We have a rad panel on ethical food enthusiasm this year. You know, homesteading/gardening has been one of the only boom industries in the midst of this economic recession/depression. The OG vanguards talk more about it at the Conference in our “Food Enthusiasm” panel.
All (five) of you are no doubt familiar with the Imprint Culture Lab conference by now. Either because I’m harping about it to you personally or because you’ve been to it/heard about it through interTrend.
…I hope.
This year, yours truly has helmed, and brought together what I think might be about the best darned speaker event hosted chez Le ICL in New York City.
But let’s let my speaker spotlights to the pitching.
Celebrity Graphic Designer Panelists:
Been off the horn for too long, but I’m back just in time for some interesting business news.
*Starbucks opens a “local” coffee shop in Seattle… and hides the Starbucks brand… All of it.
Howard Schulz says the concept was ostensibly the result of having to couch the sale of alcohol (the fake cafes sell booze) under a name other than Starbucks.
*ADV, the biggest North American anime and manga distributor, gets sold to a holding company.
Is this the beginning of the end?
*And the rising tide of e-books means the rising tide of book-torrents. The 10 most pirated e-books?
1. Kamasutra
2. Adobe Photoshop Secrets
3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex
4. The Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
5. Solar House – A Guide for the Solar Designer
6. Before Pornography – Erotic Writing In Early Modern England
7. Twilight – Complete Series
8. How To Get Anyone To Say YES – The Science Of Influence
9. Nude Photography – The Art And The Craft
10. Fix It – How To Do All Those Little Repair Jobs Around The Home
Wow. Talk about the end of an era. President Aquino has passed away. I can’t speak to her accomplishments at length, but I remember during my childhood hearing so much about the notorious Marcos. Once at my parents’ business their secretary, a Filipino woman, said I should never ever say either: a. anything nice about the Marcos, or b. puntanginamo (which I believe is something equivalent to “motherf**ker.”)
And then Aquino came in and I was so excited to see a woman who sorta looked like me kick out the most insultingly awful president and proceeded to RUN A FRIGGIN COUNTRY. In any case, this is certainly a symbolic loss. May she rest in peace.
I am going to share this anecdote at the expense of only one person in the world, but if that one person happens to be offended by this, please know I was totally endeared by your nerdness:
Day 3. James Jean is at the Giant Robot booth looking for Eric Nakamura. Eric isn’t there so we (the women at the booth) chat him up about the day.
Anne: I have a question, James. You’re at San Diego Comic-con every year but do you relish or loathe the cons?
James: It’s bittersweet. I mean of course I love it and it’s great to know I have fans, but I get a little bummed out when my fans are crazy. Sometimes I’m scared of them.
(Mild laughter. We would all sorta love to be in James Jean’s shoes: choosy with fans)
James: My fans aren’t as crazy as like, David Choe’s fans though. (David Choe was signing at the Giant Robot booth at one point, also.)
Not 40 seconds after James says this, a short, rotund Asian-American kid with eyeballs that would make Don Knotts blush, behind big black plastic glasses, steps right up next to James and slllloooowly turns and lowers his head to sternum-level where James’ comic-con badge hung.
Fan: Oh. My. God. OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD it’s you! You’re James Jean! OH MY GOD! Oh my god oh my god. You’re my idol!
(James looks at his fan. Smiles weakly.)
Fan: (rapidly) I was just on my way to the Chronicle booth to get your next book but I just got Fables 2 and now you’re right in front of me! Are you signing right now?
James: No, I’m just hanging out.
Fan: (rapidly) Is it OK if… can you sign my copy of Fables?
James: Sure.
(Fan scrambles through backpack and pulls out a copy of Fables 2, boarded and bagged.)
James: (Looks at the cover for a few seconds, then gives it back to the fan.) It looks like I already signed it. See? (Points at his signature.)
Fan: Oh my god. HAHAHAHAHA. Oh my god. You already signed it! HAHAHAHOhmygod.
Anne: Maybe James can visually notarize it for you.
James: Yes. It LOOKS like my signature… It IS my signature. I’ve notarized it.
Fan: Oh my god I can’t believe it James Jean visually notarized my copy of Fables 2!!! OK. I’m going to Chronicle now to get your next book. Oh my god I still can’t believe I met you.
(Fan spins around and runs, and I mean RUNS… STRAIGHT INTO THE WOMAN BEHIND HIM. Recovers, then scurries off into the Chronicle sunset. Suffice it to say we were dying laughing at the booth. Everyone but James. Ten minutes later the Fan comes scurrying back with a copy of something held up against his chest; like he’s a car service driver waiting at the airport with a sign for his fare of the night.)
Fan: Oh. He’s gone. Oh well.
(Turns around and walks off like nothing.)
Yep, David Choe’s fans aren’t HALF that crazy…
I interviewed the Editor-in-Chief of IKKI magazine for Publisher Weekly at San Diego Comic-con. It was really too short–not sure why comics professionals have to do press junket style schedules–but we had the most Asianrific geek out during introductions:
Identically formatted business cards!
(Perfectly square and printed like a stamp)
This piece is a week old now but what an unexpected crosshair of cultural intersections: Issey Miyake in the NY Times on his memories of the atom-bombing of Hiroshima.
I tried never to be defined by my past. I did not want to be labeled “the designer who survived the atomic bomb,” and therefore I have always avoided questions about Hiroshima. They made me uncomfortable.
UC Berkeley is conferring honorary degrees to all the now geriatric or passed Japanese-Americans whose “educations at the school were interrupted” when they were sent to internment camps.
No one’s going to doubt they deserve it, but there’s probably already someone complaining this is just reinforcing the Asian status quo at Cal. (Though for the record I want to say, of course, that neither the current status quo nor the belated degrees are our fault.)
American Suburbia, which for so long had been zoned at a vertical threshold no higher than 3 stories and a cultural threshold no greater than a KFC-Pizza Hut drive thru (sic), has matured of late. Studies show we have Asia to credit for this.
From USA Today, yesterday:
It is a sociological thing,” says John Clifford, a principal with GreenbergFarrow, an architecture and planning firm based in Atlanta. “People who come from Asia are very used to high-density living. Asians have been very comfortable in high-rises for a long time. So they copy it when they come.
Yes… we “love” high-density living.
