Posted from The Citrus Report
This is like the best damn news ever. Although, WTF, Little Sammy? As we all know, “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” was one of the most iconic and fantastic video games in the history of the 1980s, perhaps ever. King Hippo, Mr. Sandman, Bald Bull, the German chap you have to fight second, all the characters, amazing.
Now, Rock Software has warmed our hearts with a “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” iPhone app. Its about time. Fresh.
Posted from The Citrus Report
It was only a matter of time before Mr Jeffrey Deitch of MOCA to get a major street art retrospective together. And look at who the LA Times uses as a picture to talk about the announcement . . . Mister Cartoon. Not bad.
The show is “Art in the Streets.” Mr Deitch told the LA Times, “”Right now we’re trying to iron out sponsorship. It’s going to be the first major museum survey of the history of graffiti and street art presented in the United States.”
Posted from The Citrus Report
The world is so fucked up. Can you imagine $2.4 billion in $100 bills? Can you imagine that money going from East Rutherford, New Jersey to Baghdad, Iraq? What a fucking disaster/racket this all is.. . . read on…
That transfer of cash to Iraq was the largest one-day shipment of currency in the history of the New York Fed. It was not, however, the first such shipment of cash to Iraq. Beginning soon after the invasion and continuing for more than a year, $12 billion in U.S. currency was airlifted to Baghdad, ostensibly as a stopgap measure to help run the Iraqi government and pay for basic services until a new Iraqi currency could be put into people’s hands. In effect, the entire nation of Iraq needed walking-around money, and Washington mobilized to provide it.
What Washington did not do was mobilize to keep track of it. By all accounts, the New York Fed and the Treasury Department exercised strict surveillance and control over all of this money while it was on American soil. But after the money was delivered to Iraq, oversight and control evaporated. Of the $12 billion in U.S. banknotes delivered to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, at least $9 billion cannot be accounted for. A portion of that money may have been spent wisely and honestly; much of it probably wasn’t. Some of it was stolen.
Once the money arrived in Iraq it entered a free-for-all environment where virtually anyone with fingers could take some of it. Moreover, the company that was hired to keep tabs on the outflow of money existed mainly on paper. Based in a private home in San Diego, it was a shell corporation with no certified public accountants. Its address of record is a post-office box in the Bahamas, where it is legally incorporated. That post-office box has been associated with shadowy offshore activities.
Posted from The Citrus Report
The New York Times has a cool slide show up about the history of the lamppost over the past 110 years in NYC. This is the newest one above, oldest below. The write-up is interesting:
Until the 1950s a wide variety of lampposts stood along New York streets, from cast-iron Gilded Age masterpieces to humble Depression-era wood beams — a 1934 city catalog listed 76 styles. But in the wave of postwar urban renewal, the city embarked on a wave of consolidation, trading its diversity for a monoculture based on stark octagonal aluminum poles anchored to the ground by plain boxes. Fortunately, a few of the old lampposts survived, and in recent years they’ve been joined by a small army of newly cast replicas. In addition, the Department of Transportation continues to commission new designs; recently, it introduced a sleek and shiny model in Downtown Brooklyn. As the city’s lamppost culture comes back to life, it’s worth taking a look at some of the iconic forms that illuminated New York’s past.
Posted from The Citrus Report
Does anyone remember Shooty Babbitt? Growing up an Oakland A’s fan (even though I grew up in L.A.), I had only heard about Shooty Babbitt, mainly because he had one of the great names in the history of baseball (next to Coco Crisp, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Rusty Kuntz).
But here’s a little history lesson for all of you, like me, who were born too late to ever see him play. Basically, he batted .256, began his career with a 7 game hit streak, and drove in 14 runs in 54 games, all at the ripe age of 22. Obviously not great, but not bad ,either, for a 22 year old rookie who had to play under one of the most difficult managers ever, the local legend himself, Billy Martin.
So why did his career end so quickly? Well, that Oakland A’s team was terrible on talent, and Billy Martin hated almost every player who ever played for him (remember how he threw out the arms of almost every single promising pitcher we had?). Really, most of us know him as the color commentator for our current Oakland A’s, and he does an alright job of that. But for 7 games in 1981, Shooty Babbitt was Oakland’s son making his daddy proud. Here’s to you Shooty, and keep up the good work.
—Jonathen Liu
Posted from The Citrus Report
Highway 61 Revisited features the best opening track in the history of popular music, not only because it flips the entire script on one man’s career, but it flipped the script on an entire decade of music. If you open an album up with “Like a Rolling Stone,” you really don’t have to anything else with your life… but then Bob Dylan came to the party with Blonde on Blonde the next year, so he wins the Hall of Fame award.
Much about an appreciation of art revolves around knowing your history. Take a gander through Juxtapoz art history in paging through our back issues , some of which are available in our webstore for only $5.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re well aware that the 2010 World Cup kicks off this Friday, June 11th. Yes, America is currently under basketball siege, but the rest of the world is gearing up for a match that is expected to draw one of the largest audiences in the history of televised sports.
Steven ESPO Powers (Juxtapoz cover #83 ) gets a chance to break down his work for a PSFK 2010 conference. It’s typical Powers humor and offers some great insight into his history and most recent Love Letters project in Philly.
Images From the Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles’ “Bug Fair ” last weekend. There’s some shots of the bugs and some shots of the museums oldies but goodies, like the gem collection and the Megamouth shark.
Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles County
