Friday, May 14, 2010

Buzz About Shops


I'm with Patrick of Portland Energy Strategies, yakking about what used to be Acme (see below). LinZ (handle) is a mini-Hubble when it comes to FreeCycle pianos, tracking 'em as if they were guide stars. I joined her in a rescue the other day, a perfectly good upright. How good was it when we were done with it though? Trae and I flipped her on her back to add wheels, and all her chords sounded when we did that. An expert I talked to said probably no big deal, he'd done worse. We had a legit piano dolly and everything, pictures in Photostream.

That same place with the piano (not Acme) is changing color again. Trae wants to continue a cross-hatching motif to signify his ownership of both buildings. Beyond that, he's like some fin de siecle painter, posing the question "why just one trim color?" He's settled on about four shades of turquoise, to contrast with the four shades of brown. GS and I interviewed him this morning while on some random walk (we're both Wanderers). Duke (the dog / owner) is doing better.

Speaking of dogs, the dog Manga in Logicomix out of Athens is not named for the genre, as Manga is also a Greek word meaning something like "jolly good fellow" -- or something.

The graphic novel I'm referring to is about the philosophy of mathematics in an historical context, exactly the kind of thing I promulgate on the Math Forum. This is Cult of Athena literature for sure, good table top reading (thumbs up, recommended) if you're collecting for your CSN shop.

My thanks to Trevor Blake, the renowned Bucky Fuller scholar (Esozone, Subgenius etc.) for cluing me in. I passed said novel on to Global Matrix Studios this morning.

One of the artists on the Logicomix team had experience with Tintin and Babar comix, both childhood influences. I sometimes refer to Don W. as "Captain Haddock" borrowing from the Tintin cast.

I've been out of touch with CHR etc., as we're not seeing a lot of philosophical ferment in the departments yet. University coffee shops will be streaming the content, but not until they see the relevance. OLPC commercials at the MIT Student Union? What could those have to do with 1, 12, 42, 92...? A puzzling question I realize.

Best wishes to JF, SB, LV, GS and to CTO Nirel. Praise Bob. CMO out.