...or in my case, Bollinger Grand Année 1995, a beautiful champagne to begin what I hope is a beautiful year. We're all filled with fear and anxiety about our own futures and the future of our fragile world. But for now, put it all aside, and toast the possibilities and plans and promise of a new year.

Merry freakin' Christmas and Happy Stinkin' New Year.

Sadly, the family of designer Achille Castiglioni yesterday announced that he passed away on Monday, December 2nd. Castiglioni was one of the greatest industrial designers of the 20th (and 21st century), producing hundreds of designs over his long career, and changing forever the face of furniture, lighting and industrial design. Most of his work is still in production, a mark of the beauty and timelessness of his designs. He was my favorite designer because he was able to make design into a witty, beautiful, rational, and artistic endeavor, transcending and crossing styles and boundaries at every step, working comfortably from the practical to the exuberantly elegant (and often occupying both spaces simultaneously). His playful genius will be sorely missed, but will live on in his many, many works, and in the generations of students he inspired at the Milan Polytechnic.

Strangely, the New York Times Magazine published a piece on Castiglioni several days before his death, which you can read here. Castiglioni was the subject of an extensive retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1997; the website for the exhibit is here. And, of course, my site featuring some of Castiglioni's most famous objects is here. My personal collection of Castiglioni objects continues to grow, from the Arco lamp to the Orseggi crystal glasses, one of which I filled with Chianti this evening and raised in a toast in honor of the departed maestro of Milano. On its way to join my collection is one of his great designs, the small Cumano table. This table shares all the features that made his designs great: classical, understated, whimsical, mechanically ingenious, beautifully proportioned and slightly iconoclastic. It contains a small hole in the top that allows it to be hung on the wall in its flattened state: a very practical feature that also places it in the realm typically occupied by two-dimensional paintings. Art and design, all in one simple, complicated object.

Godspeed, Maestro...

...10 points to anyone who knows where that title comes from.

Yes, I'm still alive! Yes, the redesign is still coming! I've been very busy with art projects, dealing with business related to my class (end of the term, you know. It should be easy, since I'm giving them all an F, but...) and dealing with heartbreak. All in a day's work. Well, keep checking back, I'll get this thing rolling soon... Here's a sneak peek at a very rough draft of the redesign.

I was kidding about giving my students an F. Well, mostly kidding.

I'm at work redesigning this page, both graphically and conceptually. Stay tuned...

I have finally finished a site I have been working on for several months, and I am very happy about. It's my collection of old photographs of sailors, and is called They That Go Down To The Sea In Ships, after a section of Psalm 107. Enjoy, and leave your comments here if you have any.