Archive for the 'Paper' Category
Cheap Thrill: The New England Cookbook (1956)
July 21st, 2007Here’s futher proof that the neatest visuals can pop up in the most unexpected places. Trawl through any flea market or antique store and you’ll find dozens of old paperback mini cookbooks published by the Culinary Arts Institute. Organized by food or region, these were cheaply sold in supermarkets to housewives who wanted to try […]
The Geek Squads
July 19th, 2007Watching the last two weeks of VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture, I’ve come to the realization that I wouldn’t make the cut on that show. Too many recent brain-stumpers. I hate to sound fuddy duddyish, but pop culture from the last 5-6 years is a bit of a blur. Identifying memorable, misogynistic song lyrics […]
Just Deserts
June 3rd, 2007Rudy Adler sent along an email about the Border Film Project (which he helped orchestrate). From the website:
Border Film Project is a collaborative art project giving disposable cameras to two groups on different sides of the border: undocumented migrants crossing the desert into the United States, and American Minutemen trying to stop them. To date, […]
Book Review: Charley Harper
June 1st, 2007About five or six years ago, me and my partner stumbled across some excellent framed prints of stylized birds in a dusty antique store. They looked to be from the ’50s, but the prints’ appealing freshness and simplicity had a timeless quality. The birds literally appeared to fly off the paper they were printed on. […]
The Harriet Files
May 30th, 2007I have to admit to harboring a weird fascination with Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com’s most prolific book reviewer. She’s a self-described speed reader who logs in multiple reviews each day, mostly appearing on the day a book is published. She never fails to give a book four or five stars, claiming to skip out on analyzing […]
Book Review: Fly Now!
May 16th, 2007Consumer note: although
Fly Now!: The Poster Collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is published by National Geographic, it doesn’t contain a single nature photograph (the closest might be a ’70s poster showing a flock of flamingos). What it does have are dozens of gorgeous American and European poster designs from the glory […]
Book Review: Core Memory
May 7th, 2007I have a strange affinity for wall-sized computers in old movies. Banks of blinking lights and spinning reels of magnetic tape made for nice background scenery, but they’re nothing compared to the real stories behind those early, rare and expensive computers. These pioneering machines are explored in an unexpectedly sumptuous way via Core Memory: A […]
Teach Me Tiger
April 24th, 2007The commentary on 25 great Calvin and Hobbes strips encapsulates why this was perhaps the greatest daily newspaper comic strip ever (via Pop Culture Junk Mail). My absolulety favorite time was the c.1990 series when Calvin was making snowmen and explaining his creations the way a fine artist would (i.e. full of hifalutin’ bullshit). Maybe […]
Book Review: Mingering Mike
April 18th, 2007Today I start a new and (hopefully) continuing scrubbles.net feature in which new books which fall under the “pop culture/art/design/retro goodness” umbrella are reviewed. Our first subject is Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar from Princeton Architectural Press.
The story behind this book really started in late 2003, when Washington D.C. deejay […]
Idol Chatter
April 10th, 2007I was thinking I haven’t posted anything “artsy” here for a while, until this interview with illustrator Calef Brown came up via Drawn! Brown is one of my idols going back 15 years or so, and it’s good to read that he seems like a nice, down-to-earth kind of fellow.
Betsy McCall’s Easter Eggcitement
April 8th, 2007We just finished doing a three day road trip to Northern Arizona. Part of our stay was in the town of Winslow (as in “Standing on a corner in …”). The town is a dingy, depressing little place with one beautifully restored hotel to recommend it, the La Posada. We also went to the town’s […]
Feudin’ Fillies of ‘48
March 27th, 2007So I’m sitting here at my computer, getting over another flu and nursing an ailing s.o. while simultaneously attempting to squeeze a 9 page playbill design into 8 pages. Between all that work I’m scanning through several dozen weblogs and wondering why so there’s so little inspiration to be found there. Seems like the bloggers […]
Fussbudgets Rejoice
March 19th, 2007Look at what Fantagraphics will be giving away as part of Free Comic Book Day on May 5th — The Unseen Peanuts, a collection of rare strips which never got reprinted in those ubiquitous old Peanuts paperbacks. Some of these strips have already been collected in the Complete Peanuts volumes, but it’ll be nice to […]
Dumb and Dumber
March 15th, 2007A couple of articles to make you question the intelligence of Americans - first up the L.A. Times has a piece on how TV games shows have gotten progressively easier over the last decade or so. A depressing read which reminded me of how much my own family absolutely adores Deal or No Deal. Granted […]
Periodically Speaking
February 26th, 2007More magazines! Here’s The 51 Best Magazines Ever as ranked by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. An excellent read with Carter smartly highlighting specific periods with many of his choices (Esquire 1961-73, for example). I’m so happy that he included Games from its ’80s glory years, ranked at #36. That magazine in that time absolutely […]
