Please visit the active Ultrasparky blog to browse the for the content that has accumulated since this all began in 1996.
January 2011
From the scrapbook
From my own collection, Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia The Complete Fantastic Four #2 Cover Original Art (Marvel, 1977). This thrilling cover was penciled by Ron Wilson and inked by Frank Giacoia for a Marvel British publication. The art has an image area of 10” x 14” and it includes the original logo and masthead paste-up copy.
From the scrapbook
“Whale of a Convention” (by K. James+ Add Contact)
The clean graphics, type choices, and faded, distressed ink on this 1955 periodical are a beautiful combination.
The Pink Mince mood board
Dreamboats in any language. (A surprising collision of the more disparate Pink Mince interests.)
Copse’s first month
A really nice thing about Google’s web font project is the usage statistics that are visible for all the available fonts. For instance, let’s take a look at the numbers on Copse, the single-weight design I contributed last month:
I’m not entirely sure of all the factors that go into the font’s “trending” or “popularity” rankings (which I imagine strip out the unusual spike from a couple of weeks ago), but I’m pretty pleased with the big figure: over a million uses of Copse in the last 30 days! that’s pretty...well, wow. I would love to actually see some sites that are using it, because I know this one doesn't get traffic like that. A big thanks to everyone in Brazil, by the way — whoever you are!
And now Google has added a new feature that changes my little experiment a bit: they’ve added the ability for users to donate a payment of their choice for using a font. (See the download link on any font's page.) So now my free font might lead to some royalties, of a kind. That’s no a bad thing at all. Click away!
Advanced Food Science
Americans will always be fatter — and always have stoners better able to satisfy an onset of the munches — because of the advanced food science and the relentless marketing that brings out stuff like this:
England, you may have achieved an Honorable Mention in Mad Science for the dreaded lasagna sandwich, but you're just not committed to shamelessly artificial food the way the US is. Kudos, DiGiorno, for making it easier than ever for us to make even more poor choices all at once.
[Via World of Wonder]
A Room with Angels
It's a totally minor thing, but in the middle of a dull week it made me smile. After watching a really, really terrible made-for-TV version of A Room with a View (my exile from England has driven me to gorge on British period films) I decided to wipe the disappointment from my mind by watching the original again.
There is still plenty to love about the first version, even after all these years, but watching it again I caught something small but charming that I wouldn't have noticed he first time around. In the book, the pivotal scene on the Fiesole hillside is quite brief, but it gets a little more time and attention in the film. There's a film-only moment where cousin Charlotte and Miss Lavish are gossiping about an English woman who runs off to Italy and marries a much-younger Italian in a town called Monteriano. That, of course, is actually the scandal at the heart of an earlier novel of Forster's (also turned into a film later on), Where Angels Fear to Tread. It's a quick aside, but a cute detail to throw in, and it actually does a neat job of establishing that Charlotte and Miss Lavish develop the kind of friendship where they'd swap indiscreet stories.
From the scrapbook
Bizarre Magazine takes us inside John Waters’ mansion
And if you want an extended tour:
- Check out the December 2010 issue to see extra pics and more of the interview
- Check out John Waters: Place Space
- Check out Kings in Their Castles:Â Photographs of Queer Men at Home
Sanctum sanctorum
I always get a kick out of seeing things about this house, since I often stay with friends who live next door. We’re all a little obsessed with how expensive it must be to heat.
Church turned home in Utrecht by Zecc ArchitectsÂ
From the scrapbook
Speaking of which, I also ♥ what the Typejockeys did for this concert. I was drooling over the poster before I even realized who did it.
From the scrapbook
I ♥ the stuff the Typejockeys do so much. I’d hate them if they weren’t such good friends.
Lebkuchenherz for Austrian newspaper diePresse. Via TypeJockeys, by way of WeLoveTypography.
From the scrapbook
Between Jamalpur & Raikhad, Ahmedabad — from Meena Kadri’s streets of India series over at Design Observer.
Pleasure
Dressing For Pleasure: The 1977 Fetish Film That Influenced Britain’s Punk Scene - “The lasting impression of Samson’s film is not of aggressive provocation (of which punk was often accused by its mainstream detractors) but of an affectionate tribute to a characteristically English strain of bloody-minded eccentricity.”
Divination and finding Waters
I first watched all of John Waters' films on video or in the theater, so I totally missed the inclusion of deleted scenes in the more recent DVD releases. Bliss! It pains me that I’ve gotten this far without seeing these.
Hmmm, perhaps I should use this stay back in the States to grab the earlier movies. The UK still only sells a more heavily edited version of Pink Flamingos.
Elder wisdom
I’m sometimes surprised to have made it this far. I guess now I can attract, uh, guys who are into gerontophilia — which is a really ugly word. But, old chickens make the best soup! I prefer being a filth elder.
— John Waters (via cassket)
East Village Farm, R.I.P.
East Village Farm, the deli featured in Pink Mini #5: Homegrown, apparently had a huge fire last night. I passed by this morning — the first time I’d seen the place since I took the other photo back in October — and was shocked at how bad the damage was.
