phenakistiscope party ii
i finished my homework early and had some free time to renanimate another phenakistiscope disc. this one is called “politeness” and was published by thomas mclean in 1833. it depicts mozart and marie antoinette fanning each other’s farts.
athens 1961
i’m away from the internet right now helping my uncle scan old ganan family negatives. i plan to be back early next week but in the meantime: here’s a photo from my family’s sordid past. would you believe that i’m related by blood to one of these people?
phenakistiscope party
did you hear about this thing called animated gifs? it turns out that they’re excellent for reanimating the persistence of vision phenakistiscope discs of the 1800s. in this disc created by john dunn in the 1830s (and reanimated by yours truly 179 years later), we get a chance to see the idyllic scene of a mom working on her biceps and a dandy dad demonstrating his jazz hands and rejecting the embrace of his eager baby over and over and over forever.
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original disc image provided by room 26 cabinet of curiosities.
![hints for crystal drawing
while my high school classmates spent most of their doodle time scribbling far out bong designs in the margins of their calculus notebooks, i was always preoccupied with creating logos for various brands managed by ganan industries—my proposed multinational pharmaceutical conglomeration/social club. however, if you’d told me then that the book hints for crystal drawing (1908) by margaret reeks was a real thing, i probably would have [made fun of her last name and then] lined all my notes with dope little tetrahexahedrons, and prisms of the 2nd order. the book begins:
The sole object of this little book is to assist the student of Mineralogy in making drawings of the crystal forms and combinations with which he has to deal. Nothing beyond this is aimed at.](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrkkcwoq261qzrip0o1_500.png)
hints for crystal drawing
while my high school classmates spent most of their doodle time scribbling far out bong designs in the margins of their calculus notebooks, i was always preoccupied with creating logos for various brands managed by ganan industries—my proposed multinational pharmaceutical conglomeration/social club. however, if you’d told me then that the book hints for crystal drawing (1908) by margaret reeks was a real thing, i probably would have [made fun of her last name and then] lined all my notes with dope little tetrahexahedrons, and prisms of the 2nd order. the book begins:
The sole object of this little book is to assist the student of Mineralogy in making drawings of the crystal forms and combinations with which he has to deal. Nothing beyond this is aimed at.
![bond villain or master linguist?
the duck face may have replaced the sneer as the ultimate facial expression in formal portraiture, but this still doesn’t really clue us into whether or not this disgusted genius and his evil lap cat are planning to hold the world hostage for one hundred billion dollars or thinking about how to make sense of the odd little glyphs found inscribed in mayan stonework. so i will just tell you.
yuri knorozov is the russian ethnographer and linguist who first deciphered maya script. here’s how it all began »
At the closing stages of the war in May 1945, Knorozov and his unit supported the push of the Red Army vanguard into Berlin. It was here…[that] Knorozov came across the National Library while it was ablaze. Somehow Knorozov managed to retrieve from the burning library a book, which remarkably enough turned out to be a rare edition containing reproductions of the three Maya codices which were then known…Knorozov is said to have taken this book back with him to Moscow at the end of the war, where its examination would form the basis for his later pioneering research into the Maya script.
there are many bamfs in linguistics but for my one hundred billion dollars, knorozov is the bamfiest bamf of them all.](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrf5os96XC1qzrip0o1_r1_500.png)
bond villain or master linguist?
the duck face may have replaced the sneer as the ultimate facial expression in formal portraiture, but this still doesn’t really clue us into whether or not this disgusted genius and his evil lap cat are planning to hold the world hostage for one hundred billion dollars or thinking about how to make sense of the odd little glyphs found inscribed in mayan stonework. so i will just tell you.
yuri knorozov is the russian ethnographer and linguist who first deciphered maya script. here’s how it all began »
At the closing stages of the war in May 1945, Knorozov and his unit supported the push of the Red Army vanguard into Berlin. It was here…[that] Knorozov came across the National Library while it was ablaze. Somehow Knorozov managed to retrieve from the burning library a book, which remarkably enough turned out to be a rare edition containing reproductions of the three Maya codices which were then known…Knorozov is said to have taken this book back with him to Moscow at the end of the war, where its examination would form the basis for his later pioneering research into the Maya script.
there are many bamfs in linguistics but for my one hundred billion dollars, knorozov is the bamfiest bamf of them all.
breaking bald
i’ve only seen 2.5 seasons of breaking bad—but i’ve already noticed an unusually high rate of baldness. over the course of seven hours, i developed a drinking game that leverages this observation.
i was watching the prestige the other night and realized that both christian bale (who played batman) and hugh jackman (who played wolverine) were in it and then got to wondering how many other movies feature actors who play superheroes/villains. a few imdb scrapes later, and i arrived at the above guide.
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many thanks to mr. luke sedgeman of pixel joint for creating the amazing pixel heroes that power this chart.
see also: harry potter wizards in non-harry potter movies
note: a chart i made that plots these relationships can be found here.
further note: if chris pine does land the role of the flash, then smokin’ aces will have 5 superheroes in it because ryan reynolds, i have just been informed, also played deadpool in the wolverine movie.
this is art
it went down like this: i was cleaning my desk and found an old drawing that i made in my “moustache” phase and thought i would post it to the internet and so that is what i did.
![what’s in a name
“things” are getting pretty wild in my lighthouse pretty fast. the other day i flew a kite (that i made from a soiled dish towel) and just this morning i won two straight games of solitaire (without much cheating). because of my solitude, an army friend promised to send me some playboy pin-up posters to keep me company. the rascal failed to mention that the posters would be these, jason salavon’s graphical averages of playmates by decade. without the satisfaction i was looking for, i decided to create my own and thought it might be a larf to average other playmate statistics.
i came up with the above name chart though my methodology was sketchy. i determined through “algorithms” that both the playmates’ first and last names had an average of six letters. i then pieced together the most common first two letters + the most common middle two letters + the most common final letters to generate names. technically what i did was not averaging so much as moding, but that is splitting hairs and in the world of playboy playmates, there are not always a lot of hairs to split.
things to observe when looking at pictures of playmates’ [names]
watch how their first names change from ending in e to ending in a over time.
gawk at how their last names either end exclusively in er or on.
ponder why the relatively underused english letters j and k are oddly predominant.
fantasize about what the averaged playmate name for all playmates from 1955 to 2010 could be. hint: it’s the very unsexy “maarne collon.”
anywhosies, i’m off to meet my voluptuous invented girlfriend candra callon for some shrimp cocktails and couples foot massages, cheers.](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpcz7pgd4T1qzrip0o1_500.png)
what’s in a name
“things” are getting pretty wild in my lighthouse pretty fast. the other day i flew a kite (that i made from a soiled dish towel) and just this morning i won two straight games of solitaire (without much cheating). because of my solitude, an army friend promised to send me some playboy pin-up posters to keep me company. the rascal failed to mention that the posters would be these, jason salavon’s graphical averages of playmates by decade. without the satisfaction i was looking for, i decided to create my own and thought it might be a larf to average other playmate statistics.
i came up with the above name chart though my methodology was sketchy. i determined through “algorithms” that both the playmates’ first and last names had an average of six letters. i then pieced together the most common first two letters + the most common middle two letters + the most common final letters to generate names. technically what i did was not averaging so much as moding, but that is splitting hairs and in the world of playboy playmates, there are not always a lot of hairs to split.
things to observe when looking at pictures of playmates’ [names]
anywhosies, i’m off to meet my voluptuous invented girlfriend candra callon for some shrimp cocktails and couples foot massages, cheers.
america’s most wanted painting
what you are looking at—providing you are looking at the above painting and have not been distracted by an ugly little butterfly fluttering about your periphery—is the “most wanted” painting in america. every element from the color, size, composition, and state of dress of its subjects was determined through an exhaustive survey and then painted by the russian emigrant artists komar & melamid in 1994.
apparently americans want: historical figures, lake scenes, rustic picnickers, and bathing stags in the style of rembrant. go figure.
here is the obligatory deeper meanings statement from the project’s website:
In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our “democratic/consumer” society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid’s project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?
america’s least wanted painting is also worth a look (provided that that butterfly is not still around). here also are the most and least wanted paintings from around the world. is the most requested painting of your country as overwrought as the american one? i bet it is.
for bestiary: a dingorilla
apart from a 1938 advertisement for shell gasoline, i can’t find any references to this marvelous hybrid animal. but just because some madison avenue ad guy dreamt up the dingorilla doesn’t mean that you and i can’t try to make one for ourselves in my subterranean insemination facilities à la that movie with val kilmer and marlon wayans.
french surrealist artist maurice henry (1907-1984) was kind enough to illustrate my friday night.
this is not an april fools’ gag from 1938*
check out this 10-stack super liner that i just took a picture of in boston harbor! it’s called the president roosevelt, and according to a 1938 issue of life magazine, “among its many superlative features is an auto-track on which car-crazy americans can race.”
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*april fools! it actually is an april fools’ gag from 1938.
furniture smut
do you have a leg fetish? do you have a “thing” for feet. i won’t judge you, because i do as well. just feast your bloodshot eyes on this vintage leg & foot porn. sabre legs with scroll feet?!?!…oh baby, there goes my slipcover!
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