Madrid, Spain
On a tour of Central de Diseño / Mataduro Madrid these two posters caught my eye. The original was designed by Franz Krausz in 1936 and issued by the Tourist Development Association of Palestine. The updated version (below, 2009 I believe) and featuring the Israeli West Bank barrier needs no explanation… I couldn’t fine a designer credit on the serigraph.
Any questions?
—Khalil Gibran (1833-1931)
Den Haag, Netherlands
My friend Chaz has a show opening the day after tomorrow…
(the feather on the arrow is a bar-code).
Being: The Graphic Design of Chaz Maviyane-Davies
De Affiche Galerij (The Poster Gallery)
Den Haag (The Hague, Netherlands)
Nov 30, 2011 – Feb 27, 2012
Winnipeg, Canada
For the past 24 days I have been growing untrimmed hair above my upper lip—an unusual experience for me in this millennium, to be sure… (I used to sport a full beard every winter, before Y2K). It’s somewhat alien, I’ll admit (and my girlfriend’s not all that keen on how it feels, truth be known).
Why? In a word: Movember.
During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in Canada and around the world. With their “Mo’s,” these men raise vital funds and awareness for mens’ health, specifically prostate cancer.
On Movember 1st, guys register at Movember.com with a clean-shaven face. For the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.
Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November. Through their actions and words, they raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of mens’ health.
Thanks to my Circle colleague Carisa for the supportive image shown above (Mo Bros love Mo Sistas, what can I say?). I’d be delighted if you felt drawn to make a donation to the cause on my behalf. Another Circle colleague, Adrian, is also growing a wicked “Mo,” and you can express your tangible support for “the cause” by contributing to his pledge here.
Davis, California
On November 18th, 2011, a group of students at the University of California Davis gathered on campus for an Occupy protest, during which they formed a human chain by linking their arms together. When they refused to comply with the police request to leave, UC Davis Police officer Lieutenant John Pike and another officer walked along administering orange pepper spray straight down on the line of unmoving students.
What Lt. John Pike did not take into account, is how rapidly memes are now born and spread on our interconnected planet… in the days following, hundreds of “photoshopped” images were shared online, many of them placing Lieutenant Pike into various historical events and milestones in civil rights, ranging from the signing of the U.S. constitution to Picasso’s famous anti-war painting Guernica. It will be interesting to see how far this meme travels from here…
View a video of the incident and reports on the meme’s mutation here. View a hilarious “meme’s meme” showing Hitler’s reaction to the viral rise of ‘Pepper Spray Cop’ here. And for others who are inclined to follow in Lt. Pike’s heavy-handed, now-infamous footsteps, “you’ve been warned.”
(an idea that’s spreading rapidly among the 1-billion “haves”)
Dreading the holiday season? The frantic rush and stress? The to-do lists and sales hype? The spiritless hours trapped in malls? This year, why not gather together your loved ones and decide to do things differently? With the simplest of plans you can create a new rhythm, purpose, and meaning for the holidays. Why not take the spirit of Buy Nothing Day and morph it into Buy Nothing Christmas?
With catastrophic climate change looming, the time is overdue for the rich one billion people on the planet to consume less! And if that’s too extreme for grandma and the kids, try for a Buy Less Christmas, a Buy Less Hanukkah, or a Buy Less Kwanzaa… and maybe a buy local, buy fairer, buy indie event. Whatever you decide, ’tis the season to reclaim our year-end celebrations and make them our own again.
“A few people start breaking their old patterns, embracing what they love (and in the process, discovering what they hate), daydreaming, questioning, rebelling. What happens naturally then, according to the revolutionary past, is a groundswell of support for this new way of being, with more and more people empowered to perform new gestures unencumbered by history.”
“On this 20th anniversary of Buy Nothing Day, let’s take things to a new level… consumer minimalism is one of many strategic operations in a continued fight for real democracy… This year, let’s fast like never before. Let’s get monastic with our actions. Let’s take back our holidays. Let’s wean ourselves off mega-corporations, put our money back into the local independent economy, and live for a different kind of future.”
Visit websites for Buy Nothing Day (25 November in North America this year, 26 November elsewhere) or Buy Nothing Christmas for lots of ideas and resources on how to spend less and live more.
