It’s 5763 on the Jewish calendar and my family and I celebrated heartily yesterday at synagogue and at dinner later.
A few prayers stood out and I thought I would highlight one that I liked, for both its austerity and timeliness:
To be just, upright, and faithful:
let this and this alone give joy.
To reach as high as one may dare,
and do no hurt, and kill no hope:
let this and this alone give joy.
O when will arrogance end
and wickedness cease,
and when will tyrants be no more?
On that day, rejoice!
The faithful will rejoice,
and all who breathe be glad.

This is an interesting site, called Kesher Talk, that I have found to be useful in looking for historical and other information about Israel and the Middle East.
Perhaps more importantly, it has one of the best running lists of Jewish-related Web sites and Web logs I’ve seen. In the dawn of an approaching New Year 5763, let’s all pray for peace and some modicum of stability in the Middle East.

Having watched all of 45 minutes of American Idol over the past month, I have two observations about the show (which will decide a winner one little hour from now).
First, Fox spent about $6 on the entire production, using sets that look like they came out of the dumpster and hiring actors and judges that look as washed up as they sound.
Second, and more importantly, this seems to be the first television show in which almost every contestant appears to be of mixed heritage. Either it’s true, or the makeup folks in the trailer are fixing up the kids to look like they come from the perfect Hispanic-Black-Caucasian-Asian human lineage. I take this, by the way, as a good thing; perhaps America’s true demography is coming through and we’re now able to appreciate, even celebrate, the difference of our similarities.
Oh, here’s a third: why being a “singer” of old tunes that you didn’t compose, orchestrate, or develop is considered cool, I don’t know. Can we have an American Drummer show?

Boy, I hated yesterday’s blog – I mean rant.
Well, a few weeks ago, Emigre released this incredibly beautiful font called Fairplex, designed by the inimitable font designer Zuzana Licko. I adore this font, and its narrow bold face is truly, and ridiculously, gorgeous. In fact, I think I’m blushing.
The Fairplex font family is derived from a number of historical fonts, mostly dating from the early part of the last century. It has a very strong armature and I could see it being used throughout in subtly designed annual reports, short books, and signage for new companies. I’m realizing, as I write this, that fonts are the neat intersection for Deckchair’s focus: me, art, technology, history, &c.

A rather newish magazine called eDesign has been out for a few months. The full-feature book features articles and stories about designing for the Web and for new technologies like handhelds and cell phones. Sounds good, no?
But I have to wonder why they charge $29.00 for a “charter” subscription when other (albeit non-design) magazines, like Fast Company or Wired, cost sooo little (as low as $8.00 per year) for new subscribers. Other design magazines, like Step, are also expensive. Again, not sure why. And I’m not really up for complaining about publication pricing. What is bothersome about eDesign is that, it being new, and me being interested, shouldn’t a little deal be cut to see if the two of us tango?

Few people know that on this day, 63 years ago, the Germans invaded Poland and tore the country from limb to limb. On that same day, September 1, 1939. the Wizard of Oz was released in American movie theaters.
I always found this confluence of imagery fascinating and horrendous, humbling and hellacious. While the Poles were watching their country being burned and bombed by tanks and trucks and armed soldiers, Americans everywhere were watching black and white characters become brightly colored, flying monkeys cascaded through the air, and the wonderful Wizard of Oz was pulling cords and pulleys and ropes in the hope of delivering a new nation. On this day, 63 years ago, the East fell and the North won. On this day, Dorothy Gale left Kansas and the Nazis left Berlin. This day marks a winfall of semi-precious cultural artifacts, a surfeit of meaning, as they say, and it’s hard to know what to do with it all.

I had the small honor of watching an unusually interesting kids movie that didn’t pander to adults – Spy Kids. More importantly, the film, which is much better than the first Harry Potter spectacle as far as pre-teen sci-fi goes, is fundamentally a Hispanic film. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, the man who brought us the very funny (and now very old) El Mariachi (1992), Spy Kids shows a decidedly Hispanic family going about their daily spy lives in a Spanish-speaking city (in Chile) and using some of the coolest gadgets around. This may well be the first movie that depicts a non-black, non-white Western family in a mainstream Hollywood movie.

These are two words that, in very different contexts, have disappeared from our everyday language. I remember when I was a kid, between the ages of 1 and 16, people would send me birthday or holiday cards addressed to Master Andrew Boardman. I asked my mom why I was called master and I remember the answer being that “boys were called masters and men were called misters.” What was I a master of, though? For many years, I couldn’t even use the toilet correctly. Nowadays, you don’t call a child Master, although you might call a child Miss — pejoratively.
Likewise, I remember feeling that nice red-around-the-ears-and-throat feeling upon first hearing a techie saying to me, “We’ll just hook up that slave to the other device and it should work fine.” It was a common turn-of-phrase, right? I always wondered how computer folks decided to use this term, but it’s not hard to figure why they don’t any longer.

My good friend and colleague, Claudia Horwitz, just released her book The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work, and Your World, for which I did the illustrations.
The book is now at Amazon, as you can see, and it’s a must read for anyone interested in incorporating spirituality into their work and their workplace. In fact, I think it’s the only read out there if you are interested in the topic. I will soon be helping Claudia to put up a Spiritual Activist Web site for her to discuss this book and its myriad of related issues. Please stay tuned. Congrats Claudia!

There are just so many great Canadian bands out there that I thought I would just recommend a few, as we were in Toronto and Vancouver for much of the month of August. The stereotype (no pun) of Canadian music is beery winter party songs. These bands from Montreal put the lie to this lie.
I love these albums. They are full of deeply felt cries, hilarious hi-jinx, block-rocking beats, strange orchestral music, and life found on the street. You’ll hear voiceovers, tremolos, cymbals and hilarity at all that music has to offer. Lots of violin, angry drums, orchestral music which makes for alternately soothing and electrifying music. I’ve written about this before. All of these bands are apparently somewhat related and they exchange band members like children exchange colds. Here are some favorites:
Godspeed You Black Emporor!: f#a#
Do Make Say Think: Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead
Silver Mount Zion: He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms (ed: an amazingly beautiful title)