they can all be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Filed under: Writing , a-list, alucina, chicago, death, defining moments, dick lit, emotional landscapes, family, memories, needful reminders, oahu, painter

In Praise Of The New End Note And Internet Etiquette: Via

What I love best about coming from a rich tradition of amazing comparative literature theory and philosophy instructors at Sarah Lawrence College is my profound appreciation for my sources.

The first lesson I learned came in the form of a course evaluation from Arnold Krupat, in which he advised something along the lines of, “Do not allow the voices of your critics to overtake your own interpretation of the text. Do not be afraid to quibble with the words of those other writers before you.” This, I am learning only recently, has come to vastly inform how I interact with other people (writers, “writers”, or not) online: Form your opinion, and stick to it, and do not allow others to influence what you write about the topic (unless, of course, they provide a very good argument). It is not easy to stick with your own opinions while reading others’ online and not being attempted to run with them, just because of their eloquent articulations, name or stature in the online “community,” or marketing gambits. But it is, I have learned, in the years since that evaluation, supremely wonderful advice: Never be afraid to quibble with your critics. And never parrot their own opinions, or allow their voices to become your own.

The second lesson I learned came much more harshly, in an individual conference discussion I had with Bella Brodzki, on French symbolist poetry. “Where did you read that observation?” she asked me, archly, from across her desk, exhaling smoke from a Gauloises cigarette. “I…” I stammered. She interrupted me. “I want the title of the work and I want the name of the author and I want your take on it,” she said. I looked down at the scribbled notebook in my lap, and began to cry tears that I did not allow her to see. “Atherton. Never, ever cite something ambiguously. Be prepared to give everything along with your own interpretation. Cite and know who wrote it, what it was about, where it came from, and be able to cut it to shreds, if you need to do so.”

I choked back the tears as I lit my own Gauloises (do you think I would ask her for one of her own, after that?!).

Only far later that semester did I adopt a new obsession: the end notes of all of my papers. I paid specific attention to their creation and my writing of them, consulted the MLA to learn how I should cite them, and always, always, even if it was my own interpretation of an idea within my own text, if the idea came from someone else (even if I did, thank you, Arnold, quibble with it), I cited it.

I suppose it is because of this training that I try very hard to cite people on the Internet. It may not be their original content, but if I am posting it, “reblogging” it, or in any way referencing it because I learned about it from someone else, I via it. (Or, at least, I really do try to do so. I am quite sure infractions may be discovered in my online work, as they were back in Brodzki’s corner Bates office, in Bronxville, New York, on a fall day.)

I think that is only compulsory, don’t you?

A screen capture of an old end note of mine from those days follows. Because it took more work for me to research and type all of that then, than it takes for us to make one simple copy, paste, and “via” link, now.

[Also please don't crit my writing in that? It was like 199FIVE.]

Inspired by,

and (hello!) [VIA] Blakeley

Filed under: Academia, Blogging, Books, Editorials, Net Culture, New York, Philosophy, Writing , a-list, linkage, memories

To All Of My Circles And Triangles

Sometimes, at the moment you precisely require it the most, words, images, memories, and adorations are sent to you.

Without even a moment of hesitation.

These are, truly, the moments that make life worth living.

+ + +

+ + +

Atherton,

It’s been so long since I’ve told you “I love you”. I read your post today, tears in my eyes. You are such a beautiful boy. Still a boy, yes. To me.

You’re the boy I met soooo long ago now. Warm and sad and soft and gentle and delicate. When I think of you, I think of those things. I know. There’s more, there’s your strength and your assuredness, your pride and your conviction. There’s your ability to vamp with the best of them. -smiling- But. I feel like I’ve always been able to look at you and see the fragileness of you. The tiny breaks in the safe smile. I always wish there was more of myself, my life, I could share with you. There have been times, today for example, when I wish we were no more than a door or two away. So I could barge in and flop onto your sofa, weary hand over my face, press into the flesh of your stomach and just shut my eyes. Your hand, light and warm on my back. Just so I could listen to you tell me stories. Your stories. Like the one you told today.

I want to share it with everyone. I have often wanted everyone I know to know a piece of you. Maybe not all the pieces I know – and I’ve always wished for more – but enough to see how beautiful you are. So I can say, “See him, there? There’s nothing he could ever do in this world that would make me love him any less, and I’m always finding reasons to love him more.”

And that’s from all the way over here.

Remember that for me, beautiful boy.

+ + +

Here is to remembering.

The boys and women we are. The work we’ve done. And the work we’ve yet to do.

And to 35 no longer being scary.

Because of people like you.

Filed under: Writing , a-list, alucina, emotional landscapes, memories, needful reminders, television