design

New Pasta Just Dropped

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Cascatelli Pasta
The culmination of Dan Pashman’s three-year passion to invent a new type of pasta shape is now ready to get into your tummy. All of his hard work has paid off with the introduction of the Cascatelli pasta (Italian for “waterfalls”).

Pashman and Sfoglini engineered the new shape to maximize the three main characteristics:

  • Sauceability: How readily sauce adheres to the shape
  • Forkability: How easy it is to get the shape on your fork and keep it there
  • Toothsinkability: How satisfying it is to sink your teeth into it

Bringing the pasta into fruition seems to have been quite the ordeal. Pashman says he spent several thousand dollars and pushed the release of the shape back months, all to add half the thickness of a credit card to its shape, thus increasing the toothsinkability.

Dan has put together a five-part podcast detailing the concept, design, production, and subsequent birth of the new pasta – you can start with the first one here.

You can purchase a box of Cascatelli from Sfoglini. Though supplies appear low and you may need to pre-order.

Denver Has The 3rd Best Looking Flag In The Nation.

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http://www.artifacting.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/1000px-Flag_of_Denver_Colorado.svg_1.png

According to the North American Vexillological Society, Denver has the 3rd best looking flag in the nation. In a 2004 internet survey, the design qualities of the flags of 150 municipalities in the U.S. were rated and Denver’s came in just under Washington D.C. (#1) and Chicago, Illinois (#2).

The top three worst designed flags originate from Rapid City, South Dakota (#148), Huntington, West Virginia (#149), and lastly Pocatello, Idaho (#150). The flag for Pensacola, Florida is horrible but didn’t make the list.

Personally I’m particularly fond of the flags hailing from Oakland, California (#47), Ocean City, Maryland (not listed), New Orleans, Louisiana (#5), and Mesa, Arizona (#146 but they have since created a new flag).

If you are really interested in flag design you’d be doing yourself a favor if you checked out Ted Kaye’s Good Flag, Bad Flag (It can also be downloaded online for free).

Death Coaster

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Euthanasia Coaster

I love roller coasters but I don’t think the Euthanasia Coaster designed by artist Julijonas Urbonas is one I would ever ride – mostly because it is designed to kill its riders.

“Euthanasia Coaster” is a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being. Riding the coaster’s track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death. Thanks to the marriage of the advanced cross-disciplinary research in aeronautics/space medicine, mechanical engineering, material technologies and, of course, gravity, the fatal journey is made pleasing, elegant and meaningful. Celebrating the limits of the human body, this ‘kinetic sculpture’ is in fact the ultimate roller coaster

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The coaster would have a 510 meter drop and get you to 10 G’s (gravitational force) in 60 seconds. I must admit, however, it does sound like a pleasurable death. Julijonas’s website has a detailed description of the effects that riding the Euthanasia Coaster would have on your body.

Euthanasia Coaster Detail

Cause of death: Cerebral hypoxia, a lack of oxygen supply to the brain. Additional effects: Greyout – a loss of color vision; Tunnel vision – a loss of peripheral vision; Blackout – a complete loss of vision; G-LOC – g-force induced Loss Of Consciousness).

Local Fun

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There are a few great things happening in Denver in the next week I thought you all might be interested in. All of them free (or recommended donation).

Track Shack Race
Denver’s first track specific bike shop, Track Shack, is going to open on the 27th. In order to celebrate their grand opening they’re putting on a race. Cyclists start at Start at 15th and Tremont, race to Lawrence, then to 17th, and back down to Tremont. The last five racers in each lap are eliminated until only one is left standing. The race starts at 6:30pm. Should be a good time. The kids over at Cycle Jerks have all kinds of photos and interviews about the new shop.

Denver Community Museum
Organized and curated by fellow blogger, Jaime Kopke, the Denver Community Museum is a temporary museum located all around Denver, Colorado. Carried out in the form of a pop-up gallery, the museum will exist for less than one year (and less than one month in any single location) – an institution with an expiration date. Contents for the Museum’s monthly, rotating exhibitions are based entirely on community submissions (that means you). The Denver Community Museum is a not-for-profit project and is free and open to the public.

The contents of the Denver Community Museum are generated entirely by submissions from the local community (again, that means you). Exhibitions will change on a monthly basis. One month before an exhibition begins, an open call for participation is announced in the form of a Community Challenge, describing a particular creative project.

Artifacts for the Denver Community Museum’s first exhibit, “The Missing Map” will be accepted this Friday and Saturday, 9/26 & 9/27 at the DCM from 12- 5 PM. Bring in your globes for the show, which will open Friday, October 3rd.

Denver Pecha Kucha
I’ve mentioned this event several times before and highly recommend it. The princesses of .ppt, Jaime and Angela, have once again put together Denver’s third Pecha Kucha night scheduled for Monday, Sept. 29th, at 8:20 at Buntport, but be sure to get there early as seats go quickly. I’ll be there, you should too.

Denver’s Pecha Kucha Night Volume 2

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Pecha Kucha is a mix of local creatives sharing their work in rapid fire format. Denver’s second run at this fun event will be held will be tonight, Monday, July 14th at Buntport Theater (717 Lipan Street), 8 PM. There is a $5 suggested donation and beer will be on hand.
Denver Pecha Kucha
Pecha Kucha is a mix of local creatives sharing their work in rapid fire format. Denver’s second run at this fun event will be held will be tonight, Monday, July 14th at Buntport Theater (717 Lipan Street), 8 PM. There is a $5 suggested donation and beer will be on hand.The Pecha Kucha Denver website has a good rundown of the presenters.

I suggest you check it out. The previous event was a lot of fun.

The Art Of Skateboarding

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Artist/designer/sculptor Andrew Lewicki has created some high-end skateboard art. His pieces “Gold—Plated Skate Rail” and “Walnut Skate Ramp” raise the bar on these everyday skating staples. The press release mentions:

“…the city of Los Angeles has explored civic “solutions” to such practices [rebellious skateboarding behavior] by installing legal skate parks and authorized graffiti walls, a tactic Lewicki exposes as both antithetical and irksome to the rebellious spirit inherent in these exploits.”

Lewicki presents an interesting, if not an almost Utopian, response with his pieces.

P-Chalk-A-Cha

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PKN vol 1 audience / stage right, originally uploaded by INV/ALT.

Last Friday, me and about 150 other folks went to Denver’s first Pecha Kucha Night. Pronounced “P chalk-a-cha”, and Japanese for “Chit Chat”. Pecha Kucha’s are held in cities from Amsterdam and Auckland to Venice and Vienna. The event was organized by locally by Jaime Kopke, Angela Schwab (both of whom have great blogs that are in my feed-reader, are they in yours?), and Brian Colonna.

The rules of the night, as explained on the official Pecha Kucha website, are as such:

Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

It’s a a way for architects, designers, artists, writers, and plain-old, ordinary, people to share their work in a concise and rapid fire format. It’s like show and tell for adults, with beer.

It was such a packed house lots of people had to sit on pillows on the floor. And the despite the overload of hipsters in the audience, the presenters were excellent – some of my favorites being Steve Silber’s “Greeting”, Claire Martin read a series of obituaries about interesting but unsung people, Kent Corbell displayed a knew audio frequency that is supposed to fuck with your chakras and make you all emotional (it kinda worked), Andrew Novick talked about his love for pi, and Scot Lefavor was a no-show, maybe next time.

Speaking of next times, the next Pecha Kucha night will be Monday, July 14th. If you want to share your creative project at the next event shoot an email over to pechakuchadenver@gmail.com

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