She Could Name the Badge Before She Could Name the Color Picture a parking lot somewhere in Russia. A toddler, two years old, is being walked between the cars. A parent points at a hood. The girl looks up, takes in the chrome emblem, and says the brand name. Then the next car. Then the … Read more
Nutrition Facts: Pop Songs Edition Picture a nutrition label. Not on a box of cereal, but on a pop song. Same layout, same clinical columns, except instead of saturated fat and sodium, it lists respect, manipulation, and equality. In December 2009, the Boston Public Health Commission’s Start Strong Initiative released exactly that: a tool called … Read more
The City That Officially Changed Its Name for a Day On November 15, 2013, street signs in San Francisco read “Gotham City.” The mayor held a ceremony at City Hall. Two black Lamborghinis in Batman livery circled the blocks between locations. None of it was for a film shoot. It was for a five-year-old boy … Read more
5,600 Pennies and a Posted Sign In December 2008, Frank Gilberti walked into Bloomfield Municipal Court in New Jersey carrying 112 rolls of pennies, 5,600 coins, amounting to exactly $56. He was 22, worked at a funeral home in Nutley, and had a traffic fine to settle. Before showing up, he stopped at a bank … Read more
The Wild Men, at Home Open LIFE Magazine’s September 24, 1971 issue and you’d expect smoke, sweat, and stage lights. Instead, photographer John Olson gives you living rooms. Frank Zappa sits under a lamp in his family’s Los Angeles home, flanked by his mother Rosemarie, his father Francis, and the family cat. Eric Clapton poses … Read more
The New Recruit Picture a New York City firehouse in 1893: brass fittings polished to a shine, horses stamping in their stalls, men waiting for the alarm bell to break the quiet. Into this world walked James MacMurray, a former herdsman from a large New Jersey stock farm who had just joined the New York … Read more
Bello, Bub! When Neatorama published a piece of fan art on August 12, 2013, the post opened with just two words: “Bello, Bub!” If you caught both references immediately, you were already grinning. If you only caught one, you were about to have a good time anyway. The image does most of the work. Picture … Read more
A Symbol With No Script Everyone knows the photograph: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on July 20, 1969, standing next to an American flag caught mid-wave. It looks like the most carefully planned image in the history of photography, storyboarded years in advance. It wasn’t, or at least not the way it … Read more
An Organ That Came Back On July 7, 2009, Mark Wattson, 35, from Lower Stratton near Swindon, Wiltshire, went to Great Western Hospital to have his appendix removed. It’s about as routine as surgery gets: a short pouch attached to the large intestine, cut out, patient home within a day or two. Surgeons told him … Read more
Leave the Mask On. Seriously. Picture a speed-dating event in New York City where the person across from you might be dressed as a character from Attack on Titan, and nobody considers that strange. That is the exact premise of Otaku Speed Dating. The only formal requirements are being at least 18 and being an … Read more