ex libris

As part of a recent user interface study I talked to about thirty Web shoppers about their online shopping habits and learned not only that 1) the reach of the kinds and types of sites that they frequented was remarkable in its diversity with 2) one remarkable exception.

They all shopped Amazon.com.

I knew Amazon was big. I knew that Amazon sells across many categories and has substantial penetration in online search both paid and organic, but it was the study -- conducted across a diversity of age groups, economic strata, geographical location, and experience with the Web -- that drove home how deeply Amazon.com represents online shopping in American minds.

Everyone shops at Amazon.

And, of course, I do too. I even used Amazon to source a recent camera purchase -- the merchant was Adorama, but Amazon was the middle man.

When I’m traveling and I spot a title that I want but don’t want to pack I make a note of it -- and later I’ll pick it up online. At Amazon.

It’s easy. They have my account info. If I buy a bunch at once they ship it to me for free.

At an industry conference recently I heard a catalog copy writer comment on “B.A.” and “A.A.” -- Before Amazon and After Amazon. Before Amazon the catalog successfully carried books and DVDs as part of their core assortment -- titles that appealed to their base. After Amazon? They have a warehouse full of titles that they can't move.

And it’s no secret that independent booksellers are struggling in the age of Amazon. Cody's Books in Berkeley is only one example of an indie that's been recently forced to close given the changing market.



Yesterday I spent a few spare minutes at the Harvard Book Store before I had to head out to Logan International. I had been hoping for a few hours at least to tool around Cambridge, but the meeting got pushed back and then ran a couple hours longer than expected, so in truth I had twenty minutes. Which I unwisely pushed to 30 (unwisely because those few minutes almost made me miss my flight). But I don’t regret them.

In twenty minutes during my quick browse through one of America’s oldest bookstores I found a mother lode of titles that were relevant to my interests, that through their proximity to other titles, other categories, carried me into other shining veins of discovery. For the last ten minutes I debated whether I should buy all five of the titles that I had to have, or save a few for later.

I was reminded of something I heard when I sat on a citizen’s advisory council for the Seattle Public Library (back when they were trying to bankroll that Koolhaas Main Library, before they knew it was Koolhaas who would do it): The importance of the stack. SPL was adamant about keeping the books out and available and browseable; adamant about letting folks wander through the dusty shelves and discover what all was out there.

They felt the stacks afforded a means of discovery that was difficult to attain in the flat virtual space of the online directory -- which had only recently replaced the card catalog.



Sidereal recently turned me on to an online bookstore -- Zoomii.com -- that takes the stack model and brings it alive online. It looks to me like Zoomii may be an affiliate partner of Amazon, meaning they merchandise the goods, Amazon takes your order and fulfills it, and Zoomii receives a slice of that revenue for sending the order their way.

It tries to tackle the stack, and is a lot of fun to browse, but still. It’s not quite the same, is it?

My long rambling point is only this: Yesterday I was reminded how rare and remarkable independent bookstores are; the brain trust that goes into building and maintaining the information architecture of these places, the branching paths of relevancy and curious associations. The thrill of finding that book by those authors who answer the questions you’ve cradled forever -- or at very least asks them too, so you realize you’re not so alone.

At the end I decided to save two titles for later, and yes I loaded them into my Amazon wish list almost as soon as I got home. But I’ve made myself a promise to buy them from harvard.com, the bookstore that brought them to my attention. I’ve made myself a promise to do more of that, to order less from Amazon and more from the independent bookstores that I love, because I need them to learn more about who I am, and I can’t bear to see them go.

A few of my favorite independent booksellers:
Elliott Bay Books, Seattle
Prairie Avenue Books, Chicago
The Tattered Cover, Denver
Powell’s Books, Portland
Bailey/Coy, Seattle
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge
City Lights, San Francisco
Trident Booksellers, Boulder
Boulder Bookstore, Boulder

blue skies, mass ave

blue skies, mass ave
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone from
Logan Int'l. Shot near Harvard
just prior to my harrowing
meander through city streets
to Logan Int'l.

Drove by zen and somehow,
miraculously, and contrary
to my nature, found my way.

And just. Squeaked. My flight.

a full-service organization

a full-service organization
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

I've got some needs.
Whatcha got for me?

Posting by cameraphone
from Cambridge, Mass.

the fabulous wall of flying discs

the fabulous wall of flying discs
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Friends' house -- friend's discs --
near Harvard Yard.

Posting by cameraphone from
Cambridge, MASS.

wrong way

wrong way
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone
from Boston, MA

¿dónde está?

It seems there's not as much ambiguity in the visual world as you might guess.

Estimating geographic information from images is a difficult, but very much a doable, computer vision problem.

Carnegie Mellon graduate student James Hays speaking in a CM press release about the visual pattern recognition system that he developed with Assistant Professor Alexei A. Efros which uses geotagged Flickr photos to place any geographically specific image on the map.

Hays and Efros' algorithm can accurately geolocate the images within 200 kilometers for 16 percent of more than 200 photos in their test set -- up to 30 times better than chance.

The system "analyzes the composition of the photo, notes how textures and colors are distributed and records the number and orientation of lines in the photo. It then searches Flickr for photos that are similar in appearance."

It'll be interesting to see whether the same algorithm can be applied to video.

Read the press release »

single track expressway

Standing by my speculation that Florida has more monorails than anywhere else on earth.

Just guessing. But pretty confident.

Epcot
Orlando, FL

holga.

hang plumb

Hanging from the stern of the Viking in Geneva, IL.

vaer saa god

Expected to spend a few brief hours at Swedish Days in Geneva, Illinois yesterday -- down a little kringle, admire the Lutheran ladies’ rosemahling, wander through the vendors’ stalls and then head on home for a nap. But things took a turn when we went looking for the Viking ship.

The Viking was built in Norway just a few brief years after the gorgeous Gokstad was unearthed in Norway in 1880 -- a stunning wooden ship that was probably built around 890 A.D. and is now housed in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.



Chicago, being brash Chicago, suggested that Norway should send over the precious artifact, thinking it would be cool to display it during the World's Fair in 1893. Norway wisely said no. But some Norwegians got the idea that it would be equally cool to build a replica and sail it across the Atlantic to Chicago. (Crazy Norwegians.) So that’s what they did.

The Viking sailed from Bergen, Norway to Chicago in time for the World’s Fair, and was met at each port, our guide told us, by Scandinavian immigrants waving flags and offering free meals. It did a brief tour after the Fair down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then sat and moldered for a long while after that in Lincoln Park, and today is undergoing extensive renovations in the skilled hands of master boat builders under a big tarp in Good Templar Park in Geneva.

And here is where our story begins.

After a whole lot of hunting we found the park which was difficult to track down because it wasn’t situated like you would expect a city park to be -- reason being: it’s not a city park.

Good Templar Park is a privately-owned Temperance Park, established by the International Organization of Good Templars in the early 1900s to provide Swedes with a teetotalling alternative to the raucous Swedish Days which were then being conducted up at Ravinia.

We bought tickets, which seemed steep at ten bucks, and wandered over to the Viking ship tent, poked around under the canvas and circled the stripped down hull. I took some shots of plumb lines and rusted screws and grumbled about how much cooler the real one is in Oslo while we waited for our guide to get started.



The guide, a retired school teacher full of heart, did a great job of redeeming the hull, telling us about its construction and its passage and its restoration -- and how excited the kids get when they come to visit. But the real prize came unexpectedly when we were handed off to another fellow for the “Cottage Tour”.

Turns out there are 52 small cottages nestled away in Good Templar Park, built from between the park’s inception until today, hidden in the understory of ancient high-arching hard woods. Cottages are still being built, albeit according to strict guidelines ordained by the park’s residents. Cottage owners own the cottage only -- the Good Templars own the park land.

Our guide took us into the shady recesses of the park and through a few of the cottages: Most of them clapboard, one stunner made of rough hewn logs, the majority still populated with the early cast iron or propane stoves that were installed when the cottages were first constructed.

We crisscrossed a dry stream bed on foot bridges built by residents and descended at one point into a hollow on a staircase made of rough cherry wood and birch trees that had fallen during a storm in the park.



The cottages are occupied by their residents from late spring through early fall and none of them have true toilets -- they all share a common washhouse in the center of the park, near the Meeting House -- although a few have installed chamber pot like thrones and one matriarch has an electric toilet: “the pride of the park” we were told.

To own a cottage in Good Templar Park one must be, in fact, a good Templar, and sign an oath to abstain from alcohol and illegal drugs. The Good Templars were heavily invested in America’s Temperance Movement and eventual Prohibition, and are still proud of the fact that their little park remains a dry pocket in an inebriated world.



The few residents we met were sweet souled folk and generous, to let us tromp through their summer homes. One gentleman greeted us on his stoop with a formal welcome that he wrote out by hand on paper torn from a spiral binder; another cottage owner took us on a story-rich detailed tour of all the “Scandinavian Art” that she cherishes (painted plates and textiles; straw creatures and LED-lit battery operated candelabras).

Tellingly, there was evidence in each conversation that this place in the woods was their safe place.

It’s impossible to speak of safety, of course, without implying its opposition -- danger -- and the residents that we met bore that tender bruised look of folks who had been hurt by addiction: Either theirs or another’s. Adding to the sense that we were walking through a place of refuge were the little garden gnomes (like the little fellow in Amelie) who stood sentry around nearly every home.



If you’re of Scandinavian descent -- and the majority of the residents at Good Templar are of Swedish or Norwegian ancestry -- you know that that these gnomes are called Tomtes or Nisses, and are fiercely protective (and vindictive) house spirits who resist change and will ensure the safety of your home so long as you follow the rules and provide the proper attentions. (Porridge with a pat of butter served after dark is one.)

I’ve always dismissed garden gnomes as tchotkes, but I couldn’t dismiss them at Good Templar. They were of such abundance and variety -- peering out from door stoops and through windows -- it was as if they were breeding in the woods.

There was something solemn in their presence that reminded me of the pride of place given to Spirit Houses in Thailand, used to attract benevolent spirits, through offerings and sufficient shelter, to look after the home and its residents and to keep them (the spirits) out of trouble.

David, our guide and, we soon came to learn, an influential committee member who has a say in who’s let into ownership in the park and who’s not -- said to us as we first approached the park: “The only change to come to Good Templar will be evolutionary, not revolutionary” and you could feel it in every shady grove of that place: The invitation -- and perhaps the expectation -- to sit down for coffee with friends; to share some pastries and talk about the world. Talk about the way it is; the way it always will be.

To simply sit and be.

Good Templar conducts Cottage Tours only twice a year, two weekends in a row, starting with Father's Day weekend and extending through Geneva's Swedish Day celebration. They're also holding a summer concert series -- and lucky for you I grabbed a flyer with this season's schedule:

The Midway Ramblers Cajun Band
August 2nd

Phil Cooper and margaret Nelson
August 23rd

Charlotte Madeline
September 27th

Tickets are $10 each unless you're a member of the International Organization of the Good Templars -- then you get a discount. Call 847-845-2640 for yours, or show up at the gate at 528 East Side Drive in Geneva, Illinois.

what am I?

Go 'head: guess.

litter only

litter only
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Just outside the Geneva Public Library.

Geneva, IL
Posting by cameraphone

under wraps. in the rain.

I love the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan. I love the little hotel that I usually stay at because it's right there, near the library. I love that our NY office is just a block or two away. I love the Rose Reading Room, where I can camp out and get some work done in all that light and space and on those lovely long tables lit by those beautiful copper lamps.

A long long time ago I designed the information architecture for the Seattle Public Library's web site where I proposed a component of their site design that they still use today -- a library locator that, when selected, takes the visitor to a page that's dedicated to their local branch. I know: seems like a no brainer today. ;) But this was before MapQuest even (I'm pretty sure) and the Seattle Public Library was working hard to get the public behind funding of a new downtown library building, and they kept hearing complaints from folks who said "MY library is my LOCAL branch." So we wanted to make that idea clear and inclusive in the information architecture of the site. Which we did. [1]

I learned a few months after it went live from my SPL client that she met with the folks from NYPL and they commented that they really liked that locator feature. So guess what they did? Yep: got one of their own.

So yeah: there is a little piece of me that is over the moon happy to think that the NYPL has a little piece of me on their website. Because that part that's stored deep in my heart? The one that loves climbing those double branching stairways and double dog digs the marble washrooms: it's the deep heart parts that are often the hardest to see.


[1] And a footnote: The original execution -- which is not longer out there -- had all of the branches displayed as links on screen in the right hand rail. It's now a dropdown menu which I don't dig as much. It doesn't tell the story in the same way: It doesn't have the same heft that says "We are Us."

nada.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should have no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. — Strunk & White

Write nothing that is not necessary.

and the rocks melt with the sun

When I was in 9th grade and all of 14 years old? I was cast as Martha Muldoon, a failed stage actress, in Blazing Guns at Roaring Gulch: a Western melodrama scheduled to debut during our school’s annual talent show.

Mine was a bit part -- nothing like the time I commanded the stage as Penelope the Pride of the Pickle Factory in the 6th grade -- during which I was responsible for 1) reciting the Robert Burns poem My love is like a red, red rose in its entirety, punching up the hyperbole (I was a failed actress after all), and 2) wearing a tight gold lamé gown that clung all the way down until it flared at my feet like a mermaid. It was accentuated with black crepe that circled me like a vine.

I learned two things from the production: 1) that the Robert Burns poem, once learned, will never leave you (and still it comes to mind every time I spot a red rose, and did again this last weekend when I trimmed my giant rose bush and arranged the blooms -- of which this is one -- in a yellow pitcher that sits on my kitchen table).

I also learned -- through the ardent attentions of a really cute high school boy who came to the production as a friend of a friend (don’t worry, Dad: it didn’t go anywhere) the power of a tightly fitting gold lamé dress. It’s a little startling as a girl of 14 to learn these things -- but you’ve gotta learn sometime, I guess -- about the power of sex of revealed, or partially concealed. It’s still a little unnerving to me, as an old woman now, how a little too much cleavage can make some men stupid (yet somehow endearing), how delightful that kind of attention can be, and also how unsettling.

My love is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June :
My love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while !
And I will come again, my love,
Thou’ it were ten thousand mile.

— Robert Burns

how do you spell del.icio.us?

Sidereal started it.

aka: my del.icio.us tagcloud done up all pretty like.

ticket to ride

You need to push hard into the wind, [using] a big gear, for at least six minutes and no longer than 45 minutes [once or twice a week] to get the aerobic benefits of climbing big hills.

Cyclist and flatlander Christian Vande Velde, who trains outside Chicago, speaking to how it's possible to simulate altitude in this godforsaken terrain in today's New York Times.

Okay. I'll give it a try. (Doesn't mean I won't still long for my daily ride up Sunshine Canyon, just outside Boulder.)

And I'm guessing the descent won't be as much fun.

old dog, new trick

A Thomas Smillie cyanotype from the Smithsonian Collection -- which is now available on Flickr along with 862 (at this count) other copyright-free imagery from the museum.

There's something about the Smithsonian -- "the world's largest museum complex and research organization" -- using Flickr to share its copyright-free imagery with the masses that would have been remarkable once upon a time.

But today makes perfect sense.

Although interestingly the Smithsonian has opted to permit downloads of the assets, but has not enabled blogging or cut and paste html syndication of the imagery. Hmm.

The Smithsonian's Flickr Photostream »

Also of interest: the Smithsonian has posted a robust set of cyanotypes by Smillie -- whom they bill as "The Smithsonian's First Photographer" -- and they're lovely »

Thanks boing boing!

dance like nobody's watching

Ms. Charisse said that her husband, Mr. Martin, always knew whom she had been dancing with. “If I was black and blue,” she said, “it was Gene. And if it was Fred, I didn’t have a scratch.”

The dancer and classic film star Cyd Charisse from a 2002 interview, quoted this morning in her obituary in the New York Times.

Cyd Charisse passed away on Tuesday at the age of 86.


Video: Cyd Charisse in Meet Me In Las Vegas

me & my shadow

disclaimer: not my bike. just my desire.

holga.

the mundaneum

From his armchair, everyone will hear, see, participate, will even be able to aplaud, give ovations, sing in the chorus, add his cries of participation to those of all the others.

Paul Otlet, father of the Mundaneum, a paper based system that prefigured the hyperlink in the early 1900s, speaking to what he imagined his device would make possible. The Mundaneum, and museum that honors it in Mons, Belgium, is featured in today's New York Times.