Ace Jet 170

Redacted

 

It was Culture Night. My eldest teenager was heading into Belfast with some 'friends' to wallow in the free culture dripping from every corner and crevice of the city centre.

I'd never been to Culture Night in Belfast, even though I'd heard it's a great night to be out in; I'm too miserable for such free and easy public expressions of culture. No, The Night of Culture is a night for me to stay home and close the curtains. Batten down the hatches in case some culture breaks free and catches the bus out to the suburbs where we live – I keep a large stick by the front door just in case some culture comes a'knocking.

Of course, my son was really out talking to girls, his interest in an evening of extreme free-roaming culture thinly masking his real motivation.

At least my other son was safe at home.

Not for long. His mate Patrick rang and asked if he'd like to go to Culture Night. Wrenched from the comfort of our comfortable sofa (with matching very large food stool – it's soooo comfy) we head city-centre-wards; the two children too young to roam free on Crazy Night without an adult within rescue distance.

Once in town I was soon abandoned and wandered the cultural streets in search of a familiar face. Instead I discovered a familiar place –  Keats & Chapman open late to cash in on the culture punters, so in I went, with cash (K&C is the city's finest book cave and it flipped my evening better side up).

Top find: This Penguin Education edition of 'Academic Freedom', circa 1974, with a top notch cover by Omnific/Peter Thompson.

 

RIPath

 

6 years and 8,282 moments later…

The death of Path – the beautiful, sometimes flakey, alway marvellous, social media network – is scheduled for 18.10.18. It's sad. There's a lovely bunch of people with whom I've shared much via Path. The group fluctuated between around 12 and 18 but there was always a hard core that stood the test of time. It's quite something, having your friends in your pocket.

We shared lots; benefitting from each other's skills at time and enjoying each other's sparkling wit at other times. There were many bright moments – weddings, births, heroic deeds. But there were dark times too – deaths, illnesses, stresses, anxieties. To the uninitiated, it's probably hard to appreciate just how much (I think) we all got out of Path; out of some software – separated as we have always been by significant distances. Significant, but not insurmountable – we even got to meet up in real life from time to time.

Now, we find ourselves in a peculiarly modern predicament…

We've been given notice to quit our app.

東からのポストカード

 

Visual delights from the East, in the form of first days covers, from the late 60s through to the beginning of the 80s. Like all countries Japan has produced some absolutely stunning stampage (as illustrated here) and many cubic tonnes of self-adhesive shite.

読書

 

My summer read. 

Japan is stalking me. From the corner of my eye I see it, spying on me; following me. From the shelves of a shop; from a painting; whispering, it calls to me through my phone's podcast app…(the flipping weirdo); I bump into it, disguised as a postage stamp that just 'happened' to be passing my way; it sends my son models (better call the police).

It tricks me into letting it in by wearing a rather attractive jacket. 

I was talking about Japan with a friend of mine recently, around a camp fire, as it happens – so I was reminded of Jun'Ichirō Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows which Rob and Jon recommended via the North v South podcast.

I was telling Mike about Seth's Gundam habit and Mike was telling me about his mate that worked out there for a few years. Specifically, Mike remarked about quite how different his mate found the culture – for example, when travelling on the tube, unless you know the language it's incredible hard to recognise your destination by the station signs.

Reading these short stories gives you an inkling of the differences too; in the lifestyle and also in the format and style of stories.

The collection is compiled to demonstrate a broad Japanese brush so stories range wildly from matters of culture and honour to family, sex and nature with some translated from nineteenth century texts and others from modern work. So far, all are beautiful and 'other landly' – even the gruesome description of a Samurai's ritualistic suicide in 'Patriotism' almost moved me to tears, wrapped as it was in his motivation for such an extreme act and his wife's devotion and support…best you read it yourself, I can't possibly do it justice here.

 

The cover design is by Matthew Young and uses an illustration – Local Training the Country from Don't Give up Japan, 2012 by Hiroyuki Izutsu.

Pintorinterest

 

What was I doing last August? The one in 2017. Whatever it was it must have been all-consuming because I completely missed the publication of Moleskine's Giovanni Pintori monograph. Actually, that Moleskine published anything was news to me!

Pintori and Olivetti are, as you may know, bound together as tightly as the pages of this monograph. In the days when the typewriter was king, Olivetti was the Commander in Chief and Pintori was its…erm…Field Marshal. Armed with an ammunition box full of colours and shapes (and typewriters) the Lance Corporal Designer General would charge into battle, decimating lesser typewriter regiments with a frenzied volley of sub-machine artwork.

It would be fair to say that Pintori is the man that set the standard for the company's marketing activity, raising it head and shoulders above its competitors and visualising Adriano Olivetti's product vision. Pintori left the company in 1967, a few years after the death of the man, although continued to work for Olivetti on a freelance basis while growing his own independent practice.

The monograph brings together many of Olivetti's iconic ads along with original artwork and sketches then other commissions the designer carried out after leaving Olivetti.

If you're not so familiar with Pintori's work then a quick PinterSearch will yield much delicious fruit.