Snake America: Number 19 (ending soon)
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JEANS: 1960s John Lennon (?) Pop-Art Wranglers: These jeans remind me of Versace's range of jeans from the 1980s (I think...) and '90s. Both are all-over patterned, quite loud, and call to mind Jack Lenor Larsen upholstery or Grandma furniture... The Versace jeans are super interesting because they're cut like Levi's 501s, but with have whatever insane tasteless design--e.g., the LOVE jeans here--which ruins the whole aesthetic, but in such an over-the-top way that it's fine. Kind of like the BMW Art Cars or Peter Max Corvettes in a previous letter of mine, which i can't find right now. Some people have 20 pairs of Versace jeans, and none are wearable. It's great. But back to it ... I think the Wranglers here are important jeans, because of the 1967-era John Lennon-esque drawing on the left leg. Might these be prized by Beatles collectors? I asked a Beatles-wise friend of mine and he couldn't confirm. So, good enough for me. From here, these are to Beatlesabilia what a Black Flag "Family Man" 12" is to Pettibon: unsanctioned, but differently good. But is it Lennon? In the 1970s, my dad looked exactly like the late Beatles crooner and would get stopped by tourists, when he lived in New York, for photographs. He didn't inform them of their mistake, but he has a Midwestern accent. Half or so figured it out. So, people used to look like Lennon back then. Maybe it's the Wrangler guy's brother. Also worth noting: the skulls on the bottom of the jeans are worth the price of admission alone. Proto-Chron-Gen skulls. Who drew these?
ART: Air Jordan Space Jam (USA, 1996) fake newspaper poster: Pretty funny and well-executed fake newspaper about Michael Jordan being abducted by aliens to save their world from a different set of aliens by joining and coaching their basketball team. Some stuff here is worth noting:
There won't be any fake newspapers made 10 years from now. This will be a darker signifier of papers' deaths than declining ad rates. Dewey Beats Truman, Simpsons (USA 1989)) running gags, the above, etc. Time's running out if it hasn't already. A fake newspaper is the ultimate commemoration of a real event. RIP. What happens next?
The newspaper stuff makes this the most dated artifact relating to Space Jam, which counts the website (not linking to it), Bill Murray in Jordan IIs at the end of the movie, Shawn Bradley's non-speaking role, Eric Gordon playing Jordan's kid, etc.
This is a really well-laid-out front page of a tabloid newspaper. To me, anyways. I like the Mullin thing and the fake barcode. Here's what my good friend Matt LaForge, a newspaper editor, and a writer to whom Vice has owed $50 since 2012, says about the layout:
"A totemic tabloid-front layout that the late lion of broadsheets Ben Bradlee would surely have hated and that ipso facto merits the esteem of anyone who's ever had enough life in her to admire a rap-album cover or a piece of golden-age tech outerwear. A couple of subtle virtues make themselves immediately plain to the initiated viewer. One is that Michael's face is oriented toward the outside of the page, normally a non-no, but that the angle of his gaze — id est, directly into our eyes — winningly compensates. Another is the salutary asymmetry of the main headline's two deks, which are arranged in the preferred staircase fashion (shorter on top of longer), as opposed to the to-be-avoided pirate-ship-plank (longer on top of shorter)*. Moreover, the number and arrangement of headshot keys is ideal for their primary function of adding context and counterpoint to the main story, and their respective colors are secondarily useful in pointing up graphical elements to which they chromatically correspond, either by one-to-one repetition (viz., Chris Mullin's key and the Stargazer logo; Porky's key and Michael's tank top) or by complement (the Blink 182 Dude Ranch effect of the blue Foghorn key and the orange brush on Michael's Marvin helmet). My only personal gripe with this layout is the wheat-field-jumpman tease, whose elongated-Oklahoma aspect and out-of-left-field coloration remind me of the dark years I spent supervising pagination at the Swift Current Southwest Booster."**
Space Jam is a good movie, the best scene is when Jordan is in his hotel room eating McDonald's, wearing Hanes and drinking Gatorade.
Hey, both auctions have the same starting price! Thanks for reading. Questions, comments, tips, complaints on my driving can be sent here in a reply. Thanks again.
Snake
*I here am required to mention Martin Berkhan's reverse pyramid training.
** Well said. Maybe we all pay Matt $50 for that. Also maybe Jordan is looking out of the frame because it's space?