62. Tip Top Shoes

I'm not a big shopper. I wear gifts, shop at church fairs, and keep things for decades but rarely purchase anything new. But I needed nice shoes for a fast-approaching wedding. Hand-me-down shoes won't and wouldn't work, for the optics and for practicalities of dancing. Knowing that Tip Top Shoes sells handsome and quality stock, I dashed in 10 minutes before closing time and saw some blue suede open-toed sling-backed vintage-looking beauties. Not wanting to be that shopper who keeps a salesperson working right up to closing time, I said I'd return. For her part, not wanting to lose a sale, Jackie -the -salesperson said she'd check for a pair in my size. There was a black pair a half size too small and the blue pair my supposed size. The shoes were gorgeous and so comfortable I worried that there were not tight enough for dancing. Hearing my concern, a salesman extended his arms to me and started to move. I followed him, doing the Lindy, although he was dancing Salsa. No matter. The shoes worked. Reader, I purchased them.

I'd never heard of AmourDesPieds, but they seem to be high quality (and should be for the sticker-shocking price). The gold-lined shoe box seemed appropriate for the cost of the shoes (I violated my religion and paid full price)—and I worried about sustainability, especially since my next stop was the book group and a discussion of The Overstory by Richard Powers. Knowing I'll someday, use the sturdy and gorgeous box as a courier for gifts, I feel a bit better about going deluxe.

(For September 10, 2019)

??. Digital Sheep

 I admit it. I'm one.

Digital souvenirs

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/instagram-architecture-design.html

61. In line for the throne?

The mystery is solved. Neither deer nor chipmunks ate the parsley on the porch. The varmints are caterpillars. Up close, the chomping caterpillars almost look like furry mammals, with panda-like faces instead of insects. I believe these critters are on their way to becoming Monarchs.

(For September 9, 2019; posted September 9).

60. Vintage Bermuda

Vintage Bermuda sounds a bit more playful than perhaps it was for my father in the 1940s. Before Dad, a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Navy, was a ship's doctor an LST in the South Pacific in World War II, he was briefly stationed in Bermuda. At that point, he was still pretty much a newlywed and most likely sent souvenirs to our mother.

The scarf we found while emptying our parent's house is so playful that it's hard to imagine Dad sent it from the Naval Base during WWII. The planes in the left middle look like birds instead of warplanes. The border art is charmingly relaxing—and the Latin motto of "Quo Fata Ferum"—"Whither the Fates Take Us"—seems equally calm about surrendering to whatever life throws at one (luckily, the Fates took Dad to the South Pacific and back to the U. S. and safety).

Although I imagine the scarf is from Dad's service time in Bermuda and the "Copyright the Yankee Store" meant it was a spot where servicemen could buy souvenirs (if wartime gifts sent home can be called "souvenirs") to their beloveds, I can't find this scarf or anything similar online to confirm my assumptions. My folks are no long around to answer questions. Any ideas, anyone out there?

(For September 8, 2019; posted 2019)

59. Hand Crafted

The video showing the sureness with which this gent (in Florida? Cuba? New Orleans? [check]) prepared his tin [check] strips for signage and then painted signs is one of my favorite parts of the "Look Both Ways: The Illicit Liaison between Images and Information" exhibit. Across the gallery from the Helvetica movie, the video is a great contrast and adds an intelligent, well-rounded study of words and images—or words as images.

The lettering artists reminds me of the itinerant painters such as Harley Warrick, who could paint—in six hours—the letters for a Mail Pouch Tobacco ad on the side of a barn. The signs show patience, practice, time and talent. Warwick's signs also show a sense of humor; according to the Wikipedia entry, Warrick occcasionally put three "c"s in the word "tobacco," just to see if anyone noticed. Speaking of which, do you notice anything in this squib?

[To check: name of the artist featured in the video. My unreadable photo of the wall label shows, "_ez?, Camp, Gossett.]




(For September 7, 2019, posted September 8).

58. Looking Two Ways

I wanted to see "Look Both Ways" for two reasons. One, I wanted to be in the game, as it were, out of my shy bubble, out in the world with the big kids (acknowledging that being a big kid has nothing to do with age and everything to do with accomplishment). Two, I really, really wanted to see the work Debbie Millman curated to illustrate her thesis of "The Illicit Liaison between Image and Information."

After teaching in Brooklyn till 6pm and then stopping at the office to drop off school-stuff and reply to a few emails, I was in danger of missing the reception. Bad weather, a bad decision about the subway route, and a long walk in uncomfy shoes almost made me bail and simply go home. But I craved food for the eyes and mind. I arrived at 7:50pm, ten minutes before the reception's stated ending, but knowing that the reception would probably last a bit longer.

I'm glad I went, even as late as I was. The show was smartly-conceived and brilliantly-curated. Many of the pieces were from Debbie's (impressive!) collection—possibly work by artists and designers she's admired and interviewed over the years and certainly wonderful results of her intelligent research, deep curiosity, and boundless energy.

The entry wall includes Bertrand Russell's 1940 An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. A (now fringe) book designer whose work hews to Bertrand Russell's first description of how language and pictorial representations can be wedded to one another—i.e. "politely and conformably (as when an illustration is wedded to a text or a caption to a drawing)," I'm blown away by the second way—". . . an illicit liaison, so intimately integrated that one doesn't know any more who is the bride and who is the bridegroom."

After seeing a good deal of the work and chatting with designer and typophile Carrie Hamilton, who introduced me to the brilliant and funny artist Edel Rodriguez, I slipped away—figuring I'd return to see the work without the crowds (which I did).

Inserted below in a very polite and conformist manner are a few of my faves. The exhibit has so much more—each work full of energy and intelligence and sometimes righteous anger.

Lesley Dill, Gown of Blueprint, 2008, Courtesy of Nohra Haime Gallery, New York



The Din, Ebon Heath, 2019


(For September 6, 2019; posted September 7)

57. Coming to the defense of one's talent

For certain shy people like me, it's easy to write off hours of  "help" that seem like nothing to a colleague/sort of client but really take a lot of time in figuring out, doing, refining, producing, and at some final point, seeing that the "help" works. It's particularly difficult if the colleague is a decent person who has made life easier. But, in the spirit of "coming to the defense of my own talents" (see day 50, with quotes from A Gentleman in Moscow) I sent an invoice. I billed something, even though it involved NOT billing for the 10 hours of time spent by an intern or by self figuring out what to do.

(For September 5, 2019; posted September 6)

56. It's a Wrap. Or, Spiderman, The Home Movie

To the great amusement of our neighbors, Mr. Patrick (aka Pat) and I take garden tours of our .12 acre  often in the dark (and, yes, often with our libations in hand). As we were touring on Tuesday, we looked to see if a spider whose web I thought I'd destroyed while pruning was still in residence (for lack of a better word). The spider must have rebuilt the web, because there it was, smack dab in the middle of its gorgeous spun creation. We were admiring the web and the spider's coloration when a moth flew right into the spider's lair, to be quickly dispatched by our arachnid friend. I shot a video of most of the spider's quick work of wrapping the moth.

A bit later, shallow research revealed that spiders produce a sticky substance containing pheromones, which attract moths. This post by Nala Rogers on "Inside Science" gives some further background.

I'm tickled that when we showed the video to my brother, who stopped for dinner and the night on his way South to Pennsylvania, he thought it was really cool—as opposed to thinking we were being gross and nuts.

(For September 4, 2019; posted September 5)

55. Group problem solving

Austin Blank-blank-son? Austin Blank-blank-son?*

On the subway platform, the woman held up someone's plastic-laminated work ID as commuters streamed down the stairs.

There was no answer, so she called out the name again.

I said, "Perhaps give it to the person in the booth."

Another woman said, "He won't know where he dropped it."

The woman waving the ID responded, "They never do anything. He works at KPMG, so I can mail it to him."

A few minutes later, the somewhat-cranky gentleman in question descended the stairs, took the ID, and kept walking. I didn't see any sign of gratitude, nor did my two fellow problem-solvers, one of whom commented, "No good deed goes unpunished."

It was rude of the guy. Possibly he thought someone stole his ID. Possibly he did, in fact, go back upstairs to the person manning the booth (am I being passive-aggressive?). But it was an interesting moment in people trying to determine the best solution to a problem.




*I didn't hear the last name, and I wouldn't want it out in the world anyway.

(For September 3, 2019)

54. Labor Day

A billion years ago—or more accurately 40—The Viking Press (now Penguin Random House) published a book by Norton Juster entitled So Sweet to Labor, which contained lots of line illustrations from 19th century magazines. Kirkus gave it a chilly review, but I found fascinating the descriptions of woman's work and the various tools that helped their labors. Possibly, the images caught my eye as much as the sociological import of woman's work—constant and unpaid.

Labor Day* celebrates the Labor Movement, workers and their contributions to our country. According to history on Time magazine's site, Rep. Lawrence McGann (D-IL), who sat on the Committee on Labor, argued for the Labor Day holiday in a report he submitted on May 15, 1894, for a holiday President Cleveland signed into law on June 28, 1894. Some of his report states:

The use of national holidays is to emphasize some great event or principle in the minds of the people by giving them a day of rest and recreation, a day of enjoyment, in commemoration of it. By making one day in each year a public holiday for the benefit of workingmen the equality and dignity of labor is emphasized. Nothing is more important to the public weal than that the nobility of labor be maintained. So long as the laboring man can feel that he holds an honorable as well as useful place in the body politic, so long will he be a loyal and faithful citizen.

The celebration of Labor Day as a national holiday will in time naturally lead to an honorable emulation among the different crafts beneficial to them and to the whole public. It will tend to increase the feeling of common brotherhood among men of all crafts and callings, and at the same time kindle an honorable desire in each craft to surpass the rest.

There can be no substantial objection to making one day in the year a national holiday for the benefit of labor. The labor organizations of the whole country, representing the great body of our artisan population, request it. They are the ones most interested. They desire it and should have it. If the farmers, manufacturers, and professional men are indifferent to the measure, or even oppose it, which there is no reason to believe, that still would constitute no good objection, for their work can be continued on holidays as well as on other days if they so desire it. Workingmen should have one day in the year peculiarly their own. Nor will their employers lose anything by it. Workingmen are benefited by a reasonable amount of rest and recreation. Whatever makes a workingman more of a man makes him more useful as a craftsman. 

Who is today's working man? The coal miners our current President says he helps? Immigrants doing jobs no one wants? Anyone (no matter which gender or gender identification) who isn't an executive?

• • •

Enough digression, though. I want to page homage to my grandmothers, both of whom labored to feed and clothe their families (paternal grandmother; six kids; maternal grandmother: four kids) and both whom whom were gifted craftswomen and artisans.

My maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Mizii, started a bakery during the 1930s Great Depression when my grandfather was laid off. She was entrepreneurial, made her own pasta, cooked, and crocheted up a storm. She didn't make a big deal of anything and seemed very calm and unstressed, but her work shows a mathematical precision and astounding craftsmanship. While organizing keepsakes I'm temporarily holding for my brother, I unfolded a crocheted tablecloth by Nana Mizii. Each star/snowflake is exact and connected so precisely that the folded tablecloth lines up with scientific precision.

Salutes to the women whose craftsmanship, skills, and work may have helped to incite the Labor Movement.

*Bizarrely, the Department of Labor site includes a video touting the success of US Labor today (in short, it's major propaganda), BUT the link to the history of Labor Day yields a "Page Not Found."
(For September 2, 2019)

53. Celebration and Appropriation

My bookkeeper and friend for over thirty years hasn't felt like celebrating her August birthday ever since her first-born son, who had a heart issue, had a heart attack while surfing a few days before his August birthday. Then five years ago her husband, who had a heart issue, passed away the same week as their son's birth and death dates, eighteen days shy of his own August birthday. Surely, August not April is the cruelest month.

So, it was a great and happy surprise to get an e-invite to a 70th birthday celebration for Theresa Rose Anastasio, with a picture of her at one-year-old and a picture of Sophia Loren portraying Terry at 70 years, to be held at Rosa Mexicana.

Her initials are the reverse of my late mother's and my mother had a thing about roses, so for a birthday card, I did a bit of design appropriation (or adaptation?), attaching to typographic wrapping paper some vintage items I couldn't bear to get rid of: a guest towel monogrammed with a "T," a handkerchief embroidered with roses, and lovely evening gloves folded to look like an "A" (a bit abstract and not successful, but a concept nontheless).

The party was great. The biggest thrill was seeing Terry having a good time with family, lifelong friends, and clients-who've-become-friends. She gave a short speech, thanking her husband (who made the party possible [pension?], and her late son (her hear) as well as her remaining son, who is her rock.

I'm hoping we can revert to April as the cruelest month, with last night's celebration is a lucky 7 decades, moving toward future birthdays where everything's coming up roses.


Feel free to count the corny phrases; but there are no prizes for finding them all.

Background "pages" of birthday card are from Typographic Gift Wrapping Paper designed by Steven Heller and Rick Landers, published by Thames & Hudson. The card on "page" 4 was purchased at Papyrus.

There's a typo on "pate" 1—and yes, I should have done all of the typography and card design myself, but I was time-challenged and know when I'm bested.


(For September 1, 2019; posted September 2)

52. Pitchers and Pots

I love The Cherry Door, the local thrift shop in Tarrytown. A recent semi-renovation of sorts seems to made it easier to havethrill of finding something cool, weird and affordable (it's even more affordable when I snap a photo and don't purchase anything). Everything is more clearly categorized and displayed a bit like still lifes. Today I got a kick out of hand-painted pitchers and pots. The little teapot on the left of the photo evokes for me a poor man's Clarice Cliff.

There's no signature at the base of the little teapot with the orange flowers—and the brushwork of the flowers and colors aren't as sophisticated and sure as the exquisite patterns on Clarice Cliff's "bizarre ware," for which Cliff was famous. But the thrift shop teapot has feeling of an English cottage and the cozy ceramics enjoyed by members of English households in the 1920s ad 1930s.

(For August 31, 2019; posted the same day)

51. Brooklyn Back to School

I was concerned about students showing up on a Friday, at 2:30 in the afternoon before a long weekend. Of course, it's school and they have to attend. But I was impressed by the attentiveness and diligence of the Publication Design class at City Tech. The challenge to meet is to make my class useful and relevant for a shifting and evolving field (all fields and people have to shift and evolve).

(For August 30, 2019; posted August 31, 2019)

50. What Matters: defending one's talents

A quote from the book A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, which I listened while driving from New York to Maine and back, epitomizes the spirit of going beyond a comfort zone, or giving it a go. The novel is full of wonderful moments—and these quotes are just two:

"She must come to the defense of her own talents."

"What matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim."

 (Both quotes refer to the character of Sophia, about whom I won't write lest I give anything away).

I highly recommend the book.

(For August 29; posted August 31, 2019)

49. Familiar Typography

On every trip to Maine—and they haven't been often lately—I take the obligatory shot of the top of the Tondreau Block—the brick building constructed after the fire of 1926 to house Tondreau's Market, one of businesses owned by Adjutor E. Tondreau (aka Grandpa) and his brother. The typography is OK; the serif caps aren't beautifully letter spaced, but it's our/my name and it never gets old.

Interestingly, the carved letterforms on the headstone for the graves of my grandparents and aunts are sort of an uncial and a little bit deco looking—unlike the roman caps serifs one would expect. I wonder how my relatives chose the letterforms. I love the fact that the grave is in the Catholic (mostly French Canadian) cemetery for people who were immigrants who spoke a different language and weren't normally as schooled as "The Anglos."

(for August 28, 2019; posted August 29, 2019)

48. Roots

Most family roots can be rocky. Roots in glacial islands are literally so. Four of five of the siblings in my family are in one place for a few days, inhaling the redemptive bays and islands and scenes beloved over decades.

Photo: Mountain Road, Harpswell, opposite the Harpswell Town Office.

(For August 27, 2019, posted on the same day)

47. Isabel Toledo

In June, when I saw the brilliant pairings that the brilliant pair Isabel and Ruben Toledo created for the Detroit Institute of Arts, I had no idea whatsoever that Isabel Toledo was battling breast cancer. I was simply charmed and awed by her/their work. Intelligence and joy emanated from their work. In retrospect, I see the somber aspects and wonder if Isabel Toledo foreshadowed her own passing. Rest in peace, Isabel Toledo. My condolences, Ruben Toledo. Such lame words for such forces.

(For August 26, 2019; posted same day)

46. Routes as Songlines, sort of

I drove up to Maine by myself. My husband's work schedule didn't afford a duo road trip. But, in a way, I was happy to drive from New York to Maine solo. I'd see my brothers and, in a few days, my sister and possibly more family and friends while in Brunswick, ME, so it wasn't a sorrowful trip. In a way, it was an homage. I know the route well. My route is current and secular, and I'm hardly an elder spirit. I hope I'm not appropriating a culture or being disrespectful by thinking, as I drove, of  Songlines. Longlines, Wikipedia, notes "Trace the journeys of ancestral spirits as they created the land, animals and lore. Integral to Aboriginal spirituality, longlines are deeply tied to the Australian landscape and provide important knowledge, cultural values and wisdom to Indigenous people." My seven hour drive north to New England, through Brunswick, Maine to Harpswell, Maine traced the routes of many a childhood and adult trip—with parents or without—to be in my father's hometown and be thankful for his existence and culture.

(For August 25, 2019; posted August 26, 2019)

45. Non-quotidian Didion

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion grapples with the catastrophic loss of her husband by heart attack PLUS the (eventually fatal) illness of her daughter by trying to understand, well, everything. The magical thinking is the hanging on to the impossible belief that John Gregory Dunne is not really dead. Every word in the book (which I listened to as an audio book, read by Barbara Caruso) is choice. The tone is clipped. The research is deep. The analysis of every detail of every day could be seen as quotidian, but it's not. Instead, Didion's day-by-day accounts of her horrible year—daily bread, in a way—is anything but ordinary.


(For August 24, 2019; posted August 26, 2019)

44. Golden Section

Something yet to master: The Golden Section (aka The Golden Ratio). I know it's important. I included it in the update of Layout Essentials, but with an explanation that's not clear enough. The best I can do is say the Golden Section is about perfect proportions. However, I can't understand the math let alone explain it. The examples included in one of the bonus data-filled pages from Phaidon's Grids and Guides journal are complete and yet just as tricky for me to grasp. Possibly, my next challenge to myself should be 100 days of The Golden Section.

(For August 23, 2019;  posted August 26, 2019)