London, U.K.

Greenpeace climbers recently scaled the front of BP’s corporate headquarters in London to “brand them with a logo that better suits their dirty business.” Greenpeace “thinks their logo needs a makeover to better suit a company that invests in tar sands and other unconventional oil sources like deep water oil,” and that a company that invests in tar sands—the dirtiest oil there is—needs something other than a nice green flower as their brand identity. “While our effort at a new logo is OK, we think you can do better, so we’re asking you to help us redesign BP’s logo…” More information here.

Several designer colleagues alerted me to this movement to find a more suitable “brand” for BP today (thanks Toze in Porto, thanks JS in Montreal). For years I’ve been showcasing BP’s effervescent floral symbol as the classic example of “corporate greenwashing” at design lectures I give, so I’m neither surprised nor disappointed at what seems to be a growing movement to help this industry-leading company project a more honest image. Just deserts, methinks…

Images: a selection from among of the hundreds of alternate BP logo entries flooding in; more here.

(Actually, the text on this vintage Spanish postcard reads “kisses and their consequences.” Don’t say you haven’t been warned though…).

Thanks for sharing that “old Spanish piece of wisdom” with me, Gonzalo.

The above illustration is from the humorous student-run magazine at Cornell University, The Cornell Widow. (Of course “she” is referring to the movement against U.S. imperialism begun by Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino…).

If, like myself, you enjoy a combination of vintage ephemera and serendipitous discovery… then meandering through pilllpat (agence eureka)’s Flickr collections could make you a happy camper too.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Congratulations to my darlin’ Evelin re: the acceptance of her ceramic sculptural piece, entitled (no fixed address), into the Manitoba Crafts Council 2010 Juried Exhibition: Home. Not only that, her work was also chosen to grace the invitation (image above). For anyone interested, the dates and times of the touring exhibition (it would be great to see you at the openings) are as follows:

St. Norbert, 3-22 June 2010
St. Norbert Arts Centre
100 Ruinesdumonastere, St. Norbert, MB
Gallery Hours: 11am-7pm | Wed.-Sun.
Opening reception 3 June, 7pm

Wasagaming, 16 July-11 August 2010
110 Wasagaming Drive, Wasagaming, MB
Gallery Hours: 11am-6pm | Daily
Opening reception 16 July, 7pm

Brandon, 9-30 September 2010
Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art
2021 Victoria Avenue (between 20th-21st) Brandon, MB
Gallery Hours: 2-6pm | Wed.-Sat. / 2-8pm Thurs.
Opening reception 9 September, 7pm

If we are to create balanced human beings, capable of entering into world-wide co-operation with all other men of good will—and that is the supreme task of our generation, and the foundation of all its other potential achievements—we must give as much weight to the arousal of the emotions and to the expression of moral and esthetic values as we now give to science, to invention, to practical organization. One without the other is impotent. And values do not come ready-made: they are achieved by a resolute attempt to square the facts of one’s own experience with the historic patterns formed in the past by those who devoted their whole lives to achieving and expressing values.

If we are to express the love in our own hearts, we must also understand what love meant to Socrates and Saint Francis, to Dante and Shakespeare, to Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti, to the explorer Shackleton and to the intrepid physicians who deliberately exposed themselves to yellow fever. These historic  manifestations of love are not recorded in the day’s newspaper or the current radio program: they are hidden to people who possess only fashionable minds.

Virtue is not a chemical product, as Taine once described it: it is a historic product, like language and literature; and this means that if we cease to care about it, cease to cultivate it, cease to transmit its funded values, a large part of it will become meaningless, like a dead language to which we have lost the key. That, I submit, is what has happened  in our own lifetime.

—Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) Values for Survival, 1946

Long Branch, New Jersey

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a left-leaning American writer best known for her wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhappy childhood, she rose to considerable acclaim—both for her literary output and as a critic in such venues as The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair, and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.

Her pointed witticisms and satirical aphorisms live on…

+  +  +

The first thing I do in the morning
is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.

You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.

Women and elephants never forget.

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.

If you want to know what God thinks of money,
just look at the people he gave it to.

The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.

I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
(when asked to use “horticulture” in a sentence)

The best way to keep children at home
is to make the home atmosphere pleasant,
and let the air out of the tires.

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

They sicken of the calm, who know the storm.

Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.

Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom.

Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.

…is give peace a chance.

(just step back… or move to the side)