Not withstanding time's mutability proposed by string theory's stalking of Grand Unification Theory, it's possible to focus Google's vast resources, like Blogger, to creating posts in future time. So for readers with longer event horizons, here are some July things upcoming:
Some musings on Joan Jett besides her appearance (which is July 16)
I cannot quite wrap my head around aging metal bands on reunion tours. I think it's more than never having my own metal phase. It seems irrelevant. But I am fascinated by the career arc of performers. So say your friends are rockers now, or maybe you are a rocker. What the fuck does 47 look like?
At 15 Joan Jet joined the all girl Runaways, blasting raw freedom out to the world. The girl that blew out every window and door for women to express themselves in music however they wanted. She produced punkers the Germs. Rejected by the major labels, she founded her own label Blackheart records, singing about it in her song "Bad Reputation". With her own band, Joan Jett was the first American rocker to perform in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In the 90's Jett recorded with Kathleen Hanna, Donita Sparks and Kat Bjelland, profoundly inspiring Olympia's riot grrrl breakout and influencing generations of female rockers to follow.
Jett has the cover interview in the current Herbavore magazine in which she muses on eating PBJ sandwiches on the road and the "What would Joan Jett do?" T-shirt phenomena.
Now more political than ever, Jett's black punk star burns on strong today.
Jett appears as part of the Warped Tour with a million other bands. Which of those will burn with intensity 32 years hence?
This picture is from the NY kickoff for the tour.
Warped Tour Columbia Meadows http://www.warpedtour.com/ Ticket details to follow
You can have it all - beauty and clarity - Edward Tufte on Information Design July 17
See "Presenting Data and Information" by Yale emeritus professor Edward Tufte in Portland. I have attended the seminar and recommend it. Tufte is highly engaging, you will not be bored for a moment, and will take away many ideas which you can apply to presenting information on your projects.
Tufte's thesis is that in order to make decisions based on complex data, it needs to be presented clearly, not simplified to the point of stupidity. Tufte illustrates his ideas with innumerable examples, including some of the earliest movable type books on science. In the seminar I took, his white gloved assistants circulate by every attendee, so you can see the first editions of Galileo, Euclid and Newton, 4-500 years old, some with little pop up 3d cutouts! He also presents case studies where the failure to communicate information clearly has lead to disastrous consequences, for example, presentations made to support subsequently lost space shuttle launches, the Challenger and the Columbia (1,2). You may be surprised that Tufte is critical of PowerPoint, and how it is typically used. (David Byrne, who went to art school at RISD, produced a somewhat tongue in cheek counter critique of Tufte in a book of Powerpoint art entitled Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information.)
Tufte is author of 3 major books: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information & Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. You may find them locally to get an idea of Tufte's range or review excerpts on Amazon.com. These are handsome coffee table books, and may be helpful in explaining to your grandparents what you do in an engaging way.
If you take the course, the books are included, along with a chart produced in 1869 clearly illustrating factors leading to the failure of Napoleon's march on Moscow of 1812. That chart is way, way cooler than it sounds. (The width of the line represents the number of soldiers in Napoleon's army mapped geographically on their march. The bottom scale shows the drop in temperature, from freezing to -22F, and the resulting loss of life as the army retreated. Of 442,000 who crossed the border in today's Lithuania, 10,000 returned. War, sad as always...)
The class is $360. Groups of 10 or more registering together save 25%. Full time students may attend for $180. Note the books alone would cost $147. Registration and more detail on the content of the course is available at http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses
Info on the location is available upon registration. The last time it was in a big room in the Convention Center, so get there early for a seat up front.
