ROUGHER TYPE

Vicious implements

Nick Carr — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:58:28 +0000

For Father’s Day, my daughter sent me an official set of Sid Vicious pencils. They were created for the current Punk: Chaos to Couture exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For the record, I saw Sid perform, backed up by ex-New York Dolls Jerry Nolan and Killer Kane, at Max’s Kansas City in September of 1978. A couple of weeks later he went to jail after stabbing and killing (allegedly) his girlfriend Nancy Spungeon. A few months after that, while out on parole, he died of misadventure. I’m not sure he ever made it to the Met.

It is divine

Nick Carr — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:27:48 +0000

If you’re unfamiliar with the Robert Pollard catalogue, I have composed this Spotify mixtape for your benefit (and my own amusement). It skews heavily toward the Pop in Pollard’s “Four Ps” (the other three Ps being Punk, Prog, and Psychedelic), but it is spring, after all. Play it loud.

Supersonic

Nick Carr — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 05:19:53 +0000

My ears started hemorrhaging today, and only later did I discover that My Bloody Valentine had released a new album, their first in 21 years. Now that’s something.

It’s available at the band’s site.

Dinner in paradise

Nick Carr — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:14:59 +0000

From a 1950s ad for Del Monte green beans:

Men at work

Nick Carr — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:08:48 +0000

I’ve recently become very fond of Paul Newman’s 1970 film of Key Kesey’s epic novel Sometimes a Great Notion. The style of the film (curt and compressed) couldn’t be more different from the style of the book (garrulous and sprawling), but somehow both styles work for the story. The best parts of the film are the scenes of logging. They’re understated yet thrilling. It’s a shame Newman didn’t do more directing.

Creative destruction

Nick Carr — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:22:53 +0000

A dismantled eight-track cartridge, pictured in a Billboard magazine ad from the 1970s:

The keen vibration of bright truth

Nick Carr — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:18:53 +0000

More than 300 etchings by William Blake have been discovered in a library at the University of Manchester. Here’s one that illustrates a passage from a poem by Edward Young:

The keen vibration of bright truth — is hell:
Just definition! though by schools untaught.

My first car

Nick Carr — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 04:22:50 +0000

It was that color. It lacked the rally stripe. It had a short and tragic life.

The compass has many points

Nick Carr — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 16:26:55 +0000

Maria Popova unearths a lovely British schoolbook on maps from the Sixties. My favorite page is Page 23:

It’s like a cross between a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign and an Elizabeth Bishop poem.

Shooting the Stones

Nick Carr — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:45:26 +0000

Nellcôte as Arcadia?

Life was very simple – Keith looking after Marlon in the morning, playing music in the afternoon, that’s it. English friends would be invited to stay for the summer; especially people with kids, so Marlon would have a social life. Everything was always back to the kids.

Sometimes the photographer’s camera sees more clearly than his eyes.