June 2012 Articles (28)

It's a hot night in the Holy Land tonight, and I do mean hot!  It's pushing 110 with high humidity here with a paltry sea breeze to keep it in check.  That said, you can't stop the dance tonight, for no place in the Middle East can party like here in Beiruit, the Paris of the East!

 Beiruit is the poster city for civilization,…

This Saturday, your Air Mail is brought here by an advanced experimental fighter, Buck Rogers at the controls*:

The Grumman G-34 proposal of 1938 for a single-seat twin-engined shipboard fighter anticipated the realization of an operational production example of such a type by quite a few…

The July Pilsner's Picks lineup has arrived with a bang (or at least a muffled thud), and I guarantee that it contains some of the most patriotic old music you'll ever hear in your life, or I'll eat my Uncle Sam hat. Along with some other interesting relics of a bygone America— and now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to sell this tub of chitlin's here.

http://www.pilsnerspicks.blogspot.com/

Perhaps not as well known as later models, the Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 is one of the quintessential Alfa Romeos of its era.

First introduced as a replacement for the 6C 1500 in 1929, the 6C 1750 evolved from a relatively simple road car to a very sophisticated racing machine in the five years it was produced. One of the key elements in the progress was designer Vittorio Jano, lured to Alfa Romeo from his former employer Fiat by Enzo Ferrari.…

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Since hitting the airwaves in August 1930 as part of the "Detective Story" radio show, The Shadow has become one of the most beloved heroes in pulp history.  On Two-Fisted Tuesdays, we'll follow the adventures of The Shadow as he battles a rogues gallery of crooks and villains from around the world.

Never heard of The Shadow before?…

The Lenbachhaus Kunstbau in Munich features an exhibition about "Marcel Duchamps in Munich 1912" until July 15th, 2012. The show marks the 100th anniversary of the artists stay in Munich.

"Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887-2 October 1968) changed art history. His painting “Nude, Descending a Staircase, No. 2” (1912) captured the ideas and influences of a…

Our tropical tryst continues here at the Cabaret today in the Gibraltar of the East, Singapore!  And how better to enter Singapore than by a Singapore, a Short Singapore Flying Boat, of course!  A bit of a choppy go compared to an Empire Class, but the orient is for adventure, is it not?

 …

This Saturday, our Air Mail is here to remind you about the French long-range civil aircraft - probably not as famous as their German and Italian contemporaries but nevertheless iconic.

In early 1930s, Emile Dewoitine, already a prominent aircraft designer, changed his concept from high- to low-wing. He was keen about the range of his machines. The…

Meet the most luxurious Italian car of the Roaring Twenties:

Established as an automaker in 1902 by Cesare Isotta and the brothers Fraschini (Oreste, Vincenzo and Antonio), from around 1920 to the early 1930s Isottas were more popular in the United States than any other foreign marque except for Rolls-Royce. One of the world's most innovative…

The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature…

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Since hitting the airwaves in August 1930 as part of the "Detective Story" radio show, The Shadow has become one of the most beloved heroes in pulp history.  On Two-Fisted Tuesdays, we'll follow the adventures of The Shadowas he battles a rogues gallery of crooks and villains from around the world.

Never heard of The Shadow before?…

I discovered the remains of a book of Belgian graphic designer Joris Minne as I strolled over an antiques market in the Belgian city of Antwerp. The pages showed modernist wood cuts of Antwerp in the 1930s, striking graphical work in black and white.

Joris Minne (Oostende, 1897 – Antwerpen, 1988) belonged to an artistic group called the “big five” ("De grote vijf"), together with Jan Cantré, Jozef Cantré, Henri van Straten and Frans Masereel who formed after WWI.

I found the…

Right from his very first works in the mid-seventies, the French musician, writer and musicologist Jean-Marc Vivenza doesn't conceal the fact that he belongs to the both theoretical and political bond linking him to the Italian Futurist and Russian Constructivist movements. The propositions about formal, plastic noise from these two currents are the only theorical sources that haven't really been developed ever. Both a composer and a philosophe, Jean-Marc Vivenza actually calls his…

For the 50th issue, I had to send something very special via the Saturday Air Mail. And here it is:

Imagine the skies full of tailless aircraft of all sizes. It's easy. Just remember all those 30s and 40s ads promising bright future on (literally) flying wings. To think of Boeings in this entourage is not so easy: collective memory…

 Nihao, my friends, and welcome to the mouth of the dragon, the gem of the rising modern China, Shanghai!  It's a city of music and light, shadow and scandal, where west and east collide like nowhere else!  So enjoy the scenes, the food, the drinks, and the music, but I'd advise not kicking the gong around if I were you, for you may spend the rest of your days chasing…

You know that postwar cars are not this garage's specialty. But this two-door Austin is here as a close cousin of prewar streamliners.

Nothing revolutionary in its layout, although: no front drive or rear engine. Everything's conventional - save the appearance, quite revolutionary for a 1940s British automobile.

Would you believe that the…

A fun project I've been working on with my fellow college alumni, Eric Freitas.  If you don't know the Clockwork of Eric Freitas, you should check it out. Super impressive, laborious and beautiful aesthetic which often gets categorized under steampunk. So, at the end of this month Eric has a few time pieces headed to NYC in…

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Since hitting the airwaves in August 1930 as part of the "Detective Story" radio show, The Shadow has become one of the most beloved heroes in pulp history.  On Two-Fisted Tuesdays, we'll follow the adventures of The Shadowas he battles a rogues gallery of crooks and villains from around the world.

Never heard of The Shadow before?…

Lights out, everybody.

On Miskatonic Mondays, we celebrate the "weird" fiction of HP Lovecraft and the genre of otherworldly horror it spawned.

This week, we're focusing our unblinking eye at Jonathan "Atari" Chaffin, a member of the Cult of Tiki from Atlanta, GA. Atari is a self-proclaimed artist and geek, and now he's bringing Lovecraft's terror to the tiki bar.

His new project, The Horror In Clay, is a 30oz Cthulhu-themed tiki mug…