Stitch Chair

I've been on a quest these last few months to discover a way of living differently - to essentially do more with less; which this past month has been more, dare-fully worded, philosophical than material. And to those who are inquiring about the sparse nature of what could be thought of as progress, I would like to say, in a non-cheeky, non-after-skool-special and rather serious (and hopefully self-evident) manner, that success and discovery is built on a foundation of failures. And so to fail is a great thing, it is a great way to gather information! And I shall take advantage of that glorious Vanity I've been blessed with to continue with a revised perspective on the nature of what it means to live differently.

So the house isn't built (as I am rethinking strategy after first attempt to cover in shrink wrap which literally ended in flames) and I have an idea to 'take this show on the road' in a PT Barnum-esque type of way. The winter is a-coming, the garden is woefully inadequate (the unusual weather has upstate NY declared a disaster area, there should be tomatoes by now I hear and I have barely any) - And so I am re-defining the PR van as a mobile dwelling. Perhaps you could think of this as an uber-revolutionary, efficient and intelligent way to carry on or maybe you think it unusual that I plan to live out of a van*. I will leave you with either thought as I roam the American landscape - learning for myself what the 'average american' really is these days - and perhaps I get one of these cheap netbook computer machines so I can keep everyone well-informed with what I learn. As for date of departure: uncertain.

In the meantime, I've also been investigating the nature of comfort - at work, at home, while reading or writing - and it has lead to the development of about a dozen chair prototypes and models (this is what I do when I'm stuck on PR design problems).

While I will spare the details of the generalized working principles I've come up with regarding chair design - here is my latest iteration. It is by far the most comfortable chair I've come up with so far (though admittedly it needs some type of a platform, be it legs or rocker) and I rather like the look (which came about solely through necessity as it is one continuous sheet of plywood and I could think of no other way w/ the materials I had available to get it into shape.) I'm interested in getting a general ich nicht or ach ya from my usually-astute-readership-community.

Do keep in mind this is a mock-up and not final version - there are some cracks where I over-stressed the material and it doesn't line up as perfectly as I'd like. Other than that it's amazingly stiff even though it's only 1/4" plywood...

PS - this is why I needed a compass

*And yes, in my travels there will surely be times when I am parked near a river.

?

When we say "It's raining"

What is the 'it'?

New Compass Design

I needed a compass and thought this was a clever way to get one. It's adjustable from 10-15cm

Vegetal Progress / Best Spider / More Sand

Click on the photos for enlarged, high quality version.

PS - I'm a 'Google' Page Rank 2! Kepp watching the blog to increase my algorithmic popularity!

On the Origin of the Non-Rhoticity and Nasal 'Broad A' of the Boston Accent

To be clear, 'non-rhotic' is a pronounciation where the phonetic pronounciation of 'r' does not appear in the 'coda' position. This is essentially jargon for 'card' being pronounced 'cahd' (dropped r is non-rhotic I guess) which when spoken with the 'Broad A' sounds like 'caad' where the a is elongated with a slightly 'nasal' intonation and pronounced hard as if it were in words like 'at' - 'Soft A', the opposite in this sense, sounding like 'o' in hot.

I would like to introduce a theory as to its origination (or at least its reinforcement).

In the city of Boston some time around 1940, a police officer stopped traffic on a main thru street to let a family of ducks cross the road. This was popular in the press and inspired the 1941 publication of Robert McCloskey's 'Make Way For Ducklings'. It is a story about a family of ducks and their search for a home (including the afforementioned march across main street). The names of the ducks were Mrs. Mallard, Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack. This book was enormously popular and has since sold over 2 million copies and won a Caldecott Medal*.

Now put yourself in the position of a child in the 1940s where you've heard many ducks and say the names above out loud. Seriously, regardless of where you are and how embarrassed you might be, actually say these words right now -

Jack

Kack

Lack

Mack

Nack

Ouack

Pack

Quack

Do you notice an inescapable tendency to imitate a duck's quack? The 'Quack' sound synonymous with duck imitation is exactly the 'Broad A' above and as soon as you ignore a few 'r's you're in non-rhotic territory. Is it possible that this book was so widely popular and universally repeated (before bed, at school, during leisure hours) that a playful pronounciation of the characters' names made its way into general usage?

The popularity of the book is evident:

This is a christmas ornament at the white house celebrating the book. Listen to any of JFK's** speeches and you can hear the above-mentioned accent.

A commemmorative statue which I think is in Boston Common.

This popular adoption mechanism was highlighted in my favorite (and soon to be yours) 'Spectacular Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' by Dr., Charles Mackay (written in the late 19th century). In the chapter 'Popular Follies of Great Cities', he traces the chronology of the mass adoption of popular phrases like 'Quoz', 'What a shocking bad hat!', 'Has your mother sold her mangle' and others. Malcolm Gladwell's 'Tipping Point' is also a fascinating account of similar mass-adoption anecdotes.

What do you think? Certainly there is a causality/chicken-and-the-egg issue with this theory that could only be resolved by a solid pre-1941 recording of this accent or at least a strong phonemological*** description of it. So I leave it to you dear readers, to go out on your tele-puter machines to find this evidence. Until then, I say Boston people talk like the ducks in the Charles River; and it's kind of endearing.

*This medal seemed to adorn all the best-selling books when I was a kid. The Chris Van Allsberg books, etc. that the librarians used to take time to read during library hour.

**Incidentally, regarding JFK's widely popular 'ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country' - I stumbled across in Henry David Thoreau's Walden which was published almost a century prior.

***That is PHONEME - ological, not phenomological.