My last attempt at watching MTV lasted about 3 minutes into a show, I think it was called “Pimp My Band’s Paddy Wagon”, before I felt deeply insulted by the producers and clicked away to another channel. But it hasn’t always been this way! MTV used to actually be cool, as demonstrated below. Aidan Quinn narrates and stars in a stylish 1991 reading advert, featuring everyone’s favorite self-loathing insect, Gregor Samsa.
See, that actually makes me want to read! Now, imagine this commercial airing today. Though I doubt most 14 year-olds would get the reference, I’m willing to bet they’d have the same reaction I did. So why is it that the youth television of today is so incredibly, painfully dumbed down? What kid is benefiting from watching hours of bulldog birthday party-planning? [Really.] What happened to igniting actual passion and curiosity in our chitlins with music and art, instead of turning their impressionable brains into gelatinous lumps? While we wait for MTV’s golden age to return my solution is simple: I don’t have cable.
1950s Vogue meets Zombie in these inspiring paintings by Fernando Vicente. The textured cyan background works beautifully with the fleshy yellows and reds. I love the Hepburn-like aristocracy of the women in these portraits.
For many more images from this series, go to Fernando Vicente’s website, click NOVEDADES, and then click VANITAS. His website’s in Flash, so I can’t link directly to the images here. Some more favorites, after the jump.
Gutted by this news. Artist, activist, teacher, prankster Tom Kennedy drowned at Ocean Beach in San Francisco last Sunday, April 12th. John Law has written him a beautiful memorial over at Laughing Squid, and everyone’s telling tales in the comment thread of the big, strong, tender-hearted man who inspired them to live more fully, more bravely, more creatively.
The single most cherished moment of my time at the annual Burning Man festival: one perfect evening in 2003, singing sea shanties at the prow of La Contessa with some of the best friends I’ll ever have in this life. A member of the Extra Action Marching Band leaned halfway out of the crow’s nest, shouting “PORT BOW, THAR SHE BLOWS” and we all looked… Tom’s glowing white whale, her belly full of whooping passengers, her blowhole spouting propane fire, was on a collision course with us.
At the last moment she gave way, and the chase was on! We sped after each other across the playa, weaving and dancing, hollering and cheering and going much too fast –sometimes missing one another by mere yards– until finally the Black Rock Rangers pulled over both vessels and gave everyone a stern talking-to.
It was an exhilarating dream. No one who was there will ever forget that night as long as they live.
Thank you, Tom. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Tom Kennedy (1960-2009). Photographed by Leo Nash.
A ruff and a space helmet – two great tastes that taste great together! This is the work of Chenman, a 20-something Beijing photographer. Her work’s been published in fashion magazines around the world, and though she already has campaigns for MAC, Chanel, Sony Ericsson and Canon under her belt, I have a feeling that she’s just beginning to pick up speed. Chenman’s web presence consists of a portfolio website and a blog. The latter’s in Chinese, but there are still plenty of images to enjoy.
90% of Chenman’s portfolio consists of pristine commercial images, but a good look at the personal portfolio on her site her site reveals the weirdo lurking underneath. You can tell just by looking at her picture that this chick’s got spunk and a sense of humor. Any high-end fashion photographer who tells a model to stick a tissue in her nose & hold that pose is OK in my book. I love her ongoing preoccupation with Mickey Mouse ears. One to watch! More favorites after the jump. [Thanks, monk3y!]
Top: Issue 01 (1984), Issue 22 (1992).
Bottom: Issue 32 (1994) & the final issue, 69 (2005).
I love any magazine that pulls you into a completely subjective universe through a unified front of design, tone and subject matter. The kind of magazine that shouts, “Hello! Welcome to my world! Get ready to be immersed.” Like a good horror film that forces you suspend your disbelief enough to feel, for two hours, that there really are flesh-eating parasites crawling through the phone lines, a powerful magazine should convince you, if only for the time that you read it, of its world view. Whether the goal of the magazine is to convince you that there are still paranormal mysteries in the world or that you do have someone akin to an older sister out there who understands your growing pains, every great magazine has always had a personality and a viewpoint.
All this week, I’ll be chronicling magazines from the past and the present that I think accomplished just that. We’ve already cited a few of our magazine love affairs – see our posts on Gent, Skin Two, Mad, Die Schönheit and Mondo 2000. Many magazines still deserve a mention. Like… you know that the Sassy blog post is coming. You know it. Cabinet. Merz. I don’t spoil all the surprises, so you’ll just have to wait and see. The magazine of the day, though, is Emigre. I’ve just discovered that there’s a wonderful gallery of Emigre covers and layouts, chronicling the magazine’s 69-issue existence from 1984 to 2005. From Wikipedia, a brief history:
Art-directed by Dutch-born Rudy VanderLans using fonts designed by his wife, Czechoslovakian-born Zuzana Licko, Emigre was one of the first publications to use Macintosh computers and had a large influence on graphic designers moving into desktop publishing (DTP). Its variety of layouts, use of guest designers, and opinionated articles also had an effect on other design publications. The focus of Emigre was both redundant and wandering — both positive qualities as a journal produced by a tight and evolving group of designers and writers with Vanderlans at the center…. The magazine began in 1984 with a focus on the émigré. The first eight issues were concerned with boundaries, international culture, travel accounts and alienation (as the issues’ titles suggest).
I discovered this magazine when researching fonts for the first issue of Coilhouse. I came across a font called Mrs. Eaves, designed by Zuzana Licko, and became fascinated by the font’s story and the designer behind it. As Ellen Lupton writes in Thinking With Type, “the font, inspired by the eighteenth-century designs by John Baskerville, is named after Sarah Eaves, Baskerville’s mistress, housekeeper and collaborator. The couple lived together for sixteen years before marrying in 1764.” This hidden history fascinated me, prompting me to research women in typography. Through this I arrived at Licko and Emigre. (We never did end up using Mrs. Eaves in Coilhouse… but you may recognize it from the lovely WordPress logo.)
It’s fascinating to see how Emigre both evolved and stayed loyal to its roots during its 20 years of publication. Start at the beginning and enjoy! [Thanks, Joe.]
“Raquel Welch is the rudest, most unprofessional actress I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with, and if I could, I would spank her from here to Aswan.” -James Mason, on working with Welch in the murder mystery flick The Last of Sheila.
Well, good MORNING. James Mason quote, meet Stroke Material tag! Go ahead and take a minute to visualize the sexily sinister three-time Academy Award winner taking Welch, undisputed Bikini Queen of the 20th Century, over his knee… preferably while you watch a few of Welch’s most VA VA VOOM performances available on YouTube. We’ll start things off with this 1970 clip of the astronomically hot Ms. Welch and two swishy spacemen dancing in the Ruta de la Amistad public sculpture project of Mexico City:
Moog-a-licious, no? The clip originally aired in Raquel Welch’s 1970 television special. Added bonus to the Barbarella bikini action: her killer Parisian Red Riding Hood steez in that latter number!
As we work to complete Issue 03, we’re also starting to lay down the groundwork for subsequent issues of Coilhouse Magazine. To that end, we’ve decided it’s time to create a talent database of Coilhouse readers who are interested in working with us to create something new.
Currently, we’re interested in hearing from illustrators and print designers. If you fall into one of these categories and would like to contribute to Coilhouse, please send us an email! In this email, tell us a little bit about yourself and include a link to your portfolio or some examples of your work. That way, we’ll be able to contact you if the right opportunity comes up as we continue publishing future issues.
Ultimately, we want to hear from everyone: photographers, fashion designers, journalists, etc. To avoid getting overwhelmed with too much email, we’ll be asking the different groups to write in at different times over the course of the next month. For now, only illustrators and print designers are invited to write in – mainly because we know fewer of them than we do people in any other group.
We’re excited to expand our creative circle, and we hope to hear from you soon!
Posted by Coilhouse on April 13th, 2009
Filed under Coilhouse | Comments Off on Calling All Designers and Illustrators!
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue: there’s a bit of everything on the “queer” Flickr set, which focuses heavily on vintage images of the gay movement. Gwen at Sociological Images makes some interesting observations about the 1970s protest image shown above:
Given that since the anti-gay-marriage Prop 8 passed in California in November, many people have argued that a) the African American community is particularly homophobic and voted against the bill (so it’s Black people’s fault Prop 8 passed) or b) gay rights organizations have failed to reach out to the African American community and win their support (so it’s elitist gay people’s fault Prop 8 passed), both positions that imply that gay rights and African Americans are at odds, I found this photo from Philadelphia (in 1972) particularly striking as a reminder that African Americans often did and do support gay rights, and the gay rights movement has often actively included them… oh yeah, and also there are gay Black people.
There’s some fantasy mixed in with reality in this Flickr set, too. The set owner tacks amusing observations onto a 1918 Navy recruitment poster, digs up some lurid pulp covers and includes a lot of maybe-queer vintage portraits side-by-side with ones that are undeniably genuine. The set’s a wealth of information, too. The photos are lovingly annotated, so that you can branch off and start learning more. We’re introduced to photographer Grace Moon, dancer Alvin Ailey, comedian Wanda Sykes, and many more. There are hundreds of sets like this all over the web, and I can’t say what drew me to this one in particular enough to blog about it. But I think it’s the warmth. There are so many images here of people who look genuinely happy to be together, a glowing tenderness that runs through almost all the images collected here. At the end of the week – after that horrible “Storm is Coming” anti-gay marriage ad here in the states, and the recent reports of a wave of homophobia-driven murders in Iraq – it’s important to remember that the fight is far from over.
Charley Bowers ain’t even half as widely known as Ray Harryhausen, Georges Méliès, Winsor McCay, Buster Keaton, Jan Švankmajer, Ladislaw Starewicz or Willis O’Brien, but damn it, he should be! WACK-A-DOODLE-DOOOO:
It’s a Bird, featuring Charley Bowers and a scrapyard metal-eating, proto-Seussian “Metal Bird.” Directed by Harold L. Muller. (Thanks to longtime Coilhouse friend Mark P. for the heads up on this one!)
Once championed by the likes of Andre Breton, quite possibly an early inspiration to the likes of Theodor Seuss Geisel and Chuck Jones, this gonzo animator and comedian had fallen into obscurity by the time of his death in the mid 40s. Bowers’ work didn’t resurface until decades later, when a French film archivist sleuthed him out. Via mediascreen.com:
Raymond Borde of the Toulouse Cinemateque began the search after discovering a collection of rusty canisters simply labeled “Bricolo.” After discovering that Bricolo was the name given to an American comic named Charley Bowers, Borde began to scour the world archives for Bowers films. As usually the case in film preservation, Bowers films were located throughout the world in the archives of France, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia and only one film found in Bowers’ own native country of the United States. Eleven of Bowers’s twenty shorts are still considered lost films.
Bowers’s original claim to fame was as the animator and producer of hundreds of “Mutt and Jeff” animated films from 1915 until the early twenties. In the mid-20s, Bowers switched from pure animation to a hybrid mixture of live action and animation… comedy shorts starring himself as an obsessive inventor of gadgets, gizmos, contraptions, and crazy machines. Bowers continued with these shorts until after his first talkie short — “It’s a Bird” from 1930 (much admired by surrealists like Andre Breton). After “It’s a Bird,” Bowers dropped off the map, heading to New Jersey, working in advertising and industrial shorts, and drawing cartoons for local New Jersey newspapers. He reemerged in the late thirties as the animator for a short subject about oil for the New York World’s Fair (the film was also the first film produced by Joseph Losey). But after a few other animations in the early forties, Bowers contracted a debilitating illness and died in obscurity in 1946.
Fairly recently, Image Entertainment produced a lavish two-disc collection The Complete Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of An American Comic Genius, which includes nearly all of his surviving films. They’re a frisky mixture of live-action slapstick, stop motion, uncanny SFX, talking cockroaches, Rube Goldberg shenanigans, and more.
In Now You Tell One, possibly Bower’s most over-the-top and mind-boggling film, a “gentlemen’s Liar’s Club” known as The Citizens United Against Ambiguity gathers for a storytelling contest. Wonky stop-motion animated cats and mice battle for dominance; bizarre botanical grafts yield impossible fruits; elephants and donkeys appear to stampede the Capitol building.
In Bowers’ world, a maternal Model T Ford hatches dozens of baby cars; a rapacious ostrich gobbles up inorganic matter and dances to a phonograph; a mad inventor labors to invent the world’s first “no-slip banana peel”; a sentient, white-gloved robotic creature runs amuck in what one reviewer refers to as an extraordinary “comical-bizarro poetic representation of the industrial age.”
The man’s talents as an actor/comedian may not have been on par with his idols Keaton and Chaplin, but his imagination certainly was. This is gloriously demented stuff deserving of far more cinematic acclaim.
A Tibetan Nomad. From National Geographic Vol.175 No. 6 – June 1989
I don’t want to trivialize the difficult complexities of the Tibetan diaspora by saying things like “this guy is cooler than we’ll ever be!” But – just this once, forgive me – this guy is cooler than we’ll ever be. I mean, look at him. He will hack your system, friends. With his mind.
This unique community continues to dwindle under the Chinese regime. Government policy aims to settle more and more nomads into these faceless-looking settlements, and according to the BBC, the transition to this lifestyle is difficult for most.
