Those are great. Of the shows that I have watched enough to see I should get it, I don't get Magnum or Scrubs.
I don't actually get the Charlie's Angels one either.
Scrubs is the caps on the main characters' heads -- they wear different colors. At least I think that's it -- I've seen the show, but not watched it consistently.
2: The speaker phone on the desk. "Charlie" never appeared except in voice.
2: It's the speaker Charlie talks through.
The Mineshaft would look like this, perhaps.
I also don't get House -- that looks like a baseball to me. Should I recognize it as some particular type of pain med?
7: Tennis ball. He's always bouncing them.
But I don't get a number of them. Also, I find the selection of shows sort of odd - I can't figure out how they selected which shows would be done.
Probably selected the ones he could come up with a satisfying graphic for. This is just random art, not anything with a real commercial purpose.
11: But more than a few of them aren't satisfying! (Or, in other words, my pea brain can't figure it out. And I have seen most of these shows enough to think that I'd be a target audience.) I do love the two you selected out, though. And a number of others.
Though, I just got the Mad Men one, and in retrospect it should have been really, really obvious, so maybe I'm just not looking at them correctly.
I've only seen one episode of Mad Men -- I'm looking at that and seeing a reception desk, but I could be way off.
Oh, heavens to betsy, it's a highball and I'm an idiot.
The Mad Men one is definitely whiskey in a glass.
It is not a highball; a highball would be in a much taller and slightly narrower glass.
Honestly, elbee, I thought you were a New Yorker.
I am, but sadly degenerated from my liquored-up ancestors. You are, of course, correct.
I thought it was a desk, too, LB, so know you can sip your whiskey of sorrow bitterly but not alone.
I think the Magnum poster refers to TC's helicopter.
They are all clearly referencing Penguin covers of a particular vintage [or more specifically, their Pelican range]. It's interesting that he credits 'modernism' in general, rather than a very specific cover aesthetic.
I am glad someone explained the Charlie's Angel one.
I sort of know the Penguin covers you mean (and don't know much about modernism in general), but surely they're part of a broader genre?
re: 25
Yes, definitely, but I can see a more specific hommage going on, I think. I might be wrong, but they are very reminiscent of a particular sub-range of Penguin/Pelikan books at a particular time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joekral/528262206/in/set-72157594264351021/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joekral/3864370500/in/set-72157594264351021/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joekral/231494839/in/set-72157594264351021/
http://www.blanka.co.uk/supersize?product=3352
OP: The Magnum PI poster references the color scheme on Tom Selleck's black friend's helicopter. Also, I don't think these are in quite the exact style of those penguin covers.
29: I thought it also referenced the angled stripes and color scheme on the Trojan Magnum box.
surely a 'broader genre' would be less able to sue for IP infringment?
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When I am a governor, there are going to be MORE titties on public symbols. Russ Meyer is going to direct tourist ads for our state. They'll be cock, too. The symbol at the courthouse will be the huge Cock of Justice.
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32: Robert would have made an excellent 5th-century Athenian.
I've spent way too much time trying to think of a way to do the "Dukes of Hazzard" without going for a Confederate flag theme. I decided that, for someone who could actually draw, it wouldn't be too hard to do a stylized version of Daisy from the back.
34: You could also do the charger in frontal elevation.
re: 29
Not in the exact style, no, but they have much more in common with that than with, say, constructivist, bauhaus or de stijl stuff. If it's a hommage to modernism in general, it's heavily filtered through a particular post-war British [with maybe a bit of Swiss and Italian] take on it, I think. But, I'm hardly an expert on book design, so maybe my references are just too impoverished to recognize other potential sources.
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I just bought a bottle of this shit yesterday. We're half-way through the bottle because of the boy's fever. Fuckers.
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I thought the iconic image of the Dukes of Hazzard was jumping in through the windows.
38: Yes, but that's too hard to make stylized.
41: Just some blue circles with tanned half-moon in them.
Anyway, just picture very short denim shorts on somebody leaning over to talk to someone through a car window.
37 probably could have been clearer, given the number of people with kids here. They recalled pretty much every Tylenol and Motrin for infants and children, plus some kids allergy medicine.
I once designed a logo (for the Back Orifice software) very much along the lines of 6. The goal was something obscure enough that they would put it in Wired. Success! (That's the chrome bo2k version, and also somebody monkeyed with it in a fashion I don't approve of. But you get the gist.)
The original (in tiny resolution).
Hey Sifu,
Is there bottled water available anywhere in your town?
No idea. The tap water's delicious, though.
I think I see where 48 is going, and now I'm not going to be able to drink out of that type of water bottle.
Toddlers and infants aren't supposed to bathe in it, though. Sponge baths only. There were runs at supermarkets, and I have to say people can really suck.
There were runs at supermarkets, and I have to say people can really suck.
In between 42 and 43, I went to the store because the thermometer said 101. They still had the Tylenol on the shelves. The generics were fully stocked. I asked the pharmacist to check the FDA site again.
ttaM is correct, I think. The logos are certainly very familiar, and represent a form of a certain style of stock European functional iconography that peaked in the late 60's or early 70's, I think.
Also, I expect the mineshaft would involve stick figures, similar to traffic signs. If you were going to be accurate.
m, now, would someone please explain boston legal to me?
now, would someone please explain boston legal to me?
Suppositories?
But no, I have no idea.
54: Ha, ha. You know, uncontaminated water. Since our dishwasher lacks a sanitizing feature, we're supposed to rinse them in a water/bleach solution and allow them to air dry.
You were referring to the store being out of bottled water, not Children's Tylenol. Sorry about my confusion and your hydration issues.
Regarding the recall, score one for being too cheap to buy name brand medicines!
Geeze, Moby, that stinks. Bad enough having to deal with the anxiety of your child being sick, without having to run around looking for approved medication. I hope things calm down soon.
Thanks to ttaM for referencing the Penguin paperbacks. I've seen dozens if not hundreds of those in my life, but my visual memory is not good enough to have figured our why the posters in the linked post looked so familiar.
So how is it that Boston, Brookline, Newton, Somerville, Watertown, and Belmont are among the affected areas, and yet Cambridge is not?
60.1: It's just one of those mild things kids get, not enough to create anxiety about much except for the foul temper he shows when he's sick.
Cambridge gets its water from a different source.
The Sachplakat is a pretty well known modernist phenomenon, and is enjoying a moment of popularity. See Priester Matches for a famous example. To me these seem like direct descendants.
I'm not the only one who thinks so: The Sachplakat would probably be more familiar to an Austrian designer.
65: Than the Penguin book covers, I mean.
53: In between 42 and 43, I went to the store because the thermometer said 101. They still had the Tylenol on the shelves. The generics were fully stocked. I asked the pharmacist to check the FDA site again.
Is it possible to use either Aleve/generic or Advil/ibuprofen? I've always thought those were better reducers.
Hrmm. OK, scratch aleve unless you want to call the doc. But advil appears to be OK.
56: But no, I have no idea.
Two cigars maybe?
m, also, has anyone noticed there are two pages of icons?
64: To me these seem like direct descendants.
Aha. But was there not a previous revival back in the 70's I think? Making this a grandchild, rather than a child of the original Sachplakat?
m, i would swear i have seen similar stuff in the later context
Mr. Blandings, I think it's potable if you boil it. It's just that washing dishes is a pain in the ass.
Cambridge does indeed get its water from a different place.
People have been returning to the origins of modernism since the origin of modernism. There's no reason to think this designer couldn't have arrived at this design by applying a current aesthetic to the Sachplakat idea without ever knowing about a seventies iteration. But then he might have. Everybody's drawing from the same well, and they all influence each other.
No! People have only been influenced by stuff I know about!
has anyone noticed there are two pages of icons?
I am the least observant person ever. I would never have been able to remember that Columbo had brown eyes.
(I'm just happy that I was finally able to figure one out.)
People have only been influenced by stuff I know about!
I was wondering today about whether anybody has ever written about a kind of shared RAM. Like Jung's notion of the collective unconscious, but much more casual and short-term.
I was thinking both in terms of a single event or meeting, during the course of which there is kind of a "shared working memory" of vocabulary, analogies, jokes, etc. that you can build on, and in terms of a month- or season-long media cycle, in which you can assume that a certain phrase or concept has saturated the culture enough that people can reliably be expected to know it.
I'm sure this has been documented to death, but I wasn't immediately able to think of who has memorably described it or what they called it. (It's not the E.D. Hirsch idea of cultural literacy.)
I'm not thinking of self-consciously new uses of words, either, like how everybody was suddenly saying "dot-com" back in '97 or whenever it was. It's more like how an old word will suddenly seem to gain currency for no apparent reason.
74: Actually, Peter Falk has a glass eye.
63, 71: So I assumed, but I figured someone might want to make the oh-those-elitist-Cantabridgians joke I couldn't be bothered to think up myself. Apparently not.
77: ?? Yes, I know. That's the only reason I was able to get the Columbo reference, because I've actually seen many episodes and I always knew he had a glass eye. Not from observation, though, which is why I had to go do a Google image search to be sure he actually did have brown eyes.
OT:
Has everyone seen the "Tim Gunn, Fashion Critic to the Superheroes" videos (1, 2)? Diverting.*
79: I love those things. The biography channel used to show them then they stopped. I got some on Netflicks, but for some reason, I never enjoy something I've ordered as much as something I just happen upon.
I never enjoy something I've ordered as much as something I just happen upon.
This is exactly why I never order anything at restaurants. So much more satisfying to graze on the entrees of my fellow diners at adjacent tables.
Columbo episodes, not brown eyes or glass eyes.
82: I guess I'm limiting this to TV. For example, if you see Zardoz not knowing what it could possibly be and why the diaper needs suspenders, it is much more entertaining than if you'd ordered from Netflicks.
63, 71: So I assumed, but I figured someone might want to make the oh-those-elitist-Cantabridgians joke I couldn't be bothered to think up myself. Apparently not.
I see what you're saying, but one, if you use the term "Cantabridgians" again I'll cut you, and two, it might be hard to make the case that people in Cambridge are super elitist for having crappier water than Boston does. I mean, Cambridge is full of terrible, terrible people, yes, but their poorly-thought-out (if locally genius) water management strategy does not often enter into that characterization.
84: I've paid for Zardoz and liked it, I'll have you know.
86: But, having just stumbled upon it, I can appreciate it at a shallower level because I was so unprepared. Also, I think not seeing the first 10 minutes helps.
THE GUN IS GOOD. THE PROLOGUE IS EVIL.
Am I still allowed to sing "At the Cantab"?
Cambridge is full of terrible, terrible people
Undergrads don't count as people, do they? If so then the town where I work has the worst people. But I don't think they do.
HAH!
Yes, of course. A thousand times yes.
91 to 89.
90: if only they didn't.
Undergrads don't count as people, do they?
I'm paging through Peter Singer's books. I'll let you know if I find the answer.
I think I need to find 89 on Standpipe's other blog.
For more information, look on the internet!
WHAT IS WITH BOSTON AND DIVE BARS?????
This place is utterly DISGUSTING. The place is so old and dirty is it falling apart. We paid $5 cover at 5pm and the only other people in the place were the local drunks!!!!!
While we were there, there was the most rancid smell of raw sewage seeping through the bathroom walls. Everyone around was covering their nose and moving away from the bathroom area.
I could not stay another minute. really Boston? really?
I clicked the link in 97 and Yelp tells me two of my Facebook friends are Yelp members. How does it know this? I thought I had gone through all the Facebook privacy settings and turned off that sort of nonsense.
The X-Files design is either extremely subtle and I'm missing it, or completely uninspired.
98: I heard that they went and changed them up again. At least, apparently the defaults have changed. More and more, because I never log in, I think I should just delete my account. But since I never log in, it doesn't seem like that would be worth it.
Yeah, I don't know anything about Central Square. MIT and its surroundings are a mystery to me.
100: There's a new setting called "Instant Personalization Pilot Program" that says "Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites." But I already unchecked that, and still Yelp knows who I am and who my friends are.
I heard that they went and changed them up again.
Yeah, they added a bunch of interconnections to other sites. Opt-out, of course.
102: Yeah, there seems to be more to it than that, and getting rid of it seems to be difficult.
Speaking of universities and their surroundings, how the hell do you put up with such shitty commuter rail, neb? Though many people on Caltrain seem to deal with it by drinking beer on the train. Such foreign folkways.
"Please keep in mind that if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application"
How nice of my friends. And how about a list of the relevant applications? Fuck facebook.
102: there's another place where you can go to block specific websites that have been set at partners. If this comment were genuinely useful or at all informative I would tell you where to find that place.
So!
Somewhere, possibly on twitter, I saw someone speculate that Facebook has become sentient and the company's staff now fear for their lives.
102: there's another place where you can go to block specific websites that have been set at partners. If this comment were genuinely useful or at all informative I would tell you where to find that place.
So!
98: They're working overtime to give your information away.
Here's how to make sure you're current.
nosflow's university seems to have been carefully located in such a way as to be in the middle of nowhere despite being in a major metropolitan area.
I think it might be Privacy Settings -> Applications and Websites?
Who knows.
No, that isn't it, actually. You have to go to the application page for the each application and block it.
I do not know where the each application is are.
If you didn't click the link, and want a biscuit, 111.2 has step-by-step instructions.
From one of the EFF links:
However, the previous path (via "Learn More") to the necessary Block Application buttons was removed, with Facebook suggesting instead you first go to the sites (at which point your information is disclosed)
Incredible. So basically, facebook considers its users to be just a bunch of marks waiting to be conned.
Each applications is are all around us. I did not do that! I am as each applications is are adding each finding as you are! Each is a lot of us around.
76, 121: Some of the work on "collective memory" seems to be along these lines.
Witt can be a co-author on my paper "Copy-on-Write Semantics as a Model for Intersubjectivity".
I haven't actually read much of that work, but it seems to have started with Maurice Halbwachs.
Although the contemporary literature on collective memory seems to date from the 80s and 90s, when there was a huge boom in that area in multiple academic disciplines.
I love those covers! I like that I got some of them immediately, had to think about some of them, or look at them in a new way to get them, and that I had to have some of them explained to me and felt silly for not getting them right away. They're like cute little art puzzles! Fun times.
Tim Gunn on comics fashion is wonderful.
102: I would love to subscribe to a service that monitored this sort of crap and kept up to date howtos on preserving privacy. Even better would be a setup like mint.com uses to automagically log in and get information from financial services sites, only with a bot that fixes privacy settings to match your preferences.
118: If you're not paying, you're not the customer. Facebook's business model is entirely constructed around selling your personal information. Ditto Google. Google is a lot better about privacy than any of the other major players (the Buzz rollout fiasco notwithstanding). Facebook, on the other hand, is clearly headed in a more invasive and abusive direction.
My attempt at answering LB's OP Title question.
