John Coltrane
John Coltrane recording “Blue Train” 1957. Photograph by Francis Wolff
Grace Kelly
Frank Sinatra
Brigitte Bardot
Fatale.
Steve McQueen
Toasting the affair. In this scene, Thomas Crown is actually toasting himself for a “job” well done.
Sophia Loren
Babe, trust me, you look great.
Gary Cooper
Photographed in 1930 by Edward Steichen. The shirt collar’s definitely got something to say.
THE FLEETING AND THE BRIEF
Life Update
Back at work after a month off and carrying my recently acquired zen attitude back with me. Will it last? Oh yes.
The 1/7th News Desk
Google Street View has now incorporated Vancouver and just like everybody else, the first thing I did upon hearing this is check out where I live. As it happens, they got a few shots of my car in Springtime, apparently from a very high vantage point. Check out the fine PhotoShop work they crafted in stitching the images together. Awesome work, Google.
New articles? A new short piece in the classic spirit of me complaining about one of those moments that really bug the hell out of you. And another explaining how a photo of me and my car ended up on a Vancouver style blog of all things. Somebody left a nice comment.
The Stream page has been updated with my thoughts on our need for immediate amusement.
One of these days I’ll have to decide what to do with the longish growing list of quotes on the lower right there. That is all… 13.10.09
Life Update
Four days of my month-long stay-cation to go. It’s gone by pretty quickly. What else and random? I tried Starbucks Via instant coffee today. It’s not bad. Kind of had it with the unresponsive ball on my mighty mouse. I’ve been very nonsocial for quite a while. That is all. Oh, also, I haven’t shaved in over two weeks. 20.09.09
The 1/7th News Desk
Content: A couple new articles: observations about Starbucks’ attempt at a turnaround; and a piece about some unsolicited (and undesired) business suggestions I have for the small paragliding outfit at Grouse. Video and pictures included. Also, some new suggested hypertext destinations in Forward Pass.
Style: We are very happy with the current site design. I don’t anticipate (m)any changes any time soon. 20.09.09
The 1/7th Site Design Newsdesk
This site design in in constant flux. I tweak, I play, I refine, my taste evolves. And so the site changes. For me, this place is more of a lab than a library or collection. The title is now smaller and the marquis menu is now sans icons. The top was too visually heavy before; it’s quieter now—all in Gill Sans. Those of your viewing on a mac, the article titles on this page are now punchier.
I’ve started working on Stream and Big Ideas. Both of these will be ongoing works. Could be interesting to see if and/or how they play off each other. So check them out; I’ve added a short video in Big Ideas. Also a new page for photos and discussion of my car, called “Das Auto.” Added a few more links in Forward Pass too.
Idea
September 17, 2003: I had this idea today. I was thinking about the site while making a sandwich and it hit me. What’s missing. Something’s missing? Yes. Currently the site offers me a few different writing outlet types: what I loosely refer to as Articles (longer pieces, but not actually necessarily about a single topic; hence the “loosely referred to” thing), this department here, The Fleeting and the Brief (informal updates) and the Micro-blog. Which I haven’t updated in a long while. I can also occasionally toss some links on the still fresh Forward Pass page. This system is not bad; there’s plenty of flexibility. But not enough. Something is missing. What if I want to write something that is not sufficiently organized such that it would qualify as an article, yet that is not sufficiently succinct, witty or particular that it would fit in 140 characters. And even if it did, what if I didn’t want it read like a staccato collection of random randomness. What if I want continuity? What if, for example, I am developing a single comprehensive theory of something, and need to let the language do the waking to allow the idea to take shape and surface. What if I don’t really want to force new material into the confines of an existing blog typology?
Then what? Well, then you invent a solution. So here it is: a single page for an ongoing, unstructured stream of thought. A free-format running monologue on a single page. And I just keep adding to it as I go. Narrative play time. Ok, I’m going to work on this now. Update soon.
Update (5 Minutes later): Thinking now if it should start at the bottom or the top? 5 seconds of mulling. Decision. OK, it’s unconventional and not user-friendly, but it’s gotta be top down. I can insert subtle date cues for each new session, but other than that it has to read like a stream.
Life Update
September 7, 2009: The end of a long weekend for most; the beginning of a really long weekend for me. Three days in and much to do. Some of those things? Organising. Reading. Writing. Making another video.
September 5, 2009: Ah noon on the Saturday, the first day of a month long hiatus from work. Katrina, my massage girl, tells me that it takes three weeks for the body and mind to slough of all the accumulated, ah, stuff from work. So in a few weeks, I’ll still have one week of true freedom to enjoy before returning to the office. I’m thinking of it as a kind of zen thing. I think she’s is right: during the strike a couple years ago I recall that after a few weeks that I was thinking far more creatively. Here were my thoughts at that time about why that happens.
The Ongoing Site Refinement
As the site evolves, we must evolve with it. I’m thinking the µ-blog page will be less useful as I’m just not into Twitter anymore and probably won’t be updating it. So then, what to do now with the 7th icon? And you’re saying, “Patrick isn’t that backwards? You have an icon sans function and are now looking to assign some function, SOMEthing to it.” Yeah, maybe. Forward Pass deserves it’s own icon. And Twitter could be useful as a way to record ideas. I’ll let it settle in and let the brain meditate on it in the background while I do other things. A little more fine-tuning coming.
Life Update
Today is my birthday. How am I spending it? Well so far, I got up at 1 am after 6 hours of what started off as a nap and watched Cassavetes’ 1970 “Husbands” in the middle of the night. Ironed one of my famous white shirts. Drove downtown and got some coffee and bombed my 220 down to Spanish Banks with the windows down. Nice. Hung out there & got my toes in the sand as the sun was coming up. Now having the french toast at Paul’s on Granville. Why am I not spending every morning like this? That is all.
Also, Happy Birthday Suzanne!
So far…
It looks as though Forward Pass is going to be updated more often than the Big Ideas Page. Hmm. I might switch up the icons: add a new one for Forward Pass and remove Big ideas. Who knows what will happen?
Forward Pass
I’ve just started this collection, a running list of some of my favourite places on the web. Some will be specific articles, videos, blog posts, scenes from movies, or wikipedia entries; others might be sites that I visit regularly.
Life Update
I’m taking an entire month off from my day job starting in a couple weeks. A month of vacation, folks. Dot dot dot. Yes, a month. Last year I responsibly blew my vacation time studying for (and passing) the NCARB’s, so this year’s is a much needed, much awaited and much anticipated break. I had originally been thinking that a decent get away would be in order: an escape, even for part of that month. But I have since decided against that, not because I don’t want to, but because there’s something more important to be done. Ooh, how vaguely mysterious. I know. I’ll update you as I go.
What about Twitter?
What about it. Haven’t touched it in at least a couple weeks. I have resolved to use it a bit differently from here on in. I want to use it to record those fleeting ideas that I tend to shortly thereafter forget. I like the flexibility and the ability to publish from the phone, but I don’t want followers; it’s not about the two point oh for me. The social web bullshit is not for me. But would like to publish those ideas here on the site. So I’ll be making some more changes on that soon.
The ever-evolving One-seventh site design: “You may now click”
Yes, some changes. Again. An upgrade to the latest version of WordPress last week caused a glitch in the site layout. So, I leveraged that as an opportunity to try a new approach, one that I’ve been wanting to experiment with for months. And you’re looking at it now: an entry page. I’m still feeling it out, but already I like the third dimension that you can layer onto your content for example with brief intros to articles. It does mean more user-clicking however.
“You have certain marketable human qualities, you have to exploit them, that’s all I’m saying. You have certain qualities and you have to exploit them. I mean, we all know the M.O. out here is they take an interesting story, right? They distort it, right? Cut whatever little truth is out on the basis of it’s unappealing, but leave the surface so it’s familiar — cars, trucks, trees, hats. So, they got their scam. But that’s where you come in. Because then they need a lot of authentic sounding and looking people — high quality people such as yourslef, who need a buck. So like every other whore in this town, myself included, you learn to lend whatever little bit of truth you can scrounge up to this total systematic sham. Thereby exonerating the viewer from ever having confront directly the fact that he’s spending his life face to face with total shit. That’s all I’m saying.”
Eddie, from ‘HurlyBurly,’ written by David Rabe