Theoretically:
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”
—Jan van de Snepscheut
♦ 30.04.2011

Accidental Verbal Beauty: I’m paying with Visa. The heavy-accented teen-ager behind the counter says, “Chip your card.”

As I stuck my card in the chip reader, I thought about it for a sec, and realized that he had discovered the most efficient, elegant — though ungrammatical — way to communicate the desired imperative. An impressive display of economy or words.

I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Example: at Subway, the commonly accepted phrase throughout the Lower Mainland is now, “Would you like toasted?” But this is not as successful. Sure, you may save a single syllable, but it comes at a higher cost. After all, it is a phrase that a sandwich artist is saying dozens of time in any shift. You’d think you’d nail it after a while.

But “Chip your card.” That’s different. That’s upper echelon. That’s accidental verbal beauty. ♦ 17.04.2011

Sienna Miller: Screenshot from “Layer Cake.”

♦ 01.04.2011

10:18 Press Return: Screenshots from Darren Aronofsky’s “Pi.”

♦ 01.04.2011

Wisdom from John Cassavetes’ “Shadows”:

You never break your patterns, you never get anywhere with your lives.

♦ 23.03.2011

Great Lyrics:
“I want to sleep with you and your entourage tonight.”
—Steven Page, ”Entourage”
♦ 09.03.2011

Peace:
High fidelity, Tiffany lamp, hot drink, something good to read. Who needs furniture?

Photo: Steve Jobs at Home 1982, by Diana Walker.
♦ 13.02.2011

Half Monk: A chat between M and James Bond in “Casino Royale”:

M: Bond, this may be too much for a blunt instrument to understand, but arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand in hand.

Bond: So you want me to be half monk and half hitman.

M: Any thug can kill. I want you to take your ego out of the equation, and to judge the situation dispassionately.

Bond’s weakness is not his ego or arrogance; it’s trust. ♦ 12.02.2011

Egoless: Character Jeff Winger, from Community Season 1, episode 21 after being called out on his ego:

Oh, and for your information, I don’t have an ego. My Facebook photo is a landscape!

♦ 12.02.2011

Fame: Jim Carrey on Letterman on November 18, 2010:

I have this weird concept of people: that we all start out with a speck of dust in the centre of us like an oyster or something that’s like a mistaken belief in ourselves. And we form a character or a personality around that.

The bigger the personality, the dirtier the dust.

I mean, like anybody seeking national fame of any kind: whew, dirty. […] Just completely off-base about themselves. Just worthless in their own minds.

It seems pretty clear from watching that Carrey’s observation applies first and chiefly to himself. A couple points here. One is that the ability to objectively observe ego, and admit a very personal truth in front of millions of viewers, though a positive step, is also acknowledgement that even having publicly defined the inner demon does little to combat it. “I’m Jim Carrey and I’m a fame-oholic.”

The second point is that I agree with him. I think it’s a profound thought from an unexpected source. But it’s not just fame. Anyone, perhaps almost everyone who has some inner damage seeks to fill the void with something that neuro-chemically resembles love. Endorphins activated, dopamine flowing, pain is temporarily relieved. Temporarily. ♦ 03.02.2011

Yellow Days: In architecture school I used to love drawing on yellow trace paper. It got to the point where I had to design something on the yellow trace before I could take it into AutoCAD. Then I discovered that when you scan it, it it picks up the richness of the paper and better still, the smudges.

I’m now revisiting the days of yellow trace and so tiny sketches will probably start making appearances on the site. I love the grey of the enlarged pencil lines and the pale yellow against the white site.

This Futura “1” was drawn about 3/8″ of an inch high.
♦ 31.01.2011

Reloop: Sorkin recycled this ping pong line. And why the hell not. It’s good.

From “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” episode 6, 2006:

I’m gonna show them around the studio and when we say goodnight, I swear to God, my father’s gonna ask me if I need any money. And it’s gonna take everything I’ve got not to point out to him that I could buy his house four times and turn it into my ping pong room.

From “The Social Network,” 2010:

Ma’am, I know you’ve done your homework and so you know that money isn’t a big part of my life, but at the moment I could buy Mount Auburn Street, take the Phoenix Club and turn it into my ping pong room.

♦ 20.01.2011

Any Place, Any Time, Anywhere: It’s easy to look cool in a classic Hollywood promo still. But how about when you’re just walking out of your building?

♦ 08.01.2011

Only human:
“After all, there is a great deal of human nature in man.”
—Artemus Ward
♦ 05.01.2011

Extravagance: After watching Rick send lovesick Yvonne home in cab after she’s had too much too drink, Captain Renault observes:

How extravagant you are throwing away women like that. One day they may be scarce.

♦ 22.12.2010

Richness of shade: I scanned this back when I was in architecture school —I’m guessing from a Henry Plummer book. His books are beautiful, in both the typesetting and images. But at this time I do not have a credit for this photo. Bad form I know, but a beautiful shot. Natural light landing how it wants to.

♦ 20.12.2010

The Cat Comes Back: Gary Cooper.

♦ 20.12.2010

If Ever There Was an Alpha: Screenshot from “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968).

Dunaway as Vicki Anderson confronts Crown about seeing another woman. McQueen as Crown replies:

Hey, listen… she was just a way of putting you in touch with yourself.

♦ 20.12.2010

28-30 Grosvenor Gardens, London: Screenshots of the beautiful interior space at 28-30 Grosvenor Gardens, London from the 1965 movie, “The Ipcress File,” starring Michael Caine. A generous space, sparsely furnished, lots of light, and a dark floor to anchor it all down. Gorgeous.

Shame about the window muntin blocking Nigel Green’s excellent moustache in the last shot. Oh, alright, here it is: (click for image). The things I do for you people.♦ 14.12.2010

Depiction Reveals Behaviour: Quote from the film “A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China,” directed by Philip Haas, 1989. I’d say this applies to individuals as well as cultures. I also think it it applies to web space.
“There is … a great connection between the way we depict space and the way we behave in it.”
—David Hockney
♦ 14.12.2010

Elaine’s: Screenshot from Woody Allen’s “Manhattan.”

At the time the movie was released in 1979, Elaine’s on the Upper East Side would have been the place to hang for the powerful, intellectual, creative, rich and/or beautiful. ♦ 13.12.2010

Because: An exchange from Californication season 2 episode 5 between Lew Ashby and overly excitable Chloe Metz. Lew is trying to politely extricate himself from hanging with this nutcase, but then snaps and lays it out:

Lew: Look, we’re gonna have to catch you another time, Sweet Chloe, ’cause, like, I gotta hit the Troubadour and Hank’s coming with.

Chloe: Ooh, the Troubadour. I’m down with that!

Lew: No, it ain’t gonna happen. No tag-alongs.

Chloe: Why not?

Lew: Because the words left my mouth. Do I look like a person who says things he doesn’t mean?

“Because the words left my mouth.” That phrase is going straight into my back pocket for future use. I’m not somebody who says something as an invitation for debate. If I’ve said it, that implies I’ve already thought it through. ♦ 12.12.2010

Maria Grazia Cucinotta: Screenshot of this Bond girl from ‘The World is Not Enough.’
I was recently asked if I had a type. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. ♦ 12.12.2010

An influential shot:Classic photo of Rudolph Schindler’s Kings Road House, West Hollywood.
Photo: Grant Mudford. ♦ 24.11.2010

The voice of action:
“What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
♦ 24.11.2010

Vancouver: “Boston, California”: Sorkin on Vancouver from the pilot for “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”:

A clever way to say “undistinguished.” The actual line used in the show was phrased a bit more harshly. Danny inserts this phrase:

I’m drawing the line on the insanity.

Here’s the Youtube clip.

♦ 20.11.2010

Unfair warning: Ever been out for a stroll and a guy walking a dog approaches and gives you a heads up, “Don’t worry, he won’t bite.” Won’t bite? What am I, a frail, timid child? Yeah, I know he won’t bite. His tail is wagging and his tongue is flopping around. Somehow I’m mistaking this for threatening animal behaviour? The pooch is just looking for a new scent to store into future reference inventory and maybe while he’s at it, also score some passing sidewalk TLC. Have I not seen this before? Come on, man, I’m a forty year old man with a chilled demeanour and an outstretched hand.

So what’s with the warning? Could it simply be an unnecessary formality, a polite gesture to invite me to engage with the dog? Perhaps, but hasn’t that invite already been rather obviously implied by the dog? “He won’t bite.” So what then? Perhaps it’s not permission to engage the dog as much as it’s an invitation to engage with the dog’s owner. ♦ 19.11.2010

Yesterday’s Hero: I was feeling nostalgic for some early nineteen-eighties Hawaii, so I downloaded some Magnum PI season one from 1983. After watching a bit, it occurred to me that if the Magnum character (click for image) was set in contemporary culture, he would not be considered cool like he was back in the day — for the main reason that the guy never had any spending cash. His ever-present cashlessness was a defining trait. It was a constricting reality, leaving him to resort to compromise, sacrifice and the reliance on friends to help him out in his quest to come to the rescue to his almost exclusively ‘woman in distress’ clientele. He couldn’t “have it all” and didn’t seem to want it all.

The culture has drifted from the more grounded values of the now ironically called “me decade,” and now towards a shallower, accelerated, and distilled masculinity. More selfish. The current mantra is all ’50: “get rich or die tryin.” It’s in-your-face power, fame, cash, status symbols and verbal and/or physical toughness. Bluster.

Magnum had the look, but he was easily rattled, frequently indignant and wore his emotions on his sleeve. I.e. not today’s man. And without the cash, chest hair or not, he’d never make it as an admirable character today. ♦ 19.11.2010

Blown Away:

♦ 13.11.2010

Here’s To Plain Speaking:
And Clear Understanding. Great lines executed beautifully by Sydney Greenstreet in the Maltese Falcon:

I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking’s something you can’t do judiciously unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we’ll talk if you like, and I’ll tell you right out that I’m a man who likes talking to a man that likes to talk.

♦ 13.11.2010

Sunk Costs: Yet another example of the foolish, irrational internal drive to protect a past investment, no matter how clearly it has been a waste—whether that investment has been of time, of philosophy, of selection of partner, of money already poorly spent, or of a historic way of doing business. Stubbornness and resistance to change are the perpetual Achilles’ heel.

From James Surowiecki’s New Yorker piece about the failure of big box stores to adapt to the web—case in point, Blockbuster vs Netflix:

Why didn’t Blockbuster evolve more quickly? In part, it was because of what you could call the “internal constituency” problem: the company was full of people who had been there when bricks-and-mortar stores were hugely profitable, and who couldn’t believe that those days were gone for good.

Blockbuster treated its thousands of stores as if they were a protective moat, when in fact they were the business equivalent of the Maginot Line. The familiar sunk-cost fallacy made things worse. Myriad studies have shown that, once decision-makers invest in a project, they’re likely to keep doing so, because of the money already at stake.

♦ 07.11.2010

Cool cat: A shot of Gary Cooper. Deadly shirt collars.

♦ 06.11.2010

How fitting: I discovered a book online called Brevia by Sir Arthur Helps published in 1870. This book coincidentally appears to be a running list of sage truisms presented in full justification.

♦ 06.11.2010