What I Love About This iTunes Commercial

There aren't many ads that get me excited anymore, but leave it to Apple to rev me up.

This commercial is perfect, from the color of the black & white to the way it's lit flat and graphic, in perfect tune with the haunting boogie sound track. Check out the suit and sequin styling: perfect. Check out the intro move across the back of that crow-black guitar: perfect. Check out all the camera moves, like the rotation around the performer, the multiple shots from three-quarter behind, the heroic, low camera angle that transfers the icon's power to the small screen. My favorite part, by far, occurs right after the title card. Watch the motion and the change of camera speed coupled with the low camera angle, the music, even the head bob of that scarecrow guitar player. Together they communicate one thing: "Put it to the floorboard, baby, we're outta here." The creative people who crafted this idea, the AE's who championed it, and the client who had the guts and vision to trust that hiding the star in shadow wasn't irresponsible or scary but instead a stroke of genius that removed the extraneous, cranked the amplifier and cut right to the bone, they all deserve credit. Damn, that's hot.

Sailing The High Seas, Writing Cartoons

Every week the New Yorker publishes a cartoon sans caption in the back of the magazine, and every week people send in lines that make them laugh. A couple weeks ago, I entered. Unfortunately, I didn't win. But I did laugh a lot.

Seduced By Code

There is something alluring about writing code. It's a groove, a rhythm of small problems to be solved that I find hard to walk away from. But walking away is a necessary part of writing code. In fact, it's the richest part of all creative work. Walking away is when breakthroughs happen.

I'm currently working on a database-driven web site and last night, after hours writing line after line of PHP and solving one small problem after another, I hit a nut I just couldn't crack. I tried one approach after another, but nothing worked. Around midnight I finally gave up, shut down my computer, and headed for bed. Sure enough, while brushing my teeth, there it was, The Solution, elegantly simple, so simple that I didn't bother to write it down (always a dangerous decision, I know). After breakfast the next morning, I booted my computer, typed one line of code, problem solved.

I love living in the creative process. It's an enigma that has me wrapped around its little finger.

QuickMuse: The Online Poetry Battle Royal

Watching world-class poets write poetry on the fly is strangely addicting. If you think I'm joking, go to QuickMuse and try it yourself. But don't read the finished poems, watch them as they're being created via the QuickMuse Play Back feature. This is good stuff, the verbal equivalent of live music. Here's more about QuickMuse from their site:

QuickMuse is a cutting contest, a linguistic jam session, a series of on-the-fly compositions in which some great poets riff away on a randomly picked subject. It's an experiment, QuickMuse, to see if first thoughts are indeed the best ones. We're not entirely sure about this, but we suspect QuickMuse will bring readers closer to the moment of composition than they have ever been before. Best part: our "playback" feature lets you watch the poems unfold, second by second. Or as Thlyias Moss says, it's "the chance for a poem to find its/audience fast," in which words don't "have as much/time to stale, pale/lose the relevance of the moment" to which they belong.

Arnold Newman, Master Portrait Photographer, Dies at 88

When I was at college studying photo-journalism, I wanted to be Arnold Newman. Truly a master, his portfolio of work is singular and amazing.

From Mr. Newman's obituary in The New York Times:

Mr. Newman was credited with popularizing a style of photography that became known as environmental portraiture. Working primarily on assignment for magazines, he carried his camera and lighting equipment to his subjects, capturing them in their surroundings and finding in those settings visual elements to evoke their professions and personalities.

Perhaps his most celebrated image is a 1946 portrait of the composer Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky, his expression deeply serious, is confined to the bottom left corner of the picture, cropped to his head and shoulders, an elbow resting on the piano, his hand supporting his head. The rest of the photograph is taken up by the raised lid of a large grand piano, strategically silhouetted against a blank wall, which is divided off-center into a gray and white rectangle. The lid forms the reversed shape of a leaning, abstract musical note.

If I could own but one photograph, this would be it.

Rest in peace.