The United Crumbs of America

Any and every self help book resonates a similar solution to life’s obstacles–divide and conquer. Break large and complex problems into small and simple parts. It is easier to jump over several mole hills than scale a mountain. With any virgin problem or circumstance, a large and singular entity exists, but as men begin to interact with it, that singularity becomes divided. At every division, the large entity becomes less intricate and diverse, and the huge problem is dispersed among dozens of separate entities. When keeping the end goal in mind, the once massive obstacle has been hurdled. But are the divided segments ever put back together?

Intruding upon the unknown lands of North America, the early Europeans dug their ships onto the virgin sands and set out to divide and conquer the large continent. First with small colonies upon the Eastern shore, and then states forming as they expanded to the Mississippi, the Europeans segregated peoples and properties until they seized control of the new land. As these settlers moved west, their divisions became larger. The small segments of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Delaware transitioned into the larger lands of Georgia and Missouri. Lighting out to the territories, the new lines were drawn and soon Texas and Montana and Wyoming were divided and conquered. Along the Pacific coast, the far west of the new America, only three divisions arose to conquer the territory–Washington, Oregon, and California.

As more people now migrate to the coasts, the need for future divisions arises to manage regional disparities. A proposition for Six Californias has been proposed for this purpose. While the division of California may help conquer the problems of the area, a further division of the continent seems to defeat the initial purpose of the new land of the free–to be one united nation. Although the country has effectively operated in its fifty united divisions, as continued crumbling occurs, at what point does the country become nothing but lines of division?

United Crumbs of America

A similar pattern of growth arises in the formation of businesses and organizations. A man begins building bicycles in his garage, and as more people begin to buy his work, he hires more workers to assist him. Jimmy seems to have an aptitude for attaching tires and gears whereas Timmy is much better at configuring brakes and handlebars. The man who started the business no longer needs to touch the bikes, as Jimmy and Timmy divide and conquer the building among themselves. Over time, finances are given to Oscar and advertising to Arthur, and before long, there are several layers of abstraction between the bicycle mechanic who founded the business and the people who work for it. With growth, finance departments form to manage the cash flow for buying rubber brakes pads for Jonathon, who works several managers beneath CFO Timmy. After so many divisions, the small parts become crumbs and no immediate loss is noticed when some go missing.

Let us welcome the six new divisions to the United Crumbs of America.

Honest Beauty at McMurdo Station

Traveling is an experience many people claim to enjoy. Seeing new places, but not through a picture. Tasting new foods, but not through unauthentic imitations. Conversing with new people, but not over the web. These are the fruits of travel, and so many of us desire to indulge in them. Most of these desires are rooted in honest beliefs, for we often think we wish to travel and encounter something new, but to what extent can we really travel? If traveling is moving, then of course we can participate. But if travel is something more than the physical, our minds must be exposed to something foreign, something diverse. But is that what we want?

Diversity is a tenet that the contemporary liberal holds dear. Diversity is the silver-lining to globalization–the homogenization of the world. Rather than preserve culture and embrace the differences among them–as our world claims to do via globalization–we are meshing them into a muddled soup. The individual spices that we once enjoyed collide and form a tasteless muck. When traveling in the modern world, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to taste these individuals spices. But there is comfort in a bland stew, and maybe that’s what we like?

To take America, the world’s melting pot, and search for diversity, it often difficult for us to taste something we have not experienced before. The culmination of cultures in the United States boils away the “impurities”–the unrelated features of the various communities from which it is derived. The once pure land, dotted with unique family-owned motels, has been raped by the corporate sameness of Day’s Inn. It would be an impressive accomplishment to find a motel untouched by the Gideons. But that is not what we seek. For many, the Day’s Inn is warming. We can move great distances but find the same Bible in our bedside table at the end of the day. If we hunger, there will be golden arches before the next horizon. Try as we might, it is difficult to taste a different spice.

What is the traveller to do? Staying within the confines of one’s community does little to suffice the wandering mind. For those wishing to sweat off the spiciness of a new region and have no water to quench the burn, there are few places open for raw exposure–for those places are off the beaten path devoid of the luxurious sameness where we find solace.

There is, however, something honest about these places. Their humility and simplicity. They are stark, unfamiliar. The feelings one can encounter upon visiting places such as this rare. Traveling to Antarctica, for instance, is a wholesome goal for the wanderlust. Within the mountains of snow and ice, isolated in a polar land, lies an uncapitalized beauty. McMurdo Station is buried on the Southern corner of the continent–a utilitarian town. Frigid, disconnected from other civilizations, a flavor of its own. The sharp and unfamiliar cold has no comfort, but this feeling is unique to the region. When there is no quick release from the cold–the spice–we can begin to experience something new. That is traveling.

Shipping out to McMurdo Station

Shipping out to McMurdo Station.

腹芸 & 08|=(_)$<4+!0|\|

As famously explored by Ishmael in Melville’s Moby Dick, we are isolatoes. All creatures are islands, seemingly together and cohesive, but alone in their own skins. We may form chains, like archipelagos, but our individual selves are forever detached from the selves of those around us. We are each are own souls, spiritually separated, and beings that can never truly understand the fullness of another, if even ourselves. The closest connection we have is communication.

The origin, the “commons”, is shared by the subsequent community that is formed. Communication is a set of rules through which we are connected. It is an everyday art that can bond our otherwise untouchable souls. Escaping the human superiority complex, all creatures are capable of some flavor of communication, be it oral, visual, olfactory, or else. The finer aspects of communication lie in fluency, for when users begin to subconsciously understand the intricacies of the art, greater interpersonal relationships can form, bringing isolated bodies together.

The embodiment of this mantra is haragei 腹芸, referred to in Japanese as a rhetoric form that relies on subtle implications. Affected by culture, these communications spread and adapt to circumstance. Rarely enabling a concrete understanding, haragei is a representative form of communication that relies on attitudes and communal feeling. It is unspoken but moving, for it plays on more feelings than specific words. The subtlety is the source of its power, as is often the case for any art form. Haregei may be the most useful art of communication to break the barrier between our souls. Only, of course, if it mutually learned.

The most important aspect of communication lies in the origin of the word–commonality. If the form of communication cannot be used by the community members among which the system was developed, it is useless. From the guttural sounds of animals to languages in which we program computers, the gamut of communicative means relies on structure and group consensus.

While haragei is an innately simple art of conveying thoughts and feelings, obfuscation, 08|=(_)$<4+!0|\| in leetspeak, is the complication of communication. Shifts in common structure. Jargon. Repetitious or repetitive words. VV3!|^o| mechanics. Uncommon expressions. Deviations from commonplace idioms. Obfuscation is the collection of uncommon practices in a language that is designed to mislead unwarranted receivers. When in a group of several islands, obfuscation in communication can be useful for connecting a minority of parties in the group–drawing a bridge of jargon that cannot be understood by the majority.

The disparate results of obfuscation are two-fold. For security purposes in digital environments, obfuscation can aide in encrypted messaging. For highly technical fields, such as medicine, the complicated speak can disguise unappealing information to the rest of the community. However, obfuscation, such as 133+ (leet), can often lead to communicative discrimination without a grander purpose. And when obfuscation is unintentional, poor communication results.

When communication fails, the only connection between our souls is lost. We are isolatoes.

Herbert Bayer’s Burning Banknotes

Any good design favors simplicity. Modern design follows the systematic use of only a few options for each visual attribute. There is no reason to use multiple font-families when one will do. There is no reason to use a plethora of colors when a small palette of 3 or 4 will suffice. There is no reason to vary between more than a pair of font-sizes or line widths. Strip away everything that is not essential and you will find the base of good design. There are many individuals responsible for birthing these design principles, either through art or necessity, but one of the most interesting and often underrepresented fathers of modern design is Herbert Bayer.

According to an article on Wikipedia, in an effort to replace the imperialistic government of Germany in 1919, the Weimar Republic was formed as a semi-presidential representative democracy. To afford the costs of World War I, Germany decided to fund the war through borrowing–not allowing an ounce of its currency to be converted to gold. As a result, the government began to buy foreign currency and significantly decreased the value of its Mark. From 1921 to 1924, Germany suffered a three-year period of hyperinflation. During this time, emergency banknotes were issued by Die Landesregierung Thüringen and designed by Bayer.

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These banknotes embraced a simple and bold style now found in contemporary graphic design. Departing from the traditional bank note standard of serif fonts, swirls, and national symbols, Bayer’s design featured grids, geometry, and sans-serif. This deviation from the norm was one of the first uses of modern design in the realm of politics and economics.

Despite their beauty, the insertion of Bayer’s emergency currency into the economy did little to assuage inflation. Paper money was so worthless that it was burned as fuel. Herbert Bayer’s banknotes provided heat for many.

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Following the design of this currency, Bayer later created the “Universal” typeface which resonates with the widely-used sans-serif font today. The introduction of this typeface featured no uppercase letters, as Bayer believed people did not speak in upper- and lowercase. The simple beauty of his design allowed for greater innovations in effective communication.

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Unlike many great artists and designers, Bayer spent the remainder of his career in advertising. The modernism he developed in Europe well served his  innovative marketing in corporate America. The bold simplicity and geometrically balanced style was widely accepted. The principles of good design gave his work a universal appeal. As a result, much of his style permeates design today.

47 Rockets, 2 Kites, and a Chair

In the days before Sputnik, Wan-Hu, a Chinese official, strapped 47 rockets and two kites to a chair in an attempt to launch himself into space. When the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu was gone. There was no sign of his chair. No sign of his kites. No sign of the rockets other than some spilled gunpowder and burn marks on the ground. Wan-Hu left the Earth, and he was never seen again. Whether he left the Earth together or in pieces, one cannot say, but the man disappeared that night.

The hopeful and imaginative mind, untarnished by science, would believe Wan-Hu’s rocketry carried him into space. The combined force of 47 rockets accelerated him out the atmosphere and into the ether beside the moon. Perhaps the force had been so strong that he was thrust into the sky at the speed of light. Sent careening out of our solar system to explore the rest of the galaxy. Zooming by moons and planets and stars, his chair a galactic throne and he the celestial ruler. As he moved at the speed of light, delving into our photograph of space that once was, Wan-Hu left the Earth to age in his wake. Centuries passed as he traveled, untouched by time, seeing all the things our telescopes have yet to detect. Watching stars burst, planets form. Dark matter become colorful. Asteroids collaborate to form moons. Civilizations grow and crumble and rise again. Representing Earth as he comes into contact with other life. Becoming allies, forming friendships. Experiencing everything that our childhood minds dreamed and things our adult minds refused to believe. A being of the fourth dimension, Wan-Hu and his 47 rockets escaped our rock. While we look up to the stars and curse at our stagnant state, perhaps we may see him, floating on his kites beside Vanguard 1 and our cluster of satellites. We in our rocking chairs, he in his rocket chair.

But we cannot believe it. Sure, Wan-Hu left the Earth. He disappeared, not because he escaped into space, but because he was scattered into ten million pieces. Our crutch of science tells us he did not escape our galaxy. Our years of advanced arithmetic disprove the fantastic simplicity of 47 rockets, 2 kites, and a chair as means of exploring space. Our investment in the invention of science refuses to believe that Wan-Hu was successful. The second brains in our pockets can prove it. We believe it. We do not wonder about Wan-Hu because our smart phones tell us the truth. Science seeks to understand wonder, but the act of pursuing it can turn Wan-Hu to dust.

Imagination can put Wan-Hu into space.

Reclaiming Urban Vandalism

It all begins with a bucket of chalk. A small child, bright-eyed and eager to express itself, defaces the concrete of its parents’ driveway or the neighborhood sidewalk. Vandalism.

Sure, these cute, pretty little drawings seem harmless. Pink flowers and rainbows and unicorns and suns with smiley faces. The typical symbols of peace and innocence. They are the bearers of greater things. Praised by their parents and elders for artistic expression. Seen to be aspiring creators in coming years. Temporary now, this chalk may one day become paint and forever deface public property. And suddenly, those proud parents and elders are no longer praising.

Praise should be given onto them. To sidewalk drawings, graffiti is the Monet to coloring books. True graffiti is spray paint on public property. It paints a city and gives it character. Of course, alternatives to this have been developed that leave no lasting mark, such as beautiful tri-dimensional chalk art on city streets.

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Perhaps the beauty in this medium is the fact that it’s temporary. Rain could wash away all the hours of work in a matter of moments. If this is where the beauty lies, then artists must maintain a special quality. The creators of these are exceptional people. However, the creation of most art revolves around the longevity of the artist born through their piece. Graffiti can give incentive to creators to create. If given a purpose, perhaps graffiti could be turned into something more than vandalism.

Is there a way to encourage artists to create urban art via graffiti? Should we hire graffiti artists? Sides of buildings could be forms of graffiti advertisement like the college campus rock. The unstated word is not to paint over another group’s painting for a day. This form of system would give cities a new direction.

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Advertisements could become a variety of respected art, something that is no longer devalued by commercialism. By hiring graffiti artists as opposed to advertising industries, freelance creators could make a living out of their passion. The consequences of putting to use the great talent of graffiti artists could result in a large societal shift that favors the pursuit of artistic interests. Parents would be able to continue encouraging their children in their urban vandalism. Graffiti, as a respected form of art, could reclaim the word “vandalism.”