Episode 126: Screens and Dreams

This week, Jessica and Michael go over their favorite (and not-so-favorite) moments of Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration , a virtual event featuring Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, and other Broadway luminaries.

When it comes to picking a Sondheim song appropriate for quarantine, Michael says,

I came away from this thinking that all his songs are about isolation. All his songs are about yearning for connection. All his songs are about estrangement from the world and making connection with the world in a way.

Also mentioned this week:

Vulture, How the Remote Sondheim 90th-Birthday Concert Came Together (an Hour or So Late)
Peter Marks, Washington Post, A blessed event for hard times: Sondheim sung by Broadway’s best
Caitlin Moynihan, Broadway Buzz, Raúl Esparza and Mary-Mitchell Campbell Share Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Sondheim's 90th Birthday Celebration Concert
Bumper: Bernadette Peters & Stephen Sondheim "Send In the Clowns", YouTube
Unorthodox, Netflix
My Brilliant Friend, HBO
The Affair, Showtime
Call My Agent, Netflix
Bumper: Call My Agent Trailer, YouTube
Anil Dash
Anna Wiener, New Yorker
Bumper: Have you ever had a dream like this?, YouTube
Jessica Helfand, Design Observer, The Self-Reliance Project

Subscribe to The Observatory on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Spotify or Soundcloud.

Posted in: The Observatory

Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati, and has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1990. Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

Design Observer Studio Sessions
Like many of you, we’re trying to make a safe haven out of something that can feel like solitary confinement.

Jobs | November 05