It could be said that women have, perhaps, not had a great time of it fashion-wise. Throughout the centuries the industry of clothing the second sex has produced bizarre and painful contraptions to push, pinch, and bind women into various, and oftentimes decidedly unnatural, shapes. Whether it be the lotus foot or high heals, corsets or neck rings there is a strange and morbid thread woven through mankind’s history.

Intermixed with this sadistic molding of flesh there is, of course, a fair share of positively ridiculous inventions designed to make all of this that much easier on the modern woman. Nowhere is this better evidenced that in the Frederick’s of Hollywood ad from 1960. Designed to accentuate the all important Bust, it proposes a simple inflation device; meaning that it supposes that women would take to inflating their bras like life rafts or water wings every morning, devoting precious time to shaping their already heaving bosoms into keen edged, yet pillowy, missiles. Of course the side effect of this is looking like the young lady in the upper left corner; surprised and chagrined when her lactation fetishist husband discovers and misinterprets her morning routine.

via vintage_ads

Film courtesy of Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers.

Many of us across the Coilhouse nation dream of becoming full-time artists, and some of us actually become so, but few follow our vision as fearlessly as Jack Terricloth.  Jack never learned any marketable skill like speed typing or graphic design or computer programming.  He’s never had a “Plan B” of any kind whatsoever.  He just jumped out his window and – wooosh! – he started flying.  While most of us were in college, Jack was a full-time punk rocker. In fact, he never even bothered to graduate from high school. What would cause an abundantly gifted, middle class kid from a stable family to behave so recklessly? Why wasn’t he disciplined by a fear of falling through the social safety net?

While our current global economic bust forecloses conventional career options for many of us, it’s also an opportunity to change consumption patterns and general complicity with an economic order that is clearly unsustainable in the long run. Will the economic downturn lead more people to unconventional lives or will it make us ever more desperate to fit into the economic system? Will global recession be good news for the planet and for making art? Is this the best time to follow Timothy Leary’s advice: “Turn on, tune in, drop out”?  Likewise, as file sharing rings the death knell of the music industry, will we see less mass-orchestrated pop sensations? Will musicians be more inclined to self-expression and artistic exploration once they no longer have the temptation to sell out?

Jack on the beach in Spain. Photo courtesy of the World/Inferno.

I first met our man o’ cloth way back in 1991, while I was working at Reconstruction Records, an all-volunteer punk record store in New York’s East Village. Back then, Jack was a snot-nosed teenager living under an assumed name with more than assumed parents in suburban New Jersey and fronted the band, Sticks and Stones. With Jack at the helm, Sticks and Stones restlessly explored new musical terrain – hardcore, punk, goth, techno, pop – until 1995, when his bandmates told him that they would go no further.  Undeterred, Jack started the current cabaret revival by assembling the World/Inferno Friendship Society.  The World/Inferno has since also explored a smattering of Northern Soul, pop, klezmer, and African-American spirituals. Now, several albums and scores of tours later, the World/Inferno has embarked in a more ambitious direction. They have integrated theater into their live performance in a production titled: Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre’s Twentieth Century. Doubtless, their tour will inspire some imitators, but there ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.

We are going to get right into it because you and I both know that there are copies to be made and collated A.S.A.P. As in As Soon As Possible. As in by 10 minutes ago.

The Naked Lunch is a mess of a novel which, I suppose, was the point. William S. Burroughs’s most famous work, made possible by the cut-up technique he championed* was decried as pornographic when it was published in Paris in 1959. It wasn’t published in the U.S. until 1962 where an obscenity trial was held for it and it was banned by courts in Boston, though the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned that ban in 1966. What The Naked Lunch is about is hard to say. There is a man named William Lee. He is an Agent. There are strange, far off places with names like Interzone and Freeland. There is a lot of sex of many varieties, centipedes, drugs, pedophilia, and Mugwumps. Somewhere in all this is satire. Mostly, it is nonsense.

And yet, it is interesting nonsense which is the key to its enduring legacy and the reason that David Cronenberg decided to make a movie out of it in 1991 starring Peter Weller, pulling an excellent Burroughs imitation. Also mixed in there are Ian Holm, Judy Davis and a crazed cameo by Roy Scheider. Naked Lunch does its best to make some kind of narrative out of Uncle Bill’s series of vignettes by filling in many of the gaps with snippets taken from Burroughs’s life, meaning we get to meet fellow Beat writers Alan Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac in the forms of Bill’s friends Martin and Hank. It also features the infamous “William Tell routine” which resulted in Burroughs shooting and killing his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer Burroughs née Adams, in 1951 for which he would spend 13 days in jail and eventually receive a suspended 2 year sentence, in absentia.

Luckily, the novel contains a plethora of just the kind of body horror material that so appealed to Cronenberg before 2002’s Spider. Fluids, orifices, and gruesome transformations are in gleeful abundance and the end result is a film that keeps the hallucinatory vision of the novel while adding a narrative anchor to keep it from completely floating away. Also, it helped to insure that, should one ever have to name a foreign rent-boy for their novel, short story, movie, whatever, it will always be Kiki. Always.

*This is not true, as pointed out by Ben Morris in the comments. While it is considered part of Burroughs’s cut-up period it was not produced using this method, a method Burroughs became acquainted with only after the publication of “The Naked Lunch”, meaning that Burroughs required no special technique to write a confusing mess of a book.

One non-sucky aspect of being a relatively old fart: getting to see Fugazi play live several times during their fiercest years. Now, nobody’s saying these four guys aren’t still fierce as hell; they surely are. But a live Fugazi show circa early ’90s was post-hardcore baptism by fire.

Fugazi, 1988, Philly. The early days! [via sgustilo]

A bit of background on the band for the uninitiated: Fugazi formed in Washington D.C. in 1987. Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto on guitar and vocals. Joe Lally on bass. Brendan Canty drumming. The music, which evolved tremendously over the decades, is a singular, dynamic mix of punk rock, hardcore, anthemic guitar rock, noise, soul, and more dissonant, experimental elements. They toured extensively for many, many, MANY moons before going on indefinite hiatus in 2002. Fugazi has my vote for the most resolutely DIY, ethically upstanding band that’s ever existed. From Wiki:

Fugazi’s early tours earned them a strong word-of-mouth reputation, both for their powerful performances, and for their eagerness to play in unusual venues. They sought out alternatives to traditional rock clubs partly to relieve the boredom of touring, but also hoping to show fans that there are other options to traditional ways of doing things. As Picciotto said, “You find the Elks Lodge, you find the guy who’s got a space in the back of his pizzeria, you find the guy who has a gallery. Kids will do that stuff because they want to make stuff happen.”

Yes. Very true. Motivated kids will do just about anything to make stuff happen. And when you’re young and scrappy, you’ll also endure a lot to see live music. I loved certain bands so much, I’d go to all ages shows and cheerfully risk being crushed, clocked in the head, kicked ’til bloody or used as a footstool by crowd-surfing, slam-dancing goons twice my size. Like so many punk babies I know must be reading and remembering, I was game. At that age, you just want to get as close to the music as possible. Even so, gnawing one’s way out of Broheim Armpit/Knuckle/Knee Forest always gets old after ten minutes, tops.

It never occurred to me that shows didn’t have to be that way. I thought, “this is how these things are, it’s part of the experience.” I was just happy to be there.

But the wise, worldly fellas in Fugazi? They weren’t fucking having it.

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These hypnotizing animated collages were created by Greek animator Aggeliki Vrettou. Her biomechanical creatures appear to be propelled into motion by everything from electric kitchen appliances to living doll parts. In many cases, the animals’ anatomy is completed by other augmented animals, such as the rat “tail” of the horse above and the breathing apparatus on the muzzle of her animatronic seahorse. Her web presence consists of a MySpace page, where this series can be found, and a YouTube channel where she hosts some mesmerizing animated music videos created for the Greek indie electronic band Ion. Vrettou’s stunning animations vaguely remind me of the haunting animation/artwork associated with Mer’s musical project, The Parlour Trick, created by Scott Spencer (this itself may appear reminiscent of a Beats Antique cover, but predates it). If you’re looking at this post in an RSS reader, the images may not appear to be animated. Click here to see these animals (and others from this series) in full swing!

When I went to art school you could always tell the graphic design majors. They were always the well-dressed, well-groomed ladies and gentleman. Their clothes were unwrinkled and unstained; devoid of paint, charcoal, or bodily fluids. They had it together. It was only upon speaking with them that one was made aware that they had not slept in days, spending every waking moment creating a book of fonts that, they assured you were all quite different, despite what your eyes may tell you, Philistine.

Needless to say they were not the sort that would associate with a ne’er-do-well cartooning major like myself. These people had goals; they were going to get jobs, jobs that actually pertained to their field of study. They would be the ones who would pick the typeface for the books I read and insisted upon the inclusion of a short biography of said typeface near the back so that I would know just how this amazing evolution of the printed word came to be. They would lay out the magazine and brochures. They would make actual money. They would be able to eat on a regular basis. They may as well have been aliens.

It is for you, then, that I link this video. You will understand that this is no simple parody of Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface”, a performer who is a parody already, thereby making this only a part of a Moebius strip of parodies. No, this is truly a love letter to the subtle, almost mythical realm of typeface; a realm whose various shades are so subtle that only the true master can decipher the alchemy involved. It is a fabulous ode to mean lines and baselines, descenders and ascenders, serifs and the lack thereof; replete with bow-ties and beards.

To the rest of you I apologize for the graphic design and Gaga, but not for the beards and bow-ties.

via Bioephemera

Just a late-night blogging of a beautiful print ad from 1953-54 for Ford Zephyr. Via Vintage Scans, where it’s lovingly presented with the tagline “Ford Zephyr: for the exceptionally well-dressed and positively fucksome bank robber.” Hat and suit by Ronald Paterson, a British fashion designer born in 1917 (and still alive today!) who later served as fashion consultant on such films as The Spy Who Loved Me. Another ad from the same campaign featured an elegant evening gown, also by Paterson (via 20th Century Ads).

I’ve been relatively free of the internet as of late, a state dictated by my having moved. Having finally reacquired a connection one can imagine the dismay I felt upon seeing the post directly beneath this one. Regardless of the article’s cathartic nature, a mere glimpse of that sour visage is enough to drive me to teeth-gnashing rage. Even now I hammer the keys with with unnecessary force.

In a bid to “get my mind right” and dispel any cloying vestiges of bratty whinging being passed off as philosophy I present this very special message from the Miami-Dade County Justice Department, circa 1988, who want you to know who the sex offenders are in your area. To that end, they created this spectacular video, and had these individuals spit some dope rhymes about their crimes. This may or may not be the work of comedian Scott Gairdner. Either way, fake or not, you should probably keep an eye on Sam. He’s a bit too enthusiastic.