#Eugene Parsons

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

Facts and Figures

Presidents' Day, officially recognized as Washington’s Birthday at the federal level, is celebrated on the third Monday in February each year. It originally began as a way to honor our Founding Father, George Washington, who was born on February 22, 1732. The holiday was celebrated on his actual birthday from 1879, when it became a federal holiday, until 1970. In 1968, it was moved to the third Monday in February as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, providing federal employees with a three-day weekend. Although originally intended to honor George Washington, it is now widely acknowledged as Presidents' Day. The day has developed to celebrate all U.S. presidents, especially Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday falls in February as well.

Since I love trivia, here are some interesting facts about presidents! 

George Washington was the only president who never lived in the White House. 

James Buchanan was the only president who remained unmarried.

Ulysses S. Grant established Christmas as a national holiday. 

George Washington’s recorded birth date changed from February 11, 1731, to February 22, 1732, due to the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which just so happens to be the topic of next week’s Milestone Monday post!

The featured images come from:

Speeches & letters of George Washington published in New York by Little Leather Library Corp. sometime between 1920-1929.

The Life of Washington: Together with Curious Anecdotes Equally Honourable to Himself & Exemplary to His Young Countrymen by Mason L. Weems with an introduction by Henry Steele Commager and embellished with woodcuts by Robert Quackenbush. It was published in Avon, Connecticut for The Limited Editions Club in 1974.

George Washington, a Character Sketch by Eugene Parsons with supplementary essay by G. Mercer Adam and an article by Prof. Henry Wade Rogers. It was published in Milwaukee by H. G. Campbell publishing co. in 1903.

Lincoln Centennial: Addresses Delivered at the Memorial Exercises Held at Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1909, Commemorating the One Hundredth Birthday of Abraham Lincoln. It was published in Springfield, Illinois by the Illinois Centennial Commission in 1909.

The Collected Poetry of Abraham Lincoln by Abraham Lincoln with an introduction by Paul M. Angle. It was published in Springfield, Illinois in 1971, publisher is unknown.

Abraham Lincoln by Samuel G. Smith. It was published in Cincinnati by Jennings & Pye in 1902.

-View more Milestone Monday posts

--Melissa, Special Collections Library Assistant

[joegramoe]

Words that are not the strength of strings

Gene Clark by Torbjorn Calvero

[zoophiliapolice]

#SacramentoSLUTS Jillian LeAnn Quist Jones aka #SLURPYDOGPUSSY #•Sacramento #DoGFucKeR convicted of #Bestiality 286.5PC FUCKING DOGS WHILE PREGNANT.Jillian also Prostitutes in the Sacramento CA // Northern California region using the name # #VannaSweets or #VannaVit as Jillian has built a very loyal and robust fan base behind her #KNOTTYRUFFTIMES KNOTTING SESSIONS OF 24-48 hours & at times going beyond 72 hours where Jillian is KNOTTED ‘ & TIED UP w/ TOGETHER w/ #DoGDicK so KNOTTED Jillian has continuous orgasms & in absolutely & completely #doggycumnutRUNS & draining doggy dick seminal fluid for up to 2 weeks

#SacramentoSLUTS Jillian LeAnn Quist Jones aka #SLURPYDOGPUSSY #•Sacramento #DoGFucKeR convicted of #Bestiality 286.5PC FUCKING DOGS WHILE PREGNANT.Jillian also Prostitutes in the Sacramento CA // Northern California region using the name # #VannaSweets or #VannaVit as Jillian has built a very loyal and robust fan base behind her #KNOTTYRUFFTIMES KNOTTING SESSIONS OF 24-48 hours & at times going beyond 72 hours where Jillian is KNOTTED ‘ & TIED UP w/ TOGETHER w/ #DoGDicK so KNOTTED Jillian has continuous orgasms & in absolutely & completely #doggycumnutRUNS & draining doggy dick seminal fluid for up to 2 weeks

[caroleditosti]

'Our Town' Starring Jim Parsons, Katie Holmes, Richard Thomas in a Superb, Highly Current Revival

The iconic 'Our Town,' starring Jim Parsons, Katie Holmes, Billy Eugene Jones, Ephraim Sykes and Richard Tomas is one to see. Beautiful, heartfelt production.

Kenny Leon and the full company of Our Town (Daniel Rader) Part of the magic of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is its great simplicity. In Jim Parsons’ (Stage Manager), facile, relaxed, direct addresses to the audience lie the profound themes and templates of our lives. The revival of Our Town directed by Kenny Leon with a glittering cast of renowned film, TV and stage actors, reinforces the…

[anarcowboy]

Despite clemency recommendations and petitions and efforts to sway Oklahoma's government, Emmanuel Littlejohn was also executed, making him the fourth of five men put to death in under a week.

Freddie Owens by South Carolina, Marcellus Williams by Missouri, Travis James Mullis by Texas, Littlejohn, and then Alan Eugene Miller by Alabama. Miller was the second person killed with nitrogen gas in Alabama since its return as an execution method--a horrific way to die.

Among their killers are Governors Henry McMaster (SC), Mike Parson (MO), Greg Abbott (TX), Kevin Stitt (OK) and Kay Ivey (AL)

Many of the men maintained innocence, but ultimately none of these men should be put to the death by the state, particularly using horrifically brutal methods.

Republican governors may be the face of these decisions, but this would not be possible without Prosecutors and then Attorneys General who allow for this to happen. It also wouldn't be possible if Presidential pardons were issued to end this injustice.

From the top down, there is not just complacency but permission for this to be the norm. Even the dems have removed anti-death-penalty measures from their platform. There is consensus among politicians of all flavors that this is acceptable. This cannot remain so.

Abolish the death penalty, and may devastation follow every cop and politician who upholds it.

[bisexualannaewers]

Taylor Russell by Paolo Roversi for Vogue Italia, March 2024

Styling: Vanessa Reid Hair: Eugene Souleiman Makeup : Lauren Parsons

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

Lucas Bryant as (Step)Dad (2004-2023) [for Finnish Father's Day 2023]

1. Nathan Wuornos (Haven 3x13 Thanks for the Memories/ 5x26 Forever, 2013/2015)

2. Young Chuck Taggart (Odyssey 5 1x14 Begotten, 2004)

3. Calvin Puddie (Playing House, 2006)

4. Harry (Faux Baby webseries 1x5 Super Dad, 2008)

5. Peter Claus (Merry In-Laws, 2012)

6. Jesse Powell (Cracked 1x12 Old Soldiers, 2012)

7. Daniel Kenman (Secret Summer, 2016)

8. Colin Fitzgerald (Summer Love, 2016)

9. Phillip Anderson (Frankie Drake Mysteries 1x8 Pilot, 2018)

10. Jack Sutherland (Time for You to Come Home for Christmas, 2019)

11. Matthew Anderson (The Angel Tree, 2020)

12. Matthew Jamison (Five More Minutes: Moments Like These, 2022)

13. Eric Parsons (A World Record Christmas, 2023)

1. Biological father of James Cogan (Steve Lund), 20 years before he was born. Gets to raise him after the finale from a baby.

2. Young version of Chuck Taggart, father to Neil and Keith.

3. Expectant father, briefly co-parent, ends up with the mother (Joanne Kelly).

4. His wife (Missy Yager) gets a practice doll when they are thinking of getting kids.

5. Son of Santa, a teacher, wants to marry an astrologist (Kassia Warshawski) with a son who is in his class. Jacob Thurmeier as Max Spencer.

6. Homeless army vet suffering from PTSD makes some attempts to be a better father to his son raised by his brother.

7. Father and husband with two kids works a lot, so he has his brother take care of the kids during a summer. Max Page as Noah and Chiara Aurelia as Hailey. Emily Rose as wife.

8. Maya (Rachel Leigh Cook) works an internship at his tech company over the summer, they fall in love. Maya's daughter approves as they go sail around. Hannah Cheramy as Addison Sulliway

9. 1920s Canadian pilot and eugenics enthusiast. Has a deaf son he tries to get kidnapped and killed. He dies instead.

10. Meets a widow (Alison Sweeney) and her son on the way to figure out who saved his life years prior. Turns out it was the widow's late husband. He falls in love and gets along well with the son. In Time for Them to Come Home for Christmas (2021), Alison Sweeney's character reveals they got married. Kiefer O'Reilly as Will Moss.

11. Reunites with childhood best friend (Jill Wagner) who has a daughter and a dead husband. Also raising his nephew while his sister Zoe (Clare Filipow) is stationed over seas. Cassidy Nugent as Cassie McBride and Oscar Farrell as Owen Anderson.

12. Played football with the widow's (Ashley Williams) husband in high school, now works as a real estate person wanting to buy the house they lived in. Helps renovate the house and they fall in love while he also develops a relationship with the son. A funcle to 8 nephews. Brady Droulis as Adam Morrison.

13. Stepfather to an autistic kid. Bio dad left. Becomes Dad to Charlie and has another baby with his wife (Nikki DeLoach) in the end. Aias Dalman as Charlie Parsons.

[unfortunate-arrow]

choose between ophelia and georgie✨

make me choose: OPHELIA LOVELL or Georgie Parsons

my gut said ophelia. idk why exactly… maybe it’s the tragic sibling relationship with her brother, eugene, and the complicated one with linus.

[honeymiuse]

taylor russell for vogue italia (march 2024) photographed by paolo roversi, styled by vanessa reid, hair by eugene souleiman, makeup by lauren parsons

[sweetteaandpie]

anyone watch "yellowstone"? i binged it in 2022 and liked it. i love westerns, especially modern interpretations. there are aome issues with writing (i firmly believe that taylor sheridan and his writers can't write women characters for shit; even though i enjoy tf out of beth, she is one-dimensional), but i enjoy it. the fan outrage over the season 5B premiere has been interesting to watch. people have been super unhappy, but i find it cautiously interesting. cautious because sheridan can do some great writing but sometimes he's not the best at writing resolutions. i hope for a good ending to the series as it wraps up at the end of this season.

on a related note, does anyone watch "tulsa king"? i'm enjoying it so far. the only way i can explain it is "what if a mobster starred in a western in oklahoma?" it's good. not much by the way of writing, but there's action and brief suspense. it's enjoyable.

i also watched the first few episodes of the latest season of "abbott elementary". meh. i really enjoyed the first few seasons, but this latest season isn't really making a huge impression on me. what comes to mind is it's the "same old, same old." i will continue watching because there are some great lines and funny scenes. i live for barbara and melissa. i loved the guinea pig episode with melissa. it was absolutely adorable. melissa's accent reminds me of sean barry parson's (instagram and tiktok comedian) hilarious imitation of his brother derrick and it cracks me up hearing it. 🤣 i hope we see more interactions between melissa and her sister. oh, and ava is funny though she seems more toned down this year.

i saw a brief something from "hacks" on instagram. maybe it was a small preview from the upcoming season, which should be released in 2025. i'm excited. the writing in all seasons has been impressively impeccable. i love how the writers manage to keep using the same formula but keep it fresh. i dunno if i'm explaining that right, but that's how it feels to me.

finally, to "only murders iin the building". oof. i wanted to like this season more than i did because i loved the first three seasons and watched tf out of them. but this season didn't slap like the others. it was very poignant at times, particularly the scenes with jane lynch and charles coming to terms with her death. i felt the plot was too convoluted. i loved seeing eugene levy. molly shannon was annoying (and i like her a lot). i absolutely love melissa mccarthy but just couldn't get into her episode at all. i'm intrigued by téa leoni, though, and wonder if this means west duchovny will guest star next year, since she's an up-and-coming actress.

you know when shows start out as charming, quirky, unassuming, and novel because they're new and somewhat unique, so naturally they attract such a huge, devoted fanbase? but sometimes, the show becomes too aware of itself and its success and it starts too show in its writing? it's like the show thinks it has to keep one-upping itelf. that's what it felt like this season. i think that's what "abbott elementary" and "hacks" have largely kept at bay. can't say the same about taylor sheridan. when he feels successful, he just goes and starts up a new series.

all right, to bed with me. enough tv ponderings for the night.

[taylor-russell-fun]

Had the pleasure to document the BTS for this March cover featuring Taylor Russell, in photographer Paolo Roversi’s studio in Paris.

Production: @studio.demi Photographer: @roversi Talent: @tayrussell Stylist: Vanessa Reid Hair: Eugene Souleiman MUA: Lauren Parsons Set Design: Jean-Hugues de Chatillon Tailor: Mattia Akkermans Location: Studio Luce Colorgrade: @niainamaromiha_colorgrading Film dev and scan: @silverwayparis

source: Louise Gholam (instagram)

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 11.5

Beer Birthdays

William G. Jung (1886)

Rob Widmer (1956)

Alastair Hook (1963)

Greg Hall (1965)

Craig Purser (1966)

Kim Sturdavant (1979)

Five Favorite Birthdays

John Berger; artist, critic (1926)

Eugene Debs; labor organizer (1855)

Will Durant; historian (1885)

Sam Rockwell; actor (1968)

Jim Steranko; comic book artist (1938)

Famous Birthdays

Bryan Adams; Canadian rock singer (1959)

Washington Allston; artist (1779)

Peter Emmerich; animator, illustrator (1973)

Myron Floren; accordionist (1919)

Mo Gaffney; comedian, actor (1958)

Art Garfunkel; pop singer (1941)

Famke Janssen; Dutch actor (1965)

Vivian Leigh; actor (1913)

Andrea McArdle; singer, actor (1963)

Joel McCrea; actor (1905)

Corin Nemec; actor (1971)

Peter Noone; English rock singer (1947)

Tatum O'Neal; actor (1963)

Gram Parsons; rock guitarist, singer (1946)

Robert Patrick; actor (1958)

William Daniel Phillips; physicist (1948)

Roy Rogers; actor, singer (1911)

Natalie Schafer; actor (1900)

Sam Shephard; actor, playwright (1943)

Elke Sommer; actor (1940)

Walter Stanley; Green Bay Packers WR (1962)

Tilda Swinton; singer (1960)

Ida Tarbell; writer (1857)

Chef Tell; actually Friedman Paul Erhardt, celebrity chef (1943)

Ike Turner; singer, pianist (1931)

Bill Walton; L.A. Clippers C (1952)

Fred Lawrence Whipple; astronomer (1906)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox; poet (1919)

Christopher Wood; writer (1935)

[dailyanarchistposts]

May Day Since 1886

Lucy Parsons, widowed by Chicago's "just-us," was born in Teas. She was partly Afro-American, partly native American, and partly Hispanic. She set out to tell the world the true story "of one whose only crime was that he lived in advance of his time." She went to England and encouraged English workers to make May Day an international holiday for shortening the hours of work. Her friend, William Morris, wrote a poem called "May Day."

Workers

They are few, we are many: and yet, O our Mother,

Many years were wordless and nought was our deed,

But now the word flitteth from brother to brother:

We have furrowed the acres and scattered the seed.

Earth

Win on then unyielding, through fair and foul weather,

And pass not a day that your deed shall avail.

And in hope every spring-tide come gather together

That unto the Earth ye may tell all your tale.

Her work was not in vain. May Day, or "The Day of the Chicago Martyrs" as it is still called in Mexico "belongs to the working class and is dedicated to the revolution," as Eugene Debs put it in his May Day editorial of 1907. The A. F. of L. declared it a holiday. Sam Gompers sent an emissary to Europe to have it proclaimed an international labor day. Both the Knights of Labor and the Second International officially adopted the day. Bismarck, on the other hand, outlawed May Day. President Grover Cleveland announced that the first Monday in September would be Labor Day in America, as he tried to divide the international working class. Huge numbers were out of work, and they began marching. Under the generalship of Jacob Coey they descended on Washington D. C. on May Day 1894, the first big march on Washington. Two years later across the world Lenin wrote an important May Day pamphlet for the Russian factory workers in 1896. The Russian Revolution of 1905 began on May Day.

With the success of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution the Red side of May Day became scarlet, crimson, for ten million people were slaughtered in World War I. The end of the war brought work stoppings, general strikes, and insurrections all over the world, from Mexico to Kenya, from China to France. In Boston on May Day 1919 the young telephone workers threatened to strike, and 20,000 workers in Lawrence went on strike again for the 8-hour day. There were fierce clashes between working people and police in Cleveland as well as in other cities on May Day of that year. A lot of socialists, anarchists, bolsheviks, wobblies and other "I-Won't- Workers," ended up in jail as a result.

This didn't get them down. At "Wire City," as they called the federal pen at Fort Leavenworth, there was a grand parade and no work on May Day 1919. Pictures of Lenin and Lincoln were tied to the end of broom sticks and held afloat. There speeches and songs. The Liberator supplies us with an account of the day, but it does not tell us who won the Wobbly-Socialist horseshoe throwing contest. Nor does it tell us what happened to the soldier caught waving a red ribbon from the guards' barracks. Meanwhile, one mile underground in the copper mines of Bisbee where there are no national boundaries, Spanish-speaking Americans were singing "The International" on May Day.

In the 1920s and 1930s the day was celebrated by union organizers, the unemployed, and determined workers. In New York City the big May Day celebration was held in Union Square. In the 1930s Lucy Parsons marched in Chicago at May Day with her young friend, Studs Terkel. May Day 1946 the Arabs began a general strike in Palestine, and the Jews of the Displaced Persons Camps in Landsberg, Germany, went on hunger strike. On May Day 1947 auto workers in Paris downed tools, an insurrection in Paraguay broke out, the Mafia killed six May Day marchers in Sicily, and the Boston Parks Commissioner said that this was the first year in living memory when neither Communist nor Socialist had applied for a permit to rally on the Common.

1968 was a good year for May Day. Allen Ginsberg was made the "Lord of Misrule" in Prague before the Russians got there. In London hundreds of students lobbied Parliament against a bill to stop Third World immigration into England. In Mississippi police could not prevent 350 Black students from supporting their jailed friends. At Columbia University thousands of students petitioned against armed police on campus. In Detroit with the help of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, the first wildcat strike in fifteen years took place at the Hamtramck Assembly plant (Dodge Main), against speed-up. In Cambridge, Mass., Black leaders advocated police reforms while in New York the Mayor signed a bill providing the police with the most sweeping "emergency" powers known in American history. The climax to the '68 Mai was reached in France where there was a gigantic General Strike under strange slogans such as

Parlez a vos voisins!

L'Imagination prend le pouvoir!

Dessous les paves c'est la plage!

On May Day in 1971 President Nixon couldn't sleep. He order 10,000 paratroopers and marines to Washington D.C. because he was afraid that some people calling themselves the May Day Tribe might succeed in their goal of blocking access to the Department of Justice. In the Philippines four students were shot to death protesting the dictatorship. In Boston Mayor White argued against the right of municipal workers, including the police, to withdraw their services, or stop working. In May 1980 we may see Green themes in Mozambique where the workers lamented the absence of beer, or in Germany where three hundred women witches rampaged through Hamburg. Red themes may be seen in the 30,000 Brazilian auto workers who struck, or in the 5.8 million Japanese who struck against inflation.

On May Day 1980 the Green and Red themes were combined when a former Buick auto-maker from Detroit, one "Mr. Toad," sat at a picnic table and penned the following lines,

The eight hour day is not enough;

We are thinking of more and better stuff.

So here is our prayer and here is our plan,

We want what we want and we'll take what we can.

Down with wars both small and large,

Except for the ones where we're in charge:

Those are the wars of class against class,

Where we get a chance to kick some ass..

For air to breathe and water to drink,

And no more poison from the kitchen sink.

For land that's green and life that's saved

And less and less of the earth that's paved.

No more women who are less than free,

Or men who cannot learn to see

Their power steals their humanity

And makes us all less than we can be.

For teachers who learn and students who teach

And schools that are kept beyond the reach

Of provosts and deans and chancellors and such

And Xerox and Kodak and Shell, Royal Dutch.

An end to shops that are dark and dingy,

An end to Bosses whether good or stingy,

An end to work that produces junk,

An end to junk that produces work,

And an end to all in charge - the jerks.

For all who dance and sing, loud cheers,

To the prophets of doom we send some jeers,

To our friends and lovers we give free beers,

And to all who are here, a day without fears.

So, on this first of May we all should say

That we will either make it or break it.

Or, to put this thought another way,

Let's take it easy, but let's take it.

[venusstadt]

Introduction

Hi, and welcome to Venusstadt. I’m Jiana, and this is the final part of a two-part series on globalism and its aesthetics throughout the 90s. Today, I’m discussing 90s globalist conceptions of the future, the most popular of which is definitely Y2K.

In the first part—which I HIGHLY recommend watching—I explained what globalism is and how the interconnectedness from new tech AND the sense of being at the ‘end of history’ led to the emergence of various aesthetics as people looked back at the history of humanity and looked forward to a new age.

During my analysis of these aesthetics I also spoke about cultural appropriation and exchange, as well as how white supremacists appropriated neoclassical aesthetics to be racist towards everyone else and establish themselves as “superior,” “civilized,” or “modern,” which is the perfect segue for this adjacent context I’m about to give.

Minimalism: A Brief Interlude

So, 90s minimalism!

Minimalism was not influenced by globalism by any discernible means, save for those minimalisms that were imported predominantly from Japanese culture and based on Buddhism as a part of the New Age movement and how it trickled into general 90s design philosophies.

Elly Parson of Refinery29 mentions that in the 90s, minimalism was more prominent in high-design spaces like rich people’s homes, hotels, storefronts, and luxury fashion rather than the interiors and wardrobes of the average person (Parson). Still, it’s significant, because when we think of minimalism, we harken back to the 90s since it was a response to maximalism in the 80s as I mentioned at the beginning of the last part.

Minimalism has come back around in fashion and design more recently, which has prompted a look at its origins. So I’m sure a lot of you by now know about Adolf Loos, a prominent modernist architect who is also associated with minimalism, who saw excess ornamentation as “savagery” and saw European modernism as “the ultimate answer to all aesthetic problems” (Chayka). Naturally, because of this, any time people give a cultural or sociological critique of minimalism, his name is involved.

Now, associating any ornamentation with the Other is racist, as are the loaded terms “savage” and “degenerate,” which he uses in his infamous essay Ornamentation and Crime (Loos 20).

In his essay, he also distinguishes art like rugs from things like buildings and furniture, which he views as needing to be firmly utilitarian (Loos 24). To him, any decoration of utilitarian things was a sign of cultural devolution and savagery (20). He advocated for more minimal aesthetics in order to reach a timeless look that could survive as civilization marched on (22).

Much of the language used is eugenics-speak, and goes back to the notion of social degradation that was VERY popular in the early 20th century. This was the idea that non-white people and poor white people could spread their “defectiveness” and therefore needed to be kept from mixing their genes with middle- and upper-class Western white folks for the good of civilization (Eugenics Archive Canada, “Degeneracy”).

From this we also get the concept of cultural degradation, which is basically the same thing, except that it hyper focused on the idea that non-Western and lower-class culture could lead to “lowered standards of education and failures of taste-inculcating institutions,” and, again, the demise of Western culture (Wampole).

So, to further summarize, there was a fear among Western white society that the art, music, and aesthetics of people of color and the poor, aka the cultures of the “Other,” could lead to societal and cultural regression, and thus annihilate Western civilization. And these fears were used to create laws and initiatives to both murder the said “Other” and eradicate their cultures—think, for instance, forced sterilization, the American Indian boarding schools, Henry Ford’s anti-Jazz initiatives, Tom Buchanan’s speech in the Great Gatsby, the Nazis entire existence, every US culture war spat since like, the 60s—you get the picture. 

Now, none of this is to say that people are weird eugenicists for liking modernist or minimalist aesthetics. I’m just using this to highlight rhetorics of modernity. As we saw prior, anything ornate or “other” is of the past, while what is “Western” is viewed as progressive, timeless, and more utilitarian.

“Progressive” and “timeless” are the keywords as I move into explaining the next set of aesthetics, which I’m calling the aesthetics of eternity, because that sounds really cool.

Eternity & Anxiety

So in the 90s, the rapidly approaching year 2000 was a big deal, for obvious reasons. A new millennium was on the horizon, which only happens like, once every a thousand years.

Plus it was the end of a technologically accelerated century. The mid-1900s started with inventions like the radio, the car, and the airplane; and by the early- to mid-1990s, people had gotten used to personal computers a la Apple and Microsoft, home video systems, and video game consoles like Atari and Gameboy, on top of previous inventions like photography and film, space rockets, and much, much more (Woollaston).

With all that in mind, people were looking forward to the future, while also being slightly afraid of it, as we see with the Y2K crisis (Wade). This excitement and fear appeared in the future-inspired aesthetics.

Like the global village aesthetics, this section is also split up in two: minimalist eternities and global anxieties.

I use the term minimalist “eternities” for this first portion to bring back the prevalent idea that the less ornamentation or cultural markers there were in design, the more “timeless” it would be.

This is observable in the industrial and sartorial design of a lot of Y2K or the Y2K-esque, like Cyber Corporate or Gen-X Soft Club. These designs are “clean.” They cannot be tied to a specific culture or time-period; it’s like they exist in this vacuous, liminal space. With Cyber Corporate specifically, CARI co-founder Evan Collins notes that it “seemed to be the go-to style to appear contemporary, especially with companies in industries associated with booming fields of the era” (Collins, “Cyber/Gen-X Corporate). And what’s most striking about these images is that they were contemporary and futuristic back then and STILL feel exciting and futuristic now, because of that minimalism.

As you can see, this is intentionally antithetical to the globalist aesthetics, which, because of their multicultural influence, were considered to be of the past.

But obviously the multicultural influence did not disappear altogether. In fact, it in some ways meshed with the futuristic aesthetics. This is especially true when it comes to East Asian cultures, specifically that of Japan.

So, like I said in part one, Western upper- and upper-middle folks were living large in the 1980s (White).

But Japan was also experiencing an economic upswing thanks to their export of tech and cars (White). And, of course, any time a non-Western country starts to have a bit of success, the West gets a bit uneasy. In 1985, Thomas White wrote in the New York Times:

“40 years after the end of World War II, the Japanese are on the move again in one of history’s most brilliant commercial offensives, as they go about dismantling American industry” (White).

Basically, White feared that American economic dominance would be thwarted by Japan due to how much America was importing as opposed to exporting, as well as the rise of companies like Toyota, Sony, Hitachi, Honda, and others (White). These imports especially spelled trouble for the American car industry, which was utterly gutted as people stopped preferring American cars (White).

There was also a fear that Japan’s steady rise would uplift other Asian markets (White). As White states: “Behind Japan (‘the big dragon’ some call it) march the ‘four little dragons’ (Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore) following in its path. And behind loom China and India, desperate as they are to raise their standards of living—at the expense of American standards, if necessary” (White).

The invocation of the dragon is unmistakably Orientalist of course, which brings us to techno-orientalism. With the rise of globalization and interconnectedness that came from it and the aforementioned “need for a new ideology to justify America’s hegemonic status at the end of the Cold War” (Harris) came this new breed of orientalism that was being leveled against Japan and other countries.

The term “techno-orientalism” was first coined by David Morley and Kevin Robins, a portmanteau of technology and Orientalism, which denotes the stereotypical lens by which the West often views the East (Harris). Unlike traditional (Said’s) Orientalism, which relies on stereotypes of the past, techno-orientalism relies on constructions of a future in which the East accomplishes supremacy through technological might (Harris) despite being non-Western and thus “of the past” and “degenerate”. As explained further:

“The techno- of techno-orientalism, then, comes to signal Orientalism’s relationship to economic globalization and to a form of temporal asymmetry: an Asian-ness characterized by the juxtaposition of cultural retrograde with technical hyper-advancement” (Harris).

Now any sort of perceived cultural dominance from a place that is non-Western, as we saw previously in the section about social and cultural degradation, always gives Western countries anxiety. For techno-orientalism, the level of this anxiety honestly depends on where you look, and sometimes it can’t really be described as anxiety but more of your run-of-the-mill cultural appropriation to seem hip or on-trend.

On the actual anxiety side, techno-orientalism is most associated with the cyberpunk genre, which features both technological advancement but is often set in a dystopian world. Now this genre obv. originated in the 80s and not the 90s like some of these other aesthetics, but it remained a prominent mainstay of the 90s and continued into the early 2000s.

For more specific film and storytelling examples of this, see the Japan Takes Over the World page on TV Tropes because I’d really be here all day if I went through all of them. Harris mentions multiple visual hallmarks of the genre, but in this case, these visuals are all unified by being a mix of Asian aesthetics and high-tech milieus. And I don’t believe this was incorporated into general industrial or architectural design, but it was a present in marketing and, to a certain degree, music.

2001: The Global Bubble Bursts

So, what happened to these aesthetics?

Well, like any trend, they faded away thanks to a change in the outside factors that brought them into the spotlight.

For one, in March 2000, the Dot-com bubble burst (Salvucci). This leads to large online companies (like Amazon) losing some of their values and causes smaller online companies to shut down, as well as a slight recession in the early 2000s (Salvucci). I don’t want to go into business and economic jargon so I won’t go too far into this, but think of the Dot-com bubble popping as the 2000s equivalent of the cryptocurrency crash we just had with the collapse of Terra-Luna and FTX. This puts a damper on the whole tech innovation schtick that people had going in the 1990s.

Then the attack on the World Trade Center occurs, which, on top of mounting criticism against globalism in the 90s thanks to the loss of industrial jobs in the U.S., absolutely killed the utopian globalist dream (Schwartz).

These events burst the 90s “cultural bubble” (Williams), and lead many to look back on the decade as frivolous and void of American cultural values.

Writing for the New York Times in November 2001, John Schwartz declared that:

“… the country is experiencing a shift away from the libertarian, individualistic values that were expressed in the celebration of the New Economy and toward more old-fashioned values in the wake of the terrorist attacks” (Schwartz).

This was a direct dig at Gen X, since the 1990s was powered by Gen X’s progressive, entrepreneurial spirits (Gross). We know these individualist values didn’t disappear with 9/11—after all, America was founded on such individualist values, and they would power the rampant Islamophobic sentiment in the wake of the attacks. The ‘libertarian, individualist values’ in question were that, as we know from the original 1990s article that defined them, Gen X were less loyal to specific corporations than they were to the idea that they could job hop and earn more money to support themselves.

Also, not that I’m some tech warrior or anything, but there’s a lot of reference in Schwartz’ article to the leaders of the Dot-com boom being ‘geeks’ and ‘whiz kids.’ Immature high school imagery, of course, but it also alludes to the idea that instead of these geeks winning at capitalism it should be the well-rounded, all-American kids—which, like everything in this video, is a coded concept.

Throughout the 90s, there was a growing nationalist movement in response to globalism, and the people involved were blaming immigration and undocumented immigrants for lost factory jobs that were being outsourced to other countries (Chatzky, McBride, and Sergie). This, along with things like people of color and gay people having rights, was a major factor in the 90s culture wars, the rise in paleo-conservatism, and a desire to “reclaim the United States” that would lead to events like Ruby Ridge and Waco, and then Oklahoma City, and then Columbine, and all the issues we still have today.

After Sept. 11, this nationalist sentiment became more mainstream thanks to the War on Terror. Accordingly, the multicultural and techno-futurist aesthetics of the 90s faded away.

There’s a return of preppy style, which had not been popular since the 1980s—again, a conservative period. This time around the prep style is embodied by stores like Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch, the latter of which relied on images of thin, conventionally attractive models, and all-American (read: white) marketing for its desirability factor (Klayman).

We do see more traditional Orientalist imagery peak in the mid-2000s and fade by the 2010s (Collins, “Millennium Orientalism – Eastern Exoticism”). I don’t know what to make of this: judging by my previous multicultural aesthetic analysis I would call it either some appropriative attempt at peace and anti-war sentiment or at worst super insensitive given that Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian people were being conflated with one another, hate crimed, and labeled terrorists while their cultural aesthetics were being used for funsies. We’d also see some techno-futurist themes in Frutiger Aero (though the techno part was more played down) in line with tech innovations like social media and the launch of the 1st generation iPhone in 2007, but this seems like a nostalgic late Gen-X/Millennial grasp at Y2K.

2020: A Global Re-emergence?

So obviously Y2K is back and has been back for years, though in its current iteration that term refers to a mix of original Y2K, McBling, and some late 2000s stuff we don’t even have a name for yet. The most obvious guess for why these came back is because of the ubiquity of social media websites since they’ve taken over the internet (and because they’ve allowed for such archiving that re-introduced everyone to such aesthetics), especially because of the pandemic.

Evan Collins says that for Global Village Coffeehouse at least, it never came back and never was remembered as part of the general 90s aesthetic. I too thought these global aesthetics would be dead and gone forever since we’re more aware of cultural appropriation nowadays, but someone on TikTok pointed out that now that the U.S. is looking a little not global superpower-ish and other countries and fashion capitals are emerging, there’s a rush of multiculturalism again, at least in the luxury space. So, that could be exciting.

With both aesthetics, I feel like we’re far more skeptical and more culturally aware. There’s not an utter faith in tech or a blithe willingness to borrow from other cultures like there was in the 90s. And though people criticize Gen Z for biting from past aesthetics (as they did with Gen X), I think this is just a side effect of all these cultural materials from the past being available thanks to the Internet and things like the Wayback Machine. As with Gen X, our generation’s main cultural marker is that the interconnectivity and speed we have at our fingertips enables us to run through past aesthetics almost as quickly as we find out about them—but that’s a topic for a future video!

Conclusion 

And that’s all I have for this video. I realized towards the end that this was just a big excuse to talk about globalism, but, again understanding culture is important to understanding design aesthetics, so I hope you all learned something from this video that could help you in that respect.

As always, if you enjoyed this video, give it a like and maybe even click the subscribe button below for more. My channel is still new and I’m testing things out, so any feedback would be appreciated. I can also be found on Twitter and Tumblr. Thanks for watching!

Sources

Chatzky, Andrew, James McBride, and Mohammed Aly Sergie. “NAFTA and the USMCA: Weighing the Impact of North American Trade.” Council on Foreign Relations, 1 July 2020, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/naftas-economic-impact. Accessed 7 April 2023.    

Chayka, Kyle. “The North American Maximalism of Gigi Hadid’s and Drake’s Home Design.” The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/dept-of-design/the-north-american-maximalism-of-gigi-hadid-and-drakes-home-design. Accessed 6 April 2023. 

Collins, Evan. “Cyber/Gen-X Corporate.” Are.na, https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/cyber-gen-x-corporate. Accessed 7 April 2023.

Collins, Evan. “Millennium Orientalism – Eastern Exoticism.” Are.na, https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/millennium-orientalism-eastern-exoticism. Accessed 7 April 2023.  

Eugenics Archive Canada – Their website seems to be broken now, but here’s a link. http://eugenicsarchive.ca/

Gross, David M, and Sophronia Scott. “Proceeding With Caution.” Time, 16 July 1990, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,970634-9,00.html. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Harris, Elif. “Orientalism & Technology: A Primer on the Techno-Orientalism Debate.” Elif Notes, 15 March 2023, https://elifnotes.com/techno-orientalism/. Accessed 14 April 2023.

Klayman, Alison, creator. White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch. Second Nature, Aliklay Productions, Cinetic Media, and All3Media America, 2022. 

Loos, Adolf. “Adolf Loos: Ornamentation and Crime.” George Washington University, https://www2.gwu.edu/~art/Temporary_SL/177/pdfs/Loos.pdf. Accessd 6 April 2023. 

Parsons, Elly. “‘90s Interiors Were Eclectic, Fun, & Free. Now They’re Back.” Refinery29, 23 Sept. 2021, https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/90s-interiors-homeware-trend. Accessed 6 April 2023.

Salvucci, Jeremy. “What was the Dot-Com Bubble and Why Did It Burst?” The Street, 12 Jan. 2023, https://www.thestreet.com/dictionary/d/dot-com-bubble-and-burst. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Wade, Grace. “The Y2K Movement: Its History and Resurgence.” Stitch Fashion, 19 June 2018, https://www.stitchfashion.com/home//the-y2k-movement-its-history-and-resurgence. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Wampole, Christy. “Can Culture Degenerate?” Aeon, 5 Aug. 2021, https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-cultural-degeneration-has-an-unsavoury-pedigree. Accessed 6 April 2023.

White, Thomas. “The Danger from Japan.” The New York Times Magazine, 28 July 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/28/magazine/the-danger-from-japan.html. Accessed 14 April 2023. 

Williams, Alex. “2001: When the Internet Was, Um, Over?” New York Times, 8 Oct. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/style/dot-com-crash-of-2000.html. Accessed 7 April 2023. 

Woollaston, Victoria. “The Best 1980s Gadgets that Defined a Decade.” Pocket-Lint, 20 Feb. 2023, https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/147958-12-best-1980s-gadgets-that-defined-a-decade/. Accessed 9 May 2023. 

[67meeeow]

I grew up in an IFB church around alot of preachers and missionaries. Preachers were more often called Brother than Pastor or Parson. Bro. James Jones. Bro. Trask. Bro. Eugene.

This was also used in church for other members of the church as well. Outside of church was less used except by the preachers. It was common in church when referring to female members of the church to use Sister as well. Growing up Brother and Sister were as much of a title to me as Mr. and Mrs.

Every now and then some discourse pops up around a queer ship consisting of a pair of fictional characters who are not blood related, but refer to themselves as "brothers" or "sisters," or are in some way, according to the fandom, "sibling-coded."

Every time I see that discourse, all I can think about are the very real queer men I once knew, who, before their deaths, lived their lives posing as "stepbrothers." The only way to avoid suspicion for being two older unmarried men living together in a rural conservative area was to pretend they were from the same family, even though the truth was that they were lovers.

They were never out in life. Their relationship was a strict secret to nearly everyone. They never knew that I knew, and sometimes it fucks me up inside that they never got to come out to me. It fucks me up that they had to hide behind a fake "brotherly" relationship for their own safety. It fucks me up to look at a gravestone that reads "beloved brother" and know what it really means, and what it could have said if they'd lived under different circumstances.

In another world, they could have been husbands, but they never had the opportunity. The world will remember them as brothers, because, even in death, that is what was safest.

The freedom to declare queer love openly is something that not everyone has. And I think more people could stand to remember that.

[ofmabees]

THE MABEES : four generations

[ subject to be updated & edited , depending on developments . ]

FIRST GENERATION :

ARTHUR MABEE : the root of the family tree . a mechanical & electrical engineer for nasa & former aviator who served as a armed forces flight captain in ww2 . blog . EUGENE MABEE : arthur's younger brother . a writer & journalist who becomes invested in following u.s. politics and devotes his work to advocating for the civil rights movement . meta . tag . ↪ DEBORA MABEE [ née PARSONS ] : eugene's lover & then - wife . a writer & former muse for ' dottie jones ' — her parents' renowned children's book series that discreetly explored the jim crow laws & other racial injustices . meta . tag .

SECOND GENERATION :

KENDALL MABEE : arthur father . a physics professor who corresponded with nasa when the administration was still just a committee focused on aeronautics . meta . tag . RUTH MABEE [ née KELLY ] : arthur's mother . an english professor who had a knack for classic literature & poetry writing . meta . tag . ↪ JACOB KELLY : ruth's father . a seasoned ranch hand who came into a sum of money that helped him buy property & open up a family farm of his own . meta . tag . ↪ MARTHA KELLY : ruth's mother . a stay - at - home who devoted herself to the farm & the duties of a traditional , loving , & headstrong housewife . meta . tag . MILES MABEE : kendall's younger brother , second born . a would - be businessman & shareholder of the elwood steel company . tragically died in action during his service in ww1 . meta . tag . BLYTHE ELWOOD [ née MABEE ] : kendall's younger sister , third born . a demure & passive debutante who got overtaken by the misleading charm of her then - husband , becoming an outsider to the family . meta . tag . ↪ CLARK ELWOOD : blythe's abusive husband . a wealthy businessman & heir of the elwood steel company . meta . tag . ↪ HOLLY PRUITT : blythe's secret lover . an escort plucked from the brothels who accompanied high - class men at parties & other functions . meta . tag . ANDROMEDA "ANDI" MABEE : kendall's youngest sibling . a rebellious problem child that ended up a victim to the aboherrent flaws of america's early mental rehabilitation tactics . suffered from brain damage due to trephination before dying in the psychiatric hospital she was admitted into . meta . tag .

THIRD GENERATION :

JUNO MABEE [ née SCHERZER ] : the matriarch of the mabee family , kendall's mother . an astronomer , astrophysicist , & businesswoman who invented technological advancements to sustain the search for the stars , while also investing money in general advancements towards the infrastructure of america . immigrated to america when she met & married her husband , art mabee . meta . tag . ↪ EUGENIA SCHERZER : juno's mother . an artist & secretary who specialized in assisting astronomers' analyses & observations through her illustrations . immigrated with her husband , ralph , to britain between her first & second daughter . meta . tag . ↪ RALPH SCHERZER : juno's father . a businessman who immigrated with his wife , eugenia , to britain in an effort to take advantage of the vast opportunities offered by the industrial revolution . meta . tag . ↪ HILDA SCHERZER : juno's older sister . a competitive philosopher & physicist that became ultimately envious of her middle sister's accomplishments . meta . tag . ↪ ODETTE SCHERZER : juno's younger sister . a dancer who found solace in the art of ballet , despite the deafness she mysteriously developed in early childhood . meta . tag . ART MABEE : kendall's father . a early retired businessman , socialite , & stay - at - home who raised the mabee kids practically on his own , despite traditional gender values . meta . tag . BEAU MABEE : art's twin brother . a black sheep who failed to fill in his father's shoes as an architect & who settled for manual labor . fell to his death from a gargantuan height when he was under the influence while on the job . meta . tag .

FOURTH GENERATION :

HOLLIS MABEE : the former patriarch of the mabee family before juno married in with more leverage , art & beau's father . an architect who immigrated to america during the first great wave & built his career from the ground up . meta . tag . VERA MABEE : art & beau's mother . a bookkeeper who followed her close friend & then - husband , hollis , into success while assisting him with his growing architecture business . became a stay - at - home upon the delivery to her two boys . meta . tag .