6x6

slough off old skins: the rise and demise of an Internet Onion—via Kicks Condor  

posture pals: a gallery of awkward, outstanding stances  

gravy boat: kitschy vintage table settings  

a little pick-me-up: the lovely Flowers for Sick People project by Tucker Nichols—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links  

news at eleven: screen grabs of 1990s reporting captions  

more like a simile: an experiment searching the web with AI contextualised natural language—via Web Curios

outside the lines

We very much appreciated the introduction to surrealist photographer Arthur Tress whose portfolio was informed by the pivotal year of 1964 in politics, segregation and civil rights via his series of antique colouring-book collages paired with complementary or juxtaposing found photography, likely sourced from the same flea markets. Tress’ sense for mismatch went on to aid him in delivering his commission for the US Environmental Protection Agency to document and publicise the social pressures and injustice underpinning lax ecological stewardship. More at Collectors’ Weekly at the link up top and at the artist’s website.

7x7

wait for the beep: a growing collection of found-sounds in the form of answering machine narratives—via Memo of the Air  

potatopoty: superlative tubers  

yaxety sax: string ensemble performs the 1968 instrumental from Spider Rich and Boots Randolph 

the metz address: Philip K. Dick (previously) speaks to an audience in 1977 at a sci-fi convention in France 

say taliban, move your minivans: November 2001 Saturday Night Live sketch “Kandahar Dance Party” recirculating to mixed responses 

dateline: Merv Griffin’s short-lived 1985 game show Headline Chasers  

dear friends of mine, please write a line in this little wash tubbs book of mine—help me keep you in my mind: a comic scrapbook chronicling the Great Depression, via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to see there)

7x7

lowering the bar: a trial lawyer’s endorsement in a whiskey ad illustrates by-gone regulatory period in the US 

blotter art: an LSD museum in San Francisco 

spraycation: Banksy works appear at UK seaside towns Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft  

middle-age spread: comprehensive study finds metabolism stable throughout life and crashes after sixty—via the New Shelton Wet / Dry  

bureau of land management: a celebration of the striking landscape photography of Bob Wick  

o’zbekiston line: a tour of Tashkent’s underground galleries—see also 

 kriegswaffenkontrollgesetz: gentleman outside of Kiel fined for unregistered Panzer

6x6

clink clink: a snappy little animated short of guests at cocktail hour 

samarkand: an East German couple’s tour of Uzbekistan fifty years ago with photography from 1971 and 2021  

expectation management: a comprehensive look into how the Delta variant changes the pandemic endgame—via Kottke  

noah’s violin: the twelve metre long wooden stringed instrument is a floating stage, inaugurated along with Project Moses to protect Venice from flooding  

the rural juror: a spoof streaming service (see also)—via JWZ  

the effect is shattering: a vodka advertising campaign that became a snow clone

hendiatris

Discouraged from being shown openly and in general taboo in Japanese societies, stigmatised for their associations with organised crime (see also), tattoos—of the commemorative variety especially, were widely on display during the Olympics, the athletes’ bubble meant no mingling with the public. See a whole gallery from the Associated Press’ photo pool, via ibīdem. The motto of the Games, Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is a famous example of the above Greek figure of speech ἓν διὰ τρεῖς, “one through three,” a phrase where three words express one idea. This year the committee added a fourth term, “Communiter,” Latin for Together.

home on the range

Via Web Curios, we are directed to the rather outstanding and one-of-a-kind insight of the twentieth century American western frontier through the lens of Lora Webb Nichols (*1883 - †1962), postal worker, cook and journalist running her own local newspaper, The Echo, who took over twenty-four thousand photographs over the course of six decades, most

of the environs of a copper mining town in the state of Wyoming called Encampment. Nichols early in her career established a photo studio with a dark room to develop and finish film and would loan out equipment for other aspiring picture-takers. Her images, articles and diaries are curated by the state university library system for one to peruse.

fife and snare

Via the always brilliant Things Magazine, we are directed towards a digitisation of the complete—short but impactful—run of Avant Garde magazine, a project by Ralph Ginzburg and Herb Lubalin (previously here and here) that lived up to its title with articles on radical, pacifist politics and erotica.

The monogram included the nude lithographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono plus a phantasmagorical version of Marilyn Monroe’s last photo session. The March 1969 cover featured here is the photographic composition of the award-winning professor and director Carl T. Fischer called The Spirit of 1976, the artist also known for his iconic celebrity portraits including Andy Warhol, Barbara Streisand, attorney F. Lee Bailey and boxer Muhammad Ali as Saint Sebastian.

we go undercover, wait out the sun

Rare and unseen, we are enjoying this preview of a retrospective exhibit of the portrait photographer Masayoshi Sukita going on display at Tokyo’s Blitz Gallery that includes a collection of previously uncirculated pictures of David Bowie, whom the artist first encountered in 1972 to see what all the fuss was about and remaining friends until the singer’s death in 2016. An iconic image (see also) with significantly more exposure, Sukita took the image that became the cover art for Bowie’s 1977 Heroes album. More at Wallpaper at the link up top.

bohuslän

Having secured a well-situated site to act as base camp at the marina of island of Vindön, we had the chance to leisurely explore the colourful and craggy harbors and fishing villages of the granite cliffs and fjords of Sweden‘s south central west coast, sharing the North Sea with Norway and Denmark—this rocky archipelago approaching ten thousand islands and skerries, though mostly linked by land bridges today. 

 

First we visited the larger port of Lysekil, a formerly important trading centre and a quarry but now focused on oil refining and tourism. 

Next we saw the cove of Kungshamn and Smögen with its ensemble of fisher huts. 

Not the Reeperbahn or St Pauli’s in miniature but picturesque and pleasant nonetheless, we saw Hamburgsund whose short-haul cable ferry takes passengers over the hundred-meter sound to the island of Hamburgö a hop away, and finally the beautiful Fjällbacka, built around a massive boulder in the centre of the village and holiday home to Ingrid Bergman.

diffraction, refraction

Via the ever intriguing Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links, we enjoyed this gallery of furry and feathered companions distorted through the lens of various spectacles and glassware. We wonder how our aquarium-bound friends regard us in outer space. Much more ti explore at the links above.

läckö slott

Rounding out the southern aide of Lake Vänern, we ventured up the peninsula of the municipality of Lidköping and onto the picturesque island of Kållandsö, the second largest of the enormous lake and visited the medieval castle at land’s end. Originally a fortification of the local diocese, with the sweeping reforms of our Gustav I. Vasa, the nearly deposed, who made the monarchy heritable rather than elective of the landed gentry, converted the country to protestantism and appropriated church property and made Sweden a European power, it fell to various favourites of the court and caretakers who oversaw its expansion as an impressive receiving stage for visiting dignitaries.  Today it is a national monument and hosts a series of outdoor operas in the courtyard during the summer.

point of departure

Reusing this image of a row boat tethered to a launch in Gravedonna on the shores of Lake Como from a few summers ago after being reminded of the magic of docks and piers as a liminal, transitional space in an appreciative gallery of images courtesy of Nag on the Lake. Originally, we had used this picture to announce an upcoming break from business as usual—that is, negotium, with its Latin counterpoint otium, pursuits of leisure and a considered virtue in knowing when and how to disengage from work.

daylight robbery

Once again via Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this series of photographs from Andy Billman of bricked up windows from buildings across London that evoke the interesting and immediate aesthetic (see also) that falls into the category of being a Thomasson—that is, a preserved architectural relic without apparent purpose or historical significance—plus the contextualisation in the form of a window tax enacted the late seventeenth century, meant to be a progressive levy on the mansions of the wealthy but instead misapplied to tenement dwellings and prompted the restriction of light, view and ventilation, contributing to squalid conditions and spread of disease. Much more to explore at the links above.

ripped from the headlines

Via the Awesomer, we are treated to a visual, gradated chronology of the New York Times (previously), publishing the news daily since 1851 in this 2017 short by filmmaker Josh Begley that’s a supercut that cycles through the changing look and layout of the newspaper as printing and photography advance. We agree that this ought to be an annual update and year-in-review to stream past.

roadside attractions and where to find them

Via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to discover there), we are directed to a dual-posting from Maps Mania that features interactive charts of two very prolific travellers and photographers whose documentary work we’ve explored before in the US Library of Congress’ story map of the Roadside America as captured through the trips of John Margolies (see previously). From another perspective perhaps but with equal energy and enthusiasm and from overlapping eras, philanthropist and banker Albert Kahn in his Les Archives de la Planète project (1909 – 1931) dispatched dozens photographers to points all across the globe to record historical heritage that war and progress threatened to overcome—now classified and curated as pin-drops on a map that spans over fifty countries on five continents, featuring this 1924 image of the imperial castle of Cochem. Much more to explore at the links above.

focal-plane

Via Kottke, though arguably—patently less satisfying that the mechanical nuance and engineered lag of these various film cameras punctuating the background music, we are exposed to the sounds of shutters all the time, albeit artificial sound-effects (an audible skeuomorphic cue) often muted out of respect for one’s fellow paparazzi but in some jurisdictions unable to be silenced lest the subject not know a picture’s being taken. Despite the omission of the Leica model, we agree with the overall sentiment that the sound of a closing aperture is like blowing kisses.

american venus

Here pictured in 1915 with Buzzer the Cat, born this day in 1891 (†1996, aged 104), Audrey Marie Munson was considered to be the USA’s first super model, inspiring sculptural works and engravings across the country whose likeness graces many public institutions and endowments.
Discovered whilst window shopping on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan by hobby photographer Felix Benedict Herzog who invited Munson to his studio and introduced her to artist friends, she was immortalised in statuary in courthouse, museums and libraries in New York and was even the model for a commission of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands for an armed Venus de Milo.  Modelling led to four starring roles in silent movies, one appearance was fully nude. 
Lecherously, the landlord of the boarding house where Munson lived with her mother was madly in love with her and murdered his wife so they could be together. Requited or otherwise, this episode compelled Munson to quit her career in 1922 and having attempted suicide herself (the landlord hanged himself in prison awaiting his execution), Munson’s mother had her committed to an insane asylum in upstate New York where she remained for the next six and a half decades, forgotten and with no visitors until a distant relative found her in 1984.

8x8

such good: a dating app based on shared meme-affinity  

boulevard du crime: a lost Parisien theatre district that specialised in putting on felonious melodramas 

lion city rising: photographer Keith Loutit captures eight years of change in Sinagpore  

lunachicks: a flamboyant punk rock group who are a product of unvarnished New York  

broodclipjes: more fun with twist-ties and related species (see previously)—from Pasa Bon!  

horological constraints: the typography of watches—see also  

 profiles in pride: World of Wonder showcases some of the gay rights movement’s pioneers (see also), starting with Frank Kamey of the DC Mattachine Society  

masterpieces of streaming: a collection of the subtle genius of dumb viral videos—via Waxy

the solway firth spaceman

On this day in 1964 whilst on an outing with his wife and daughter, firefighter and local historian Jim Templeton (*1920 – †2011) snapped a series of photographs of his family on Burgh Marsh—and were shocked to find this mysterious figure looming behind his young daughter once the film was developed. The film manufacturer certified the image as authentic and it is conjectured that the alien is Missus Templeton having wandered into the frame—her husband insists she was not in the shot but that particular camera’s view-finder gives a slightly narrow and constrained outlook on its subject—with her features washed-out against the bright sky. Widely circulated, Templeton gifted the image to public domain early on—hoping that someone could offer a reasonable explanation.  If the photograph had been taken a century earlier, our tendency for pareidolia would have doubtlessly detected a ghost.