Your Most Obedient Servant
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“I see the artist as a postman, delivering letters. He should not be overly curious about what is inside the envelopes.”
Wang Xingwei at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing
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“I’m always trying to get my friends to forward me emails they’ve sent to other people — to their mom, their boyfriend, their agent — the more mundane the better. How they comport themselves in email is so intimate, almost obscene — a glimpse of them from their own point of view. WE THINK ALONE has given me the excuse to read my friends’ emails and the emails of some people I wish I was friends with and for better or worse it’s changed the way I see all of them. I think I really know them now. But our inner life is not actually the same thing as our life on the computer — a quiet person might !!!! a lot. A person with a busy mind might write almost nothing.”
Emails from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lena Dunham, Kirsten Dunst, Sheila Heti, Etgar Keret, Kate and Laura Mulleavy, Catherine Opie, Lee Smolin, Danh Vo
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Stirring letter tucked by a Chinese factory worker into Halloween decorations found in Kmart exposes China’s forced labor – but not without great risk.
(via explore-blog)
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Thomas Broomé’s typographical illustrations of interiors are composed entirely of words repeated across the objects they describe. (via)
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Alexander Graham Bell’s tetrahedral tower is unveiled in 1907 in Nova Scotia.
Photograph courtesy the Bell Collection -
“Though there’s an industry built on telling you otherwise, there are few real joys to middle age. The only perk I can see is that, with luck, you’ll acquire a guest room.” — David Sedaris, writing about house guests in this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/12Lxsd0 -
Elvis Presley’s set list scribbled on a hotel envelope for a 1976 Las Vegas concert and a reminder on the reverse side to introduce singers Roy Orbison and Engelbert Humperdinck.
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“GQ: And how would you spend your days?
Ricky Gervais: Just rolling around with dogs and wolves and bears. Yeah. Still weird, isn’t it?”— Ricky Gervais on animals in GQ interview -
Andy Warhol letterhead, date unknown
With lettering by Warhol’s mother. For your consumption, a larger version. Also, Warhol’s matching business card.
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The novelist Georges Simenon wrote nearly 200 novels and started each one by writing the names and other salient details of the characters involved on a manila envelope.
