Archive for August 2013
The rich really *are* different…
On the heels of a study revealing that 59% of the tuna sold in the U.S. isn’t (tuna), more toxic news…
In a finding that surprised even the researchers conducting the study, it turns out that both rich and poor Americans are walking toxic waste dumps for chemicals like mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium and bisphenol A, which could be a cause of infertility. And while a buildup of environmental toxins in the body afflicts rich and poor alike, the type of toxin varies by wealth…
While America’s poor are “rich” in toxins that come from plastics and cigarettes,
… People who can afford sushi and other sources of aquatic lean protein appear to be paying the price with a buildup of heavy metals in their bodies, found Jessica Tyrrell and colleagues from the University of Exeter. Using data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Tyrrell et al. found that compared to poorer people, the rich had higher levels of mercury, arsenic, caesium and thallium, all of which tend to accumulate in fish and shellfish.
The rich also had higher levels of benzophenone-3, aka oxybenzone, the active ingredient in most sunscreens, which is under investigation by the EU and, argue some experts, may actually encourage skin cancer.
Read the whole story in Quartz…
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As we “just say no” to nigiri, we might send dissolute birthday greetings to the poster boy for excess, Caligula; he was born on this date in 12 CE. The third Roman Emperor (from from 37 to 41 CE), Caligula (“Little Boots”) is generally agreed to have been a temperate ruler through the first six months of his reign. His excesses after that– cruelty, extravagance, sexual perversity– are “known” to us via sources increasingly called into question.
Still, historians agree that Caligula did work hard to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor at the expense of the countervailing Principate; and he oversaw the construction of notoriously luxurious dwellings for himself.In 41 CE, members of the Roman Senate and of Caligula’s household attempted a coup to restore the Republic. They enlisted the Praetorian Guard, who killed Caligula– the first Roman Emperor to be assassinated (Julius Caesar was assassinated, but was Dictator, not Emperor). In the event, the Praetorians thwarted the Republican dream by appointing (and supporting) Caligula’s uncle Claudius the next Emperor.
Gotham…
In the late 1940’s, before he found fame as a filmmaker, a teen-aged Stanley Kubrick worked as a photographer for Look Magazine, shooting around Manhattan (and often working alongside Arthur Fellig, aka Weegee). The Museum of the City of New York has over 8,000 of his photos in their collection– at once a window on post-war New York and an early peek at the aesthetic that we’d all come to recognize in Dr. Strangelove and Clockwork Orange (and, if less directly, in 2001 and The Shining).
Read the backstory (and see more snaps) at Gothamist, here and here.
Kubrick in his days as a photographer for LOOK
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As we mutter “redrum,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1905 that Henry James returned to the United States for the first time in 25 years. The son of theologian Henry James, Sr. and brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James. James was raised on both sides of the Atlantic. After finishing Harvard Law School (and deciding that he preferred writing fiction to legal briefs), he left the U.S. for France, where he lived briefly, then the U.K., where he settled and wrote the works on which his reputation rests: Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Turn of the Screw (1898), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Ambassadors. After his return, James worked mainly on the “New York Edition” of his works and on his autobiography.
James’ work was a break from the Romantic tradition embodied in the novels of Dickens and Thackeray; indeed, with William Dean Howells, George Eliot, and Stephen Crane, he pioneered the Realist novel.
When the posters were better than the films…
In the days before focus groups and digital enhancement, from the late 1940s into the 1970s, movie posters– “one sheets”– were the film business’ barkers, luring viewers into theaters. The creators of these enticements were unsung (as their work was unsigned)– except, of course, within the industry they served. A number of illustrators– Bill Gold, Frank McCarthy, Howard Terpining, and yesterday’s honoree Saul Bass, among others– earned insider prominence. But the undisputed champ, the granddaddy of the poster artists’ Golden Age, was Reynold Brown.
In 1952, Brown, who’d been a commercial illustrator, delivered his first poster…
… thus kicking off a string of some of the most famous movie posters of all time. From the epic…
…through the dramatic…
… and the terrifying…
… to the titillating…
… and the just plain trivial…
… Reynold Brown “put butts in seats.”
See more of Brown’s wonderful work here, here (from whence, images above) and here. And watch this charming documentary on Brown and his work:
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As we salt our popcorn, we might recall that this is the Feast Day celebrating the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (as observed by the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Byzantine Catholic churches and the Church of England, (including many national provinces of the Anglican Communion).
“Salome and the Apparition of the Baptist’s Head” by Gustave Moreau (the Reynold Brown of the mid-19th Century)
Mr. MacGuffin…
Domineering mothers, icy blondes, mistaken identities and wrongly accused men, erotic train tunnels, plunging spiral staircases (explored with long tracking shots), and, of course, good, old-fashioned murder– Alfred Hitchcock! To celebrate his 114th birthday this month, Guardian designers Adam Frost and Zhenia Vasiliev channeled The Master’s go-to graphic designer, Saul Bass, to create the infographic from which the image above is excepted, quantifying all of Hitch’s idées fixes in one infographic.
Click here (and again) to see “The 39 Stats“; and here to read the backstory.
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As we check into the Bates Motel, we might recall that it was on this date in 1959, one month after its release, that North By Northwest set a record for U.S. non-holiday box office gross. One of Hitchcock’s tales of mistaken identity, NXNW has a 100% Critics rating and a 93% Audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and ranks #11 on their “Best Movies of All Time” list (based on each film’s Tomatometer Score); NXNW accounts for 20% of all of the DVD sales of Hitchcock’s films (The 39 Steps, for 13%; all of the 50 others, for the remaining 67%).
Release one-sheet (art work by Saul Bass)
Tube boobs…
There’s a near-embarrassment of good television these days; we are, it seems, in a golden age. But it’s worth remembering that there has been extraordinary writing and production available right along. Indeed, the series that’s arguably the consistently best-written show on TV has been running since 1989.
We can be grateful to Adrien Noterdaem for witty reminders to this effect– for his series of drawings depicting the chief characters in today’s best productions in the style of the long-running champ:
John Luther & Alice Morgan from “Luther”
Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson from “Elementary”
See many more at Simpsonized.
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As we program our DVRs, we might send calculatedly campy birthday greetings to Paul Reubens; he was born on this date in 1952. An actor, writer, film producer, game show host, and comedian, he is of course best known for his character Pee-Wee Herman.
The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It’s like you’re unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting…
– Pee-Wee Herman
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