Interview at The Weekly Standards

The Weekly StandardsTo faithful readers of this weblog: if you stick with me, you have my pledge that you will not have to read about Behavior’s redesign of The Onion in perpetuity. At least I hope not. Looking forward, I hope to get famous (or at least infamous) for many more projects as interesting and as influential as this one, but in the meantime, I’m humbled by the fact that at least some people continue to find it interesting.

One of them is James Archer who, aside from being the founder of Fortymedia, is the publisher of The Weekly Standards, an online magazine focused on the real world practice of standards-based Web design. He’s just published an interview with me which discusses at length — you guessed it — the redesign of TheOnion.com.

But wait! That’s not all you get with this article because, for absolutely no extra money, James has thrown in a major added bonus: a very thoughtful, fair and insightful critique of the redesign as a whole by none other than Garret Dimon. Even if you scroll right past my own rambling answers to James’ questions, don’t miss Garret’s comments.

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Unaware Over There

Trip to ParisI’ve been back from Paris since last Wednesday night, but I spent the first two or three days battling a jet-lag-fueled exhaustion so acute it hurt. It gripped my spine, shoulder blades and neck in the same way that I histrionically and baselessly imagine the bends must treat its victims. Not fun. I’m closer to normalcy now, but I’m still waking up very early in the morning and going to bed very early in the evening, which I admit isn’t unpleasant.

Until yesterday, I was in no shape to blog, but I’m not sure I had all that much to say about Paris anyway. That is, apart from the obvious, which is that it completely justifies its reputation for being redolently gorgeous and romantic, at once historically overwhelming and inspiring… if you conveniently ignore the civil riots taking place at the edge of the city.

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European Vacation

These days, I seem to be doing less blogging and more getting out of the house, which includes leaving tomorrow for a one week holiday in Paris, France. Joy and I are going there to visit my father, who moved there late last year, returning decades after having grown up there in his teens and early twenties.

I’ve been to Paris four times, each visit separated by at least five years, and I’ve enjoyed each visit quite a bit. It’s hard to resist Europe in general, but I’m wondering if France can really top my visit last year to Italy — our trip to Sicily was one of the most thoroughly enjoyable getaways I’ve ever had (so enjoyable, it seems, that I never got around to properly blogging about it). I was reminded of this recently when I watched the Criterion edition of Pietro Germi’s “Divorce, Italian Style” — hilarious and well worth the rental, definitely. Anyway, I’m sure Paris going to be fantastic all the same — I have very little cause for worry.

We’ll be gone for a week, with a side-trip to Amsterdam, but at this point, having both been so busy just trying to clear our plates to be able to leave, we have no agenda. If you have any interesting ideas, please let me know. Until then, the posts here will be sporadic — or at least very continental.

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