Designing Things

I have a new job – and yes, it is absolutely lovely. My first assignment

(I will refer to it as an “assignment” because it makes it seem super secret and important, like I might be a spy, but probably not)

involves creating a website with a program I’ve never used before.  This program is www.squarespace.com.  It uses so much front end design, that it actually is quite difficult.  They have over-simplified the program to the point of becoming impossible to use. As in- it does not accept HTML code. Which makes simple things, like layout, and picking colors extremely difficult. The whole trial and error thing is not fun, especially when twenty minutes of typing html would give you the same result as 3 hours of frustration.

I needed a serious playlist to keep my eyelids from drooping;

which I will share, just not all fifteen hours of it.

So…

::::Cygnet Committee Presents::::

A Playlist

[Known as Space for Squares]

Polyhedron: Bubonic Plague [Become one with the computer]

Alfomega: Caetano Veloso [The error code WILL go away]

Dish It Out: The Contortions [Don't punch your monitor]

Genetic Engineering: X Ray Spex [You can be Bill Gates someday, too]

Misirlou: Dick Dale [Calm down and get a snack]

Interzone: Joy Division [You are smarter than your computer]

Metal on Metal: Kraftwerk [Don't trade your brain for a processor]

Hurt: New Order [I listened to all of Substance about three times]

The Curse of Millhaven: Nick Cave [For the frustration]

The Be Colony: Broadcast & The Focus Group [You're thinking in 1's & 0's]

Running: Delia Derbyshire [Learn how a computer dreams]

Being Boiled: The Human League [Don't resist]

Peek-a-Boo: DEVO [Music you can type to]

Networking: Pens [Will make you feel better about the stolen internet]

Red Light: Siouxsie & The Banshees [Stop. Add your last } ]

If you have lots of tricky vicky CSS learnin’ to do too, you might need to fill in the blanks.

{Sneak Peek of Hinge}

Cygnet Committee: Israel

::::Cygnet Committee Presents:::

~Favorite Things in & from Israel~

In honor of Golda Meir’s (Israel’s first woman prime minister, and the world’s third) birthday!!!

1. Jewish People : Because they’re a lot nicer than their stereotype suggests.

2. Falafel : Mashed, spiced, fried chickpeas. Mmm.

3. Siouxsie & the Banshees “Israel” : Fabulous

4. Tashlumim : Paying for things like pasta and cat food in installments.

5. Techno Music : As you should know, Tel Aviv is the techno capital of the world.

6. Natalie Portman! :Wikipedia tells me she was Israeli born.  Who Knew?

7. Avi Arad & Isaac Perlmutter : Joint owners of Marvel Comics. Bam!

8. Jesus : Important to some.

9. Cherry Tomatoes : Developed by the Hebrew University

10. Text Messaging : ICQ by Mirabilis

[information from the World Wide Web and my extensive memory]

There you have it. Israel is important.

Cygnet Committee: Facts about Joe Strummer

::::Cygnet Committee Presents::::

~Facts about Joe Strummer~

Here are some little known facts about The Clash’s (in)famous Joe Strummer.

1. Swims naked in the Pacific Ocean with his pet bunny rabbits.

2. Owns a catering company and works with fondant.

3. His favorite drink is a cosmo, mainly because he watches a lot of Sex & the City.

4. Wrote an album named “Paris Calling,” about his bff Paris Hilton.

5. Sang songs about peace and love.

6. Paula Abdul choreographed his performances.

7. Loves Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain.

8. Produced by Elton John.

9. Designs wedding dresses in his spare time.

10. Collects swans for his waterfall pond, located near his zen garden.

Just kidding. Joe Strummer was kind of a bad ass.

[1952-2002]

Expand Your Pitiful Mind, Earthlings.

::::Cygnet Committee Presents::::

Summer Reading Lists!

Both are spectacular. Expand your pitiful mind, earthlings.

List One:  These Will Not Fit in a Picnic Basket

1. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy: If you’ve tried War & Peace, and hated it, you should probably replace it with this one.  Tolstoy once claimed it was the best and only novel he ever wrote. Try it.

2. Force of Circumstance, Simone de Beauvoir: You’ve heard of Sartre, and it changed your life or you didn’t understand Nausea one bit.  Either way, Miss de Beauvoir is charming, deeply soulful, and a complete lunatic.

3. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust: It’s as intellectually scandalous as its name. Sex in my mind.

4. The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald: A bitter story foretelling Fitzgerald and Zelda’s utter demise. Gruesome, mocking, and more than a bit prophetic of most ambitious relationships.

5. East of Eden, John Steinbeck: Good Commie lit, in the best of ways.  Oh so sinister, an enchantingly dark character study.

6. Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence: Revolutionary for its time, not so much now.  Still positively good storytelling, however.

7. Candide and Zadig, Voltaire: Technically, this might fit in your picnic basket, it just depends whether it’s hard back or not. Mine’s hard back, so it’s going on this list., and well deserved at that.

8. Moby Dick, Herman Melville: Just kidding. I despise Herman Melville.

List Two: These Will Fit in a Picnic Basket

1. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley: It’s alive.

2. Invitation to a Beheading, Vladimir Nabokov: I’d recommend Lolita, but that’s no good when you can just ask me to repeat it to you verbatim.  Plus Invitation to a Beheading is just as lyrical; it reads like poetry without the monotonous rhythm.

3. The Stranger, Albert Camus: If you haven’t read this, it’s about time. Jeez.

4. A Coney Island of the Mind, Lawrence Ferlinghetti: The sole work of the Beat publisher; it’s obvious he only needed one – it’s absolutely fantastical.  If I saw the world as he does, I’d do nothing but smile and kick cans down the street.

5. The Nose, Nikolai Gogol: Funniest book I’ve ever read, no holds barred.  Unconditionally hilarious.

6. The Skating Rink, Roberto Bolaño: This book will break your heart.  The characters are pathetically flat, the plot simple and unadorned, and if you’re at all a romantic, you will end this book in tears.

7. Suite Française, Irène Némirovsky: Lovely in every way imaginable, beautiful to read, and written while in hiding from the Nazis in war stricken Paris.  Miss Némirovsky’s novel is the adult Diary of Anne Frank; a Jew, she was deported to Auschwitz where she died.  This novel was found 64 years later. WOWIEZOWIE, HISTORY!

8. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller: Typical, but effective if you just need something to look at, or carry.

9. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse: Every angry teenager should read this, and then when they grow up a little, try Siddhartha.

10. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde: Drama-licious.

[Public Service Announcement]

Beware of loaning out your favorite books.

There are multitudes of BOOK THIEVES out there.

Dante should have dedicated a ring of hell to you.

One particularly horrid.

Reasons to Love Japan and Not Love Lady Gaga

Tokyo has always been a hotbed of crazy anime – lookin’, Lolita Doll-esque, cosplay girls.

 Cygnet Committee’s verdict: Japanese Fan Girls are a hundred times fiercer than Gaga.

~Definitely More Fierce~

[photos compliment of Tokyofashion.com]