The Curiosity Chronicles

Having grown up in Singapore, I find myself slipping into using the word “lah” on top of other words (Q: Can you help me for a minute? A: OK-lah) frequently. Singlish, as it is called, is simply part of the culture here, a local nuance that adds color and music to the language.

Colloquial Singaporean English, also known as Singlish, is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore, and at times in Malaysia and Brunei.

The vocabulary of Singlish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi and to a lesser extent various other European, Indic and Sinitic languages, while Singlish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese. Also, elements of American and Australian slang have come through from imported television series and films. In the last two decades, an increasing amount of Mandarin words have found their way into Singlish because Mandarin Chinese is taught to most Singaporean Chinese students in school.

The ubiquitous word lah is used at the end of a sentence. It may originate from the Chinese character (啦, Pinyin: Lè/Là), though its usage in Singapore is also influenced by its occurrence in Malay. It simultaneously softens the force of an utterance and entices solidarity, though it can also have the opposite meaning so it is used to signal power. In addition, linguists have suggested that there is more than one lah derivative, so there may be a stressed and an unstressed variant and perhaps as many as nine tonal variants, all having a special pragmatic function.

In Malay, ‘lah’ is used to change a verb into a command or to soften its tone, particularly when usage of the verb may seem impolite. To drink is minum, but ‘Here, drink!’ is “minumlah!”.

Similarly, ‘lah’ is frequently used with imperatives in Singlish: Eat lah! – Just eat!

‘Lah’ also occurs frequently with “Yah” and “No” (hence “Yah lah!” and “No lah!…”). This can, with the appropriate tone, result in a less-brusque declaration and facilitate the flow of conversation. “No more work to do, we go home lah!” However, if the preceding clause is already diminutive or jocular, suffixing it with -lah would be redundant and improper: one would not say “yep lah”, “nope lah”, or “ta lah” (as in the British “Ta” for “thank you”)

‘Lah’ with a low tone might indicate impatience. “Eh, hurry up lah.”

What Of It? Even though the government has tried time and again to stress to Singaporeans that Singlish is considered low class, some Singaporeans hold on to it with some pride, an almost defiant use of Singlish in some circles connoting a form of anti-establishmentism.

Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement attempted to correct signs in and around Singapore where Singlish is being used, and has been met with some resistance. I wonder if Singlish, like London’s Cockney slang, is a way of simply holding on to a part of a cultural identity that many feel is being smoothed-out and homogenized.

I am Curious about the origins of languages, the small nuances that make a country its own, the subtleties of vocabulary, the beauty of a word that can change the meaning of a phrase. 

Must go-lah.

As an army brat who grew up in Singapore, one of my earliest memories is of an acrid, pee-like smell that used to permeate the streets of the city around my birthday in June, which signified one thing: it was the start of durian season. Yesterday, coming through Changi airport, I caught a distant breeze that took me back to childhood.

The durian is the fruit of several tree species belonging to the genus Durio and the Malvaceae family. Widely known and revered in southeast Asia as the “King of Fruits”, it is distinctive for its large size, unique odour, and formidable thorn-covered husk. The fruit can grow as large as 12 inches long and 6 inches in diameter, and it typically weighs 2 to 7 lb. Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the colour of its husk green to brown, and its flesh pale yellow to red, depending on the species.

The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust: Anthony Bourdain, a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit thus: “Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. …Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” 

 Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says: ” Its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”

I have to say I kind of love durian: there’s a familiarity to the smell and taste that I’m use to by now, but I love the extreme-challenge nature of it, and how it completely polarizes people: I love the ‘journey’ that durian takes you on: a real five-sense exploratory, from the spiky exterior to the strange, almost sexual interior. Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

“This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. … as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”

 

What Of It? Many cultures have their own ‘rite of passage” foods, and the durian is firmly that for Singapore.I find it kind of charming that such a cultured and well-mannered country places such high regard for such a so-bad-it’s-good kind of national fruit. Singaporeans love nothing more than watching foreigners eat durian for the first time, with all the associated grimacing and sweating that the initiation entails. I’m glad I got mine out of the way at an early age.

I am Curious about national rites of passage, of multi sense experiences that challenge and provoke us, about icons of cultures: foods, flowers, costume, and how they came into being.

Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility Cherenkov Radiation
Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy
Southeastern Washington State

Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity. It is estimated to be the most curies under one roof in the United States. The blue glow is created by the Cherenkov Effect which describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, giving off energy, moves faster than light through a transparent medium. The temperatures of the capsules are as high as 330 degrees Fahrenheit. The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds. Hanford is among the most contaminated sites in the United States.

I was lucky enough to meet photographer Taryn Simon a couple of years ago at TED where she spoke eloquently about her work. She had an exhibition running at the time called “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” that documented secret sites in the USA, places where the average person never got to go: government-regulated quarantine sites, nuclear-waste storage facilities, prison death rows and CIA offices.

White Tiger (Kenny)    
Selective Inbreeding, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge and Foundation   
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

In the United States, all living white tigers are the result of selective inbreeding to artificially create the genetic conditions that lead to white fur, ice-blue eyes and a pink nose. Kenny was born to a breeder in Bentonville, Arkansas on February 3, 1999. As a result of inbreeding, Kenny is mentally retarded and has significant physical limitations. Due to his deep-set nose, he has difficulty breathing and closing his jaw, his teeth are severely malformed and he limps from abnormal bone structure in his forearms. The three other tigers in Kenny’s litter are not considered to be quality white tigers as they are yellow-coated, cross-eyed, and knock-kneed. 

Because her approach tends to be very direct and unsentimental, some images like the albino tiger look like they could be museum displays, which only makes these mysterious spaces even more curious and seductive. Through her work, the strangeness of American culture shines. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Contraband Room    
John F. Kennedy International Airport    
Queens, New York
African cane rats infested with maggots, African yams (dioscorea), Andean potatoes, Bangladeshi cucurbit plants, bush meat, cherimoya fruit, curry leaves (murraya), dried orange peels, fresh eggs, giant African snail, impala skull cap, jackfruit seeds, June plum, kola nuts, mango, okra, passion fruit, pig nose, pig mouths, pork, raw poultry (chicken), South American pig head, South American tree tomatoes, South Asian lime infected with citrus canker, sugar cane (poaceae), uncooked meats, unidentified sub tropical plant in soil.

All items in the photograph were seized from the baggage of passengers arriving in the U.S. at JFK Terminal 4 from abroad over a 48-hour period. All seized items are identified, dissected, and then either ground up or incinerated. JFK processes more international passengers than any other airport in the United States. 

Cryopreservation Unit
Cryonics Institute
Clinton Township, Michigan
This cryopreservation unit holds the bodies of Rhea and Elaine Ettinger, the mother and first wife of cryonics pioneer, Robert Ettinger. Robert, author of The Prospect of Immortality and Man into Superman is still alive.

The Cryonics Institute offers cryostasis (freezing) services for individuals and pets upon death. Cryostasis is practiced with the hope that lives will ultimately be extended through future developments in science, technology, and medicine. When, and if, these developments occur, Institute members hope to awake to an extended life in good health, free from disease or the aging process. Cryostasis must begin immediately upon legal death. A person or pet is infused with ice-preventive substances and quickly cooled to a temperature where physical decay virtually stops. The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 for cryostasis if it is planned well in advance of legal death and $35,000 on shorter notice. 

What Of It? As a designer who believes firmly of designing within the constraints of reality, the beauty and poetry of this reality really moved me. Not only is this stuff incredible in its subject matter, it is visually stunning as well. Who knew a nuclear cooling rod could be so beautiful or that contraband food could look like a Renaissance painting?

Transatlantic Sub-Marine Cables Reaching Land    
VSNL International   
Avon, New Jersey
These VSNL sub-marine telecommunications cables extend 8,037.4 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Capable of transmitting over 60 million simultaneous voice conversations, these underwater fiber-optic cables stretch from Saunton Sands in the United Kingdom to the coast of New Jersey. The cables run below ground and emerge directly into the VSNL International headquarters, where signals are amplified and split into distinctive wavelengths enabling transatlantic phone calls and internet transmissions. 

I am Curious about the beauty of secret worlds, the secret underbelly of things, as Taryn describes it, the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

Yesterday in honor of being in Paris I watched the movie “Coco Before Chanel,” which chronicles Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s rise to becoming an international fashion icon. In one scene she strolls down a beach in Deauville in Northern France and watches the fishermen gathering their nets, wearing classic French Breton stripes, which of course later become a signature item in Chanel’s iconography. I wondered how this classic garment came to such popularity.

 The striped Breton shirt as we know it today came into being shortly following the 27th March, 1858 Act of France which introduced the navy and white striped knitted shirt as the uniform for all French navy seaman. The official striped navy shirt or French sailor shirt soon became more generally a working mariner garment as it was picked up by many nautical men; seafairers and sailors across the region of Northern France. It was said that when a sailor had fallen into the sea, the distinctive block pattern of stripes on the French striped shirt made him easier to spot amidst the many blurred colours of the waves. 

The flag of Brittany is called the Gwenn-ha-du, which means ‘white and black’ in Breton.

Interestingly, the original shirt featured 21 stripes, one for each of Napoleon’s victories. Not only did this shirt become the standard of the French (merchant) navy and fishing fleets, it was soon exported to other navies around the world and became big as a fashion item a century after. 

In the late 1950s and ’60s, the shirt was heavily associated with beatnik French New Wave cinema - worn by girls with gamine looks like Jean Seberg in “Breathless,” and Jean Moreau in “Jules et Jim.”

What Of It? Next to perhaps the berét, nothing is more French than a stripe. I’m fascinated by how something so simple can become so iconographic of an entire culture: the French, like the English, have a real knack of adapting and updating their own traditions, and Breton stripes are still as relevant and evident on today’s catwalks as they were on the beaches of Brittany at the turn of the century.

I am Curious about cultural iconography, about things which stand the test of time, about updated traditionalism.

“Elegance is refusal.” Gabrielle Chanel

Inspired by being in Paris, a less-is-more post today.

Following yesterday’s post about Irezumi, today, an even more extreme form of tattooing, this time considerable more visible. Tā Moko is traditional Māori tattooing, often on the face.

Every moko contains ancestral and tribal messages specific to the wearer. These messages tell the story of the wearer’s family and tribal affiliations and communicate their place in these social structures.

A moko’s message would also contain the wearer’s ‘value’ by way of their genealogy, and their knowledge and standing in their social level.

Ta moko as an art form declined during the 20th century, however in recent times it has been revived as an important art form among Māori that is worn as an expression of cultural pride and integrity. Māori writer and academic Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Professor of Psychology at Waikato University says: “Ta moko today is much more than a fashion statement, a passing fad for Māori. It is about who we are, and whom we come from. It is about where we are going, and how we choose to get there. And it is about for always, forever.” 

What Of It? Two things interest me here: one, obviously the commitment and suffering that the recipient of the Tā Moko has to go through is epic: the small tattoo on my arm was agony and put me into shock for hours, one can only imagine the horror of having that done on your eyelids, cheeks and lips, but the main thing I am curious about is that today’s Māoris are using Tā Moko as an act of both cultural reclamation and defiance. A New Zealand friend describes Māoris as ‘modern warrior people’ and I think of Tā Moko as the ultimate tribal affiliation, putting all those supposed gangsta tattoos to shame.

I am Curious about modern tribal pride and integrity, about permanent affiliation, about ‘reclaiming’ traditional cultural icons and modernizing them.

Yakuza tattoos are known as the art style of the Irezumi.  This translates as ‘insertion of ink’.  Today there are perhaps one hundred practitioners of Irezumi and as many as one hundred thousand individuals who wear a Yakuza tattoo.  It is still considered a mark of the criminal element but lately this is more interest in Irezume as a genuine art form.

The traditional Yakuza tattoo covers almost the entire body and to be able to withstand the pain of the process is considered an impressive feat.  It is part of what give the Yakuza their machismo and sense of pride.  Beautifully graphic and colorful, a Yakuza tattoo is in itself a unique and attractive art form that has existed for hundreds of years. These tattoos are still often “hand-poked”, where the ink is inserted beneath the skin using non-electrical, hand-made and hand held tools with needles of sharpened bamboo or steel. The procedure is expensive and painful and can take years to complete.

A traditional Irezumi artist trains for many years under a master. He (for they are nearly exclusively male) will sometimes live in the master’s house. He may spend years cleaning the studio, observing, practicing on his own flesh, making the needles and other tools required, mixing inks, and painstakingly copying designs from the master’s book before he is allowed to tattoo clients. He must master all the intricate skills—unique styles of shading, the techniques used for tattooing by hand—required to create the tattoos his clients will request. He will usually be given a tattoo name by his master, most often incorporating the word “hori” (to engrave) and a syllable derived from the master’s own name or some other significant word. In some cases, the apprentice will take the master’s name, and will become The Second or Third (and so on).

When yakuza members play Oicho-Kabu cards with each other, they often remove their shirts or open them up and drape them around their waists. This allows them to display their full-body tattoos to each other. This is one of the few times that yakuza members display their tattoos to others, as they normally keep them concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts. When new members join, they are often required to remove their pants as well and reveal any lower body tattoos.

 What Of It? I have a small Polynesian tattoo on my forearm and a few years ago was almost refused entry to a fancy spa in Seoul because of it, the lady behind the counter pointing and furiously shaking her head. To say I am the opposite of Yakuza is a mild understatement, but the notion of initiation, ceremony and permanent commitment to a cause fascinate me. Irezumi is not tattooing for the faint-of-heart.

I am Curious about cultural traditions and ritualistic ceremony, about the idea of “designing” oneself to be part of a cause of group, about permanence of identity.

As the product of a Scottish mother and a military father, Tweed is something that I grew up with, its rough texture being something I associate with home somehow. Being referred to as “Tweedy” is a British colloquialism that I have always loved, conjuring up images of corgis, misty Highland moors and the smell of woodsmoke.

Harris Tweed (Clò Mór in Gaelic) is a luxury cloth that has been handwoven by the islanders on the Isles of Harris, Lewis, Uist and Barra in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, using local wool.

Tweed is a rough, unfinished woollen fabric with a soft, open, flexible texture, made in either plain or twill weave; it may have either a check or herringbone pattern. Subdued, interesting colour effects (heather mixtures) are obtained by twisting together differently coloured woolen strands into a two- or three-ply yarn.

Tweeds are desirable for informal outerwear, being moisture-resistant and durable. Once worn in, tweeds are commonly worn for outdoor activities such as shooting and hunting, in both Ireland and the United Kingdom. “Lovat” is the name given to the green used in traditional Scottish tweed.

In the past few years Harris Tweed has had something of a hipster renaissance: one high profile success was their use on several Nike running shoe designs including the Terminator, Blazer, and Air Force 1. Designers such as Alexander McQueen, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Steven Alan have championed the fabric, and tweed fanatic Vivienne Westwood has used the fabric for years.

And last but not least we have The Tweed Run. The Tweed Run is a group bicycle ride through the centre of London, in which the cyclists are expected to dress in traditional British cycling attire, particularly Tweed plus-four suits. Any bicycle is acceptable on the Tweed Run, but classic vintage bicycles are encouraged. Positioning itself as “A Metropolitan Bicycle Ride With a Bit of Style,” it attracts London’s newly-minted hipster dandy community in droves. 

What Of It? My favorite and most indelible impression of design in the UK is that there is always an interplay between the traditional and the modern, and the Tweed industry has both adapted to and embraced that, not allowing itself to become stale and old-fashioned, instead staying true to itself and shifting context with the times. Too often the word ‘authentic’ is bandied about with respect to a category, but Tweed is very much that.

I am Curious about things that adapt and grow over time, staying true to themselves and yet shifting context, about classic crafts, techniques and materials that get repurposed and redesigned, about modernized traditions. 

The tulip was introduced to Europe in the mid-16th century from the Ottoman Empire, and became very popular in the United Provinces (now known as the Netherlands).

Tulip cultivation in the Netherlands is generally thought to have started in earnest around 1593 after the Flemish botanist Charles de l’Écluse had taken up a post at the University of Leiden and established the hortus academicus. There, he planted his collection of tulip bulbs—sent to him from Turkey by the Emperor’s (Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor) ambassador to the Sultan, Ogier de Busbecq—which were able to tolerate the harsher conditions of the Low Countries and it was shortly thereafter they began to grow in popularity.

The flower rapidly became a coveted luxury item and a status symbol, and a profusion of varieties followed. They were classified in groups; one-coloured tulips of red, yellow, or white were known as Couleren, but it was the multicoloured Rosen (red or pink on white background), Violetten (purple or lilac on white background), and, to a lesser extent, the Bizarden (red, brown or purple on yellow background) that were the most popular.

With more than 10,000 hectares devoted to the cultivation of these delicate flowers, the Dutch landscape in May is a kaleidoscope of giddy colours as the tulips burst into life. The bulbs are planted in late October and early November, and these colourful creations are ready to be picked and sold as bunches of cut flowers in florists and supermarkets.

More than three billion tulips are grown each year and two-thirds of the vibrant blooms are exported, mostly to the U.S. and Germany.

What Of It? I’m fascinated by how “national” icons get established - costume, food, dress. A national flower is an interesting symbol, one of the earliest forms of branding I suppose, a way of a nation expressing its unique cultural identity. The tulip has become a bit of a joke, debased by a million postcards and windmill covered dish-towels, perhaps a bit lowbrow, when in fact it is a really beautiful flower. 

I am Curious about cultural iconography, both positive and negative, about how these totems get ‘designed,’ by what they represent, and how that meaning shifts over time.

Apologies in advance: am in the Netherlands this week so am exploring a little Dutchness. Clogs today, most likely tulips tomorrow. Perhaps a little Vermeer also.

A clog is a type of footwear traditionally worn by workers as protective clothing in factories, mines and farms. 

There are various types of clog; traditional clogs are shoes or sandals made predominantly out of wood, and are associated with the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania and Sweden. They can also be a type of heavy boot or shoe with sides, uppers and typically thick wooden soles, and may have steel toecaps and/or steel reinforcing inserts in the undersides of the soles. 

The traditional all-wooden Dutch clogs (known as klompen) have been officially accredited as safety shoes with the CE mark and can withstand almost any penetration including sharp objects and even concentrated acids. The long association of Dutch with wooden clogs can be traced to the traditional creation myths of ancient Germanic tribes who originally occupied modern Holland. Today, Dutch clogs are primarily a beloved tourist souvenir. Despite the fact that most Dutch no longer wear klompen for everyday use, clogs remain popular among people working in their gardens and farms and among planters. Some of the Dutch also consider wearing clogs as being healthy for the wearers’ feet.

Today, wooden shoes are mostly made by machine. There are not many wooden shoe makers left, but they can be found in some of Holland’s tourist areas. These artisans demonstrate the many tools they use and how they select a tree trunk or log according to the size shoe they are going to make. Both shoes of a pair must be made from the same kind of wood, even the same side of a tree, so that the wood will shrink at the same rate. Usually, sycamore, alder, willow and poplar woods are used for handmade clogs, and birch is used for machine-made. Clogs made in Holland must pass certain tests that measure how they endure extreme temperatures and heavy weight.

What Of It? I passed a clog stand at Schipol Airport yesterday and laughed, but then realized that these things have a pretty interesting history, and like many objects that are now relegated to tourist souvenir status, they started life as authentic, meaningful products for everyday people. Whilst heavy wooden clogs are not something I’m dying to wear, they come from a long cultural tradition.

I am Curious about significant cultural icons that get debased through time, about traditional crafts and products that disappear, about the origins of things we take for granted.

If (and hopefully not when) I am on Death Row and requesting my last meal, it would, without a doubt, consist of three things: a loaf of really good bread (although a loaf of bad processed bread has its merits too), copious salted butter and a toaster. Toast is, without a doubt, my favorite go-to food: for comfort, for convenience, for lowbrow, for gourmet; to me nothing beats it.

Wikipedia describes toast: “Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard Reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely. Toasting is a common method of making stale bread more palatable.”

The ancient Egyptians, around 6000 years ago, were the first to develop the bread that we know today. They realised that if they let the bread sit out in Egypt’s warm climate it would rise, and when baked would retain its risen shape. However, they also noticed that after a few days in the dry desert air, the bread would become hard and unpleasant to eat.

Toasting bread in ancient times was a means of preserving it. The Romans spread the idea of toast throughout Europe, even into Britain, and the colonists brought toast to the Americas. The word ‘toast,’ in fact, comes from the Latin word tostum, meaning scorch or burn. Toast is essentially burnt bread, so the name makes sense.

At first bread was toasted by holding it over a fire or by lying it on a hot stone. Some earlier toasters were wire frames that sat over a fireplace. The invention of electricity led to the invention of the modern toaster. Before the toaster could be built, however, a certain nickel-chromium alloy called ni-chrome had to be developed so that the toast could be heated. This is why the toaster arrived on the scene after other appliances.

The first toasters were produced in the early 1900s; the first commercially successful toaster appeared in 1909. The first automatic, or ‘pop-up’, toaster for the home was the Toastmaster, developed in 1926. There was even a knob that the user turned to determine the degree of darkness. The Toastmaster caused quite a stir, and along with the invention of sliced bread, it helped open the age of the automatic toaster. By the 1940s, most toasters were automatic.

There are a vast number of toast lovers in the world, and with the advent of the internet they have found a new medium. There is an immense network of toast-dedicated websites, including a toast bible, songs about toast, and all sorts of toast and toaster memorabilia. For example, visit http://www.drtoast.com/ for toast recipes, related links, and so on.

What Of It? Toast sits at the intersection of necessity and luxury for me: I eat it almost every day, and every day it gives me pleasure. Certain foods, similar to smells, connect us deeply to our past, contain a vivid sense memory and appeal to the limbic, primal part of our brain, evoking memories of childhood and of where we came form: toast is daily bread, both literally and metaphorically to me.

 

I am Curious about sense memories, about comfort and deep connection to things that we surround ourselves with. 

According to Wikipedia, “Coulrophobia is a fear of clowns. The term is of recent origin, probably dating from the 1980s, and according to one analyst, “has been coined more on the Internet than in printed form because it does not appear in any previously published, psychiatric, unabridged, or abridged dictionary,” however the author later notes, “regardless of its less-than-verifiable etymology, coulrophobia exists in several lists.”

The prefix “coulro” may be derived from an Ancient Greek word meaning “stilt-walker.”

Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown’s colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. 

Peter Berger writes: “It seems plausible that folly and fools, like religion and magic, meet some deeply rooted needs in human society”. For this reason, clowning is often considered an important part of training as a physical performance discipline, partly because tricky subject matter can be dealt with, but also because it requires a high level of risk and play in the performer.

Many people find clowns disturbing rather than amusing. It is common for children to be afraid of disguised, exaggerated, or costumed figures. In the Space To Care study aimed at improving hospital design for children, researchers from the University of Sheffield polled 250 children regarding their opinions on clowns; all 250 children in the study, whose ages ranged between four and sixteen, reported that they found clowns frightening and disliked clowns as part of hospital decor.

Clown costumes tend to exaggerate the facial features and some body parts, such as hands and feet and noses. This can be read as monstrous as easily as it can be read as comical. Some have suggested that a fear of clowns may stem from early childhood experience, when infants begin to process and make sense of facial features. The significant aberrations in a clown’s face may frighten a child so much that they carry this phobia throughout their adult life.

What Of It? Whilst I’m certainly not phobic, clowns freak me out. Interestingly, searching for images for this post, when you Google “clown,” almost all of the most popular images are sinister, similar to when you type in “shark” and most of the images are of sharks leaping out of the water savaging people. I wonder if popular culture has somehow used clowns as a way of personifying our fears and, back to Berger’s quote, allowing us to face some deep rooted societal needs. They certainly hit a nerve in many of us, touching some dark part of our subconscious past. Like a fear of the dark, fearing clowns seems to take us back to our childhood and the irrational-yet-real fears we faced then. I am Curious about playful things with sinister connotations, about popular culture vilifying something seemingly innocent, about ways that cultures create totems to express complex things in simplistic ways.

Many of my IDEO colleagues know my obsession with this campaign: I experienced it myself a few years ago in Japan when I went to an important meeting at Toyota’s HQ. I showed up in a suit and tie, expecting the formality of Japanese business etiquette to be in full force; instead everyone was dressed casually, in open necked shirts without jackets or neckties. The first thing I was asked was: “Is IDEO not Cool Biz?” 

The Japanese Ministry of the Environment began advocating the Cool Biz campaign in summer 2005 as a means to help reduce electric consumption by limiting use of air conditioning. This idea was created by one of Japan’s best advertising agencies, Hakuhodo, http://www.hakuhodo.jp/ and proposed by then-MOE minister Yuriko Koike under the Koizumi cabinet. 

 According to the Environment Ministry, central government ministries were to set air conditioner temperatures 2°C higher than usual - at 28°C - until September. The Cool Biz dress code advised workers to wear casual clothing to the office - open necked (but still starched) collars, no ties, breathable fabrics; to “dress cool” and to be physically cooler.

The results were pretty impressive: 93.6% of salarymen knew of the campaign, and 61.8% answered that their offices set the air conditioner thermostat higher than in previous years. Based on these figures, the ministry estimated that the campaign resulted in a 1,720,000-ton reduction in CO2 emission, the equivalent volume of CO2 emitted by about 3.85 million households for one month. 

After this years’ devastating earthquakes in Japan, the campaign was reignited, as a way of coping with the massive energy shortages and blackouts in power over the sweltering hot Japanese summer. Flagship Japanese retailer Uniqlo has now joined the crusade, marketing cool-casual polo shirts, linen and cotton shirts and pants and lightweight jackets (this time with loose ties) as a fashionable way to see the country through the current crisis.

What Of It? I presented Cool Biz as inspiration at a conference I spoke at a couple of years ago. At the end, I asked for reactions, and a lady in the audience said: “That’s the simplest way into a complex problem that I have ever seen. Take your tie off and you’re in the conversation.” I agree - too many global issues are too big and overwhelming for people to engage with: when we are being asked to shift our behaviors, the problem is that most of us have no idea where to start, and this is a great example of taking a small step towards a larger solution. The fact that it is now more relevant than ever makes this even more valid to me.

I am Curious about small changes adding up to massive change, about design playing a significant part in post-disaster regeneration, about simple ways in to complex issues.

Riffing off yesterday’s post about toys from childhood eras, here is another for the artistic geeks out there: the Spirograph. 

Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. It was invented by the British engineer Denys Fisher, who exhibited it in 1965 at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair. It was subsequently produced by his company, then acquired by Kenner, Inc., which introduced it to the United States market in 1966. The trademark is now owned by Hasbro, Inc.

I had one when I was a kid, and was, to say the least, obsessed with it. I recently spent a small fortune buying an unused original on Ebay,

A Spirograph consists of a set of plastic gears and other shapes such as rings, triangles, or straight bars. There are several sizes of gears and shapes, and all edges have teeth to engage any other piece. For instance, smaller gears fit inside the larger rings, but also can engage the outside of the rings in such a fashion that they rotate around the inside or along the outside edge of the rings.

To use it, a sheet of paper is placed on a heavy cardboard backing, and one of the plastic pieces - known as a stator - is pinned to the paper and cardboard. Another plastic piece - called the rotor - is placed so that its teeth engage with those of the pinned piece. For example, a ring may be pinned to the paper and a small gear placed inside the ring: the actual number of arrangements possible by combining different gears is very large. The point of a pen is placed in one of the holes of the rotor. As the rotor is moved, the pen traces out a curve.

The pen is used both to draw and to provide locomotive force; some practice is required before the Spirograph can be operated without disengaging the stator and rotor. More intricate and unusual-shaped patterns may be made through the use of both hands, one to draw and one to guide the pieces. It is possible to move several pieces in relation to each other (say, the triangle around the ring, with a circle “climbing” from the ring onto the triangle), but this requires concentration or even additional assistance from other artists.

What Of It? As someone who grew up relentlessly right-brained, this left-brain toy made mathematics palatable for me. I loved being able to draw scientific-looking things and at the same time express my creativity. Of course as I have grown older I have realized that science and mathematics are in themselves creative arts, but at the time, they evaded me.

I am Curious about the overlaps between art and science, expressing complex things in fun, intuitive ways, of the poetry of disciplines such as mathematics and geometry.

 

 A Ouija board (possibly derived from the French and German words for “yes”, oui and ja), also known as a spirit/fire key board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, the words ‘yes’ ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’, and other symbols and words are sometimes also added to help personalize the board.

 A similarly pronounced Hindi word ‘Ojha’ means ‘The ones who deal with spirits.’

The Ouija board was invented as a means to deal with one’s spiritual self, to access a part of the soul not usually accessed. However it is more commonly believed to be a way of communicating with spirits of the dead. Although nobody knows where the idea for such a device came from, there are records of Ouija-like instruments being used in ancient China, Greece, Rome and many other countries. It uses a planchette (a small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit’s message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. The fingers of the séance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out words or become physically manifested.

Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijah Bond in the late 1890s, the Ouija board was regarded as a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult, until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I.

Mainstream Christian religions and some occultists have associated use of the Ouija board with the threat of demonic possession and some have cautioned their followers not to use Ouija boards.

While Ouija believers feel the paranormal or supernatural is responsible for Ouija’s action, it may be parsimoniously explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer, a psychophysiological phenomenon known as the ideomotor effect. Despite being debunked by the efforts of the scientific community, Ouija remains popular among many young people.

What Of It? To me Ouija is less about communicating with dead people and more about establishing a bridge between the spiritual and the physical worlds, between our belief systems and reality. What fascinates me is that they seem to provoke intense debate still, decades after their popularity has waned; other “religious” toys such as tarot and I-Ching cards have received far less malice and one could argue do the same thing.

I am Curious about products that bridge worlds, help us communicate and decipher complex beliefs, toys which are indeed not toys at all, but religious or symbolic totems that allow us to “play” with our belief systems and reality.

Concrete poetry is writing with physical aspects. It happens when the physical qualities of words take on a meaning in addition to the meaning of words themselves. Concrete poetry goes by many names, and it is defined differently by those who create it; it is also known as shape poetry, visual poetry, and letterism.

In many cases, the appearance of the words overpowers the literal meaning of the words themselves, creating shapes that appear first, with the discovery of the text and content following behind.

The term was coined in the 1950s. In 1956 an international exhibition of concrete poetry was shown in São Paulo, Brazil, by the group Noigandres (Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Ronaldo Azeredo) with the poets Ferreira Gullar and Wlademir Dias Pino. Two years later, a Brazilian concrete poetry manifesto was published. Its principal tenet was that using words as part of a specifically visual work allows for the words themselves to become part of the poetry, rather than just unseen vehicles for ideas. The original manifesto says:

“Concrete poetry begins by assuming a total responsibility before language: accepting the premise of the historical idiom as the indispensable nucleus of communication, it refuses to absorb words as mere indifferent vehicles, without life, without personality without history — taboo-tombs in which convention insists on burying the idea.”

Um, OK.

Although the term is modern, the idea of using letter arrangements to enhance the meaning of a poem is an old one. This style of poetry originated in Greek Alexandria during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Some were designed as decoration for religious art-works, including wing, axe- and altar-shaped poems. Only a handful of examples survive, which are collected together in the Greek Anthology. They include poems by Simias and Theocritus.

What Of It? As a graphic designer, this hits two hot buttons for me: the idea of infusing layers of meaning into a piece of communication design, as well as the craft of the typography itself. I speak from experience: concrete poetry is really hard to create: you have to straddle legibility, content and macro factors such as overall composition with micro factors such as legibility, kerning and font choice. Done well, it is literally poetry in motion. 

I am Curious about overlapping disciplines, the notion of communicating in layers of meaning and the simple beauty of words on a page.