Coury Turczyn
It is in the best interest of corporations to invest in training us to become good, compliant consumers and workers. Today that means mining our private online data or inflicting “team-building” exercises...
Posts
Galleries
The art of crime jazz (and assorted cool thrillers)
In the ’50s, a fresh style of music was bustling its way into movie and TV soundtracks: jazz. Previously, movie music meant sweeping orchestral themes or traditional Broadway-style musicals. But with the growing...
Modes and Motors: an art deco introduction to GM’s Styling Section of 1938
“Out of the merger of art, science and industry have come new techniques that have within themselves the ability to create an entirely new pattern and setting for the life of the world.” –Modes and Motors...
Stereo Action: introducing the new world of music beyond mono
Imagine living in a world of mono sound—records, movies, radio—and then suddenly having the option to hear music with the three-dimensional depth and scale of stereo reproduction. Add to that the sound-quality benefits...
The cynical, beautiful (and bleakly humorous) comics art of 1920s German ‘notgeld’ money
In 1920s Germany, the post-World War I economy was in a disastrous shambles. The official Reichsbank note was all but worthless. By the end of 1923, one American dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 marks. Government...
Advice from 1959 on how to survive a nuclear attack (with cool illustrations)
Back in the lost age of innocence known as the “pre-9/11” era, the idea that America could face a devastating attack from some far-off enemy seemed like a quaint relic of the Cold War. After all, there was...
Horrific food of the 1970s
With its uncontrolled pollution, rampant government corruption, frequent energy shortages, violent social unrest and division, and a meaningless war sacrificing too many lives, the 1970s now seem like a golden age of...
FUTURAMA: A tour of GM’s vision for the all-new, redesigned America of 1960
In 1939, the future didn’t look so bright. The U.S. was still mired in The Depression and Hitler’s invasion of Poland foreshadowed world conquest and inevitable war. Yet, despite of these bleak times, the...
Stories
Q&A: Michael Schlesinger, writer/director of the 1930s retro comedy ‘The Misadventures of Biffle and Shooster’
In an era when streaming media has made every piece of old celluloid new again, it may finally be time for the art of slapstick to make a comeback. For anyone who grew up watching TV on UHF channels, physical comedy...
The legacy of French illustrator Jean Giraud is vast—but difficult to find in print
In 1999, Sony was so sure it was destined to become a Digital Age Disney that it opened its own high-tech amusement park: the Metreon in San Francisco. But what this $85 million “urban entertainment center” with its...
