The Invisible College

Ummm....wow.

Apparently I am in some serious denial about myself.

I could spend all day playing with this.

It frustrates me that it took me the better part of thirty years to discover my love for colour, typography (actually, a bit less for this, but I didn't know of any good resources until the last few years) and design in general.

What's your sign?  What do you think of astrology and horoscopes?

Cancer (July 10).

I don't believe in astrology, but it can be kind of fun to dabble in for entertainment purposes once in a blue moon. Avoid astrology columns in periodicals (newspapers, magazines, etc.), though, because they're universally terrible, especially the ones that are trying to be hip by being ironic or post-modern.

How many computers do you have in your house? 
Submitted by Foomper.

Two, but one of them is an old Apple IIe that I hang on to for nostalgia reasons.

What do you like to make or order for brunch?

French toast with real maple syrup. Mmmmmmmmm.......

I just changed the theme on this blog to hills pink in honour of the Pink for October campaign to raise breast cancer awareness. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the States, and it's an important enough cause to transcend national boundaries. I'm over a week late doing so (I heard about the campaign, intended to change, and then forgot), so my apologies.

(Thanks to Mark Boulton's blog for reminding me)

I lost a grandmother to breast cancer almost 20 years ago, and my mother has had a couple of nervous moments while waiting for what turned out to be cysts to be identified, so this is not just an abstract ideal for me.

If you can, please support breast cancer research.

Whether you enjoy the documentaries of Ken Burns or not is a matter of taste. Only a raving madman, however, can deny that his greatest contribution to humanity was bringing Buck O'Neil to the attention of the broader culture.

I just saw on CNN that Buck O'Neil has died.

Buck was perhaps the last living great of baseball's Negro Leagues, an unfortunate product of a less enlightened time when blacks were not allowed to play in the Major Leagues. Because they were the domain of blacks, mainstream (white) media of the time did not pay the Negro Leagues much heed, and the (white) public did not pay them much mind. Their exploits are poorly documented, and as much legend as fact. Nevertheless, they proved on the field many times that they were the equals of, if not superior to, their Major League peers.

Buck was there, was one of those Jazz Age Paul Bunyans. He was also their James MacGillivray. He kept the tales of the Negro Leagues, an he told the interested of those heroes who lived as second class citizens. Buck knew Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige, among many others, and he did his best to let us know them, too, in all of their larger-than-life glory. He even gave the induction speech for some of them (with the blessing of their surviving families) when they were belatedly and posthumously admitted to the Hall of Fame. Sadly, so far, Buck himself has not been so honoured.

Later in life, Buck was also the first black man to be officially hired as a coach by a Major league ball team, which speaks to his love for, and knowledge of, the game. This was one of the things that made him uniquely qualified to be the oral historian and bard of the Negro Leagues. Buck was also a natural storyteller, with a transparent love for his subject. He found joy in telling his tales. He was a man able to tell others about his wonderful life by telling them about the wonderful people he had the pleasure and privilege to work with and to play with. He also had an incandescent warmth that managed to glow out even through the distance of a television signal. That's why I feel comfortable calling him Buck.

Until today, the last I had heard of Buck was when he took one official at bat in a minor league baseball game, thereby becoming the oldest man ever to do so in a professional baseball game. Similar things have been done before, most memorably by the (I believe) previous record holder, Minnie Minoso, and, before my time, by a midget hired by former Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck. Those were transparent gimmicks, circus sideshows, intended to provide one-time bumps to the attendance of the team hosting them. I'm sure Buck' appearance was planed in that same gimmicky spirit. Buck's dignity, grace, and presence subverted that intent, however, and turned it into a genuine, albeit unintentional, tribute to Buck and all of his former colleagues.

He outshone such attempts at tawdry manipulation.

Sadly, that shine is no more.

Rest in Peace, Buck

(1911-2006)

Does anyone else out there subscribe to IconBuffet's Free Delivery service? I have some sets, but no one to trade with in order to get more.

If you had a band, what would you call yourselves?
Question submitted by Zoot.

The Invisible College

The Invisibles is my all time favourite comic book/graphic novel, and the Invisible College is an indirect reference to it (although it actually began as a euphemism for the Rosicrucians).