The other evening, Mr. Alkaitis-Carafelli were sitting in a bar discussing various things, and the subject of esteemed book-jacket designer Chip Kidd came up, and we were both rather agush regarding his work, particularly the cover on Lunar Park. Quality shit, no? But then he has to turn around and do shit like this:

… which is so beyond fugly it makes me want to throw up. I just bought this book (in hardcover, yes, like the idiot I am arguably) and I’ve already taken the jacket off and stomped on it. WHAT IS UP, MR. KIDD?!? I want to like you and all, but hey. Also, I find the inadvertant infantile allusion of your last name endlessly confusing.

Incedentally it’s nice, really, that your average hardcover fiction book is actually smyth sewn and has headbands and all that, but for 25 bucks, one would hope that you bookbinders could condescend to do ‘em up with actual bookcloth, rather than whatever cheap colored stock you fuckers seem to employ. I know talas charges an arm and a leg for that shit, but you (and by “you” I mean whoever is in the employ of FSG and Knopf and who knows who else to do this shit) can get volume discounts, rite? ok yeah.

But anyway enough. I must eat cheese now, cuz if I don’t, the cheese will go bad, and how will I feel then?? Like a complete assmaster, that’s how. Yep.

-fish

I saw a picture, the other day, of OMA’s proposal for Park de la Villette. It was in some fancypants hundred-dollar book at spoonbill, of course. and I must say that that shit is completely incoherent. Say what you want about Mr. Tschumi and his wacky deconstruction games… his approach made some sort of semiotic and graphical sense. which is what that shit should be all about, rite? rite. I go for a walk in the park, I am not particularly thinking about the meaning of my context and whatnot. I want pretty flowers, and if they come in the form of a deconstructed cube folly red thing, then hey.

As far as I am concerned these days: architecture is fashion, and urbanism is typography. It kind of kills me that the only work I have come across that highlights anything resembling the latter analogy is that “alphabetical city” pamphlet by Mr. Holl. But it also kills me that you almost can’t get a fucking architect to even say the word “typography”, much less practice it or get the significance. I mean, it is practically a crime that the word, or any of its related conjugants, does not appear on page 216 of “atlas of novel tectonics”. WTFFFFFFF??!?

But yeah anyway. That aside, I like the book, despite the fact that I have heard whispers in the subways that he (Reiser) is a dildo. I have not seen any prima facie evidence of dildoism in the book or on the internet, typographic ignorance notwithstanding, so if you have any such knowlegde please pass it along. Innocent until proven guilty, that’s how it is, yes.

Ok. Yeah. This shit, too, has become incoherent. Time for dinner. Yeah.

-fish