A heavy snowstorm rearranges the geography of New York. Corners change shape. Curb lines vanish. The plows arrive first, clearing the streets with a kind of municipal efficiency and pushing the snow outward to the edges, where it gathers along the curb in ridges and barricades that were not there the day before.

Within a day the block has acquired a new topography. Hollows appear where tires have spun and failed. Frozen walls rise where the plows have passed. Pedestrians begin to trace new paths along the sidewalks, stepping around obstacles that did not exist a few hours earlier.

Standing there in the street after the storm, I noticed one formation in particular. A mound of displaced snow along the curb would harden, darken, and settle into something oddly permanent. It acquired mass and personality. It blocked hydrants. It swallowed bumpers. It forced pedestrians into awkward detours.

The thing needed a name. It became the Sideberg.

The Sideberg is the urban cousin of the iceberg. It begins as nothing more than displaced snow but quickly evolves into a structure of surprising durability. In a serious winter it can remain for weeks, compacted by passing traffic and reinforced by successive dustings of snow that seal the whole formation into a single frozen block.

Under the streetlights the fresh snow can look almost sculptural. Give it a day or two. New York soon contributes its own materials. Coffee cups, candy wrappers, cigarette packs, fragments of newspaper, the occasional unidentifiable object, and above all the black residue that seems to seep from every winter gutter slowly embed themselves in the surface.

What remains is no longer snow in any sentimental sense. It becomes something else entirely: the Dirty Sideberg.

The city produces other formations as well. When a parked car finally breaks free from the frozen barricade the plows have built around it, the result is a curious cavity in the drift. The void has the unmistakable look of an archaeological discovery, as though a fossilized sedan has just been excavated from the street.

With a little imagination…this cavity became the Mutton Slot.

Some Sidebergs develop an air of mystery. One in particular, near the corner of my office in Manhattan, began collecting objects that had no clear origin.

I came to think of this one as the Bermuda Sideberg.

The mound seemed to swallow objects and release them again days later as the ice shifted and settled. Half a traffic cone, a glove, the rib of a broken umbrella and the corner of a plastic crate. Watching it over time felt less like observing weather than examining a frozen archive of the block. Each thaw revealed some new artifact as though from a neighborhood excavation dig.

It occurred to me that this small exercise in sidewalk taxonomy had a long human desire for control and order. Scientists name plants and planets. Sailors once named every variation of wind and wave. Mountaineers gave names to ridgelines, crevasses, and passes. Arctic explorers catalogued the varieties of ice with extraordinary precision.

The act is instinctive. Naming is the human habit of imposing order on a world that often feels random and sometimes chaotic.

A snowstorm can paralyze the city. Streets close, schedules collapse, movement slows to a crawl. Yet once the phenomena have been noticed and named, they begin to feel slightly less chaotic. The namer has drawn a small boundary around the event. The storm still exists, but it now contains recognizable features.

The winter geography does not last. A warm week arrives and the Dirty Sidebergs soften—at this point all Sidebergs are Dirty—sag, and ooze slowly into the gutter. The Mutton Slots collapse. The Bermuda Sideberg releases its inventory and dissolves into gray slush that flows toward the drains.

Before long the streets return to their ordinary shape.

Until the next storm arrives.

Then the plows pass again. Snow piles up along the curb. Pedestrians adjust their routes. And the namer standing on the sidewalk recognizes the familiar formation almost immediately.

Another Sideberg.

On July 22, the world lost Ozzy Osbourne, the self-styled Prince of Darkness.

His death at 76 has been mourned far beyond his fan base. Ozzy was a cultural icon whose eccentricity, vulnerability, and creativity fused into an indelible brand.

It began with his years in Black Sabbath, the band he formed in the 1960s, and endured through his solo career. Ozzy’s voice became a rallying cry for generations of misfits and visionaries.

His legacy lives not only in the music he made, but also in the brand he built around his personality and history. Nobody understood branding better than Ozzy. As our colleague Alan Brew says, he created a “compelling truth” around his authenticity and nonconformity.

In 1979, he was axed from Black Sabbath. The reasons were a litany of Ozzy’s behavioral problems: dangerous behavior, LSD use, and cocaine addiction. His first solo record, Blizzard of Ozz, a play on The Wizard of Oz and a nod to his nickname and his love of the “white stuff.” Scandalous as it sounds, he didn’t run from the image; he embraced it as the foundation of his brand.

The Making of the Prince of Darkness

Ozzy crafted his image meticulously. Album covers balanced theatrical, often kitschy satanic scenes with enough restraint to appeal to a broad audience. The music, however, was serious. His first hit, “Crazy Train,” paired blistering guitar solos with Cold War commentary: Maybe it’s not too late / To learn how to love / And forget how to hate.

The quality of the music lent credibility and anchored the Ozzy brand’s value. Every public moment reinforced the mix of performance art and provocation. Whether biting the head off a bat onstage or a dove in a meeting with CBS Records executives, he lived to unsettle the mainstream—always with a mischievous grin. Humble, kind, and a little hapless, he delighted audiences. Beneath the shock, there was a love of history, flashes of introspection, and a streak of humor that came to the fore later in his career. His brand’s appeal paved the way for The Osbournes TV show, where a glimpse into his real life proved even more endearing than the stage persona.

“We have to dare to be ourselves, no matter how frightening or strange that self may prove to be”

Mary Sarton

The Ozzy Brand Becomes Legend

Through the lens of history, it’s clear his brand helped define a genre. Ozzy shrugged off the heavy metal label, preferring to call it rock and roll, but Black Sabbath created the sound – and he carried it into his solo work.

Grounded in authenticity, he stayed true to his roots, his voice, and his style. In dark, heavy rock, there has been only one prince. Everyone else follows the trail he carved through the darkness.

HEAVY ROTATION

Heavy Rotation Vol 24a

In a world of pandemics and social unrest there was no Thanksgiving music. UNTIL NOW! OTTO Brand Lab brings you two back-to-back-packed Heavy Rotation’s that establish new holiday standards for many Turkey Day’s to come. Mixxed and kixxed by Squirrelly Joe herself.

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Siamese Dream

The Smashing Pumpkins

• Mayonnaise

Charlie Brown Holiday Hits

Vince Guaraldi Trio

• Thanksgiving Theme

The Best of Lee Perry

Lee “Scratch” Perry

• Roast Fish and Corn Bread

Confrontation

Bob Marley & The Wailers

• Give Thanks and Praise

The Very Best of Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger

• Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)

Jr. Walker & The All Stars: The Definitive Collection

Jr. Walker & The All Stars

• Home Cookin’

Home Cooking

The Soul Investigators

• Momma’s Gravy (Yum Yum)

Best Of

Manu Dibango

• Hot Chicken

HEAVY ROTATION

OTTO Vol X (80)

Enjoy a door-to-door mixed bag of Tricks and Treats for Devil’s Night 2021 from the OTTO Brand Lab studios in NYC & SF. (Adult)

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Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

The Smashing Pumpkins

• We Only Come Out at Night

The Complete Collection

Flight of the Conchords

– Demon Woman

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

Outkast

• Dracula’s Wedding (feat. Kelis)

Monster Hospital

Metric

• Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT Remix)