Archive for the ‘When’ Category
They just don’t make lunchboxes like they used to — and it’s a shame because the vintage ones (and their accompanying thermoses, too) are brilliant reminders of popular culture during the era from which they came. Look into the vault (read: Google) and find a lunchbox, presumably from the 1950s, showing James Arness, gun drawn and atop a horse, from Gunsmoke. The 1960s are represented by The Munsters, The Beatles and Planet of the Apes; the 70s have The Dukes of Hazard and Welcome Back, Kotter; the 80s Pac-Man and Return of the Jedi; the 90s Dumb and Dumber; and the 2000s Wall-E and Kill Bill. And those were just some of the ones I was able to find cataloged in various places online.
With a legitimate-looking receipt, dating from December 1958, this set of antique red, white and blue miniature bowling pins exemplifies the patriotism of the era from which it comes. Not to be used anymore, as they once probably were, by young children whose parents searched for an innocuous activity for them on a hot summer day, the pins are sort of brilliant (in British rather than American diction) anyway. Through decades of being owned by somebody, somewhere–first in Cleveland, Ohio, and then who knows–they’ve maintained their inherent form and purpose. What’s more, over the years they’ve accumulated a good amount of scars from transport and/or play, but their shape amazingly remains the same. The pins were discovered by David and Ashley, the proprietors of The Sunday Times Market, an online reseller of vintage collectibles. The set is available to purchase (now as art) for $145.00. Click through to see a bunch more photos, including the aforementioned receipt. This post is part of The Jailbreak’s When category: a series of features examining products from the past that might be considered early precursors to the Product Art Movement. In the late 18th century, a Japanese prostitute named Usugumo lived and worked in a brothel in Yoshiwara, a section of Tokyo comparable to a modern day red-light district. As the story goes, Usugumo had a beloved cat that could often be spotted at her side even while she worked. One night Usugumo woke up to use the bathroom and the cat began nipping incessantly at her dress in a caveat. Usugumo’s pimp, annoyed by the commotion, walked into the room and proceeded to chop off the cat’s head with a samurai sword, believing it bewitched. The head flew through the air and landed on an imminently attacking snake perched on the toilet. The cat’s teeth pierced the snake, killing it and saving Usugumo’s life. Saddened by the loss of her faithful companion, Usugumo asked one of her customers to carve a statue of the cat from wood. The customer obliged and her memento became a symbol of good fortune throughout the brothel, then the neighborhood, and then Tokyo and eventually the rest of Japan. The Usugumo Legend is just one of many stories attempting to explain the origin of the now globally popular Maneki Neko sculpture.
The story of Kurt Manchild is an fascinating one. He was an original product artist and Product Art inventor circa 1980, who published a best-selling book in Europe, before failing miserably in both the toy and video game industries, mostly because his ideas were half-baked and employed a Freudian-esque infatuation with dreams. Manchild’s brief yet enthralling history of misadventures is detailed in an well-conceived expose by designer Matt Brown over on Core77. We’ve copied the entire article, which is being described as “design fiction”, under the cut; republished it because we think it’s great and shows a unique perspective on the origins of Product Art. Even if it is fake. Thx, Ben!
BBC News has a fascinating clip, which is unfortunately unavailable to embed, about artist Michael Rakowitz, a ‘cultural anthropologist’ who is examining the ominous connections between former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and Star Wars. His work and theories are currently being exhibited at Tate Modern in London through May 3, 2010. Check out the clip here.
On MTV from 1986-1987–when the network still played music and hadn’t yet been deluged by drunken roommates, celebrity abodes, and culturally-entrancing guidos–Andy Warhol hosted a five-episode-long television program called, ‘Fifteen Minutes.’ Interviewees included Pee-Wee Herman, John Waters, Robin Leach, Kevin Dillon, Courtney Love, William Burroughs, and a number of key members of both the fashion (Marc Jacobs) and music (The Ramones) worlds. Warhol, who had two other shows prior to ‘Fifteen Minutes,’ passed before the last episode aired. But thanks to the wonder of the Internet, we’ve been pointed toward four of the five episodes and embedded them after the break. [Courtesy of Buzzfeed via Zamboni] [ed note: at the request of the Warhol Foundation, the videos of Andy Warhol's '15 Minutes' television program have been removed] I just stumbled upon this video while hitting the always interesting Stumble Upon button on my Firefox browser. It’s called, “Did You Know?” and features a bunch of facts about America and China and the Internet and Google and education and jobs and MySpace and Facebook. Wait, MySpace? Yeah, while informative, it’s crazy to see how outdated this thing has become in just over a year. There’s no mention of Twitter or the iPhone or the economy or the dying print media or any other current topics of the zeitgeist (i.e. Jersey Shore). You should watch it because there’s a whole bunch of shit in there you didn’t know five minutes ago.
So due to an unfortunate coffee spill, the ‘e’ key on my computer isn’t working. I’d like to further extol the brilliance of this decade-in-review picture chart that Phillip Niemeyer did for The New York Times, but having to hit Apple + V every time I need an ‘e’ is pushing me to the brink of frustration. It’s cool, though. So click on it to make it bigger and check it out.
In the vein of the Obama Weather Channel we featured awhile back, a man named Tom Scott has created a similarly-functioning meteorological service. But this time around we’re talking about Star Wars Weather, people. In Brooklyn at the moment it’s comparable to the conditions one would find on Hoth. In San Francisco it’s more like Naboo, and in Cairo it’s temperate, yet grey and cloudy, like Endor. [Courtesy of The Awesomer]
President Obama is depicted as an aging, apparently distressed old man in this advertisement, which has appeared in and around the Copenhagen Airport in Denmark ahead of the UN’s 15th conference on climate change (starting Dec. 7th). The president’s version is just one in a series of ads showing has-been world leaders lamenting their regret for not acting sooner: “I’m sorry,” the ad says. “We could have stopped catastrophic climate change…We didn’t.” The ads were commissioned by Greenpeace and executed by ad agency, Arc Communications. Check out a quote and the other four ads after the cut. [Via CR Blog]
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