Happy pumpkin season!

I saw a link to this delightful essay on Twitter and it appealed to me in few different ways. One, because I get a gleeful satisfaction from the word, "fuck," for whatever reason. And two, because I am in a love hate relationship with the onset of the fall season. It was crystal clear to me this morning that I cannot handle many more years of fall time, despite my love of pumpkin foods.

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IT'S DECORATIVE
GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.

BY COLIN NISSAN

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I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I'm going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, "Aren't those gourds straining your neck?" And I'm just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, "It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

The next thing I'm going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I'm going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it's not summer, it's not winter, and it's not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it's fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well then you're going to fucking love my house. Just look where you're walking or you'll get KO'd by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you're going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

Japanese Metro Graphics

Tyson sent these to me...a series of hilarious, and priceless, Tokyo Metro Ads illustrated by Bunpei Yorifuji.

Monday mornings

I had the most perfect start to a Monday morning today. Running a little late, as usual, I caught a cab on Clinton Street...a mini van cab. The driver, Joseph Gabriel, was dressed in a suit, and was a very cute older gentleman, perhaps in his late 60s, maybe early 70s. And he was listening to a CD by Tropicana D'Haiti, which was just marvelous. Imagine French Salsa from the era of Ricky Ricardo. Just totally melifluous. I sat in the back seat, eyes shut while knitting a sleeve for a sweater, and pretended that I was in some very hot, equatorial, island country. Sitting on a chintz couch with a ceiling fan blowing a gentle breeze. A tray with a pitcher of water + chunky jelly glass jar glasses covered with a white crotcheted doily thing sitting on the table. The noises of lunch being prepared coming from the kitchen...something spicy, and involving fish and root vegetables, like yam. And life was just so good. It made me so incredibly happy and full of peace that I arrived at work with a full sweater cuff knitted and feeling the most zen that I have felt in a very long time.

Happy Monday.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

I heart Hermes

I so love the illustrations on Hermes' website. There is something so particularly delightful about them. Considering how serious you would think that Hermes takes itself, it makes the illustrations even that much more enchanting.

Liberty + Hermes scarf mashup

Liberty of London is hosting a Hermes boutique within their department store, through October 18. In addition to looking like a big gift box, the boutique features a series of limited edition scarves designed by Bali Barrett, that combines the Hermes "Ex Libris" logo with Liberty's Tana Lawn classic print...the scarves are available in six different color ways. This is perhaps the best of both worlds...sort of like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

The Life Cycle of a Hamburger

This week’s issue of the New Yorker magazine, the Money Issue, features a special three-part cover titled “The Food Chain” and illustrated by Dan Clowes, Zohar Lazar, and Mark Ulriksen. In this video, the three artists and Françoise Mouly, The New Yorker’s art editor, discuss the concept behind the covers and the influence of Depression-era New Yorker artists such as Peter Arno.

Happy Birthday, Barcodes!

Today is the 57th anniversary of the humble barcode! (Make your own, here.)

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies. They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software.The first use of barcodes was to label railroad cars, but they were not commercially successful until they were used to automate supermarket checkoutsystems, a task in which they have become almost universal. Barcodes — especially the UPC — have slowly become an essential part of modern civilization.

Kit Kat Mail Campaign

When I worked for Marcos at TODA, he used to complain that I never would just leave a Kit Kat on his desk with a smiley face post it. The implication being, could I grovel just a little, please just a small small amount, and make him feel more revered as my boss?

Now that I no longer work at TODA, the smiley face on a Kit Kat has been elevated as the gift that I usually try to bring back for Marcos, from whatever country I have traveled to. This means he has gotten green tea Kit Kats, and soy milk Kit Kats, Coffee flavored ones, etc. The list goes on. As I was doing a little research (his birthday is fast approaching and my traveling is on hiatus due to budget constraints), I came across this terrific campaign developed by JWT, for Kit Kats in Japan.

via prettyprettyyumyum:

Japan post collaborated with Nestle to make an official "Kit Kat Mail" campaign...these candy care packages also have another purpose — as edible good luck charms. In Japanese Kitto Katsu means "surely win." The Kit Kats were on sale in 20,000 post offices all over Japan, available to be sent to students just before their university entrance exams. The wrapper features sakura, or cherry blossoms, which symbolize the April test-taking season. The term sakura saku means "the cherry blossom blooms," and is used to congratulate someone who has passed their entrance exams.

どーも at 7-11!

Domo (どーもくん), the mascot of the Japanese television station NHK has arrived at 7-11, this month. 7-11 has launched a Domo-branded Slurpee, Fuji-Frost, during a six-week promotional campaign. The promotion is aimed to generate awareness for the launch of a new Domo DVD, in the United States. The Slurpee will be Apple-flavored in an exclusive brown-flocked cup. The Slurpee is apple flavored because Domo hates apples, and therefore you don't have to worry about Domo stealing your Slurpee.

Does anyone have a 7-11 near them? They are so far and few between in New York City, much to my chagrin. I am going to have to hunt one down (there is one on Church Street and another on East 23rd Street) and buy a Domo hot cocoa.

Background information on Domo, the character:"Domo is a strange creature that hatched from an egg," with a large, sawtoothed mouth that is locked wide open. Domo's favorite food is Japanese-style meat and potato stew, and he has a strong dislike for apples, because of an unexplained mystery in his DNA. Domo can only communicate via producing a low-pitched noise which sounds somewhat like his own name, but other characters appear to understand him. Domo is known to pass gas repeatedly when nervous or upset. A Tokyopop press release of the Domo comic book states that "he communicates sotto voce with a verve that only his friends can understand."

Domo lives in an underground cave with Mr. Usaji known in Japanese-language versions as Usajii (うさじい?), a portmanteau of the words usagi (うさぎ?), (rabbit), and jii (じい?) (old man, grandpa). Mr. Usaji is a wise old rabbit who has lived in a cave for decades, loves to watch television and drink astringent green tea. Mr. Usaji is not into any "new" materials, and does not own a telephone. In terms of fashion, Mr. Usaji focuses on materials instead of shapes. Mr. Usaji's favorite food is carrots, and his least favorite food is "something that is meaningless."