As I see from my console, it has been nearly two weeks since my last post. I am sorry to all of you who were looking for some follow up. I sent ME a thank you card. NK is in London for two months. I have a few phone calls to make. One to a pair of writers, the S's (a strictly a get-to-know-you call). Another to an agent, PC, she's reading Sandow. Also to the fellow I ate Thanksgiving dinner with. My friend JTK and I are working on a pilot spec - a ludicris endeavor except for the fact that I know somebody who knows somebody who wants to look at it. I need to write a regular spec to make it fly. I don't have one. I'm thinking Scrubs. DS wants to send out Chronic Psycho after Sundance. That's the summary from the writing front.
Sweetie wants me to tell everyone that I beat her with a foam bat. I have never beat her with a foam bat.
My rave:
I am a huge fan of the redesign of the US currency. I love the new twenties and the overall look of the new bills. Classic with some modernist talking points. But it is in the realm of coinage that the new currency design is really taking flight. The state quarters have been, till now, mostly novelties (with the exception of the gorgeous Connecticut). However, the scheme has come of age with the introduction of the Kansas quarter. The new Kansas state quarter, if you haven't seen it, is beautiful. The usual image of Geo. Washington on the obverse, but on the reverse a humane and amazingly transcendent image of a buffalo among wild flowers of the plains. Absolutely sublime. Simplicity as art. After the confusing, inelegant jumbles of such quarters as (backstabber that I am) California and Minnesota, the Kansas shows the power of coinage as a venue for public art.
In addition, the new 2005 nickels are wonders of cutting edge design. The enlarged and slightly off-set image of Thom. Jefferson on the obverse brings a "cents" of motion to this piece. I particularly enjoy the way the scripted word "Liberty" seems to be flowing out from his mouth. Together with the buffalo reverse (which is a tribute to the original buffalo nickel and which the Kansas quarter evokes) these new nickels show that US currency can be both beautiful and meaningful.
Kudos to the U.S. Mint and the Department of the Treasury!
Out.
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... notes from an immigrant to New France.
Books I Read 2009
- The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
- Brainiac by Ken Jennings
- Fun Home Allison Bechtel
- Lush Life by Richard Price
- Election by Tom Perrota
- Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
- McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes Editors of McSweeney's
- Mating by Norman Rush
About Me
Links
Books I Read in 2008
- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Perfume by Patrick Suskind
- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
- Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (!)
- Fortress of Solitude Jonathan Letham
- A Meal Observed by Andrew Todhunter
- The Road Cormac McCarthy
- Little Children by Tom Perrotta
- The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
- Roads by Larry McMurtry
- Underground by Haruki Murakami
- Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Books I Read in 2007
- Best Golf Writing by Dan Jenkins
- Independence Day by Richard Ford
- Ben Hogan by James Dodson
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
- Everyman by Philip Roth
- America's Words of Freedom by Stephen Rohde, et al.
- The Sportswriter by Richard Ford (!)
- The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
- Tales from Q School by John Feinstein
- All the Presidents' Pastries by Roland Mesnier
- Look To Windward by Iain M. Banks
- Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
- You're Not the Boss of Me! by Erika Schickel
- The Bogey Man by George Plimpton
- Erasure by Percival Everett (!)
- Bury Me in a Pot Bunker by Pete Dye
- The House of Meetings by Martin Amis (!)
- The Game I Love by Sam Snead
- One L by Scott Turow
- Eternal Summer by Curt Sampson
- Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Meyers
- (?) = I don't get it.
- (!) = Great!
2 comments:
While I can relate to the new nickels (being that my earliest DJ name was Buffalo Nickel), I'm kind of creeped out by the head side: it looks like ol' TJ is giving me a sideways glance reserved for people who have a growly belly during a group photo. It must be my imagination. Regardless, I do like the coin just because of the buffalo; much better than last year's "crossed firemen's axes" tailside.
You're also right about the Minnesota quarter: BOORRING! They really wussed out. Two ideas that would have been better: 1) a composite image of all 10,000 lakes, or 2) a picture of Jesse Ventura cleverly disguised as Paul Bunyan. As for Kansas, I haven't see it yet but I can't wait (I love buffalo). It makes me wonder if the designers learned a lesson from lame quarters like MN, SC, FL, NY and a host of others; I hope Kansas' aesthetic helps guide the designers for future quarters, but it also leaves me to wonder if the designers of those aforementioned lame quarters look at their own quarters with disdain and regret.
Love, JC
P.S. Kansas might have a beautiful quarter but nothing beats the Sacagewea dollar, heads or tails.
Waitwaitwait
I just reread the upper half of this entry and I love how you used a portmanteau (it's a word I learned from Wikipedia) of "ludicrous" and the rap name "Ludacris." It will inspire me to use more rap names in my own writing i.e. "I don't like the flava of Coke Zero versus ginuwine Coke."
Good luck with Chronic P. and Sandow.
JC
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