LOVE IS A STAR-GUIDED BRICK

In one of his most famous sonnets, Shakespeare claims that true love is the permanent thing, the polar star by which we can all guide our ship. Love, he explains, never alters its path no matter what kind of impediment it encounters:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark [ship]....

But here is an opposite view from Yeats. For him, love is crooked and bewildering. And you can forget about that polar star business, love will continue to drive us nuts until those stars have all gone out:

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.

The following episode from the ongoing love/hate saga of Krazy Kat and Ignatz mouse shows Ignatz determined to overcome all obstacles and consummate a brick toss:



Notice how Herriman has provided us with a polar star to make sense of the visual pandemonium. That sun appears to bounce up and down on the horizon, but we soon realize that it is the horizon (along with everything else in the picture) that is bouncing around. The sun is the only thing that remains constant. It is the fixed reference point that gives these drawings the continuity necessary for us to figure out what the heck is going on:











Herriman doesn't side with either Shakespeare or Yeats. Artists speak in pictures rather than words, so Herriman does not need to worry about reconciling the two conflicting texts. Leave that dirty work to poets and lawyers. Pictures enjoy an ambivalence (and a truth) that words can't match; Herriman depicts an undeterrable Ignatz and a polar star such as Shakespeare might expect, but any love that involves being brained by a brick probably belongs on one of those crooked corners Yeats describes.

Herriman does contribute the insight that sometimes the only resolution of conflicts is found in the limp exhaustion of the couple (whether from happy activity or sad).

Don't you hate it when big commerce does something real good

See Sprint's Plug Into Now project (launched about a year ago and created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners). Get impressed. And then goddamn it, move forward, do things no commerce can think of. Because it does have the feel of some excellent live art that's been around in the recent years. And let's say it feels just a tad late (and shallow, and not moving forward - but it's selling a product, for chrissakes!). Just late enough to feel that artists can still handle the commercial pressure.
Yes, they've been counting on viral marketing.
Yes, they think they might tap into a blog like this one.
Yes, they just did.
Because they're good. Is it a sin for a commercial enterprize to be good?
Well, they have the means. Get it while it's now. They play around with this idea, and they do it well.
I'm glad they do - it's an inspiring project. It makes me want to move beyond this. Now.

Moebius Bach

Patriotic Art Car

via Never Forget 9/11

When Driving Becomes Writing - The Making of iQ Font

Ever use a car to create a font using fancy schmancy software like a bunch of dudes that are totally into fonts? These dudes did it and you need to watch this video if you are a font nerd like myself.

Ginormous Cork Truck Big Hit at Barcelona Wedding

Photo by Emily
This ginormous antique Cork Truck photo was taken by Emily during her Barcelona visit last October where she attended Felipe and Silva's Wedding. Probably too much information but I do wish the young couple my best. Anyways Emilys trip was well worth it here at ACC because she brought back with her a little bit of art car history. Thanks Emily.

Gonzo Mutant Vehicle

via
And just for fun, for the those of you who just got back from burning man this year, I bring you Gonzo the Mutant Vehicle. And for those of you who have not gone to Burning Man and never will because everyone and their mother has gone to Burning Man, I suggest you check out a nice alternative event at the same location called Burning Toast Man.