T-post

Every Coca-Cola fan knows that back in the late 1800s, there was actual cocaine in the drink. In fact, that's how the product got its name.

Well, as the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper points out, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, owns a coca farm. That puts him in a very good place to decide what products get sold there. A new drink called Coca-Colla (double l) has debuted, and the people say it has plenty of blow.

Parents and nutrition activists thought they had a problem with high-fructose corn syrup in Coke. Just wait until this product hits the shelves and kids everywhere start snorting this beverage.

I was reading the newspaper this morning and once I hit the fashion pages, there was Timo Räisänen laying in his couch rocking his T-post t-shirt. It was a spread interview with him about fashion comes springtime. 

So there you have it folks. Fashion subscriber style.

A lonely man with a violin is playing Bach for one hour in Washington DC a cold January morning. About 2 000 people passes during that hour.

After 3 minutes of playing a man sees him, stops for a few seconds and then keeps on walking. After 4 minutes the violinist gets his first dollar. A woman throws it in to his hat without stopping. After 6 minutes a young man leans against a nearby fence to eavesdrop. After a few seconds the man looks at his watch and quickly heads off. After 10 minutes a three-year-old kid stops to listen. The mother quickly grabs his jacket to keep the child from stopping. During the hour when he was playing a lot of kids stopped to listen, but without exception they got pulled away by their parents within seconds. After 45 minutes of playing non-stop, only 6 people had stopped to listen, even just for a few seconds. After one hour the violinist stops. No one reacts and no one applauds. About 20 people have put some money in to his hat, most of them without stopping. The violinist earned a total of 32 dollars.

The violinist that has been playing is Joshua Bell, on of the best, now living, violinists and musicians in the world. He was playing one of Bash's most challenging peaces on a violin worth more than 3,5 million dollars. Two days earlier Joshua Bell played a sold out concert in Boston with tickets going for over 100 dollars each.

I can't help but think, can we even recognize beauty in an ordinary life situation and in what we probably would conceder an inconvenient time? Are we able to recognize talent in an unexpected environment and without any references? How many of us are paying a lot of money for concerts that we clearly don’t have the wits to appreciate in any other environment?

If we don't have the ability to recognize one of the world's best musicians playing one of the world's most beautiful peaces on one of the worlds finest instruments when it is happening right in front of us. One can't help but think.

What else have we been missing?

For as long as I can remember, I have been an obsessive music collector. Even though I am the first one to stand up and proclaim digital downloading as the future of music consumption I feel there's something lost when a folder of blank MP3s arrives without packaging.

Maybe it's the design nerd in me, but there's just something physical and tangible about a 12" record with full-color artwork.

For instance, I own The Rolling Stones album Some Girls both on CD and on MP3. Yesterday I finally found a copy in good condition on vinyl. Peter Corriston’s artwork is gorgeous, and it’s far more breathtaking when you’re holding a heavy, foot-square album in your hands, rather than a 5" piece of plastic or just watching 10 song titles in your iTunes library with a digital picture of the album cover.

I know, there’s really no stopping the ever-quickening drive toward consumer convenience, but I find it just a bit sad that one of the most appealing parts of music collecting is slowly being lost. I used to hang around the record store for hours, listening to obsessive collectors discuss cover variations of the same album. I often bought music based on cover artwork alone. I liked the experimentation. We had a game at the office called "Give it a Chance". The basics of the game were to buy a record based on the cover artwork alone and "Give it a Chance". After giving it a chance we had two categories to categorize them in - "Good" and "Worthless Crap". I would say that 8 out of 10 records ended up in the "Worthless Crap" crate. But yet the inspiration we got from it was worth every penny.

I often find myself studying the design work on record covers for hours. And it's obvious that musicians take their album art seriously - full-blown art directing, expensive photo shoots, hiring well-known illustrators - and it is obvious that fans treasure the results.

Looking through my records, I suddenly understand where some of my obsession for design grew from. These were canvases drafted by a graphic designer, not just a painter or photographer. The illustration was important, but equally so was the typography, color choices and the concept and idea behind the artwork.

So people, lets go for the full graphic experience.

Vinyl Anyone?

As long as I can remember I've been a huge fan of Monty Python and the art of Terry Gilliam. He's one of few artists that have created something that feels as fresh today as it did when it first appeared in the magazine "HELP!" back in 1962.

Unfortunately for the world of illustration Mr. Gilliam is not doing that much illustration nowadays. But then again he’s been busy doing his brilliant movies so I guess it evens out in the end.

I have been trying to get hold of Mr. Gilliam to have him dust of his brushes and get him back in the game of illustration. But my efforts have so far always been in vain.

So Mr. Gilliam if you’re reading this please, please with sugar on top, drop me a line and we'll create the most brilliant t-shirt the world has ever seen together.

Or if any of you who's reading this know him, I'll be forever grateful if you can tell him to get his priority’s right and call me.

There's probably no illustrator I would rather have make an illustration for T-post than him, since Andy Warhol is, if possible, even harder to reach nowadays.

What’s up with those damn homophones? How are you suppose to know the difference between: Than and Then, Discrete and Discreet, Compliment and Complement, Dual and Duel? And the list goes on.

In spoken word, no problem. But in writing I’m more lost than a pig on his way to Christmas dinner. For those of you who have been reading my blog, you know what I'm talking about.

But now I can finally exhale. All thanks to Logan Leger and Brandy Ryan and their site "Learn Your Damn Homophones".

They’ve finally had it with illiterate foreigners like me who fuck up their language. Their web page starts with the statement:

I’m tired of this shit.

It’s about time that everyone learned their damn homophones. If you slept your way through the fourth grade or just skipped all of the grammar lectures because you were too busy sucking off that dude in the locker room, then maybe this table will help clear up some of the fucking confusion.

So I guess I’ve got no excuse anymore except (or is it accept?) Learn My Damn Homophones.

In the global rush toward modernization, some luxuries are outpacing the necessities.

According to a new study released by the United Nations University, more people in India now own cell phones than have access to proper sanitation, including the use of a toilet.

In 2008, just 366 million of India's 1.2 billion people had access to a toilet, the report said, while 563.73 million were subscribers to a cell phone plan.

"It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," Zafar Adeel, director of United Nations University, said in a statement.

So when number two starts calling, I guess he'll be put on hold for now. But you can rest assure that this is a guy that rarely takes no for an answer!

I’m sorry, but they were walking right in to that one..

My good friend and the designer of our issue "Higher Education", Marc Strömberg has a magazine project all of his own. It’s called Tare Lugnt (translates Take it Easy).

Tare Lugnt is a magazine that changes media every issue. It's been released in the form of a paper magazine, a poster, tattooed around Marc's leg, a talking robot and now a record with singlehandedly produced music.

Reinventing the magazine just got a whole new meaning. The hat is off for you my friend!

You can download the whole record for FREE here.

This 10-foot-tall mural was an icon on the wall of the Lora Deli & Supermarket on New York's Lower East Side for nearly a decade.

A 19 meters long and 3 meters tall mural celebrating street life, female beauty, tropical sunsets and Al Sharpton created by the artists Doves, Jedi and Mek.

On April Fool's Day, a lone workman began rolling battleship-gray paint over the technicolor creation at the corner of Avenue D and East Fifth Street. John Lora, owner of Lora Deli & Supermarket, says he was caving for the pressure from city officials to remove the artwork, which went up in 2001, four years before Lora took over the building.

Within hours the mural was gone.

Depending on your point of view, New York City's "quality of life" had just improved a notch, or the city had become a little bit more faceless and bland.

Mine is of the later. It turned A Whiter Shade of Pale.

To go from a good or even a great idea to trying it out for real as a business is a huge step. To dare take the leap you need a lot of support and inspiration from people around you. You need to see that other people have tried the most astonishing and crazy things against all odds. And succeeded. You need to get that "If they’ve done it, I can do it too", feeling going.

To be honest, the only thing that exercise does is to give you a false sense of security. But you will need all the false sense of security you can get to even start considering what you’re about to do. But believe me, that is the only way brilliant and original businesses are born.

This story has been a huge inspiration and has given me a false sense of security for years now. It’s the story about a red paper clip.

26-year-old Kyle MacDonald from Montreal thought it was a good idea to trade his way to getting a house and now he has officially bartered his way into a two-story home via series of Internet trades that started with a red paper clip.

He traded the paperclip for a fish-shaped pen, traded that for a hand carved, ceramic doorknob and so on. Only nine trades and exactly one year after his virtual swap meet began, Kyle was offered a 1,100 square foot farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

This is one of my main "I can do it too’s", which resulted in me starting T-post nearly five years ago.

And, if I can do it, you can do it too!

The latest issue of T-post is designed by the great Paul Davis. And man is he one hard fellow to reach.

For the past 12 years, we’ve been trying to get in touch with him telepathically—mainly just to say, “Nice one, mate.” Even though we were also living in London at the time, and could’ve been sitting next to one another on The Tube without knowing it, we never made contact.

Most recently, when we were thinking about the perfect artist for this issue, Davis’ brilliantly simple style came to mind. We decided to try emailing him for once and, low and behold, he quickly replied and said he would love to play with us.

A few weeks passed. Emails bounced. Voicemails failed. Time itself even sprung forward an hour. We were beginning to worry. In an ironic twist of fate, had Davis choked on a hot dog? Or baloney? Before our imaginations could run any wilder, our Kurt Cobain-worthy illustration arrived from the email fairy—and just in time for the printers. Hot diggity dog!

While we were unable to get the story behind the illustration behind the story behind the story from Davis, we have a pretty good idea what’s kept him so damn busy and illusive. Simply visit copyrightdavis.com.

(It might have only taken us over a decade, but if you’re reading this, Paul, “Nice one, mate.”)

C.R.

Springwise is a fantastic site. Not only because they’ve featured us a few times, also because you can draw all sorts of inspiration from all the crazy and smart ideas they feature on their site.

Make sure you go through it thoroughly. Your future might depend on it. Who knows, this might kick-start your creativity and you end up doing small knitted sweaters for dogs for a living.

I was digging through some of my old photos and I came across this. It’s a picture taken on my birthday at the humongous celebration party that we threw at a buddy’s summer cabin.

Most of my adult life we’ve always been the three amigos. Still are but back then, more than ever. It was my Friend the ladies man, my Other Friend the sweet talker and I. We were really living it up back then.

I don’t know when it happened exactly but sometime along the way I (read we) got boring as hell. In some strange way I don’t think that having fun is worth it any more due to the hangover it will create the day after. It must be some strange "cave in" hormone that kicks in when you pass 35.

In a piss-pore attempt to re-live it all, we are now left to reminisce about our conquests back in the day. And apparently the "cave in" hormone doesn't only affect our will to party. As it seems our memory of who conquested whom is pretty blurry as well.

At least according to my Other Friend…

The American Academy of Pediatrics wants someone to redesign the hot dog. It’s killing more children than any food. By choking.

"If you were to find the best engineers in the world and ask them to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, you couldn't do much better than the hot dog." Dr. Gary Smith, lead author of the AAP policy statement, told AOL News. "It is the right shape and the right size to wedge itself in and completely block a child's airway. It's only a matter of minutes before permanent brain damage and death occur."

We can imagine that. But why hot dogs and not carrots or bananas? Surely those can be lethal, too? While the AAP’s Parenting journal lists a number of vegetables and nuts as high-risk foods for kids, hot dogs take the deadly cake, sending roughly 10,000 choking children to the hospital every year.

The AAP believes that redesigning the ballpark frank can prevent all of this.

But isn’t this a bit excessive? Why not just put warning labels on every single thing humans can fit into their mouth? Would that make parents feel safer, or would they simply blacklist nearly every food at the supermarket?

Personally I’m not at all a fan of minimalism. But I must confess that in the hands of graphic designer Exergian minimalism has never looked better. Here are some of his fantastic interpretations of classic TV shows. All his creations are available at Blanka.

For some minimalistic despise, check out the graphic design punk band Boldfaces.

It seems T-post have gotten it self two devoted fans in David and Gustav. And by devoted I mean that they’ve apparently devoted their whole round the world trip to showing off our t-shirts in various places.

It all started a few weeks ago when the first set of pictures turned up in my mailbox. Ever since I’ve been getting a weekly update on their adventures.

I stand speechless and moved by their devotion.

You can check out all the pictures HERE.

The last issue we did (Reality Bytes) handled the issue of Avatar Blues and the fact that many fans have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film "because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora".

After doing some "deeper" research I realize that this whole phenomenon shows a troubling lack of knowledge about the world we live in.

Remember those glowing spiral "plants" that Jake Sully taps, causing them to curl up into their stem in the blink of an eye? They exist, except in miniature and are called "Christmas tree worms". And the glowing mushrooms that he plays like drums? Yeah we’ve got those too. And the list goes on.

When you look at it, James Cameron didn’t go to far when he made up the fauna for Pandora. The whole thing is basically based directly on living things here on Earth. We just don’t encounter them to often, simply because we weren’t borne with a set of gills. But since the nineteenth century we have a solution to that problem. And it’s called scuba gear.

James Cameron really knows all about the weird living things on our planet. If you watch his documentary "Aliens of the Deep" you’ll see that it’s pretty obvious where he got his inspiration from for the world of Pandora.  

So for all you people out there that's gotten a case of the Avatar Blues – stop longing for some fictional world that only exists in the movies. Instead wake your ass up and rent yourself some scuba gear and go visit it IRL.

The founder of The Imaginary Foundation, the Director, sent us this philosophical take on what we do when we worked together on one of our issues, some time ago. This probably explains T-post better then we've ever managed to do. So thanks for breaking it down for us.

The message of media today is its own ubiquity--it's everywhere, all the time. We no longer just make or consume media. Rather, we are media. Once upon a time, a t-shirt was just a lightweight, knitted, pullover shirt. Now it's an instrument of meaning, a mode of conversation, quite literally a piece of media that we slip into every morning like a hot bath. The Imaginary Foundation salutes T-post's experimental exploration of this timeless and pervasive form of immersive media. More now than ever before, Marshall McLuhan's insight rings true: The medium is the message. And the small, large, and x-large too.

/The Imaginary Foundation

Tom's Restaurant is a diner located at 2880 Broadway on the corner of 112th Street in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

Tom’s Restaurant has been owned and operated by the Greek-American Minasizoulis family since the 1950s and was the location of Suzanne Vega's 1987 song "Tom's Diner".

Later its exterior was used as a stand-in for the fictional "Monk's Café" in the television sitcom Seinfeld.

Early Seinfeld episodes showed the entire neon sign. But after the first season the Minasizoulis family wanted to negotiate some royalty money for showing their restaurants name on television.

The producers of Seinfeld’s response were - "Fine, we'll take it out then". So the "Tom's" portion was cropped out, showing only the "RESTAURANT" wraparound. So instead of getting their restaurant promoted on prime time television on one of the most successful shows in the history of television. They were left with a close up on something, which pretty much could be any restaurant in New York City. 

I think it’s safe to say that the Minasizoulis family is one of the worst negotiators in the history of business.

Taiwanese researchers have managed to breed pigs that glow in the dark, proving once again that everything really is made in Taiwan. The fluorescent pigs are green from inside out, including their hearts and internal organs. From the outside, the pigs appear a subtle light green, particularly their eyes, mouths and hooves.

Researchers make the pigs glow by taking an innocent little pig embryo and injecting it with protein from a jellyfish. Apparently this manipulation of pig’s natural composition will aid science in stem cell research since the pig’s green genetic material is easy to observe when introduced to cancer cells. So what’s the moral of this story?

Exploit nature – Live longer.

C.W. 

Reference: abcnews.go.com