Peruse like you’ve never perused this edition of Quipsologies.

A site dedicated to the art of exploitation film posters.

Thundercut, makers of the fascinating crossing sign men and crazy helicopter car paste-ups, share with us their process (start to finish) via a high-speed video. [Via Gothamist]

A sneak peek at the new short — on Mark Romanek — by Hillman Curtis (who is waiting to clear licensing on the music).

Can the history of 20th century music be plotted on the London Underground map devised by Harry Beck in 1933? [Via Kottke]

Remember TAB?

The Dallas Society of Visual Communications presents the 2nd Annual National Student Show & Conference, March 31-April 1, 2006. Students, start your engines.

The fine folks at Madhouse invite you to submit videos created around a word over at Madlove. [Thanks to Steve Mock for the link]

Misleading Press Release title. And, don’t forget, you read the story here first.

Beautiful Japanese manholes. No, you perv, not that kind of manholes. [Thanks to Ryan Hurry for the link]

Well, at least it’s not “WC”.

Excerpt from a letter to the Washington Post by the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

We were extremely disappointed to see the editorial cartoon by Tom Toles on page B6 in the January 29th edition. Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon is beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues — and your paper is obviously free to address any topic, including the state of readiness of today’s Armed Forces. However, we believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper’s reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds.

Escalating Islamic protests over a series of satirical cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jullands-Posten, and were reprinted in papers across Europe, have resulted in the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus, the Danish Consulate in Beirut and the firing of newspaper editors in France and Jordan. Here’s a comprehensive Wiki where the cartoons in question can be found.

Yet another one of those damn restrictive copyright bills is working its way through Congress. Law HR 683- the Trademark Dilution Revision Act contains certain anti-speech aspects which will directly affect designers, illustrators and photographers. So it’s time to write a letter and make a phone call. Here’s more information.

This one’s been clusterlinked everywhere: Is this a real Warhol?

Shadows on the moon are different than shadows here on Earth.

It seems that there is a second generic caption which can work with every New Yorker cartoon. Here’s Phrase One (the original) and Phrase Two. Proceed with caution if you react to foul language. (via Gawker)

Upcoming symposium on Rob Roy Kelly’s impact on American graphic design.

As a footnote to last week’s quip about emoticons: once again, Vladimir Nabokov seems to have been decades ahead of the rest of us.

An amazing computer-generated animation of water. (via Drawn!)

From the labels on our jeans to the pediment of City Hall, we can’t help but iterate identity. Which means if design is about anything, its about identity and communication. Or, to be more exact, about the contradictions and negotiations of the simultaneous identities that we slip in and out of. We are all electric aborigines now. And perhaps the most electric of all us aborigines is Ralph Lauren. A guy from a New York Jewish ghetto called Ralph Lifshitz works as a salesman at Brookes Brothers (home of conservative American tailoring), and unearths its more ethnic heritage. Mythologising the aesthetic of turn of the century English public schools, lacing with Ivy League memorabilia and creating a nostalgic version of wealth and privilege which he sells to young urban black America, whose streetwise patronage gives aspirational credibility to real life English public schoolboys and other white middle class markets. Lauren says (in language with echoes of heroic utopian Modernism): “My goal in design is to achieve the ultimate dream — the best reality imaginable.” And these are realities that exist as objects, images, aspirations, and desires. They are as ephemeral as perfume and magazines, as real as James Cameron’s Titanic or the Villa Savoie, expensive as 5th Avenue flagship stores, as cheap as child labour. We experience this reality through diverse media including chairs, jumpers, household paint, as well as more conventional media. While the Modernists dismissed fashion as trivial, Ralph Lauren knows just how important it can be. Media becomes part of us.
— Sam Jacob in Everything counts in large amounts.