The Book is a Weapon (15)

By: HILOBROW

When did murder in a bookshop or library become a middlebrow meme? Example: After all, although some bookshops and libraries may be middlebrow, there’s nothing inherently middlebrow about these institutions. It’s their sentimentalization by “booklovers” […]

Read This Post

The Book is a Weapon (13)

By: HILOBROW

Ellen (Gene Tierney) reads to Richard (Cornel Wilde) from his own (middlebrow) novel, Time Without End, shortly after meeting him on a train, in John M. Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Her homicidal jealousy […]

Read This Post

Hilo Iconography, still inchoate

By: Joshua Glenn

Chess sets, and Scrabble, certainly. But not Battleship, Mastermind, Risk, Monopoly, Clue? Bicycles, and pipes (the kind you smoke). But not skateboards or cigarettes, muscle cars or cigars? Teapots and typewriters. But not coffeepots or […]

Read This Post

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 […]

Read This Post

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.

Read This Post

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. […]

Read This Post

The Book is a Weapon (10)

By: HILOBROW

This book-shaped object is a Tabloid-brand medicine box, manufactured by the British pharmaceuticals company Burroughs Wellcome & Co. During the early 20th century, the catch-phrase “Weapons of Precision” helped sell BWC’s medicine chests to British […]

Read This Post

The Book is a Weapon (7)

By: HILOBROW

Gregory Green’s Book Bomb #8 (1994). From the artist’s gallery’s website: Since the mid-1980’s Gregory Green has created performances and artworks exploring the evolution of empowerment, which consider the use of violence, alternatives to violence […]

Read This Post

The Book is a Weapon (6)

By: HILOBROW

Title: “This is the enemy.” Publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. G.P.O. : Distributed by Division of Public Inquiry, Office of War Information Date: 1943. *** Sixth in an occasional series.

Read This Post