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barn light electric
“Design and the Elastic Mind,” an exhilarating new show opening on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, makes the case that through the mechanism of design, scientific advances of the last decade have at least opened the way to unexpected visual pleasures.
As revolutionary in its own way as MoMA’s “Machine Art” exhibition of 1934, which introduced Modern design to a generation of Americans, the exhibition is packed with individual works of sublime beauty. Like that earlier show, it is shaped by an unwavering faith in the transformative powers of technology.
Yet the exhibition’s overarching theme, the ability to switch fluidly from the scale of the atom to the scale of entire cities, may sound a death knell for the tired ideological divides of the last century, between modernity and history, technology and man, individual and collective. It should be required viewing for anyone who believes that our civilization is heading back toward the Dark Ages.
Any aficionado of early Mad comics published during the first half of the 1950s, when Mad was still a riotous comic book and not yet a formatted magazine, will recognize the brilliantly perverse parody of a Life magazine cover featuring a portrait of a hideous girl next to the headline “Beautiful Girl of the Month Reads Mad.” The artist who concocted this misshapen, bug-eyed, fang-toothed, pimply-faced, spaghetti-haired, pig-nosed monstrosity was Basil Wolverton (1909-78), a Mad mainstay who specialized in things ugly. He created Lena the Hyena, a character who appeared in Al Capp’s “L’il Abner” and was known as “the ugliest woman in Lower Slobbovia.” And he was the mastermind behind “Powerhouse Pepper,” a mock-heroic melodrama, as well as covers for GJDRKZLXCBWQ Comics: A Gallery of Gooney Gags and DC Comics’ Mad-like Plop! Always recognizable for unbridled grotesquerie, his art ran the gamut from political satire (“Candid Close-Ups: Hitler”) to goofy science fiction (“Rocket Rider”) to biblical illustrations (for a decade he wrote and illustrated the Bible story, serialized in The Plain Truth magazine, for the Worldwide Church of God). His epic in this last genre was a gory interpretation of Armageddon, complete with horrific atomic aftermaths. He did, however, also produce posters for Topps, the trading card company. While his penchant for extreme physical exaggeration may not have been to everyone’s taste, through Mad he exercised incalculable influence on the history of comics and the perceptions of impressionable preteens, like me. “Gross” was and remains a generational code.images official site
via vz / special thanks to s doughton for putting a name to this special iconic weirdo for me back in the 80's
50' friday at the mavericks
kembra phahler and oliver mosset '08 whitney biennial
alt housing photo archive
via zoller
floorplan plates at fishs eddy
via vz
mermaids at wreck bar
mobile hotel with speaking english
viia zoller
From certain vantage points, it looks like a relic from an ancient civilization, maybe an exposed portion of a stepped pyramid or some kind of Mayan monument. Partially buried in a steep hillside in the rural Vila Real district of northern Portugal, the Casa Tóló presents itself as a Jimmy Stewart kind of character: self-effacing at first, but then increasingly bold. Instead of a front facade, it offers merely a concrete deck, jutting out over the edge of a 33-degree slope with a view of mountains in the distance. To learn more, you must descend a set of stairs recessed in the deck, an act of faith since so little of the architecture has been revealed so far. As you move forward, you realize the house is a path, both literally and figuratively, taking you on a walk through the woods and unfolding in section as much as in plan.
most of my old posts with links for casa malaparte are fucked up so im going to make a new post with working links.
Owners of The Carpenters' former home aren't feeling on top of the world about the legions of fans who keep stopping by to pay tribute.
The five-bedroom tract house, where siblings Karen and Richard Carpenter lived and penned some of their greatest hits, was featured on the cover of their 1973 hit album "Now & Then." It was also where an anorexic Karen Carpenter collapsed in 1983 before dying.
Owners Manuel and Blanca Melendez Parra have apparently grown weary of the parade of fans paying homage.
The couple have submitted plans to officials in Downey, a city about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, to raze the 39-year-old main house, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The Parras have already torn down an adjoining house and have begun construction on a larger home.
ballad of michael james brody
signs signs everywhere signs
Of all the hangars in all the towns in all the world, they bulldozed this one.
But the facade of Hollywood's most famous hangar—if such a thing exists—was saved in December, when a hotel bought the 1928 structure that appeared in the final scene of Casablanca.
On Jan. 29, the hangar, which almost completely demolished last month to make way for development, was moved to another site at California's Van Nuys Airport.
Coney's Island's iconic Parachute Jump is getting a new lease on light.
Less than dazzled by a lighting system installed on the 262-foot boardwalk landmark two years ago, the city yesterday began soliciting proposals from companies interested in creating a brighter, more dramatic illumination of Brooklyn's version of the Eiffel Tower.
The project is being pushed by Borough President Marty Markowitz, who says the old lighting system needs some "blinging up" and hopes to revive the classic thrill ride.
"Hey, if the Giants can beat the Patriots, there's no reason we can't ride the Parachute Jump in this new century," he said.
Markowitz, according to sources, considered the system installed in 2006 by renowned lighting artist Leni Schwendinger too "artsy," failing to capture Coney Island's flash.
The new $1.5 million project also includes refurbishing the bottom panel of the Parachute Jump, which was moved to Coney Island shortly after the 1939 World's Fair in Queens.
The ride ceased operations in 1968. It was declared a city landmark in 1989 and is part of a revamped Steeplechase Plaza that the city is hoping to create.
Charles Denson, a Coney Island historian, called the lighting project "symbolic to Coney Island's survival."
a couple of nola stories from tony fitzpatrick
via vz
the stray shopping cart program
via lorna land