How much do I want to avoid working from home? Enough to take a lengthy break to rectify finding only one animated GIF of the infamously goofy Tompkins Park rave. Flimsy excuse, or God’s work?
Go Santa, go Santa, go Santa…
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Tags: animated gifs, new york, raves
When visiting the Strand, I usually end up in their 3rd floor Rare Books room. This is partly because the room is accessible only via one elevator, making me feel slightly badass and spy-like just walking into it, much like discovering a hidden room in a video game. It’s partly because entrants are left free to roam in a sizable, open room smelling pleasantly of old leather and paper, FILLED WITH RARE BOOKS.
The rarest of the rare are displayed behind thick glass in an old-timey bank vault next to the main desk. Here you’ll find your Mark Twain signed first editions and rare monographs handwritten by former kings. Otherwise, everything else is out in the open. You can just wander around leafing through early editions of ‘On The Road’, children’s books from Soviet Russia, or pulp Victorian romance novels with ornate jewel covers. There’s even a tiny room in the back filled with books so ancient they disintegrate before your very eyes (it smells very nice though).
Now, ‘rare’ doesn’t always translate to ‘unaffordable’. Rare just means something you don’t come across very often, something there’s not very much of. This is an irresistible proposition to me, the possibility of having what may be the ONLY COPY LEFT of something, even if that something has little or no practical application or resell value. Actually, especially if it’s impractical with little resell value. Imagine my joy then, after wandering around looking at lovely and far too expensive tomes, to come across this baby on a shelf for a mere $15.00:
‘How To Click Before The Camera’ is a 1949 step-by-step guide for models on posing. I’m not sure why it’s so rare – the back page implies this was one of several booklets the company sold regularly, and How To Click seems the most comprehensive of those offered. In any event it’s a treasure trove of surreal imagery – floating heads, disembodied limbs standing on clock faces, and articulated mouth gestures with strange phrasings beneath.
Seeing as the magazine’s apparently so rare I thought I’d share the whole book right here, so in the unlikely event my computer and apartment simultaneously spontaneously combust, the world can go on learning which poses are FOR EXOTIC HIGH FASHION ONLY. Please, use this knowledge wisely.
Tags: how to, modeling, models inc., posing, work it girl
I cannot sing the glory of the New York Public Library’s research archives high enough. On a previous excursion, I took out 5 catalogs from the typesetting era, giant books detailing all typefaces available for purchase along with decorative flourishes and a variety of creepy and disturbing images. Page after page of glorious fonts! Behold!
Tags: fonts, NYPL, typefaces, typographtastic, victorian
Realizing half my photos of Rome featured preserved body parts or giant murder tableaus, I decided to highlight just the creepy stuff at the Vatican Museums.
Here we have a classic image: the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.
But why is she giving you saucy eyes? And why does baby Jesus look like he’s coming down from the mother of all hangovers?
He’s definitely pointing at that kid’s wonky eyes. They look like the cover of Aenima.
Was this a normal thing for saints? The Devil just popping up all the time for them to throw their comb at or use as a footstool? Then again, he’s probably just making it look easy; that’s how you get to be a saint.
One of many black on black paintings in dim rooms featuring Irene of Rome pulling an arrow out of Saint Sebastian’s arm. Fun fact: being plugged “till he was as full of arrows as an urchin”, the traditional artistic depiction of St. Sebastian, is NOT what killed him! No, he miraculously survived that, then decided to march right up to the emperor and personally criticize him, whereupon he was clubbed to death.
Speaking of patently bad ideas, here, if memory serves, is a triptych featuring St. Christina of Persia with a pal telling the locals what for.
And here she is about to be scourged to death; a pretty standard A->B sequence:
But the joke’s on them! Her god is a vengeful God and He does smite His enemies…with fire!
Speaking of God’s enemies, here’s an unflattering portrait of Salome and her mom holding the head of John the Baptist while looking around all shady-like.
There was no shortage of beheadings in this museum.
Time for a breather! Here’s a much friendlier take on the Virgin and Child. Just ignore the blatantly pagan crescent moon and putti head-crushing.
BACK TO THE GORE. I believe this is St. Ignatius of Antioch being disemboweled by Roman soldiers.
Check out the detailing on those intestines.
Here is someone, possibly St. Bartholomew who was so closely associated with his martyrdom by skin-flaying he was usually pictured holding a flaying knife, being flayed.
And finally, the piece de la resistance, a full, wall-sized Flemish tapestry depicting the Massacre of the Innocents in all its bloody, baby-murdering glory.
Right down to the beautifully woven baby brains. Catholicism!
Tags: beheading, disembowelment, rome, saints, the vatican
Ah, the long stretch of drudgery after the hectic holiday season. It’s a time of sickened overindulgence and desperate boredom in equal parts. What better moment to post pictures from my own simultaneously crammed and void seasonal stretch? Early in December, arriving home and seeing the full mass of Christmas decorations heaped on our dining room table, I felt inspired* to grab the ol’ point n’ shoot.
(*inspired = wanted to avoid getting pine sap all over me.)
Years of family history lay in tangled heaps, briefly exhumed only to be packed back up in short measure for another year’s basement exile.
This is the oldest ornament my family has, from my mom’s family. I think of her as the Sugarplum Fairy. She’s too fragile and precious to risk hanging low on the tree, easy cat bait, so we tend to hang her high. Wait, that came out wrong.
These must have been created at the behest of some well-meaning elementary school teacher – too clunky to actually hang on the tree, but with photos specifically taken for the holiday season. Nothing says ‘Merry Christmas!’ like awkward personal poses.
One small testament to the skill of Grandma Tillie, not a blood relation but our grandma’s best friend. Aside from copious canvas needlepoint, she stitched each of us stockings for our first Christmas. We still use them.
Brass and vague resemblance to ‘Love Is’. Ah, the ’70s.
Another well-intended class project.
Tags: balls, Christmas!, holiday, ornaments
