Jason Pearce

This morning, residents in the Midwest were shaken awake by a 5.2-magnitude earthquake that originated out of West Salem, Illinois, approximately 187 miles from my home in Carmel, Indiana.

According to USA Today …

“The quake is believed to have involved the Wabash fault, a northern extension of the New Madrid fault about six miles north of Mount Carmel, Ill.,” said United States Geological Survey geophysicist Randy Baldwin. The last earthquake in the region to approach the severity of Friday’s temblor was a 5.0 magnitude quake that shook a nearby area in 2002, Baldwin said.

The Indiana Geological Survey writes, “On April 18th at 5:36AM EDT a 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Illinois. The epicenter was located approximately 5 miles northwest of Mt. Carmel, Illinois, 38 miles north-northwest of Evansville, Indiana, and 128 miles east of St. Louis, Missouri. The earthquake was felt throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, and as far away as Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.”

The real data on the quake, however, can be found on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website. The cool thing is that the USGS has several map mash-ups that visually display data about the quake. They even have an online form that users can complete to report what they felt, as well as a map of their user-inputed experiences.

While the quake certainly woke and startled me, it was not severe enough to knock anything over or even set off car alarms.

Today I had the chance to ride at 80-miles-per-hour around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track. It wasn’t in a race car or anything, but it was still rather exciting.

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Yesterday I sat through a screening of the film “Helvetica” at the SXSW conference in Austin. Three weeks earlier, I attended a screening of “The Number 23.”

Both films make an enlightening point of demonstrating how common — perhaps even invasive — everyday items can become.

For example, I write this post while awaiting my flight to Indianapolis. I depart from gate C23, which is typeset in the font Helvetica.

Perhaps more films about everyday items will be made, continuing this trend. Here are a few suggestions:

• “8.5×11 Paper:” did it spawn the 1″ margin
• “The Phillips Head:” how it screwed the flat head
• “Air Quotes:” why they are the only form of puntcuation that is mimed
• “Zero vs O:” why the number is frequently prononced like the vowel

Or perhaps someone will create a mockumentory on just how frequent the number 23 is typeset in Halvetica, much like the number that marks my gate.