Thursday, 30 June 2011

For Demonstration Purposes Only


.

VIVITAR SUPER 8 MOVIE CAMERA TIME 04/21/1967 p. 3

Vivitar advertisement for Vivitar Super 8 Movie Camera: Time, 21 April 1967 (Gallery of Graphic Design)



A past, compounded of parts

For demonstration purposes only.

What is being sold here? Is it any different

If viewed from the foot of an anthill of gauze

Crawled over by an army of busy, industrious

Gauze worker ants, that is to say,

From the future? With its colonies

Configured in graduated latticelike

Tiers of spiral staircases, with dormitory

Platforms built into the successive

Landings, reaching high into the night?




PERSONNA PRECISION DOUBLE EDGE RAZOR BLADES LIFE 11/08/1943 p. 18

Personna Blade Company advertisement for Personna Precision Double-Edge Blades: Life, 11 August 1943 (Gallery of Graphic Design)

at

6 comments:

  1. Robb30 June 2011 at 13:44

    I'll buy it

    "flehole"

    ReplyDelete
  2. K.Mc.30 June 2011 at 19:12

    Living wickedly across the bay. Just listening to Neil Young & could not help but think of you dear prof.

    Katherine Mc--Class of 2003

    ReplyDelete
  3. TC1 July 2011 at 07:15

    I think this is the most pleasant reunion I have ever attended.

    (In propria Personna, that is.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Issa's Untidy Hut2 July 2011 at 11:49

    ... that is to say,
    From the future?

    Beautiful ...

    Just back from viewing this brief Ginsberg film (which takes a little while to build up steam) which somehow perfectly segued with this sentiment ...

    http://www.archive.org/details/WritersUncensoredDoesntEverybodyWantToSaveTheWorld

    Don

    ReplyDelete
  5. TC3 July 2011 at 02:03

    Don,

    From the aethereal platform of the future, what will we look like (supposing anyone even bothers to look back... and down) but a feckless army of gauze ants, milling about blindly, to no particular purpose?

    Perhaps humility begins with the acceptance of being patronized and condescended to. "The future", in this respect, might well be translated as: "the young, in their infinite wisdom".

    I suppose we were there once, ourselves.

    (The older one gets, the more sympathy one can't help feeling for those benighted elders... maybe illumination comes, if it ever comes in the midst of this great sea of endarkenment which is being human, with the understanding that we are now them, forever?)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Issa's Untidy Hut3 July 2011 at 04:20

    Tom:

    Issa's great affection for insects and animals has always struck me as coming from a similar perspective - though criticized as being un-haiku-like (or senryu-like), his work, at least in the translations that appeal to me, has always worked on two levels and one is our kinship with insect and animal life. This, of course, is the Buddhist way - the feckless gauze ants really are one up on us and the perspective from the future is very likely more prophecy than conceit.

    Spot-on.

    Don

    ReplyDelete