. . .Are you
QUITE done. . .?
Heh-heh -- I promise to read that sooner or later.
[See what you did, hh ? I think our inimitable Mr Wilson is treating us to his forthcoming tome, a chapter or three at a time. If you read as fitfully as I do, you'd better keep up with it -- I for one will balk at the whole thing between covers !]
I'm glad to hear of the well-known Mr Rybczynski's effort. I'll look it up. . .
SDR
Wow. dcwilson thanks! Around...
Wow. dcwilson thanks! Around 1975, a lucky group of us in high school somehow got the chance to go down the road a couple hundred miles to a Kansas City Kings versus New Orleans Jazz game in Omaha (they still played about 6 games a year in Omaha at that time). My point: I had the rare and remarkable experience to see Maravich play this game called basketball - one of those few unique and truly memorable experiences in life for me. I could not put it into words back then, but it seems from where I stand now what I saw that afternoon was an undeniable affirmation that it was possible for style and substance to live together quite well on the same head of the same pin.
the armrests on the M7 trains serving NYC
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/nyregion/13seats.html?ex=1313121600&en...
The Memphis style of the...
The Memphis style of the 80's! It represents design at its worst considering the amazingly talented group of designers who were responsible for creating it. I think it's bad because it was big hit with consumers who either had no taste or very bad taste in design and it spawned so many generic and kopycat manufacturers who flooded the flea markets with Memphis imitations. Really...this style is just a big eye sore to me!
hudsonhonu...
Pete was basketball's The Natural.
"The best there ever was. The best there ever will be."
The God's frowned on Pete and doomed him to out of the way basketball places like Baton Rouge and Atlanta, places the greatest who ever played should never have had to waste away in. It was like Pete's Dad, Press, wronged the gods somehow by daring to raise a boy up to play the game the way the gods themselves played it and so cast him south of Eden (sweet Lawrence on the Kaw where Jimmy Naismith settled under the Basketball Bohdi tree to watch the fruit of his game fall far and near). Yep, the gods banished Pete into the hoop lands of Nod. I never saw him in the flesh, so I am not among the chosen, but even on TV he was The Natural, The One Through Which All Basketball Was and All It Ever Will Be Passed. Oscar and Jerry and Michael were better when they had great coaches and great teammates. But Pete was flat out better than they were when all had lousy coaches and teammates. Pete never got the chance to play with great coaches and mates. Earl Monroe, pre knee injuries, was the only other human being who ever became the game the way Pete did and as exquisite as the Pearl was, this savant with the floppy socks was taller, a better shooter and could do more with the basketball than Earl. The only athletes comparable to Pete were two of the great negro league baseball players: Satchel Page and Josh Gibson, both victims of banishment to the shameful, wrongful side show of baseball. Of the two, I'd pick Satch to compare Pete and from what I've been told by people who saw both Satch and Pete, Satch was the more virtuosic in his sport, but both dared to play their games the way the gods did and the gods feared both and banished them from the spotlight that shined on mortal men. Both spent their greatness in obscurity, when lesser men grabbed the glory. Life ain't fair. But greatness liveth long in the hearts and minds of even the innocent child touched by that greatness and so all is not for naught. For it is the recollection of perfection once achieved and experienced and passed down generation to generation in any activity that lays the foundation for recognizing it when it returneth. And as Giambatista Vico said so long ago: all greatness and evil eternally return. Or as Jimmy Joyce put it: "A way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." Or to my game, Lawrence by the Kaw, where Allen Field House eternally returns for all the game.
The INTERNET
This rediculous medium has, in and of itself spawned the worst in design. It continues to force bad design evrywhere. I mean I could talk about the net itself because I've been a designer for years. Form vs. function online has never been a bigger debate. but then I think of all the rip-offs and copying and how the access to lots of information has led to design knockoffs and the perpetuation of it all. I'm bitter can you tell? I need a career change. *heavy sigh*
I like that you say 'most'...
I like that you say 'most' haircuts deedee - it suggests to me a sense of humor and that you are not totally bitter! Somebody told me once the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about two weeks. And speaking, dcwilson, of haircuts, Pete Maravich, recollections of perfection passed on, and fairness in life, I have to tell you that my father, born pretty average in 1917 on the Kansas/Nebraska border, got to face Satchel Paige in the mid 30's when, banned from the Negro Leagues, the greatest pitcher ever was barnstorming the midwest with the All Stars, playing the local town teams and the rest. He remembered this chance at the bat to me in a way that I would eventually remember seeing Maravich play that one time Omaha. Both events, I can imagine, could have easily never happened. I promise you they did, to both the father and his son. You are right dc. Life aint fair. And sometimes not alot of fun. But every once in a while, on magical days like that, I feel like I could recommend it to almost anyone.
Infant/toddler pants with snaps.
Perhaps not so highbrow but I have 2 kids and have never been in a situation that it would have been easier to unsnap and resnap 8-12 snaps on the legs of a squirmy child than just pull down the pants, change diaper and pull them back up. Yet I have loads of these for both kids. All those snaps seem to accomplish is drafty, lumpy pants.
COMIC SANS
I like that lots of people are keeping this thread alive, but what seems to be lacking from most postings are examples or reasons why people consider these designs bad.
example: Why is the zipper bad?
I'd like to add the font Comic Sans to the mix. The font, in and of itself, is mediocre. What makes it truly bad is its ubiquity in everything from my doctor's office, to full blown advertisements on the subway. Almost no-one uses this font properly, yet almost everyone is using it!
http://www.bancomicsans.com
Umbrellas
When it rains it is almost invariably windy and yet a standard umbrella cannot withstand anything above a light breeze without turning inside out. It saddens me when I think how many umbrellas must be purchased every year and how many of those fail to get beyond their first outing before becoming rendered useless.
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