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Ah, it's good to be back again with Thursday Night Thinking! And what could be more appropriate for this week than a classic Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen cover?
By William Jelani Cobb
In the three weeks since the New York Times broke the story of a child’s rape there, the events in Cleveland, Texas, have morphed into a category-five media storm. The Times piece, which echoed and amplified currents of victim-blaming in the town, generated a tide of criticism. Yet beneath the outrage was a parable of modern media. Aside from the familiar and incendiary themes it contained, the Times article seemed an object lesson in what happens when cash-strapped newspapers parachute a reporter into a complex situation hoping for coverage on the cheap. In-depth coverage requires resources and the time to do the deliberate, painstaking gathering of facts that were in short supply in James McKinley’s article. “The New York Times,” as one friend put it, “can no longer afford nuance.”
Add to that equation the fact that Twitter-orchestrated protests, web petitions and Facebook posts pushed the Times to apologize (or at least come close to it), and our understanding of the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl becomes yet another front in the battles between old and new media. Even the way the assault became public knowledge—digital images traded around on cellphones—seems to be part of the narrative of modern technology and information.
Yet for all this modernity, the most troubling aspect of the ongoing fallout from Cleveland is the way it resurrects themes of race, sexual violence and provincialism long interred in American history. Some weeks ago I taught students in my civil rights history class about the plague of lynching, which claimed the lives of more than 3,000 African-Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beyond the horror of the organized murder of black citizens, students were most troubled by the recreational nature of it all: the images of smiling white citizens, fathers and sons, upstanding Christians gathered in fellowship around the smoldering ruin of a black body—all preserved on postcards.
If you asked any of these people in the abstract if it is right to hang a person, set him on fire and then riddle the body with bullets, they would likely have called those actions illegal and sinful. But there is an asterisk: unless that person was black; unless he had demanded his wages, or been to slow to vacate a sidewalk when a white person walked by, or been “unpopular” (these are all actual reasons cited for lynching). These are actions of people who have been given a moral escape clause, an asterisk in which upstanding Christians can sate the demonic appetites of their collective id. Thus an act of abomination becomes a moment worthy of commemorating with a photograph.
I thought about that discussion of lynching again as news spread that the alleged perpetrators were so utterly secure in the righteousness of their act that some of them snapped pictures or recorded footage on their cell phones. We have, in 2011, reached a point when the public display of charred human remains is no longer acceptable. But the response of some of the citizens of Cleveland, Texas, to this horrific assault has brought us face to face with a kind of gender Jim Crow. Here the asterisk is not failure to conform to racial etiquette but the lax adherence to an equally stringent gender code, one where “innocent” is a relative concept and rape, like lynching, can be elevated nearly to the level of civic responsibility.
The rape, which allegedly took place in a filthy trailer, has been mitigated by qualifiers on the child’s innocence—and necessarily, the guilt of the accused. It is, as an abstract idea, wrong to force a preteen child to have sex with a dozen and a half men. Unless she was “fast,” or dressed like a much older woman, or had slack maternal supervision. Add enough exceptions and even the unconscionable begins to look like a six-in-one-hand undertaking. It is the bitterest of ironies that African-Americans in Cleveland have been the most vocal proponents of this warped ideal. We of all people should understand how the moral exception game works. (For those who believe the fact that the girl is Hispanic has colored the responses to the crime, rest assured, “fast” 11-year-old black girls are seen as every bit as disposable within the black community.)
Read the entire essay @ THE NATION
Scott Amron of Amron Experimental has come up with a chic and clever way to fashionably "dress your wound". The New York designer/artist and electrical engineer sells his "Hurt Couture" pressed black leather bandages 3 to a pack for $15. He claim that the leather actually breathes better. Not sure if that's true, but they certainly look better.
He intends to come out with some Louis Vuitton ones, too (shown above). Get on his mailing list for those here.
Interested in other types of luxury first aid?
• Swarovski studded bandages
• Alyssa Dee Kraus designs sterling silver and 18k gold band-aid jewelry
• Check out the sterling silver bandage rings by Michelle Lopez at Artware Editions.
Thanks to Dalzin.com via freshbump, I discovered this new wonderful line of artist designed helmets named Pirates Design. Olivier Maucorps, a motorcycle enthusiast, decided to start a new line of creative helmets with illustrator FAKIR, who designed one of the helmets as well as the company's logo. They then enlisted four other artists to design the following helmets:
FAKIR
Graphic artist, toy designer and illustrator FAKIR designed the logo as well the FAKIR Helmet:
NANAN
French sculptor and toy designer Gaël Brienne (aka NANAN1) designed the following helmet:
GRAPHEART
French graphic design, illustration and toy design studio Grapheart, designed the following helmet:
KATRE
French Graffiti and street artist Katre, designed the following helmet:
LADY SHOVE
Freelance graphic designer Lady Shove (aka Julie Chauville)
The helmets are being exhibited at Star Motors in Paris from March 25- April 30th and can actually be purchased online.
Shop for the Pirates Design helmets here.
Graffiti alphabet letters. Funny glossy gradient bubble font graffiti alphabet in aqua blue.
Designer Chris Labrooy, inspired by his design heroes; architects Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Toyo Ito, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry and designer Ettore Sottsass, has created 3D typography based on their works using computer rendering and illustration.
Tadao Ando 3D Type
Typography design based on the architecture of Tadao Ando. Chris chose his favourite Tadoa buildings as a basis for developing these expressive letter forms. Included are: Chikatsu Asuka historical museum / Water temple / Naoshima contemporary art museum annex:
Zaha Hadid 3D Type
Typography design based on the architecture of Zaha Hadid. With this piece, Chris focused on capturing Zaha's formal language rather than reference specific buildings because he claims to be interested in her drawings and paintings from the eighties.:
Oscar Niemeyer 3D Type
Typography design based on the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer. Chris picked his favourite Niemeyer buildings as a basis for developing these expressive letter forms. Included are : Cathedral of Brasília / Niterói Contemporary Art Museum / Ibirapuera Park theatre / Oscar Niemeyer Museum.
Toyo Ito 3d type
Letter forms inspired by Toyo Ito's impressive works. The combination of simple forms with inricate perforations is what excited Chris about Toyo's work. These letters are based on : TOD's omotesando / Tower of winds / Taichung opera house / Mikimoto department store:
Frank Gehry 3d Type
Typography design based on the architecture of Frank Gehry. Chris picked his favourite Gehry buildings as a basis for developing some expressive letter forms. Included are: Guggenheim Bilboa / Aerospace museum / Gehry house / experience music project / dancing house prague:
Although not an architect. Ettore Sottsass' memphis style designs inspired Chris to create a font.
Ettore Sottsass 3d Type
Letter forms inspired by Sottsass's early 80's furniture. This work is Chris' attempt to revisit the past, get inspired, and share with people new and interesting interpretations on familiar historical works:
His Helvetica 3D Type does the opposite of the above works. In this font, Chris has turned a typeface into architecture:
For Bauhaus, Chris took a design style and sensibility and also turned it into a 3d rendering of a building:
Also worth noting is his "Playful Type" made of sex toys:
See more of Chris Labrooy's fabulous work here.
Via Architizer
