Steven Heller on humility

From the podcast Design Matters. Steven Heller, graphic designer, has said that when he was a twenty-four-year-old art director at The New York Times, he was “a dismisser.” Debbie Millman asks him to explain:

SH: Old guys would come to my office who had had a history, and I would just ignore them.

DM: Why?

SH: Because I had — I was arrogant. I was shortsighted. I was arrogant. I had a sense of myself that was disproportionate to all reality. And I was ignorant. . . . When you start out, there are all sorts of things you have to learn, and humility is one of them.

This episode is not yet available at the Design Matters website. But it’s available at iTunes.

John Shimkus at work and play

Mike Viqueira, a reporter from NBC News, asked some Republican members of Congress if they had read the bill that they were about to vote on to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Some said they had. Some walked on by. And then there was our representative, John Shimkus (R, Illinois-15):

“Good morning, Mr. Shimkus, have you had a chance to read this bill?”

“Uh, I just got back from baseball practice.”

When I heard about it, I thought someone was kidding. But it’s no joke. It’s on tape.

There are no words. (It’s before 10 p.m.)

Related reading
All OCA Shimkus posts

Folk facade

[Panel Division Study for Facade, Museum of American Folk Art, New York City, early 1998. Designed by Tod Williams and Matthew Baird. Pen and black and red ink, brush and white gouache, graphite on tracing paper. 25 1/4 x 12 inches. Click for a larger view.]

This drawing is a Cooper Hewitt Object of the Day. The Museum of American Folk Art opened in 2001 and was torn down in 2014 at the behest of a next-door neighbor and new owner, the Museum of Modern Art. I spent most of a day at the Museum of American Folk Art in March 2002, visiting a Henry Darger exhibit and attending a poetry reading by John Ashbery. Still gotta tell that story someday.

A related post
Farewell, 45 West 53rd

The real reason for “no town halls”

I know that speaking to a member of Congress is unlikely to change that member’s mind. I know that speaking to the district director for a member of Congress is even less likely to change that member’s mind. I read The New Yorker.

But I went this morning to the office hours of Representative John Shimkus’s (R, Illinois-15) district director, as did fifty or so other voters, and we made our concerns about yesterday’s vote on the Affordable Care Act — and much else — heard. The director had no explanation of why Shimkus voted to repeal the ACA: he was on a plane; she was busy organizing a dinner for him.

In the aftermath of this meeting, I think I figured out the real reason why a member of Congress might choose not to hold town halls. When you meet with people only in ones and twos, they have much less opportunity to see themselves as members of a polis, as participants in a political community. Likeminded citizens have less opportunity to identify one another and find common cause. Citizens at odds on matters of policy have less opportunity to listen to each another and perhaps rethink their allegiances. (Imagine, for instance, hearing an argument for gun legislation from a firearms owner and hunter in your own community. It happened this morning.) Talking to constituents in ones and two means that there are, in effect, no witnesses, no one else listening and thinking and making up or changing her or his mind. No reporters either.

Related reading
All OCA Shimkus posts

[“He was on a plane; she was busy organizing a dinner for him.” I know: what?!]

Bear, a writing app

Bear is a writing app of great simplicity, shown here in its plainest macOS view. The basic Bear is free. Bear Pro (by subscription) adds exporting, syncing, and themes. What can I say? I love the no-title-bar look.

Bean lives!

I discovered the free word-processing app Bean in 2007, not long after switching from Windows to a Mac. James Hoover stopped developing the app a few years ago. I’m not sure what made me check the Bean website, but lo: a new version for macOS Sierra appeared in November of last year.

As I wrote in 2008, “Bean is small and fast, like this sentence.” It still is. The screenshot shows Bean as I’ve configured it. You might prefer a toolbar with colorful icons. And you can have one, just by downloading and installing the app.

Thanks to James Hoover for continuing to work on Bean.

Inopportune, opportune

In late April, when Representative John Shimkus (R, Illinois-15) scheduled time for a staff member to meet with voters, no one could have foreseen that the meeting would be taking place the day after Shimkus voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

It should be an interesting morning.

A regular reader may recall that Rep. Shimkus does not do town halls.

Related reading
All OCA Shimkus posts

Mosaic Records

Mosaic Records, a label devoted to limited-edition jazz releases, sent out an e-mail today reporting that the label is in financial difficulty. An excerpt:

We are not certain how Mosaic Records will continue going forward or how many more sets we will be able to create and release. We’ve got a lot of great plans but few resources.

And: “If you are thinking about acquiring a certain set, now's the time.”

At a time when major labels handle the music in their vaults with indifference, or even contempt, every Mosaic release, with its extensive documentation, serves an act of cultural preservation, as if to say: these musicians and what they created will not be forgotten.

[I have five Mosaic box sets on my shelves (forty CDs): Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang. I should order at least one more, don’t you think?]

Pocket notebooks FTW

James Lileks: “Writing by hand is making a comeback. Notebooks are fashionable again.” Again? Did they ever really go away? With attention to Field Notes and Moleskine.

And in the May 8 New Yorker, a cartoon by Harry Bliss. Two servers eye a guy standing at the bar, a man purse satchel over his shoulder: “Twenty bucks says he pulls out a Moleskine.”

Related reading
All OCA notebook posts (Pinboard)

Word of the day: nixie

The Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day is the noun nixie:

U.S. Post which cannot be forwarded by the postal services because it is illegibly or incorrectly addressed. Freq. attrib.

The first citation, an entry in the Century Dictionary, dates from 1890. Here’s a 1929 citation that provides food for thought:

The similarity in appearance of the letters N.Y. and N.J. . . . is responsible for many letters reaching the “Nixie” division.

So yay for ZIP codes!