La Montagne Vintage Alpine Magazine

The first thing that caught my eye at the flea market on Saturday was the beautiful cover photograph in black and white sitting in a box on the ground. Looking through the pages were more captivating images, and a beautifully simple graphic design quality. This later the issue, the more graphically overloaded it became, including the simple change to color photographs and typeface on the cover which already detracted from the appeal. So I stuck with the early editions, three ranging from 1959-1967, in which there are some advertising gems, unique typography combinations and great images that you'll see below. 

I love the graphic element of these black and white ski run maps having lived in an age when everything is in color.

The typography! The equipment! The style!

The quirky graphic design!

The hoods! The sunglasses! The powder! The backdrop! The trudging!

The purity of the page layout! That perfect ski run! The rocky mountain peak contrasting that soft powder!

The line weight variations! The blunt endings of these paths that begin and end nowhere!

A City of Texture

Textures seen around Paris- age, weather, renewal, force, mixed media, portals, passageways, stone, wood, glass, wild, manufactured, organic, designed...

Excerpt Series inspired by Alejandro Cesarco

This series was created as a way to document moments of text that stand out in a body of work and tell their own story in a new context. A kind of copy and paste.

works inspired by artist Alejandro Cesarco, after a recent visit to his exhibit at le Plateau in Paris.

FROST

from The New Yorker February 10, 2014

Bet The Farm: Robert Frost's turbulent apprenticeship. by Dan Chiasson

 OA

From Harpers February 2014

The Oa: The pleasures and perils of whiskey by Colin McAdam

from The New Yorker February 3, 2014

Full Fathom Five: Derek Walcott's seascapes by Adam Kirsch

Going the Distance: Excerpts from David Remnik's piece on Barak Obama

This excellent article by David Remnik for the New Yorker provides a balanced and deeply transparent view into the thoughts and process and politics of Barak Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Here are some excerpts worth saving:

“The President always takes the long view.” Valerie Jarrett

“One thing that I always try to emphasize is that, if you look at American history, there have been frequent occasions in which it looked like we had insoluble problems—either economic, political, security—and, as long as there were those who stayed steady and clear-eyed and persistent, eventually we came up with an answer.”

"Obama is exactly like all my friends. He would rather read a book than spend time with people he doesn’t know or like.” Joe Manchin

“When you don’t build those personal relationships,” Manchin told CNN, “it’s pretty easy for a person to say, ‘Well, let me think about it.’ ”
Comes to a close with:

"(Obama) said he hoped that one day he might be able to take a walk in the park, drop by a bookstore, chat with people in a coffee shop. “After all this is done,” he said, “how can I find that again?”"

“He travels light.” John Podesta on Obama's circle of friends

"the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”

“I have strengths and I have weaknesses, like every President, like every person,” Obama said. “I do think one of my strengths is temperament. I am comfortable with complexity, and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I’m taking measure of my actions against the options and possibilities available to me, understanding that there are going to be mistakes that I make and my team makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent, and that there’s going to be tragedy out there and, by occupying this office, I am part of that tragedy occasionally, but that if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought up with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of most Americans, that at the end of the day things will be better rather than worse.”

And concludes with Obama's last comment:
“I just wanted to add one thing to that business about the great-man theory of history. The President of the United States cannot remake our society, and that’s probably a good thing.” He paused yet again, always self-editing. “Not ‘probably,’ ” he said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

Le Plateau Art Space Paris

Alejandro Cesarco at Le Plateau Paris. This space inspires me each time because I find new works that make everyday things feel more special through someone else's lense. The world becomes more bearable because within the most banal moment you can learn to find inspiration and beauty.

I love these works that put things like book indexes in a new context for reexamination. I like the scientific quality of the piece on regret that is taken from the four literary genres: Romantic, Comic, Tragic & Ironic, with photographe from Jean luc Godard's film 'Une Femme Mariee' 

Gyorgy Kepes

 Don't really know where to begin with this work. I picked up a book while randomly browsing the library at Beaubourg, Centre Pompidou. I trust this process, and patience pays off when you discover something so striking and inspiring. As suspected, I'm not the only one who loves his work so here are some images and sources for more information and examples of his work.

My favorite fact is that he founded and taught at MIT at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Not all art is fluff.

please also see this article from the NYTimes for further discussion into the scientific value of his work

follow up post on Moholy-Nagy to come

hard day's work

A hard day's work
Back bending
Feet Pressing
Into the sand
or into the grooves
worn into the deck of the boat.

Drag the catch in
pull in the ropes
the nets are tangled
by the fish inside

good day or bad it ends the same
Untangle
clean up
go home
Sleep deeply
if you can

tomorrow you'll be on your feet again

Neil Armstrong

It is always at the end of an inspiring life that we revisit the accompishments of the person who is no longer with us. The same, I hope, will go for Neil Armstrong, whose life in the service of the Air Force and then with NASA has changed history and brought generations of Americans closer to their own dreams. As he hid himself from the public eye for much of his later life, will there be a release on the rights to his story? Will we see books and movies capitalizing on this moment? Can we appreciate the benefit of reviving history for generations who are distanced from the event (July 1969)?

Here Armstrong descends to take his first step...