Yo. It’s, erm, 2008. Back at school, trying to wrap it all up and get it out the fucking door — “it” being the entirety of my graduate education, of course. You can sort of see what it looks like here; at the moment, there are a billion little unraveling minutiae to be dealt with: bureaucratic, social, financial, emotional, physiological… and of course my struggle to contend with all of them is wonderfully enriched by the overbearing fact that the genesis of each of these dumb little things, originally, was a fuck-up or oversight on my part. Like forgetting to fill out a super-important form, or sleeping through my alarm when I had an important meeting… Blech. It sucks. The whole mess simply will not die quietly, much like a zombie, or the Cloverfield monster. It’s been a rough two months or so.

See why I’ve been keeping my blog-mouth shut?? So. Anyway I will spare you the worst of the retarded gripes. But so, what I have for you is this: last night, I had to do a bunch of writing excercises, and to distract myself late at night, I concocted the following design-music-cosmology system. I’ll dish up more stuff soon, now that classes have started again and I am therefore less droolingly antisocial. Fuck yes.

…

So. LET:

architecture = 80’s pop-rock,
graphic design = hip hop,

THEN:

type design = turntablism,
interior architecture = late 80’s alt-rock,
(… e.g. Atelier van Lieshout = The Pixies)
book design = the Wu-Tang Clan,
poster design = Tupac,
news/editorial design = Biggie,
web design = 50 Cent,
info design = the Ultramagnetic MC’s,
letterpress poster art = Snoop Dogg,

THEREFORE:

Design*Sponge = Russell Simmons.

AND:

urban design and urban planning = 90’s crybaby alt-rock,
contemporary art = American Idol,
furniture design = jazz,
textile design = The cross-genre continuum consisting of everyone ever cited or otherwise referenced by LCD Soundsystem, Mr. Murphy et al and his close associates, and all those who will come after them and rip them off,
apparel design = electroclash.

SO THEN:

package design = the Fugees,
contemporary calligraphy = the Digable Planets,
Felice Varini = Autechre,
exhibit design = Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys,

BUT THEN, LET:

structural engineers = rock drummers,
(… e.g. Cecil Balmond = Lars Ulrich, etc)
CAD = MIDI,
O-CAD = MAX/MSP,
BIM and parametric systems = Ableton Live,

THEREFORE:

Frank Gehry = the Postal Service,

AND:

Hektor = Atom and his Package.

FURTHERMORE:

critical theory = reggae,

THEN:

digital ethnography = Shaggy,
contemporary video art = Buju (or maybe Anthony B),
net.art (quote-unquote) = Bob Marley,
architectural theory = Rusted Root (or Dave Matthews, or maybe even 311, or some shit like that),
media theory = Hootie and the Blowfish,
Fluxus = the T-Connection (circa the reign of Kool Herc).

AND THEN:

motion graphics = the Black-Eyed Peas,
just video and film editing = just Fergie,
database design = the Game,
web-nerd non-design stuff = the rest of G-Unit in general,

THUS IT FOLLOWS:

industrial design = delta blues,
magazine design = Octagon-era Kool Keith,
contemporary painting = Will Smith,
contemporary sculpture = Eminem,
Bio-art = Rihanna.

IN CONCLUSION:

DADA = Run-DMC,
surrealism = Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys,
Andy Warhol = Robert Smith,
Marcel Duchamp = Kraftwerk,
Le Corbusier = Paul McCartney,
Robert Moses = John Lennon,
Jane Jacobs = Yoko Ono,
Robert Irwin = Sun-Ra,
Robert Venturi = Led Zeppelin,
Tibor Kalman = Sean Combs,
Benjamin Franklin = Elvis Presley.

See, back when I wanted to do the double whammy of an architecture degree and a law degree, people would always be like, WTF?? To which I would respond, “Architecture is written in law. Like building codes and whatnot? And I like code, because I’m a geek, and so.” And still, the quizzical expressions of doubt would remain unabated. But look: Andrés Duany suggests suspending code in New Orleans, so that reconstruction can, you know, actually happen for reals. And this one Wes Janz has fantastically illustrated how most of the once-prosperous United States is now a complete hole, due initially to economic factors but now held in place by fucked legal situations.

If I were still an architecture student, I would use this stuff as a starting point for a thorough investigation of the International Building Code, and the cultural and economic normativities that lurk within. I can’t find the fucking link but a few days ago, I saw some article that offhandedly attributed the nature of all the new glass-box condo construction in Vancouver to a specific code exception about the tower’s core and egress stairways and that sort of thing. But I’m a graphic designer, so it’s in your court… All you architecture nerds better drop the bullshit archibabble and subscribe to Harvard Law Review if you know what’s good for you. Fuck yeah.

Blech. So MCAD was great. I saw lots of good shit and also got blisters on my hands from ripping staples out of a wall. We had a raging party in a luxury hotel room, too. All very good. Listened to Jose Gonzales and Girl Talk freakout mixes on loop. It was cold, but not unbearable. Need a real break, tho. Not sure what is going to go on for “spring break”, but you can bet considerable money on the fact that it will be AWESOME.

Also, in case you were curious, OFR was not so great. Or at least, it could have rocked considerably harder, most definately. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because it would be much easier for me to say “it was awesome”, so that you would feel bad about missing THE EVENT OF THE SEASON and show up for sure at the next jammy jam. But no, rest assured that whatever you did then was an excellent use of your time, indeed.

Now I’m back in the studio. Because that’s what I do, right? It would appear to be the case. OK. Yes. Love you. Right.

-fish