No less than 43 Chinese torture methods (purportedly used on practitioners of the “cultivation practice” Falun Gong since the official governmental crackdown began in 1999) described and illustrated: Part I & Part II.
Selectively taken from the faculty page of a 1978 University catalogue here we see, from left to right, Seymour Chwast , Milton Glaser, and Herb Lubalin. ‘78 must have been a fine year to attend Cooper Union. Shame I was 4 at the time.
Hello? Is this the Mayor’s office? Yes, Hi. I was just wondering… can you please stop kicking me in the face?
I am a smoker. At my local deli here in Brooklyn the cost of a pack of cigarettes has just hit $9. Be that as it may I’m still smoking. I’m smoking right now as I write this. And while I have absolutely no intention of joining the ranks of dumbshits who not only poison themselves knowingly on a daily basis but get all indignant over the cost New York exacts for the privilege, there is something about my state’s approach which I must confess rubs me the wrong way somehow.
You said I didn’t care. I went to her grave with flowers and you shrugged. You were cruel. You mocked me. It was banal and expected, you said. It was “the least one could do and the most most did.” You pushed me. “Where is the towering inferno? Where is the pox on a dead-eyed world? Where is the hot poker and froth and wail?” You wanted me to want revenge. Meanwhile you’d been sitting in that ass-burnished chair for a decade, staring out the shatter-proof glass at the hospital grounds while your brain was monitored like a Queen’s embryo. What the fuck could you know? Cradled, coddled, a wool blanket always folded over your lap and that fistful of pills… they were the only things you’d let into your head. Every visit you mentioned the orderly’s hairy knuckles or the tightness of the night-straps, as though they were the greatest horrors a man had ever endured. Such minutia. And after what you’d done.
I wonder what you think now? Have I changed your mind? Convinced you? It’s hard to tell with the chrome of your chair all charred, your pills bubbling to caramel, and your face… hahaha. Your face. I remember that brunette nurse with the missing tooth would always coo in your left ear, whisper that everything was alright. They weren’t though. You knew that. Never, not for a second, were things alright. And now you haven’t got a left ear to coo into have you? Or lips to turn down… I cared Dad. She was my wife. And after tonight, when they put me into my own chair, and roll me up to my own window, and start shoving those colorful pills down my throat ‘til my eyes go dead, I’ll still care. I’ll always care.
Quote: The object of the Round Table was to bring a representation of the best informed opinion of the time to bear on questions about art today (1949). A set of neat conclusions, as to the outcome of the conference, was neither expected nor desired. Rather, it was hoped that progress would be made in the exposure of hidden assumptions, in the uprooting of obsolete ideas, and in the framing of new questions.
You notice both Frank Lloyd Wright and Marcel Duchamp both seated there? Check out UBUweb’s full abstract of the proceedings including transcripts, recordings and images, here.
Came across an online archive of the magazine Cosmic Search which I thought I’d pass along. Cosmic Search has the distinction of being the first magazine devoted to astrobiology and the search for extra terrestrial inteligence (the second being SetiQuest). 13 issues were published between 1979 and 1982 and all are fully readable in this archive. The sense of optismism which pervaded SETI in the early days is on full display here with plenty of gems to be found within, including, among many other things, articles by Carl Sagan, Phillip Morrison, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov. Enjoy.
Whatever Happened To Mildred Simmons? Or: Missing Links.
Her story is well pretty well known I should think. Conceived in 1946, in the back room of a Marshall Islands military viewing station, just days after the detonation of the 158 megaton nuclear device code named Able, Mildred Simmons was born with a massive length of self-regenerating, meat-packed bowel on her face. Since the short-lived “Mildred Fever” of the early 70’s, however, information on Mildred has been scarce to say the least.
Well-Known Pleasures. New to the Nonist Shop. The classics never die, they just multiply, until they are available in every possible retail market from Urban Outfitters to the street vendors peppering city sidewalks. Such is the case with the iconic cover artwork for Joy Division’s 1979 album Unknown Pleasures. Taken from a Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy the original image presents 100 successive measurement of the first Pulsar ever detected. It is a brilliant bit of design appropriation, evoking as it does the sort of quickened ecstatic reaction one might feel at encountering an “unknown pleasure.” Of course, today, all these years later, the design has been reproduced ad-infinitum, effectively creating more of a “Well-Known Pleasure.” And what would the corresponding visual be for a pleasure so over indulged in as to become decidedly ordinary? I think you’re looking at it. (see below for larger version.)
This tee was designed specifically for black apparel. See your options here or check out all of the Nonist’s offerings here.
Yesterday I took a nice long walk around my corner of Brooklyn. It was a beautiful day. I was walking through the area around the Gowanus Canal, a very “industrial wasteland” type area where you seldom see anyone other than truckers barreling past and the odd cab driver. There’s lots of garbage and rust and erosion. Great area to take pictures. Anyhow, amidst all the decay I noticed this bottle of Pepsi. It caught my eye because the soda itself looked different. I took a closer look and saw that, unbeknownst to me, the soda giant has evidently launched a brand new flavor called Pepsi Gold. It surprised me, cause, well, you know how these beverage companies are with their marketing blitzes. I checked the deli on my corner later but couldn’t find any. Must have been sold out. I wonder what it tastes like?
