aric with an a

there are guys you like and there are guys you like. I like Adam Cohn. we met under strange and rushed circumstances during a 4-hour layover in Seoul and, 10-minutes into conversation, ditched all food and went on a soju binge. he got me drunk and funny things happened. he makes me laugh, he makes me think, his is the only blog I check religiously [sorry] and he made me cookies. guys don’t make guys cookies. but he made me some. and I liked that very much.

aric s. queen, nov ‘09

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[quick self-bio]

• suburban philadelphia native
• born 1970
• was going to go to law school, but changed to graphic design in 1990 and
• never looked back.
• started carrying a camera with me every day since november of 1998 and since then have been waiting for the day that my eyes and brain can download directly to my blog.
• wrote a bit in high school, thought my english teacher wanted to sleep with me, realized all my stories were knock-off Steven King efforts, and stopped writing until november of 2008.
• still fascinated with the US civil war and abraham Lincoln since living in the netherlands for three years (2002-2005) have been re-dedicated to study language, how people speak to one another, what words and phrases really mean, and developing ways to be as succinct and to the point in all communication and truly being real with all things.

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you work for Converse. you’re also good at conversing - what is your day job and what is the farthest thing away from a job that you have?

My day job is, officially, “Associate Creative Director” at Converse. Essentially, I oversee 3 areas: digital, asia-pacific region, and brand identity issues. all of these are as it regards to creative, brand consistency etc etc. It is a phenomenal job because it is basically exposing the ways in which Converse fans interact with music, sport, art and fashion and bring those stories to a larger audience.

how often do you travel? where do you travel do? of the top 5 places, give us 3 must see/hear/eat/drink tips.

the farthest thing from a job that I have is they way that I meet people and learn about them. I’m not even sure that this is truly an answer to this question, but one of the things I love most is meeting people, asking them tons of questions, hearing the answers, finding connections and shared experiences, getting exposed to new points of view. this may be the same reason that I often listen to religious radio and watch Faith TV. it is fascinating. I don’t agree with the messages, but I like to know about them.

I travel to china about 3 or 4 times a year, mainly Shanghai. I used to travel around the US a lot, but now it is just shanghai and Columbus, OH. I think about that, my travel experiences now are the paris of china and the fast food testing capital of america.

my top 5 places I have traveled to, in no particular order . . .

1. Beijing, PRC

2. Vilnius, Lithuania

3. Vienna, Austria

4. Johannesburg, South Africa

5. Baku, Azerbaijan

6. (sorry) Barcelona

In Vilnius, find an all night basketball league and watch this bball crazy nation fulfill their addiction. basketball is THE national sport of Lithuania. watch until dawn. awesome.

In Vienna, see every Jungdestil building and every Klimt and Schiele painting and drawing you can. then have the best soft pretzels in the world at a medieval restaurant called ‘Brezel Gwolb’ and then, have excellent falafel at a little place called ‘Maschu Maschu’, run by two transplanted Israelis.

If you are going to Columbus, OH, go to the museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH. geek out on technology and think about how many resources our species has spent on being afraid and protecting ourselves from fear.

worst film from a previously good book?

hmmm. many of the books that I read are not made into movies. I’m concerned about the book/movie relationship. I loved the movie “The Thin Red Line” and I’m told that the book used to be required reading in US high schools in the 50s and 60s. I haven’t read it, but I consider the movie to be the closest thing to a visual poem I’ve encountered. I also read a lot of Haruki Murakami, and have heard about a few film adaptations in the works. again, concerned.

tell us what you have on, right now - and where you bought them, your sentimental attachments, etc.

I assume you are talking about what clothes I have on? nothing too epic. I’m wearing a good pair of black Chuck Taylor black hi-tops. they are breaking in nicely. regardless of my employment by Converse, I have always loved Chucks. they are universal. they are global. they don’t know class or station. the wearer adopts them and owns them. they are for anyone and everyone. they flatten things out and equalize. I feel this way about clothes in general. that phrase “the clothes make the man (woman)” doesn’t really work for me. my brain, my thoughts, my actions, that is where it happens.

I’ve pretty much been wearing black and gray, in various shades and tones for the past 3 years. I just don’t want to dwell on what I wear. I once read that the bauhaus teacher, artist and designer Lazlo Maholy-Nagy wore gray coveralls, gray shirt and gray tie all the time because it was “not abou him” but about they work and his mind etc. I like that philosophy. Another designer from that time period changed his name to “zero” for the same reason, Hans Schleger.

you’re always doing exciting things. your shirts. your posters. what’s next? and when will you aggregate all of this onto one site for us to Christmas shop on?

my t-shirts and posters. I need to re-focus on them. I have a long list of phrases that I want to elevate because of their ridiculous nature. I’m planning more posters (a bit smaller in size this time), about 10 new tees and a postcard line. I’m also thinking about a notebook series as well. I don’t think I’m making it for the holidays though. I think it may be more of a “happy spring, I want to sleep with you.” sort of thing.

…now, iTunes/iPod/iPhone: hit ’shuffle’ and ffwd past the first track. let it run for 3 songs. what are they, why do you like them and what are we missing by not having them on ours?

A. Don’t You Ever Learn_Todd Rundgren

B. Sonata Mexicana I: Allegro Moderato_Andres Segovia

C. Same Lies as Yesterday_The Meeting Places

A. I’ve been listening to Todd since I was 14 or so. I didn’t have any older siblings, and my older next door neighbor and his friend we’re all into Todd and Utopia. I started off listening to fit in, and then got wrapped up in his sad ballads, power arena rock songs, odd studio experiments and the overall underdog nature of this super talented rock-geek that everyone respected, but that couldn’t get radio play.

Check out these 3 albums: Something/Anything, A Wizard_A True Star, and Hermit of Mink Hollow.

B. I first discovered Andres Segovia via my friend Chris Gallu when I crashed at his apartment for a month in Washington DC. this was 1997 I think. I can’t say too much about it, except that stressful late night moments, or moments of depression and reflection can be tolerable and eased with his classical spanish guitar. I’ve solved or come to terms with a lot of problems via Andres Segovia.

C. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to fill the void that Slowdive left in the shoegazer rock scene over 15 years ago. Thanks Pandora.

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in a few weeks, I’ll be spending a weekend with Adam Cohn. I suspect it will be fun.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 17:25 and is filed under the friday cinco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.