Vacationland magazine, 1981

If you come to Disneyland with me, you will have a dull time. Since I can go at any time, any attraction with a line is out of the question. I avoid the parade after seeing it for the first time. I prefer a slow and easy experience. I like sitting on Main Street, riding the Disneyland Railroad, and the Mark Twain Riverboat.

It’s not that the attractions with lines aren’t worth the wait. I typically say, “Oh, too long. Let’s do that next time.” So, you can see, after walking around the park with me passing every attraction, you would not be happy.

Here’s the secret to sitting on Main Street: get some popcorn, or ice cream and sit on a bench at the Railroad Station. If you buy ice cream, never go to Gibson Girl. Use the Main Street Cone Shop, which is on the side street behind the Market House. Don’t sit on the curb, unless you’re watching a parade. It’s like being homeless at Disneyland and people may step on you.

When you ride the Mark Twain, head for the Promenade Deck (the second floor for land-lubbers) and the bow of the ship. Everyone else will race up the stairs to the top Texas Deck, or scramble for the chairs on the Main Deck. Relax, and take in the scenery. There’s no need to race around the ship like a headless chicken; you can ride it as many times as you like. And go to the bathroom before boarding. You don’t want to be on the far side of Tom Sawyer Island and tugging on doors hoping to find a restroom. There isn’t one.

Disneyland Mark Twain Riverboat poster, 1955

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Alexey Brodovitch, Ballet, 1945

For those of you too young to remember life before iPhoto and the picture books, there once was a time photographs were physical objects, and went into a shoebox. If you wanted to make a book for your friends, you needed to stick the photos into ugly Holly Hobbie “photo-books” with plastic and waxy boards. Of course, now we can simply order a book of our personal images from Apple and, except for the “crayon” theme, make something tasteful.

One of my favorite publications is Alexey Brodovitch’s Ballet. For years, Brodovitch took snapshots at the ballet. He didn’t hire Richard Avedon to shoot them. He didn’t use a flash or worry about perfect lighting. The result is often a blur of motion and light. In 1945, this was not “real” photography. Using the standards of the time, these are simply amateur snapshots. Fortunately, this rigid definition didn’t deter Brodovitch. The blurred motion and full bleed images create the sensation of the ballet, as opposed to simply documenting it. The ornamental typography doesn’t attempt to be international style, modernist, or “high-design”. It is exuberantly about the ballet.

As I’ve said before, I truly admire work that has the courage to be about joy and delight. Ballet is a masterpiece. While we look at the book now as “high design,” it is, in fact, about something frivolous and transitory. But, aren’t those the things in life that are the most wonderful?

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the garden room, Better Homes and Gardens Decorating 1968

There is a sofa at my grandparents’ house that we all call “the Nancy Reagan” sofa. I like it, nobody else does. I’d put it in my house, but it weighs a ton because it’s a sleeper sofa, and impossible to move. And I have no idea where to put it. My other grandmother had a cousin who was a bastion of good taste, Nancy Lancaster. Lancaster is credited with creating “the English-country” style. My mother and aunts follow this style. So that side of the family would not approve of the sunny and flowered Nancy Reagan sofa.

I found a book, though, that helps me understand how to change my décor to accommodate the Nancy Reagan sofa, The Better Homes and Gardens Decorating Book from 1968. It clearly demonstrates how to use purple and green as a color scheme, or golden harvest as a theme. I particularly like the burnt orange and brown Venetian inspired kitchen. The room for a college student is nifty, too. I can imagine a bong on the shelf and some Jefferson Airplane posters adding some individual personality. The purple and magenta room gives me a perfect way to use the Nancy Reagan sofa.

If I do this, I will be leaving behind ½ of my family. My mother’s side (the Nancy Lancaster side) will never accept this. I will be ostracized or pitied for my awful and tragic taste.

the purple room, Better Homes and Gardens Decorating 1968

the teenage dope room, Better Homes and Gardens Decorating 1968

detail from the teenage dope room

the snappy cabinet, Better Homes and Gardens Decorating 1968

the Venetian kitchen, Better Homes and Gardens Decorating 1968

the green room, Better Homes and Gardens Decorating 1968

the Nancy Reagan sofa

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That Girl paperback novel

There is a rumor that people in Los Angeles don’t read. But, I’ve heard that Los Angeles is one of the biggest book markets in the world. That sounds impressive, as if we were all reading Also sprach Zarathustra in the original German by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. The reality probably includes this and enormous amounts of Jackie Collins novels. I found another alternative. Paperback books that are written for the truly intellectual. People who have read everything, and I mean everything are desperate for new content. A book adaptation of a 22-minute Adam 12 episode fills this need. Yes, it is possible to fill 224 pages with the spine-tingling plot of “Three hundred pounds of drunken driver menaces a quiet pedestrian street.”

Once you know all there is to know and are close to omniscience, or oneness with the universe, you need the novel That Girl. But stop, it’s not just Marlo Thomas running around town with a flippy hair-do. In this iteration, That Girl is Cathy from Wuthering Heights, “wandering the moors for eternity in search of her lost love, Heathcliff.” If Emily Brontë had the option to rewrite Cathy’s character as a perky young woman splitting her time between Heathcliff and auditions she would. ”Oh, Donald, I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.”

The gripping plot, That Girl paperback

Adam 12, The Runaway, paperback

additional sub-plots

TV69, not innuendo

Wild Wild West, and this needs no comment

Laugh-In, episode 12, the book adaptation

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Sean Adams, sketchbook page in Graphic

Writing books is hard. First you are required to write; that’s hard. Then you need to find images. That’s hard. And you must have the rights to use the images; harder. Somehow my friend, Steven Heller, manages to do this continuously. If I heard that the United States government was going after Steven for having a monopoly, I wouldn’t be surprised. If you need a well-written book about design, go no further.

Steven’s recent book, Graphic, Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers, co-written with Lita Talarico is a gem. Sharing your sketchbooks is not easy. They reveal a sliver of your internal processes. In some instances, such as Ed Fella, it is clear that Ed’s head is a complex swirl of forms and ideas. Ken Carbone’s remarkably beautiful and numerous sketchbooks betray a mind that is disciplined, careful, and sees a world that is lush and beautiful. Michael Bierut’s sketchbooks seem to point to an obsession with the letter “M”. They also have that wonderful mixture of words and images that is integral to Michael’s work. Marian Bantjes sketchbooks, are, surprise, unlike anything actual human beings can create. Since she lives in the backwoods of British Columbia, and alien abduction movies seem to be set there, well, you do the math.

My sketchbooks do a wonderful job of revealing just how shallow I am. Pretty colors and funny charts. I was there when they were created, and typically, I was sketching while someone was explaining something. This led to my standard response of looking up from my book, as if I were taking notes, and saying, “I’m so sorry, could you repeat that?”

Sean Adams, sketchbook page in Graphic

Sean Adams, sketchbook page in Graphic

Sean Adams, sketchbook page in Graphic

Marian Bantjes, sketchbook page in Graphic

Marian Bantjes, sketchbook page in Graphic

Michael Bierut, sketchbook page in Graphic

Michael Bierut, sketchbook page in Graphic

Ken Carbone, sketchbook page in Graphic

Ken Carbone, sketchbook page in Graphic

Ed Fella, sketchbook page in Graphic

Ed Fella, sketchbook page in Graphic

Graphic, Inside the Sketchbooks of the World's Great Graphic Designers

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