August 14, 2011
The Anthora is a paper coffee cup design that has become iconic of New York City daily life — its name is a play on the word amphora (ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body). The cup was originally designed by Leslie Buck of the Sherri Cup Co. in 1963, to appeal to Greek-owned coffee shops in New York City — and was later copied heavily by other companies. The genuine Anthora depicts an image of an Ancient Greek amphora, a meander design on the top and bottom rim, and the words ‘WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU’ in a font that resembles ancient Greek writing. The blue and white colors were inspired by the flag of Greece.
Buck never made royalties from his design, but as a salesman he was remunerated handsomely from the success of the product. When he retired from Sherri Cup Co. in 1992, he was presented with 10,000 Anthoras printed with a testimonial inscription. On the occasion of Buck’s death in 2010, a New York Times writer described the motto on the cup as having ‘welcome intimations of tenderness, succor and humility.’ The trademark is currently held by the Solo Cup Company, which licenses sales of the cup.
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August 14, 2011
The batter’s eye is a solid-colored, usually dark area beyond the center field wall of a baseball stadium, that is the visual backdrop directly in the line of sight of a baseball batter, while facing the pitcher and awaiting a pitch. This dark surface allows the batter to see the pitched ball against a sharply contrasted and uncluttered background. Its primary purpose is the safety of the batter.
The use of a batter’s background has been standard in baseball (as well as cricket) since at least the late 19th century. The Batter’s Eye performs the same role at a baseball venue as the sightscreen does at a cricket venue, except that a cricket sightscreen is usually white in order to contrast with the dark red cricket ball. Alternatively a black screen is used to contrast the white Kookaburra Limited Overs cricket ball.
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August 14, 2011
Cow tipping is the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for fun. As cattle do not sleep standing up, cow tipping is a myth. Cattle only rest while standing up, rather than sleeping that way, and they are easily disturbed.
Additionally, they represent over a half ton of weight that would easily resist a lesser tipping force. Horses, however, do regularly sleep standing up due to a locking mechanism of their stifle joint, a trait cows do not possess.
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August 14, 2011
‘Real-Life Superheroes‘ are men and women who, using the thematic device of the costumed superhero, perform services that benefit the community in a variety of ways. Some Real-Life Superheroes (RLSH) hand out supplies to the homeless, while others seek to directly combat crime through community patrols in which suspicious activity is identified and reported to the proper authorities, and some physically confront suspected perpetrators themselves.
Real life super heroes wear masks or otherwise disguise themselves in order to perform ‘heroic deeds’ like community services or fighting crime when they come across it. They are often similar to neighborhood watches or militias. Examples include Phoenix Jones and a team of nine others in the Rain City Superhero Movement.
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August 14, 2011
Sousveillance [soo-vay-lance] refers to the recording of an activity by a participant in the activity typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies. Sousveillance has also been described as ‘inverse surveillance’ because the term stems from the contrasting French words ‘sur,’ meaning ‘above,’ and ‘sous,’ meaning ‘below,’ i.e. ‘surveillance’ denotes the ‘eye-in-the-sky’ watching from above, whereas ‘sousveillance’ denotes bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings), or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or architectures doing the watching).
While surveillance and sousveillance both generally refer to visual monitoring (i.e. ‘veiller’ being ‘to watch’), the terms also denote other forms of monitoring such as audio surveillance or sousveillance. In the audio sense (e.g. recording of phone conversations) sousveillance is referred to as ‘one party consent.’
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August 14, 2011
Greenwashing (a compound word modelled on ‘whitewash’), or ‘green sheen,’ is a form of spin in which ‘green’ PR or ‘green’ marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that a company’s policies or products are environmentally friendly. The term was coined by New York environmentalist Jay Westerveld in a 1986 essay regarding the hotel industry’s practice of placing placards in each room promoting reuse of towels ostensibly to ‘save the environment.’
Westerveld noted that, in most cases, little or no effort toward reducing energy waste was being made by these institutions — as evidenced by the lack of cost reduction this practice effected. Westerveld opined that the actual objective of this ‘green campaign’ on the part of many hoteliers was, in fact, increased profit. Westerveld thus labeled this and other outwardly environmentally conscientious acts with a greater, underlying purpose of profit increase as greenwashing.
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