While shopping around online for a panama hat for summer, I came across this trailer for a documentary on how they’re made. The process of weaving them looks grueling, and it puts some perspective on why some panama hats can cost hundreds of dollars and more.
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The Seattle Art Museum has two new exhibits opening this week on May 13 that are focused around Andy Warhol and Kurt Cobain.
love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death
Through a selection of Andy Warhol’s media works, this exhibition will offer a focused and provocative experience of Warhol’s photography and film portraits. Unfolding in five of the special exhibition galleries, the exhibition includes Polaroids, photo booth strips and sewn photographs, presented alongside Warhol’s Screen Tests, which will be projected in two of the galleries devoted to these moving images.
love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death includes works that compel us to consider the artist’s fascination with all things ephemeral, from beauty and youth to celebrity status. Including photographs and videos dating from the 1960s through the early 1980s—two decades in which the artist’s work had tremendous impact on contemporary art production and culture—the exhibition encourages readings of powerful themes such as fame, desire and identity construction, as well as anxiety and isolation, which often accompany stardom. In a series of self-portraits, with props or disguises such as wigs and women’s clothing, Warhol exposes his obsession with his own image and his desire to probe and push the boundaries of identity and self-invention.
As part of the presentation, SAM has also installed a photo booth where people can take pictures of themselves for an interesting Facebook driven art project. Continue reading more.
The Kurt exhibit will be featured in the same gallery.
Kurt Cobain symbolized the ideals, aspirations and disappointments of the ’90s generation, and a diverse array of artists have incorporated his image into their work to comment on those issues. International in scope, the works on view in Kurt range from straightforward portraiture to pieces that show a more subtle assimilation of Cobain’s ethos and idealism in a broad range of media. With works from the early 1990s to the present, by artists such as Rodney Graham, Douglas Gordon and Elizabeth Peyton, among others, this exhibition will cause viewers to question why and how Kurt’s visage and his gestures came to mean so much to a generation.
Continue reading more.
For those of you living in the York area, Superdenim.co.uk recently opened up a new retail store called “The Rugged Standard” on 19 High Petergate. It will carry the same brands as their online store.
Brooks Brothers has started its Friends and Family sale today – use code friend98 for 25% off at checkout. Some highlights: ribbon belts, clunky Black Fleece double-monks, and the interesting Black Fleece fragrance for men.
J.Crew has also added new items to their spring sale: it wouldn’t be a bad time to pick out shorts if you needed any.
And lastly, Rugby marked down some of their inventory 25-50% as part of their insider sale.
Update: J.Press starts their sale tomorrow on May 7th. Use code PSMAY10 for 25% off at checkout.
In the photographs used for the Nothing But the Best album, Frank Sinatra can be seen wearing several shirts with club collars (a small detail that I’ve somehow missed before). When he’d loosen up his tie and undo his top button, he’d then also nonchalantly leave his collar pin attached to only one hole.
It’s a bit difficult to find RTW shirts with collar pin holes today if you wanted to recreate this look, and it would probably be easier to just buy a regular club collar shirt and have a tailor add the needed holes: Patrik Ervell has made these a signature piece of his collections, and on the low end you can also find some nice ones from J.Crew and Rugby. J.Press will have you covered on the pins.
There was a cool article in the LA Times this last week about a group of train enthusiasts that have restored and maintained the Santa Fe 3751 locomotive, the ‘Cadillac of Steam’:
About 25 years ago, a group of Southern California train enthusiasts made either the best or the worst investment of their lives, depending on how you look at it.
For the grand sum of $1, they bought the Santa Fe 3751, a 430-ton locomotive that had once played a seminal role in introducing high-capacity, high-speed passenger rail service to the West. Then they set out to get the thing working again, which wound up taking five years, $1.3 million, including cash outlay and in-kind contributions, and the work of nearly 400 volunteers.
Now, the 3751 is about to make a triumphant return to the public rails, the latest turn in what has been both a glorious and tortuous history.
Continue reading more.
The locomotive is actually listed on National Register of Historic Places. Here’s some more reading on wikipedia:
Built in 1927 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 3751 was Baldwin’s and Santa Fe’s first 4-8-4. Tests showed that 3751 was 20% more efficient and powerful than Santa Fe’s 4-8-2 3700 class steamer, which at the point was the Santa Fe’s top of the line steamer. In 1936, the engine was converted to burn oil. Two years later, the locomotive was given a larger tender able to hold 20,000 gallons of water and 7,107 gallons of fuel oil. In 1941, along with other 4-8-4s, 3751 received major upgrades including: 80-inch drive wheels, a new frame, roller bearings all around, and more. That same year, she achieved her highest recorded speed at 103 mph.
The famous race is in the news again, and when looking through image galleries with pictures from previous years I can’t help but think of Thompson’s early essay where he covered it in 1970 – he aptly called the race “Decadent and Depraved” and not much has changed since.
I got off the plane around midnight and no one spoke as I crossed the dark runway to the terminal. The air was thick and hot, like wandering into a steam bath. Inside, people hugged each other and shook hands…big grins and a whoop here and there: “By God! You old bastard! Good to see you, boy! Damn good…and I mean it!”
In the air-conditioned lounge I met a man from Houston who said his name was something or other–“but just call me Jimbo”–and he was here to get it on. “I’m ready for anything, by God! Anything at all. Yeah, what are you drinkin?” I ordered a Margarita with ice, but he wouldn’t hear of it: “Naw, naw…what the hell kind of drink is that for Kentucky Derby time? What’s wrong with you, boy?” He grinned and winked at the bartender. “Goddam, we gotta educate this boy. Get him some good whiskey…”
I shrugged. “Okay, a double Old Fitz on ice.” Jimbo nodded his approval.
“Look.” He tapped me on the arm to make sure I was listening. “I know this Derby crowd, I come here every year, and let me tell you one thing I’ve learned–this is no town to be giving people the impression you’re some kind of faggot. Not in public, anyway. Shit, they’ll roll you in a minute, knock you in the head and take every goddam cent you have.”
I thanked him and fitted a Marlboro into my cigarette holder.
“Say,” he said, “you look like you might be in the horse business…am I right?”
“No,” I said. “I’m a photographer.”
“Oh yeah?” He eyed my ragged leather bag with new interest. “Is that what you got there–cameras? Who you work for?”
“Playboy,” I said.
Continue reading more (starts on page 12).
Wikipedia provides some background on the piece:
The article’s focus is less on the actual race itself—indeed, Thompson and Steadman could not actually see the race from their standpoint—and more on the celebration and depravity that surrounds the event. Thompson provides up-close views of life in the Derby infield as well as the grandstand, and a running commentary on the drunkenness and lewdness of the crowd, which he states in narration as the only thing he was focusing on with the work. The narrative ends with a bittersweet anagnorisis somewhat common of Thompson’s work in which Thompson and Steadman (the latter of whom also had similar goals to Thompson’s, of capturing the debauched atmosphere in his surreal drawings), after several days of immersing themselves in raucous partying and alcoholism to get a sense of the event, realize they’re exactly the type of people they originally planned to caricature.
Now available to view online on johnlobb.com.
Stuart & Wright, a favorite Brooklyn retailer of mine, just opened up a new webstore that is worth checking out – brands carried include Engineered Garments, Acne, and Band of Outsiders. Their previous arrangement with Refinery29 wasn’t the greatest experience for online customers, so I’m glad to see them running their own site now.
