A 62-Foot Long Swimming Pool Shaped Like a Les Paul Custom Guitar
The Mail is the most powerful newspaper in Great Britain. A middle-market tabloid, with a daily readership of four and a half million, it reaches four times as many people as the Guardian, while being taken more seriously than the one paper that outsells it, the Sun. In January, its Web arm, Mail Online, surpassed that of the New York Times as the most visited newspaper site in the world, drawing fifty-two million unique visitors a month. The Mail’s closest analogue in the American media is perhaps Fox News. In Britain, unlike in the United States, television tends to be a dignified affair, while print is berserk and shouty. The Mail is like Fox in the sense that it speaks to, and for, the married, car-driving, homeowning, conservative-voting suburbanite, but it is unlike Fox in that it is not slavishly approving of any political party. One editor told me, “The paper’s defining ideology is that Britain has gone to the dogs.” Nor is the Mail easy to resist. Last year, its lawyers shut down a proxy site that allowed liberals to browse Mail Online without bumping up its traffic.
- In this week’s issue, Lauren Collins writes about how the Daily Mail conquered England: http://nyr.kr/GQqWLE
The Mail is the most powerful newspaper in Great Britain. A middle-market tabloid, with a daily readership of four and a half million, it reaches four times as many people as the Guardian, while being taken more seriously than the one paper that outsells it, the Sun. In January, its Web arm, Mail Online, surpassed that of the New York Times as the most visited newspaper site in the world, drawing fifty-two million unique visitors a month. The Mail’s closest analogue in the American media is perhaps Fox News. In Britain, unlike in the United States, television tends to be a dignified affair, while print is berserk and shouty. The Mail is like Fox in the sense that it speaks to, and for, the married, car-driving, homeowning, conservative-voting suburbanite, but it is unlike Fox in that it is not slavishly approving of any political party. One editor told me, “The paper’s defining ideology is that Britain has gone to the dogs.” Nor is the Mail easy to resist. Last year, its lawyers shut down a proxy site that allowed liberals to browse Mail Online without bumping up its traffic.
- In this week’s issue, Lauren Collins writes about how the Daily Mail conquered England: http://nyr.kr/GQqWLE
Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD
There were at least three CIA safe houses in the Bay Area where experiments went on. Chief among them was 225 Chestnut on Telegraph Hill, which operated from 1955 to 1965. The L-shaped apartment boasted sweeping waterfront views, and was just a short trip up the hill from North Beach’s rowdy saloons. Inside, prostitutes paid by the government to lure clients to the apartment served up acid-laced cocktails to unsuspecting johns, while martini-swilling secret agents observed their every move from behind a two-way mirror. Recording devices were installed, some disguised as electrical outlets.
To get the guys in the mood, the walls were adorned with photographs of tortured women in bondage and provocative posters from French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The agents grew fascinated with the kinky sex games that played out between the johns and the hookers. The two-way mirror in the bedroom gave the agents a close-up view of all the action.
In my twenties, this subject was a hobby horse of mine. I’d always wanted to write a play set around Operation Midnight Climax (think Mamet giving a discourse on spirituality through the mouths of two dosed vice cops tangoing with an equally dosed spy) but, alas, nothing every came of the project.
Still, it’s a damn interesting story.
Dig the quote by Agent White:
“Of course I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest? Pretty Good Stuff, Brudder!”
(Source: Boing Boing)
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Archan Nair | archann (b.1982, India) - Etilazh. New Mixed Media Abstract on Canvas
Archan Nair is from New Delhi but considers himself as a cosmic citizen. He is a self developed visual artist, illustrator and Art Director, specializing in mixed media, illustration, and digital art. He is inspired by everything around him, realizations, and the curiosity to explore the non physical field. You can visit his website or his Tumblr for more work.
[more Archan Nair]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0fm8aT0z91qdhfhho1_1280.jpg)
Archan Nair | archann (b.1982, India) - Etilazh. New Mixed Media Abstract on Canvas
Archan Nair is from New Delhi but considers himself as a cosmic citizen. He is a self developed visual artist, illustrator and Art Director, specializing in mixed media, illustration, and digital art. He is inspired by everything around him, realizations, and the curiosity to explore the non physical field. You can visit his website or his Tumblr for more work.
[more Archan Nair]
milkmade flavor of the day: Toasted Walnut Spice
Spiced Vanilla ice cream with Toasted Walnuts
The savory elements combined with the sweet make one spoonful turn into several without even realizing it.
A Barry Blitt cover from 2009.
For a slide show of political covers by Blitt: http://nyr.kr/xOzTLP
(Source: newyorker.com)
