December 2011
Watchjesuisperdu:
ace
“And when I go into J. Crew, I’m walking through this astonishingly complex act...”
– William Gibson on J.Crew (via youmightfindyourself)
“If something really is satire, I don’t enjoy it. It can’t be satire and be that...”
– William Gibson (via jesuisperdu)
Watchjesuisperdu:
20 shot sequence (1995) [maximum rad]
Watchapple-cart:
max had a bath today
Excerpt of Vice Magazine's William Gibson...
Vice: The military wear that the novel hinges on in a lot of ways is very related to jeans. It’s ultra utilitarian, it’s linked to ideas of Americana. At one point Bigend says that the military invented branding, and another character says that the military find themselves ‘competing with their own historical product, reiterated as streetwear.’ And then you refer to the civilian wearing of military clothing as a form of cosplay, and you also invoke the actual military term “gear queer,” which refers to people outside of the service who like to dress as if they’re soldiers.
William Gibson: “Gear queer” amused me the first time I encountered it. It’s historical. Some of these things that became classic, iconic patterns were from the immediate post-war America period, the years of luxuriating in victory before the Cold War loomed. It was only a very few years. That’s the period of American culture that the Japanese took their iconic stuff from, which is kind of interesting because it was when we were occupying their country.
Vice: So that was the first golden age of military gear fetishizing.
William Gibson: It sort of went downhill after that. Where it lives now is in patterns of streetwear.
Vice: And in the almost military precision of advertising.
William Gibson: The contemporary apparel industry viewed as a kind of war actually overlaps with real wars in some cases. And then there’s the extent to which it really is a life or death business for some people.
Vice: That’s enacted in almost literal terms in Zero History. It’s what we started this conversation with: the idea of treating fashion and marketing as the sort of espionage that carries the actual possibility of losing one’s life. But when I think of military gear being used as streetwear, the first thing that comes to mind is the countercultural use of something like the fatigue jacket. It runs down from Vietnam protestors—and returning vets who joined the protests—to metalheads smoking in high school parking lots. But now, the military streetwear thing seems to be more the province of this personal soldier, militia kind of guy. I wonder if that has anything to do with the privatization of military work today, and the feeling that anybody could be a soldier.
William Gibson: Yeah, I think it could. If somebody wears even one piece of really high tech military clothing, I’m immediately suspicious. I’ll cross the street, even though it may just be some guy who wishes he could get a job as a mall ninja. I think that some people wear that stuff because they think it will cause other people to suspect that they might be carrying a gun. And that’s, like, really not smart on a whole lot of levels. Especially if you really are carrying a gun. So, yeah, it’s a strange kind of aberration.
Watchalysha:
by kevin wildt in wichita, ks on christmas eve
Watch
Watchjesuisperdu:
contacts vol3 wolfgang tillmans
Watchjesuisperdu:
contacts vol3 john baldessari
The Best Movie Posters of 2011 →
mkngyn:
1. UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES
Back in February I called Chris Ware’s poster “definitely an early contender for the best of 2011” and eight months later nothing has come close in terms of ingenuity, beauty and sheer graphic skill. It’s fitting that Uncle Boonmee was also one of the year’s best films. Read all about it here.
2. THE TRIP
Not the official poster for...
sirromdrawde:
the movielife - hand grenade
The Language of Art by Paul Rand →
mkngyn:
A miscellany of archeology, history, biography, geography, political science, psychology, sociology, technology, entertainment, economics, marketing, and merchandising comprises the subject matter of most art talk. But this does not constitute the language of art.
Art is primarily a question of form, not of content. This explains Clive Bell’s “significant form,” often maligned and...
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts,...”
– Charles Bukowski (via the-white-peacock)
“The three saddest things are the ill wanting to be well, the poor wanting to be...”
– E.E. Cummings (via blacksilhouettes)
Scientists cure cancer, but no one takes notice →
gaws:
laneplusultra:
Canadian researchers find a simple cure for cancer, but major pharmaceutical companies are not interested. Researchers at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada have cured cancer last week, yet there is a little ripple in the news or in TV. It is a simple technique using very basic drug. The method employs dichloroacetate, which is currently used to treat...
