Patagonia’s reversible shoebox

My husband purchased a pair of Patagonia shoes at REI, and we discovered a pleasant surprise in their packaging: the box is printed on the inside and is reversible. Either way, the box is very attractive, brown card printed in blue ink:

http://www.slideshare.net/evanpebo/patagonia-recyclable-shoe-box

The above posted photos showing various views.

After googling around a little, here’s another post:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/3187204355/

Surprisingly I didn’t find a direct link to Patagonia’s site. No PR, marketing? Or has this product been around so long that it’s no longer news? Patagonia is heavily invested in environmentalism:
http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=2329

Well, thanks, Patagonia. More companies need to be this forward-thinking.

Kickstarter.com: Hope for the Artistic Innovator

Thank you again, Rob Walker. The NYT magazine, as always my source for the best and brightest:

Keith Richards ‘stab to the heart’

I read this excerpt from Life by Keith Richards, in David L. Ulin’s review in today’s LA Times:

“‘to write a song that is remembered and taken to heart,’ Richards notes, ‘is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart.'”

 

30reasons.org Offers Obama Posters

You can sign up for a poster a day, beginning October 5, to see what top graphic designers think are good reasons to vote for Obama. Several designers at Thinkso Creative LLC came up with this idea. The designers asked the prestigious Milton Glaser and 29 others to create the posters. Go to 30reasons.org to sign up via email.

David Byrne in London

Some people might accuse me of spending too much time blogging, but I find that there are a very small number of blogs that I like well enough to read often. I find David Byrne’s web site journal to be insightful, funny and well-written. Here is a post from his 20 May post is about a trip to London.

I like his observations about that curious English blend of “country cottage folk” with sophistication and class-consciousness.

He also has a lot of amusing comments on the London art and museum scene.

Craft: and craftzine.com

My favorite blog right now is craftzine.com for the great articles, like a review of The Crafter Culture by Amy Spencer.

I first discovered Craft: in the basement of Blackwell’s, in the computer book section. This didn’t make sense at the time, until I noticed Craft: was an O’Reilly publication. I’d purchased a Javascript manual from them in the past, but evidently they publish titles in “digital culture,” why of course, and now I should be getting it, having tried to shuffle a little closer to that cutting edge of late.

My sweets is telling me it’s “TV time,” (meaning watch a dvd on a laptop, since we refused to purchase a TV license), and tonite it’s Boogie Nights (we watch our favorites over quite often since there’ not a great selection). So, adios for now.

Jeffrey Sachs Delivers Inspiring Speech

I just listened to one of the Reith Lectures, held at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York. You can download the podcast or listen to it at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture3.shtml

There are also links to the text of previous lectures (recorded version is only available for the current lecture).

Jeffrey Sachs seemed to give the hopeful message that we have it in us to make peace (with?) in the world. He mentioned that human nature tends toward cooperation, but when threatened strikes out in fear of violence from a perceived adversary:

We are actually primed psychologically, and probably genetically, to cooperate, but only conditionally so. In a situation of low fear, each of us is prone to cooperate and to share — even with a stranger. Yet when that trust evaporates, each of us is primed to revert to conflict, lest we are bettered by the other. Game theorists call this strategy “Tit for Tat,” according to which we cooperate at the outset, but retaliate when cooperation breaks down. The risk, obviously, is an accident, in which cooperation collapses, and both sides get caught in a trap in which conflict becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In that all-too-real nightmare, we end up fighting because we fear that the other will fight. This fear is confirmed by fear itself. Wars occur despite the absence of any deeper causes.

He also pointed out the conflicts due to arise with the current shift of power between the U.S. (the “leading power”) , and China (the “rising power”), and how it parallels the relationship between Germany and the British Empire that led to WWI.

I found that part pretty sobering, but then what else has been the U.S. policy since at least the 50’s?

Especially moving was when Ted Sorensen, who co-wrote/wrote the famous “ask not what you can do for your country” speech, (43 years ago) was invited to speak from the audience and more about how the speech changed history.