MooPig Architectural Summary :: "Post Modern Architecture?"

Post Modernism ... Yes?

What it means to think like a postmodernist :: Bill Gaines

Above: a 1963 photo of Bill Gaines entering the MAD offices. Poking their heads out of the door are (from top to bottom): Nick Meglin, John Putnam, Al Feldstein, Leonard Brenner, Nelson Tirado, and Jerry De Fuccio.

MooPig's Favorite Post-Modernist is Bill Gaines
by Pat Darnell | June 16, 2011 | Bryan TX

What it means to think like a postmodernist - National cognitive science | Examiner.com: "Godel’s incompleteness theorem)."

1952

Bill Gaines knew that the man who would edit MAD had to have a brilliant sense of humor as well as a groundbreaking visual sense. He had to be a man who could see through the phoniness of popular culture. And he had to be a man who could take a little 10-cent comic book and transform it into the premiere satirical force of the 20th century.

Unfortunately, that man was busy, so Gaines hired Harvey Kurtzman.

Also, in 1952...

The second issue of MAD goes on sale on December 9, 1952. On December 11, the first-ever letter complaining that MAD "just isn't as funny and original like it used to be" arrives.

1954

The storybook marriage of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio and tinseltown bombshell Marilyn Monroe soon goes sour due to MAD's corrosive influence. Joe becomes enraged as he watches Marilyn film a movie scene standing over a subway grating, her dress flying high in the breeze. Insiders assume DiMaggio is outraged because hundreds of drooling onlookers are ogling his wife's exposed thighs and buttocks. But what REALLY infuriates the Yankee Clipper is that his wife would debase herself in public by reading MAD.

July 1955

MAD Magazine is born (#24). Gaines and Kurtzman turn MAD into a bi-monthly, black-and-white magazine. More importantly, they get to raise the price from 10-cents to a quarter! Although it will be another year before he's named and adopted as MAD's official mascot, Alfred E. Neuman makes his first appearance on the border of MAD (#24) as the "What, Me Worry" Kid

Also, in 1955...

Not all the legal news is good for Bill Gaines and MAD. Without video games or rap music to pick on, Congress is forced to hold hearings on the dangers of comic books. This poses a direct threat to Gaines' varied line of titles: Tales from the Crypt, Crypt of Terror, The Terrible Crypt, The Terrorizingly Terrible Crypt Tales, and MAD. Gaines volunteers to testify before a Senate committee. It does not go well:

Also in 1955, MooPig's Founder, Pat Darnell, is Born in Ft Worth, TX ... June 4th .... during a tornadic thunderstorm.

___________Reference
http://www.examiner.com/cognitive-science-in-national/what-it-means-to-think-like-a-postmodernist
http://www.dccomics.com/mad/about/?action=about1

http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2010/02/from-1977-25-years-of-mad-magazine.html

Mi Casa es su Casa... no?

"We boldly go where powder coated rebar reinforced Portland cement will take us.

Or do we?"

by Pat Darnell, Isak Kirinyaga, and Tomik A Sappo

Post Modern id of Domicile, ego of Docents, and superego of Obsolescence... You have just arrived in a home that is couture Francois, but outside it is Houston. You wait in a sitting room where you have been directed by a servant -- a wet-back in a starched white shift. It is starting to bug you, so you attempt to read the Architectural Digest from the coffee table, that has this very house on its cover.

Have you ever Read an Article in Architectural Digest?
Architectural Digest Articles illuminated with extraordinary photography might go something like this:

...Seems unlikely that we heirs of Post Modernism would have any idea why "Post," since when we don't recall any "Modernism."

It turns out there are many architectural schools living up to their names. Ever hear of Ambient Domicile, or Earth Home; Post Nasalize, or how about Fire Box or Tippy Canoe? New to that one? Some say it would require not having read any architectural theory starting around 1960 to miss such architectural movements. However, when we decided to "Explode the Box," we began to question just how large can that organism grow? The answer comes to us through Toy Story: "To Infinity and Beyond..." says Buzz Lightyear.

But when we say Post Modernism -- it sounds like we are saying "To Infinity and Behind."

I am thinking those who slid down the Modernism mountainside got to the valley eventually where all is stasis. It suddenly became necessary to declare that we are now Post Modern-organ-isms. As if this were a case against the inhuman-ism of Modernism, just wait till you see architectural id and docent ego re-define Watershed Walkabout Spaces; and just how that sweeps superego of Modernism under the carpets.

• Id: Functioning on uncontentious level
• Ego: Providing functional needs, while not upsetting superego
• Superego: Contentious behaviors

Thus id is firmly planted in domicile. Architecture is more Modern today than it was when it was Modern. Look for instance at ancient abode, walk ways, and monuments. Eh? What do you see? Leftovers? Yesterday's quiche is the main dish? We all thought we would be ordering ala carte in this French brothel... no?

Form follows Function: is one of Modernists' edicts. Top that one with a Less is More, and "Success is mostly about showing up." Thus Superego is safe and with us in spirit.

It must be ego that is unsteady.

Architecture is depicted in almost every sense as place located in time and space where humans walk about under protective water shed and weather-proofed climate controlled environment... unless one were to include our International Space Station in architectural discussions. ISS is environment controlled protective building for humans to float-about. But, generally Architecture is a place of walking unburdened by weather, climate and man eating animals.

Review: We present a tag line that enables heirs of Modernism to break away from their inherited metamorphosed sediments of constructed obsolescence. We boldly go where powder coated rebar reinforced Portland cement will take us.

Turn of the Century progress --

1. Since 9\11 all building is obsolete.
2. Humans do not fare very well in zero gravity for long periods of time, without cataclysmic bone failure due mostly to "no walking about."

Next Article: "What will be our new Magic Numbers for our superego Age of Obsolescence?" Excerpt:

And so, it’s the end of the West University Festival of New Homes until next year. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing the three houses that really spoke to me. With each house I toured – I came away thinking “This is the ONE!” – how fickle I am. You see, I visited a open house this weekend and let me tell you – boy, was it beautiful. I’m thinking the open house I toured this weekend was the ONE!!! Does anyone know the name of a good psychiatrist in Houston? Specializing in new-house-itis? I’ve been struggling with this disease for a long time now and my husband is insisting that I get cured, quick. (Posted by Cote de Texas at 3:46 PM 55 comments Labels: Ginger Barber [Architectural Digest, AIAA, and all its subsidiaries, can take a hint; right?])