Cost of creating

I spent most of my working life in what is said called, somewhat overly grandly, “creative industries”. In my case, it was doing design and layout of ads, newspapers, magazines, and various other printed materials. I’ve owned products by Adobe for years—right up until they stopped selling the software and instead made users subscribe to their “Adobe Creative Cloud”—at fees that keep going up. We had no other choice than to accept that because the software was vital to do our jobs. I’m not sure that’s true any more.

Now that I’m not working anymore, it doesn’t make sense for me to pay nearly $100 (roughly $US60) a month so Adobe will allow me to use the software. To be clear, I DO still use their software: I use Photoshop to prepare all the photos I post to this blog, I use Illustrator to create things like album art for some episodes of my podcast, and I use InDesign for general layout work, including all the labels I made for my pantry reorganisation. I’m really glad I have the software when I meed it, but am I nearly $100 a month glad?

Last year, I started researching alternatives to Adobe. At the time, Affinity was highly rated and cost less to buy permanently than paying for only three months of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Last year, Affinity’s publisher was aquired by Canva, an Australian-own software company whose site, Canva, is used by people to creat visual assets, like title cards for YouTube videos. Affinity is now “freemium”, but a paid subsription is needed to access AI features (Adobe also offers AI features).

Today I got an email from Apple about their new subscription service, Creator Studio. Some of the programmes are more powerful versions of their free software, like Final Cut Pro to replace iMovie, and Logic Pro to replace Garage Band, but everything seems to have added other things under the paid model, including—surprise!—AI features. Apple also promises to protect users’ privacy.

The various parts of the “suite” can also be purchased separately, basically like all software used to be. As is often the case with Apple, subscription pricing is—interesting. Here in New Zealand, users can pay $24.99 per month ($US15.08), or $249 annually ($US150.30), which is like getting two months for free. This is a fraction of what Adobe charges, but that assumes the Suite is comparable. However: In the USA, Apple charges users US$12.99 (NZ$21.52) per month, or US$129 ($NZ213.72) per year. As usual, in other words, Apple charges overseas users more than it charges users in the USA for something entirely digital.

At the moment, I don’t have a solution to entirely replace the Adobe software I’ve depended on for decades. Rightnow, I think it may turn out that “good enough” will have to be enough. I hjave a lot more research to do. All of which means this is yet another project for this year.

Taught by ‘Ugly Gerry’

A couple weeks ago there was a bit of social media buzz about a font* called “Ugly Gerry” (the image up top is a screenshot of the font). It was a simple 26-letter alphabet made up of oddly shaped US Congressional Districts. The districts chosen are supposedly particularly bad examples of gerrymandering, but are they really? Things are seldom as simple as political arguments try to suggest.

I downloaded the font two weeks ago today because, like so many other people, I saw an article about it shared on social media. I grabbed the font because I thought the idea was funny, and because I’ve been a critic of gerrymandering my entire adult life. I thought, what wasn’t to love about a font that points out the absurdity of gerrymandering? Nothing—if you put aside the fact that it’s not quite that simple or even necessarily very fair.

I discovered that four of the letters—some 15%—were made from Illinois Congressional Districts. I realised how implausible it was that Illinois has among the worst gerrymandered districts, so I looked at them more closely and discovered how misleading those choices—and even the idea that they’re gerrymandered—actually is.

The original "Gerry-Mander".

The fact that districts could be branded “gerrymandered” when they’re not necessarily so isn’t surprising. The word comes from the name of Elbridge Gerry**, who was Governor of Massachusetts 1810-12. During his second term, his party re-drew electoral district boundaries to benefit their own party—which is the very definition of gerrymandering. The irony is that Gerry himself didn’t like the highly partisan map, but signed it anyway, and so, got the blame for the next two centuries (although there were other reasons that Gerry came to be disliked).

The original intent behind the term gerrymander was to describe electoral districts that have been drawn to advantage one party over others, or especially ones drawn to disadvantage the party out of power. That was the case in Gerry’s time, and it continues right up to ours, though now it's also often done to dilute the power of minorities. However, that’s that not the only way that districts get odd boundaries.

Congressional Districts, and most legislative districts within states, are supposed to have roughly equal populations. That’s the starting point. There’s also usually a desire to avoid splitting communities, wherever possible, but the first demand sometimes makes the second impossible to achieve, especially in states with large rural areas and a few small pockets of urban areas, like Illinois has (Chicago, and even the six counties surrounding it, are unlike most of the state in that they’re far more urbanised than most of the state is, geographically speaking). This makes a third goal, making a district relatively geographically compact, very difficult to achieve in real life.

What this means is that even when electoral district boundaries are drawn with no regard for political party, there will still be some odd shapes in order to keep the populations roughly equal; it’s pretty much unavoidable, at least some of the time.

An additional factor in Illinois is that much of the state, aside from Chicago and Cook County and some other urban areas, is pretty Republican—there just aren’t as many people in the rest of the state, with Democrats concentrated in its northeast, and in some Democratic pockets in other parts of the state. Because it’s hard to avoid dissolving Democratic votes into Republican districts, it’s not uncommon for Illinois’ Congressional maps in particular to advantage Republicans in the majority of the state (again, geographically speaking), because the more urban and more Democratic areas outside the Chicago area have to be shared among mostly rural and mostly Republican districts just to keep the populations roughly equal.

This whole process becomes harder after every US Census, because Illinois has been losing one or two Congressional Districts each time. Between 1973 and 1982, the period in which I first became intensely interested in electoral politics, Illinois had 24 Congressional Districts, and it now has only 18.

All of which means that many oddly shaped Illinois districts don’t fit the usual definition of gerrymandering, and that’s probably true for other states, too.

Here’s a look at the four Illinois Districts included in the font (all pictures are from the Ugly Gerry website), listed in Congressional District order:

 Illinois Fourth Congressional District (the letter “V”): Anyone looking at this would conclude it’s gerrymandered, but even this weirdly shaped district isn’t really. First, rotate the picture 90 degrees to the right. The district was created in this shape after federal courts ordered Illinois to create a majority-Hispanic district in the Chicago area. The resulting district combines two heavily Hispanic areas into one district, a mostly Puerto Rican area in the North, and a mostly Mexican-American one in the South. The funny strip on the left (Western) edge of the district (when rotated to its proper orientation) is Interstate 294, where there are no residents, but which served as a convenient way to link the two areas. Not surprisingly for a Chicago Congressional District, the district has a Democratic lean of 33 points. So, this weird district wasn’t drawn this way for partisan reasons, but to obey a court order. Which doesn’t mean it’s not dumb—it is—but gerrymandered?

Illinois Eleventh Congressional District (the letter “N”): This one has to be rotated 90 degrees to the left, which doesn’t make it any less oddly shaped. The area is mixed politically, but being closer to the Chicago metropolitan region means that the area is more Democratic than Republican, and it generally has Democratic lean of about 8 points. This is one of the districts I was talking about, one that tries to balance population by mixing rural and more urban areas. Despite its odd shape, it’s nevertheless relatively compact, unlike Illinois’ 4th Congressional District, above.

Illinois Twelfth Congressional District (the letter “Y”): This one doesn’t have to be rotated. The squiggly line on the left (Western) edge of the district is the Mississippi River. This district is pretty geographically compact, and doesn’t actually look gerrymandered district, especially when viewed in the context of other Illinois Congressional Districts. In fact, the district is a little more competitive than other Downstate districts, in part because it includes urban areas and more heavily Democratic university towns. Most of this district was once part of a district that was represented by US Rep. (later US Senator) Paul Simon, a Democrat, and it’s where the university I attended is located. It now generally has a Republican lean of about 5 points.

Illinois Eighteenth Congressional District (the letter “J”): This one is presented on an angle to make it look kinda like the letter “J”; in reality, it runs East-West, and the squiggly line on the bottom of the “J” is actually the Mississippi River. As a Central Illinois district, it’s more heavily Republican: It generally has Republican lean of about 15 points. In fact, I don’t remember a Democrat representing that area, though that may have happened at some point in my life.

This experience has shown me that gerrymandering isn’t the same as drawing oddly shaped districts, even though some people treat it as the same thing. I think we need to be pedantic about what a gerrymandered district actually is because the real thing—trying to advantage one political party over others and to dilute minority representation—is an affront to democracy. In contrast to that, most of Illinois’ “oddly” shaped districts (and probably many in other states, too) are the result of trying to balance conflicting goals in trying to ensure fair representation, and less about trying to advantage one political party over another.

Which means that as fun and funny as this font is, it may not necessarily be fair, and it definitely isn’t a good guide to what gerrymandered districts are (this exercise made me wonder about whether the districts included from other states are actually gerrymandered). Until now, I never really appreciated that there are a lot reasons why district boundaries can be drawn with odd shapes, and it’s not always as “bad” as it may look.

The lesson I take away from this is to always look more deeply into a political argument and try to determine if it’s fair and accurate. This takes a lot of time to do, which is why most of us don’t do it, or don’t do it enough. Even so, it’s important to verify claims made—even when it’s just a novelty font doing it.

Things are seldom as simple as political arguments try to suggest.

Footnotes:

*There's a difference between font and typeface, one that Fast Company described this way: “The difference between a font and a typeface is the same as that between songs and an album. The former makes up the latter. Remember that and you’re good to go.”

**Since these footnotes are being pedantic, gerrmander is properly pronounced like “Gary-mander”, not “Jerry-mander” because Elbridge Gerry pronounced his surname “Gary”. While pronouncing gerrymander incorrectly is common, it’s also adding another layer of insult—but good luck convincing anyone to say it any other way than “jerry-mander” (in fact, I pronounce it incorrectly most o the time). Fun fact: Gerry, who died while serving as Vice President to President James Madison, is buried in Washington, DC, and is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence to be buried in the capital of the nation he helped to form.

A rainbow in an email

Anyone with an email address probably gets marketing emails, at least some of which are from companies with whom we do business. We may or may not pay attention to them, but every once in awhile one stands out and practically forces us to pay attention. Yesterday I got one of that kind of marketing email.

Yesterday, I received an email from Animates, the pet store chain where I get the dogs’ food, and owners of the chain of vet clinics where we took the animals. There was nothing unusual about it, then I looked closer at the main image (photo up top). There was nothing particularly unsual about it: A large photo with a cute furbaby, this time with people, too. Toward the end of last year, they’d changed the format of their marketing emails (I’m a graphics and publishing professional—that’s the sort of thing I notice) to have a large header at the top with their headline, sometimes with graphics, other times a photo. So, it looked ordinary—and then looked more closely and I went, “hm…”

The lads seemed friendly, with the dog, yes, but also with each other. Were they just friends, or… Or maybe it was just intended as an inclusive marketing image for which everyone could write their own stories.

I also thought it might have something to do with Pride celebrations, since TVNZ changed their logo to one with Rainbow colours for the week. Turns out, is was promoting something very specific.

Animates had received Rainbow Tick Certification, which is “designed to make an organisation a safe, welcoming and inclusive place for people of diverse gender identity and sexual orientation.” They “sensitively evaluate your organisation’s level of LGBTTI inclusion in these five areas: Policy, Staff Training, Staff Engagement and Organisational Support, External Engagement, and Monitoring. If a business id found to meet the criteria in all those areas after a Diversity & Inclusion Audit, they can attain Rainbow Tick Certification. If not, they can take advantage of the organisation’s training programmes to help them pass the audit.

This graphic was near the bottom of the Animates email:

That graphic lead to a statement on their website:

We’re proud to announce that Animates is now Rainbow Tick accredited.

This is a significant milestone for the company demonstrating to our customers, the wider community and our team members, that Animates is an inclusive and welcoming organisation for people of diverse sexuality and gender identities.

The Rainbow Tick celebrates and recognises our commitment to ensuring our team members, customers, suppliers, and anyone interacting with the company can safely express their individuality; allowing them to be their authentic self, confirming our core value of authenticity.

Animates is proud to join the wonderful New Zealand businesses who are Rainbow Tick certified and encourage others to start the accreditation process.

So, an otherwise ordinary email marketing message made me stop for a moment to pay attention to it because of the choice of photo (always a good tactic, by the way—there’s some free processional advice for you), and when I then actually read the email I saw that the photo probably was related to me and my life as I’d wondered. Or, maybe it really was just intended as an inclusive marketing image for which everyone could write their own stories. Either way, it was good news to share—and their marketing worked because it grabbed my attention and got me pay attention to it.

Every once in awhile an email marketing message stands out and practically forces us to pay attention. This was one of those times, one of that kind of email. Well done, to them all, for getting the messaging right, and especially for the Rainbow Tick Accreditation.

Footnote: Because of the sad events of Thursday, I just didn’t have it in me to publish any posts yesterday. I originally planned a post for Wednesday night, but it needed some finishing touches, and I ran out of time to do it because I went to bed early (for me…) that night. I didn’t feel like finishing it the next day, or yesterday. But when I saw the email I mentioned in this post, I thought it would by a nice positive way to get back to blogging again. Because life goes on, doesn’t it? And, for me, that includes blogging.

And, no, I was not paid or compensated in any way to promote Animates or Rainbow Tick. I just wanted a nice story to return with.

Weekend Diversion: Fonts of knowledge

Last week I was too busy with work to put together a Weekend Diversion post. So this week I thought it would be appropriate to share things from my work world: This is all about fonts.

The video above from Vox tells us “Why the Wingdings font exists”. It’s always interesting to learn the origins of a font, and that font is often looked down on. However, I’ve often found it useful to adapt for graphics, including some I’ve used on this blog (Sh! That’s our secret!).

However, the video above was originally for a post I began on March 14, 2016, though it was just the links. I have no idea why I never finished it, or even what I intended to say about it. Better late than never, right? Actually, this is a bit like last month’s “Internet wading: Lost and found”, where I also shared things I’d somehow missed sharing.

A few months after the video above, Vox published a video “Where the ‘comic book font’ came from”:


I bet Roger Green has already seen this video, but I didn’t until I checked out the Wingdings video, and it was listed on YouTube at the right side of my screen. I found this interesting all in itself because I’m always interested in the evolution of publishing and of fonts.

But another thing I found interesting about it is how the font we know today originated as hand-written (by “letterers”), something I knew, as well as that the modern computer fonts are intended to mimic handwritten lettering. When I was much younger, I used to hand letter stuff all the time, often coming up with hard to read decorative lettering that I never actually used for anything other than my own amusement. Years later, I occasionally used hand lettering to make greeting cards for people, but only for fun. I have no formal training in lettering, or art, for that matter, and I never made any attempt to get “good” at hand lettering. But I really admire people who did and have.

Finally—since I always share at least three videos—a video I ran across recently. It’s from a series of videos called “Beginning Graphic Design” and is on typography. It discusses all the basic concepts I used on every project, and may even hint at why I like typography so much:


That’s it for this tiptoe through typography, but it’s not the first time I’ve talked about type. In fact, it was in a Weekend Diversion post back in 2014: “Weekend Diversion: The History of Typography”. That post talks even more about the background to the topic of typography and fonts.

Maybe I’ll make a Weekend Diversion post in advance for the next time I’m busy with work. Here’s another secret: I’ve done that in the past. That’s kind of remarkable, really, because I’m not really the—ahem!—type who manages to do that most of the time.

Internet Wading: The return

It’s been a very long time since I shared some of the miscellany I run across on the Internet, and the first of the month is as good a time as any to resume. As it happens, Roger Green, from whom I stole borrowed this blogging idea, just posted his latest Rambling post. I’m still, um, internet wading through the links.

So, to start things out, how about “18 True Size Maps That Prove Maps Have Been Lying To You”? Naturally, I knew about these, or so I'm claiming.

Like a lot of other people, I’m excited that “A Landslide of Classic Art Is About to Enter the Public Domain”. It’s the first time in TWO DECADES that we’ve had such a trove enter the public domain, and there’ll probably be a lot of long-forgotten stuff in that, the result, in part, from stupidly-written copyright laws.

Or, maybe something more practical is in order. How about “Wiki Has Released Over 83,500 Vintage Sewing Patterns Online For Download”. Or, you can skip the talk about it and go directly to the Wiki and start sewing. I don’t sew, but my mother did, and used sewing patterns, so I’m familiar with the concept. Mainly, I think it’s fascinating to look at old designs and what people once thought looked good.

Photography has always fascinated me, as has painting and other visual arts. I’m not necessarily any good at any of that, but, for me, the trying is what I enjoy. I’m also fascinated by colour, and, specifically, how human skin tone is depicted. A few years ago I shared a video about how colour film was made for white people. Well, now I’ve seen something that drives this point even farther: “This Artist Took 4,000 Portraits to Show the Range of Human Skin Color—and the Results Exceeded the Pantone Library”. Pantone® is the colour-match standard used in printing, and it, or the CMYK equivalents, are used to make up every colour possible (which in this case means printable). What the project showed is that skin colour is far more varied that most people realise, and that means that race really is a social construct. But, then, all of you already knew that.

Okay, that’s enough for this outing. It’s been a long time, and I don’t want to burn myself out.

Colour Wheel illustration By László Németh [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons.

Internet Wading for September 2016

These Internet Wading posts are all about sharing: I share links to things that catch my eye in a given month, things that would almost certainly never end up in a blog post otherwise. They may be interesting, profound, silly, or even stupid, but they’re all unique enough for me to check them out, and then share them.

I’ve noticed that these Internet Wading posts have recurring themes, especially history, art and creativity, and pop culture, among other things. That’s probably because outside of politics and religion, they’re the topics I’m the most interested in. Obviously.

Let’s begin this month with something topical: “Battling billboards” talks about the billboards/signs used in Auckland’s local government elections, casting a critical eye over the design, layout, and even colours. I know the author in real life, and I think he does a good job critiquing the various efforts. I do the same thing less formally whenever I see the signs, and have had very similar conclusions.

I have to admit, titling an article, "Smooth": 7 questions about the song you were too embarrassed to ask” didn’t exactly draw me in. While I liked the song (video above), I wasn’t aware of having any questions about it, but, even if I had, I doubt I’d be embarrassed to ask them. Nevertheless, it turned out to be surprisingly interesting—not the first time that’s happened to me.

Was Oscar Wilde’s "De Profundis" “one of the greatest love letters ever written”?. Maybe, but the treatment of Wilde was certainly a sad tale.

Speaking of marginalised people, Rob Tannenbaum tells us a long form story of “The life and murder of Stella Walsh, Intersex Olympic Champion”. It’s certainly a story I’d never heard, and it's one that deserves to be known.

Tannenbaum himself, meanwhile, recently became the focus of social media attention when he published a series of Tweets  talking about shady dealings of the Trump Foundation, the first person to do so. Since then, journalists began taking an in depth look—as he'd urged in his Tweets.

Jonathan Shaw wrote in Harvard Magazine that human beings may have been “Born to Rest”. This could explain why do many people have trouble exercising regularly.

On the other hand, a “Study suggests exercise can offset perils of alcohol”, which is a pretty good reason to exercise. Once we’re done resting, of course. Or drinking alcohol.

We know that humans and Neandethal’s had sex, because their DNA is present in modern humans (my own DNA is about 2% Neanderthal). But the question some researchers are trying to work out is, “Was it for love?” Apparently, part of the answer may come from working out the direction that the genes were transferred. There’s even some conjecture about Neanderthal penises, something that I’d never actually wondered about.

In more “recent” history, scientists have been learning a lot about “Otzi”, the 5300 year old frozen mummy discovered in the Alps 25 years ago this past week. In a Daily Mail article reprinted by the NZ Herald, I found out several things I didn’t know, like the fact that an arrow was found in Otzi’s shoulder in 2001, and that’s likely what killed him, or that scientists hope that bacteria found in his stomach may help cure modern diseases.

• • •

That’s it for this month’s potpourri of stuff from the Internet.

No one owns blue

A Phil Goff for Mayor sign on Waiheke [Facebook]

The USA isn’t the only country with people who do silly political things based on their political ideology, naiveté, or lack of information or clarity of thought. New Zealand has them, too, of course, but complaining about the colour used in political advertising is probably among the oddest examples of this.

A person filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a billboard for Phil Goff, a candidate for Mayor of Auckland example above. The person wrote:

“I am complaining about the content of Phil Goff’s election billboard content, namely the use of blue to fill the billboards. To me this is passing off and trying to mislead voters who associate blue with national [sic].”

The Chair of the ASA, Heather Roy, a former MP for the rightwing Act Party, “acknowledged the Complainant’s view the use of the colour blue on an Auckland mayoral candidate’s billboard was misleading as it was associated with the National Party.”

After a convoluted review process that considered the rules, ethics, and the requirement in legislation to give political speech as much leeway as possible, Roy finally concluded, “the use of the colour blue in the advertisement before her was unlikely to mislead or deceive voters and the advertisement had been prepared with a due sense of social responsibility.”

Accordingly, the ASA ruled—correctly—that the signs were NOT in breach of the rules and there were no grounds to proceed.

As a graphic arts professional, I can’t help but look at the larger issue here: NO ONE owns the colour blue!

It was absurd in the extreme for the complainant to argue that the use of blue was “passing off and trying to mislead voters who associate blue with national [sic]”. Blue is a colour commonly used in advertising, and is meant to convey feelings of safety, intelligence, reassurance, and trust, among other things, which is why political parties, banks, financial and medical institutions all love using the colour so much. But the complainant’s assertion here was really that in New Zealand politics blue is associated with the National Party alone. Bollocks.

Parties contesting elections for the NZ Parliament do, indeed, have particular colours associated with them, but National isn't the only party to use blue. For example, the Colin Craig Conservative Party also used a lighter tint of blue. Others have used a shade or tint of blue, too, though not always as a dominant colour. It has frequently been used in campaigns for local government politicians of all political stripes.

Similarly, the blue that Goff is using is nowhere near the same shade of blue as National uses, so what the complainant was really suggesting was that all shades and tints of blue are the exclusive identity of the NZ National Party. Yet, I’ve already shown how that’s not true, that blue is used in political campaigns all the time.

The complainant’s suggestion that Goff’s use of blue was “trying to mislead voters who associate blue with national [sic]” is just plain stupid for another reason: Phil Goff was Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party 2008-11, and before that he served held various portfolios as a senior Minister in the Labour-led Government from 1999 to 2008. He’s been a Labour Party MP for all but three years from 1981 to the present. In sum, there is no way on earth that any New Zealander could ever in any way even remotely imaginable be “misled” into thinking Goff was anything other than Labour.

Roy correctly noted how unlikely it was that anyone could be confused about Goff's use of blue. She also noted that “the colour blue was strongly associated with Auckland City,” and she’s absolutely right about that, too: Shades and tints of blue have been part of Auckland signage, logos, and printed materials for decades, and are part of Auckland Council now.

I have no idea why the silly complaint was made—was it partisan pique? Political mischief? Sincere but woefully ill-informed opinion? It doesn’t matter. Whatever the motivation, the complaint was rejected, as it should have been. However, by making a complaint that was doomed to fail, and using specious arguments in the process, the complainant does look awfully silly.

Sometimes, complaints to the ASA are useful, particularly when companies make misleading claims about their products and services. This, however, was not one of those times, and it also won’t be the last such unhelpful complaint we’ll see.

We have plenty of people who will make even sillier and more pointless complaints.

Related: A PDF of the complaint is available from the ASA website [click to open the PDF]

Full disclosure: I support Phil Goff for Mayor of Auckland.

Photo credit: The photo above was posted to Phil Goff’s Facebook Page and is an example of the election signs he uses.

Internet Wading for August 2016

This month’s collection is about language and pop culture, two of my favourite things that aren’t politics. At least, not usually. As usual, a little history, science and creativity makes the mix, too.

When we talk about the evolution of the English language, Latin is an important part of the story. The video above tells us “What Latin Sounded Like – and how we know”. Decoding the evolution of languages is always a bit of a detective story, and the story in this video is no different.

“Proportional Pie Chart of the World’s Most Spoken Languages” tells us a bit about the state of languages on the planet, while “20 misused English words that make smart people look silly” shows that even native speakers can mess up (fewer v. less is one of my own pet peeves). And, while we’re trying to fix that, “Can’t quit saying ‘um’ and ‘ah’? Just learn how to use them better”. Sounds reasonable.

Speaking of Rome, “Pompeii: Incredible images, unprecedented detail laying bare their bones and have perfect teeth” tells us about discoveries made in examining the remains of some of the victims. The story includes this:

“So far, only around 100 of the victims have been captured in plaster. The total number of bodies to be found is approximately 1,150, and that’s with a third of the city left untouched by archaeologists.”

Also from the distant past, “10 Insane Stories That Didn’t Make It Into The Bible” shares stories that I’d mostly heard. Mind you, many of the stories that did make it into the bible are pretty “insane”…

Not related, exactly, “21 Signs That Story You're About To Share Is Secretly B.S.” can help people avoid sharing so much nonsense on social media—and what a wonderful thing that would be.

“Jack Davis, 'MAD' Magazine Cartoonist, Dies at 91”. Davis, who died July 27, was one of my favourite artists at MAD. Roger Green included him in one of his July “Rambling” posts, which are remarkably similar to these Internet Wading posts, almost as if I stole borrowed the idea or something.

Speaking of Roger Green, he wrote about visiting the Lucy Desi Museum in Jamestown, New York. He and the family did not, however, get to visit the statue of “Scary Lucy”. And, of course, “Lucille Ball's 'Scary Lucy' replacement statue unveiled”. And in the comments people criticised the new statue, too. Of course.

And finally this month, for no particular reason except it’s related to my profession, “7 Graphic Design Documentary You Should Be Watching”. Even I haven’t gotten through all of them yet.

• • •

That’s some of what caught my eye over the past month, things that didn’t make it into blog posts—and most wouldn’t have, of course. But that doesn’t make them any less interesting to me.

Internet Wading for February 21

Statue of Julian of Norwich

There are a lot of things I see on the Internet that interest me, but that I don’t write about on this blog, for whatever reason. Once a month, I gather together some of those things that I thought were interesting, but that never became blog posts. So, let’s get started with this month’s typically varied collection—some history, some graphic arts and creativity, pop culture—but no politics, oddly enough.

First up this month, for no particular reason, Atlas Obscura told the story of “The Rebel Virgins And Desert Mothers Who Have Been Written Out Of Christianity's Early History”. It’s a long piece about early Christian women who were both as odd as some of the early Christian men, but also oddly fascinating. For me, it’s always fun learning about forgotten history.

In December, they also published a story about a medieval “anchorite”, a female Christian mystic, who was known as Julian of Norwich (pictured), though her real name has been lost. Walled up in a church, as was a fad at the time, this 14th century mystic wrote what is believed to be the first book in English attributed to a female author, Revelations of Divine Love, about her visions.

Speaking of writing, Charles O’Meara published “I’m old but I can write” on Medium, and takes younger writers—and their readers—to task for, well, a lot of things, actually. But, points to Medium for publishing a piece critical of itself.

Also on writing, something relevant to anyone writing online, including bloggers: “No one cares if I write,” Jennifer Garam begins in a piece on her personal site. In the piece, “How To Keep Writing When No One Gives A Shit”, she lays out the struggles a lot of writers face in an online world dominated by all sorts of information gathering about readers and their habits. She concludes with a sentiment I share:

When you write something, you never know who it is going to affect, or how it could help someone who’s struggling and feeling alone, or how in a low moment in their life, desperately searching on Google for answers, they will come upon your words when they need them most. And despite what our culture will have us believe—that metrics and stats matter above all else, that the number of clicks tells the whole story—somehow, in some calculation, impacting one human being has got to be worth more than all the unique page views and Shares and Likes in the world.

And speaking of social media metrics, MIT Technology Review published “The Social-Network Illusion That Tricks Your Mind”, in which, as they put it, “Network scientists have discovered how social networks can create the illusion that something is common when it is actually rare.” It explains a lot about why it sometimes SEEMS like everyone feels a certain way about something when it’s not actually true. This is something political activists in particular should heed (our nephew shared this one online—one of the few things I’m including this month where I know how I found it).

And a merger of social media and graphics things was in something I rediscovered recently: “Idiotic Hipsters Complain About The Font Of ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Protest Shirts”. Because, Comic Sans. Look, I know it’s not a pretty font, but I simply can’t understand why some designers seem to hate it with unbridled passion. Seems like a monumental waste of energy and passion to me (and entirely beside the point of the shirts, of course, and that’s as close to political as I get in this post).

More humorously I ran across, “Logo Design Gone Wrong: 10 Offbeat Examples” and (even though both have some of the same images) “15 Images That Show Why Letter-Spacing Is Important”. Both show things far funnier than the temerity of those using Comic Sans.

Roger Green (from whom I stole borrowed the idea for these amalgamation posts) has been writing about “The Black Comic Book” (part one is here, and part two is here). The comics are parodies of well-known comics using black people in place of the familiar white characters. It’s not just parody and satire, though—it’s also social commentary, and Roger’s comments clarify them and their place in history from today’s perspective.

“What if Tim Burton directed all Disney classic movies?” That’s the premise of a project by Russian-born, Los Angeles-based artist and animator, Andrew Tarusov, who imagines Disney movies as if they were directed by Tim Burton.

And in music: “ELO's Jeff Lynne: My Life in 15 Songs” in which Electric Light Orchestra's frontman talks about the songs he wrote for ELO and others, including George Harrison and Roy Orbison, and a bit about the studio work behind them.

‪That’s enough for this month. I’ve been wading so long my skin’s getting pruney.

The photo above, “Statue of Julian of Norwich, Norwich Cathedral, by David Holgate FSDC” is by rocketjohn [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons