-¦ September 2020 ¦-

METAL MEN

Illustrated w/ collages, drawings, maps, paintings, photographs, prints and quotes

| ⁋ | Out west, when 1848 was only twenty-four days old, mechanic James Marshall was making a routine inspection on the grounds of a sawmill he ran for his employer. That was when the New Jersey native noticed some odd-looking ore in a water channel of the South Fork of the American River. It was “... bright, yet malleable. I then tried it between two rocks, and found that it could be beaten into a different shape, but not broken.” | ⁋ | Nine days after Marshall emerged from the waters w/ his find, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, transferring a large tract of Mexico to the United States. | ⁋ | These concurrent events together precipitated the California Gold Rush of 1849, when folks came from all over, bringing dreams while praying to the god and goddess of wealth for a show of “colour” | ⁋ | The first came from Monterey, San Francisco, San Jose and Sonoma: when clerks, doctors, laborers, lawyers, mechanics, rancheros left their jobs. Sailors deserted their ships. Soldiers deserted the Mexican War. As word spread more came from Hawai‘i, Mexico and Oregon. | ⁋ | Gold seekers showing up near the sawmill of John August Sutter, where gold was first discovered, had no need for milled lumber, and his business went into decline. All the while, a new settlement grew across the Ameircan River to become Coloma, the first gold rush town. Nearby stands a monument, by the Native Sons of the Golden West, to mark the grave of James Wilson Marshall, the “discoverer of gold.”

	One can cross Panama to get to California rather than sail around Cape Horn. Up Chagres river to the town of Culebra; then donkeys to Gulf of Panama, eleven miles away.

\| ⁋ \| Maps were consulted and what became the California Trial began w/ existing routes. Emigrants showed up along the Missouri river and towns in Illinois or Iowa. Wagon trains hitched, they headed out, crossing landscapes of grasslands, prairies, steppes, valleys and rivers to Wyoming and Fort Laramie. \| ⁋ \| The only way to cross the Rockies was a corridor beyond Fort Laramie, level and broad. South Pass afforded several routes passage to California. At a fork in the road soon after, the Oregon Trail veers right while the Mormon Trail turns south toward Fort Bridger. \| ⁋ \| Overland travelers chose routes dependent on starting point and final destination. Other factors were the condition of their wagons, livestock, and the availability of water.	\| ⁋ \| From California, one can get to Oregon on the Applegate Trail (1846), an alternative to the hazardous last leg of the Oregon Trail. \| ⁋ \| The Oregon Trail begins in Missouri and leaves either Fort Leavenworth, Independence or Saint Joseph for a two thousand mile trek to the Oregon Territory. Past the Great Plains, then the Rockies, heading west northwest to the Snake river, Fort Boise, Witman Mission, The Dales, Fort Vancouver, the Columbia river, and the coast. The Santa Fe Trail starts off in Missouri, rolls through Kansas and a corner of Colorado. Crossing the Arkansas river before dropping to New Mexico, the trail loses its identity somewhat in Santa Fe, where it is braided to the Gila Trail, a local 16th-c. commerce and travel high road, bringing trade from inland to the coast.	\| ⁋ \| The Mormon Trail, gathers in Illinois and wends by Iowa and Nebraska before joining established trails in Wyoming. Together they cross the Rockies, then the Mormon Trail continues south southwest to Utah Territory to end up in Los Angeles. Besides the overlanders there were also seafarers. \| ⁋ \| An eight-month sea route from New York to San Francisco would involve a harzardous rounding of Cape Horn.

A 49er carries pickaxe, shovel and pan. Can add a rocker and a hopper; some also conduct hydraulic experiments. A water wheel would be jim-dandy, to pick up individual quantities of gold-bearing gravel and sand.

\| ⁋ \| Personal gear: pair of blankets, frying-pan, flour, salt pork, brandy (or other sanctifying spirit). Field gear must-haves: pickaxe, shovel and pan. Some procure a mule. \| ⁋ \| Gold miners w/ no financial backing learn to congregate along mountain roads and wait for supply wagons passing through, bringing food and tools and carrying out gold dust. Saturday nights were for salooning and carousing. Sunday is a holiday – laundry, tool repair, swapping stories, writing letters, napping.	\| ⁋ \| A twelve inch shallow sheet-iron pan to rinse soil w/ water and locate the gold. \| ⁋ \| A rocker is a rectangular wooden box mounted on two rockers and set at a downward angle. \| ⁋ \| The hopper is a box sitting on top of the rocker, lined w/ a sheet of perforated iron. Beneath is an area called the “riddle-box.” \| ⁋ \| The long tom is an improved rocker plus hopper, reaching to twenty feet in length. A long sheet of perforated iron lines the bottom and beneath that iw the riddle-box.	\| ⁋ \| Women too had gold fever, coming from Mexico, Chile, Peru, England, France, New York and New Orleans. \| ⁋ \| Depicted in history as adventuress, courtesan, harlot, pickpocket, prostitute and the demimonde, these women were also bookkeepers, cooks, laundresses, shop-keepers, maids, wives. When mountain roads improved sufficiently to make travel btw. towns feasible, they set forth as performers. \| ⁋ \| Mrs Clappe came west in 1851 w/ her husband. In her letters home she gives an account of the era, about geology and a visit a rural doctor’s rude office of pine shingles and cotton cloth.

Sydney Duck “English Jim” Stuart was hanged for robbery and murder on July 11 1851.

\| ⁋ \| Yerba Buena was a hamlet on the San Francisco peninsula w/ an excellent harbor. The Spaniards established a maritime trading post and built the Mission of San Francisco de Asis. Ships docking in its cove discharged sailors to a Spanish-style plaza known as Portsmouth Square.	\| ⁋ \| On arrival gold seekers rented lodgings in shanties and tent towns, and stayed long enough to buy tools and provisions before heading out. \| ⁋ \| Brought over from Australia to perform labor, English convicts deserted en masse and instead formed a gang. Soon a frontier patch of lawlessness, Sydney Town, sprouted at the base of Telegraph Hill. The Sydney Ducks preyed on people and property, augmented by a gang of lady pickpockets, and willingly committed murder to survive.	\| ⁋ \| The embers of Sydney Town rekindled and gave birth to the Barbary Coast, chock-a-block w/ bars, saloons, brothels, concert halls, dance halls; where “getting shanghaied” was first rehearsed. Survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, by 1917 the red-light district was no more.

	Sutter’s Mill on the South Fork of the American River.

\| ⁋ \| Coloma, next to Sutter’s Mill, was the first gold mining town. A post office and jail were added in 1852 – both proved popular. Gold mining also took place north at Bidwell’s Bar, Cut Eye Foster’s Bar, Downieville, Dutch Flat, Goodyear’s Bar, Grass Valley, Helltown, Illinoistown, Iowa Hill, Kanaka Flat, Lousy Level, Marysville, Murderers Bar, Nevada City, Plumas City, Poker Flat, Rough and Ready, Washington, Whiskey Flat, Wisconsin Hill, and You Bet. \| ⁋ \| South at Angels Camp, Chinese Camp, Dogtown, Fair Play, Hornitos, Jackson, Mokelumme Hill, Mormon Bar, Rawhide, Rich Gulch, Shaw’s Flat, Sonora, Volcano.	\| ⁋ \| Gold was found along tributaries to the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. At Auburn, Diamond Springs, Grizzly Flats, Missouri Flat, Placerville. \| ⁋ \| Home to Native Americans incl. the Miwok, the Sierra Nevada was rudely affected by the Gold Rush. In 1849 an incident occurred along the Middle Fork of the American River when some 49ers died and some indigenes killed. An uneasy truce obtained when Native Americans were hired on as laborers and paid in tin, but by 1900 their population had declined to only ±16,000. \| ⁋ \| Before James Cagney was the Frisco Kid and Edward G. Robinson dramatized life in the Barbary Coast era, there was a 1913 feature, The Last Night of the Barbary Coast, now a lost film.	The 1849 state census counted 42,000 overlanders and 35,000 seafarers caught up by gold fever; together w/ 3,000 sailors who had deserted ships. \| ⁋ \| Coloma is now a ghost town inside Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. Like all who seek a better tomorrow, the Chinese too came to the California Gold Rush, formed a fraternity in Coloma, squatted spent claims and worked as a team over the “tailings” left behind. In 1880 this gold-mining Chinatown was lost to fire.

| back |

WHAT HE SAID

BLACK COUNTRY ROCK

“As revealed in the song Ziggy Stardust,
Ziggy was not a spider - he was the fly.”
-- Steele Savage

Outside the musical world he inhabits, David Bowie can usually be found in the company of artists. These adventures through the art world found an expression in the early 1990s while playing around on his computer; he came up w/ the tale of a diary concerning blood and art. This having only recently chatted w/ Brian Eno on the possibility of launching several investigations into the malaise that is fin-de-siecle culture - the last five years of the 20th century - and what that might be like. In 1995, Bowie took this short story into the studio and, w/ Eno's involvement, produced a concept album concerning "this rather dark, satirical idea of where art could go." While Eno fiddles w/ the elusives and imbues the proceedings w/ propositions and strategies, Bowie massages words into music, seeking for fits or juxtaposition til a composition can cohere. At the same time, musicians are taking cues from Eno into which meadow the sound ought to and can roam. Lyrics eventually separate and become voices, and the voices beaome, among others, particular characters: a detective following a lead, a victim who is murdered and turned into art, an assortment of suspects, and a minotaur. Having ironed out the inequities as well as iniquities, what emerges is the album 1.Outside, a disjointed and disjunctive dystopia involving violence and death, sex and rock 'n roll.

-|- FIVE YEARS

The cosmic Chameleon and the chance Corinthian lash themselves together, in the lab – on the slab – and bring forth “… a gothic drama hyper-cycle”.

❝ [Brian and I] had already started a whole set of improvisations in the studio around March, 1994. Out of that came dialogue and landscape that was tied together, not even tenuously. All the elements were fairly disparate. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, by a narrative device, to chronicle the final five years of the millennium. The over-ambitious intention is to carry this through to the year 2000.

❝ What Brian and I are trying to do is develop a series of albums. [Outside] is the first in this cycle of albums. [The diary is] only the subject matter, it’s not the content of the album. The content is very much the atmosphere and texture of the music, that strange place that music indeed puts you which cannot be articulated. The story itself is semi-linear, so if you want to, follow it in a linear fashion, but it”s not absolutely necessary. The pieces themselves can be autonomous, they are pieces of music on their own.

❝ Well, Brian, very cleverly, because of being what he is, which is basically a conceptualist, turned everything into a series of games once we got into the studio: To allow the musicians to not be who they are for short periods of time. He would create little flash cards for them in the mornings. He would create situations they would have to put themselves in mentally, intellectually, and then start playing from that point of view. On each one, a character was written, like (You are the disgruntled member of a South African rock band. Play the notes that were suppressed). ... Because that set the tone for the day, the music would take on all those obscure areas. And it would very rarely lapse into the cliché. So we changed the status of the beginning of these pieces and they came into them like aliens from another place. It opened up a whole area of improvisation. ... It’s very hard to explain [laughs], you should have been there. A piece that shows the extreme it could get to is A Small Plot of Land. That piece in particular was a first class indication of what happens when you put people in a strange place like that.

❝ As for musicians, it was important to choose those who were not weighed down with musical cliché, who had terrific control over their abilities. Yet were a bit loony.

❝ The lyric writing itself was fairly hazardous. What I did, I took a lot of areas of subject matter I’m interested in and wrote short paragraphs or pieces of poetry around those subjects and fed them into this Macintosh computer I have. I have a random key on it and it will randomize what I have written. So it was basically the Macintosh’s choice that it was New Jersey. But it was also a bit of England, too, with New Oxford Town. [Then decide] whether I was going to sing, do a dialogue, or become a character. I would improvise with the band, really fast on my feet, getting from one line to another and seeing what worked.

❝ There’s no intent in it, there’s no meaning. I’m not a meaner. I don’t have this great thing that I have to say. It’s a collection of fragments of information, of ideas, that are assembled and produce a certain atmosphere.

❝ Next year, we’ll develop a whole new slew of other characters or maybe re-introduce some of these or even negate some of them. Maybe we’ll never find Baby Grace. Maybe [Detective Nathan] Adler will become the next victim. I don't know. And that’s what’s kind of interesting. Maybe we’ll just get bored with murder as art and move into another area of our society. It’s all up for grabs. So I‘m quite interested in the future of this thing.

❝ I think [the album is] a confluence of events. First, we definitely perceive murder now as entertainment. It’s used to a massive extent in cinema. And pretty much it’s a space filler in TV. There’s the whole gladiatorial arena spectacle of somehow appeasing gods or looking at the fears and anxieties of the public.

❝ The momentum gathers as we approach the end of this cycle of 100 years, a huge anguish that everything will change. I wanted to make a record that reflected those anxieties, a state of moral, spiritual and emotional panic. With people breaking off into small groups to feel some sense of community.

❝ I think the idea of becoming comfortable with the idea of chaos is how we are progressing – that life and the universe are extremely untidy. Anything that pulls back the veil on that chaos is a step nearer a more realistic understanding of what our state is – so I embrace chaos. I’m a child of the ’70s, remember. I’m pluralistic by nature. I always had the unfortunate facility of being able to see both sides of every picture. It wasn’t a question of not being able to determine which side I was on, but seeing that things didn’t have sides. It wasn’t as simple as that.

❝ Oh, I’ve got the fondest hopes for the fin de siecle. I see it as a symbolic sacrificial rite. I see it as a deviance, a pagan wish to appease gods, so we can move on. There’s a real spiritual starvation out there being filled by these mutations of what are barely remembered rites and rituals. To take the place of the void left by a non-authoritative church. We have this panic button telling us it’s gonna be a colossal madness at the end of this century.

❝ Plus this growing momentum in body art, which has been precipitated over the last 15 years or so with people like Kiki Smith and Damian Hirst and Ron Athey and Chris Burden. The idea of using the body as yet another medium, like wood or metal or glass or stone – almost the politicizing of the body itself. Almost extrapolating on that in an allegorical fashion to have this rather dark, satirical idea of where art could go.

❝ About 20 percent of what I put in [the album] are fictional and the rest are real, but it’s very hard to tell the difference. But the most surprising one, like the Korean cutting off pieces of himself in the late ’70s in New York, was not apocryphal. I checked back with Art Forum.

❝ The morality of any society is quite strange. In the finality, it’s decided by law what happens. People change their network of comfort by changing laws to make things acceptable or unacceptable.

| OUTSIDE RESOURCES

▶ [1] The Diary of Nathan Adler

THE ART-RITUAL MURDER OF BABY GRACE BLUE — aka THE DIARY OF NATHAN ADLER ¶ It was at precisely 5:47am on the morning of Friday 31 of December 1999 that a dark spirited pluralist began the dissection of 14-year-old “Baby Grace.” The arms of the victim were pin-cushioned w/ 16 hypodermic needles, pumping in four major preservatives, colouring agents, memory information transport fluids and some kind of green stuff. From the last and 17th, all blood and liquid was extracted. The stomach area was carefully flapped open and the intestines removed, disentangled and re-knitted as it were, into a small net or web and hung btw. the pillars of the murder-location, the grand damp doorway of Oxford Town Museum of Modern Parts, New Jersey. ¶ The limbs of Baby were then severed from the torso. Each limb was implanted w/ a small, highly sophisticated, binary-code translator which in turn was connected to small speakers attached to far ends of each limb. The self-contained mini amplifiers were then activated, amplifying the decoded memory info-transport substances, revealing themselves as little clue haikus, small verses detailing memories of other brutal acts, well documented by the ROMbloids. ¶ The limbs and their components were then hung upon the splayed web, slug-like prey of some unimaginable creature. The torso, by means of its bottom-most orifice, had been placed on a small support fastened to a marble base. It was shown to varying degrees of success depending upon where one stood from behind the web but in front of the museum door itself, acting as both signifier and guardian to the act. It was definitely murder – but was it art? ¶ All this was to be the lead-up to the most provocative event in the whole sequence of serial-events that had started around November of tha same year, plunging me into the most portentous chaos-abyss that a quiet lone-hacker like myself could comprehend. ¶ My name is Nathan Adler, or Detective Professor Adler in my circuit. I’m attached to the division of Art-Crime Inc., the recently instigated corporation funded by an endowment from the Arts Protectorate of London, it being felt that the investigation of art-crimes was in itself inseparable from other forms of expression and therefore worthy of support from this significant body. ¶ Nicolas Serota himself had deemed us, the small-fry of the division, worthy of an exhibit at last year’s Biennale in Vencie, three rooms of evidence and comparative study work which conclusively proved that the cow in Mark Tansey’s “The Innocent Eye Test” could not differentiate btw. Paulus Potter’s “The Young Bull” of 1647 (exactly 300 years before I was born, incidentally) and one of Monet’s grain stack paintings of the 1890s. The traditional art press deemed this extrapolation “bullshit” and removed itself to study the more formal ideas contained in Damien Hirst’s “Sheep In a Box.” Art’s a farmyard. It’s my job to pick thru the manure heap looking for peppercorns. Friday - 12-31-99 – 10:15a ¶ As in any crime, my first position is to peruse the motive-gag. The recent spate, thru ’98-’99, of concept-muggings pretty much had me pulling breath for an art-murder. It was a crime whose time was now. The precedents were all there. It had probably its beginnings in the ’70s w/ the Viennese castrationists and the blood-rituals of Nitsch. Public revultion put the lid on that episode, but you can’t keep a good ghoul down. ¶ Spurred on by Chris Burden’s having himself shot by his collaborator in a gallery, tied up in a bag, thrown on a highway and then crucified upon the top of a Volkswage, stories circulated thru the nasty-neon of NY night that a young Korean artist was the self-declared patient of wee-hours surgery in cut and run operations at not-so-secret locations in the city. If you found out about it, you could go and watch this guy having bits and pieces removed under anaesthetic. ¶ A finger-joint one night, a limb another. By the dawning of the ’80s, rumour had it that he was down to a torso and one arm. He’d asked to be left in a cave in the Catskills, fed every so often by his acolytes. He didn’t do much after that, I guess he read a lot. Maybe wrote a whole bunch. I suppose you can never tell what an artist will do once he’s peaked. ¶ Round this same time, Bowie the singer remarked on a coupla goons who frequented the Berlin bars wearing full surgery regalia: caps, aprons, rubber gloves and masks. The cutting edge. ¶ Then came Damien Hirst w/ the Shark-Cow-Sheep thing. No humans, palatable ritual for the worldwide public. The acceptable face of gore. Meanwhile in the US, 1994, I was in town on the night of the Athey scarifications. Thursday - 10.27.94 – 122 E. Village, Manhattan ¶ Ron Athey, performance artist not for the squeamish - former heroin addict-HIV positibve, pushes what looks like a knitting needle repeatedly into his forehead, a crown of blood, must hurt like hell. Stream red dribble-dribble. No screams. Face moves in pain. Carried upstage and scrubbed down in his own blood. Then water. Now dresses in nice suit and tie. Now in the black T-shirt and jeans, carving, w/ a disposable salpel, patterns, into the back of Daryl Carlton, a black man. Bloody blotted paper towels then hung on a washing line suspended over the heads of the audience. Blood-prints from life. An extremely limited edition. When it was first performed back in March, “Four Scenes in a Harsh Life” exploded controversy shrapnel through-out the National Endowment for the Arts. “We have taken every precaution w/ our disposal systems,”

Please Mr Gravedigger "I’ll tell you something which happened subsequently to recording the album which was disturbing in itself. There’s a Dutch artist, Rob Scholte, who’s pretty well-known in Europe. One day, in December 1994, he came down from his apartment and got in his car w/ his wife and he heard a ticking sound. Needless to say, his car seat blew up and he was left without legs. Within a week following that, one of his contemporaries had been down to the attempted assassination spot and filmed the wreckage, the crash area, and was using it as a performance piece in a gallery in Amsterdam. That’s not a hair’s breadth away from what was satirical. And of course now Rob Scholte is doing performance shows where he makes great play over the fact that he no longer has a pair of legs. They still haven’t found out who blew him up, but there are all kind of theories ranging from a drug connection to a jealous artist."

An Athey spokes-person said. “The towels containing the blood are immediately deposited in hazardous-waste bags. Each evening, the material will be driven to a hospital for final disposal.” Athey says he is dealing w/ issues of self-loathing, suffering, healing and redemption. Friday – 12-31-99 – 10:30a – Museum of Modern Parts ¶ I’m drinking up the Oxford Town. New Jersey fume. Salty and acid. Maybe I can get a handle on this thing back in Soho at the bureau. It used to be Rothko’s studio, now the playground for all us Art-Crime folk, AC’s or “the daubers” as we’re dubbed. Rothko himself, in a deep-dark-drunk one night, carefully removed his clothes, folded them up neatly, placing them upon a chair, lay upon the floor in a crucified position and after several attempts, found the soft blue pump of his wrists and checked out He’d held the razor blades btw. wads of tissue paper so that he wouldn’t cut his fingers. Deep thinker. Always was. 11:00am - “Dauber” HQ, Soho ¶ The only names the Data bank can associate w/ Baby Grace are Leon Blank, Ramona A. Stone and Algeria Touchshriek. The rundowns are brief but not to the point: ¶ [- RAMONA A. STONE: Female. Caucasian. Mid-40s. Assertive maintenance interest-drug dealer and Tyrannical Futurist. No convictions. Contacts: Leon Blank, Baby Grace Blue, Algeria Touchshriek. -] ¶ [- LEON BLANK: Male. Mixed race. 22 years. Outsider. Three convictions for petty theft, appropriation w/ plagiarism w/out license. Contacts: Baby Grace Blue, Algeria Touchshriek. -] ¶ [- ALGERIA TOUCHSHRIEK : Male. Caucasian. 78 years. Owner of small establishment on Rail Yard. Oxford Town, NJ. Deals in art-drugs and DNA prints. Fence for all apparitions of any medium. Harmless, lonely. -] ¶ Small cog, no wheels. Not much to go on but R.A. Stone weighs heavy on my memory. No problem, it’ll come back. Best thing to do now is feed all relevant pieces into the Mack-Verbasiser, the Metarandom programme that re-strings real life facts as im-probable virtual-fact. I may get a lead or two from that. ... 11:15a ¶ Jesus Who. I hate typing. Anyhow, we’ve got some real interesting solvents from Mack-random. How about this! Verbasiser down-load, first block: No convictions of assertive saints believed Caucasian way-out tyrannical evoked no images described – Christian saints questions no female cristian machine believed no work is caucasian assertive saints believed female described christian tyrannical questions – R.A.Stone convictions martyrs and tyrannicals are evoked Female described sado-masochist questions – I am suicide described the fabric machine – Slashing way out saints and martyrs and thrown downstairs. ¶ Now the swirl begins. Now the image stack backs up and takes center stage. Ramona A. Stone, I remember this thickness, this treacly liquid thought. But wait, I’m ahead of myself. 6-15-77 – Kreutzburg, Berlin ¶ It’s two in the morning. I can’t sleep for the screaming of some poor ostracised Turkish immigrant screaming his guts out from over the street. His hawking shriek sounds semi-stifled like he’s got a pillow over his mouth. But the desperation comes through the spongy rubber like a knife. It cuts the breeze and bangs my eardrums. I take a walk past the fabric machine, turn left onto a street w/ no name. The caucasian suicide center, naked and grimy, silhouetted by fungus yellow street lamps female slashing way-out saints for a dollar a time thrown downstairs if you can’t take any more. Pure joy of retreat into death, led by the shepherdess. Anti mixed-race posters pasted upon their altar of pop-death icons party people.

Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed “The other things that went into [Outside], Brian and I are both fans of a form of art known as outsider art. I, for the last 15 years, have lived next to the holy shrine of outsider art, an art museum in Switzerland called Le Brut, set up by Dubuffet [Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne]. He set it up because he felt he was terribly influenced by the kinds of art that were made by people who lived an unstructured life – in institutions, or hermits, or were ostracized by society for one reason or another. He collected the art that they made and toward the late years of his life opened this museum and put their work in it. That actually was a source of inspiration when we went in for our last three albums in the late 70s. ... The idea of working without knowledge or judgement, either self-judgement or of how the outside world perceives what you’re doing.”

¶ A zero w/ no name looks dull-eyed to Ms. Stone, the drone that says “in the future, everything was up to itself.” Yea. ¶ I remember Ramona. She set herself up as the no-future priestess of the Caucasian Suicide Temple, vomiting out her doctrine of death-as-eternal-party into the empty vessels of Berlin youth. The top floor rooms were the gateways to giving up to the holy ghost. She must have overseen more than 30 or 40 check-outs before the local squad twigged what was going down. 10-28-94 ¶ New Yorker magazine, advance copy celebrating fashion. It’s a first of its kind since Tina Brown took over as editor. One look is all it took. It took the look and wrote a new book on what sophi-staplites would take and bake. Guy Bourdin featured heavily in this new eDISHion. Since the advent of AIDS and the new morality, and, of course his death, his dark sexy fatal style had fallen out of Vogue. ¶ An uncompromising photographer, he had found a twisty avenue through desire and death. A white female leg sticking gloomily out of a bath of black liquid enamel. Two glued up babes covered in tiny pearls. The glue prevented their skins from breathing and they pass out. “Oh it would be beautiful,” he is to have said, “to photograph them dead in bed.” ¶ He was a French Guy. He had known Man Ray. Loved Lewis Carroll. His first gig was doing hats for Vogue. He’d place dead flies or bees on the faces of the models, or, female head wears hat crushed btw. three skinned calves heads, tongues lolling. What was this? Fine Arts? The surrealists might even think his work passé. Well, it was the ’50s, that's what it was. The tight-collar ’50s seen through unspeakable hostility. He wanted but he couldn’t paint. So he threw globs of revengeful hatred at his nubile subjects. He would systematically pull the phone cord out of the wall. He was never to be distrubed. Distrubed. Never. Everything and everyone died round him. ¶ One shoot focusing upon a woman lying in bed was said to be a reconstruction of his estranged wife’s death. Another picture has woman in a phone booth making some frantic call. Her hand is pressed whitely against the glass. Behind her and outside are two female bodies partially covered by the autumn leaves. His dream, so he told friends, was to do shoots in the morgue, w/ the stiffs as mannequins. I don’t know. I just read this stuff. Now his spirit was being resurrected. We’re mystified by blood. It’s our enemy now. We don’t understand it. Can’t live w/ it. Can’t, well ... y’know? Friday - 12-31-99 - 11:30a ¶ After surgery and investment in a bullet-proof mask, Ramona turned up in London, Canada as owner of a string of body-parts jewellery stores. Lamb penis necklaces, goat-scrotum purses, nipple earrings, that sort of thing. The word on the street, however, suggested that it was not in the best of interests to become one of her clients as occassionally, a customer would step into her shop and not come out again. ¶ The whistle blew after a much-loved and highly respected celebrity, known for being known, failed to show for a gallery-hanging of her mirrors. Other celebrities, equally known for being known, some only to each other, thought it the most profound exhibit in years and couldn’t take their eyes off the works. All the pieces sold within an hour, many for record prices. ¶ When the critic for Tate magazine asked for an interview / the celebrity-artist, the gallery owner recalled that he hadn't seen her since earlier that day. She’d mentioned that she would be going shopping for a diamond-encrusted unbilical cord as a celebratory thing to announce her pregnancy. She would be back in an hour. Just a quick stop at the “Gallstone.” ¶ 1986. That pregnancy would have been produced a being that would be around 14 years of age. If it was still alive. ¶ To be continued... -|- Read The Annotated Diary of Nathan Adler

▶ [2] Genesis

The concept album 1.Outside aka Outside is based, in part, on a diary that Bowie kept over the course of a 2-week spell and, found wanting for publication, instead turned it into a short story about taboo. Revisiting the cut-up method, pioneered by the Dadaists of the 1920s and later deployed by Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs to disrupt a linear progression, Bowie stitched together another kind of diary: kept during the course of a murder investigation. Bowie claimed that it took about three and a half hours of using the cut-up method to create “virtually the entire genesis” of the album. He had just stepped away from finishing the soundtrack to 1993’s Buddha of Suburbia mini-series for BBC Televsion. -|- Bowie on death, violence and chaos in his 1995 concept album Outside [-12:50-]

▶ [3] Contamination

Outside was just one of several albums, a set, that Bowie started to work on w/ Brian Eno. The next one was to be Contamination, peopled w/ “17th century characters”. The day after Bowie’s death, Eno recalled: “About a year ago [David and I] started talking about Outside – the last album we worked on together. We both liked that album a lot and felt that it had fallen through the cracks. We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that.” -|- More

▶ [4] 1.Outside

-|- Producers: David Bowie, Brian Eno -|- David Richards (co-producer) -|- Mixing and additional treatments: David Richards, David Bowie -|- Mastering: David Richards, Kevin Metcalfe -|- Assistant Engineers: Ben Fenner, Andy Grassi, Jon Goldberger, Domonik Tarqua -|- Album Design & Image Manipulation: Denovo -|- Photography: John Scarisbrick -|- Stylist: Jennifer Elster -|- Recorded at Mountain Studios, Switzerland. -|- Mixed and Additional Treatments by David Ricahrds, Assisted by David Bowie. -|- Mastered by David Ricahrds and Kevin Metcalfe at The TownHouse Digital Mastering Studios, London. -|- The Leon Suites Complete 1994 [-1:11:14-]

▶ [5] Musicians

-|- David Bowie: vocals, saxophone, guitar, keyboards -|- Brian Eno: synthesizers, treatments, oblique strategies -|- Reeves Gabrels: guitar -|- Erdal Kızılçay: bass, keyboards -|- Mike Garson: grand piano -|- Sterling Campbell: drums class="red">-|- Carlos Alomar: rhythm guitar -|- Joey Baron: drums -|- Yossi Fine: bass -|- Tom Frish: additional guitar on “Strangers When We Meet” -|- Kevin Armstrong: additional guitar on “Thru’ These Architects Eyes” -|- Bryony, Lola, Josey and Ruby Edwards: background vocals on “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson” and “I Am With Name” -|- Listen to full album online [-6:22:01-]

▶ [6] Outtakes

Includes, among others: “Enemy is Fragile” – “I’d Rather Be Chrome” – “Dead Men Don’t Talk” – “Inside the Motel” – “Baby Fingers” – “ I Am w/ Name” – “Hide Me We Creep Together Part 1” – “Hide Me We Creep Together Part 2 – “The First Time” – “Hello Leon” – “OK Riot”. -|- Leon - The Outside Outtakes – 2016 edit [-1:09:45-]

▶ [7] Tour

On the Outside tour, Bowie and his band would come onstage while opening act Nine Inch Nails was finishing, and both bands performed “Subterraneans”, “Hallo Spaceboy” and “Scary Monsters”, followed by 2 NIN songs (“Reptile” and “Hurt”), after which NIN decamped and Bowie’s set proceeded. -|- David Bowie + Nine Inch Nails – Dissonance Live 1995 (HD) [-45:16-]

▶ [8 Lyrics] Leon Takes Us Outside: Leon Blank

Valentines Day - 25 - June - 16th - Wednesday - July 6th - 20 - 0 - 20 - 15 - Martin Luther King Day - June 18th - June 6th - Wednesday - August 18th - 9th - 1999 - 12 - Nicholas - August - Wednesday - 13th - Sunday - 5th - March - October - January - October 13th - Wednesday - Martin Luther King Day - Afternoon - In view of nothing - 20 - 0 - 1 - Late winter - Martin Luther King Day - 12 - 16 - August - Wednesday - 13th - Friday - 7 - June. -|- Leon Takes Us Outside / Micah P. Hinson – The Dreams You Left Behind [-4:51-]

▶ [9 Lyrics] Outside: Prologue

Now. Not tomorrow. Yesterday, not tomorrow. It happens today, the damage today. They fall on today - they beat on the outside, and I'll stand by you. - Now. Not tomorrow. It's happening now, not tomorrow. It’s happening now. The crazed in the hot-zone. The mental and diva’s hands. The fisting of life to the music outside, to the music outside. It happens outside, the music is outside. It’s happening outside, the music is outside. It’s happening now, not tomorrow. Yesterday. Not tomorrow. The music is outside. It’s happening outside. The music is outside. Outside. -|- Reddit - Official Album Discussion #25 - 1.Outside 1995

▶ [10 Lyrics] The Heart’s Filthy Lesson: Detective Nathan Adler

(Heart’s filthy lesson) There’s always the Diamond friendly, sitting in the Laugh Motel. The Heart’s filthy lesson, with her hundred miles to hell. Oh, Ramona, if there was only something btw. us, other than our clothes. Something in our skies. Something in our blood. Paddy, Paddy, who’s been wearing Miranda’s clothes? It's the Heart’s filthy lesson - falls upon deaf ears. (Heart’s filthy lesson) Falls upon deaf ears. (Heart’s filthy lesson) Oh Ramona, if there was only some kind of future. And these cerulean skies: Something in our skies - Something in our blood. Paddy, Paddy? Paddy, oh Paddy, I think I’ve lost my way. (Heart’s filthy lesson) I’m already five years older I’m already in my grave. (Heart’s filthy lesson) Will you carry me? Oh Paddy, I think I’ve lost my way. Paddy, what a fantastic death abyss. (Heart’s filthy lesson) It’s the Heart’s filthy lesson. Tell the others. -|- The Heart's Filthy Lesson – David Letterman Show 1995 [-5:03-]

▶ [11 Lyrics] A Small Plot of Land: Citizens of Oxford Town

Poor soul. Spit upon that. Poor soul, he never knew what hit him - and it hit him so. Poor dunce. He pushed back the pigmen. The Barbs laughed - the fool is dead. Poor dunce. - He’s less than within us. The brains talk but the will to live is dead. And prayer can’t travel so far these days. The talk of your life, standing so near - to innocent eyes. Poor dunce. Swings thru the tunnels and claws his way. Is small life so manic? Are these really the days. Poor dunce, poor soul. -|- A Small Plot of Land - Live Wembley 11-15-1995 [-6:55-]

▶ [12 Lyrics] (Segue) Baby Grace (a Horrid Cassette): Baby Grace Blue

Test, testing, testing - This, hmmm, Grace is my name - And and I was...um... - It was that photo... a fading photograph of a patch..., a patchwork quilt. - And they’ve put me on these ... - Ramona put me on these interest drugs - So I’m thinking very too bit too fast like a brain hatch - And ah they won’t let me see anybody - If I want to sometimes ... and I ask - I can still hear some pop...popular musics and aftershocks. (Ahhh-choo) See I’ve been watching a television of um... in the homelands - That’s the new homelands and um that’s all I can remember - And now they just want me to be quiet - And I think something is going to be horrid. -|- (Segue) Baby Grace (A Horrid Cassette) – By bowiechick [-1:30-]

▶ [13 Lyrics] Hallo Spceboy: Paddy

(Hallo) Spaceboy - you’re sleepy now - Your silhouette is so stationary - You’re released but your custody calls - And I want to be free - Don’t you want to be free - Do you like girls or boys - It’s confusing these days - But Moondust will cover you - Cover you - This chaos is killing me - So bye bye love - Yeah bye bye love - Bye bye love - Yeah bye bye love - This chaos is killing me - And the chaos is calling me - Yeah bye bye love - Yeah bye bye love - Bye bye love - Good time love - Be sweet sweet dove - Bye bye spaceboy - Bye bye love. -|- Hallo Spaceboy – Brit Awards '96 w/ Pet Shop Boys [-2:47-]

▶ [14 Lyrics] The Motel: Leon Blank

For we’re living in a safety zone don’t be holding back from me. We’re living from hour to hour down here and we’ll take it when we can. It’s a kind of living which recognises the death of the odourless man. When nothing is vanity nothing’s too slow. It’s not Eden but it’s no sham. There is no hell there is no shame. There is no hell like an old hell. There is no hell and it’s lights up, boys. Lights up boys. Explosion falls upon deaf ears while we’re swimming in a sea of sham. Living in the shadow of vanity - a complex fashion for a simple man. And there is no hell and there is no shame and there is no hell like an old hell. There is no hell and the silence flies on its brief flight. A razor sharp crap shoot affair and we light up our lives. And there’s no more of me exploding you. Re-exposing you. Like everybody do. Re-exploding you. I don’t know what to use. Make somebody move. Me exploding. Me exploding you. -|-The Motel – Live Rotterdam 2003 – A Reality Tour [-6:07-]

▶ [15 Lyrics] I Have Not Been to Oxford Town: Leon Blank

Baby Grace is the victim, she was 14 years of age. And the wheels are turning, turning, for the finger points at me. All's well but I have not been to Oxford Town - all’s well no I have not been to Oxford Town. Toll the bell pay the private eye. All’s well - 20th century dies. And the prison priests are decent, my attorney seems sincere. I fear my days are numbered - Lord get me out of here. All’s well but I have not been to Oxford Town - all’s well but I have not been to Oxford Town. This is your shadow on my wall. This is my flesh and blood. This is what I could’ve been. And the wheels are turning and turning, as the 20th century dies. If I had not ripped the fabric, if time had not stood still, if I had not met Ramona, if I’d only paid my bill. All’s well but I have not been to Oxford Town - all’s well but I have not been to Oxford Town. This is my bunk with two sheets, this is my food though foul, this is what I could have been. -|- I Have Not Been To Oxford Town – Audience-recording – NEC Birmingham 12-13-1995 [-4:23-]

▶ [16 Lyrics] No Control: Detective Nathan Adler

Stay away from the future, back away from the light, it’s all deranged - no control. Sit tight in your corner, don’t tell God your plans, it’s all deranged - no control. If I could control tomorrow’s haze, the darkened shore wouldn’t bother me. If I can’t control the web we weave, my life will be lost in the fallen leaves. Every single move’s uncertain, don’t tell God your plans, it’s all deranged - no control. I should live my life on bended knee if I can’t control my destiny. You’ve gotta have a scheme, you’ve gotta have a plan, in the world of today, for tomorrow’s man. No control. Stay away from the future, don’t tell God your plans, it’s all deranged - no control. Forbidden words, deafen me in memory - no control. See how far a sinful man burns his tracks, his bloody robes. -|- No Control 1995 [-4:12-]

▶ [17 Lyrics] (Segue) Algeria Touchshriek: Algeria Touchshriek

My name is Mr. Touchshriek, of Touchshriek, with mail over and fantasy. My shop sells egg shells off the shesores and empty females. I’m thinking of leasing the room above my shop to a Mr. Walloff Domburg - a reject from the world wide Internet. He’s a broken man; I’m also a broken man. It would be nice to have company. We could have great conversations. Looking through windows for demons, and watching the young advance in - all electric. Some of the houses around here still have inhabitants in them. I’m not sure if they’re from this country or not. I don’t get to speak much to anyone or that sort of thing. If I had another broken name - oh, I dream of something like that. -|- (Segue) Algeria Touchshriek – Matt Chamberlain as Algeria Touchshriek 1-18-2016 [-3:56-]

▶ [18 Lyrics] The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (as Beauty): Artist / Minotaur

I shake - at the mother’s brutal vermin. I shake - and stare at the watery moon. With the same desire, as the sober Philistine. And I shake (turn and turn again) worm, the pain and blade - turn and turn again. The screw is a tightening atrocity - I shake. For the reeking flesh is as romantic as hell. The need to have seen it all: the voyeur of utter destruction - as beauty. I shake - turn and turn again - I shake - turn and turn again - I shake. Research has pierced all extremes of my sex. Call it a day - call it a day. Needle point life blinds the will to be next - call it a day. Today. -|-The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (as Beauty) – Live Loreley 1996 HQ [-50:40-]

▶ [19 Lyrics] (Segue) Ramona A. Stone / I Am With Name: Ramona A. Stone + her Acolytes

I was Ramona A. Stone. I started with no enemies of my own. I was an artiste in a tunnel. But I’ve been having a mid-life crisis, and I’ve been dreaming in a sleep. And ape men with metal parts, I’ve spat upon deeply felt age. I’ve hid my hearts in, and I hate the funny colored english. We’ll creep together you and I, for I know who the small friends are. I am with name, I am with name, I am Ramona A Stone. A night fear female. Good timing drone. I am with name, I am with name, I am Ramona A Stone. (She should say: twitch & stream - it’ll end in chrome - night of the female - good time drone.) A person who loses a name, feels anxiety descending. Left at the crossroads, btw. the centuries - a millenium fetish. (Give it to me one more time!) Anxiety descending. -|- Ramona A. Stone - Fluxus open [-4:07-]

▶ [20 Lyrics] Wishful Beginnings: Artist / Minotaur

Cruising around me - the flames burn my body. Wishful beginnings - does this remind them again and again? You’re a sorry little girl. You’re a sorry little girl. Please hide - for the pain must feel like snow. You’re a sorry little girl. Sorry, little girl. Please hide from the kiss and the bite - shame burns. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in only doubt - the pain must feel like snow. I’m no longer your golden boy. Sorry little girl, I’m sorry little girl. The pain must feel like snow, there you go. Cover me, cover me. We flew on the wings. We were deep in the dead air, and this one will never go down. We had such wishful beginnings, but we lived unbearable lives. I’m sorry little girl. Sorry, little girl. So so sorry little girl. The pain must feel like snow. There you go, there you go. -|- Wishful Beginnings (a Bowie a day) 2016 [-6:33-]

▶ [21 Lyrics] We Prick You: Members of the Court of Justice

White boys falling on the fires of night (I wish you’d tell). Flesh punks burning in their glue. Revolution comes in the strangest way (I wish you’d tell). I’d rather be inside you. Tell the truth - we prick you. (You show respect even if you disagree - you show respect.) Mama can I kiss you daddy can I ***you (We wish you well). Innocence passed me by. Wanna be screwing when the nightmare comes (I wish you well). Wanna come quick and die. All the little rose-kissed foxy girls - shoes, shoes, little white shoes; where have all the flowers gone? All the little fragile champion boys - toys, toys, little black toys; dripping on the end of a gun (Even if you disagree). -|- We Prick You - Unreleased version 1995 [-4:14-]

▶ [22 Lyrics] (Segue) Nathan Adler: Detective Nathan Adler

Old Touchschriek was the main nameserver. Suspected of being a shoulder surfer, but he didn’t know from shit about challenge response systems. Now Ramona A Stone we know was selling interest drugs. She got males all hung up on her mind filters. She was if you don't mind me saying so an update demon. Now Leon, he couldn’t wait for 12 o’clock midnight. He jumps up on the stage with a criss criss machete and slashes around cutting a zero on everything. I mean a zero - in the fabric of time itself. Was this a suspect? I says to myself - Woa! “Quelle courage!” - Oh wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me take you back to when it all began– -|- David Bowie as Nathan Adler [-1:13-]

▶ [23 Lyrics] I’m Deranged: Artist / Minotaur

Funny how secrets travel, I’d start to believe - if I were to bleed. Thin skies, the man chains his hands held high. Cruise me blond cruise me babe. A blond belief beyond beyond beyond. No return no return. I’m deranged. Deranged, my love. I’m deranged down down down. So cruise me babe cruise me baby. And the rain sets in, it’s the angel-man - I’m deranged. Cruise me cruise me cruise me babe. The clutch of life and the fist of love - oer your head - big deal Salaam. Be real deranged Salaam, before we reel. I’m deranged. -|- I’m Deranged - Outside mix version [-5:18-]

▶ [24 Lyrics] Thru These Architect’s Eyes: Leon Blank

Stomping along on this big Phillip Johnson, is delay just wasting my time? Looking across at Richard Rogers, scheming dreams to blow both their minds. It’s difficult you see, to give up baby, to leave a job, when you know you know the money’s from day to day. All the majesty of a city landscape. All the soaring days in our lives. All the concrete dreams in my mind’s eye. All the joy I see thru these architect’s eyes. Cold winter bleeds on the girders of Babel. This stone boy watching the crawling land. Rings of flesh and the towers of iron. The steaming caves and the rocks and the sand. Stomping along on this big Phillip Johnson, is delay just wasting my time? It’s difficult you see to give up baby, these summer scumholes, this goddamned starving life. -|- Thru These Architects Eyes - By Anna Dennis [-4:11-]

▶ [25 Lyrics] (Segue) Nathan Adler: Detective Nathan Adler

▶ [26 Lyrics] Strangers When We Meet: Leon Blank

All our friends now seem so thin and frail. Slinky secrets - hotter than the sun. No peachy prayers, no trendy rechauffé. I’m with you, so I can’t go on. All my violence raining tears upon the sheet. I’m bewildered for we’re strangers when we meet. Blank screen TV, preening ourselves in the snow. Forget my name, but I’m over you. Blended sunrise, and it’s a dying world. Humming Rheingold, we scavenge up our clothes. All my violence raining tears upon the sheet. I’m resentful ror wevre strangers when we meet. Cold tired fingers, tapping out your memories. Halfway sadness, dazzled by the new. Your embrace was all that I feared. That whirling room, we trade by vendu. Steely resolve is falling from me. My poor soul, all bruised passivity. All your regrets ride rough-shod over me. I’m so glad that we’re strangers when we meet. I'm so thankful that we’re strangers when we meet. I’m in clover for we’re strangers when we meet. Heel head over, but we're strangers when we meet. -|- Strangers When We Meet - Top of the Pops 1995 [-4:03-]

▶ [27 Credits]

Based on reports from, among others, Nick DeRiso, David Fricke, Kev Geoghegan, Paul Gorman, Edna Gundersen, Larry Katz, Peter–R. Koenig, George A. Paul, Chris Roberts, Emma Saunders, Steele Savage, and Internet searches. Thank you bowiesongs, The National, Jason Lundberg, One Half of the Bowlettes, lo-fi noise makers, wn, john b, Mauro B. C., sonyakossta, Timetakesafag, SenseOfDoubt1, bowiechick, Beco2103, theMusicofmyLife1, BOWIElover, Jorge Gago Lopez, Matt Chamberlain, joymarr, KyOdar, BlueM2012, Halloweenjack84, Anna Dennis, david bowie tin machine.

▶ [28 Postscript]

David Robert Jones aka David Bowie died from liver cancer two days after his 69th birthday, on January 9 2016. His ashes were scattered on the island of Bali, in a Buddhist ceremony. He left behind his wife Iman Muhammid Abdulmadjid, teenage daughter Alexandria, adult son Duncan Jones, Duncan's ex-nanny Marion Skene, and long-time personal assistant, Corinne Coco Schwab.

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WONDER WHEELS +

“Our last arrow! We’ll fire it to stop the getaway car – then end our careers as Green Arrow and Speedy!” “Yes, with our secret identities exposed, we’re uselss against criminals!” (World’s Finest #98, December 1958)

Immortal Dane Whitman brought his time-tested skills as the Black Knight to the early days of filmmaking, creating a phantasmagorical chariot race for Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent scifi Woman in the Moon. These days, he still does stunts for Hollywood. Although he owns a Legion flight ring from the 30th century, when not in a hurry to get somewhere Michael Jon Carter prefers to drive. He comes from the future, sheathed in a super-suit boasting futuristic tech, but the feel of rubber on road gives Booster Gold a jolt unlike any other. Little is known about this shapeshifting foe of Batman Beyond. Her fluid body allows Inque to seep into and out of her liquid limo.	Jimon Kwan’s car is parked behind the world’s first eco-fire station. She’s there to give a demonstration – in her capacity as Silver of China Force – on her mutant ability to drain heat and then convert it into light. Before he went to war as the Fighting American, Nelson Flagg’s father gave him a 1915 Ford Speedster – it later crashed and burned. The original is also shown, fresh off the assembly line. It takes two of Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, to control this wide jeep because it’s sure-as-hell gonna be a bumpy ride.	The grandfather and great-grandfather of James Jesse were from the world of vaudeville, which is why their spawn continued their forays into self-powered locomotion and built a portable air-cooled engine, hooked up to an accelerator switch, an engine cut-off switch, and single-horsepowered roller skates, and later tormenting the Flash w/ weaponized toys as the Trickster. An inside-out refrigerated truck driven by Leonard Snart, commiting crime as Captain Cold using an experimental gun based on stolen science and shooting absolute-zero blasts that solidify as ice.

H.G. Wells jumped at the chance to take a spin in an experimental contraption that his American friend and fellow futurist, the head of Stark Industries, brought over to London. The author of The Invisible Man is photographed sitting in the back seat as the self-driving car crosses Tower Bridge.

Francisco Mattos

This tasty USSR-era Trabant was on display in a Belgrade art gallery when Harlequin, the “merry menace”, happened by, took one look, and promptly brought it home.

Francisco Mattos

This rarely seen Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic belongs to Arthur Curry (Aquaman) and is nicknamed the Drop because he almost never has need for it.

Francisco Mattos

Imperator Furiosa’s go-to wheels when she’s off the clock.

Even super-heroes driving sports cars have to stop and pay toll, as the Thing heckles Johnny Storm’s tossing chops. “Let’s get going, Torchy! Hey! Ya missed the coin bucket!” “But I threw it okay! It wasn’t my fault! The bucket moved!”

Francisco Mattos

After punching Hitler in his debut, the city of Manhattan awarded Steve Rogers w/ a spanking red 1937 Ford, and he promptly took off to drive cross-country. Then he made up for lost years w/ a Corvette. These days, his ride is a 1960 Chevrolet, always parked on the street; repeatedly stolen then returned because it was a badge of honor to leave the keys in the ignition.

Before his life was imbued w/ Bahdnisian powers and he took control of the human thunderbolt, Johnny Thunder was in Europe, having won a music scholarship while in high school. With some of his prize money he bought a second-hand Minor Morris convertible.

Francisco Mattos

Bentley Wittman, narrowly escaping the Human Torch, is chauffeured back to his mansion on Long Island and his life as the Wizard. “Fire is a powerful weapon! But I possess the greatest weapon of all – the world’s greatest brain!”

Francisco Mattos

No way is the mysterious Dolphin a landlubber, so whenever adventures take her ashore she always rides in her 1962 Shark roadster, w/ its aquarium pod and other aquatic must-haves allowing her safe passage.

Retiring as the Sorcerer Supreme sometime in 1950, Steven Strange’s mentor, the Ancient One, master of mystic arts, drove home to Kamar-Taj in Tibet, crossing rivers w/ the aid of local villagers, ever grateful for deliverance from the evil Kaluu.

Suddenly, the hovering air-car is jolted by a fantastic wave of force … and that is when Nick Fury sees an awesome figure who stands waiting to confront the dynamic director of SHIELD …	A surreal episode of the Knights of the Galaxy is just starting. “For King Arthur and Britain.” (Mystery In Space #8 (June-July 1952)) To have a bit of fun while Superman is recovering from their latest encounter, Mr Mxyzptlk, the imp from elsewhere, uses fifth-dimensional science to rearrange this car and proceeds to demonstrate how to operate it. Vic Sage blends into his camouflage car, ephemeral behind a pseudoderm mask, during the time he joined Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and Nightshade as the Question in the original Sentinels of Justice.	When insect-female hybrid Queen Zazzala of planet Korll returned for a rematch w/ the Justic League, she went first to the Citroen museum in Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris, and took possesion of an experimental 1940s light-weight hovercar which she used as a beehive-nest. Badly damaged and abandoned, it still oscillates when touched, awaiting new instructions from the Queen Bee. The nomadic Roy Harper, leaving behind his Speedy persona, took to the road in an oft-vandalized therefore oft-disguised van. When he landed in England, the former battling bowman persuaded Banksy to let him take the famous SWAT van for an extended spin as Arsenal.

Random page from the mid-century portfolio of billionaire industrialist Tony Stark: 1958 Nucleon, Norman Bel Geddes prototype, 1949 Tabot Iago, 1959 Firebird. Sue Richards fetched Agatha Harkness, her boy Franklin’s new governess, in a custom-built Hispano-Suiza, previously owned by an heir to the Dubonnet fortune. It was a regal ride befitting the lead-witch of New Salem, who has brought along a mystical rocking seahorse as a baby present. An early electric car prototype from the morbid mind of Oswald Hubert Loomis, aka the Prankster.	When her mom asked if her new car was safe, Jennifer Walters sent this blurry pix of her unusual find while in college. It proved ideal for camping, and that was when she got into an accident, needed a blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce, and began a new existence as the ravishing rough She-Hulk. In 1923, Tony Stark’s dad visited the Fiat Factory in Turin and openly admired their roof treatment. When what later became the Avengers Mansion was built, he put a race-car track on the roof. Besides lending his occult skills to combat evil, Giovanni Zatara performs as a stage magician, and is the reason he drives a 1959 Lincoln, which has a sturdy trunk to fit all his stage props. Tony Stark awarded his executive assistant Pepper Potts w/ this pink 1954 Ford in recognition for her aid in their first caper together, battling “The Mad Pharaoh”.	Kent Allard’s elusive 1957 Lincoln Premiere, which he drove as the Shadow, caught on a U.S. postage stamp. Blackhawk’s 1949 Hudson, later owned by Jack Kerouac when he was doing a lot of driving. Restored and no longer driven. Carter Hall was so smitten when Hal Jordan drove up in a Phantom Corsair that the test-pilot promptly gifted this one-off automobile to the extraterrestrial detective, known to Earth as the Hawkman, for a planet-warming present. An experimental floating fortress from the malevolent minds at Advanced Idea Mechanics. Although a haunted horse accompanies his cursed existence, the ghost of highwayman James Craddock also owns a train, breaking the law as the Gentleman Ghost, and traveling the world w/ out a home.

Long after the owner of Gotham Broadcasting Co. Alan Welling Scott, was visited by the Green Flame of Life (“Three times shall I flame green! First to bring death! Second to bring life! Third to bring power!”) and fought evildoers as the Green Lantern, he would continue to tool around in his trusted 1939 Chevrolet clunker. Prof. X’s band of super-human teenagers are driven to the airport in a specially-built Rolls Royce w/ dark-tinted windows. “Boy! It musta taken a heap of green stamps to buy a chariot like this!” “No joking, please! Concentrate on your mission! Review your powers! Our foe is certain to be highly dangerous!” Brainiac 5 retooled an antique and created the “frisbee”, armed w/ repel-rays, as a combat suit for Chuck Taine, the Bouncing Boy. Hooking up to his Plymouth Barracuda’s batteries to recharge his pyro-costume, Garfield Lynns unleashes a color crimewave based on rainbow rays as the Human Firefly.	Ted Grant’s ride when he’s fighting crime as Wildcat, immortalized on a U.S. postage stamp. Brainiac 5 constructed this bi-cycle for Luornu Durgo Taine (Duo Damsel) to augment her super-power. With wealth to spare, socialite Wesley Dodds had a taste for danger and cars. Which is why he could imperil his 1935 Bugatti Aerolithe by taking it out to strike terror among wrongdoers as the Sandman, declaring “There is no land beyond the law, where tyrants rule w/ unshakable power! It’s but a dream from which the evil wake to face their fate … their terrifying hour!” A gift from Brainiac 5, this experimental bike allowed Lana Lang to apply 30th-century technology to her 20th-century life. While fiddling around w/ the teleportation button during a ride in the countryside, she managed to trade bodies w/ all the insects in a nearby field, becoming for a spell the Insect Queen.	Socialite Kathy Kane, in her first appearance as a masked crimefighter, leading the Batmobile into the fray on her Bat Bike. “Hurry, Batman – the Batwoman is beating us on this mission!” (Detective Comics #233 July 1956) The keys to this experimental car from Stark Industries were handed to Matt Murdock, giving added comfort to his forays as Daredevil into existential evil. Samuel Joseph Scudder drove this solar laboratory on wheels in his first appearance in Flash #105, “The Master of Mirrors”. This innocuous van offers storage for Rory Regan’s collection of mystical rags, allowing Ragman, the tatterdemalion of justice, to find respite after a jolt of electricity ran into his body and which by all accounts hasn’t exited yet.

	The second Shield, Lancelot Strong, drove a 1970 AMC Rebel for a short period until its color scheme gave him away to every bad actor on every city block.

Model kit from Aurora for Britt Reid’s special-built 1965 Chrysler, featuring a 413 engine. Bruce Lee as Kato drove the Black Beauty to fight crime w/ the Green Hornet, ever ready to deploy a pair of hood-mounted machine guns, a flame thrower, and stinger missles. Sowing feline felony in Gotham City w/ her Cat Mobile, Selina Kyle leads a lawless life as theCatwoman. Winslow Schott, the terrible Toyman, had his fully functional dwarf Cadillac surrounded by indignant townfolk hoping to save Doll Man and Doll Girl from a threat they were not yet aware of.	The seldom driven Joker Mobile is deployed to track down a double-crossing mobster. “The whole job – the safe-cracking, the getaway - all bear the stamp of Dink Devers! The cops think he died – but he’s right here in town, at the Blake Hotel! Ha-HA-HA!” “Gosh, Joker – I bet you’re right!” A proficiency in auto mechanics as well as miniaturization landed Ray Palmer a plum position as a team member rehabilitating a Ferrari 375 Plus. Palmer kept tinkering some more on the racing car, giving it a capability of being shrunk, and constitutes the first step in his quest, as the Atom, to jump into, then out of, the quantum realm at will.	While parked on a cloud, the Ghost Patrol are actively bored ... “Ho Hum! Another quiet day. Nothing doing on our sector of earth lately.” “Strange! This is usually the most troublesome of the planets!” “What’s that ahead? Why – it’s a horse!” King T’challa of Wakanda’s elusive jeep parked in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, where he was on a secret mission as the Black Panther. This “fire” truck, designed by Stark Industries, later patented by General Motors as the Futurliner, was used to house JIm Hammond, an android spawned in the mind of Prof. Phineas T. Horton. This lab-on wheels is remotely controlledd, insulated inside to withstand the intense fire generated by the golden age Human Torch.

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Francisco Mattos

ARGONAUTS OF THE AIR

Sailors in the Sky

Heaven is fairly crowded these days, and space agencies on Earth race each other to get to choice spots first. From mapping the dark side of the moon to landing on an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt, space exploration proceeds tangentially. |…| Spaceflight is space science concerned w/ ballistic flight into outer space, then through it. Early space agencies tackled this fundamental step, and today's spacecrafts are capable of space voyages and orbits of other space objects, and have hoisted 536 humans into space, twelve of whom walked on the Moon. |…| Other spacecrafts, satellites that orbit worlds including ours, have reached critical mass and the smallsats get prefixes like mini-, micro-, nano-, and pico-. |…| Joint plans to hoist a heavy telescope into orbit around the Earth which, in tandem w/ mobile systems roaming the star systems, promises insights to invent the future of space.

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Established in 1902, wholly owned by the government, the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities develops and operates spaceflights, space science and a cosmonatuics program for the Russian Federation. It also arranges space tourism for fare-paying passengers to the International Space Station and, as of 2009, six have done so. A mission to Mars in 2012 failed, yet a robotic mission to visit a Martian moon is still in the works. In the future will be a spacecraft landing on Venus, and a Moon orbiter equipped w/ “penetrators.”

Headquartered in and around Moscow, the agency is successor to a space program that spanned 1931 to 1991, responsible for the first satellite, the first spacesuit, the first human spaceflight module, the first space rover, the first space station. In 1961, cosmonaut and pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Two years later, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

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Sustaining its fleet of aircraft at the end of World War II, in 1962 Canada became the third country to launch a satellite into space. In 1990, the government formed the Canadian Space Agency , reporting to the minister of innovation, science, and economic development, headquartered in Quebec, w/ a mission to apply space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and humanity.	When three separate space companies merged in 2003 to form the Japan Aerospace Exploratory Agency , it brought under one roof expertise in x-ray astronomy, radio-astronomy, and the magnetosphere. In 2012 it became a part of government oversight and a program to militarize space. Famous for landing a probe in 2018 on an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt.

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“… operational space application systems …”

Eastablished in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, the European Space Agency has 22 member states collaborating on space exploration projects, convened as a consequence of European scientist leaving after World War II, w/ a mission “to provide for, and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among the European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems.” The agency's major spaceport is in French Guiana, where it conducts human spaceflight, launches Earth observation satellites, and flies spacecraft to the beyond.

⊙ • ◆ ★ ☁ ✦ · ☼ ✪ • ·

In 1971, the United Kingdom became the sixth nation to launch a satellite, and by 1985, the British National Space Center. Replaced in 2010 by the UK Space Agency , and made an executive agency of the government, responsible for its civil space program, and its representative in all space negotiations. The agency is based in Wiltshire, in the former home of its predecessor. It is currently making plans for its first spaceport, and studying ways to clean-up space debris, an emerging field.

Formed in 2010 to be a government agency, the South African National Space Agency 's satellites monitor Africa for flooding, fires, and the environment, and hosts the only space weather regional warning center for the continent. It's mission is to nurture partnerships and promote industrial development of space, to stimulate interest in space science, to deliver space-related services and products to South Africa and the region.

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In 1969, the Indian Space Research Organization was created by the government, and headquartered in Bangalore. It is now the sixth largest space agency, developing and delivering satellite tools for home consumption, such as dedicated distance education, telemedicine, cartography, disaster management, weather forecasting, broadcasting.	Begun by the military in 1961, the space program in Brazil passed in civilian control in 1994, and became the Brazilian Space Agency , based in two locations: a spaceport and a rocket launch, which happens to be the closest to the equator of all launch bases, and the most ideal for a launch of a geosynchronous satellite.

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China adminsters four departments handling all-things space: systems engineering, general planning, space science, and foreign affairs. Together they oversee space and lunar exploration programs. They do so at the behest of the eighth national people’s congress, which established a commission of science, technology and industry for national defense, and formed the China National Space Administration in 1993, headquartered in Beijing, to develop a national space program.

The agency runs this program as a national industry having its own policy and enforcement rules, and has sent eleven of its citizens, taikonauts, into space. Its logo depicts a human surrounded by escape velocity thresholds yet standing above these rings, to emphasize humanity's capability to explore.

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In 1907, Germany was interested enough in space to set up an aerodynamic experimental station. It soon had company, among them a society, an association, an institution, and a consortium. Their effort coalesced in 1997 to become a government entity responsible for matters pertaining to energies, transportation, as well as their roles in aerospace, the German Aerospace Center , headquartered in Cologne, w/ fourteen satellite facilities working on the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier, building a suborbital spaceplane, and doing research into traffic congestion as well as research on emissions, among other projects.

France's space agency, founded in 1961 as "a public administration w/ industrial and commerical purpose," the National Centre for Space Studies is headquarterd in Paris, and reports to the ministries of defence and research. A participant in search-&-rescue missions, it is currently planning a trip to Venus, and is a pioneer in space medicine when the first French astronaut, Jean-Loup Chrétien, came home in 1982. It is the third space agency to go into space, w/ a mission to secure and defend, and to transpose civilization to space. The go-to space agency for all things UFO, w/ a collection going back to 1954.

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The Italian Space Agency, founded in 1988 and headquartered in Rome, was one of the earliest countries to do research on rocketry and space propulsion. In 1914, a paper to achieve this was published by Giulio Costanzi, and the race to space was on. If you want to know about gamma rays, go to Italy, a founder of the precursor to the European Space Agency, w/ plans for a future spaceport.

Established in 1991 to report to the minstry of education, the Romanian Space Agency coordinates the natinonal space technology research program and related activities, incl. the promotion of space science in schools. There is a heritage in Romania of firms specializing in flight and its pedigree is impressive. Hermann Oberth is one of the founding fathers of rocketry, and the pioneer of rocket propulsion, Conrad Haas, who wrote: “But my advice is for more peace and no war, leaving the rifles calmly in storage, so the bullet is not fired, the gunpowder is not burned or wet, so the prince keeps his money, the arsenal master his life; that is the advice Conrad Haas gives.” Conrad Haas was born in 1509.

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Established in 2002 as a national space program, the Algerian Space Agency oversees four operations: techniques, applications, satellites, telecommunications, and brings space technologies to any discussions on sustainable development in Africa, which it monitors for natural disasters.	Having interest in space since the 1960s, legislation to create a Philippine Space Agency has support w/ the government, already partnering w/ other Asian countries to launch a 50-microsatellite network, and space science promoted in classrooms.

☆ • • • ✦ ☀ ‥ • ☆ • .

In 1946, the government set up a national advisory committee for aeronautics to observe rocket experiments, which eventually became rocket-powered aircraft programs, then manned spacecraft programs. Formed in 1958 by the US federal government, NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent entity responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. This was followed by a two-man spacecraft module program, which led NASA to become the first space agency to land a man, Neil Armstrong, on the Moon, in 1969. To prepare Armstrong and the other eleven who landed on the Moon, a ten-mission pre-event, beginning in 1962, had two-man spacecrafts orbiting the Earth and engaging in extravehicular activities such as space docking and space rendezvous. Just as important, it conducted observations to gather medical data on the prolonged effects of weightless on humans (fourteen days).

Data from its triumphal Moon mission took on the need for a laboratory in space, and by 1965 Skylab was in orbit. The heavy milestone was acheiving low Earth orbit, one that occurs every 90 hours, through the lives of fourteen astronauts. NASA has 166 manned space missions under its belt, and in 2018 it launched a survey satellite to transit exoplanets, worlds circling other stars, and will send a robotic spacecraft to probe the outer corona of the Sun. Missions are planned to Mars and Europa, a flyby of a Kuiper Belt object, samplings from a future asteroid landing, even one or two space telescopes. A directive back in 2017 tasked NASA w/ taking humans near to or else onto the surface of Mars by 2033.

In 1998, five agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States, came together to launch the International Space Station, w/ an agreement to maintain long-term international co-operation, “on the basis of genuine partnership,” and to build a manned station in outer space capable of personnel housing “for peacful purposes.” Scheduled rendezvous are performed for crew rotation and to replenish supplies. 2018 marks 20 years since the Zarya module lifted off from Kazakhstan, inaugurating a milestone of cooperation in space.

There are 58 space agencies, three on the equator. Expect three more from Australia, Sri Lanka, and Philippines. They send up satellites, conduct human spaceflight, and launch extraterrestrial spacecrafts. Since 1958, the United Nations has maintained an office of outer space affairs in Vienna, tasked w/ a mandate to promote peaceful uses of outer space.

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PIXELS

MINUS 17

In 2017, to protest bias towards a foreign ally, Washington withdrew seventeen American sites from the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere program.

♦ | Coram Experimental Forest

Montana -| ||- Established in 1933 to conduct research into the management of a single species of trees, it became an outdoor laboratory for the regeneration of young forests. The parcel consists of second-growth western larch-mixed conifer forests, generated after clearcutting in the 1960s. Designated a biosphere reserve in 1976, Coram is a part of the 'crown of the continent', a single ecosystem whose rivers feed Hudson bay, gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific. -||

♣ | Niwot Ridge Mt Research Station

Colorado -| ||- A high-altitude school was established in 1979 offering disciplines in alpine and arctic environmental sciences. With a focus on the university-level; the adaptive programming was also high-school and general-public friendly. -||

♣ | Central Plains Experimental Range

Colorado -| ||- In the aftermath of the Dust Bowl, the government looked into improving management practices on fragile grasslands. Then a parcel of shortgrass-prairie in north-central Colorado was set up in 1976 to monitor four watersheds, allowing data for water budgets to be deduced. -||

♣ | Fraser Experimental Forest

Colorado -| ||- This parcel in the central Rockies was destroyed by fire in 1685, meaning its regeneration has a marker providing researchers w/ a starting point. An example of a high-elevation watershed. Above the timberline alpine tundra; below firs and spruces. -||

♥ | Desert Experimental Range

Utah -| ||- In 1933, President Herbert Hoover signed into existence a woodland parcel of pasture land in the Pine valley 'as an agricultural range experiment station'. Husbanding both livestock and earth in a cold climate meant enhancing plant adaptations and various grazing programs to winterize sheep successfully. The oldest biosphere reserve to be shut down, the station is listed on the national register of historic places. Limited access. -||

♠ | Beaver Creek Experimental Watershed

Arizona -| ||- A want of better water flow to foraging livestock was becoming apparent in the mid-1950s, generating theories in academe into watershed behavior. By 1960, foresters teamed w/ academics to tame the proliferation of high-water using plants such as trees and shrubs in north-central Arizona, below Flagstaff, and replace them w/ desirable vegetation. -||

♠ | Noatak National Preserve

Alaska -| ||- Established in 1978 to protect the Noatak river basin above the arctic circle. -||

♣ | Virgin Islands

Caribbean -| ||- An island group sharing three different political jurisdictions. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. British overseas territory. Unincorporated territory of the U.S. -||

♠ | Land Between the Lakes

Kentucky-Tennessee -| ||- In 1963, President John F. Kennedy designated a parcel btw. lakes Barkley and Kentucky, containing historic structures, as a national recreation area. -||

♠ | Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge

Alaska -| ||- From the Chukchi sea to the tip of the Aleutians. Mountains; cliffs; rainforests; tundra. Glaciers. Bays; fiords; beaches; streams; lakes. Reefs; rocks; spires; islets; headlands. 2,400 islands. 4.9 million acres. -||

♦ | Konza Prairie Research Natural Area

Kansas -| ||- Since 1971, an educational laboratory offering courses in tallgrass-prairie ecosystems, w/ an emphasis on grassland restoration. Elementary to post-graduate level. Kaw 'konza' Indians once inhabited this now-gone biosphere reserve. -||

♣ | Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest

New Hampshire -| ||- A 7,800-acre hardwood-forest inside the White Mountain national forest was set aside in 1955 as a comprehensive and ideal ecosystem: plant; soil; animal; water; air. -||

♦ | Carolinian South-Atlantic

South Carolina -| ||- A mostly-aquatic parcel shepherded by a nongame-and-heritage trust. Comprises maritime forests and open waters, salt and fresh. Creeks; marshes; dunes; islands. Canis rufus 'red wolf'; loggerhead sea turtles; brown pelicans. A living laboratory to study sea-level changes. -||

♦ | Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest

California -| ||- Forestry surveys of the Sierra Nevada began in the 1920s, and twenty years later two tracks of conifer stands were earmarked to become a conifer-forest laboratory. Along the south fork of the Stanislaus river. Just south of the north fork of the Tuolumne river. -||

♣ | Three Sisters Wilderness

Oregon -| ||- After the Wilderness Act was signed in 1964, these three standalone mountains in the Cascades have witnessed a steady stream of hikers, campers, fishermen, and climbers come courting. Located in the Willamette and Deschutes national forests; the third-, fourth- and fifth-highest peaks in Oregon. -||

♦ | U of Calif. Natural Reserve System

California -| ||- Thirty-six scattered sites, monitoring distinct, diverse and mingled ecosystems – lost. Established in 1983 by the university to better understand the coastal home to twenty-six million Californians. Three salt-marsh reserves. Three marine reserves, two are islands. Four marine reserves when you count the part of Monterey Bay that laps Santa Cruz. Sixteen other reserves. Three more that had abutted UC campuses: Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Diego. Four research facilities, one studying the desert. Two field stations, one in Yosemite valley. Three historic sites: Diablo Range Ranch; Ford Ord; Hastings natural history reservation in upper Carmel valley. -||

♣ | H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest

Oregon -| ||- Meant as a long-term ecological research site inside the Willamette national forest when it was established in 1948. Oldgrowth-douglasfir forests yield data in carbon cycles. Mountain topography offer insight into climate variability. Clearcutting, prescribed fire and the management of natural disturbance processes. -||

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MONSTER MASH

Entomb|

▶ “Good heavens! What a terrible curse!”

(1932) The horror of ungodly love is released when members of the British Museum’s 1921 field expedition season opens in Egypt. Boris Karloff is the mummy Imhotep, awakened by tomb-hunters and pursuing the reincarnation of his princess Anck-es-en-Amon in flapper-era London.

Employ|

▶ “I don’t understand.”

(1940) When mid-century archaeologists in Cairo come across a map leading to the long-dead princess Ananka, they locate the tomb, break the seal of the seven jackals, and unleash a terror that had waited three thousand years to be reborn. Tom Tyler is the mummy Kharis, and Eduardo Cianelli the high priest.

Embalm|

▶ “I can’t believe in a live mummy!”

(1942) Revived using tana leaves, Lon Chaney Jr begins his three-movie stint as the mummy Kharis, hell bent on killing all those who have desecrated the tomb of his princess Ananka. Turhan Bey is Mehemet Bey.

Embark|

▶ “We know that he still lives.”

(1944) Lon Chaney Jr returns as the mummy Kharis, crossing the Atlantic Ocean to court Ramsay Ames, reincarnation of the princess Ananka. John Carradine is Yousef Bey, and George Zucco is Andoheb.

Embrace|

▶ “I can never get too much sun.”

(1944) Lon Chaney Jr rises once more as the mummy Kharis, who has reason to journey into the Louisiana bayou, where a crypt holds the remains of his beloved Virginia Christine, the princess Ananka. Peter Coe is Dr Ilzor Zandaabm, and Dennis Moore is Dr Halsey.

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MONSTER MASH

Seed|

▶ “… a few murders here and there.”

(1933) A scientist’s unholy experiments into invisibility is successful and he has reason to regret it. Claude Rains is the Invisible Man, slowly turning homicidal due to the formula’s side effect. Gloria Stuart as his fiancee, E.E. Clive the constable, and Una O’Connor the innkeeper.

Sequel|

▶ “I can’t find peace in the underworld.”

(1940) Scientist-bro of first Invisible Man re-creates the wonder formula and sets an innocent free so that the condemned man may pursue the real killer. Vincent Price is the second Invisible Man, co-starring w/ Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Alan Napier, Nan Grey.

Screwball|

▶ “I’m nothin’ but a nothin’.”

(1940) This time a woman is offered the invisibility diet when she becomes a volunteer to a scientist. Blackie and his gang get word and become interested. Kitty Carroll is the Invisible Woman. With John Barrymore as the mad scientist, and Oskar Homolka, Shemp Howard, Maria Montez, Anne Nagel.

Spy|

▶ “I can’t tell you people apart.”

(1942) When axis agents try to steal the formula, grandson to the Invisible Man runs off w/ the original notebooks, then parachutes into Berlin to defeat the nazis. Jon Hall is the invisible agent. With Peter Lorre, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Albert Basserman, Ilona Massey, J. Edward Bromberg, Key Luke. Screenplay by Curt Siodmak.

Scion|

▶ “Pioneers have always to contend w/ fools.”

(1944) Ghoulish revenge is meted out to a scientist who succeeds in stabilizing the formula. Jon Hall returns again as the invisible one. John Carradine is Dr Drury, w/ Gale Sondergaard, Lester Mathews, Halliwell Hobbes.

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-| September 2020 |-

METAL MEN

Illustrated w/ collages, drawings, maps, paintings, photographs, prints and quotes

	One can cross Panama to get to California rather than sail around Cape Horn. Up Chagres river to the town of Culebra; then donkeys to Gulf of Panama, eleven miles away.

\| ⁋ \| Maps were consulted and what became the California Trial began w/ existing routes. Emigrants showed up along the Missouri river and towns in Illinois or Iowa. Wagon trains hitched, they headed out, crossing landscapes of grasslands, prairies, steppes, valleys and rivers to Wyoming and Fort Laramie. \| ⁋ \| The only way to cross the Rockies was a corridor beyond Fort Laramie, level and broad. South Pass afforded several routes passage to California. At a fork in the road soon after, the Oregon Trail veers right while the Mormon Trail turns south toward Fort Bridger. \| ⁋ \| Overland travelers chose routes dependent on starting point and final destination. Other factors were the condition of their wagons, livestock, and the availability of water.	\| ⁋ \| From California, one can get to Oregon on the Applegate Trail (1846), an alternative to the hazardous last leg of the Oregon Trail. \| ⁋ \| The Oregon Trail begins in Missouri and leaves either Fort Leavenworth, Independence or Saint Joseph for a two thousand mile trek to the Oregon Territory. Past the Great Plains, then the Rockies, heading west northwest to the Snake river, Fort Boise, Witman Mission, The Dales, Fort Vancouver, the Columbia river, and the coast. The Santa Fe Trail starts off in Missouri, rolls through Kansas and a corner of Colorado. Crossing the Arkansas river before dropping to New Mexico, the trail loses its identity somewhat in Santa Fe, where it is braided to the Gila Trail, a local 16th-c. commerce and travel high road, bringing trade from inland to the coast.	\| ⁋ \| The Mormon Trail, gathers in Illinois and wends by Iowa and Nebraska before joining established trails in Wyoming. Together they cross the Rockies, then the Mormon Trail continues south southwest to Utah Territory to end up in Los Angeles. Besides the overlanders there were also seafarers. \| ⁋ \| An eight-month sea route from New York to San Francisco would involve a harzardous rounding of Cape Horn.

A 49er carries pickaxe, shovel and pan. Can add a rocker and a hopper; some also conduct hydraulic experiments. A water wheel would be jim-dandy, to pick up individual quantities of gold-bearing gravel and sand.

\| ⁋ \| Personal gear: pair of blankets, frying-pan, flour, salt pork, brandy (or other sanctifying spirit). Field gear must-haves: pickaxe, shovel and pan. Some procure a mule. \| ⁋ \| Gold miners w/ no financial backing learn to congregate along mountain roads and wait for supply wagons passing through, bringing food and tools and carrying out gold dust. Saturday nights were for salooning and carousing. Sunday is a holiday – laundry, tool repair, swapping stories, writing letters, napping.	\| ⁋ \| A twelve inch shallow sheet-iron pan to rinse soil w/ water and locate the gold. \| ⁋ \| A rocker is a rectangular wooden box mounted on two rockers and set at a downward angle. \| ⁋ \| The hopper is a box sitting on top of the rocker, lined w/ a sheet of perforated iron. Beneath is an area called the “riddle-box.” \| ⁋ \| The long tom is an improved rocker plus hopper, reaching to twenty feet in length. A long sheet of perforated iron lines the bottom and beneath that iw the riddle-box.	\| ⁋ \| Women too had gold fever, coming from Mexico, Chile, Peru, England, France, New York and New Orleans. \| ⁋ \| Depicted in history as adventuress, courtesan, harlot, pickpocket, prostitute and the demimonde, these women were also bookkeepers, cooks, laundresses, shop-keepers, maids, wives. When mountain roads improved sufficiently to make travel btw. towns feasible, they set forth as performers. \| ⁋ \| Mrs Clappe came west in 1851 w/ her husband. In her letters home she gives an account of the era, about geology and a visit a rural doctor’s rude office of pine shingles and cotton cloth.

Sydney Duck “English Jim” Stuart was hanged for robbery and murder on July 11 1851.

\| ⁋ \| Yerba Buena was a hamlet on the San Francisco peninsula w/ an excellent harbor. The Spaniards established a maritime trading post and built the Mission of San Francisco de Asis. Ships docking in its cove discharged sailors to a Spanish-style plaza known as Portsmouth Square.	\| ⁋ \| On arrival gold seekers rented lodgings in shanties and tent towns, and stayed long enough to buy tools and provisions before heading out. \| ⁋ \| Brought over from Australia to perform labor, English convicts deserted en masse and instead formed a gang. Soon a frontier patch of lawlessness, Sydney Town, sprouted at the base of Telegraph Hill. The Sydney Ducks preyed on people and property, augmented by a gang of lady pickpockets, and willingly committed murder to survive.	\| ⁋ \| The embers of Sydney Town rekindled and gave birth to the Barbary Coast, chock-a-block w/ bars, saloons, brothels, concert halls, dance halls; where “getting shanghaied” was first rehearsed. Survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, by 1917 the red-light district was no more.

	Sutter’s Mill on the South Fork of the American River.

\| ⁋ \| Coloma, next to Sutter’s Mill, was the first gold mining town. A post office and jail were added in 1852 – both proved popular. Gold mining also took place north at Bidwell’s Bar, Cut Eye Foster’s Bar, Downieville, Dutch Flat, Goodyear’s Bar, Grass Valley, Helltown, Illinoistown, Iowa Hill, Kanaka Flat, Lousy Level, Marysville, Murderers Bar, Nevada City, Plumas City, Poker Flat, Rough and Ready, Washington, Whiskey Flat, Wisconsin Hill, and You Bet. \| ⁋ \| South at Angels Camp, Chinese Camp, Dogtown, Fair Play, Hornitos, Jackson, Mokelumme Hill, Mormon Bar, Rawhide, Rich Gulch, Shaw’s Flat, Sonora, Volcano.	\| ⁋ \| Gold was found along tributaries to the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. At Auburn, Diamond Springs, Grizzly Flats, Missouri Flat, Placerville. \| ⁋ \| Home to Native Americans incl. the Miwok, the Sierra Nevada was rudely affected by the Gold Rush. In 1849 an incident occurred along the Middle Fork of the American River when some 49ers died and some indigenes killed. An uneasy truce obtained when Native Americans were hired on as laborers and paid in tin, but by 1900 their population had declined to only ±16,000. \| ⁋ \| Before James Cagney was the Frisco Kid and Edward G. Robinson dramatized life in the Barbary Coast era, there was a 1913 feature, The Last Night of the Barbary Coast, now a lost film.	The 1849 state census counted 42,000 overlanders and 35,000 seafarers caught up by gold fever; together w/ 3,000 sailors who had deserted ships. \| ⁋ \| Coloma is now a ghost town inside Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. Like all who seek a better tomorrow, the Chinese too came to the California Gold Rush, formed a fraternity in Coloma, squatted spent claims and worked as a team over the “tailings” left behind. In 1880 this gold-mining Chinatown was lost to fire.

The ocean-crossing Niantic was grounded in Yerba Buena Cove and turned into a hotel.
Destroyed by fire in 1851.

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WHAT SHE SAID

BLACK COUNTRY ROCK

“As revealed in the song Ziggy Stardust,
Ziggy was not a spider - he was the fly.”
-- Steele Savage

-|- FIVE YEARS

The cosmic Chameleon and the chance Corinthian lash themselves together, in the lab – on the slab – and bring forth “… a gothic drama hyper-cycle”.

| OUTSIDE RESOURCES

▶ [1] The Diary of Nathan Adler

▶ [2] Genesis

▶ [3] Contamination

▶ [4] 1.Outside

▶ [5] Musicians

▶ [6] Outtakes

▶ [7] Tour

▶ [8 Lyrics] Leon Takes Us Outside: Leon Blank

▶ [9 Lyrics] Outside: Prologue

▶ [10 Lyrics] The Heart’s Filthy Lesson: Detective Nathan Adler

▶ [11 Lyrics] A Small Plot of Land: Citizens of Oxford Town

▶ [12 Lyrics] (Segue) Baby Grace (a Horrid Cassette): Baby Grace Blue

▶ [13 Lyrics] Hallo Spceboy: Paddy

▶ [14 Lyrics] The Motel: Leon Blank

▶ [15 Lyrics] I Have Not Been to Oxford Town: Leon Blank

▶ [16 Lyrics] No Control: Detective Nathan Adler

▶ [17 Lyrics] (Segue) Algeria Touchshriek: Algeria Touchshriek

▶ [18 Lyrics] The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (as Beauty): Artist / Minotaur

▶ [19 Lyrics] (Segue) Ramona A. Stone / I Am With Name: Ramona A. Stone + her Acolytes

▶ [20 Lyrics] Wishful Beginnings: Artist / Minotaur

▶ [21 Lyrics] We Prick You: Members of the Court of Justice

▶ [22 Lyrics] (Segue) Nathan Adler: Detective Nathan Adler

▶ [23 Lyrics] I’m Deranged: Artist / Minotaur

▶ [24 Lyrics] Thru These Architect’s Eyes: Leon Blank

▶ [25 Lyrics] (Segue) Nathan Adler: Detective Nathan Adler

▶ [26 Lyrics] Strangers When We Meet: Leon Blank

▶ [27 Credits]

▶ [28 Postscript]

| Back |

| retro-Sky

| retro-Time

| retro-Hell

| retro-Rain

| retro-Cloud

| retro-Pain

| retro-Foam

| retro-Guide

♠ | Andy Warhol

♣ | Don Bachardy

♥ | Reece Metzger

♠ | Rey Ray

♦ | Laszlo Zauberer

A Haunted House

-by Virginia Woolf- [1921]

♥ | Reece Metzger

♣ | Don Bachardy

♦ | Lori Schafer Paintings

♠ | Rey Ray

♥ | Angela Oates+ ♣ | Isabel Melo

Ghosts of Route 66 ||||||

♦ | Laszlo Zauberer

♠ | Andy Warhol

♣ | Ruth Guston

♦|Seward Johnson

♦ | Carina Mui

♠ | Kota Ezawa

♠ | Kevin Leung

✈¦ Sacramento

✈¦ Nevada

✈¦ Monterey Bay

✈¦ Northern California

✈¦ California

✈¦ San Francisco

✈¦ California

✈¦ Four Corners

-¦ September 2020 ¦-

Illustrated w/ collages, drawings, maps, paintings, photographs, prints and quotes

| ⁋ | Personal gear: pair of blankets, frying-pan, flour, salt pork, brandy (or other sanctifying spirit). Field gear must-haves: pickaxe, shovel and pan. Some procure a mule.

| ⁋ | Yerba Buena was a hamlet on the San Francisco peninsula w/ an excellent harbor. The Spaniards established a maritime trading post and built the Mission of San Francisco de Asis. Ships docking in its cove discharged sailors to a Spanish-style plaza known as Portsmouth Square.

-|- FIVE YEARS

The cosmic Chameleon and the chance Corinthian lash themselves together, in the lab – on the slab – and bring forth “… a gothic drama hyper-cycle”.

Sailors in the Sky

• • ° • • ⊙ • • ✦ ☀ ☆

★ • • • · • ⊗ ✶ • °

• • ☀ • • . • ° • ✪ •

“… operational space application systems …”

⊙ • ◆ ★ ☁ ✦ · ☼ ✪ • ·

• ✦ ★ • • ☆ • ★ ⊙ ✶

✪ • • • ⚫ ☆ · • ✦ • •

• • • ✶ ✶ ⊙ • · • • • ✦

• · ★ • • ☆ . · • • ☼ •

· • • ✶ • • ⊗ • • • • ☀ ·

☆ • • • ✦ ☀ ‥ • ☆ • .

♦ | Coram Experimental Forest

♣ | Niwot Ridge Mt Research Station

♣ | Central Plains Experimental Range

♣ | Fraser Experimental Forest

♥ | Desert Experimental Range

♠ | Beaver Creek Experimental Watershed

♠ | Noatak National Preserve

♣ | Virgin Islands

♠ | Land Between the Lakes

♠ | Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge

♦ | Konza Prairie Research Natural Area

♣ | Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest

♦ | Carolinian South-Atlantic

♦ | Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest

♣ | Three Sisters Wilderness

♦ | U of Calif. Natural Reserve System

♣ | H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest

Entomb|

Employ|

Embalm|

Embark|

Embrace|

Seed|

Sequel|

Screwball|

Spy|

-by Virginia Woolf-

[1921]

♦ | Lori Schafer

Paintings

♥ | Angela Oates
+
♣ | Isabel Melo

Ghosts of Route 66
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