I recently wrote about the preponderance of bald women in 90s pop culture for the website Neon Splatter. Here’s a brief blurb:
“The unisex and gender-neutral styles circa the ’90s…squashed gender into a singularity – a futuristic monogender made for an efficient tomorrow. It was an attempt at hurdling over gendered codes and modes by disregarding them. The consensus there could be read as: ‘We’re all basic in the future.'”
It’s Friday! It’s also the first day of Black History Month.
That said, there is no better fit for this week’s “Friday Mood Music” than Chuck Berry, the St. Louis-born musician whose regarded as the unofficial father of rock and roll. This here footage’s from a 1965 performance for the French program, Face au Public, and the tracks include “Promised Land” and, of course, “Johnny B. Goode.”
Have a great weekend!
For 2019’s first Found in the LOC, feast your eyes on these 13 thirties-era costume sketches by designer William Perkins.
I haven’t found too much information about Perkins, but he clearly had a knack for the theatric and an eye for alluring style. Below, you’ll find costumes Perkins designed for a production of William Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, as well as some for Jack Erman’s The Mystery of the Broadwalk Asylum, a sci-fi tale that, if the notes are correct, starred Martha Wright before she became Broadway sensation.
Most notable are Perkins’ designs for the 1938 premiere of activist Arthur Arent’s One-Third of A Nation.
Produced by the New Deal-era Federal Theater Project, One-Third condemned political leaders for the affordable housing crisis in New York City and other urban areas. The general message: slums and other dilapidated dehumanized and endangered innocent people for capitalist gain. It drew 270,000 viewers in the city alone, and even more once it toured across major urban areas.
You can imagine how this went over in DC: Conservative lawmakers were so incensed that they rallied their forces against the Federal Theater Project and forced its closure the next year.
Above, Perkins’ 1937 sketch of Winter’s Tale‘s Antigonus, the poor schmuck who gets eaten by a bear while abandoning a baby on the king’s orders. But at least he was wearing a gorgeous robe before becoming the beast’s dinner!
See more of Perkins’ mesmerizing sketches AFTER THE JUMP.
The dual identity of “the man” in American slang perplexes me. We say “Damn the man” or “Don’t let the man get you down” to sneer at establishment figures, from the police to nameless powers-that-be. Yet at the same time, perhaps even in the same conversation, we praise peers’ success by declaring “You’re the man!” or “You the man!” (“You’re the woman/You the woman” is basically nonexistent, replaced instead with the cheer “You go girl!”)
Friday Vibes Videos are typically poppy and boisterous, but his week’s been looong, and today also happens to be the 27th anniversary of Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion I hitting the billboard charts, so I’ve gone a different direction with “November Rain.”
It’s a depressing track, sure, but, I mean, it’s also so great and there’s Stephanie Seymour and Slash’s solo and just… everything. Have good weekends, all!
Lyndon Johnson’s greatest presidential legacy was by far the Great Society, a series of New Deal-inspired initiatives expanding social and cultural services in America — public broadcasting, national endowment for the arts, and Medicare and Medicaid were all part of his circa 1964-1965 program. Some of his efforts were successful; others fell short, such as Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” which many, including Martin Luther King Jr., described as a “war on the poor,” especially people of color, for all its inadequacies, inequalities, and impotencies.
On this date 50 years ago, country singer Jeannie C. Riley went number one with her instant classic “Harper Valley PTA,” a lyrical rebuke against gossiping, trash talking, shade throwing and general small mindedness. The track and the no nonsense narrative haven’t aged a day.
Have good weekends!
Today would be John James Audubon’s 233rd birthday. To honor the seminal wildlife artist, a man whose work exposed America to nature’s beauty, inspiring the first tinglings of conservation, here are 12 of his incomparable, though oft-copied, works.
Purple Guillone
Barnacle Goose
More AFTER THE JUMP!
And for more avian art, check out my profile on the late, great Arthur Singer.
Yeah, this song’s dedicated to Saturdays, but its vibe’s perfectly appropriate for Fridays, too, so, without further ado, De La Soul’s classic 1991 track “A Roller Skating Jam Called Saturdays”
“Horse in Motion, 1878”
Eadward Muybridge, who was born on this date in 1830, had quite the life. An Englishman who emigrated to the States in 1850, at the age of 20, he worked as a publisher and bookseller in California, and he likely would have remained as such had it not been for a stage coach accident in Texas in 1860. Flung from the vehicle and hitting his head on a rock, Muybridge was taken to Arkansas for treatment following the accident, and it was there that he was introduced to photographer, a hobby that became his legacy. (Which is good, because otherwise he might be remembered for murdering his wife’s lover in 1874, a crime for which he was acquitted.)
Some of his first images were of the American West, including Yosemite, which caught the attention of California Governor Leland Stanford, who asked Muybridge to photograph his prize-winning horses. Muybridge readily agreed, embarking on a project that he hoped would answer the age-old question: does a running horse ever get completely airborne? (Above)
Taking a rapid succession of shots, Muybridge showed that, yes, horses did indeed remain airborne; he also realized that motion could be captured among humans, too, capturing the images below and inspiring and inventors, most notably Thomas Edison, who used Muybridge’s work as a springboard to develop motion pictures.
Muybridge died in 1904, back in mother England, but his artistic and technical impact remain world-changing even today: without Muybridge we wouldn’t have Black Panther, after all.
After the jump, four more early Muybridge images capturing motion in action.
In Case You're Interested 