Cities and Memory

A few atmospheric images from a photographer named Gregory Crewdson. (More images here.) Good colours, staged enough to be interesting and cinematic, a nice creepy edge. Reminds me of a few specific William Eggleston pictures, but more obviously Hopper-esque.

God, I miss America so much! Every now and again some image will act as a potent reminder of the small things I left behind. These photographs, sometimes disconcerting as they are, bring back memories of walking through wide, quiet neighbourhood streets in the evening, and the houses, and the stop signs, and the particular kind of suburban solitude that I don't seem to be able to find anywhere else.

Untitled, Summer 2003, Digital C-print, (Maple street from beneath the roses)

Untitled, Summer 2004, digital C-print, (North by northwest from beneath the roses)

Untitled, Summer 2003, digital C-print, (Clover street from beneath the roses)

Untitled, Summer 2003, digital C-print, (Merchant's row from beneath the roses)

What's this "from beneath the roses" business? Click to enlarge...

I Covet These

Some fantastic posters from wonderful Minneapolis-based design concern Aesthetic Apparatus. They make tour posters for many cool indie bands, and occasional other bits and pieces. Love the use of collage, retro stylings ranging from cold war vibes to frontier scrolling (maybe? in my head?), ingenious colour combinations, thoughtful thematic links to whatever band they are promoting, apparent genuine immersion in their music scene, sense of humour, general gorgeousness.

Spoon, 3 colours (black, metallic silver, transparent blue) on archival white stock

Unlimited Sunshine 2007, 3 colour screenprint (cream, red-orange, light blue) on archival off-white stock

Night Windows, 2 colour screenprint (slightly glow in the dark white, dark blue) on archival dark greyish blue stock

The Swell Season, 3 colour screenprint (blue, dark blue, red) on white paper

Little Sarah's Birthday Bash, 2 colour screenprint (cream, dark dark blue) on safety orange archival stock

Lucero, Blue, 3 colour screenprint (slightly metallic blue, black, white) on archival creamy stock

The New Pornographers, 5 colour screen print (white, yellow, magenta, cyan, black) on archival off-white stock

The Frames and Josh Ritter, 2 colour screen print (metallic mint and black) on archival white stock

Grizzly Bear, 2 colour screenprint (silver and black) on archival butcher orange stock

The Breeders, 3 colour screenprint (gold, sky blue, black) on archival creamy stock

Constantines, 2 colour screenprint (black and red) on off white paper

You can buy these, can you believe it? From their website. For about $20, that is the same as ten of our English pounds. WANT. Want one. Want one now.

Hidden Cities

Alexey Titarenko, Untitled (Crowd 4), 1992, from City of Shadows

"When, towards the end of the day, the museum guardian came up to me and indicated that she would soon have to close, said Austerlitz, I had just been reading, several times over, a note on one of the display panels, to the effect that in the middle of December 1942, and thus at the very time that Agata came to Terezin, some sixty thousand people were shut up together in the ghetto, a built-up area of one square kilometre at the most, and a little later, when I was out in the deserted town square again, it suddenly seemed to me, with the greatest clarity, that they had never been taken away after all, but were still living crammed into those buildings and basements and attics, as if they were incessantly going up and down the stairs, looking out of the windows, moving in vast numbers through the streets and alleys, and even, a silent assembly, filling the entire space occupied by the air, hatched with grey as it was by the fine rain."

- Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald

Obey Obama

So I finally found out who designed the Obama 'Hope' poster that I admire so much. This one:

The artist's name is Frank Shepherd Fairey, usually just known as Shepherd Fairey, an American illustrator, designer, street artist and graphic designer. Strangely enough, Fairey is also the guy who came up with the Obey Giant campaign. I know that you've seen the Obey Giant image, even if you've only subconsciously registered it, because that thing is hella ubiquitous. There's even a few in Norwich, for heavens sake. There was even one up in Jen and Robin's kitchen. A few examples:

Look familiar at all? I myself am particularly partial to the star-shaped Obey Giant, although I am not about to go and get it tattooed on my shin:


The Obey Giant campaign grew out of an in-joke that Fairey came up with at art school in 1989, when he started the 'Andre the Giant Has a Posse' sticker campaign, working with this rather fugly image:



No, I don't get it either. Bloody art school types. At some point Fairey got sued for using Andre the Giant's visage in this way, so he developed the 'Obey Giant' logo, with a more stylised version of Andre's face and a subtle anti-authoritarian message. He encouraged people to reproduce posters, stickers and their own designs and stick up 'em up all over the world, and they did, most notably in the cool, hipster places of the world (including Norwich, apparently). The image is very 1984-esque, and a little creepy once you realise you've been half-consciously noticing it everywhere, but most of all I am surprised that it is the face of dear, sweet Andre the Giant from The Princess Bride looking down upon me like Big Brother. "Does anybody want a peanut??"

Yeah, so it's basically one of those postmodern global subversive propaganda meta-advertising campaigns. Proudly straddling the borderline between coolness and pretension.

The wikipedia page on Fairey seems thorough and goes into all his pretentious influences in a way that I'm not willing to, as does the Obey Giant official site: "Manufacturing Quality Dissent Since 1989".

The fact that Fairey designed the Obama 'Hope' image seems to make sense now that I look at it again. The colour palette (a lot of faded red and blue), the one-word slogan, the wartime propaganda image vibe, etc. I just hope that once Obama is pres (so going to happen, very pleased), Fairey won't start posting slightly more menacing cross-breeds of Hope and Obey, causing the country to get a bit scary and Orwellian.

Here's a few Fairey posters, because he really is a kick-ass graphic designer. (He also gets everywhere. He has designed things all over the place, seriously.)

Big Proof, screen print

Lotus Ornament

Rollins Band and X

Cost of Oil

One of Those Days (A Cure For)

Have you ever had a time in your life when all the lightbulbs blow, and all your socks simultaneously develop holes in them, and furthermore all your stuff breaks? I am having one of those times. Among other kaput things (including my camera! argh!) my laptop has become minorly broken, and this combined with my university systematically revoking all my student privileges, including computer stuff (weeks before graduation!) means that I have limited access to the internet. I am now in the city library. Thank goodness for free access of information through the awesome institution of public libraries.

Since everything is broken and all my friends have left, I at least have plenty of time to watch that miraculous show, Weeds. Here are some pictures of Mary-Louise Parker to make us all feel better.

Shrew, Vixen, Virago, Dragon, Scold, Spitfire, Fury

(From Roget's Thesaurus)

Jacqueline Susan - Valley of the Dolls Cover design by Barbara Hulanicki (founder of Biba), introduction by Julie Burchill

Angela Carter - The Magic Toyshop Cover design by Jacqueline Groag, introduced by Carmen Callil

Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God Cover design by Louis Mailou Jones, introduced by Zadie Smith

Barbara Pym - Excellent Women Cover design by Orla Kiely, introduced by Alexander McCall Smith

E. M. Delafield - Diary of a Provincial Lady Cover desin by Cath Kidston, introduced by Jilly Cooper

Elizabeth Taylor - A Game of Hide and Seek Cover designed by Celia Birtwell, introduced by Eliabeth Jane Howard

Muriel Spark - A Far Cry From Kensington Cover design by Lucienne Day, introduced by Ali Smith

Helene Hanff - 84 Charing Cross Road

Am I missing something with all these reissued classics series appearing at the moment? Vintage, Penguin, now Virago, they're all throwing out new designs, forgotten classics, advertising and pieces in the press; what's with the trend? Virago do at least have an excuse for these 8 reissues: the 30th anniversary of Virago Modern Classics. Each book has a cover based on a pattern by a top textile designer, something to do with the status of textile design as a field that women have particularly excelled in.

I'm not entirely sure how attractive I find most of these volumes, or how keen I am on the choices of author and book they have made. Mostly they look a little dull and dated, but I do have to admit that in real life the volumes are rather nicer than you'd think from the pictures. They're a good size and weight, they handle well, the publishers have wisely foregone a dustjacket, the covers are a pleasant texture, the colours vibrant. Far more user-friendly than your average hardback. (I find hardbacks unpleasant to handle while reading, which is why I invariably go for paperbacks.) Having said that, the only cover I really like the look of is the one for Valley of the Dolls, which I am not rushing out to read. The only books that seem interesting contents-wise are Their Eyes Were Watching God and 84 Charing Cross Road, both of which I have read, and loved, before. (I have to admit to the crazy book-lover urge to buy again already owned and beloved books, but even for these two titles I managed to refrain.)

I saw a lecture the other week as part of the UEA Literary Festival series: it featured one of my very favourite authors, Ali Smith, and three women from Virago, including founder Carmen Callil. They had a chat about their own favourite authors, female and male, and publishing today, and how Virago has practically created a female literary canon out of the void. Very inspiring. It made me want to go into publishing.