Graceland and the self titled debut by Paul Simon

When a friend asked me if I knew the album Graceland by Paul Simon, I didn’t have a straight answer. I went through the musical Rolodex in my head….

Sure I knew who Paul Simon was. He did that eerie song “The Sound of Silence” with Art Garfunkel. And Paul Simon….yeah, he’s done some great pop songs as a solo artist too, some of which I even had mp3s of on my computer. I had a surface knowledge of the man, but had never gone any deeper with his music.

Paul Simon….Graceland….sure, I know the song….but…I reluctantly admitted the answer “No. No I don’t know the album Graceland.”

A copy was burned for me to take on my solo road trip – San Francisco to Chicago and back. I popped it in the first time while driving through the Nevada desert.

Alone in the middle of pure unadulterated beauty the title track comes on:

The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar,
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war

The scenery is different, but the feeling of beauty, freedom, and awe is the same.

I listened to it again before I left Nevada, then again somewhere in Utah. The album became the anthem for my trip. I passed a guy on a motorcycle wearing a Graceland Harley Davidson shirt. Then the stretch of I-55 I was on in IL became the “Paul Simon Freeway” (after the Senator from IL). I considered making a pilgrimage to Graceland right then and there. Not for Elvis, but for Paul Simon.

Paul Simon can write a great hook, but more than that the man is an amazing storyteller. His songs tend to not be grand fabricated stories about sex, drugs, and/or rock and roll. Instead, he is a master of the casual story. The everyday mundane is beautiful and perfect when told through his soft and high-pitched voice.

And the man isn’t afraid to take risks. He experimented with funky rhythms not typical at the time to the white pop/folk artist. Graceland, for example, was recorded in South Africa and the influence of the region is infused throughout the record.

When I got to Chicago I scoured my dad’s old record collection for some gems to bring back to SF with me. I came across Paul Simon, the self-titled solo debut.

Holy hell. What an amazing album. While softer and more “folksy” than Graceland, the storytelling is just as brilliant. There is also a hint of world music influence. The first song, “Mother and Child Reunion,” is a reggae tune. Where Graceland’s South African influence weaves throughout the album, the reggae influence stops with the first song on Paul Simon. Where it is slightly less cohesive in its sound than Graceland it’s not less brilliant. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard is a funky and upbeat song that was a top 40 hit. The rest of the album is more low key than the aforementioned tracks, but has a subtle beauty that is impossible to ignore.

Understated beauty: Papa Hobo from the album Paul Simon

While these two albums have made it into my large list of desert island music, I’ve been reluctant to explore Paul Simon’s music further. I’ve read that his discography is pretty hit or miss and sometimes uninspired, but I would be thrilled to find this description inaccurate.

What does a writer among a warehouse full of visual artists do for an open studio?  Some would say “nothing,” feeling that their medium of choice wasn’t valid for an open studio with an overwhelming majority of painters. Up and coming San Francisco novelist, Ian Tuttle, felt differently. He wanted to create a space that was interactive where he could engage visitors, get feedback on his writing, and maybe gain a few followers to his new blog.

Tuttle created an installation out of his office. The walls were covered with his writing. Each sheet of paper was stuck to the wall with a piece of black electrical tape, the tape creating stark contrast on the white wall and allowing the pages to have movement.  The center piece of the installation was a vintage typewriter inciting studio goers with its round and shiny keys. Rolled into the machine was a clean sheet of white paper. Next to the typewriter was a box with folded strips of paper. A sign above the box had an arrow pointing to it asking visitors to “please take a fortune”. The strips of paper contained a single profound sentence written by Tuttle.

The installation was a huge hit, and by the end of the night had an aspect of performance included. When the last fortune was handed out, Tuttle stepped up. He sat at the typewriter offering custom fortunes for anyone who wandered by. He concentrated on the person in question for a few seconds, then turned to his typewriter to write a few lines of insight.

The installation was well done and a great way for someone whose art is not normally visual to have a visual display.

Visit Ian Tuttle on the web
Blog: StretchyHead
Personal Site: Words of Every Type

Helvetica/Arial logo quiz by Ironic Sans

Anyone in the design world, and even some who aren’t (thanks largely to the movie of the same name) are familiar with the typeface Helvetica. Helvetica was developed in Switzerland in 1957 to be used in a wide verity of circumstances. It was designed with clarity in mind and without any defining flourishes. I would personally describe the font as very uniform, geometric, and square. Its popularity is astounding and it’s a very well respected typeface today just as it was when it was initially developed.

In 1982 Microsoft developed a typeface called Arial to be bundled with their software package Most people in the know will tell you that Arial is a cheap imitation of Helvetica, and are appalled when they see it used in design.

Can you tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica? Here are a couple of quizes to test your typography smarts.

Choose if a set of phrases are written in Arial or Helvetica

Helvetica/Arial logo quiz. Which is the original (Helvetica)?