dollar $hark

Via Boing Boing, we learn that one of the masters of photo-shopped cultural epherma and effluvia, Sean Tejaratchi will be releasing a soft-cover review in the Autumn of the first four years of Liartown, USA (previously here, here, here and here). The publishers and underwriters have been no source of frustration or censorship to the process of putting this edition together, having honoured the author’s wishes to retain all the bad words, blasphemy and naughty bits.

dschungel book

I came across this curiosity at the local recycling centre, a paper back, coffee table format (Bilderband) travelogue of one Jürgen Hansen’s adventures across the Dark Continent. It was a somewhat paternalistic portrait of colonial African from 1952 (possibly daring for the first time, however, to look at Africa with an eye towards reconciliation, having lost its toehold on the continent), published in Hamburg, but contained the most amazing, vibrant little picture-postcard prints pasted on the pages.
It turns out that this promotional item, sponsored by the Sanella brand and the West German Margarine Union, was offered as the text only and in order to complete the album, one needed to acquire one hundred little lithographs—presumably as a bonus with a package of margarine. This volume was complete (two cards had come loose over the years) but they were all there and in pretty good condition, and it was a pleasure to look through and imagine how (most likely) a house wife doing the shopping was eagerly waiting for the next instalment to hit the shelves and paste the cards in her book that taught her all about Africa.  Click on any image for a larger picture. The shadows are less obvious then as well.

recharging station

Acknowledging that furniture shopping can be a very fraught activity, especially in the labyrinthine confines of an IKEA, as we learn from Swiss Miss, we liked this emergency relationship station that ought to be installed in every store to triage and diffuse those tense moments of indecision and commitment hot-potato. Click through at the links up top to see more of the work of Jeff Wyaski, the comedian behind the Obvious Plant solicitous, thought-provoking pranks.

sympathy for the devil

On the occasion of the three hundred fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the epic poem, Benjamin Ramm writing for BBC Culture presents a compelling argument for revisiting John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Influence and legacy is to be found lurking everywhere, perhaps only second to Shakespeare’s inspiration in English traditions though references may not be readily apparent.  Informed by the milieu of the English Civil War and republican age, the ten thousand lines of blank verse was indeed meant to “justify the ways of God to men” and help reconcile themselves to these turbulent and revolutionary times, championed of course by a menacingly magnetic Satan who is the most interesting character by far—and signals both allure and repulsion depending on the reader and the reading.

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.