ONE BRYANT PARK / BANK of AMERICA TOWER OPENING

Yesterday I got the opportunity to serve as lighting designer on the One Bryant Park / Bank of America Tower opening ceremony and LEED Platinum award ceremony.

So my homies Al Gore and Mayor Bloomberg stopped by to make sure everything was square, plus some other wealthy types, like building co-owner Jody Durst and BoA CMO Anne Finucane. Basically it was like the beginning of a Batman movie.

I had to take extra care to make sure the focus worked for a giant, because everybody warned me that Gore is a giant, and they were right — he is a giant.

Oh and to the designer I was talking with who didn't know his rocks — it is Jerusalem marble, and it does indeed get pink at sundown.

WEARABLES: PERFORMANCE MODELS A + B

I met with the good Paul Pope the other day, in a rain squall, for rye and red wine. I drink rye.

Amidst our conversation, I was reminded of some wearable soundsystems I prototyped during my Providence days.

I envisioned car stereo systems in jacket and vest enclosures - ungrounded (and admittedly dangerous) ghetto blasters strapped to the chest and back of their users. I wanted to launch a mobile bass awareness campaign, and moreover, I wanted to have a sound source on my person for my electronic music performances as handshake.

The first, Performance Model A, was well-loved and well-used. It was 1050 denier ballistics ripstop nylon around a core of heavy mylar and neoprene. It had a tactical vest form factor with a military aesthetic.

My initial sketch for Performance Model A

A look from design partner Corey Jackson

On the shoulders, forward-facing, were cold-riveted two 3.5" speaker/tweeter combo drivers. It was driven by a car amplifier mounted on the chest and powered by two 12V, 5Ah sealed lead-acid batteries.

The result, after some sun damage and a few years kicking around closets.

The next step was to incorporate a subwoofer. But, as any 50Hz head will tell you, a sub alone does not bass make. You need an enclosure.

Departing from the tactical vest aesthetic, we decided on a combined 'backpack/vest' form factor - Performance Model B, was to be a vest, similar to Model A, but with a fiberglass sub enclosure housing an 8" subwoofer, a more powerful amplifier, and an active crossover unit to handle signal for a 5.25" chest-mounted, fiberglass-enclosed driver and two shoulder-mounted, high-firing 1" tweeters.

The sub enclosure's sub port (left) and back surface, crossover section deepest and amplifier section on top.

In the interest of weight conservation, we took the more-than-sufficient battery capacity down from 10Ah total to combined 7.4Ah over two units. Outside of that, the unit was over-engineered by design. All components were solder-welded and heatshrunk over 12awg twisted-pair wiring.

The batteries were run across a quick-disconnect harness for easier use and the sub enclosure had a kill switch embedded. It was, in a word, nice.

Sadly, though, we never finished Model B, although I've been itching to try. I still have the enclosure and electronics ready to go, but I seem to have lost track of Mr. Jackson and his luddite tendencies make him a hard man to find.

If you have an industrial sewing machine and a taste for bass, drop me a line. Maybe we'll make something of this without getting electrocuted.

AM BUSINESS CARD LOVE

There's been quite a bit of deserved love for the brilliant design of these AM business cards done by Nick Feldman of Groundwave Design Corp.

YAMA PITFIGHTING CAGE ASSEMBLY

Last June I took a jaunt out to Lititz, PA to check out an MMA cage in the care of Atomic Lighting. They had just done the premier event for Yamma Pit Fighting and they wanted to see if they could re-engineer the superstructure to make the whole thing more roadable.

Halfway into the first day of bending this thing into shape and I saw why the design needed revisiting. By that point I felt like I had been in a pit fight myself. Working with Jeff over at Atomic (and Brad and a forklift), we finally got it done by the end of the day with just enough time for me to chase down and submit Jeff in the ring.

NAPKIN SKETCH, CIRCA 1999

Rummaging through the room I grew up in and finding all kinds of crazy stuff. Found a publication I made in the 8th grade. 4 issues. Called 'The First Amendment'. Paisley font. Maybe more on that later.

I also found this:

It was the interface storyboard for a program I wrote in high school. The assignment was to make an educational program I think. The one I wrote was an interactive, animated demonstration of hash key generation and hashtable lookup.

Cool to find that. Wish I could remember where I put the code.

SENATOROBAMAS.COM IS STILL FUNNY

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SENATOROBAMAS.COM

I did this site and sold some related shirts as a fundraiser for Obama during the primary. The Washington Post called me and asked if I was doing this as an ironic rejection of Obama's celebrity. I told them I wasn't, but the 'journalist', Jose Vargas, just made up a quote for me anyway. VARGASSSS!!!

Anyway I still have a few small shirts if you want 'em!! Believe me, everybody loves this shirt.

CHEGGIDDOUT!

FOLLOWUP:

It recently occurred to me that not everyone received an invite to the inauguration, but Barry and Joe were kind enough to extend one my way for the fundraising efforts. For those of you that *ahem* don't have one of these: