MK Brown... genius of funny

a long time ago, there was a very funny magazine called the National Lampoon. don't confuse it
with what has been done under that brand for
the last twenty-odd years - this was a very funny
bunch of people.


one of the things that made it so funny
was the comics. NatLamp, as we used to
call it, was the deep end of comic art.

Picking up on the underground heritage
of Mr. Natural, the Furry Freak Brothers
and others, NatLamp was where some
of most hardcore, original men and women
hit it every month...

via

in with Shary Flenniken, Gahan Wilson, rodriguez
and other stars, in June of 1972 in the issue
with the big Nixon nose appeared
a new name- MK Brown.

even in a context of extreme orginality,
MK Brown was not and is not like the others.

MK Brown didn't do the cheap laughs
or the easy joke. There was no ca-ca
or poo-poo on display.
Sometimes i wouldn't even laugh when
i first read them. i'd just go "hmmmm....",
but i'd find myself returning to them,
sometimes to laugh, sometimes just for
the quality of the language and singular beauty
of her illustrations.

and then there's this one... which is still
one of my favourite comics of all time.

here's a couple more...

if she was a waffle, i'd spring for the maple syrup.
if she was for breakfast, i'd get up on time.
if i'd never heard of her, i'd check her out pronto!



you can find a whole bunch of her work here
- highly recommended!


and more here!








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Marshall McLuhan - Electronic Prophet

We look at the present
through a rear-view mirror.
We march backwards
into the future.

Electric circuitry is Orientalizing the West.
The contained, the distinct, the separate -
our Western legacy-
are being replaced by the flowing,
the unified, the fused.

The story of modern America begins
with the discovery of the white man
by the Indians.

I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line,
a Distant Early Warning system that can always
relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning
to happen to it.

Art is anything you can get away with.

Historians and archaeologists will one day discover
that the ads of our time are the richest and most
faithful reflections that any society ever made
of its entire range of activities.

The new electronic independence
re-creates the world in the image
of a global village.

“The computer is the most extraordinary of man's technological clothing; it's an extension of our
central nervous system.

Beside it, the wheel is a mere hula-hoop.”

Politics offers yesterday’s answers
to today’s questions.

One of the effects of living with electric
information is that we live habitually
in a state of information overload.

There's always more than you can cope with.

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

The answers are always inside
the problem, not outside.

I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it.

 

Canada is the only country in the world
that knows how to live without an identity.

If the nineteenth century was the age
of the editorial chair, ours is the century
of the psychiatrist's couch.

Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair
invariably emerge in periods of great technological
and cultural transition.

When you are on the phone or on the air,
you have no body.










In this electronic age we see ourselves being
translated more and more into the form of
information, moving toward the technological
extension of consciousness.









Today each of us lives several hundred years
in a decade.

If it works, it’s obsolete.

The nature of people demands that most of them
be engaged in the most frivolous possible activities— like making money.







The future of the book is the blurb.
















A point of view can be a dangerous luxury
when substituted for insight and understanding.

























***

Russian Beauty

a million years ago, when i was a graphic designer, i fell in love with the work of the Constructivist designers who worked in Russia when the revolution was young.

Lissitsky. Rodchenko. Popova.

These were my trilogy- the ones i studied til my eyes bled. there were certainly others, but the work of these three changed my way of seeing
the word. the image. colour. composition.

these three just seemed to shit gold. working
in an impoverished and largely illiterate country, they created a visual language that has influenced designers ever since.

they seemed to do everything- photography, typography, books, theatre sets, costumes, department store ads and of course, posters.

here are a few...

http://russianconstructivists.blogspot.ca/p/el-lissitzky.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/10/rodchenko-popova-tate

Famous Last Words - PT Barnum

how exciting!

it's the debut of the latest subset
of the Check Your Meds global media entertainment corporation
"Famous Last Words"


"FLW", as we call it here on the campus,
salutes and celebrates the lives
of amazing people in whom the light
of hardcore attitude burned brightly
right up to and including
their last words...

as well as some whose final phrases remain so rich in irony as to be useful intellectual supplements even years later...


enjoy!

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the Niqab and i (part 2)

from the Niqab and i (part 1)

My discomfort level with people covering up
their faces is not just due to history and some
of the cultural archetypes that have come up
with it.

I don't have to go back centuries. There are lots
of examples of problematic face coverings
in the here and now...

Well, problematic to me, anyway.

The Ku Klux Klan have been hating,
intimidating and killing people
for over 150 years in the US
and Canada.

Boo!

Here's another contemporary archetype -
is he a regular old criminal,
or is he a trans-national terrorist?


Whatever, he's everywhere!

... and here's another contemporary covered face
that puts the fear of what-have-you
into me... that seems to be just
everywhere these days.

Faces covered.
Bulky black outfits.
Take off the badge, and who knows
who's beating the hell out of you?

Nobody, not even the cop beside him-
the one who's beating the hell out
of the person beside you!

*






Salut, Jacques.



i know there are good reasons why
a hockey goalie might wear a mask.
i've worn one myself.

but if i see someone walking down
my street wearing one, my discomfort level
will go through the roof.








Am I your goalie? or your opponent?






What's my point? i wish i knew...
which is one reason i have a blog-
to try and write my way into understanding
more than i do....

contemporary Hallowe'en costume

i don't really care much
about other people's religion.
most religions seem to boil down
to a handful of operating instructions
that make a certain amount of sense.

unfortunately, many people who follow
a religion don't seem to follow
those instructions very closely,
...but whatever.


after years of study and personal experience, i also feel that any kind of religious fundamentalism should be classified as a mental illness.

from some American movie, i think

...i've grown up in a culture
where covering one's face is usually
an indication that one is up to no good.

a movie in Mexico

masks are used to inspire fear.
masks are worn to give the wearer
a distinct advantage over those not wearing masks.

it's been that way for hundreds of years,
and it's still like that now.

is that you, Jason?

to expect that i'm going to be OK
with anyone wearing a mask in public
is at best, naive, and at worst,
predicated on profound cultural ignorance
and/or willful self-absorption.

Scream.

...and it's crazy to expect that choosing
to wear a mask will make no difference
in how you are perceived or treated
by others who are not wearing one.

niqab

a niqab is a mask.

mask

a niqab dehumanizes the person wearing it,
and it dehumanizes everyone the wearer encounters.



it sends a clear message that i have been judged a priori and found unworthy. it says "i don't trust you".

...so why should anyone trust someone wearing a niqab?

a hijab - vive la difference.

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