Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Sasek RULES

Can't help but notice that over to the right there is a book by one of my FAVORITE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATORS OF ALL TIME.
How amazing to have him there, next to me.
Back in the day when I had "Life In The Fat Lane" (BIKE magazine in the mid-1990's, when we all were awash with cash and bonhomie) my 'neighbor' ad was SIMPLE shoes....I rather liked it...despite the fact they were made in China, and smelled horrifically of rubber for the duration you kept them in yr closet, they were a shoe company with a very interesting way of supporting at least two artists, me and the much more talented creator of Moonlight Chronicles, a sort of sketchbook/diary that was if anything, a print version of a blog.
A chapbook if you will.
The makers of Simple shoes paid him to keep on drawing...and the man, (forgot his name, twill arrive in my head tonight) would duly observe his very richly arrayed surroundings...he lived in a hut, or a tree stump, I forget which...had a son, not a baby but not grown either...very very interesting...
So anyway eventually 'my neighbor' changed from Simple to....a switchblade knife manufacturer...then....a gun!!! I complained to Rob Story...
Then the coup de grace: a Porsche ad, right next to my story about how cool our magazine is, because WE DON'T TAKE AUTOMOBILE ADS.
Well, I guess they DID take that ad, but they sure didn't tell the idiot that had written that column for the previous five years, month in, month out...
Profiles in discourage...
BUY ANYTHING by M. Sasek (I have "this Is Edinburgh" and have borrowed all the other dozen books, Hong Kong,London, New York, Ireland, San Francisco, Paris, even TEXAS .... from our library which has the sense to keep these classics, only just now re-issued by Universe, a subsid of some other big house.
Really. You deserve to learn what mid-century cities of the world were like through that man's eyes...

7 comments:

Kent Peterson said...

Here's the weird thing about those ads off to the right. Amazon uses it's spooky mind reading computers to populate that ad box with different stuff THAT IT KNOWS ABOUT based on who is looking at the site. So Jacquie, it's not that surprising that your favorite authors or illustrators come up in that box. I think when Tarik looks at the site it tries to sell him atomic powered kitty sweaters. Michael gets clarinet reeds. And it keeps trying to sell me Willie Nelson CDs and Planet Bike headlights. I never should have taken the tinfoil lining out of my helmet.

BTW Veloquentia, we made a whopping $2.27 off that ad space last month. Now we know that Jacquie can live for a month on that much cash but I'm holding it in escrow until we can do something more than buy a share of Bear Stearns with the dough.

alice b. toeclips said...

kent, can you rolf me back into position...still a little shaky on the orientation thing...

alice b. toeclips said...

Actually, they should feature planet terrycloth BAT TIME O'MONTH "Grand Coulee" model recycleable rags,

it's all I've got on my mind these days...
naturally these don't exist because hell, every linen closet in the western world is packed with precisely what BJ Johnson is trying to sell us.
Is this too much information?
Please make me leave the house, go for a ride...

Michael R said...

My most recent ads have been for The Green Gardener's Guide and DV Rebel's Guide (digital video production). Nice consistent stuff there. It's called "Omakase", which is a great way to order sushi.

brad said...

Brilliant! My favorite post on this blog. Thanks so much for pushing the style boundaries!

Brad

Tarik Saleh said...

Jacquie,
That would be Dan Price with the moonlight chronicles, it looks like he is still at it. I have all the early ones from when he was "sponsored" by simple in a box somewhere. good stuff...
http://www.moonlight-chronicles.com
I once dreamed of doing what he did with a bike instead of barely functional old cars. But then I kept going to grad school and look where that got me...

BillR said...

My Amazon Ad is for a Racon Gravity Freestanding Bike Stand. How can it be freestanding if my bikes aren't? Sounds like it violates some law of physics. Or maybe Amazon is telling me I have too many bikes?