#81 Devastation & Despair

81-Devastation-&-Despair


#81 Devastation & Despair
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Exact­ly one year ago — at 11:30 a.m. on the 2nd Sat­ur­day of Feb­ru­ary 2014 — my soul was auc­tioned off. Every­thing I had from my bronze baby shoes to all my art­work, ideas writ­ten on nap­kins, pho­tographs, my dad’s bar­ber tools and mas­sagers, the last gift my mom gave me which she hand-​crocheted (this is so spe­cial there will be an Amper­Art ded­i­cat­ed just to that pre­cious item), gifts from fam­i­ly & friends, books I was to savor read­ing after I retire, Dis­ney and oth­er col­lectibles I had yet to enjoy and pass down to my grand nephews and nieces, fam­i­ly heir­looms (the grand old floor-​model wood­en radio, the paint­ing that hung over our din­ing room meals), items that belonged to fam­i­ly and friends, mid-​century retro fur­nish­ings, sou­venir appar­el, stu­dio equip­ment (art, pho­tog­ra­phy, record­ing, office) – every­thing I had in stor­age for home and shop and recre­ation and col­lectibles and gifts, which is every­thing but the few items I have around me at this moment – was pur­chased by a heart­less, greedy ass­hole who nev­er returned my calls so I could offer him far more than what he paid for my life, and I could go on living.

Dev­as­tat­ed and in despair ever since. More to fol­low as future Amper­Art pieces tell the sto­ry. I can’t write about it now.


Production notes for #81 Devastation & Despair:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Illustrator (lettering), Photoshop (noise)
Font: None

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone Design

#66 Plain & Simple


Click image to view full-​size or download hi-​rez file for gallery-​quality printing and framing. (But why would you want to hang this boring thing on your wall?) This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download. Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Every­thing about this release is plain & sim­ple. Just like it says.

Not even the usu­al long-​winded arti­cle. A thought­ful ges­ture for those of you who skip read­ing the sto­ry but feel guilty afterwards.

There’s no “chaz sez” col­umn, either.  And you know how much I love stand­ing on my soap­box. (I would expound on the virtues of pro­fes­sion­al, world-​class design — in plain & sim­ple terms, of course.)

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#59 Weights & Measures

59-Weights-Measures

 

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So the oth­er day I pop into my local super­mar­ket which hap­pens to bake the best peanut but­ter cook­ies I’ve ever had — deli­cious peanut but­ter fla­vor & loaded with chunks of peanuts. I love peanut but­ter cook­ies & it’s always a treat when this store bakes them, which is too infre­quent­ly. They come in a tray of 50 for $5 which is a good deal itself, but it’s the spe­cial peanut but­ter fla­vor I’m after.

I put a tray in my bas­ket & did the rest of my shop­ping. In line at the reg­is­ter, I sensed some­thing was wrong with my tray of peanut but­ter cook­ies (I had bought many trays before). I count­ed the cook­ies through the trans­par­ent lid & there were only 44. I told the check­er I’d be right back & to take the next peo­ple in line.

I was gone quite awhile.

Back in the bak­ery sec­tion, I count­ed the cook­ies in each & every tray, and they var­ied from 37 to 46 — not a sin­gle one was the full 50. I went back to the check­stand (where my ice cream was melt­ing) and asked for a man­ag­er. Not to make a scene, but rather to inform of the issue & save the next unaware cus­tomer from being cheat­ed. The man­ag­er was rather sur­prised upon count­ing sev­er­al of the trays her­self & quick­ly offered to “rob from Peter” to bring my tray up to the full measure.

She opens the lid, stops for a moment & says “These don’t smell like peanut but­ter.” Hand­ed me one gratis to con­firm & sure enough it was their new dis­gust­ing “apple crisp” cook­ie. (Atten­tion bak­ers: apple crisp is done in a bak­ing pan, not in a cook­ie.) The lit­tle bits of apple sure looked like peanuts but sure did­n’t taste like them. & yes, all the trays con­tained apple crisp cook­ies, not peanut but­ter as labeled.

So one more thing to add to the list in this lit­tle hick town I live in: peo­ple can’t count & they can’t read, either. But they sure can bake excel­lent peanut but­ter cookies…when they’re actu­al­ly peanut but­ter cookies.


listen up!

Why isn’t the Unit­ed States on the met­ric sys­tem? I’ll tell you why — we’re too damn lazy, and I got proof. Back in the 70s or 80s sev­er­al free­ways in Cal­i­for­nia installed high­way signs that were black, not green (that alone was beau­ty to my eyes), dis­play­ing the upcom­ing exits in kilo­me­ters. And sev­er­al gas sta­tions switched their pumps to liters. How easy and effi­cient that was, com­put­ing dis­tances and vol­ume sim­ply by fac­tor­ing by 10, 100, or 1000. Easy and effi­cient while it last­ed, any­way. Soon every­thing was con­vert­ed back to our con­vo­lut­ed miles and gallons.

I can’t under­stand why archi­tects try to scale things by 8ths and 16ths when using mil­lime­ters and cen­time­ters is so much eas­i­er and accu­rate. I mea­sure every­thing in met­rics – times 10, divide by 10, etc. Any­one who can’t fig­ure out sim­ple met­ric cal­cu­la­tions prob­a­bly still uses a slide rule just to make math difficult.

Why are soda bot­tles in the US labeled 1.5L and so on? I’m not sure, but I would­n’t be sur­prised if it was a sneaky way to reduce the vol­ume with­out any­one notic­ing. Remem­ber half-​gallon ice cream tubs? Today they’re 1.5L, which is far less than half a gal­lon. (1/​2 gal­lon = 1.892 liters). I’m all for it, though. Maybe the met­ric sys­tem will catch on in this so-​called pro­gres­sive coun­try after all.

I’ll give us cred­it for the cur­ren­cy sys­tem, though. That’s close to met­ric effi­cien­cy. The Euro has denom­i­na­tions sim­i­lar to the US, but each bill is a col­or­ful con­tem­po­rary design, not black and green on every sin­gle note. Need­less to say, Amer­i­ca is behind on design, too. That’s anoth­er top­ic, though. And then there’s our prud­ish­ness about nud­ism. Yet anoth­er topic.

Got­ta go get me a cup of coffee…or is that .23L? Cup is one US term I’ll stick with.


PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20×30 inches
Programs: Illustrator, Photoshop
Font: Rockwell
CREDITS:
Pointer: ruby​lane​.com, Antique French Kitchen Scale: Balance de Famille
Apple: http://​www​.fowler​farms​.com/​a​p​p​l​e​-​i​n​t​r​o​d​u​c​t​i​on/ (5oz or 150 g is the average weight of an apple, according to the “great chart of apple varieties” at this website)