Greetings Professor Falken. I love McPharlin’s work. It is like a homage to some of my favorite people and things— Chuck “Chuckles” Bueche, paper, Chris Ware, computers, Harry Beck, music, Cabinet Magazine, miniatures, and the WOPR.
(1) Posters of the London Underground (WSJ)
(1a) One final lengthy quote from Earthbound (The Bakerloo Line) by Paul Morley.
“A 1975 Eno album called Discreet Music of sculpted, formless tones drifting to and from the edge of silence was as uncluttered as Harry Beck’s stabilizing, schematic. Tube map first proposed for the then eight lines in 1933 and updated when necessary. His map dragged the nineteenth-century Underground well and truly into the twentieth century, pragmatically and loftily outlining routes, methods, digressions and connections that would make it all the way through to the twenty-first century without becoming passé, apparently quite capable of looking poised and contemporary in the twenty-second century. He transferred the idea of the industrial Underground into a timeless, streamlined concept with a definite image. Discreet Music and Beck’s map of the Underground both eliminated unnecessary, distracting material, ejected literal connectives, and extraordinarily organized carefully selected, ordinary material into a new reality that was simultaneously diminished and enriched.”
(1b) A quote from A Good Parcel of English Soil (The Metropolitan Line) by Richard Mabey
“The opening of the Metropolitan Line — the world’s first urban railway to burrow underground — occurred in the same year (1863) as Professor Lidenbrock’s subterranean adventures in Jules Verne’s fantasy Voyage to the Centre of the Earth, and one way of looking at the London underground is as an expression of nineteenth-century futurism. It grew out of a brew of pastoral dreams, utopian social engineering and sheer technological daredevilry. And out of classic Victorian contradiction. It was a railway to get you away from the railway system.”
Have finished 4 of the 12 books in the series. My favorite so far is Heads and Straights by Lucy Wadham [strange how a single encounter can so deeply affect your view of yourself].
(2) Eight Surefire Shade Flowers (WSJ)
(2a) A quote from Victor Hugo:
“To observe the city edge is to observe an amphibian. End of trees, beginning of roofs, end of grass, beginning of paving stones, end of ploughed fields, beginning of shops, the end of the beaten track, the beginning of passions, the end of the murmur of things divine, the beginning of the noise of humankind.”
I read that quote and immediately think of the opening sequences in Hayao Miyazaki’s / Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away and The Secret World of Arrietty.
(3) Alarm Clocks That Are the Most Foolproof (WSJ)
(4) Gorgeous ORANGE bike
(5) Battleship (flea market find) and Battleship at Sea (1892-95) by Edward Hopper
(5a) Veronica Schmitt was featured in Bicycle Times #24. She is inspired by Hopper and “le petite reine” (the little queen). My favorite quote: “I love to paint bicycles. Primarily because I love to bike, so it moves me. But also because, to me, it conveys a feeling of freedom. It depicts a quiet and passing moment in life.”
(6) Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX: Disney And Square Enix Offer A Look At The Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix Art Book
(7) Libraries Partner with Local Airports (Library Journal)
(7a) Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music for Airports (Whole Album) (HQ)
(8) Clue #2
Image: Miniatures by Dan McPharlin