August 2005 Archives
I got my first copy of Forrest M. Mims, III Getting Started in Electronics in the early 80 for $2.49. It did a better job of making the fundamentals of electronic circuits understandable to me than the courses I took in college.
The book uses intuitive examples to explain previously impenetrable concepts such as capacitance, impedance, and inductance, and does a great job of explaining how semiconductors work.
Even better, the last section of the book has over 100 easy-tomake circuits that beep, blink, and perform other fun stuff. This book manages to make electronics seem both accessible and magical at the same time. Many people I know speak fondly of this book as a big inspiration when they were younger. Link
Mainstream comics in the 1940s were often wildly inventive, and this collection of old "what if" comic book stories, titled DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories : 11 Tales You Never Expected to See!, is a good example.
I imagine the writers in those days were tired of grim bad guy vs good guy stories, so they took every opportunity to concoct outlandish stories, in which superheroes either died, had their cover blown, or entered a wacky parallel universe.
Mainstream comics were a lot more fun back then. The superhero comics of today are crippled by the humorlessness and self-importance. I'm glad to see that DC is digging into its vaults to revive these treasures. Link
I took a physics class in college. About 300 other students were in the class with me. The professor was a skinny old guy with a severe stoop. From the side, his body made a question mark shape.
After the first week, I figured out that he was just going through each example in the book, and offered nothing in the way of additional enlightenment beyond the text. I stopped going to class and read the book on my own. I don't remember the book very well. I do remember that it was boring, and that I didn't feel as if I understood physics very well after reading it. Fortunately, the professor's test questions were nearly identical to the examples in the book (he usually just changed the values), so I got an A in the class.
A few years later, I saw a copy of Thinking Physics, and was drawn to the playful illustrations on the cover. The book had a loving, handmade quality to it. Flipping through it, I saw that it was written in the form of physics puzzles. I bought the book, and in the course of a couple of weeks, I developed a true feel for Newtonian physics. I understood, on an intuitive level, the difference between force, energy, and work. The how and why of calculus became clear. Interestingly, most of the questions in the book don't require that you pull out a pencil I'll and paper. They just require you to visualize and think.
Check out the reviews on Amazon. Everyone gives this book a solid five stars. And they're well deserved. Link
I try to use the touchpad on my notebook computer as little as possible. It's uncomfortable and harder to control than a mouse. When I travel, I always bring along my Radtech BT500 bluetooth mouse. It's optical and works well on most surfaces. Battery life seems to be a few full days of use. At $45, it's not cheap, but it's save me ten times that amount in increased productivity and decreased frustration. Link
One Two Three ... Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science is another book I first read when I was in junior high school. Written in a humorous, easy-to-digest style by the celebrated scientist George Gamow, One Two Three nearly blew my mind when I read his descriptions of exceedingly large numbers.
For example he wrote a no-doubt apocryphal story about King Shiram of India, who was so pleased with his grand vizier, Sissa Ben Dahir, for inventing the game of chess, that the king asked the vizier what he'd like for a reward.
The vizier told the king he'd like one grain of wheat for the first square on the board, two grains for the second square, four grains for the third square, eight grains for the forth square, and so on, doubling the number of grains on each square for all 64 squares on the board. The king thought about it for a second and said, "You got a deal."
Gamow describes how the king order his servants to bring in a bag of wheat, thinking that there would be more than enough to fulfill his vizier's request. But the entire bag was emptied on the 20th square. He soon realized that he'd empty the palace's entire supply of wheat before coming even close to the end.
As it turned out, Gamow writes, "the amount requested by the grand vizier was that of the world's wheat production for the period of some two thousand years!"
The entire book is filled with awe-inspiring anecdotes like this, which had the result of stretching my mind more than anything I'd learned in school up to that point.
Link
Nobody captured the seamy side of new York City better than the photographer Weegee, who used to cruise the streets of the Big Apple in the 1940s with a police radio in his car, often beating the cops to the scene of a gangland slaying or transvestite club bust. he also used infrared film to snap picks of people making out and picking their noses in movie houses, and had a special lens that could take pictures at a 90 degree angle to keep his subjects from knowing. This book has over a hundred of Weegee's best shots. Link
I remember being thrilled when I read the following passage, in which John Carter describes seeing Dejah Thoris for the first after she had been taken prisoner by the green Martians.
And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life. She did not see me at first, but just as she was disappearing through the portal of the building which was to be her prison she turned, and her eyes met mine. Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.
She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure.
A few years later, I read The Fifty Minute Hour: A Collection of True Psychoanalytic Tales by Robert Lindner. It was a fascinating book, and the last chapter, called "The Jet Propelled Couch" was particularly interesting. It was about a Los Alamos physicist who had been sent to Lindner because he was acting strangely at work, often going into a trance-lie state. Because the physicist had a high level security clearance, his superiors were quite worried about his odd behavior.
It turns out that the physicist believed himself to be John Carter, the protagonist in Burrough's Mars books. Indeed, the physicist was also named John Carter by coincidence. The physicist told Lindner that he was able to teleport himself to Mars and have the same kind of adventures that the fictional John Carter had. The physicist kept detailed maps and records of his adventures, accumulating 10,000 pages of notes! I won't spoil the rest for you. It's an incredible story.
I just re-read A Princess of Mars, prepared to be utterly disappointed. But I loved it just as much as I did when I was 12 years old. Burrough's description of the Martian animals and societies, particularly the hideous six-limbed green Martians', is a hoot, and the plot moves along at a fast clip. It unfolds much like a contemporary science fiction movie. It's fallen out of copyright, and you can download it for free from Project Gutenburg's site.
Designer Todd Oldham shows you how to make 50 easy but wonderful furniture and decorating projects in his book, Handmade Modern: Mid-Century Inspired Projects for Your Home.
Because I edit a how-to magazine (Make), I have learned to appreciate well-designed step-by-step instructions, and I give this book an A+. The photography is excellent, as are the instructions themselves.
I haven't made any of the projects, but I plan to try the Eames-like room divider, the storage bench, and the planter bench. Prepare to be amazed by this book.
Link
About five years ago, Carla bought me a cheap ukulele for my birthday, and I hated it. I couldn't get it to tune properly, so it sounded awful. I was about to give up when I heard about a funny-looking plastic/wood hybrid uke called the Fluke. It just so happened that the co-inventor live near me in Studio City, CA.
I sent him an email message, and he kindly invited me to come to his house. his name is Jim Beloff and his wife is Liz Beloff. together, they run a ukulele music business called Flea Market Music. I bought a Fluke from Jim and Liz and instantly saw the light. The sound was bright, clear, and cheerful.
Now I love playing ukuleles. They are very portable and really easy to learn. A few years ago, Flea Market Music started selling an even smaller ukulele, called The Flea. Jim and Liz kindly asked me to design the logo for it, which was an honor.
I had lunch with Jim and Liz today and they awarded me with a special edition of the Flea, with a faceplate design by Tiki King. The tiki looks like he is chanting a sacred song about ancient island life. Like the Fluke, the Flea stays in tune and has a cheerfully plangent tone.
If you buy a Flea, I recommend that you buy some of Flea Market Music's excellent ukulele songbooks. Then you can throw your iPod away and start making your own music. Link
I'll buy any book that has anything to do with Robert Crumb, because he's in my triumvirate of cartoon gods (the other two are Carl Barks and Jack Kirby). I can't get enough of his comics or his music. I also love reading interviews with him.
I don't think this book is a good introduction to Crumb. If you're not familiar with his work, I suggest you start out with Vol 4 of The Complete Crumb Comics. But if you are a Crumb fan, you'll love this fat (440 pages!) book filled with Crumb art and text. As a bonus, the book comes with a 20-song CD of Crumb's music, which ranges from old timey novelty jazz to turn of the last century European folk music. Considering that a music CD typically costs more than this book-and-CD combo, The R. Crumb Handbook is a great deal. Link
Password Plus is a database for storing passwords, software registration codes, credit card numbers, and other personal information. I use it at least once a day. It's the simplest way I know of to make this kind of information both secure and easy to access. I even use it to store my wife's shoe size so I can remember it when it's time to shop for presents.
To use it, you launch the program and enter a master password. That gives you access to all the records. I use it all the time to get my credit card numbers to make online purchases.
One great feature is the way it syncs the data back and forth between my Palm OS and my home computer. Earlier this week I went to a Chinese restaurant to pick up some food I'd ordered on the phone and I forgot my wallet. But I talked them into selling me the meal by reading my credit card number from my PDA. Link
Hell's Angels is Hunter S. Thompson's best book. I think it's his only great book. Unlike his other work, Thompson stays focused on the job of uncovering a world hidden to most of us, and he does it with such powerful images and colorful language that it's impossible not to be utterly absorbed by the story he tells. I've read this twice, and I'm ready to red it again. Link
LinkMick was polite, but he didn't seem to have heard of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs or the Macintosh. Steve tried to strike up a conversation, but he wasn't very successful. Steve told me that Mick couldn't seem to put together a coherent sentence. "His speech was slurred and very slow", Steve described it later, "in fact I think he was on drugs. Either that or he's brain-damaged." After a few minutes, it was clear that Mick had absolutely no interest whatsoever in Apple or the Macintosh, and an awkward silence ensued.
Fortunately, Mick's twelve year old daughter Jade had followed Mick into the room, and her eyes lit up when she saw MacPaint. Bill began to teach her how to use it, and pretty soon she was happily mousing away, fascinated by what she could do with MacPaint. Even though Mick drifted off to another room, the Apple contingent stayed with Jade for another half hour or so, showing off the Macintosh and answering her questions, and ended up leaving the machine with her, since she couldn't seem to part with it.
The Cute Manifesto is a small-but-thick anthology (168 pages, 6" x 6") of cartoonist James Kochalka's cartoon-embellished musings on the meaning of life. My favorite is the titular story, "The Cute Manifesto," in which Kochalka defends cuteness as not being trite, but as one of the most important qualities of life to seek out.
Kochalka developed his talents in the world of self-published mini-comics, and even though he now has a publisher, he still thinks like a self-publisher. In a recent interview in The Comics Reporter, Kochalka said, "I feel like I can do anything I want. Which is the best thing about being an artist, that you can do anything you want. As soon as you start feeling you can't do whatever you want because you're afraid how the readers are going to react, then it's just a job. I don't want to have a job." Fortunately, when Kochalka does whatever he wants, it results in good stuff. Link
I still have my copy of The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta, which I bought in 1975 for $5.95. The paintings of otherwordly creatures and curvaceous and exotic female humans and aliens transported me to another world.
Recently, I picked up a copy of Icon: A Retrospective by the Grand Master of Fantastic Art, (2003 revised edition) which is a much better book about the life and work of the world's most famous fantasy painter. The paintings are reproduced larger and the colors are much richer. Best of all, the authors delve into the story behind each painting.
I'm not much of a fan of Conan, but that doesn't stop me from being a fan of the artist who made the character famous. Link
Los Angeles is an endless source of wonder and novelty for me. People who decry the city as a vapid cultural wasteland are really missing out. Hidden pockets of amazement abound here. I could spend the rest of my life in this city and never run out of things to see.
My friend Matt Maranian knows this. In 1997 he and Tony Lovett wrote a guide to Los Angeles called L. A. Bizzaro! The Insider's Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles. I defy you to read this and not be surprised, entertained, and eager to head out the door to explore the places covered in this book.
For example, there's Clifton's cafeteria, a "delighfully dingy wonderland," opened in the 1931 with a cedar forest complete with cascading waterfalls and stuffed forest creatures. It's still in operation today. Then there's Tri-Ess Sciences near the Burbank Airport -- a chemical supply house that caters to the special effects industry. There's also the mind-blowing Bob Baker Marionette Theater ("the oldest operating puppet theater in the country"), located under a freeway ramp in a decrepit industrial area of LA. I've enjoyed Baker's skillful and almost-psychedelic shows with my kids three times so far, and I'm looking forward to returning soon.
If you're in LA and have access to a car and this book, you'll never be bored. Link
A couple of years ago, comic book and book publisher Fantagraphics started a series to reprint every Peanuts strip ever drawn by Charles Schulz. These books are beautifully designed and are printed on high quality paper, which makes it much easier to appreciate Schulz's drawing style.
Now Fantagraphics is giving the same treatment to Hank Ketcham, creator of Dennis the Menace. As much as I like Schulz's work, I think Ketcham is better in almost every way. His deceptively loose drawing style is highly praised by all my favorite cartoonists. In fact, Ketcham is considered my many to be the cartoonist's cartoonist. As a bonus, a large percentage of the comics in this 624-page (!) book are laugh-out-loud funny.
Link
A couple of years ago my friend David gave me a Moleskine notebook as a gift. It was from Italy and had a black cloth binding and thick paper. It was so beautiful I was afraid to write in it. I didn't think my notes and sketches were worthy to go into it.
After a couple of weeks, I decided to go ahead and just start using it. And I became hooked. The pocket sized version cost around $12 and lasted several months. It was silly not to use it as my regular note taking book.
The books are also very rugged. Last week, I left one of my Moleskines outside for a week. The sprinkers hit it every day. It was waterlogged when I found it. The pages with ink pen note were kind of smeared, but still legible. The penciled notes were fine. I fanned the book open and left it to dry in the 100-degree heat of our porch for a few days. The pages are kind of warped, making it look swollen, but the cover and binding are in excellent shape. I like it even better this way -- less precious looking.
I've incorporated Moleskines into my daily life. I keep a blank art paper sketchbook (80 pages, 5.25" x 8.25") for sketching, a ruled notebook (240 pages, 5.25" x 8.25") for taking notes, and a pocket ruled notebook (192 pages, 3½" x 5½") for my to-do list.
The company has started making a less-expensive line of notebooks, called the Cahier line, but I'm sticking with the sturdy orginals.
Reading Pranks in 1989 changed the way I thought about life. This fat collection of interviews with lots of different pranksters made me realize that the world and the people in it could be considered an artist's medium. My favorite pranksters in the book are those who pull pranks that delight rather than annoy or torment.
I especially enjoyed the interview with Jeffrey Vallance, who once took a frozen chicken that he'd bought at a supermarket to a pet cemetery and, with a straight face, told the people who worked there that he wanted to arrange a memorial service for his departed pet Chicken (he told them its name was Blinky). He ordered a small powder blue casket with pink satin lining ("Blinky was starting to thaw, so she was placed on a paper towel so that the moisture would not seep under the satin".) He also order an engraved grave marker which read "Blinkly, The Friendly Hen".
Another time, Vallance dressed up like an electrician, complete with nametag, and went into the Los Angeles Country Art Museum, where he replaced electrical outlet covers with ones that had his paintings on them. He then sent out invitations to people announcing his debut show at the museum. Link
I have at least 50 art instruction books. Among my favorites are those by children's book illustrator Ed Emberley. He's got a series of them: Ed Emberley's Big Purple Drawing Book, Big Green Drawing Book, Big Red Drawing Book, Big Orange Drawing Book, and so on.
What makes these books so wonderful is the way Emberley uses simple shapes to construct appealing and lively animals, vehicles, people, monsters, plants, and other things. His creations are witty and funny, and his unique step-by-step presentation yields a fool-proof method for copying his work.
I find myself pulling his books off my shelf at least a couple of times a week. My 7-year-old daughter goes to a lot of birthday parties and I like to draw the birthday cards for the presents she gives her friends. More often than not, I swipe Emberley characters for the card. Link
We don't have screen doors on our house, but ever since I got the Bug Zapper, I no longer care. In fact, I like it when flies come in. The drone of a dumb horsefly bumping against lampshades is my signal to run to the broom closet and pull out the Bug Zapper, a red and yellow $10 flying insect killer that looks like toy tennis racket. By simultaneously pressing two buttons on the handle, the rows of wires strung across the head become electrified, and a red LED in the handle illuminates to confirm that the Zapper is set to kill.
My hunting method is primitive but effective: I swing wildly in the general direction of the tiny winged vermin. The heavy, stupid flies are almost too easy to zap; I prefer the smaller, quieter flies that tease me by alighting on an armchair or counter, only to flit away in the nick of time. But no matter what kind of fly I’m after, the end game never changes — The wires touch the fly; there’s a tiny spark and a crackle, and the fly drops to the ground, inert. Haematopota pluvialis: prepare to meet thy doom. Link
