ALL MY EYES

"Wet Paint"

2012-02-02T16:49:00.008-05:00

I love these first three “Wet Paint” signs, and the concept of "wetness" they convey. It’s a slightly different take than the Dutch Boy’s traditional warning of “don’t touch!”

These two have nothing to do with "wetness"
in any way, but they sure are great looking.

Polish Cat Stamps: A Lesson In Cuteness

2012-01-31T18:12:00.011-05:00

It’s hard to say exactly why I did not let out an “Ooooooo cute!” when I came upon these sheets of cat stamps from Poland.

At first I thought that by finding them in Yale’s Beineke collection, I assigned them more gravitas than I would your average cat stamp. But I wasn’t really convinced. Then I realized, that there must be some sort of “multiple-effect” operating, if there is such a thing. Array anything in a fine enough grid and you read the grid, not the image. And while grids have many wonderful qualities, let’s face it—they are not cute.

I happened to be looking through "Suspects, Smokers, Soldiers, and Salesladies," a wonderful collection of collages by Ivan Chermayeff and was glad to have this "theory" of multiples confirmed as a design axiom. Here’s what he says:

What about seeing several things repeated? Repeating is an act that forces one to view the act instead of the actor. If something ugly is repeated and remains ugly, it only means that it has not been repeated often enough. Repeating is like enlarging in this respect because if something ugly is big, then it only means that it was not made big enough. The Saint Louis arch is horrendous as an airport souvenir and quite magnificent as the gateway to the city… Supermarket shelves prove that the visual repetition of the worst possible packages can be a delight, which sometimes even surpasses the repetition of the best packages.

As the sheets were undated, I went elsewhere to find when they were issued. That’s when I came upon a listing for them on Etsy, arrayed as single stamps of a series. They date back to 1964.

Oooooooo, how cute!!!!!

Soviet Chess Books

2012-01-27T18:05:00.011-05:00

Above, the Botvinnik-Tal match, 1960
Is there another game with as much in the way of illustrative, graphic and metaphoric possibilities? You’ve got royalty, war, strategy, various figures and characters, not to mention the black and white checkered board on which the game is played.

The importance of chess in the Soviet Union cannot be overstated. As Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, World Chess Champion, 1975-1985 put it, “Chess in Russia is like baseball in America.”

Paul Hoffman interviewed Karpov (above) in 2010. Here’s an excerpt.

Question: Why has Russia dominated the chess world?

Anatoly Karpov: Because of long time traditions and chess was... chess was part of intellectual life in Russian Empire. And so big writers, great writers they were playing chess and so this was privilege in part of top society, in top society people. And then after the revolution, new power, they saw in chess the tool of bringing knowledge and education because it was easy, it was cheap and if you recall the time when revolution happened, most of educated people and top society people they left the country. And so new power should work out something to make new intelligencia and new intellectual people. And so they believed that with the help of chess they could do it, and especially it’s very cheap compared to any other things. I don’t talk even about sport, but about other subjects and sciences. And that’s why it was supported and even during civil war, when we had civil war in 1920, first championship for Soviet Russia took place. And later it became part of education system, before World War II. And after all chess became national game. Like you have here in America, you have baseball, and so Russia had chess.

The Chess ABC-Book, Czech book published in Russian, 1983.

"Kids Play Chess"
Kindergarten textbook, 1991

Garry Kasparov's game with Deep Blue

Grand master Eduard Gryunfeld, left, and "I Prefer to Risk" about five time world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili. She was the
first woman grandmaster.

1927 book about famous game between Alehin and Capablanca.

Third world champion J. R. Capablanca.

"The Praxis of My System," by A. Nimzovich, 1962

"Become a Grand Master," 1985

Chess magazines, 1966.

Chess game journal.

Books are from eBay and antiquarian bookseller sites.

A Sunshine State of Mind

2012-01-23T20:21:00.016-05:00

Map of Floria in oranges and grapefruit, circa 1940s. This postcard, along with others in this post, are from the wonderful site Florida Memory.
For modern-day Florida, see tonight’s Republican reality show with Newt, Mitt, Rick & Ron.

If you’d like some visual distraction, here’s a bit of nostalgia from the Sunshine State.

Juice King orange crate label.

Ostrich Farm

Shell show catalog, St. Petersburg, 1967.

Brochure, The Fountain of Youth, St. Augustine.

Ceiling of the post office in Miami Beach. (via Flickr)

Weeki Wachee Mermaids.

Busch Gardens, Tampa.

Early Bird Special at Wolfies, in Miami Beach. (From here)

Anita Bryant in an ad for orange juice, 1970s.

The Fountainbleau Hotel, Miami Beach, and
Slim Aarons photo of the cat-shaped pool.

"A Florida Blossom Among Grapefruit and Oranges"
via Kitschy-kitschy-coo.

Anonymous Good: Eyelash Photo

2012-01-19T18:27:00.008-05:00

A friend of mine has this totally cool black and white photo of false eyelashes hanging in his bathroom (TMI?). He found in a warehouse that was being emptied many years ago. I presume that it was for advertising, but there really is no clue as to age, purpose, or maker. And none of that detracts even one wink from its fabulousness.

I love how the length is exaggerated with those long luxurious shadows, and how there’s only one pair that is “open.”

PHOTOS BY JONATHAN GREENBERG

Public Service Billboards: Blasts From the Past

2012-01-17T17:12:00.010-05:00

Fry Now. Pay Later.
The digital archive of outdoor advertising, part of the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University, contains over 27,000 images spanning the1920s through the 1990s.

These roadside messages use brevity, humor, catchiness, irony, shock—anything they can--to permeate our peripheral vision, often at speeds well over 60 mph, to embed themselves in our collective psychic landscapes. Here’s a small sample.

Keep an eye out for Columbus, Ohio billboards in particular. There are two ads for what I think is water conservation, and then there are billboards for both sides of the bullfighting-arena controversy. Who knew?

Jimmy took a "TRIP"

Can't stop smoking? Yes you can!

Nuclear War No Cure Only Prevention

Some Call Him Pig! Support Your Police Dept.

Voluntary Integration. Better Education by Choice. (1968)

Life Preservers. (1985)

Buckle-Up Arrive Alive! (1960s)

Leave Her Alone With Your Cologne (1965)

Let Him Skip His Bath Tonight (1964)

Call 1-800-COCAINE (1983)

Think Metric

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.

The Key is Knowledge

Smash the Axis Pay your taxes (1942)

Vote No! Tax

"What's An Orgy?"

Future Site of Columbus Bullfighting Arena

Keep Bullfighting out of Columbus

Site of New Phoenix Bullfight Arena

Care for your Car-for your Country (1942)

This is Your Country Conserve Energy (1974)

The Paris Peace Accords resulted in the signing of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam on January 27, 1973.

Photo Graphics

2012-01-12T20:55:00.021-05:00

Having grown up in the era of capturing moments (as opposed to the real-time 24/7 documentation that goes on today), the looming Kodak bankruptcy filing makes me a bit misty-eyed.

It’s amazing how much physical stuff beyond the camera itself, was involved in the taking and making of photographs. And each item came packaged with some representation of colorful optimism. At one end was the film. It was housed in a color-coded spool, which was safely ensconced in a lidded canister, which in turn was packaged in a trusty yellow box. At the other end were the printed images, which arrived in an elaborate system of envelopes and sleeves.

Here are just a few physical remains of the moment-capturing process, brought to us by Kodak and the others who packaged every step of the way. Just think, when Facebook files for bankruptcy in about a hundred years, there will be no clutter, at least of a physical nature, left behind.

I couldn’t find a year for this Brownie camera manual, but it is filled with
tips like “Hold the camera S-T-E-A-D-Y and press the exposure release
with a gentle squeezing action …” and “Be sure your finger
is not in front of the lens.”

TO_ID_5696935026010140034" />These souvenir slide collections are promoted
as "Not From Postcards."

Order forms to send in for duplicate
Polaroid prints.

Master of Suspension

2012-01-09T17:13:00.002-05:00

What a treat to come upon the lighter-than-air, suspended breaths of wire by sculptor, Richard Lippold. Having just gorged myself on the thick, lusciously brushed fare at MoMA’s de Kooning banquet, I fully appreciated the visual palette-cleanser thoughtfully provided at the show’s exit.

Lippold, who died in 2002 at age 87 was usually involved with constructions of a much higher order (literally). Working with architects like Walter Gropius and Philip Johnson, his work can be found suspended from the ceiling at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, the lobby of the MetLife Building (formerly Pan Am) and in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons restaurant.

And yet, however “public” Lippold’s art may be, very few people seem to have ever heard of him—which is especially surprising given the thorough and systematic rediscovery of all things mid-century.

Left: The Four Seasons, Grill Room
Right: 'Orpheus and Apollo,’ Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center. (via Carthalia)

Lippold’s LA Times obit describes the laborious production of the pieces and their dismissal by an imperious critical elite.

"The Sun," commissioned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1953, used nearly two miles of wire filled with 22-carat gold, held together by 14,000 hand-welded joints. It took three years to create and caused a sensation, although not all authorities were impressed. "Not sculpture, but a kind of charade of sculpture which, while hinting at vast conceptions, makes its points very much as window decoration catches the eye," wrote critic Hilton Kramer in Arts magazine.

For more on just how little Hilton Kramer thought of the sculptor (and the patrons who commissioned him), read the New York Times piece from 1968, “The Phenomenon of Lippold, Our Foremost Public Decorator.”
In a 1959 design review of The Four Seasons, B.H. Friedman at first seems to enjoy the Lippold installation over the bar (along with the companion piece over the mezzanine). “At a distance, both have a surprising visual density-intensely illuminated, as they are … and almost invisibly supported by fine wires. When one walks closer, or sits at the bar, they become delicate and airy.

Then, clearly feeling guilty about the pleasure taken, Friedman quickly denounces them.

But neither up close nor at a distance do they work as sculpture. There is no sense of emotional content or of spacial conquest. They work, rather, as decor, and in this context they are overwhelmed by the scale and opulence of their surroundings …They become simply another "good design" appointment

The revival of his work by a younger generation has been hampered as well. It seems that the results of this painstaking construction requires a commensurate level of maintenance. In 2009, the Times reported on the restoration of a Lippold piece in Rhode Island with a budget of $475,000. Even works that come up for auction at low prices go unsold, due to the cost of ownership—restoration, installation, and maintenance.

And remember those two miles of wire used in the Met's “Sun?” Lippold was scammed by the supplier who delivered gold-plated wire instead of the gold-filled wire which was ordered. The result was an eventual corrosive interaction with the other metals and the piece now sits boxed in the Lippold Foundation awaiting replication.

I’m not sure how long the Lippold pieces are on display at MoMA, but the De Kooning show ends January 9th.

The plan for the Four Seasons piece is in the collection of MoMA. (Detail, below, via Haute of Control)

Vintage 2012 Scarf

2012-01-06T15:10:00.008-05:00

Happy 2012 to all.

So if the year is less than a week old, how, pray tell, can this NYC 2012 scarf possibly be vintage? The Oscar de la Renta piece dates all the way back to 2005 and resides in the collection of the New York Historical Society.

While the NYHS lends any item a patina of age, to confer vintage status on something not even seven years old, is still a bit of a reach. Even for the fashion cycle. But consider that it was designed for New York’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, and that scarf starts to look like really old news. There are no doubt events from 2005 which feel like they happened yesterday, but I remember how ridiculously far off into the future the idea of the 2012 Olympics seemed at the time. Perhaps "vintage" adheres to its own laws of relativity. And so much for telling the age of a scarf from the date printed on it.

The 100 members of New York's 2012 delegation were outfitted in Oscar de la Renta for the city-selection event that took place in Singapore. According to NY1, "The attire consists of a printed NYC2012 blouse with matching printed scarf, white blazer, and navy skirt for women while the men will be wearing a navy blazer and solid blue dress shirt, a printed NYC2012 tie and white pants."

Needless to say, the NYHS is a treasure trove of the city and of the country’s past. And they’ve got newly renovated digs.
Their online scarf collection isn't exactly extensive, but here are a few to get us in the mood for another kind of competition--the presidential election this fall!

The George McGovern scarf is from 1972, the year he lost
to Nixon in a landslide. The Nixon scarf, though,
is from 1968. It is described on the site as “designed in
the "groovy" aesthetic of the 1960s…”

Carter-Mondale, undated.

Eugene McCarthy's 1968 peace campaign.

Norman Thomas was a six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. This kerchief from 1932, includes names of Socialist Party candidates for New York State governor and NYC mayor as well.

Constitution-preamble and 10 original amendments, 1941.

Happy Hanukkah from the Trenches

2011-12-24T12:44:00.011-05:00

So much for this amazingly original trench art Hanukkah Menorah I found on eBay. There’s another exactly like this one, written up here, and yet another just like it in the book "From the Secular to the Sacred: Everyday Objects in Jewish Ritual Use" by the Israel Museum.

“Trench art,” as it turns out, is a tricky business. It’s hard to know whether the our Menorah was a microtrend, as in “I’ve got this rifle butt--hey, I think I’ll make one of those nifty menorahs I just saw Ari make,” or if it is of the “mass produced” variety. By that I mean “Yossi, bring me as many rifle butts as you can get your hands on. Tourists are buying them faster than I can turn them out.”

Here’s how Wikipedia presents the subject of trench art:

To the uninitiated, all trench art, by definition, was made by a soldier sitting in a trench in France during the First World War, in the midst of a bombardment. To the cynics, it was all made in the 1920s by enterprising French and Belgian citizens. The reality is, naturally, a mix of these extremes, and everything in between, and spans conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to the present day.

In the realm of Judaica, the Menorah might be the only ritual object for which a gun is actually appropriate, as Hanukkah is the only ancient Jewish holiday to commemorate Jews battling their enemies. If you are not familiar with those guerilla warriors who took back the Temple, read about the macho Maccabees here.

Here's to repurposing all guns! Wishing a peaceful, light-filled holiday to all.

Trompe L’oeil Gift Guides

2011-12-15T17:31:00.016-05:00

Le jeu de l'oisif
Think of these paintings by Jacques Poirier (1928-2002) as “found” gift guides His trompe l’oeil extravaganzas are crammed with such a dizzying quantity and variety of objects that you’re bound to hit on some gift solutions while studying them.

Poirier put aside his successful career as an illustrator when he was in his early fifties, and devoted himself full time to painting. The world on which he trains his hyper-realism is part junk-drawer-on-steroids and part prop closet of William Harnett and Joseph Cornell. He’s known for embedding puns, anagrams and rebuses into his elaborate works--efforts which, are completely lost on me, since they are in French. You can see more of his work here(where these images are mostly from), and you can read more about his background here.

There is no site for Poirier's illustrations, but you can look at some of his illustrated book covers at Antiqbook, where I did a search for his illustrations.

Hopefully, between the balls of twine, glass orbs, playing cards, doll fragments, scrimshaw and bits of hardware, you’ll at least find inspiration.

Labels link to the product, clockwise:

Scrimshaw book, giant jacks,
antique-games book,
Ikebana shears, game of jacks,
bust of Thomas Jefferson,
fuzzy dice, Scrabble.

Coquillages

Pencil sharpener, shell print,
crank sharpener, Shell Chic,
kraft paper pads, electric sharpener,
crow-quill pens, calligraphy book,
Speedball ink.

Artnica

Binoculars, pipe, tape measure,
magnet, gazing ball

Le vol d'Icare

Crane, Radio Flyer red wagon,
Lego architecture, Erector Set

Histoire d'h

Eco edition playing cards, sealing wax set,
leather driving gloves, Michelin Guide,
alphabet nesting blocks

Le cavalier seul

Faux storage books, book clock,
horse mannequin, Dr. Seuss's ABC

Then again, there's always Chanukah gelt (or gift cards, as they call it today).

Tattooed Glove Love

2011-12-12T13:57:00.010-05:00

These tattoo-covered vintage leather gloves are the work of Chicago-based artist Ellen Greene. I’ll spare you the disappointment I suffered and tell you right away that these gloves are not wearable. They are to be collected and displayed as the works of art that they are.

Whenever I see white leather gloves, I'm reminded of how far away the recent past really is. They are neither rare nor particularly valuable, and can be easily found at any thrift shop or flea market. I imagine that many pairs of white gloves remain today, in drawers of women who probably never imagined that such a classic accessory would be totally obsolete in their lifetimes. While the simple strand of pearls managed to survive the feminist movement, the white kid glove became absolute road-kill. Even if they were to make a comeback, most of these delicate and exquisite symbols of ladylikeness are too small for today’s hands. How wonderful to see them get a life. I love that the images they are covered with, would have been unimaginable to their original owners.

From the website: “White gloves evoke a sense of purity and of formality, while the art of tattooing may suggest carnal sexuality and rebellion. The tension between the two helps define Greene's personal aesthetic, as well as her original tattoo-inspired designs which adorn these vintage gloves.”

I’ve posted the tamer ones here, so definitely go see the rest on Greene’s website. Prices range roughly from $500 to $1000 a pair. Take a look at the works on paper, those starts as low as $150.

Gloves may not be such an unimaginative gift, after all!

Okay, she mostly uses white gloves. I'm crazy about the reverse scrimshaw effect of this white-on-black pair.

via Who Killed Bambi?

Bard Book Blowout

2011-12-10T13:15:00.012-05:00

There is a fantastic book sale going on this weekend and next at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery. Catalogs for past exhibits at the gallery are being offered at a 70% discount. And if you buy three, the fourth book is free.

These books are all incredibly well researched, and gorgeously produced. Many of them are the only books on the given subject and for other subjects they serve as the definitive scholarly text. The ones pictured above are only a small sample of available catalogs.

And while you are there, you must see the wonderful show, Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones. There is a catalog for that show as well, but it is not part of the book sale.

The top-hat form, below, is in the show, and
there are, of course, many, many amazing hats.

The book sale is at the BGC Gallery, 189 West 86th Street,
near Central Park West, in NYC.
December 8-11 and 15-18, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Stocking Hosiery

2011-12-06T23:33:00.008-05:00

A hosiery display I saw in Berlin employed a very clever system to encourage the proper replacement of removed packages, to the shelf. The bottom portion of the package image is repeated on the shelf slot where ir belongs. Easy, right? Just match up the pix, and that package of panty hose, knee-highs, etc. will end up right where it is supposed to be (see below). Unless, for some reason, that doesn’t happen (above). The display then becomes one of those mix-and-match flipbooks. Results can be anything from hilarious to headache-inducing.

The display, when all goes according to plan.

How long till I get used to these bifocals?

It only took a slight misalignment to give the illusion
of a broken ankle.

And those ink runs had better be perfect too.

Here’s another brand that tried, just as unsuccessfully, the same “clever” approach.

A Gem of a Map

2011-11-30T19:49:00.009-05:00

I’m definitely a fan of turquoise jewelry, but I don’t usually pore over books on the subject. So I’m pretty sure it was the under-line, “The Gem of the Centuries” that got me to pick up this vintage title from 1975. What got me to actually buy the book and take it home, though, was the map inside, Turquoise Mines of the Southwest.

Specimens of various turquoise stones are placed on a painted map highlighting Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. You hardly need a caption to know that each stone’s pointer leads to its mine location. According to the caption, these are most of the major production locations, but there are many other mines and kinds of turquoise not represented. Page numbers link each specimen to jewelry pictured in the book using that variety of turquoise.

What I like about this map is that it doesn’t try to do too much. It shows only the relevant states and doesn’t feel compelled to label any geography. The mines are discussed throughout the book along with details of the different varieties of the stone. The restraint of maintaining a limited palette on the map is also key to its success.

Curious about what else the map’s illustrator, Gene Boyce Guest produced, I poked around a bit and found only a few pictures attributed to him. Here are two pieces by him.

This postcard of Santa Fe's Palace
of the Governors, is from an
original painting by Guest.

1968 oil painting of a Santa Fe hillside.

Scenes From an Autumn Weekend

2011-11-28T19:43:00.005-05:00

Each weekend I think it must be the last before winter sets in. Snapped these on a weekend visit to the country earlier this fall. Walks, shopping, yard sales, and mushrooms everywhere!

To my Fine Feathered Friends …

2011-11-24T14:16:00.003-05:00

I thought this was a good day to share this vintage collection of tail feathers I bought on eBay a while back.

A Happy Thanksgiving to all.

PHOTOGRAPHIE Magazine

2011-11-23T15:44:00.007-05:00

PHOTOGRAPHIE was an annual, special issue of the magazine Arts et Metiers Graphiques entirely dedicated to photography. There’s lots to read about AMG, the influential journal of all things print-related, at Modernism 101, where most of these images are from. There’s also a whole website about it at RIT.

What I particularly like about these photo annuals, aside from how beautiful they are, is that they feature no photography on the covers. The typography acts as master of ceremonies. It introduces the special guest and then gets out of the way.

Unfortunately, AMG founder Charles Peignot would definitely not approve of this post. He and his pals (like Le Corbusier, Jean Cocteau and A.M. Cassandre) formed Union des Artistes Modernes, a group "strongly against anything backward looking."

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1947

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1938

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1932

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1930

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1931

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1933-34

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1935

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1938

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1939

PHOTOGRAPHIE, 1937

Calling All Calipers

2011-11-16T19:01:00.014-05:00

Serifs or feet?

I have no explanation for how or why this has happened, but I’m crazy for calipers these days. Evocative of typography, anatomy, and instruments of torture, these specialized devices have an expressive nature. Some calipers are bowlegged, double-jointed or have well-developed quads. Others have exotic diacritical marks or could quite believably be monogrammed onto fingertip towels. And then there are the ones you know had to have been invented by a medieval dentist or Victorian gynecologist.

Feel free to free associate …

Photos are from eBay or other auction sites unless otherwise noted.

The largest of the above set from Designer Pages, is 55 inches.

The collections of "brackets" are from Lost Found Art,
via Accidental Mysteries.

The woodturner's double calipers, above, allows for two measurements to be taken without changing tools. From Woodworking Tools 1600-1900, by Peter C. Walsh.The triple calipers, below, are available on eBay.

These golden mean calipers are
hand crafted in New Zealand
by Nick Taylor.

Then there are those who refuse to leave
anything to the imagination.

avaf, Gaga's Elves at Barneys

2011-11-10T11:37:00.003-05:00

Announcements for Gaga's Workshop at Barneys New York.
I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of crowd control is being planned for the environs of Barneys New York over the holiday season. The store will outdo itself this year by devoting windows and THE ENTIRE FIFTH FLOOR to—move over, Santa--Gaga’s Workshop.

Gaga goodies: 25% of sales from workshop items like the
limited edition snow globe, claw-shaped stocking, and
the chocolate skull, will benefit Lady Gaga’sBorn This Way Foundation.
To fan the flames of hype, Barneys will release
a new limited-edition product each day
until the opening of Gaga's Workshop
on November 21 at 11:59 p.m.

assume vivid astro focus (avaf), the over-the-top installation collective of Eli Sudbrack and Christophe Hamaide Pierson, will be transforming the 5,500 square-foot men’s store under the direction of Gaga collaborator, Nicola Formichetti. Avaf’s work has appeared at the Whitney Biennial, Deitchprojects, MoMA, etc.
Fashionista reports:

The workshop, which will be on the fifth floor, will house eight different stations including: a giant wig that will house fake nails and other beauty items; a Gaga-faced spider holding jewelry; a giant pop-up book for the books; and a sculptural candy shop (apparently her favorite childhood treats were malted milk balls, gumballls, and candy lipsticks.) Some of the Gaga candy offerings will include chocolate “poker face” chips and “disco stick” lollipops. (Um.)
The Gaga theme continues with the windows, which were inspired by various Gaga songs. One will feature that most festive of holiday decorations–hair–on every surface, obviously in honor of her song “Hair.”

And what kind of magic might we expect from these elves? Here are some past installations by avaf. You can see lots more on their site.

Mock-up of the Madison Ave. entrance.

Running the Numbers

2011-11-07T14:24:00.004-05:00

Huge congrats to all who ran yesterday, in the NYC Marathon. The city was mobbed over the weekend. And for once, it was by out-of-towners with extremely low body mass.

While more than 47,000 race bibs were issued for this year’s marathon, it’s unlikely that very many of the Tyvek placards will end up in land-fill. Most will be kept as a souvenir of the 26.2-mile run through the city. In fact, many runners keep the bibs from all their races, and much can be found online about how to store and display accumulated bibs.

The typographic variety in these bib collections, is great-looking, but as a non-runner, I am clueless as to any inherent meaning or nuance. For example, I only learned on Sunday, that for NYC Marathoners, numbers are assigned by expected speed--faster runners get lower numbers. I like to imagine that an experienced racer could glance at any collection of bibs and determine, based on the range of fonts, colors, sizes, etc. the historic period, geographic location, and level of runner it belongs to. As ephemera goes, the bibs are particularly fascinating in that the items are of no inherent value or significance in any way. Except, of course, that they are enormously significant as representations of a particular event to a particular individual. Some runners, when commenting on their collections, say that each bib triggers the vivid memory of each race.

After watching the mylar-caped finishers stream out of Central Park, I am in total awe of every entrant in the 42nd running of the NYC Marathon. I am especially proud of runner number 15-512, my nephew Sam, who finished in 3 hours, 42 minutes.

This collection is interactive. Click on any bib at Joe's Diner
to see race info.

Hanging bibs from Running the Family.

DIY race bib tote bag at notorias.com.

Jacket made from your own race numbers!
Via Wellsphere "What to do with all your race stuff."

A colorful collection of bibs from rundomshots.

Another colorful collection accompanies this race-bib display tutorial.

See the photo gallery of race-bibs-as-wallpaper.

Slinky, With Bristles

2011-11-02T17:26:00.005-04:00

I just spotted this highly unusual object on 1st Dibs. California-based dealer, Coup d’Etat, describes the “Factory-made Slinky” as a "cylindrical bristle for industrial polishing. America, 20th Century."

The object is quite surprising and has me wondering if, perhaps, it represents a foray by Meret Oppenheim (of fur-teacup fame) into the world of industrial design.

The polisher is 24” high and has an 11” diameter. And, of course, I’m just dying to know if the bristles interfere with this slinky’s ability to “walk –the-stairs.”

Breast Cancer Awareness, 1777

2011-10-30T17:45:00.006-04:00

A number of years ago I found myself standing before a painting of a female patient in bed, surrounded by guests and various attendants. One side of her chest was covered in blood. I was looking at a mastectomy from 1777. The piece was created as an ex voto, a devotional painting, given as an offering of gratitude to a saint.

Translation of the text on the painting :

Doña Josefa Peres Maldonado offers this monument of her gratitude to the Most Holy Christ of Encino, venerated in the Church of Triana, and to the Most Holy Virgin Mary of El Pueblo, in perpetual memory of the benefit, due to her piety, that resulted from an operation that took place on 25th of April 1777, when the surgeon Don Pedro Maillé removed six cancerous tumors from her breast, in the presence of the gentlemen and ladies depicted on this canvas. Although the wound closed perfectly on the 25th of July 1777, other accidents befell her from which she died on Friday, the 5th of September, at 3 p.m., with clear signs of the patronage of the Holy Image and of her salvation.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month, aka October, comes to a close I wanted to post this surprising early depiction. I found a number of other early visualizations of the disease, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. They are just about all, medical in nature, and are way more graphic than the Maldonado ex voto. And way more horrifying than any Halloween post I could come up with. By the end of October, breast cancer might seem like it's all pink ribbons and teddy bears, but these pictures can remind us of what all the pink was about to begin with.

For multiple views about the breast-cancer awareness movement, listen to “Pink Fatigue” on NPR, and the interview with an outraged Barbara Ehrenreich. The writer, whose latest book is Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, was treated for breast cancer in 2001. Ehrenreich challenges the pink-ribbon culture, with its cutesiness and heavily marketed product tie-ins. She resents, as well, the “survivor” label and the current emphasis on embracing breast cancer as a growth experience.

"This is ugly, this is nasty," she says. "I want to know why it happens and stop it."

For more Ehrenreich, read Smile, You’ve Got Cancer.

Kamata Keishu, 1851
Excision of a cancerous growth from a woman's breast, an operation which Hanaoka Seishu first carried out in 1804 using general anesthetic.
Wellcome Library, London

Lorenz Heister, 1748
Latent or occult breast cancer, mastectomy and
relevant surgical instruments.
Wellcome Library, London

circa 1675
Illustration of a woman having a breast operation, accompanied by a close up of the surgical instruments used. From a compendium of popular medicine and surgery, receipts, etc., in German. Compiled for the use of a House of the Franciscan Order, probably in Austria, or South Germany.
Wellcome Library, London

Jacob Nicolas Henri, 1860s
Nicolas Henri Jacob (1782–1871), was a student of the French painter Jacques Louis David. He illustrated the eight-volume treatise, Atlas of Anatomy by French anatomist, Jean-Baptiste Marc Bougery (1797–1849).
Source: Cerebral coffins, Medical Illustrations

Afflicted, Gentlefolk Leeds, 1841
One of six portraits forming a group of works entitled "Gentlefolk of Leeds Afflicted with Disease." Mrs Prince of Coborough Street, after the surgical removal of her right breast.
Wellcome Library, London

Mastectomy, Johns Hopkins Medical Reports
Source: The National Library of Medicine

Attributed to a Dutch artist, 17th century
The operator excises the breast with the "tenaculum helvetianum". His assistant has a case of lancets etc. attached to his belt. A set of cautery irons is smouldering on a stand on the left. The patient is seated, held by two men: she appears to be fainting. On the right, a man in a tall hat points towards her: he is possibly meant to be a physician.
Wellcome Library, London

Lam Qua, 1830s
A woman with a tumour in her right breast which
is expanding over her trunk.
Wellcome Library, London

One of the many pink bears out there.
“MyWalkGear.com provides the opportunity to make a statement and be the winners you all are in the walk of life …”

The trigger for Ehrenreich’s backlash against pink-think cutesiness was an ad for a pink breast cancer teddy bear she saw while waiting for her mammogram results. "That was kind of an existential turning point for me because I realized I'm not afraid of dying, but I am terrified of dying with a pink teddy bear tucked under my arm."

Recent iPhone Paintings

2011-10-21T17:22:00.008-04:00

Connecticut Road

An assortment of recent iPhone paintings (using the Brushes app) to kick off the weekend ...

Muji Bag

Grace Building

Doppio

Decaf
(this was in Starbucks)

W. 73rd St.

Change Purse

Tyrants in a Tent

2011-10-21T00:57:00.004-04:00

In early May, a mere four days after Bin Laden’s death was announced, I attended the Housing Works 'Design on a Dime' fundraiser at Metropolitan Pavilion. It was only upon arriving at the Mideast-themed booth of designer Michael Bagley, that I took out my camera. On the tented wall were portraits of America’s favorite tyrannical trio. How perfect to see the “poster boys” of treachery and terror--Saddam, Muammar, and Osama--rendered as actual Warholized pop posters.

Qaddafi’s youngest son had been killed the previous week, and the world was watching and wondering: Would an exile be successfully brokered, or would Libya’s maniacal ruler “fight to his last drop of blood,” as he had vowed?

Don't Read This While Driving!

2011-10-19T23:02:00.010-04:00

1940s
(via flickr Christian Montone)

Driver’s manuals are probably the only official booklet a teenager will gladly study. For along with a successful parallel parking job, passing a written exam is required for a driver’s license. The manuals, of course, are available online now, with some states even charging for a printed version. Here’s a selection, most from a time before “texting” was a word.

Illinois, 1958

Illinois, 1965

Illinois, 1969

New York, 1962

U.S. Army, 1942

Code Rousseau, France, 1972

Australia, 1950s

General Motors, 1953

Virginia, 2002-2003

Florida, 1950s

Top, Iowa and Arizona. Bottom New York, 1959,60,61.

Missouri, early 1960s

Oklahoma, 2010

Rules of the Road, 2003
(Interactive driver's ed course)

All Time Covers

2011-10-18T14:30:00.004-04:00

No, there isn't a hyphen missing between “All” and “Time.” This image really is every cover of Time magazine, from the first issue in 1923 through the summer of 2009, 4535 covers in total. I uploaded the file at it's large size, so you can click to see the image bigger.

See more of the Mapping Time project by Jeremy Douglass and Lev Manovich of Software Studies Initiative, here.

Via La boite verte

ALL ME: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert

2011-10-14T23:25:00.014-04:00

Chain Gang (All Me), 2004
What appears, at first, to be a jumble of white dashes on black, turns out to be prisoners on a chain gang. Blizzards of white dots are vast expanses of cotton, waiting to be picked for pennies a pound. This is the visual language of 67-year old African American artist, Winfred Rembert. His paintings--actually, hides of leather, carved, tooled and dyed--create a graphic diary illustrating life in the segregated rural south.

“ALL ME: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert,” a feature length documentary directed and produced by Vivian Ducat, premiers this week at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Chain Gang - The Ditch, 2005
As Rembert’s experiences unfold on screen, we learn that the paintings are completely autobiographical. That includes the chain gang, on which he worked, while serving a prison sentence. He started in the cotton fields as a young child, when he picked alongside “Mama,” the great aunt who raised him.

Rembert’s visual story telling is especially astute when he depicts scenes of everyday activities in the environs of his native Cuthbert, Georgia. Pictures of pool halls and juke joints usually include portraits of specific characters.

On Mama's Cotton Sack, 2002
The artist’s remembrances are riveting in their detail as he recalls the racism he suffered (including a near lynching) the poverty in which he was raised, and his civil rights activism.

Fascinating too, is Rembert's personal journey as an artist. As a kid he made his own toys from whatever materials he could find. Though he picked up leather tooling in prison during the 1970s, it wasn’t until the mid 1990s that Rembert started to translate his memories into images. With shows at Yale University Art Gallery, and Adleson Gallery in New York, his work has gained momentum with collectors.

“ALL ME” will also be shown at festivals in Chicago, Hot Springs and Albany, Georgia. Visit the film’s website for more info and all the details.

Chain Gang Picking Cotton, 2004

Family Picking Cotton, 2003

Saturday Shopping Day, 2000

The Wood Boy, 2007

Jeff's Pool Room, 2003

Smilin' Ben Shorter, 2009

Sugar Cane (Patsy's Mother), 2008

The Baptism, 2003

I got to meet the artist after a
screening of the film during the summer.
Photo: Joan Morgan

Signed by Design?

2011-10-11T11:45:00.006-04:00

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, 1962
Here are some particularly well-signed album covers. (Hey, how do you sign a download?) Some even had me wondering, if they weren’t, in fact, designed to be signed?

The Beatles, Help!, 1965

Harry Belafonte, Belafonte, 1956

Fleetwood Mac, Rumors, 1977
Designed to be signed?

Stephen Stills, Stills, 1975

Aerosmith, Draw the Line, 1977

Tony Bennett, I Wanna Be Around, 1963

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run, 1975

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy, 1980

Images are from auction sites and Joe Merchant's flickr site of close to 500 signed LPs.

Steve & Me

2011-10-07T11:43:00.006-04:00

I cannot count myself among those lucky enough to have worked with, interviewed, met, or even to have seen Steve Jobs. The chart, above, is the closest I ever got to the man who changed forever how we think of design.

1n 2002, Fortune magazine’s Andy Serwer wrote a piece about Dell and it’s mounting domination of the PC market. To accompany the story was to be a fairly standard chart showing shifts in market share of the top ten U.S. PC makers.

I plotted the data in various chart formats. The fever chart was very dramatic. It showed Dell zooming from sixth position in 1994 to the number one position five years later. But the bar chart was impressive too. That showed how enormous a chunk of the market Dell owned, selling a quarter of all PCs, up from less than 5% in 1994. The problem was that the fever chart showed movement, but didn’t communicate the size of Dell’s share, while the bar chart showed size, but didn’t visualize Dell outpacing the competition.

Instead of choosing one, or showing both, I decided to try combining the fever and the bar chart. It might not seem like a big deal now, but at the time, what has become know as the “ribbon chart,” was a huge hit. I got lots of letters asking me what software I used, and the magazine got letters to the editor for once about a chart, which didn’t have to do with an error or other misrepresentation.

A few weeks later, I got a voicemail from our writer on the West Coast who covered the technology industry. Steve Jobs wanted to use the chart in a presentation and could I provide a PDF?

A couple of things struck me. One was how validating it is to have God (Gawker's claim not withstanding) ask to use your chart in a presentation. The other was that the CEO interested in using the graphic was certainly not using it to self-congratulate. By late 2001, Apple’s market share had slipped from third to sixth place—exactly where Dell had been when our chart began in 1994, and with the same 4.2% share. I guess the chart made Jobs see red (the color used was coincidental), and an opportunity to somehow “motivate” his audience.

And motivate, he did …

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

2011-10-06T17:12:00.004-04:00

For all those who keep meaning to watch the video of the commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005, here is the text of his wise words.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

From the Stanford University News. You can view the video there as well.

Nicholas Feltron Wine Label

2011-10-05T17:32:00.007-04:00

Bottles of Between Five Bells 2010 Geelong Red Wine sport a most mouthwatering label. It’s an infographic by none other than Nicholas Feltron. Owner of the Australian winery, David Fesq, tapped the info-viz wiz in the hope of achieving “transparency” by sharing vineyard data with the consumer.

Fesq explains the graphic on the label:

This is actually all the data of the various grape varieties as they entered the winery and went through primary fermentation. There are eight axis at play, including the heat of the ferments, the time on skins and the ripeness of the grapes. These are all things I find interesting, and even for a casual drinker, with a little research, they can tell you a lot about the flavours to expect.

As we move forward, each label will be unique to that wine. As they are data driven, no two labels can be the same

As it turns out Fesq and Feltron are cousins (same great-grandfather) which is how, as Fesq explains, he secured the designer’s services, and how, as Feltron explains, he got the gig. I’m still trying to decide who is luckier.

As I am somewhat of a purist—infographics, not wine—I am a bit disappointed by what appears to be a mislabeled key to the left of the graph. As you can see on the details of the label, below, Shiraz is blue in the key, and green (lichen?) on the graph, while Zinfindel is blue on the graph and green on the key. Too bad, because with the graph so clearly labeled, a key was not really even necessary.

Key
Label detail
While I'm at it, (because I probably would not pick on this by itself), what looks like another key to the right of the center graph (detail below), is not a key at all, rather a chart of general information.

Not a key
So what’s an information graphics editor to do? If I had had a glass or two before reading the label, perhaps I would not have noticed. And if the wine is any good, then after a glass or two it might not bother me anymore.

In fact, if the wine is good, then for the next go-round, my expertise is available for barter!

Fesq number-stamping labels for the 2010 Red.

Honey Labels

2011-09-29T02:12:00.007-04:00

Belgium, 1920s
These honey labels, mostly from Belgium, date from the 1920s onward. They are just a few of many for sale at bees-and-things.

Today starts the Jewish Year 5772. May it be a sweet one!

Belgium, early 1950s

Belgium, 1920s

Belgium 1950s

Belgium, 1930s

Netherlands, 1980s

Netherlands, 1980s

Belgium, 1930s

Belgium, 1980

Belgium, 1930s

Belgium, 1930s

1980s

Portugal

1950s

Belgium, 1940s

Flemish, contemporary

German label for beeswax

Yoga Stamps

2011-09-26T19:19:00.008-04:00

Bhujangasana
Cobra Pose

How, you may ask, do I dream up some of these posts? Well, this one I literally dreamt—as in, while I was asleep.

In my dream, I saw posters on the wall of a building that were blowups of vintage yoga postage stamps from the 1960s or 70s. When I googled “yoga stamps” the next day, I learned that it’s not exactly a popular philatelic subject. There are stamps featuring Swamis and Maharishis, but on the subject of yoga itself, I found only this series issued in India in 1991. The stamps depict four asanas (poses) rendered in a straightforward, almost clinical style. They are nothing like the stamps of my dreams, but, quietly lovely in their own right. I think they’d be cool as posters!

Dhanurasana
Bow Pose

Ustrasana
Camel Pose

Utthita Trikonasana
Extended Triangle Pose

iPhone Fashion Sketches

2011-09-20T18:00:00.006-04:00

Last week was Fashion Week in NYC and stunning models were stopping traffic everywhere. This week’s traffic choke-hold is the UN General Assembly meeting. From the ridiculous to the absurd, I’d say.

I’m finding the Brushes app for iPhone quite addicting. I still have sketches from my trip to Croatia to post, but I figured these Spring 2012 looks have a much shorter shelf life.

Marc Jacobs

Max Azria, BCBG

Oscar de la Renta

Bill Blass

Rodarte

Calvin Klein

Ralph Lauren

Wasser, Gas

2011-09-15T18:12:00.021-04:00

I was drawn to them right away—the curious primary-colored plaques affixed to the buildings in Berlin. Each was a deliberate, yet mysterious typographic composition of letters and numerals, with the occasional word “wasser” or “gas.” Was I unaware of a utilities signage project by Schwitters and Lissitzky?
International Dada Archive, Univ. of Iowa
Of course these found Merz poems actually mean something, and
Dr. Lee D. Han, a professor at the University of Tennessee, seems to have cracked the code.

Dr. Han recently visited Berlin to give a presentation about microscopic simulation and mass evacuation to a group of university transportation researchers. Scroll down to read about the puzzle he so proudly describes solving. He even provides a diagram!

From Professor Han's blog:

I’ll have to really sit down and write more about my short visit to Berlin. But one thing I want to report here is finally having time to solve this little puzzle. Basically, I had noticed these little placards on the side of the streets, on walls, and on poles with a “T” shaped marking typically in the center of the placard and with some numbers all around it. I’ve seen them in Vienna, Budapest, here in Berlin, and later in Sarajevo. I thought instinctively that they have something to do with pipelines, but never had the time to look closely. Well, this time I took the time and figured out that these are markers for the access “hole” for water, gas, hydrant, etc.

The word “Wasser” is water in German, which is not hard. But the “T” in the middle really means, I think, an access point to the water line 2.1 meters from this placard (perpendicular to the face of the placard) and 2.2 meters to the left of the placard. If the access point is to the right, the number would be written on the right side. If it is behind the placard, which is not uncommon, the number 2.1 would be negative.

I think this system must have been around for many a decade and widely employed in many European countries. As utility workers walk or even drive around, they can see these placards and easily identify the access points. There must also be a nice GIS-based asset management system with everyone of these access points inventoried, which is not hard as they are already clearly identified.

I’m sure the simple rules of these placards are common knowledge among utility workers. But it is still interesting to figure them out. As it turned out, everyone I asked along my trip acknowledged that not only they didn’t know what these placards are or how they work, but most of them never even noticed these little colorful markers. Perhaps somewhere on Wikipedia or a website in some other language all this is explained in detail. But this is where you read about it first. :)

Danke Herr Professor!

IN GRAPHICS Magazine

2011-09-11T13:52:00.008-04:00

During my trip to Berlin in August, I visited with infographics specialist Jan Schwochow. Jan and his talented team at Golden Section Graphics had just recently published Volume 2 of his wildly ambitious, independently and beautifully produced magazine, IN GRAPHICS.

While the sections of the 90-page issue are completely familiar-- politics, technology, sports, entertainment, etc., IN GRAPHICS is no ordinary magazine. Instead of running text and occasional photos or illustration, the content is displayed entirely in the form of infographics. Text is in German and English.

The cover story of Volume 2 takes on the events and aftermath of 9/11. We are first presented with a spread of front–page coverage of over a hundred publications from around the world. The six spreads that follow use diagrams, illustration, timelines, and quantitative charts to digest data and information of the last ten years. They are all thoughtfully conceived, meticulously researched and exquisitely executed.

THE DAY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

3RD TARGET: THE PENTAGON! AND THE WHITE HOUSE?

TERROR TRACES
How the terrorists prepared themselves for the attacks in the USA

TERROR IN NUMBERS

CIVILIAN CASUATIES

THE NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER

In addition to his technical expertise and years of experience, Jan has a great knowledge and interest in information graphics history. His ability to incorporate design solutions from the past, with cutting edge visualization techniques, creates work that is rich and sophisticated with plenty of fresh visualization surprises.

Even the contents page is a visual display.

Both volumes of IN GRAPHICS are available for shipping throughout Europe from Amazon.de. For shipping to the U.S., you can order from the Golden Section online shop directly.

A handful of bookstores in Germany, Amsterdam, London and Vienna also sell the magazines. If you are traveling in Europe, I suggest you use this list as a general resource for the coolest bookstores there are.

Back to School, Estonian Style

2011-09-08T14:58:00.007-04:00

September 1939
Today is the first day of school for 1.1 million New York City public school kids. Why, the air positively crackles with the familiar strains of dread, excitement, anxiety, and relief (for parents).

Above, the September 1939 cover of the weekly Estonian picture magazine, Nadal Pildis. Just imagine the current events classes those kids had that year!

Below, issues depicting the summer fun we leave behind.

1937

August 1937

July 1939

July 1939 (inside)

1936

1939 (inside)

September 1937

July 1937
Covers are all from a collection of Vintage Estonian Magazines created by "katytarkpea," on scribd.

The Ladies of Zagreb

2011-09-07T16:37:00.010-04:00

Ornamentation. It’s one of the cluster traits of great Central European cities. So, along with wonderful coffee, amazing pastry, and winding streets with unpronounceable names, architectural embellishment abounds in Zagreb. Of course you’ll see garlands gargoyles and geometry. But the profusion of female figures and faces is overwhelming. So, ladies first …

15 dana, and counting ...

2011-08-30T14:02:00.005-04:00

1972

Confession. I’ve been holding out. Big time. I’m so overwhelmed with all there is to see here in Croatia that I’ve not been able to digest, let alone post, as quickly as I would like to. Which might be why my being stranded in Zagreb for another week was meant to be.

You see, due to the storm-formerly-know-as Hurricane Irene, my flight back to NYC last Saturday was cancelled. Which meant that I was able to go to the Britanski antiques market here on Sunday. As I said, meant to be. I found a bunch of issues of an arts and culture magazine called 15 dana which means “15 days.” That’s exactly how long I’d been in the country, as of Sunday. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was meant to be.

The covers here are from the 1960s and 70s. There’s lots of great stuff inside as well--avant garde film, industrial design, Bohumil Stepan illustration, etc. But for now, the covers.

November 1969

March 1971

December 1969

1963

June-July 1966

1965

March 1966

February 1968

Letters From Berlin

2011-08-19T12:47:00.005-04:00

Had I seen this innocent "54" some place other than Berlin, would it still have struck me as Swastika-esque?

Signifying Otherness

2011-08-13T19:01:00.005-04:00

They might not tell me where, exactly in the world I am, but each of these sights tell me that I am definitely not in the U.S.

More from Berlin as I sort through things ...

Start the Presses! Globe Posters

2011-08-04T15:45:00.010-04:00

For a story that started out with 18 ft. Miehle letterpresses being hauled to the scrapyard, there is, miraculously, a way better ending than one might have expected.

The plant being dismantled was that of The Globe Poster Company, of Baltimore. The 80-year old business, run by the Cicero family for some 40 years, printed posters for everything fireman’s carnivals and vaudeville shows to R&B acts—lots of R&B—and hip hop shows. The company was now about to vanish into obsolescence.

Its fate was altered when owner Bob Cicero met Christian Sturgis, a local musician and antique dealer who was to help the Cicero brothers sell over 6,000 publicity photos and some of the remaining poster inventory. As an antique dealer, Sturgis had been appraising treasures from the past for well over a decade. This time, however, the enormous value he recognized was not monetary, but historical. What started as a business proposition, became a mission to find a savior for “this treasure trove of African American Music history and the Letterpress history” that was the Globe. His goal was to not just sell photos, but to find a buyer for the operation--its wooden type, etched zinc plates and remaining Heidelberg letterpress.

Fortunately, the Globe was not only a great story, but had great visuals as well. So thanks to articles, such as those in the Baltimore City Paper, and the efforts of a local group, “Friends of the Globe,” The Globe will live on. It’s amazing what can happen with publicity and passion, as letterpress printing has gained a huge popularity amongst a younger generation of artists and graphic designers.

What happened next, I’d say, falls into the “dreams-come-true” category. Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), also located in Baltimore, after a proposal by a letterpress faculty member, purchased a large percentage of the Globe this past March. It will be used as a research and study facility, and this fall, Bob Cicero will be teaching in the graphic design graduate program.

The neon torch will, in fact, be passed.

Some links where you can learn more and see more images of the historic posters and of the plant:
NPR, Globe Poster: An Illustrated History Of American Music
Baltimore City Paper, Pressed for Time. There you will find links to a fantastic photo tour by Frank Hamilton.
MICA announcement
Visit Sturgis Antiques to buy posters. He's got other wonderful items, there too.

James Brown Poster from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Haring-esque Ephemera for a Summer Friday

2011-07-29T13:13:00.003-04:00

Found these Keith Haring knock-off ice cream wrappers on a 1991 trip to Israel. Though in Israel, they most likely pronounce his name “Herring.” Great weekend to all!

19th Century Finds

2011-07-28T18:40:00.005-04:00

I recently paid a visit (virtually) to Ken Spelman rare books in York, England. In addition to the shelves and shelves of books, were drawings, prints, ephemera, and some unusual objects.

These Victorian word wheels date from, c.1870. The star-shaped cutouts, are handwritten on both sides, with slogans relating to love and fortune. I’m not quite sure how they worked, but apparently the string (that’s tangled around the one on the left) was for spinning the wheel.

Brass stencils, probably used by a surveyor, chart-maker, or architect. These pictured, are from a collection of 91 pieces. Many include the folded paper ‘envelope.’

Mahogany box with original watercolor cakes and china mixing dishes. I wonder if this set was American--there is no “u” in the word “colors.”

Until self-adhesive envelopes were introduced in the mid-19th Century, medallion wafers were used for sealing documents. They were discs made from a paste that included flour. As explained here, in detail, “the wheat gluten, when hydrated, dries to becomes an excellent adhesive.”

I love the scale on this marbled paper—the large shapes on a fairly small book.

Wooden star most probably for inlay work, c. 1830.

Sketches with 'Brushes'

2011-07-26T18:04:00.005-04:00

White Mug
Now that everyone has moved on to iPads, I figured it was just about the right time to finally get an iPhone.

As an enthusiastic sketcher and painter (note: enthusiasm and results do not necessarily correlate), I couldn’t wait to try the 'Brushes,' the app popularized by David Hockney and Jorge Colombo of New Yorker-cover fame.

Though iPhone “painting” really makes me miss paint, I already feel the pull of convenience. It’s also way less obtrusive in public. After all, isn’t everyone intently stroking a screen for some reason or another?

Morning Pond

Front Room

Schmaltzy Sunset Trio

Up Sixth Avenue

Urban Plein Air

Subway Platform

Pepper Ann on the Dock

Modern Sculpture, Made Clear

2011-07-21T12:01:00.009-04:00

Alexander Calder's entry received first prize.
"The World of Tomorrow, to judge by the displays in the scientific exhibits of the New York World's Fair, 1939, will be plasticized, or at least dominated by plastics. As though by common consent, most companies have featured some variety of the many species of plastics." (Chemical Engineering News, Sept. 1939.)

Three decades before it would be uttered in The Graduate as the most memorable single word of advice ever given, it was obvious (at least to chemical engineers) that the future would be “plastics.” The 1939 World's Fair featured them in full force. The myriad applications for Bakelite, Lucite, Plexiglas, Nylon and other newly devised synthetics, were showcased in everything from giant resin statues to paint used for murals, and the wands used by fair guides.

Bakelite Plastics Exhibit (NYPL photo)
In addition to the transparent “Ghost Car” I posted the other day, Rohm & Haas, inventor of the Plexiglas from which it was made, sponsored a sculpture competition with the Museum of Modern Art. Five of the 250 entries were exhibited for the duration of the fair.

I have no idea what ever became of the sculptures themselves, but the photos, by Louis Werner, are from the Katherine Dreier archive at Yale’s Beinecke Library. I think you might be familiar with some of the winning artists.

The judges were the artist, Katherin Dreier; curator, James Johnson Sweeney; and sculptor, Robert Laurent. Technical advisor for the competition was industrial designer Gilbert Rohde. At the Beinecke site, paired with each photo, is text by the judges explaining their choice of that sculpture. Alexander Calder won first prize. I’ve included the accompanying text for his sculpture at the end of this post. Each winner's name is linked to the original image and accompanying descriptive text.

Herbert Matter, second prize.

Werner Drewes, third prize.

C.K. Castaing, fourth prize.

Xanti Schawinsky, fifth prize.
(I can hardly wait to do a post on him.)

Click to enlarge.

1939 Pontiac Plexiglas “Ghost Car”

2011-07-19T10:19:00.007-04:00

Used 1939 Pontiac, 86 miles, single owner since early 1980s.

What you are looking at, or rather, through, is a 1939 Pontiac Deluxe Six made of Plexiglas. The “Ghost Car,” as it was called, which wowed visitors to GM's "Highways and Horizons" exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair, will be sold on July 30 by RM Auctions.

The photos here are all from the online catalog, as are the following excerpts:

Visitors to General Motors’ “Highways and Horizons” pavilion at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair came away awed by a vision of the future. The work of renowned designer Norman Bel Geddes, GM’s “Futurama” exhibit foretold the communities and transportation systems of 1960, many of which came to pass. Other peeks at the future included “Previews of Progress,” inventions that seemed like magic: “Yarns made of Milk! Glass that bends! The Frig-O-Therm that cooks and freezes at the same time! The Talking Flashlight transmitting speech over a light beam!” exclaimed the exhibit’s guidebook. Sharing top billing with the Futurama and Previews of Progress, however, was the “Glass’ Car – The first full-sized transparent car ever made in America.”

On the chassis of a 1939 Pontiac Deluxe Six, GM collaborated with Rohm & Haas, the chemical company that had recently developed Plexiglas. The world’s first transparent acrylic sheet product, Plexiglas was a serendipitous discovery arising from Rohm & Haas’ work with laminated safety glass. Using drawings for the Pontiac four-door Touring Sedan, Rohm & Haas constructed an exact replica body using Plexiglas in place of the outer sheet-metal. The structural metal underneath was given a copper wash, and all hardware, including the dashboard, was chrome plated. Rubber moldings were made in white, as were the car’s tires. It reportedly cost $25,000 to build – an astronomical figure in those days …

According to the GM Heritage Center, a second car, on a Torpedo Eight chassis, was hurriedly constructed for the 1940 Golden Gate Exposition on Treasure Island, a man-made island in San Francisco Bay. Once their respective showcases had closed, both “Plexiglas Pontiacs,” or “Ghost Cars” as they were sometimes known, toured the nation’s dealerships. The 1939-40 Deluxe Six is the only one known to survive …

The car is in a remarkable state of preservation, a testament to the longevity of Plexiglas in an era when automotive plastics tended to self-destruct within a few years. Although it has acquired a few chips and cracks, it is structurally sound and cosmetically clear, showing off the Ghost Car’s innards as it did in 1939. The car rides on its original U.S. Royal all-white tires and sports the correct white rubber running boards. From the beginning it was a running car, although extensive use would have been unduly detrimental. The odometer currently reads 86 miles. The only recent mechanical work has been replacement of the fuel lines …”

On Another Note ...
The “Ghost Car” was just one of Rohm & Haas’s experiments with Plexiglas prior to the material finding mainstream commercial use. The company displayed an acrylic violin at the 1937 Paris Exposition where it was awarded the Grand Prix. Though the violin reportedly sounded terrible (a flute produced later was said to have been more successful), it was the manipulation techniques developed in the fashioning musical instruments, that the company applied to its highly successful and critical manufacture of cockpits for WWII aircraft. (source)
Modern Mechanix, February 1939.

Strange Fruit on Sixth Avenue

2011-07-15T11:19:00.004-04:00

I was stuck in traffic on the bus along Sixth Avenue the other day, so I was very appreciative of the entertaining spectacle right outside the Grace Building. The performers, who swayed atop 16-foot flexible poles, were members of Strange Fruit, a Melbourne-based performing arts company.

You can still catch performances of The Three Belles at The World Financial Center Friday and Saturday.

You might say this takes pole dancing to new heights.

Vertical Alchemy

2011-07-11T20:40:00.005-04:00

Though I’m used to it by now, I’m always acutely aware of how incompatible the vertical scrolling of Blogger is with our tradition of horizontal viewing. It's a convention that applies to everything from turning the pages of a book to watching the landscape from a moving vehicle. Even in this age of air travel and skyscrapers, our metaphors for time remain horizontally sequential. Time marches on, not up. We look forward to vacation, and think back on our childhood.

Try as I might to embrace Blogger’s inherent verticality, I often find myself frustrated at how difficult it is to display images that relate on a continuum. Even for individual images, expansive width is problematic. Horizontal pictures can get great play when printed on the spread of a book or magazine, but for this blog’s format, the wider an image is, the smaller it must be overall to fit into the formatted column.

Vertical scrolling, however, has its virtues. In fact, it turns out to be the perfect format for—are you ready for this—a vertical scroll!

The Ripley Scroll of Emblematic Alchemy, here, is from Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and dates from circa 1570. I was curious to see what it looked like in its entirety, so I pieced together the full-length scroll from the 14 separate images provided. At the Beineke site, you can enlarge the images and study the glorious detail, but here is where, after 400 years, you can view this magnificent manuscript as it was originally intended—by scrolling vertically.

Note: There was a good deal of interpretive Photoshop work done to connect the pages that at one time were connected to form the scroll in the first place. Also, due to the image-height constraint of this platform, I had to break the full scroll into three long panels plus a small ender.

Embarrassing addendum, 7/12/11:
I awoke to find the first comment, below, from peacay of BibliOdyssey, directing me to a full-length, seamless version of the Ripley Scroll posted there in January of 2009. Truly embarrassing, because I can swear that I checked to see if the scroll had already been posted on that most likely of places.

Bauble Alert: Van Cleef Show Closes July 4th

2011-07-02T05:12:00.014-04:00

Egyptian Odalisque evening bag, 1927.
Even if magnificent jewelry isn’t your thing, there’s much jaw-dropping beauty and exquisite craftsmanship to behold at the Cooper Hewitt’s Van Cleef & Arpels show. “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” is on view through July 4th. This is no ordinary bling. The legendary Place Vendôme jeweler, founded in 1906, was responsible for such design innovations as the zip necklace, and the “Mystery Setting,” which made it possible for tessellated gemstones to coat undulating surfaces, free of visible metal prongs. Also on display are original sketches, order books, and some remarkable cigarette cases, minaudières, and handbags.

The exhibition design by the Jouin Manku studio features irregularly blown-glass display orbs. They serve as organic vitrines for a cabinet of dazzling curiosities of the rich and famous, and are yet another reason to head over to the Carnegie mansion for the museum’s last show before the building’s two-year renovation begins.

Wishing you a most sparkly 4th!

Peacock box, c. 1950

Radiator lapel pin/bag clasp, 1930. The “vents” open and close

Mystery-set Peony brooch, 1937.

Lamartine earrings and bracelet of coral, amethyst and diamonds, 1970. This set, which belonged to Elizabeth Taylor, was a gift from Richard Burton, and will be auctioned by Christies this winter.

One of two Manchette Cuff Bracelets, which combined together, become a necklace. Late 1920s.

Micro-mosaic necklace.

Indu Necklace, 1950. Sketch, and the real thing.
Owned by Maharani of Baroda.

Miles per Dollar, the New MPG

2011-06-27T10:47:00.007-04:00

Great infotisement for the completely electric Nissan LEAF. Chart compares distance traveled by various cars, for the cost of one dollar. Hey, when you've got it (the data on your side), flaunt it.

via PSFK