split/fountain blog

I received this postcard from a friend not so long ago. Something about the kind of light in this place provokes a sense of the mediterranean or Europe or something like that.

To be honest I hadn’t really paid much attention to the small print on the reverse (and I don’t mean the message!) until just now.  First, it’s actually in Japan – a place called Minato Mirai 21 (みなとみらい21) a large urban development in Yokohama. The name, which means “Harbour Future 21″, was selected in a public competition. Second, the photo is by Wolfgang Tillmans

The elongated building is working hard at shifting the established grid – look at that radical oblique stance. The rusty roofed building (possible beer factory – should have been a giveaway) to the right can only dream of such sophistication; very nice.

Masonic lodge, on sale now, I think?

ex town hall buillding

carnival lights out side of the town hall

Lovely is the amount of Art Deco looking buildings, geometric shapes and forms, straight lines and and occasional round corners. (Though I have taste for everything…) (Ignore strict definition of art deco and timeframe…) and the relatively well-preserved buildings in general.

Unlike the ones in K’rd or Queen St, many of them escaped being covered under thick, glossy paint that destroys the ‘patina’ of the building.
(Though I saw some crime there, too.)

I met a potter who buys old buildings (which has local heritage value) for conservation purpose. The town hall is one of those building he got recently. He is on my saint list now.

“The gorgeous taste of fully ripened pineapple, imposing as a southern island king crowned in glory, is yours to enjoy in every soft and juicy Kasugai Pineapple Gummy.”

I found this periodical in a market in Wanganui. One of the most exciting purchase there.

Lots of militaristic and macho ads and articles with almost pastoral humor and pin-up girl on the back.

My favourite issue is the December with innovative multicolour typo. Colour scheme matched with the Christmas decoration in the pic. A woman in wacky red outfit in snow on the back… priceless…

SOLDIER
the British Army Magazine
Jan – Dec 1963
and Bound by…

From the collection of et al.

During Gallery Weekend 2010 in Berlin, an unknown artist spilled water-based paints onto the Rosenthaler Platz intersection in Berlin…

Thanks to Boris Dornbusch for the images!

While half-heartedly looking through the dollar bin at the university book store the other day, this spine suddenly had my full attention. It was designed in 1969 by Milton Glaser for the combined publication of Gaia Servadio’s novels “Salomé: Notes for a New Novel” and “Don Giovanni: Notes for a Revised Opera”. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

I can’t say much about the book, as I haven’t read it (heh — typical!), but I really love the cover. It’s a bit like one of those paintings where the eyes follow you as you move.

But what actually got me to purchase a book I will probably never read is that beautiful and incredibly effective spine. It is said that great book covers often resemble great posters, but this comparison rarely takes into account what’s happening over yonder in that narrow area to the side. In any case, for mass-produced novels like Servadio’s, spines are usually only thick enough for a little text and a publisher’s logo. I appreciate Glaser’s decision to do away with all that (dictates of the marketing department be damned!), and instead make a bold, clever play on the title of the first novel, “Salome” (of ‘dance of the seven veils’ fame) and the novel’s primary character (a female novelist who interweaves fact and fantasy into her diary which she leaves out for her husband to find and read). This spine is seductive, alluring. It sure as hell seduced me.

Imagine standing in a bookstore in 1969, staring at a shelf holding a dozen or so of these books, all lined up with their spines facing out.

Wow.