Image of the Day

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Bow Wow Wow, 1981. Photograph by Andy Earl, from
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art through January 31, 2010.

You're In Love, and You're In Danger

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Mississippi Mermaid, part of a François Truffaut film festival starting today at the French Institute in New York.

See also:
Truffaut at Criterion
Truffaut on Netflix

Image of the Day

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[ Don't forget to vote – ballots must be postmarked today ]
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American Experience

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CCC Firefighters in Washington State, 1937

I missed posting about this in advance, but I think it's worth putting up anyway. I'm working late and I have a TV in my office, and right now PBS is showing an American Experience documentary on the Civilian Conservation Corps, the cornerstone of FDR's New Deal that put millions of men to work during the Great Depression. Commentator Jonathan Alter:

Someone approached the economist John Maynard Keynes and asked him, 'Have we ever seen anything like this before?' And he said: 'Yes, we have. It was called the Dark Ages. It lasted 400 years.

So – we don't have it as bad as they did, and there are some signs that things are looking up, but I was saying to someone the other day that it seems like every other person I meet lately is out of work. I firmly believe that we need a jobs program in this country today and I think if Obama initiated it, it would change a lot of the haters' minds. It feels good to work and earn money, and when that's taken away, it can break a person, and break a country. In my mind, it's the most important thing to fix as we try to dig out from this financial crisis.

My grandfather Don Woodfin was a Firefighter in the CCC (old timers call it the CC's) in the mountains of Idaho. I'll write about that some time soon.

Preview the CCC documentary at PBS.org – it's worth looking out for a re-run or tracking down the DVD.

Fleet Foxes

. From a New York Times article yesterday on the making of Wes Anderson's stop-motion film The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Click here to read and here for a slideshow.

Photo Greg Williams/NYT

Image of the Day

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Doe Avedon at the Gare du Nord, Paris, August 1947.

Photography by Richard Avedon, from the book Avedon Fashion 1944–2000, which accompanied the recent Avedon exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York. Emily gave it to me for my birthday and it made me really happy – it's a big, beautifully designed book featuring essays by ICP curator Carol Squiers, Vince Aletti, and photography historian Philippe Garner, and 245 of Avedon's most iconic fashion photographs.

I posted about the ICP exhibition here and here, and Emily and I had a chance to see it last time we were in New York, right before it closed. Actually, we scheduled our trip with that in mind – we were really looking forward to seeing it, and I'm glad to say that the show did not disappoint in the least.

Looking at photography online and in books is great, no doubt, but seeing printed work in person can be a very moving experience. Visiting ICP is almost always first on my list of things to do with free time in New York.

The current show is Dress Codes, ICP's third triennial of contemporary photography and video, running through January 17, 2010. Visit icp.org for more info.

Music of the Future, Music of the Past

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[via DJ Stef]

Image of the Day

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Me and my brother, I'm guessing 1982?
From a disc of family photos my dad gave me for my birthday.

Cuuuuuuute

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Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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"Mine's Bigger"

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The five-ton ball of rubber bands groaned and swayed as the crane lifted it from the driveway. A small frog hopped out from underneath.

“Let’s cross our fingers and hope we don’t see if it bounces,” said Edward Meyer, who bought the ball for an undisclosed sum for Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Then he called to Joel Waul, the ball’s creator [pictured above]. “Pretty exciting, right?” Mr. Meyer said.

“Yeah,” said Mr. Waul, 28, the soft-spoken son of a surgical administrator and Jamaican musician. “Cool.”

Read the rest of it at nytimes.com.
See also: Steinski on his books and the nature of collecting.

Photo Alan Diaz/AP via NYT

Hell, Yes

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"Director Ti West cares less about plot and gore than establishing a rigorously naturalistic mood, which he details with the precision and care of the early films of Roman Polanski." –Jason Zinoman, Vanity Fair

Audio slide show with director Ti West at nytimes.com.
Featurette here.

Image of the Day

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Tom Marioni Free Beer – an installation made from the detritus of his beer party salon as it was exhibited/hosted at SFMOMA in 1979, under the title The Act of Drinking Beer With Friends is the Highest Form of Art.

Watch a 2-minute video about it at SFMOMA.org.
More Tom Marioni here.

The Songs That We Sing

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Since I'm finishing up design work on a record her parents made in the '60s, I thought I'd post something about the upcoming Charlotte Gainsbourg album, produced by Beck. You can download the title song "IRM" for free by visiting her website and entering your email address. It's short and sweet with a Liquid Liquid kind of feel to it that I really like, and quite different from the stuff on her previous record (also very good), produced by Air, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy), and Nigel Godrich. Here Gainsbourg talks a little about the making of IRM:



Charlotte Gainsbourg's IRM will be out in the US this coming January and there's another single on the way between now and then, a duet with Beck called "Heaven Can Wait."

[via Wonting]

Image of the Day

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Emily at Bus Stop for the Dumb Eyes party earlier this month. Pacific Standard wants its best girl back but alas she's stuck in school.

Motion and Notation

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Brooklyn-born icon of modern landscape architecture Lawrence Halprin died this past Sunday at the age of 93. Halprin co-designed Seattle's Freeway Park (pictured above), among many other well-known projects. From the New York Times' obituary:

“He almost single-handedly reclaimed the city as the purview of the landscape architect,” said Charles Birnbaum, founder and president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation.... He claimed little interest in decoration or prettiness, but cared deeply how people would move through a created space.

Halprin had a really interesting life – read about it here.

A Camera is a Tool for Learning How to SeeWithout a Camera

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[ click images to enlarge / click here to view all ]

"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera" –Dorothea Lange

Flight to Mars

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I have no idea what the story is with this, but I do
enjoy dance rap with dyno-bass, and found this mildly distracting/enjoyable.

[via Raindrop Hustla]

Image of the Day

Chili, jalapeño cornbread... camouflaged Hi-Life... ladies and gentleman, it's fall

One of my biggest clients is based in Miami, and apparently they're having a heat wave down there, but up here in the Northwest the fall weather is definitely upon us. I actually prefer to be a little cold (it wakes me up), and I don't even mind the rain too much, though the mile walk to the office can be a little daunting when it's really coming down (Emily was sweet and drove me yesterday). When I get home at the end of the day, all I want to do is eat chili. Here's how I make it – adapted from the classic Toni Smith recipe.

Bison Chili
Put the following things in a big pot in order, over medium-to-high heat, and let each thing you mix in sit for maybe 3-5 minutes before adding the next thing.
Approx 2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves minced garlic
1 medium yellow onion and 1 medium red onion, diced
1 pound ground bison (chop into smallish chunks)
Approx 8 oz. champagne of beers
Approx 3 tbsp chili powder
Approx 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
Approx 1/2 tbsp black pepper
Several dashes cumin
[Mix everything you've put in so far really well]
28 oz. diced tomatoes [mix together everything and let it sit for 5-10 minutes]
2 cans pinto beans, preferably Goya brand, liquid drained
1 can small read beans, ditto
[Mix everything together really thoroughly. After 5 minutes, reduce heat to low. Put the lid on it and let it go for 45 minutes or an hour, stirring occasionally just so it doesn't stick to the bottom.]
While it's cooking, dice 3 large tomatoes and a bunch of scallions, and grate some cheddy.
[When the chili's done, turn off the stove and take the lid off. Mix it up.]
Add half the tomatoes or so and mix them in.
Put half the scallions on top, don't mix them in.
Serve the rest along with the cheese on the side.
Put some sour cream on it if you want.
If you like your chili lazerbeam hot, I think you know what to add.

Find a football game on TV and wait for spring.

This Lady Will Tear Your Heart Out.

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NPR did a quick feature on the Betty Davis album Nasty Gal today – click here to listen.

[In case anyone can't get enough of me talking about myself, I posted about the designs of Betty's two newly issued CDs here and here. Both Nasty Gal and Is It Love Or Desire are available in stores or directly from Light in the Attic Records. The image at left is a life-size stand-up poster I designed for placement in select retail stores – click to enlarge.]

Image of the Day

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A postcard that my great grandmother Gigi sent to her mother in Seattle (addressed to "Mrs. Strathdee" – that's where my name came from, it's Scottish), on a trip to the Olympic Peninsula in August, 1922. The first line she wrote was "Dear Ma, This is to let you know that we're this far."

Digging In Your Own Crates

Above: Corset by the Warner Brothers Corset Company, ca. 1952-1960, and E.V. Day's Cherry Bomb Vortex (red sequin dress with monofilament and turnbuckles and stainless steel base, 2002) – both on view in Vortexhibition Polyphonica, a rotating exhibition of work from the Henry Art Gallery's permanent collection. Emily and I ran through the show this past Friday night and are looking forward to going back, especially since it will be changing a lot between now and when it closes in early 2011. I always love it when MoMA does this – devotes space to curating shows that make connections between works in their own holdings – and the show at the Henry is no less engaging. Go to henryart.org for more info.

The corset image above is from the Textiles and Costumes section of the Henry's digital archive. Makes me wonder what else they have in there, waiting to be catalogued.

Image of the Day

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Apropos of this and this:

Darius Kinsey: Cedar Stump House, Edgecombe, WA, 1901.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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With his hands in his pockets and his pockets in his pants.

Byron G. Harlan With His Hands In His Pockets (And His Pockets In His Pants) mp3 (1917, Edison Blue Amberol cylinder recording no.3124)

Return to Sawdust Mountain

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Eirik Johnson: Scrapped train, Arlington, Washington, from Sawdust Mountain – Johnson's series of photographs exploring man's impact on the Northwest's natural environment. A selection of photographs from the series is on view at the Henry Art Gallery (opening party tonight!) and a book is available from Aperture:



Visit Eirik Johnson's website to see more of his work.

Haunting Mysterious Sensual etc.

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The Egyptian Theater is playing The Hunger at midnight this Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24.

A Product I Wholeheartedly Endorse,Available in Your Local Grocery Store

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I just wanted to take a quick break from all the chicness and other items of interest to let readers know about a product that has changed my life, and I'm not even kidding: Tabasco Brand Smoked Chipotle Pepper Sauce is, in my opinion, the best and most versatile hot sauce on the market. It goes on everything: toast, eggs, hashbrowns, sandwich, meats, broccoli, cauliflower, mussels, piece of cheese, iceberg wedge with blue cheese, bloody maria, michelada, mussels, a cracker. I like a wide variety of hot sauces but this is the ruler of them all. The McIlhenny Family of Avery Island, Louisiana should feel very proud because its packaging is well-designed and its products, especially this one, are so exceedingly good that they only need to be marketed on the merits. I am considering rigging up a special pocket in my pants so I can bring a bottle with me wherever I go. You should go get some too. Do it immediately. Put it on your lunch. Thank me later.

I'll Take You In Pieces

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The XX "Basic Space" – catchy.

Image of the Day

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A 1936 stainless steel Ford concept car, at the Antique Automobile Club of America’s Eastern Division National Fall Meet, earlier this month in Hershey, PA. Photo Richard S. Chang from an article at The New York Times.

What's Next

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Celine by Phoebe Philo, SS2010
[ click to enlarge / more at Fashionologie ]

Back in June Emily posted about Phoebe Philo's first outing in the four years since she left Chloé, an extremely well-crafted cruise collection for the French fashion house Celine. I know it's killing Em to not be able to follow up with a post about Philo's first full Celine collection, shown a few weeks ago in Paris, but she's in school now and too busy to trifle with such things – so in lieu of her brilliant fashion coverage, I thought I'd post this video (half for her, half for you). Backstage at the show, the International Herald Tribune's lovable Suzy Menkes interviews Phoebe Philo about her excellent Spring/Summer 2010 collection. Click to watch at nytimes.com:

"The Lilliputian Canvasof the American Experience"

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Matchbooks from the collection of Bill Retskin, founder of the American Matchcover Collecting Club, in Asheville, NC. Retskin has over one million matchbooks in his collection, and one gigantic blunt slicing thumbnail. Photo Rebecca D'Angelo/NYT.

There's an article in the New York Times this morning about a purported resurgence of bars and restaurants offering matches to their patrons. (I only say purported because the Times has a way of highlighting trends that sound good, but sometimes do not pan out as real trends...but hey, when they sound good, I'm in.)

For whatever reason Emily and I have always been fanatical about getting matchbooks from bars and restaurants when they're available – rarely the case since smoking bans have dominoed across the country. For the record, I was opposed to the smoking ban in New York – I don't smoke, I just always thought bars should be smokey – but I realized soon after it went into effect that it was a good thing because it meant less trips to the laundromat. Some other time I will explain how I came to the decision to not smoke cigarettes. I still like to get matchbooks, though, because sometimes other things need to be set on fire, and I like how they look. It's a small graphic space that presents interesting design possibilities, for one, and for two, I am a sentimental dude, as readers undoubtedly know by now. Matchbooks seem old. Incidentally, it's a great feature of many bars in Seattle that they still offer matchbooks.

All of that to say that the article is worth reading – click here to check it out. And why don't we all please make a concerted effort to start asking for matchbooks so they stick around and/or come back.

It's funny they included a Virgil's matchbook in the article. No one likes to admit that Virgil's has some of the best barbecue in New York, because it's right next to Times Square, and it's a multi-story restaurant full of tourists – but they do, especially when immediately preceded by a visit to Jimmy's Corner:

That's Jimmy with Muhammad Ali in the big photo above the bar.

Image of the Day

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An Allen Ginsberg photograph of Jack Kerouac,
who died 40 years ago today at the age of 47.

Image of the Day

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Frank Lloyd Wright's drawings of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which celebrates its 50th anniversary tomorrow, October 21st.

Pushing Closer

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The Arnold children of Michigan Hill, Thurston County, Western Washington, August 1939. The oldest boy earned the money to buy his bicycle. Photograph by Dorothea Lange.

Art historian Jordan Bear has interesting piece in Bookforum on two new books about photographer Dorothea Lange. Here's an excerpt I found particularly interesting:

Of Walker Evans, the preeminent American documentarian, with whose work Lange’s would be constantly—and nearly always unfavorably—compared, she claimed, “He doesn’t go any closer than just so far . . . which can be a man’s strength.” By contrast, she said of herself, “I can never go close enough . . . I push close. It’s right for me.” Lange cast herself and Evans as representing the outer markers of documentary photography: Where Evans was detached, indifferent, even unfeeling, she was engaged, politically and emotionally, with her subjects, evincing her own, very different kind of strength....

And:

Linda Gordon’s biography Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits...emphasizes the similarity of Lange to the responsible historian: Both produce representations that aspire to accuracy but acknowledge the inherent limitations of that pursuit. The available choices in cropping, posing, emphasis, and scale are not, Gordon claims, “so different from historians’ decisions in writing books or lesson plans.” Even in Lange’s most penetrating portraits, Gordon postulates, there remains an impervious stratum that prevents complete understanding, an outer shell that protects the agency of even the abject sitter. As close as Lange might “push,” her pictures never presume to know the entirety of what they show. And this, to Gordon’s mind, is one of the great strengths of the photographs, for it demonstrates that Lange’s notion of the documentary mode was self-critical and democratic, rejecting the fantasy of omniscience and embracing the sanctity of privacy available to even the wretched among us.

Visit bookforum.com to read the whole thing (free registration required). The two books reviewed (click for more info) are Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Field, by Anne Whiston Spirn, and Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, by Linda Gordon. Might have to pick those up.

Brangin' it on home, here's a selection of Dorothea Lange photographs taken in Washington State during the month of August, 1939 – all via the rabbit hole that is your Library of Congress:

Bulldozer contractor's car. Lewis County, near Vader.

More after the jump.

Sweet and Lowdown

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The issue of T that came with yesterday's New York Times featured a great interview with Samantha Morton, of whom I'm a huge fan. Here's a video interview to go with it, part of T's "Screen Test" series:

Check out the rest of the issue at nytimes.com.

Image of the Day

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Georgetown, Seattle... A message for the week.

Image of the Day

. Georgetown, Seattle... A message for the weekend.