Month: October 2010
Your Dad’s Personals
The seed of my obsession
For years and years I’ve been trying to find a copy of this 1976 issue of Drummer magazine, just so I could frame this amazing cover. At least I can finally read the contents of the issue, if nothing else.
(This cover was a key inspiration for the type-centric escort ads in the back of each issue of Pink Mince.)
The slippery soapbox
I foolishly got involved in a heated online discussion about HIV and dating and disclosure this weekend. Foolish, that is, because in the midst of a lot of passionate — and often mean-spirited — opinions firing back and forth, I chimed in without really anticipating that in the true spirit of the internet someone would anonymously choose to be a real asshole, and it would really rattle me. Aside from that unpleasantness, though, I made a few points that are probably worth sharing.
Lighting up
Home Again
It feels a bit wrong to say New York is home at this point. It’s been four years now since I moved to the UK, and while London doesn’t quite feel like home yet, New York just feels like the place I came from, a place I happen to know.
I’ve only been back a handful of times, but this last trip really felt more like being just a visitor than before. Since I was in town for work, I stayed at a swank hotel in Chelsea — the Maritime. I’ve never stayed in a hotel in New York before, just my own place when I lived here, or crashing with friends since I left.
Coming right into Manhattan from the airport, rather than easing into a visit by seeing friends first, is also a bit of a shock. I got in around 11 the first night, but it was such a perfect clear night that I went for a short stroll through the West Village to unwind before the travel fatigue caught up with me. I’m so used to living in Europe now that it felt so unexpected, so preposterous to hear myself surrounded by shouting, laughing, gabbing Americans. Part if it was that these were regular New Yorkers out on a Saturday night, instead of the blandly accented Americans I regularly hear on TV. I was sure I’d stop giggling and eavesdropping once I readjusted. But it was a delicious shock to the system in my weary state that night.
The face all print men are talking about
Lifedeath
Gross Indecency Article 0009 Section L Paragraph L
Y’all saw some of Jason’s amazing project in Pink Mince #6, right?
Gross Indecency Article 0009 Section L Paragraph L
In a world saturated with images of sex, the male form still remains the most controversial. Throughout human history, men have sort to control the male image, while exploiting the female form.
The rise of the male nude in the last twenty years has been meteoric, thanks largely to Calvin Klein and the world of fashion. However, the image of man that they have laid bare for us, is plucked and groomed, sanitised and homogenised, lying passive, pretty and (usually) in their underpants. The last taboo remains the penis — obsessed over far more by men than by women. The prolific recreational use of Viagra alone highlights the male obsession with being bigger, harder, longer and faster. But it’s potency lies in it’s mystery — it must be kept under wraps as, laid bare, it may wilt under the spotlight and potential ridicule. Whether male or female, straight or gay, when we gaze upon a naked man, it is hard to look beyond the penis. Oh, that’s a big one, oh that’s a small one, oh that’s a bit bendy
With Gross Indecency I have selected 144 regular and irregular men and have chosen to obscure their genitals, so that we can see the man behind the cock. As a footnote, the collages I have chosen for this purpose are photographs of the genitals of Greco-roman sculptures. In Victorian times, these brazen bronze and marble statues were censored with a fig leaf, so I enjoyed the irony of using them as my modern day equivalent.
