How 'The Green Book' helped black travelers stay safe during Jim Crow laws
I recently finished listening to this wonderful podcast episode from 99% Invisible about something called The Green Book which helped African Americans travel the United States in safety during the era of Jim Crow laws.
The book was published by Victor Hugo Green who gathered data from establishments all across the US thanks to the trusty community of black US Postal Workers. Green was also a postal worker and he knew that the people who would know communities the best would be the very people who delivered mail. These folks would know whether restaurants or hotels would allow blacks and would be able to tell Green whether they were friendly at all or hostile.
The Green Book was published, every year, until about 1966. It's demise is mostly due to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which made discrimination on color, sex, religion, or national origin illegal.
The Democratic Forest by William Eggleston
YES YES YES! Steidl has published an amazing 10-book set of photos by one of my favorite photographers, William Eggleston. The books feature a number of never-before-published images from Eggleston's archives. The photos were mostly made in the '80s and cover areas like Louisiana, Memphis and Tennessee, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Miami, Boston, Kentucky, and also the Berlin Wall.
As with all collections like this that Steidl has made in the past, this one is quite expensive and rare. But if you get your hands on it, know that you've got a real gem in your hands. Check out some images below.
Paper Towns -- one of the worst movies I've ever seen
I wish I could say I was exaggerating here, but seriously, WTF? This movie was terrible. Can this book Paper Towns really be by the same John Green that wrote The Fault In Our Stars? While The Fault In Our Stars was pretty great in my opinion (producing a great film as well), Paper Towns is just 100% pretentious garbage.
The whole story surrounding Margo and her "mysterious" disappearance just did not make any sense. And it was so forced onto the viewer that I was just like "wait, what?!" Her sudden re-connection with her neighbor (who has had a crush on her since grade school -- a der der der) to involve him in a series of revenge attacks was so stupid and contrived. That he would even follow her, even if he liked her, to such great lengths was entirely unbelievable. He's either seriously whipped since 10 years old or he's incredibly stupid. Quite possibly both.
AND THEN THERE'S THE STUPID ENDING! OMG. I wanted to punch my computer screen when it happened. I just couldn't believe the stupidity of the main character. If this is a peek into teenage lives and emotions these days, GOD HELP US ALL.
Cooked: Netflix original series about the history of food and cooking
I just started watching Netflix's new cooking series called 'Cooked'. The series is based on Michael Pollan's book by the same name which talks about the transformation of food, culture, and cooking from 4 distinct angles -- water, fire, air, and earth. The series is directed by Alex Gibney.
So far, the series seems quite good and entertaining, not to mention very full of knowledge and facts. If you're not one to read the book, maybe you might consider watching the Netflix original series.
The business cards of the U.S. Nuclear Program
Want some design porn for the weekend? Here you go. It's a small gallery of U.S. Nuclear Program business cards collected by Matthew Coolidge for The Center for Land Use Interpretation. The amazing story here is that these cards were essentially "rescued" or found at a place called The Black Hole, a surplus store that specializes sort of in finding things from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory history (when it gets thrown out).
Matthew Coolidge has compiled some of these business cards into The Los Alamos Rolodex collection which you can read more about here. There's even a book if you missed the exhibit. Pretty cool!
The Newsstand now in book form
The Newsstand from Alldayeveryday and Lele Saveri is now in book form! The Newsstand storefront used to sit inside an abandoned newsstand at the Lorimer/Metropolitan Ave stop along the L/G train and has since moved to be inside the MoMA itself.
The book includes a number of independent artist zines and artwork and is bound like a homemade zine too! Pick one up at your local Rizzoli distributor.