J. Cole featuring Deacon, “Carolina On My Mind”, The Come Up

(via Sports Illustrated)

Via “The Berlin Wall: A Lesson in Change”, The Atlantic:

There’s been a lot of discussion, this week, about whether President Obama has fulfilled enough promises or expectations of change since his election a year ago. “I voted for him, and I really thought everything would be different,” one disappointed voter from Iowa said in a televised interview.

It would be easy to dismiss the expectations of such voters as unrealistic or naive, but we often expect more from big watershed events, and in more sweeping, immediate fashion, than life dishes out. Consider, for example, another important anniversary coming up on Monday: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

On November 9, 1989, after weeks of protest and slow chiseling away of the East German Politburo’s power, the East German government announced that henceforth, East Berliners could travel freely to the west. Faced with massive crowds at the border checkpoints, the guards opened the gates, and people streamed through. A party erupted on top of the wall, and people started hacking away at it with hammers and picks. 

It was a celebration and global party; the end of an era that had brought incalculable pain to millions of Germans separated from family members and death to thousands, over the years, who had tried to cross over to the west anyway. I wrote about some of the sacrifices, and the lingering legacy of the Wall, in an essay on this site last May, after a German artist released an exhibit sparked by the anniversary of the Wall’s demise.

Full Article.

(via graphic hug)

(via cosmic disciple)

(via The New York Times)

Mos Def, “No Hay Nada Mas”, The Ecstatic

(via Erik Nitsche)

Barry Stone via Tiny Vices.

(via offal ficks)

Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dog, “Little Ghetto Boy”, The Chronic

[Ed. Note: I used to hear this same flute — in my head — when I would play ball. Also, this is a re-imagining of Donny Hathaway’s original, which was just as sociologically valid for its time and the societal niche it dealt with, pre-dating the updated track by roughly thirty years. And further, this song rips, because this is early, peak of his powers, to the point of even, at times, using a Jamaican patois —super-raw-and-not-a-somewhat-burned-out-joke — Snoop Dogg. The audio clip at the beginning is from the 1992 L.A. riots or the “1992 Civil Unrest,” and it is a fairly famed piece of L.A. news clip fodder from that time. The music that came just before and after the burned-out buildings and the vivid display of have-nots fully expressing their frustrations at what they perceived — and I agree — to be a rigged system of capitalism and institutionally entrenched inequalities, are throughout most of the hip-hop work of early ’90s L.A.; and in Ice Cube and Dr. Dre in particular, but it’s too bad the only people who were listening were kids. This song is more individually introspective than those other works, but it explains fairly well a particular social psychology that is present out there in the marginalized populations. (Off my soapbox.)]

Via “Narcotic Stimulant Norms”, Future Perfect:

Packaging for the local stimulant Nasvai, widely available [in] downtown Kabul.

Compare and contrast the packaging to Tajikistan here and enjoy this write-up of side-effects from the ever dependable Khazakstan Pravda. For once [I] didn’t feel compelled to taste.

Via “Designing Obama”, Design Observer:

I was talking recently with a group of graphic designers. The subject was good work: not doing it, but how to get it accepted. Designers like to complain. We cast ourselves as embattled defenders of good taste and inventive ideas; arrayed against us are armies of insensitive clients, determined to thwart us, whose pigheadedness can only be defeated by dedication, cunning and guile. 

We traded war stories for a while, but one seasoned designer in our midst was silent. We finally asked him what tricks he used to get good work done. “Well, I guess I’m lazy,” he said. “I just make sure all my clients are smart people with unique messages and good products. The rest is easy.”

The rest is easy. Looking back at the design work that led to Barack Obama’s historic victory in November 2008, I wonder if that was the trick. Although much has been made — rightly so — of the ingenious and adaptable “O” logo developed by Sol Sender’s team, Obama himself was his own best logo. Young, African-American, charismatic, change wasn’t just a message, it was the candidate’s very embodiment. When it was all said and done, Barack Obama was a smart guy with a unique message and a good product. And what designer wouldn’t wish for that in a client?

Selling change isn’t easy in a world that tends to prefer the comfort of the familiar. We all know what a revolution looks like: handmade signs, scrawled graffiti, the voice of the people. But Obama’s campaign was the opposite. Reportedly, the candidate resisted at first. “He did not initially like the campaign’s blue and white logo — intended to appear like a horizon, symbolizing hope and opportunity — saying he found it too polished and corporate,” reported the New York Times. But David Axelrod and his team prevailed. They must have known that the revolution, when it finally came, would have to be wrapped up in the most comprehensive corporate identity program the 21st century has yet seen. And it worked, as Designing Obama, the new book from Scott Thomas, Design Director of New Media for Obama for America, reveals.

Full Article.

[Ed. Note: Charlotte’s reaction to this interaction, is pretty much me; in real life.]

(via Twelve Car Pileup)