stars & entropy

LEFTOVER SALES WILL OPEN ON JANUARY 31ST until supplies last.

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Remember, this is the last time. Unlike preorder sales, this sale has limited quantities.

Once they are gone...

They. Are. GONE.

the notorious menstrual cycle:

A lot of people know about the very first piece he did when he left the post which was the The Problem We All Live With which depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school under federal protection.

But I don’t think enough people know about Murder in Mississippi which depicts three real civil rights activists who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and sherriffs. The magazine ran the sketch instead of the finished piece because they felt it had a more striking statement to accompany the article. Norman Rockwell would finish that version after publication which is here

Rockwell’s legacy is sanitized because he decided to maintain his job at the Post for so long despite his frustrations with not being able to express himself. The civil rights movement was just his final straw to change what he could with the little time he had left. Look magazine received a lot of hate for Rockwell painting these as well.

Another favorite piece of mine is The Right to Know which depicts an integrated populace questioning their government. In 1968, the year of Vietnam and the year the Fair Housing Act only just got signed in months prior:

But I think it’s important to include the caption Rockwell originally wrote for the piece as well. I think it represents how a 74 year old Rockwell felt about the America he believed in and the people in it:

Also for LOOK magazine, but leaning on his themes of youth and suburban life. Expressing both hope for the curiosity and open-mindedness of children, and the bitter recognition of the suspicion of adults towards racial integration (see the face peeking out of the window in background). It’s notable that this is what he wanted America to be, too. He hoped for a better future.

it's the genocide and ethnic cleansing, the fever pitch hatred of migrants, women, and lgbt people allowing for the prospective abandonment of international human rights law. it's the various modes by which late capitalism and the fascist state is brutalising you and everyone around you. it's trauma. you can do a lot to decide the terms on your own life, but we are all connected to each other and there's a lot to feel and bear witness to and to resist, and that IS a gruelling responsibility.

whatever this year has looked like for you personally, it has been immeasurably traumatic for the global working class. and we should all feel connected to that.