CONSTANT SIEGE

Rubber Glove Seduction

My ~~teacup~~ ~~pimpcup~~ TheraFlu cup

The Sex Diaries - A Critical Reading of New Yorkers’ Sexual Habits & Anxieties

“These are statements of psychological awareness, but they are also performances. They mask a deeper fear: that one might not be in complete control of one’s appearance. The Diarists cannot bear being judged without having let us know they have properly anticipated it.”

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Entryway, Jackhammer Jesus over my entry door, exit sign over my bedroom, silver chandelier

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'AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT'

NYT April 21, 1884: “It will be a curious sensation for white people to find themselves treated with contempt on account of their color by the bleached colored people. All the laws and regulations still existing which are aimed at the colored people will then apply to the Caucasian race. We shall have to pass a new Civil Rights bill to secure admission to hotels and sleeping cars, and we may even hear ourselves contemptuously described as “niggers,” should the bleached colored people condescend to adopt white methods of expression.”

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‘Toung Taloung’ PT Barnum’s White Elephant, 1884

The white elephant in London: an episode of trickery, racism and advertising:

“This article explores how the exhibition of Barnum’s white elephant, housed in the London Zoological Garden between January and March 1884, became a forum to discuss nineteenth-century theories of race. The London Zoological Gardens provided opportunities for Victorians to directly encounter exotic animals and imaginatively exercise imperial authority. (3) By exhibiting the elephant, Barnum staged a trick enacting the English definition of a white elephant, playing on British perceptions of ‘eastern’ decadence and Burmese corruption. To nineteenth-century Britons, white elephants were misunderstood, but potent symbols. Popular travelogues had generated certain expectations of these animals: they were alleged to be holy to the kings of Siam and Burma, and worshipped because of their white colouration. The elephant’s white pigmentation was expected to provide visible proof of racial superiority in relation to the peoples of Siam and Burma, territories that were a focus of British imperial ambition. And it did—for some. Others were disappointed. They found its skin lackluster, splotchy and insufficiently white. Many could not distinguish this elephant from others of its species. As the authenticity of the animal was questioned, Barnum’s trick provoked anxiety about the maintenance of racial purity and white privilege. The ensuing controversy became an opportunity to discuss the precarious status of whiteness, and the subject of a popular Pears’ Soap advertising campaign.”

“Toung Taloung, the famous white elephant, which I brought from Burmah (sic), cost me $200,000. Like the public, I was greatly disappointed in him. He was as genuine a white elephant as ever existed, but, in fact, there was never such an animal known. The white spots are simply diseased blotches. My white elephant was burned to death at Bridgeport in November, 1887, and I can’t say that I grieved much over his loss.” -PT Barnum

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“First and Only Genuine Sacred White Elephant Ever Permitted to Leave His Native Land”

NYT, December 6, 1883: MR. BARNUM’S WHITE ELEPHANT.; THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF HIS AGENT IN SECURING IT

NYT, March 29, 1884: THE SACRED BEAST HERE; FROM BURMAH TO THE GREAT MORAL SHOW. MR. BARNUM’S ANXIOUS TRIP TO THE LYDIAN MONARCH AND A SATISFACTORY EXAMINATION OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT

NYT, November 21, 1887: A GREAT LOSS TO BARNUM; HIS MENAGERIE BUILDING IN ASHES. A FIERCE FIRE IN WHICH MANY ANIMALS PERISHED—ELEPHANTS AND OTHER BEASTS ROAMING THE STREETS

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“A white elephant is a valuable possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.”

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Mark Pashne, The ‘Plowden’ Guarneri del Gesù Violin, 1735

“Our earliest record of this violin dates back to the fifties [1850s] of the last century when it was acquired by the late Mr C.H. Chichele Plowden - perhaps the most reputed amateur of his day - who had formed a Collection of choice instruments comprising, amongst others, four Guarneri, and four Stradivari violins, the present fiddle, christened by its owner ‘The Beauty’ being one of the former.” -1929

Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu:

“The estimate of his total production is not more than 250 violins; there is no positive evidence that he made instruments in any other form, although some violas and at least one violoncello are attributed to him. Approximately 150 violins are known to exist.
Stradivari and Guarnerius are ranked as the greatest of violin makers, and some fine violinists prefer the instruments of Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu to those of Stradivari.”

Audio: the ‘Plowden’ Guarneri 1735, played by Ruggiero Ricci

Also: Guarneri Violin Sold for $10 Million (highest price to date for a violin)

Violin porn: ‘Strad 3d’, CT scans and acoustic analysis of the Plowden Guarneri 1735, and two Strads

NPR: How To CAT-Scan (And Hot-Rod) A Stradivarius

November 1

Gerda Hopfgartner, ‘Gavari Semiacoustic Violin’ (via dvice)

Also also: Junya Watanabe, Fall 2009

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"...never in human history had we been more afraid of the night than in the period that immediately preceded our ability to vanquish it."

“Yet despite its many dangers, the night held a mighty appeal. “Large numbers of people came up for air when the sun went down,” says Ekirch. “It afforded them the privacy they did not have during the day. They could no longer be overseen by their superiors.” Night was not only a great leveller; it overturned the social order of the day. Apprentices, servants, the poor, the excluded and the underprivileged could for once escape the eyes of their masters, employers and oppressors: darkness was their mask.” (via TID)

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Coffin Couches, ‘Low Rider’ model, $3500 plus shipping