I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: NEVEREST SONGS-“Calculator” (2010).

Opening with a simple, discordant piano, this song quickly morphs into a fast chaotic piano run, all the while the vocal stay slow and calm.  Once the bass kicks in, the song feels less like a solo track and more like a band effort.  And it’s amazing that this simple bass can add so much to this swelling track.

I heard about this band from a nice review at wallernotweller.  I think I’ll have to order this CD, if for nothing else than because it looks beautiful.

I’d like to hear more from this label, but all their songs seem to be linked to last.fm, which I find very awkward to use.  One band’s “radio page” didn’t play their own songs and now at home it says I don’t have a plug in or some nonsense.  Pity.  But you can hear this song (and watch their mesmerizing webpage here.

[READ: June 7, 2010] A Book About Design

This book was also part of Sarah’s birthday present.  Inexplicably, although James Kochalka has absolutely nothing to do with the book, he autographed the inside and made a little cartoon that says, “Hi Sarah.”  Cute.

So this book is a wonderfully illustrated primer about design.  It is so basic that I read it to Clark (aged almost 5) and he loved it, too.  There are some sections that I had to use different words, obviously, but he enjoyed the basics very much.

Not including pictures almost makes this review pointless, (but you can see many pages at Google Books) and yet I have to say something here, so I’ll talk about a few things.  Chapter 1 talks about the effects on Object B if you change the appearance of Object A.  Chapter 2 starts: “Take a look at the square in the right.  Imagine drawing two straight lines that intersect only once inside the square.”  When I turned the page to reveal the basic window design of four equal squares, Clark said, “How’d it know that?”  It was very cool.

Chapter 3 is about the 1:3:9 ratio I had to change the wording about, but we liked looking at the colors.  Chapter 4, Contrast, has a fun guessing game about a number in white on black.  And Chapter 5 “Letters are shapes too” was our favorite.

Chapter 6 is about colors, warm and cool, which was hard to explain, but fun to look at.  Chapter 7 is about balance.  How you can place color on a page to make it look lopsided.  And the humorous text says on one page: “Now it’s balanced.”  Next page. “Now it isn’t.”  “Now it is.”  “Isn’t.”  “Is.”  “This could take a while.  Why don’t you go on and I’ll catch up.”

The final chapter shows a simple design, a smiley face, that grows more and more complicated until it looks like the cover picture (too much!), and we enjoyed that very much.

It’s a very fun book.  I don’t know that it is meant for kids, but kids will surely like it, and they’ll learn about design as well.  Grown ups will also like it, I promise.