David Stairs
Subway foot long churro “Sidekick”
I wonder what makes people want to read about anything?
I mean, if you look casually you can find people holding forth about the most inane topics. There is no lack of fother about Taylor Swift, for instance. The Royal Family burns more column inches than an entire pine forest every week. Discussion boards about wagering on college sports? Ah c’mon. And then there is logo and typography. My god, who can find anything new to say about logo and typography? But people do. In chat rooms. On podcasts. At weblogs. Makes you think maybe we are creatures that like to off-gas.
Take what I am trying to do right now. Searching for something to write about, I am groping, reaching for a thought, struggling to be relevant. Have I been relevant in the past? Possibly. Is it necessary for me to blather on? Doubtful. And yet, here we are, thinking to meself that if I just fumble around long enough something will come to hand. Like logos. Or maybe typography.
But I don’t want to write about typography. Never have. Years ago when a publishing rep told me that what interested me—— African vernacular— did not interest him, and that what his imprint could get behind was a book on typography, I just laughed. “The world doesn’t need another book on typography,” I said, even though at least 20 new typography books have come out since then.
So who was right? Both? Neither? Probably neither. But it is the state of design discourse to generate “discourse dissonance.” This takes the form of lots of interviews, and essays on current topics like decolonization and/or minority representation in design, not to forget cyberfeminism and other such arcane subjects. Precarity anyone?
Or maybe just an extra lengthy discourse on the virtues of the foot-long churro.
I first had churros in Madrid, where it was the touristy thing to do, eat churros with chocolate sauce. It seemed pretty overrated to me then, and I don’t reckon my opinion would be changed by anything Subway has to offer in either 6″ or 12″ sizes. Deep fried dough is still a donut, whether it’s extruded or not.
Krispy Kreme cinnamon donut
And donuts are, well, pretty freakin’ basic, after all.
From a design standpoint, what should it be, cut dough or extruded? See what I’m sayin’ about inanity? This self-indulgent rambling, call it faux design journalism, goes on all the time. I could easily start a fried dough weblog and recruit allies and adversaries to hold forth in pitched battles about donut preferences. The one thing everyone would probably agree upon would be the need for cinnamon sugar as the finishing touch.
By the way, is it spelled donut or doughnut? Maybe do(ugh)nut? What your stomach thinks each time you consume one: “Here comes another do-UGH-nut.”
My god; what’s this weblog coming to?
I think I’ve made my point.
David Stairs is the founding editor of the Design-Altruism-Project.
