The Fifth Of November

“Employed Writer” Halloween costume was a joke, obvs. Getting into character right now to don my real costume — “Remember, remember, the fifth of November”…

Filed under: Events, Fashion, Film , celebrities, history, humor, linkage, photoblogging, red carpet situations

The Dark Night

Final Honolulu Halloween + no idea how many more F&M events I can attend before I leave = F&M’s The Dark Night at Pearl Ultralounge tonight!

Filed under: Events, Music , honolulu, linkage, a-list, oahu, pimpage, red carpet situations, egreetings

All Hallows’ Even Greeting 2008: From Tippi To Type

In honor of my favorite holiday of the entire year, I thought I would revive a long-dead blog tradition of mine: The Designed Holiday e-Greeting. However, I also decided to mix the tradition up a bit in this most recent incarnation by adding actual informational content to accompany the image, which will hopefully be interesting to at least a few other people besides myself.

This year, since my avian friends have for many months now been a fixture in my daily life as well as a minor consumerist obsession, I thought I would begin with the classic film poster artwork of Tippi Hedren’s terror in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. Satisfied with the artwork I “acquired”, but not at all with its accompanying typography (which was neither as ominous nor as “Halloween-y” as I desired), I began researching the typographical elements of other Hitchcock films, as well, and suddenly stumbled across perhaps one of the best life stories ever of “Graphic Designer Meets Film Industry”: that of Saul Bass.

Saul Bass (1920-1996) was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, and Martin Scorsese.

When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, “The Man With The Golden Arm”, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans: “Projectionists: Pull curtain before titles”.

Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see “The Man With The Golden Arm’s” titles as an integral part of the film.

The movie’s theme was the struggle of its hero — a jazz musician played by Frank Sinatra — to overcome his heroin addiction. Designed by the graphic designer Saul Bass, the titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it — rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face — as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster.

That cut-out arm caused a sensation, and Saul Bass reinvented the movie title as an art form.

— Design Museum London

I love this story not only because Bass remains a permanent fixture in Atherton Bartelby’s Pantheon Of Graphic Designers, nor because truly stunningly designed film titles are not at all dissimilar to aphrodisiacs for me, but because Bass’ design style and influence are still felt to this very day, on a media platform even more modern than that of film when Bass first started his career: the internet.

In September of 2007, the online typography journal Typographica published a piece describing the history of saulbass.net, which was for a long time “the most popular online destination for devotees of the great designer and film title director”, and heralding the site’s relaunch (again by original creator Brendan Dawes) at saulbass.tv. The same article also thankfully hosts downloads of designer Matt Terich’s “Hitchcock: A Saul Bass Font”. Of the typeface, Typographica noted, “We hope he’ll add alternates to help it better emulate hand lettering. In the meantime, this version will suffice for the hobbyist when used with care and at smaller sizes.” And suffice it did, for this particular Designer/Writer’s All Hallows’ Even Greeting Of 2008.

So read up on designer Saul Bass’ life, work, and influence via the links provided below, if you are interested, visit Typographica to try out Matt Terich’s Hitchcock font, and, if you happen to find that you still cannot get enough of The Bass Effect, you may even treat yourself to the free Vertigo Tumblr Theme designed by Matthew Buchanan. It’s pretty stunning. I’m sure Bass would be pleased.

And I do hope you are dressed up today! I am: as an employed writer!

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Author’s Recommended Links:

• Saul Bass: Graphic Designer [Design Museum London]
• Saul Bass Website And “Hitchcock” Font Are Back [Typographica]
• Saul Bass On The Web [Brendan Dawes]
• Vertigo Tumblr Theme [Matthew Buchanan]

Filed under: Art, Blogging, Design, Film, Net Culture, Typography, Web Design , celebrities, egreetings, humor, linkage, lists

Off The Radar

This morning I settled into my usual table at my usual Starbucks café, with my usual venti Américano with way-too-many sugars, fired up my laptop as usual, and attended to my usual morning routine of attending to email correspondence, oversharing on Twitter, and perusing my RSS feeds. It was not long after I had started this last ritual that I realized that something was different; sadly, drastically different.

Radar Online was gone.

Well, not “gone”. It is still online, and I suppose one could argue that it is still publishing new content (although certainly not as “fresh” nor as “intelligent” as it was only five days ago), but for all intents and purposes, to a fan like me, it is gone. Of course, as news of Radar magazine’s print version finally folding entirely, and its online version’s subsequent acquisition by AMI broke on Friday, I was not surprised when I realized that the content, the writing, the voices I had become used to reading, were no longer there. I was just…sad.

The evening went up in smoke for party girl Mischa Barton and a male friend at Hollywood’s Bardot on Oct. 23. After Mischa’s friend hand rolled a cigarette, the pair lit up right in the club, passing the butt between them. It sure didn’t SMELL like a Winston! —By Staff

This was the first item I read during my perusal of the new Radar Online’s first morning of news offerings. I do not think it should be surprising that I ceased my exploration rather soon after, considering the content to which I had become accustomed.

This. Is. Hilarious. And also sad. The ads for Proposition 8, the voter initiative in California that’ll undo the state’s gay marriages, are out of control. Take the poor blonde in this ad: “You know as well as anyone I love Richard! He’s one of my best friends! But just because he’s gay doesn’t mean I have to support gay marriage!” Then she can’t even figure out how to convince her boyfriend and she’s all “Just look at the website and you’ll understand because everything on it is true!” —By Choire Sicha

The difference between reading the site’s content last Thursday and reading it today was marked, painful, and…well, again, just sad. Gone were the wit, the candor, the intelligence, with which the content was produced by its previous writers and editors. In their places were simply empty blurbs that one could easily read while waiting in the check-out aisle of a grocery store, i.e., nothing special.

Obviously, I abandoned my Radar Online feed rather quickly, in favor of other, yet still related, material, and stumbled across the reasons why Radar Online was so good, and why, over the past year, I had grown to love having it around in my RSS reader as a daily “must-read”. I stumbled across these reasons in Alex Balk’s (former Executive Editor of Radar Online) elegiac entry in his own Tumblr.

I am intensely proud of a lot of the material we brought to the site. It was an incredible honor to get to give chances to new writers, all of whom carried off vague assignments with tight deadlines as if they were seasoned pros. I’m not going to name names, because I’d for sure leave people out, so I’ll just say that every single one of you special, and it was a real honor to have some part in helping them establish your career. [...] So, finally, to the team at Radaronline.com. You should know that if you’ve enjoyed the site at all during my tenure, it was because of their efforts and the quick way in which they figured out how to manage around me. I was brought in to help make the site more popular and relevant, and, wow, did that ever happen. And it happened because of the incredible team that I was given. —Alex Balk

It was, as Balk wrote, an incredible team. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can be an unapologetic and shameless fan boy at times, particularly when it comes to those writers and journalists whose work I read frequently and wholly respect, so it is not unusual that I would be saddened by such an event in the online media world. But what made Radar Online so special, so enjoyable, was unusual: the collection of these truly intelligent voices, producing engaging, smart, unique content in an online world in which it is so difficult to stand out from the unwashed masses.

But they certainly did.

Not long after I finished reading Balk’s eulogy of Radar Online, I returned to my RSS feed reader, entered my “Manage Subscriptions” control panel, and deleted Radar Online. I was reminded, again, of the first news I read of Radar Online’s demise last Friday, by a writer far more esteemed than myself.

This is a sad day for people who love magazines, and for people who love sharp everyday writing, and for people who love risk-takers and dream-havers. It’s sad because Radar magazine — and its inestimable online arm, RadarOnline — have folded. —Rachel Sklar

Truer words were never written.

Filed under: Editorials, Media, Net Culture, Writing , defining moments, linkage, publishing

On Mavericks And Mavens

So ZOMG you guys do you all know who you are going to vote for in exactly two weeks from today? OMG I know, right? Me, too. I totally feel the same way. Anyway this blog entry is not going to be totally political because I do not really roll like that up in these “Curious Affairs” but it definitely will have some political elements involving humor, sarcasm, blonde female conservative right-wing talking heads, and lots and lots and lots of girl-on-girl and guy-on-guy hot homo love. (Also it promises to be a highly random entry, political or not, as I have The Writer’s Block / Malaise and feel like writing in a quirky and humorous style in order to hopefully get me out of this cloudy funk that has apparently covered my entire creative world as of late. Except for photography. I did shoot a lot of incredibly cool images of birds today. But I am saving those for tomorrow’s Hitchcockian entry and are you not just the luckiest readers ever to have that to anticipate?)

HOT HOMO LOVE

Let’s start right off with the hot homo love, shall we? After all, I do indeed have The Gay but so infrequently discuss it here unless I am whining about past lovers who have penises and in fact have been known to write not-so-well-argued pieces in the not-too-distant past regarding my at the time not-too-popular opinions on gay marriage, but as I myself have proved this year people can change and so can their opinions, so this is all about celebrating those of you who have found That Special Someone to have and to hold and blah blah blah forever and ever even though I have not and likely never will.

Anyway, there is this ballot initiative in California called Proposition 8 about which you may have heard should you live in California / America / not under a rock and just to nutshell it for you it would amend the California State Constitution to revoke the rights of same-sex couples to marry that was afforded them by the State back in June. I know, Double-U-Tee-Eff, right?! Now obviously I do not live in California, but since half of my BFFs do, as do a large constituency of my blog’s readers for some reason, I thought I would do my part to pimp the various fabulous resistance efforts regarding Proposition 8.

Choire Sicha has a fabulous piece up over at Radar Online in which he collects a whole slew of the ridiculous / horrifying / jaw-dropping-in-a-bad-way television advertisements in favor of Proposition 8, interspersed with his as usual inimitable commentary on such. It is called “Meet The Hip Young People Who Hate Gay Marriage” and it is well worth a once or twice or thrice over, allow me to assure you.

Additionally, This Girl Called Automatic Win is participating in “8 Against 8: 8 Lesbian Bloggers, 8 Days, 8,000 Dollars,” a coalition of eight amazing lesbian bloggers coming together “in a coordinated effort to help place the discriminatory ballot initiative called Proposition 8 in its rightful place in the dust heap of history.” Which, hey, that sounds fabulous to me. You may learn more about the collaborative effort in that linkage I so thoughtfully provided above, as well as participate, pimp out, and generally support the efforts of these amazing women. Also, check out Auto-Win’s inaugural 8 Against 8 article here, and follow her progress on the project here.

MAVERICKADE!

Following a lovely luncheon this afternoon at the edge of the Pacific Ocean (and the aforementioned and highly random avian photography), I picked up some snacks at my former favorite Liquorette Mart and motored it to the Harbor to relax and watch the sunset. Except I very rarely relax and I am always reading everything so I scanned the back of my Jagged Ice flavored PowerAde (WTF does “Jagged Ice” taste like, you ask? Why, grape, of course. Duh!) and was shocked to discover that The Coca-Cola Company apparently endorses McCain / Palin! Yes, right there on the label, in formidable ALL CAPS AND EVERYTHING! “PowerAde is liquid fuel to feed your MAVERICK SPIRIT!” I know. I was shocked, as well. Because I am a Coke Person and not a Pepsi Person and now I am going to have to switch, G-d damn it!*

Anyway then I remembered a piece I had read and viewed on Jezebel earlier this morning entitled “Elisabeth Hasselbeck Is Full Of Shirt” and was suddenly sick of hearing about her and her female wood for the McCain / Palin campaign and the conservative right-wing in general. Because she is kind of stupid about it, you know? I mean I realize that part of that is because she is on “The View” which I never watch with a bunch of female liberal sympathizers, but really? That whole t-shirt that Hasselbeck “designed” for the McCain / Palin campaign? It totally reminded me of this scene in the classic film “Drop Dead Gorgeous” (1999, dir. Michael Patrick Jann) in which Kirstie Alley’s character is interviewed regarding her various themes for a small Midwestern town’s annual beauty pageant that she coordinates.

Documentarian: So what was the theme of the pageant last year?
Gladys Leeman: Last year? It was, “Buy American.”
Documentarian: And the year before that?
Gladys Leeman: “U.S.A. is A-okay.”
Documentarian: Can you remember the theme of your favorite pageant?
Gladys Leeman: “Can I? I’m Amer-I-Can!” People ask me where I get this. I don’t know, it’s, maybe a gift from God or somethin’.

Yeah. “Or somethin’.” Anyway, that is what I think of Hasselbeck and her “Great AmeriMcCain Hero” t-shirt “design.” Also, does the conservative right-wing not already have a beautiful blonde female talking head who, um, does this kind of thing a whole hell of a lot better than Hasselbeck? Oh right! I thought so.

Anyway, you should also check out Alex Pareene’s “Five Real 2008 Election Winners” over at Gawker, as well, should you, like me, have been eating up the media coverage of the election season over the past several weeks and simply loved it but also have no energy, desire, nor inclination to delve into the punditry / analysis yourself in your own blog.

So that is likely the last anyone will read of politics in this blog until my historically epic rage entry (not drunken this year, thank Hera) liveblogging the actual Election Eve. Which, well, you will just have to tune in to see how it goes.

BEAUTIES AND THE BEAT

But speaking of beauties and the beat, and by that I mean the journalist’s “beat,” and in this case that beat is The Internet, I thought I would also take this opportunity to point your browser toward two amazing pieces I have read in the past week concerning beauty, popularity, and respect on the internet. Regular readers of “Curious Affairs” are likely familiar with my rather obvious love of these two female writers’ work, but I found their latest pieces to be particularly amazing and insightful. AV Flox’s latest, “Hot On The Web: Pageviews vs. Respect,” is a cogent commentary on gender, beauty, popularity, and respect on the world wide web. Emily Gould’s latest, in MIT’s Technology Review, “iTube: Why 23,201 People Care That Justine Ezarik Just Ate A Cookie,” is an interesting profile of the self-proclaimed “I Am The Internet” vlogging personality and the internet fame phenom in general. Both are excellent pieces.

REMEMBER THAT OTHER ELECTION?

Ha ha ha! You thought I meant the Presidential election in 2000, did you not? Fooled you! We are finished with politics here until 04 November, remember?

Anyway, no, I meant that voting thing for the Hot Blogger Calendar that I wrote about back in August, and totally pimped myself out because I had been nominated and asked that everyone who read me go over and vote for me now, damn it? Yes, that one. Anyway, I did not “win.” (The final count had me at 24th place, so, you know, if it was a two-year calendar I totally would have been December 2010, which numerology-wise could have been pretty awesome, but alas, etc.) But since I was honored just to be nominated, and totally heartened by all of the votes that I received, and beat Perez Hilton in the final tally, and none of my readers wanted to see a slutty yet artful photograph of me anyway, it’s all good. However, I am totally pimping the project again.

As the proceeds will be going to a variety of charitable organizations, and as I am a huge fan if not outright BFF of several of the featured bloggers, I must humbly request that you head on over to the site once the calendars are available (likely in a few weeks) and order one or a few for yourself / friends / parents / pets / etc. From what I have already heard, you will not be dissatisfied by all of the blogging hotness.

So, yeah, that is it for this installment. Stop back by tomorrow for a return to the usual nostalgic, emo, non-political fare of “Curious Affairs”.

This time with birds!

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* This is humor, obviously. I’ve no idea which campaign, if any, The Coca-Cola Company endorses, and quite frankly I am such a Coke Whore that I am not sure I would switch refreshing cola beverages for political or any other reasons. Also that Kirstie Alley publicity still was so not taken by me, but instead is copyright 1999 New Line Cinema Productions, Inc.

Filed under: Blogging, Fashion, Film, Food, Media, Net Culture, Photography, Politics, Writing , a-list, alucina, being a gay, being servicey, celebrities, humor, linkage, philanthropy, pimpage, remainders, repartee, retail therapy, rumormongering, television, video