Quips and Quotations (All Hallows Evenhanded Edition)

 

 

But are his needs any more shocking than the needs of any other animals and men? Are his deeds more outrageous than the deeds of the parent who drained the spirit from his child? The vampire may foster quickened heartbeats and levitated hair. But is he worse than the parent who gave to society a neurotic child who became a politician? Is he worse than the manufacturer who set up belated foundations with the money he made by handing bombs and guns to suicidal nationalists? Is he worse than the distiller who gave bastardized grain juice to stultify further the brains of those who, sober, were incapable of progressive thought? (Nay, I apologize for this calumny; I nip the brew that feeds me.) Is he worse, then, than the publisher who filled ubiquitous racks with lust and death wishes? Really, no, search your soul, lovie--is the vampire so bad?

--Richard Matheson, I Am Legend

 

 

Graphic Grandeur (Hip Hype Edition)

Graphic, and eventually, museum-and-gallery artist Peter Max was born on this day in 1937 (he died just this past September 14 at age 88.) Givin the brashness of his work, Max comes across as surprisingly soft-spoken in this interview from nine years ago. Watch: 

The social upheaval of the 1960s was matched, maybe even surpassed, by the aesthetic upheaval of the same period. Everything--book jackets, album covers, clothing, hair styles, dorm rooms--just looked different, way different, at the end of the decade than it did at the beginning, as the avant-garde became commonplace, and the whole world fell under the spell of Day-Glo. Chief among the conjurors was Peter Max, whose psychedelic incantations came to epitomize the counterculture. However, there was a catch. Though it's downplayed in the above video, Max was an adman, albeit a highly unconventional one. Much more conventional were the corporate clients who paid his keep. Just whose culture was being countered, anyway? Not that I lose sleep over any of this. While the goal of advertising may be to separate our wallets from our money in the pursuit of goods and services, the ads themselves remain free, and that made Max's own goods a bargain, at least as far as my bedazzled eyes are concerned. A trippy Dow Jones sampling of his work:

  

Carson's set looked a bit different by the end of the '60s, at least when Max was the guest.

A public service announcement:

The expo was held in Spokane that year.

Finally, as no client that I know of asked for it, this poster may qualify as art for art's sake:

  

 

For limited time only.