A friend has long sworn by the coffee this remarkable object makes. The Cona coffee maker. But I also find it extremely elegant to look at. The design is by Abram Games. The device is still available from Gezang.
Mr. Games is more famous as a poster designer. Here’s his work for the then-upcoming centenary of the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 1975. It uses the titles of each of the plays.
Taco Bell used to have a whole series of commercials featuring a talking Chihuahua. This was my favorite, a movie tie-in with a US Godzilla:
I like this particular one because of the ‘tude. “I can take him… I just need a bigger box.”
This reminds me of a prank pulled by Harvey Mudd College against CalTech. The two colleges have a longstanding rivalry, both being engineering schools. (A rivalry Tech’ers insist doesn’t exist — even as they think up their next prank.)
There’s a large cannon in the middle of CalTech’s campus. A group of enterprising Mudders decided it would be fun to steal it. They consulted a recent alum on how to do this. He reportedly got a faraway look and said:
“You guys are going to need a big crane.”
Not, “No, that would be wrong.” Not, “Have you considered what the jail terms might be?” No… You guys can take ‘em. You just need a big enough box. Er, um, crane.
The spirit that builds great things.
From Blake Edwards’ other great movie, The Great Race. Lexicon, obvs.
Early in our relationship — so, late 1980s or so — we were driving around, and Ulrika mentioned beige Volvos. And I said, “Beige Volvos? Do they even make those?”
Whereupon we saw about five beige Volvos in the next fifteen miles. (This was on an LA freeway. That’s a short distance.)
“Beige Volvos” has become our shorthand for something that is ubiquitous, but invisible, until your attention is called to it. (I think there’s a different term for it, but this is ours.)