"A lyrical encyclopedia of visual proportions…Rugged design in opposition to elegance…It's bigger than you could ever think—just explore—no clues from me…big letter and no fancy-dan embroidery—on opposition to the fey…"

"This site records a range of material dedicated to the study of the Visual Narrative. The original site, intended by me for part-time students and other interested parties was closed down by the University of Brighton in 2004. I was subsequently denied access to the original images most of which, however, were in my own collection. I have developed the site on a daily basis thereafter. It remains exclusively educational and is in constant use. Many thanks to those in the UK and beyond who shared my irritation at events. Contact me on chris@fulltable.com "

"The San Diego Free Speech Fight in San Diego, California in 1912–1913 was one of the most famous of the "free speech fights", class conflicts over the free speech rights of labor unions."

"The naming-of-America passage in “Introduction to Cosmography” is rich in precisely the sort of word play Ringmann loved. The key to the passage is the curious name Amerigen, which combines the name Amerigo with the Greek word gen, or “earth,” to create the meaning “land of Amerigo.” But the name yields other meanings. Gen can also mean “born,” and the word ameros can mean “new,” suggesting, as many Renaissance observers had begun to hope, that the land of Amerigo was a place where European civilization could go to be reborn — an idea, of course, that still resonates today. The name may also contain a play on meros, a Greek word sometimes translated as “place,” in which case Amerigen would become A-meri-gen, or “No-place-land”: not a bad way to describe a previously unnamed continent whose full extent was still uncertain."

Interview with David Foster Wallace from 2003

[via: http://twitter.com/ddmeyer/status/12414500316 ]

[See also: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/823228/ ]

Maira Kalman on Benjamon Franklin

"Scholars, novelists, politicians, artists, and others look ahead to the future of the American idea"