#as you can probably tell because this photo was taken in 1971 and he’s already starting to come into his Grandpa vibes

[revanchistsuperstar]

Speaking of GNC AF grandpas, I’d like everyone to meet mine.

The most bisexual sitter of all time, OG Gay Liberation activist and Unitarian Universalist Minister, Rev Randall Lee Gibson III.

Found this photo today while looking for a good one to put on a sign for our local Pride March this weekend.

Shout out to everyone else out there with bisexual and cunty grandpas.

And RIP Randy, you were a true original.

[normalforglastonbury]

I recently received an email from Normal For Glastonbury reader David Taplin, he’s been visiting the town since he was a young hippy in the seventies. He’ll shortly be moving back this way – to Street this time. He sent me a fascinating and funny account of his time here and agreed to me sharing it with you, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

“I was in and out of Glastonbury between 1971 and 1973 for varying lengths of time, initially attracted by the usual tales of extraordinary myths set in extraordinary landscapes. I spent not a few nights in the tower on the Tor – once in an apocalyptic-style thunderstorm chanting the Hare Krishna mantra all night with half a dozen others and expecting imminent and dramatic death by lightning-strike every minute. Mostly I was a guest of friends in a caravan parked on the Godney Road. In those days, caravans were parked semi-permanently in lay-bys all round Glastonbury’s outskirts, much to the disgust of certain locals, who would regularly hurl stones and other missiles at the vans on their way home after closing time. On one occasion, a stone shattered the window of a caravan and showered the baby sleeping inside with broken glass, luckily causing no physical harm. Once, we thought we were ready for them and surrounded a car which stopped outside at 11.30 one Saturday night (not that being menaced by half-terrified hippies armed with little more than righteous anger would have been much of a threat to burly drunken farmers’ sons) only to find a desperately apologetic innocent who’d stopped to tell us she’d just run over our cat.

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Memories of that time are a tad disconnected and vague (well, we might have been a little stoned just occasionally). A poor girl hanged herself from a tree branch in a hippie camp in Wick Hollow. A band called Welfare State played live in Wirral Park. We visited a squat in the Assembly Rooms and went to evening lectures in the then Abbey Cafe by mystic luminaries such as John Michell and David Phillips. It was in a kind of terrapin hut in the, then, Lamb car park and run by a lovely couple called Chris and, I think, Aileen. The jukebox in there seemed permanently stuck on a single by Duncan Browne called “Journey”, at least during ‘72.

If we ever strayed into any pub other than the Lamb (now the Who’d a Thought It) or the Rifleman’s (which I believe was long ago called St. Michael’s Inn) we were firmly and immediately told to leave. We weren’t barred because we were dirty or smelly or tried to sell illegal drugs to other customers, it was enough that we had long hair and the men had beards; though we were also banned from the launderette after some idiot put his cow-muck encrusted sleeping-bag through one of the machines with unfortunate and unpleasant consequences. And then there was Rollo the Druid, cycling around in clanking armour – once while I was at a birthday party in Street, he appeared dramatically in the kitchen in full shiny kit and brought a huge sword crashing down on the birthday cake on the table. It failed to actually cut the cake but instead shattered the icing which pinged, shrapnel-like, across the room. Again, fortunately, there were no casualties. Fond memories too of cycling over to West Pennard to sample and buy half-gallons of semi-psychedelic scrumpy from a farm; then wobbling our way back to the Godney Road with demijohns swinging from the handlebars and the road appearing to swim ahead of us. Invincible? Us? Of course! Oh yes, and being collared scrounging from the skip at the back of the Co-Op in Silver Street by a furious local dignitary (possibly the Mayoress) “Beggars! In Glastonbury!” “No; we’re not begging; save your outrage for a system which wastes food like this!” we replied, in suitably sanctimonious tones. Some of my friends in the caravans had in fact managed to sign on (one rather doubts the easy possibility of this these days ) so every couple of weeks we’d cycle over to Street and try to hold our collective breaths as we passed the reeking Morlands factory, always unsuccessfully. It was actually possible to still taste the miasma as we rolled into Street to the dole office. Of course, there were beautiful days on the Tor (and Chalice Hill) feeling that we were at the centre of the world. It was less visited then and often completely deserted in winter, and had no path or steps to the top. As for the town itself, I imagine someone enterprising has already cornered the market in selling “Ha! We won!” T-shirts and badges. Returning after all these years now to Glastonbury for good (or at least just down the road to Street, which looks very smart and rather prosperous these days – probably largely due to being Clarksville) is quite an emotional feeling; it’s changed but then so have I, and it really feels like coming home”. David didn’t have any photos from his time in Glastonbury in the Seventies, but I found an album of pictures of the town in that period from by Mike Lidgley on Flickr, which Mike kindly gave me permission to use on this post. If you love old photos I highly recommend checking out his Flickr albums, there are thousands of wonderful pictures, many of which were taken in the South West.

Would you like to write a piece for Normal For Glastonbury about your experience of the town? Please get in touch. If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog please subscribe by email, ‘like’ the Normal for Glastonbury facebook page and contribute your own stories and comments, and share my blog and facebook posts (this is really important – it’s how I reach more readers!). See my ’Hire Me’ page if you’d like to pay me to help you with your own projects, you can also check out how to support this blog,

Would you like to commission me to write an article about what you do, for Normal For Glastonbury? You’d be reaching thousands of readers who love the Town. Please click here for more information.

All photographs copyright Mike Lidgley.

Glastonbury Town In the Seventies I recently received an email from Normal For Glastonbury reader David Taplin, he’s been visiting the town since he was a young hippy in the seventies.

[raystart]

Hop Down My January 2018 Design Rabbit Hole

A monthly trip through a land of design and nonsense with executive editor Perrin Drumm. Opinions are most definitely her own.

Let me be the 3,759th person to wish you a Happy New Year. HNY! We’re already three weeks deep into 2018 so maybe you’re tired of hearing it, but by now you’ve probably discovered that some people have nothing better to say to one another in passing than HNY!, and frankly there are worse things to wish upon someone. Also, I bet there are people, close friends even, who you still haven’t seen since 2017. So it’s valid. Okay? HNY will be perfectly acceptable next week, too. Within 48 hours I guarantee it will be said again to you. Be nice. Say thanks.

We’re also three weeks into all our resolutions, which means I already have six-pack abs—what have you done? Fine, it’s a four-pack, but I have a short torso so that’s all there’s room for. Actually I have no idea how my torso length ranks on the global average. Where does a torso even start (top of shoulders? under boobs? below ribs?) and stop? This is probably very Googleable, but this year I’m resolving to invite more mystery into my life. Last year was good practice; I think we all got better at living with the question, which was What the hell is happening to the world?!? but now that we know there isn’t an answer, we can all chill. That’s something I could stand to get better at, too: chilling out. Never been a strong suit of mine, though I am amazing at the art of distraction. Some people call this procrastination, but those people are wrong (and rude). They are two different things, and I happen to be incredibly gifted at both.

Click to view slideshow.

One thing that is helping to distract me is the latest issue of Rubbish Famzine, a biannual magazine lovingly created by the even more lovable Lim family, a mother-father-son-daughter team from Singapore. Issue #7 is a multi-format experience that tells the family’s story through its photographs, unfolding as a series of mini booklets of various sizes, and stuffed with fun little stickers, Cyanotype paper for making photo prints, and handmade tip-ins (like a teeny photo attached with the world’s smallest paperclip) all alligator-clipped together. The exposed Coptic binding alone will make you weep.

As with each issue before it, this one, titled “Flash and Blood,” is a meditation on a theme. Here the Lim family asks us to consider what the photos we take reveal, not of the subject, but of ourselves. All the photos are taken with a 35mm camera, which “in turn makes every single picture authentic, pure in its moment as we cannot ‘delete’ it nor try to recapture it again,” as one entry reads. It’s the perfect medium of choice for a family dedicated to all things analogue. There are errors in exposure, lens flares, blurs, and other inexplicable aberrations of development that every film lover will be familiar with. The most beautiful images in this issue are in the mini booklet called “My Private Universe,” a quiet ode to Claire Lim (the mother) by Pann (the father), who’s photos capture the small, intimate moments of domestic life. She is looking out a window, or across the room, unwitting that her picture is being taken. It’s a thoughtful pause in an issue otherwise packed with vibrant colors, busy patterns, and lively moments captured on film.

I bet Pann, an avid collector of weird, defunct, and outdated cameras, would love the Mick-A-Matic, a Mickey Mouse-shaped camera made by Disney in 1971, which is on display in MoMA’s fantastic exhibition of Stephen Shore’s work from the past five decades. Shore notes that when you take a picture of someone with a Mick-A-Matic, they always smile. You can’t not, right? I bought one on eBay after seeing the show, and I smile just looking at it on my shelf.

Illustrations from Rhyme Crime by doodle bear Jon Burgerman

Something else that’s making me smile (getting the hang of my seamless transitions yet?) is Rhyme Crime, the new kid’s book by self-described doodler Jon Burgerman, who I was lucky enough to get to work with a bit last year and has since become one of my favorite living people. Bright cartoony things are not usually my taste, so I think it speaks to Jon’s talents for all things weird and wonderfully tongue-in-cheek that I’m such a fan. Do yourself a favor and watch his Instagram Stories @jonburgerman. I promise you’ll never see your work commute the same way again.

Sweet nothings sent from death to me, via the WeCroak app

The only other worthwhile thing I’m doing on my phone right now is reading text messages from death, and paying for it. For just .99 cents, you too can download the WeCroak app and receive five daily reminders of the transient nature of your life and its inevitable end. These messages are sent “at random times and at any moment, just like death,” the app’s website explains. It’s apparently based on an ancient Bhutanese notion that in order “to be a truly happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily.” Maybe it’s my dark sense of humor, but as someone who’s given all kinds of mindfulness apps and daily practices a fair shake, WeCroak is the only thing that works this immediately and this effectively. Uplifting messages make my eyes roll; but starting the day with, “The grave has no sunny corners,” just makes me smile (that and Mickey Mouse, apparently). Thanks to the miracle of modern technology in our busy lives, because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.

via the New York Times

If my new death-reminder app is the most exciting thing going on in my phone life, perhaps it’s a positive sign that I’m finally breaking my iPhone addiction? And just in time, too. I really didn’t want to have to go gray.

But let’s end this on an high note. How about something that looks really good gray (also published by the Gray Lady, no less), like these pencils. No dumb attempt at a witty comment here, just oohs and ahhs from one of the earth’s few remaining pencil users (and lovers).

Click to view slideshow.

See you next month for more seemingly random connections between design and other things that aren’t design. HNY!

[cliff-seeger-blog]

Diane Arbus: The Empathy of Art

When I first became interested in photography, Diane Arbus was already an artist that I had admired. During my first couple years of high school I became interested in films and filmmaking. I didn’t really know how to learn about films at that age so I just watched as many films as I could. One of films was Manhattan by Woody Allen. There’s a scene in which he, Diane Keaton, and their respective dates are at an art gallery and are talking about a photography gallery that is downstairs. Keaton’s character Mary remarks that the whole gallery “was all derivative of Diane Arbus without any of the wit.” I obviously didn’t know what that meant at the time, so I paused the movie to see who this Arbus was. I instantly knew what she was talking about; it just clicked. The name has stayed with me for years and I imagine it will stay there.

Diane Arbus came from reasonably comfortable roots. She was born in 1923 to a Jewish couple that owned a successful department store, “Russek’s”, in New York City. This made her somewhat sequestered of the effects on America during The Great Depression of the 1930s. By the time she was 18, she married her childhood sweetheart, Allan Arbus. They both had interest in photographers and photography and began a photography business in Manhattan in 1946, often being employed to take photos of the store and products of “Russek’s”, Diane’s father’s department store. Arbus worked as a commercial photographer until 1956, and although her commercial work is certainly notable, it isn’t quite what she was remembered for and why she has such a legacy of both fame and infamy. After her commercial work, she started to go on more personal endeavors into photography. She was most known for taking photographs of less than exposed, undermined, unrepresented, or underappreciated members of America, and even just humanity. People like dwarves, midgets, transvestites, strippers, nudists, etc. However, to simply label her as a photographer of just “freaks” would be a disservice to her. Above all else she was a humanist photographer. Taking photos not only of the people but of human emotions and feelings in things that weren’t of the people themselves. She would be very intimate with her subjects, really getting to know them, often times revisiting them after years to take their photos again. She would go into their homes and capture them in their living rooms or on their beds, or perhaps at their jobs. She would even strip naked with the nudists when she photographed them. Arbus was able to capture true empathy in the camera because she had true empathy without it. Her first major exhibition that gave her a lot of recognition was an exhibit called “New Documents”. It was an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art that was, as described by John Szarkowski, curator for MoMA, “a new generation of documentary photographers”. It showcased the works of Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, and of course Diane Arbus. The exhibit was described as “photography that emphasized the pathos and conflicts of modern life presented without editorializing or sentimentalizing but with a critical, observant eye.” However, Arbus faced many depressive episodes and took her own life by ingesting barbiturates and slashing her wrists on July 26th, 1971. The collection of her work she still owned was inherited by her eldest daughter, Doon, which she put on display in Venice Biennale and then later as a posthumous retrospective at MoMA, slightly over a year after Arbus’ death.

Arbus’ body of work is probably more influential to me than that of any singular photographer or artist that I admire. Not only is it bold but above all else it’s respectful and it’s empathetic. She doesn’t hold a candle up to these people as if to say “look at them and laugh”, but as if to say “here we are”. There isn’t a drop of ill intent in her work and that is what documentary work is all about: documenting the world as it is without an agenda. Most of her photos are square, which is due to her taking photos with a Rolleiflex or Mamiya C33 at waist level. The square format is really interesting since it eliminates the concepts of landscapes or verticals. It is as freeing a format as it is limiting when all four borders of your frame are equidistant. Aesthetically speaking, her photos are as brash and in-your-face as her subject matter, which is said as a compliment. She gives a lot of the “freaks” she takes photos of a very harsh and dramatic lighting, even going so far as to use flash photography during daylight in order to capture this surreal quality in many of her portraits. That level of empathy that she has in her photographs has always stayed with me and is what I try to emulate and channel when taking my own photographs. In conclusion, I will include and talk about 10 of her images that vary from many of her series and years of her work to show the diversity in her style as well as how prolific of a photographer she was.

1. Albino Sword Swallower at a Carnival, MA 1970

A very formal photograph but the most interesting part to me was the background. The tent in the background is this structure that isn’t that large but still towering over her. You still see the scope of the tent because Arbus shows the top. It would’ve been a completely different photograph if she just shot the sword swallower dead-on or adjusted it so only the tent was in her viewfinder as nothing more than a backdrop. It would lose something there. There are so many different levels of contrast here with the large white truck and/or sky behind her being this bright white but the tent being so dark and then again with the swallower’s skin and the tent, and yet again a third time with her blouse and her skirt. It all works so evenly together contrast wise. However, we can’t forget the swallower herself, the subject of the frame. It evokes, to me, a very biblical feeling with the hilt of the sword and the posture of her in that of a crucifix. Also how the back of her knuckles hit the back of the tent which makes it cave in slightly creating this haunting effect as if she’s striking the canvas as she makes this pose of “ta-da”.

2. Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, NYC, 1962

This is probably one of the most famous pictures Arbus has done. It depicts this boy: in one hand he has a grenade, and his other hand is a sort of clawing grasp. But perhaps the most notable thing is the strap of his overalls is folded over on the same hand that looks like a claw. His expression and his posture both give this feeling of exploding apart from the grenade in his hand. He feels like he’s bursting at the seams. The contrast of this one is also a lot lower than what she usually does; it’s great how the shadows of the trees lightly paint the ground of the park around him.

3. Christmas Tree in a Living Room in Levittown, Long Island, NY, 1963

This one I find interesting for a whole different reason. This completely pristine living room without any blemishes to speak of and in the center is this Christmas tree completely draped in tinsel and decorations. It’s the only thing decorated in the room, and what I could only assume also the whole house, and it’s squeezed into that corner even though there is what appears to be a window to the right of the frame where the light is coming in, a usual spot to display your tree from the inside out. It isn’t quite trapped in the corner but it isn’t exactly allowed to breathe either. The second part that interests me about it is the location the actual photograph was taken, Levittown. Levittown, NY, and a few others, were the first ever mass produced suburbs in America post World War II and became a turning point in American living and real estate. For the first time ever people had these affordable suburb homes en masse. Within the course of a year or two entire towns were built out of nothing and made into whole communities but each of these houses sort of lacked a sense of identity. They were nearly all identical architecturally and I find it interesting to wonder what the neighbors of this home looked like and I imagine how similar it’d be.

4. Girl in a Shiny Dress, NY, 1967

The girl isn’t quite bashful but she isn’t quite courageous either. From her posture to the look on her face and the way her dress hangs from her body, it all just feels so uncomfortable. Her smile is very put on but it’s as if she forgot to tell her eyes and the rest of her face to try and look happy as well. The flash really helps illuminate her dress to show the textures and they really are quite stunning. It’s hard to imagine her in any other state other than being frazzled the way she is.

5. Two Ladies at the Automat, NY, 1966

In addition to the freaks she regularly took photos of, there are a number of portraits Arbus took of aristocratic women, and sometimes men, of the time. Visually there is such a stark difference between two women like this and the Albino sword swallower, for example, but I believe Arbus found some similarities between the two social groups. In a quote Arbus says, “Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats." As for the actual photo’s aesthetic, again we can see the high contrast in the clothes between the two women, not just in tone but in pattern was well. Their expressions are what I can only describe as “blissful befuddlement”. With their sculpted or painted on eyebrows and their emotionless eyes, I can’t really tell what they are feeling and how they feel about their picture being taken. It has a remarkably eerie quality to it.

6. Lady Bartender at Home with a Souvenir Dog, New Orleans, 1964

This is one of the few photos of Arbus where it feels like genuine comedy with very little restlessness. Although she’s sitting slightly uncomfortably with her hand and a very odd position, the comparison of the toy dog and her hair is just too perfect. You can’t help but chuckle, even if only slightly, upon seeing it.

7. A castle in Disneyland, CA, 1962

If ever there was an artist that could make a Disneyland fairytale-esque castle appear to be something out of a Nosferatu, it would be Diane Arbus. The photo is genuinely creepy in all aspects. It feels like it’s towering over you, the light shining up on the towers, and the sense of some sort of fog surrounding the castle. The only thing that breaks that eeriness is the swan swimming through the mote. It changes the mood from flat-out creepy to something more serene, while still giving you a sense of being uncomfortable or perhaps even a slight sense of danger.

8. Female Impersonator in bed, NY, 1960

This was one of many transvestites, strippers, hermaphrodites, or any other adult performers. To me this photo is another great example of Arbus’ empathy. She isn’t trying to exploit this person but to share a small moment. There is nothing provocative or sensational about this photograph. To me she is just day dreaming and longing for something better. It feels like real innocence.

9.  Three Puerto Rican Ladies, NY, 1963

Arbus took a lot of photos of people in groups of twos and threes, often times showcasing either the similarities or differences between them. This I find to be a medium between the two. Obviously their hair is the same and so are their scowls, but their age and dress differ quite a bit. They are all looking at Arbus as if she’s some car wreck they all just witnessed. The girl on the left seems like a teenager, the girl on the right seems to be in her twenties or so, and the woman in the middle seems to be about in her forties. Also, the items they are all carrying have very interesting qualities. Two binders, some books, a sports jacket, and a paper bag from what looks like could be from either a bookstore or a bakery.

10. 42nd Street Movie Theater Audience, NY, 1958

To end it I will talk about one of the most personal photographs to me. Few photos fill me with such elated joy as this one does. I have an incredibly romantic view of cinema, and this photograph gives me such a specific feeling. I feel sorry for anyone who looks at this photo and doesn’t get a sense of nostalgia and comfort, just thinking of the countless times going into a dark theater. It’s fantastic how the light from the projector just shoots through the frame with this overpowering beam, in this smoky, elegant theater.