History of the Button

One of the industrial design blogs the I’m slowly becoming aware of just gave Bill’s blog a nice mention and prompted my memory to make note of it here.

From “About the History of the Button”:

The idea: The button is interesting. It has a history, an evolution. It began as a simple on/off device and has become a central part of our human culture. We reach out to manipulate objects. We push buttons and magic things happen.

At first, the light goes on. The light goes off. But now, we find our friends and family. We order and ship presents. We launch bombs. The button is the center of our power.

This blog/resource/concept is to explore and record the history of the button. That’s all.

I have a fondness for narrow focused blogs as it is, especially cultural/design ones, so my liking Bill’s blog was almost a gimme. But how can you possibly resist a site that lets you know the first portable flashlight was developed in 1898 as well as informing you of songs about the button from 1891?

Bending It

Because Kip had a burning desire to re-visit a charming Antiquarian Book Seller in Bend, and because we were with Sara whose instinct, when we couldn’t find said book seller, was to go ask a Librarian, we three plus Steve went to the Deschutes Public Library to do just that. Where we saw a flyer that Joe Sacco was giving a talk there that very day. And it had started about 15 minutes ago. After discovering that the book store in question had relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona, we snuck into the lecture in progress. Though Joe Sacco purportedly lives in Portland when not chronicling lives in other countries, this is the first time I got to see him in person. It was a great slide lecture for an audience not necessarily comics literate and the cartoonists in the audience as well.

Mostly I was pleased to put in my request for a reprinting of his Yahoo story “Take it Off” and to let him know that my the highlight of my day of jury duty a couple weeks back was discovering the original art of one of his “Painfully Portland” strips he used to do for Willamette Week back in the early 90s, this one lamenting the sissifying of coffee in Portland back in ‘93. (Huh. I actually had just started drinking coffee in ‘93, due in large part to my beginning to date Kip.) I was also pleased that he recalled Anodyne (and liked it) as well as the interview he did with Amy.

I neglected to get a photograph of Joe, though Kip and I did get a nice inscription in the copy of The Fixer we bought:

However, I made sure to get many pictures of the Shire in progress.
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