Maldon Salt (Page 98)

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Time as construct. Time, architected.

The thing I love most about experimental film is the way it allows for architecting time. I spent a year studying experimental film in grad school but haven’t made any films since. I miss it. Today is the autumnal equinox, when the hours of sunlight balance the hours of

On urban semiotics and self image.

In This Means This, This Means That: A User’s Guide To Semiotics, author Sean Hall outlines key semiotic concepts (in which are cloaked Peirce’s sign, object, and interpretant): Sender (who) Intention (with what aim) Message (says what) Transmission (by which means) Noise (with what interference) Receiver (to whom)

How Steve Jobs got me through grad school.

Will is an engineer. I am a designer. When we first got married, I was a Mac, he was a PC *. My goal was to change that. In February 2004 while I was finalizing grad school applications, he switched, ditching his ugly Dell for a 17″ aluminum PowerBook. He used

On design, disability, and the Rocky Mountains.

One of my favorite design books is Design Meets Disability by Graham Pullin. It’s a book that explores the positive impact design can have on disability. For example, consider what design has done for eyeglasses, explained in a glowing review by Donald Norman: A powerful, important book. Eyeglasses made

On Laser GaGa and beautiful mathematics.

I often credit my aesthetic sensibilities to growing up in the beautiful Rockies, but maybe they’re due instead to the Spirograph. As a kid in the 70s, I loved this toy. Really, really loved it. I can’t even begin to count the number of snowy nights spent making

How I came to meet Howard Schultz and why he's good for America.

Dead homeless people in the alley. Pot smoking in the bathrooms. Unsolicited crushes from the mentally ill who roamed the streets near the University of Washington. This is what life was like when I worked for Starbucks on the Ave (“the Ave” being University Way in Seattle’s U-District). I

Modern Love rejected.

Laura and me. Seattle, 2005. In July, I submitted the following essay to the New York Times Modern Love column. Sadly, it was rejected: Dear Callie Neylan, Thank you for sending your writing to Modern Love. Although we have decided not to use your essay, we are grateful for the

On artisanal food and artisanal technology.

I don’t know what it is about the Pacific Northwest and food, but I’m really glad to be going back to it (I’m seriously considering writing a book about it someday, though – what do you think?). One of the things I’ve missed the most while living

When you're in love with a beautiful house.

On Saturday, after almost five years on the East Coast, I left Baltimore. On the plane ride to Seattle, I penned a love letter on my iPad to my house on Lafayette Avenue, my home for almost four years. It’s a beautiful 19th-century rowhouse – tall, stately, well-crafted and elegant

How colonial social media gave us the Star-Spangled Banner.

An amazing rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner by seven-year old (!!) Rhema Marvanne. Equally amazing rendition by Jordan Shelton, winner of the Smithsonian’s National Anthem Singing Contest. Let’s be honest: before moving to the mid-Atlantic, my knowledge of early American history was hazy at best. History was my least