Grown Ups Talking

Heading Franceward tomorrow. Seems I’ve been organizing this trip for the last 3 months. Now that its finally upon me I’m very nervous. Impending middle-age does this to you. Ordinary life becomes difficult and dangerous. I was a wild child, i used to waltz around on beams 20 feet high, race across highways, binge-drink. Now a nice glass of white wine and an early night is pleasant.

I guess that’s what I like now, pleasantness. A morning in the sunshine, very pleasant. A light breakfast and a walk in the park, particularly pleasant. An economic meltdown and any children’s television show, not pleasant at all. One more Dick Cheney sighting, downright unpleasant.

So a summer of pleasantry looms. And you know the weird thing? Business is booming, in my small Pomerol-ish way. Pleasant manners get you places. Either that or everyone else is busy and I’m at the end of their list of graphic designers. See, the world of graphic design is filled with flesh-eating maniacs. Competition is cut-throat and the most blood-thirsty survive. So this recent flurry of work is very odd, but a pleasant surprise.

Think I’m sounding like a greeting card? You’re not wrong. But Chianti and I have been so fed up for so long that an occasional escape into pleasantvile can salve the psyche. Not to worry, I’ll be bonkers again soon enough.-Pomerol

Winding up the semester now. The students have an end-of-year portfolio review which I’m looking forward to. Friends and faculty and industry types come and look over their best work, make comments, give feedback, and generally torture the students. This can occasionally result in a job or internship, but more likely a nervous breakdown. We professors tell them “it’s a great experience” or “it toughens you up for the real world".

This kind of public display can be agony for some students. Others don’t give a crap.

With the hindsight of all my practically middle-aged years, it’s easy to be amazed at how complacent some students are. They want to graduate, have a good summer, get drunk, get laid, and when they get around to it, get a job.

Here we are in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and they are thinking about what color to paint their toenails.

They’ll be sorry. Oooooh yes.

Bastards. It’s good to be young.—Pomerol

The storm is over and light breaks through the clouds. I, Pomerol, have come out from under the fog of freelance and now greet the new day of no work.

Yes its good to not be staying up til 2, but that means I’ve joined the huge growing army of the un, or partially unemployed. OK I’m not technically unemployed. But I can’t guarantee these jobs will return on schedule.

Hey ho, I guess we’ll learn to grow vegetables.

My main concern now is the economy, which has been roaring back into my face now that it’s come up for air. The theater of the absurd that is AIG handing out our taxes to its executives is annoying me quite a lot, along with millions of other partially employed tax-payers.

I say name them and shame them. It should be a badge of dishonor that these “financial leaders” took this money, and the knowledge of that should follow them around the rest of their lives. Or we could put them in stocks—a fitting punishment, don’t you think?

This will not fix the world. But it will cheer up partially employed types like myself.

Meanwhile, Chianti and I will be meeting our friend Shiraz for drinks and whines later this week. Free time has its advantages.—Pomerol

In a vague bid to further my education in things that I do and like, I, Pomerol, have been going to arty/designy lectures recently.

Not all of them are a success. Lecturers are often trying to add the occasion to their resume and promote, i.e., find a buyer, for their work. Or they parlay this public, slobbering, orgy of self-congratulation into a series of grants which allow them to pursue their artsiness in exotic locations and sleep with the thriller writer.

Fortunately tonight’s was interesting. The speaker was this geeky typography guy. Now I am a designer and I mess about with type most days. I know much more than most people and I actually teach typography. But this guy was craaazy. He spent ten years fiddling about with one book. He hand prints them and paints color on them individually. He photographs carved medieval letters and designs alphabets based on them and incorporates them into his prints.

See, this is a strange nether world of single-minded lunatics. Type is Art, books are amazing masterpieces which take years to complete, their quest is in the stars and between the lines.

I like type, but I’m not really in his league. It is, however, interesting to observe these creatures in their natural habitat.

But one thing struck me once again. Typography is all about presenting words. The phrase “it’s not what you say but how you say it” is typography all over. For instance, Bush and Obama both said, America doesn’t torture. Its all in the presentation.

And before I forget, how ’bout that universal health care plan? Wa hey! And good luck. He’s going to need it. —Pomerol

Check out this website: glossedover.com. It’s a very silly look at fashion magazines by someone who is actually into reading them, but takes shots at their more ridiculous pronouncements.

I, Pomerol, have had occasion to work at fashion mags as well. They spend money on classy design and imaginative photoshoots. They celebrate luxury and trend-setting creativity. They are frivolous, silly, expensive, and spread scary images of anorexic teenagers and low-self esteem. They are also lots of fun.

This is the modern woman’s dilemma. You like some aspects of the mainstream and you despise others. Hard to be a hardliner these days.—Pomerol