The Book is a Weapon (12)

By: HILOBROW

Meta-commentary: Researching pulp cover illustrations in which books are featured is exceedingly difficult. Try googling the phrases “book on book” or “book cover featuring book cover” some time, and see for yourself. *** Twelfth in […]

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Society of the Spectacle

By: Peggy Nelson

Megan Archer is court painter to our modern aristocracy of celebrity. Like the subjects of Velazquez, Sargent and Warhol, her famous faces are a mirror of importance and power, but not their own: ours. [Beauty […]

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Becoming Animal

By: Peggy Nelson

Reeling and writhing and fainting in coils formed the core curriculum at the seaside school in Wonderland. But it takes more than the necessities to navigate today’s media soup; we need conceptual art. [John Tenniel, […]

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Genuine Husband

By: HILOBROW

“Young ladies, indelibly fix this shape of head in your memories. Any man who will make a natural, kind and true husband will have a head in outline from a side view like this.” *** […]

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Breakin’ the Law

By: Peggy Nelson

Don’t you love it when the first thing everyone asks you about your work is, “isn’t that illegal?” [The Cones Project, a performance art/virtual maps mashup, Peggy Nelson, 2009] Craig Baldwin is a scavenger, collagist, […]

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Gladwell Moore’s Guide to Girls (2)

By: Peggy Nelson

Last week’s advice was not for everyone, Gladwell Moore recognizes that. What if you don’t want to be a playa? What if you just want one, the one, with whom you can hang out at […]

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Chess Match (4)

By: Joshua Glenn

“At present my life can almost be likened to what a chess-piece in a game must feel when the opponent says: This piece is not to be touched — like an idle onlooker; for my hour […]

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Wide World of Xtreme Sports

By: Peggy Nelson

The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. Welcome to HiLo’s Wide World of Xtreme Sports, where tests of endurance determine who goes to extremes: of nature, of humanity, and of storytelling itself. [Jim […]

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Eloi and Morlocks

By: Peggy Nelson

Hey! I bet you’re wondering how an artist makes a living, especially when I don’t make anythings. I have a day job of course. I design patterns in software to enhance emotional reactions, which in […]

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Unreliable Husband

By: HILOBROW

“The reason this man is an unreliable husband is because he is very weak in Conjugality and Parental Love and exceedingly strong in Amativeness. Young ladies, beware such men as husbands.” *** According to Louis […]

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E-book as Weapon

By: Peggy Nelson

Chris Burden offers a distilled narrative in proto-Powerpoint. It only has one bullet point – but yes, he’ll read it to you. [Chris Burden, Shoot, 1971] *** Artists in residence archive.

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Special Guest, Enoch Soames

By: Peggy Nelson

Charlie Rose: Tonight on the show we have a very special guest, Enoch Soames, long thought to be a fictional character. In Max Beerbohm’s 1919 short story, Enoch Soames, a Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties, Beerbohm […]

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Teletheremin-athon

By: Peggy Nelson

Dr. Mabuse has sensed a disturbance in the Force. He has been instructed by Morpheus to conduct a spirit telethon. [still from Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, dir. Frtiz Lang, 1922] To that end we are […]

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The Book is a Weapon (11)

By: HILOBROW

Scene from The 39 Steps (d. Hitchcock: 1935), in which Sheriff Watson (Frank Cellier) inspects a Church Hymnary that has stopped a bullet intended for Richard Hannay (Robert Donat). SHERIFF: [laughing] HANNAY: Cigarette cases, yes. […]

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Love and Tentacles

By: Peggy Nelson

A few months ago, a friend of mine started Twittering his doodles. An irrepressible draftsman, Walter Sickert has the kind of old-skool muse that demands daily tribute. A sketchbook is always ready pocketside and, at […]

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