Tetherd Cow Ahead

This Xray from 1924 shows a crucifix wedged in a woman’s throat. According to the article that accompanies the image, the crucifix was eventually removed without surgery.

The story does not say how the Holy Object got there in the first place.

Suggestions?

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I found this story at the amazing Modern Mechanix – Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today, a blog that presents high quality scans of old Popular Mechanics mags. WARNING: Maximum Time Waste if you go there!

(The Impractical category is particularly worthwhile)

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These images from the great public domain resource at the Northwestern University Library

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The next stop on our Bad Public Art Tour of Sydney takes in a combination of art and architecture, the sum of which truly amounts to a greater travesty than its parts. Feel free to aim your cameras at the 1999 makeover of Sydney’s major bus and rail interchange Railway Square.

The overall cost for this unmitigated disaster is variously quoted as $12 million or $20 million dollars. Either way it is money that could have been spent a lot better.

The government architects that won the tender for the job (let me guess – they were the cheapest…) have managed to effortlessly combine complete lack of utility with ugliness. This is no mean feat. (It’s not unusual to see one or the other – pretty but useless, or useful but hideous – but to manage both simultaneously takes a particular level of ineptness).

If you scrutinize the image above, you will immediately see one of the first problems you might encounter as a commuter seeking shelter under the bus shelter. Yes, that’s right. There is none. Even the mildest amount of rain manages to swish its way under the stupidly swept-up roofs of the thing, and if there’s any serious rain and/or wind, the elements are focussed in such a manner that you’d probably be better off standing on an unsheltered street. I speak from experience.

At the opening of the building, the government architect Chris Johnson¹ was questioned by a reporter about the lack of effectiveness of the shelter in inclement weather. He replied, bafflingly:

“During a strong southerly wind, there may be a problem with rain. But people have to walk through the rain from the home.”

Er… yes, Mr Johnson, so what you’re saying is, er, that since they’re already wet, then it doesn’t matter that the shelter is crap?

In the Hansard extract where that snippet of peculiar reasoning appears, The Hon. E. M. Obeid on behalf of the Minister for Public Works and Services declares:

“The weight of opinion is that this has been an excellent result, which has dramatically improved both the flow of buses and the amenity and facilities for commuters.”

Which begs the question: The weight of whose opinion, exactly? I’m thinking it’s not going to be the soggy people waiting in the wind-tunnel for their 20-minute-late bus.

Now if you’ll just follow me this way, I’ll ask you to turn your attention to the next feature of this work – the lighting towers. I use the word ‘lighting’ parenthetically. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen the lights working. I know they must have at some time or other, because there are pictures of them illuminated. Most times I go past at night, however, they are just big dark gloomy junk-metal towers. The thought invariably comes into my mind that they will look exactly appropriate when the apocalypse comes.

Aside from their lack of luminance, the other great feature of these radio-tower maquettes is the great shreds of coiled metal that spiral down their insides. It reminds me of nothing so much as a gargantuan replica of the mess you get if you tear up an aluminium soft-drink can.

The overall effect of the Railway Square edifice is one of complete industrial chaos. It’s as if someone rifled through a gigantic mechanical scrap heap and then dumped the lot in a pile. There is no thought of harmony at all, either within the creation itself, or with the surrounding environment.

To make matters worse, the structures are looking very shabby indeed now. The paint on the towers is peeling off, and the glass on the shelters is dirty and covered in bird shit. I don’t believe it has ever been cleaned. It’s not the way you’d expect to see something treated if you were proud of it.

Back in 1999, The Minister finished off his defense of the interchange revamp in parliament by opining through Mr Obeid:

“It is a clean and modern facility and one that, as time passes, will become accepted as not only an important transport interchange, but as a new gateway to the city.”

Well, Minister, time has indeed passed and I think that most of my fellow citizens and commuters would agree with me that after 8 years of practical interaction with this incarnation of Railway Square, it is not looked upon by us with even the remotest degree of fondness, and certainly not accepted as any ‘gateway to the city’. It is, at best, just barely tolerated.

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¹Elsewhere the architecture is credited as “conceived by DPWS architect Margaret Petrykowski”. No-one is very happy to take responsibility for this mess.

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The Sony PlayStation 3 was launched to scenes of mass apathy in Sydney last night, with the anticipated clamouring hordes of customers being outnumbered by press, security and salivating retailers.

Sony must have been disappointed, as would have been the stores, but where did the tragedy strike hardest? Let me quote a little from the Sydney Morning Herald coverage:

At midnight, about 40 PS3 buyers had arrived to collect their consoles, causing distress for the army of camera crews who turned up expecting to capture launch mayhem.

Distress? Awwww. Poor paparazzi poppets. I guess they stayed up well past their bedtimes and, dang, it was a fizzer!

I can only imagine the scenes of sobbing and consolation going on around water coolers in press offices all over Sydney this morning. I hope they’re getting proper counselling.

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At the $999.00 that you’ll have to fork out for a PS3 in Australia, Sony will need to do a lot of convincing to compete with Xbox & Wii… Good luck chaps.

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Now I know that hardly any of you are going to believe this, but here is a scar on my wrist that I have only recently noticed.

I have no idea how it got there. All I can think is that maybe I brushed against a very small crucifix at some stage, and didn’t notice the burning smell.

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Pil, Universal Head, Cissy Strutt, Nurse Myra and Violet Town, among others, can all endorse the veracity of this if required. But you know everything I report here is true, right?

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The Continuing Misfortunes of Simple Graphics Man ~

#19: The Extrorse Écorché.

In which SGM is warned against the dangers of doing the Hokey Pokey.

I know that there are those of you out there who read my post on how to make a classic Manhattan and thought ‘It’ll be a slow day in Valhalla before you catch me drinking one of those pussy ‘what-a-swell-party-this-is’ beverages!’

Well have no fear! Should you find yourself on my doorstep worried that your manly image might become tarnished by my wussy left-wing nostalgic I-wish-I-was-at-a-party-with-Cole-Porter hospitality, we have another option.

Yes, a short stroll up the street to the Gourmet Viking¹ and you can be chugging a very reasonably priced glass of gløgg and chowing down on frikadeller and Hakkebof. If someone calls you a nancy-boy here, just hack off his hjamstallr with your vikingesverd!

Ah, I can almost hear the shouts of ‘That’s more like it!’

I have it on good authority that a few pints of the local gløgg and you’ll be performing naked acrobatic viking dances and playing knatteleik till dawn.

Mein skol, dein skol, alle vakkera flikka skol!

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¹Yes, I know. ‘Gourmet’ and ‘Viking’ – not really two concepts that sit together easily. Like ‘Designer’ and ‘Viking’ or ‘Elegant’ and ‘Viking’ or ‘Hello Kitty’ and ‘Viking’. Even if the Viking culture was, in fact, very sophisticated.

They’ve got a lot of raping and pillaging to live down.

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OK Cow-o-philes, on to Stop #3 on the Bad Public Art Tour of Sydney, in which we see how the citizens of Sydney support ‘The Arts’ with their hard-earned dollars.

This work was constructed some years ago in the Sydney district known as Darling Harbour. It’s hard to convey in a photograph exactly how cheap and daggy¹ it is in actuality. Suffice to say that it is a blessing that it is hidden away in a place where few people will ever see it (fittingly flanked by an overpass and an IMAX theatre).

I have heard this piece referred to as a ‘flannel flower’ and I sincerely hope this is not what it is meant to be. This is what flannel flowers look like:

Note the lack of vivid sickly yellow colour, and attend to the petal count.

I’m not really able to tell you much about this effort. A long search on the web has turned up nothing of value. Personally, I’d just as soon see the actual ‘artwork’ itself disappear into the same kind of obscurity.

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¹’Daggy’ is a slang word peculiar to Australia and New Zealand which is something like a cross between ‘goofy’, ‘unfashionable’ and ‘embarrassing’

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Being a responsible modern citizen concerned with saving energy I found myself stocking up on fluorescent light bulbs to replace all my incandescent ones. The big selling point on these things (aside from their Green credentials) is their longevity and… waiddaminute… what does that say…? A big 3 YEARS LIFE! but a wimpy 1 Year Guarantee!!!

Sheesh. Some advertising wonk has pulled a pretty big rabbit outta a pretty small hat for that one.

If you take it to mean "We guarantee it to last for 1 year, but it might last for 3!", then why did they not go for broke and say, oh, 10 years life. Or 20 years life? C’mon Mr Osram – what have you possibly got to lose?

If there’s one thing I hate it’s mediocrity in hyperbole.

•2 oz rye whisky
•1 oz sweet red Vermouth
•A good dash of Angostura bitters

Stir or shake quickly⁽ⁱ⁾ over ice, pour off and garnish with a Maraschino cherry.

Some people prefer a twist of lemon instead of a cherry. Some people prefer bourbon instead of rye. Some people omit the bitters. All these things make for a lesser Manhattan.

Save the cherry until last and eat it, or give it to the sweetest girl in the room.

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Footnotes:

1. Stirring is preferred [↩]

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