Categories
Shallow

Don’t Look Back

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The Life Aquatic poster… Milton Glaser‘s Bob Dylan poster.
Gothamist is running a contest to promote Wes Anderson’s cruelly under-hyped film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou this week.
What caught my eye immediately was the excellent poster for the film (above left), an obvious homage to Milton Glaser’s iconic Bob Dylan poster from 1966 (above, right). Since the Zissou image didn’t link, I don’t know its provenance, but I was surprised that there was no mention of Dylan or Glaser, since just last week, Gothamist was singing Glaser’s praises in a piece about the new New York Magazine logo.
I guess Glaser‘s just one of those artists whose work is so ubiquitous, it’s become wallpaper for the culture. It’s like “Happy Birthday to You”: Everyone knows that song, but can anyone name its composer? It’s a shame, too, since Glaser created so many excellent, memorable designs, like the beloved logo for Grand Union.
Related: “When I went upstairs, my bedroom felt like an overwarm sickroom. The clearest remaining vestige of Tom was the ‘Don’t Look Back’ poster that he’d taped to a flank of his dresser where Bob Dylan’s psychedelic hair style wouldn’t always be catching my mother’s censorious eye.” The Comfort Zone, by Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker, Nov. 29, 2004.

Categories
Grave

Law & Order: Insurgent Destruction Unit

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From the Associated Press: “Iraqi National Guard members arrests petrol black marketeers in Baghdad Monday Nov. 29, 2004. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

Categories
Grave

I want to fuck you like an, umm…wait. How exactly does one fuck an insurgent?

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A US marine outside of Fallujah, 2004, as photographed by AFP/Mehdi Fedouach; Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, 1994, as photographed by “Closer” music video director Mark Romanek

Categories
Grave Satirical

low culture Exclusive: The Outrage Continues—Continuously!!!

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(Ground) Zero Tact: Another offensive Cingular billboard, Lafayette St. and Astor Pl.
On November 19, this website published a revelation so important, so earth-shattering, our comments database promptly crashed due to the overwhelming feedback we received.
I am referring, of course, to low culture Exclusive: An Outrage Grows in Brooklyn!!!, about Cingular’s insensitive Twin Towers-themed billboard on Fourth Avenue and 9th Street in Brooklyn.
Since then, the post has richocheted around the internet, spread like wild fire, grown like kudzu, and just kept going and going like one of those battery-operated toy rabbits.
If our comments were any indication, America was just as outraged by Cingular’s billboard as we were:

“so clearly … the twin towers”
“Advertising is subliminal. They want gut reactions.”
“… those are the Twin Towers…”
“…these are obviously … supposed to be the towers. i think anyone … can figure that out.”
“When the twin towers were still standing, they were the same size, which is why they called them the twin towers…”


And, most damning of all:

“i work for cingular and thought this was hilarious.”


Hilarious, huh? Well, apparently Cingular is upping the ante by putting up not one, but several of these offensive billboards on the corner of Lafayette and Astor Place, a few blocks north of the World Trade Center! Yes, it’s true: The outrage continues. Worse yet, the representation of the Twin Towers crumbling, falling apart, appears almost exactly where the towers themselves would appear when looking downtown. Out-freakin’-rageous!
Please, we urge you once again to boycott Catherine Zeta Jones, despite her endorsement of T-Mobile. Boycott her because she married that slimy Michael Douglas! This outrage must be stopped!
Earlier: low culture Exclusive: An Outrage Grows in Brooklyn!!!

Categories
Shallow

Isn’t That A Clear Conflict of Interest?

High Court to Hear Medical Marijuana Issue.

“Session” to begin promptly at 4:20.

Categories
Shallow

When Stupid Copy Editors Ruin Your Publicity Stunt, vol. 1

Aerosmith’s Tyler Visits Women’s Rehab Center
Related: Aerosmith: You Gotta Move DVD, released Nov. 23, 2004.

Categories
Shallow

World Peace, TK

Actress Julia Roberts has twins

Categories
Shallow

The New York Times: Obsessed with Vaginas

From The Most Private of Makeovers (Nov. 28, 2004):

As millions of women inject Botox, reshape noses, augment breasts, lift buttocks and suck away unwanted fat, a growing number are now exploring a new frontier, genital plastic surgery. They are tightening vaginal muscles, plumping up or shortening labia, liposuctioning the pubic area and even restoring the hymen, sometimes despite their doctors’ skepticism about the need for such cosmetic measures.


From Trying to Avoid 2nd Caesarean, Many Find Choice Isn’t Theirs (Nov. 29, 2004):

Women around the country are finding that more and more hospitals that once allowed vaginal birth after Caesarean, or VBAC (commonly pronounced VEE-back), are now banning it and insisting on repeat Caesareans. About 300,000 women a year have repeat Caesareans. The rate of vaginal births in women who have had Caesareans has fallen by more than half, from 28.3 percent in 1996 to 10.6 percent in 2003.


From Wes Anderson’s Faithful Diving Team (Nov. 28, 2004):

It is a question that Mr. Anderson, 35, has been fretting about of late. “The only thing I worry about is that I’m going to have my same exact audience that I’ve had, which I’m lucky to have in the first place,” he said, while dissecting a plate of branzino at the same table at Bar Pitti restaurant in New York where he and Mr. Baumbach invented their cranky underwater patriarch.

Categories
Shallow

Measure for Measure

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Tool Time: TIME, Dec. 6, 2004… Esquire, March 1997.

Categories
Shallow

Thank Heaven For Little Girls…

… And the dirty old men who love them.
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Hucka-Hucka Burning Love: Hu-ka-poo: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps…
New York Magazine helps Daniel Radosh live out his Huckapoo fantasy. I’d read the story, but the D.A.’s office would require me to register myself on some sort of list.
Related: The Four Stages of Huckapoo: Curiosity, love, fixation, protection. Pardon me while I go scrub my soul.