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Hudson’s Department Store, Detroit
J.L. Hudson Company was founded in 1881 and as Detroit prospered so did the city’s flagship department store. The Hudson’s building, at one time, was the tallest department store in the world and the second largest by square footage. Due to declining sales, mainly due to decreased population in the city, the flagship Hudson’s store closed its doors in 1983. The building was imploded in 1998.
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Watch
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Foot
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The Space Needle
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Yoda’s Hut
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The Electric Sea Serpent
The illustrations herewith show Mr. Walter Stenning’s idea of the sea serpent which sundry and divers travelers have reported having seen at different times since 1555. It was built in Paris and during the past summer has been one of the attractions of the Jardin d’Acclimation. Our French contemporary, La Nature, says concerning the sea serpent: “The visitors to the Jardin d’Acclimation arrest themselves stupefied when they perceive circulating softly in the alleys, through the foliage, this rolling monster.” And we do not blame them. The serpent is about 100 ft. long and 6 ½ ft. in diameter; it consists of an electric locomotive drawing a train of cars carrying the necessary storage batteries to furnish current. Each car is covered with a ring of the animal’s body.
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Lifeboat
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Backpack
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Human skin
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Autumn leaf
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The Hindenburg passenger quarters
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Mechanical calculator
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Root canal
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The Queen Mary
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Grenade
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The Murder Castle
H. H. Holmes was a charismatic young lady killer who constructed a hotel, timed perfectly for the Chicago Worlds Fair, which operated as a massive murder machine. He used it to systematically trap and kill young women, then clean and articulate their skeletons to be sold to universities. The hotel was riddled with trap doors and hidden rooms, where guests would be trapped and tortured before ultimately being thrown down the chute to the basement.
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Camper Built Inside a Car, 1952
Lucius Sheets of Huntington, Indiana, converted his Nash into a camper that allowed him to sleep, cook, and eat on the road, saving motel expenses. The right rear door, where the woman stands, was the meal center where basics could be stored. A piece of plywood attached to hooks near the food center and served as the table. Mr. and Mrs. Sheets preferred to stand while eating.
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Two women pregnant with cats
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Penis
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Cadillac One
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The White House
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Mattress
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A kiss
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Musee d’Orsay
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SpongeBob SquarePants
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2001 Space Station
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Thorax
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Fake waterfall
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Lizzie Borden Murder House
Shortly before noon on August 4, 1892, the body of Andrew Borden, a prosperous businessman, was found in the parlor of his Fall River, Massachusetts, home. As neighbors, police and doctors arrived at the scene, the body of Abby Borden, his wife, was discovered in an upstairs bedroom. A week later, Andrew’s younger daughter, Lizzie, was arrested for the double murder. In an era when women were considered the “weaker” sex and female murderers were nearly unheard of, the trial—and subsequent acquittal—of Lizzie Borden made her a media sensation. Officially, the case remains unsolved, but Lizzie Borden may very well have taken an ax and ended her parents’ lives on that sweltering summer day.
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Greenland’s Ice Sheet
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Bank and Monument Tube Stations
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Piccadilly Circus Tube Station
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Refrigerator train car
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Volkswagen Van
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Shoe
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Medieval castle
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Ampex DCT Digital Video Recorder
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The tomb of Seti I
Painstakingly chipped into high limestone cliffs above the Valley of the Kings, also home to the tomb of King Tut, Seti I’s tomb, the most ornate and largest in the valley. is among the hardest to reach—and it’s growing.
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The Matterhorn ride
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Typical Roman house
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Teen
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Piano Action Mechanism
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ROC Monitoring Post
Between 1955 and 1991, more than 1,500 of these underground facilities were located right across the UK, roughly 10 miles apart mainly in remote rural locations. They were of a standard design and constructed of 12 inch thick, steel-reinforced concrete 20 feet beneath the ground. In the event of a nuclear attack, these posts would have been manned by three members of the Royal Observer Corps (ROC). These bunkers had no mains water, electricity, gas, or heating. The only communication with the outside world was by way of a simple Tele-Talk system to headquarters and 3 to 4 other nearby ROC posts in the ‘cluster group’. The occupants may not have been able to leave the safety of the bunker for many weeks after fallout due to the harmful effects of radiation. Most ROC bunkers were reasonably waterproof but they would have been intensely cold and damp.
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Motorcycle engine
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Oasis of the Seas Cruise Ship
It is the largest digital illustration of a cruise ship produced to date. It took over 1000 hours of work.The line drawing was done in Adobe illustrator with 84 layers, The rendering was done in Adobe photoshop on 368 layers. The final files size is 5.57 gigabites, it is 200 inches in length at a resolution of 300dpi. No photography was used in the illustration of the ship.
Amphitheater
Boardwalk
Central Park
Chops Grill
Dining rooms
Floating bar
Children pool
Spa
Pool decks
Solarium
Flowider and sports deck
Royal promenade
Jade Sushi Restaurant
Theater
Windjammer Cafe
Schooner Bar
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Royal Opera House, Covent Gardens
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Automatic rifle
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Pistol
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Gatling Gun
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Boy’s small intestine
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Bomb shelter
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Wyld’s Monster Globe
Wyld’s Monster Globe was an attraction situated in London’s Leicester Square between 1851 and 1862, constructed by James Wyld (1812–1887), a distinguished mapmaker and former Member of Parliament for Bodmin. At the centre of a purpose-built hall was a giant globe, 60 feet 4 inches (18.39 m) in diameter. The globe was hollow and contained a staircase and elevated platforms which members of the public could climb in order to view the surface of the earth on its interior surface, which was modelled in plaster of Paris, complete with mountain ranges and rivers all to scale. Punch described the attraction as “a geographical globule which the mind can take in at one swallow.” In the surrounding galleries were displays of Wyld’s maps, globes and surveying equipment.
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The H.L. Hunley
The H. L. Hunley was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. The Hunley, nearly 40 feet (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on August 12, 1863, to Charleston, South Carolina. The Hunley (then called Fish Boat) sank on August 29, 1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on October 15, 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Both times the Hunley was raised and returned to service. On February 17, 1864, The Hunley attacked and sank the 1240-short ton (1124 metric tons) screw sloop USS Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston’s outer harbor. Soon afterwards, the Hunley sank, killing all eight of her third crew. This time, the ship was lost.
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Electric stingray
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Two Story Travel Trailer Car, 1952
This trailer, from Holan Engineering from Elmwood, IN, has two stories and an attic, a plastic-tiled kitchen and bathroom, and a living room with a picture window.
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Urogenital Diaphargm
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Radio City Music Hall
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Braces
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Villa Capra, Venice
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Female millipede genitals
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The Batcave
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p.s. Hey. ** James Bennett, Hi. No telling why my blog acts persnickety in the way it sometimes does, sorry. Oh, that’s funny, I have a Violette Leduc post coming up here tomorrow. Yeah, leading them through a house, that’s true. I try to think about it different ways. Video games were a big influence on me, how directive they are at the center/core, but how spacious and explorable they are in terms of tempo and actual physical build. And music too: how do songs and pieces music work, how do they grab you then keep you riveted for their length? I figure why not investigate far astray since novels are basically very set in what they are, and there’s no real reason to be all deferential to their demands since however you write a novel you’re still writing one. Or something. I feel similarly to you about that quote and about Blanchot. Very well put. I hope you had a productive weekend whatever it might have been that you wanted it to produce. ** Tosh Berman, Hi. I should try ‘Mishima’ again. I had problems with it, but it’s been so long that those problems could be virtues now. Thanks, T. ** _Black_Acrylic, Nice Bunuel story. Pretty interesting girl to have been lured into your clutches with ‘BdJ’ as the entrance soundtrack. Krispy Kreme’s simple glazed donuts are amazing, I think, but only if they’re freshly drawn from the oven. I hope your version had one. ** Matt N., Hi, Matt. Glad you like Bunuel too. Yeah, true, that maliciousness in the Mexican films, very true. My weekend: saw a couple of visiting friends who were here to run in the Paris marathon even though they’re interesting writers who I would never have imagined would do that. Had my biweekly Zoom club thing with American friends where we discuss a film (in this case, ‘Badlands’) and a piece of writing (in this case, excellent poems by Emily Hunt) and catch up. Saw two other visiting friends plus Zac on Sunday. Worked a bit. It was okay. Did you get answers re: either of those things? Well, are you saying that not being more than friends with that guy is a given? I’m guessing so. I don’t know, I historically have had a perhaps strange interest in being friends with people I find very attractive. I like the edgy energy of it, and I like studying the why’s and why nots, and it can take the imagination into interesting places. Trust your instincts, I guess? I haven’t heard the new Kim Gordon yet, but it’s on my to-do list. What do you think of it? ** PL, Hi P. Congrats on the requests/gigs. That’s exciting. I didn’t like ‘Dune 1’ so I’ve been saving ‘Dune 2′ for a long plane flight. I have a perverse interest in watching expensive blockbusters on planes’ shitty little screens and crappy headphones for some reason. I think I like those trash bad 00s films, yes. Maybe I’ll try that Lohan one. I haven’t been to the movies of late. I want to see ‘Godzilla + Kong’ in a theater and not on a plane for some reason. I’m in the mood for something huge and empty, I guess. Yeah, the Tudors thing, I can totally see that. Ooh. I should do some kind of post about that. Hm. Great to see you! ** Bill, Hey, B. My pleasure naturally. So sorry about the allergies onset. Ever since I exited the Santa Ana condition area, mine have been okay. Well, except for my eternally obnoxious clothing/dye allergy. ** Misanthrope, Hey. The raping your mother thing is very, very far away from my abilities to imagine. I’ve never been on meds, it’s weird. Almost everyone I know is or was. I’m not sure how to explain it. Of course I’d really like to meet Alex, so, yeah, bring him if that works out. Yes, let’s make weekstart go viral. But, shit, we should copyright it first. ** Steve, Is that true: the US/amphetamine vs. EU/cocaine thing? Huh. You guys are a little more crazy and freaked over there. Understandably, mind you. I do want to see ‘The First Omen’. I’m looking for it to rear its hopefully ugly head in our theaters. ** Gramski 🫶🏼, My weekend was okay. Relayed up above somewhere. Oh, nice, good about the positive ‘shrooms trip. Now you have another weapon in your arsenal. No, thank you, but I’m done with even mild psychedelics, I think. But you can do them, and I’ll vibe off your vibes. ** Harper, Hey. Right, sounds like you got everything you need. Interesting. I mean the encountering of people you used to know who don’t recognize you or realise you were that person. It must be an odd experience, but it’s fascinating to think about for some reason. That’s probably the fiction writer in me going off in my head. Yeah, I think Bunuel is really funny too. ‘The Exterminating Angel’, and my strange favorite of his, ‘Simon of the Desert’, which is so crazed and trippy and hilarious. Thank you for your amazing thoughts! ** Darby🤘, Hey, hey. I know, even as I typed the word pigsty, I thought, wait, they’re not filthy, etc. Weird that pigs have become a metaphor for things they don’t seem to be. I have heard of Japanese steakhouses, yes. But only in the West. I don’t remember them existing in Japan itself, but it wasn’t like I was looking for them. Did you get to binding the papers? That sounds very cool.Tea-stained paper: so just like wetting the paper with tea, or … ? ** Uday, Cool. I actually don’t eat very many vegetables. I eat a lot of tofu, seitan, and stuff like that. Unless mushrooms count? And peas? I eat peas a lot. And lots of carbs. I just read a lot too. But I do think that ups your brain. Or I guess that’s convenient to think. I actually need to wash my pillow. It smells like my hair. I hope yours was/is very fluffy. ** Justin, HI, J. My weekend was alright, did the trick. ‘Snack Shack’ is almost an irresistibly dumb title. Hm, to start with Bunuel … ‘The Exterminating Angel’ maybe, and/or ‘Belle du Jour’? My favorite is ‘Simon of the Desert’, which is quite short and very strange. What does your week look like? ** Right. Today you get to look inside 63 things. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Hi!!
I’m back from my week-long Mom vacation – and from Prater! I basically have no prior amusement park experience to compare Prater to, so I don’t know how it’d do in a more serious competition, but I really enjoyed it. It’s very, very retro – almost all the rides and the entire design of the park, too. Everything is decidedly more creepy than cute or “fun,” which I liked a lot. The rides were nothing special, nothing you wouldn’t expect, I guess, but they had their own flavor of charm. There were a surprising number of dinos hidden among all the spiders and skeletons and half-dead dogs, haha. The only more modern dark ride was a VR-based clown-themed one, but we didn’t try that one. It was always full of screaming elementary schoolers. Next time. I’ll wait for my mom to send me the photos she took, and then I’ll send you a small collection!
How was your week? How are you? Any film-related news?
Also, today’s post is just so, so good! I can get lost in stuff like this – so many tiny details – for hours.
I hope love’s alright – he spent quite a long time in the ocean! Love taking the form of a woman pregnant with a cat, Od.
Dennis, I’m glad I’m here…now I’ll remember “weekstart.”
I love cutaways. They’re like tunnels and dioramas and all that stuff I like. The president’s car one with Obama sitting in there smiling is pretty damn funny. “Hey, guys, nice to see you. Don’t shoot at my car.”
Hmm, Idk, no surprise to me you’ve never been on meds. And mine are for high blood pressure, Tourette’s, and OCD. Nothing for depression or anything like that. But man, that Prozac, even at 20mg Monday through Friday, really zapped me there for 2 years. Just made me empty. I can see a much younger person getting totally fucked by that stuff.
Oh, btw, David said you’re a maniac a couple weeks ago. When we went to see Dune 2, he woke up late. I was like, I’ll make you a cafe allonge. Dennis suggested it. He drinks one every day. He drinks it and 15 minutes later is like, wow, that really hit, and you say Dennis drinks one every day? I was like, yep, and he usually follows it with a double espresso. “What the fuck? He’s a maniac!” Hahaha.
If only glasses were available that provided special “cutaway vision”, that would be enough to make childhood fantasies come true. In the meantime, today’s post will do nicely.
Had my 1st ever Krispy Kreme donut today. Never had much of a sweet tooth so it may not be for me. Plus this branch don’t bake them there on the premises, leaving me bereft of that tasty freshness. Still, I gave it a go!
Hi, Dennis! Cool post today. It reminded me of a visit my class made to the school laboratory and there was a bunch of dead human parts that we could touch and analyse. The smell was terrible but the thing that stuck with me the most was the creepy guy who was giving us the presentation talking about how he was so mad that his wife killed herself just after he bought tickets to a trip to the USA. He had a lazy eye, a tooth gap, and a very calm voice, so he was quite a figure. Film people.
I didn’t loved ‘Dune Part 1’ either but the sequel is just great, you should totally go for it on your next plane. I watched a very terrible movie yesterday called ‘This is Me…Now’ with Jennifer Lopez. I think it was probably the worst film ever made, but it made me ask – what do you think about pop singers and pop music in general? Any favourites? Or any big dislikes? Maybe it’s a boring subject to you now thinking about it haha
About the Tudors post, I think it’s a great idea. I’d love to see the material you’d gather. Great to talk to you again!
I love cutaways. That kiss, nice. And the watch.
I think in SF it’s mostly the pollen and the damp that trigger my allergies. I’m usually in the clear in Berlin, for instance. That’s a great reason (among others) to spend more time there, haha. Actually felt well enough to check out a nice gig last night. Hope this continues.
Bill
Stephen Biesty’s “Incredible Cross Sections” was my favorite book as a small child. I’d stare at it for hours. The Queen Mary ship you featured here folds out to five feet wide. The Royal Opera House is also Biesty. Here’s a flip-through with endearing narration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31fo-o-5aU
I’ve been busy with my various pursuits, especially focused on rooftop lounge improvements. I’m heading your way later this month, in Paris April 25th-30th. First time visit, traveling alone, staying near the Place de la République, only agenda is to have fun. Then continuing to London for 3 days, also first-time visit.
Have you heard anything from Temenos? I’m in limbo, was told only that my request was received, am neither accepted nor waitlisted.
How’s your film post-production going? Two weeks ago “Color of Pomegranates” and “Skinemarink” happened to screen in Tel Aviv a few days apart so now I’m thinking about them together.
Stephen Biesty’s “Incredible Cross Sections” was my favorite book as a small child. I’d stare at it for hours. The Queen Mary ship you featured here folds out to five feet wide. The Royal Opera House is also Biesty. Here’s a flip-through with endearing narration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31fo-o-5aU
I’ve been busy with my various pursuits, especially focused on rooftop lounge improvements. I’m heading your way later this month, in Paris April 25th-30th. First time visit, traveling alone, staying near the Place de la République, only agenda is to have fun. Then continuing to London for 3 days, also first-time visit.
Have you heard anything from Temenos? I’m in limbo, was told only that my request was received, am neither accepted nor waitlisted.
How’s your film post-production going? Two weeks ago “Color of Pomegranates” and “Skinemarink” happened to screen in Tel Aviv a few days apart so now I’m thinking about them together.
Hi Dennis,
Yes, it’s actually a perfect scenario for a writer to be in a situation where you are talking to someone you used to know who doesn’t know who you are, sort of Shakespearean, or like the final scene from Proust where the narrator talks to people he used to know but they have aged or have attempted to wear the new kinds of clothes which they can’t pull off and end up looking their age so he can’t recognise them.
Also, looking at these cross-sections some of the covers of Perec’s ‘Life: A User’s Manuel’ came to mind.
Hi, Dennis! As I mentioned yesterday, I’m reading ‘Ugly Man’. So imagine my surprise when I got to ‘The Worst (1960-1971)’ and recognized a good deal of what you’d written here in the P.S. on various posts. I think I would’ve just assumed it was entirely fictional had I not read (portions of) those stories here. I assume some of it is ‘heightened’ a bit for fiction’s sake, right? If not, I feel like I owe you a massive hug. 🤗
Love the cut-away nerd porn! I was obsessed with the How Things Work books as a kid. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9818421 They inspired a love of taking things apart and, eventually, putting back together – hahaha! Life is good – we watched Zone of Interest this weekend. Horrific in its banality, the story was enhanced by the use of stylized asides that really worked for me to take this film beyond a simple historic drama. I’m working on my Jean Desbordes zine. I’ve translated one of his pieces from J’Adore into English. I’m not aware of any full translations of this book. The entire zine will be bilingual. I’m about half way through Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. It’s not only written using Spencerian stanzas (ABABBCBCC), but also in a Spencerian dialect that adds to an artificial arcane sensibility. It’s a bit of a slog punctuated with moments of magic. I’m committed to get through Harold and Don Juan. I also bought The Corsair – his pirate tale. April 19th is the 200th anniversary of his death – hoping to get this all read before then 😉
Also Rex… https://www.boyculture.com/boy_culture/2024/04/rex-legendary-influential-fetish-artist-has-died.html
Yoda’s hut! Are you into Star Wars by any chance? Not the new money grabbing but the classic movies. Mushrooms semi count as vegetables, even if they’re not plants. A guy I used to be very attracted to started talking to me again after a few years today so that’s nice I suppose. I feel like I haven’t changed much so it’s easy to pick it up again. Hope the sunlight warms you but doesn’t give you sunburn.
I’ve never known what to call these things, but I love them dearly! The kiss GIF is phenomenal, as are the elaborate inner workings of that mechanical monster. Read
the phenomenal James Schuyler poem “A Name Day,” today. It’s addressed to Anne Dunne, who I didn’t know about until encountering this poem. Glad I found her; her paintings are rad. How on earth do Schuyler’s poems feel so effortless? Need to read any of his fiction. Sooner rather than later, hopefully. Do you remember your first encounter with his work? Hoping the invocation of his name brings some bliss your way today 🙂
Oh Tea stained paper is a way to give boring white paper an aged texture and distressed brownish look. Hey maybe sometime this week I’ll send a pic when I’m farther down the line finished hopefully. Well no I dont know how to bind a book, duh, but I can learn and see. It sounds exciting.
hmm…oh! What kind of creamer do you use? Or how do you make ur coffee? There’s this thing called “cowboy coffee” I tried the other day and I might start doing it to feel like idk cool or something. I will give no explanation and either you know what it is, or you ponder just what the name “Cowboy coffee” implies….
Wait what kind of allergies do you have clothe/textile wise?? Curious in the hopes that the way I packaged the drawing I sent isn’t going to be I guess a death sentence for you??
I placed a fabric around it but it was 100% cotton I’m pretty sure but the sewing string idk that could be either poly or…it might be polyester 100%
Interesting writers doing physical exercise sure is a thing! Tbh, I kinda hate when artists take pride in their physical weakness, specially if they’re young people (even as a kid I used to hate sick children because they always seemed to fake it a bit for attention). Your weekend sounds… full, in a good way, and I’m very surprised with how little you procrastinate! I thought about this boy all weekend and did nothing at all with it. Just watched some movies (Splendor in the Grass, My Beautiful Laundrette). Didn’t get my answers! Life is shaking my faith. Given? I don’t know… I tend to trust people when they tell me what they like. I don’t want to overstate my charm, he’s now comfortable around me but thats it. Like all pretty men, he likes to talk very much about his life. If I manage to dress my seduction as fraternity, maybe I can create a situation, but… I wish there was an easier, less silly route. Strange interest? Do you like to keep it, even if its platonic? I agree with you, it sure can take the mind to interesting, new places, but those moments make me tired and scared of living only inside my head. The Kim album is great! The best record I’ve heard this year (I didn’t listen many tho! If you have any recommendations). Talking about blondes, me and my brother are going to see Madonna next month. She’s making a free concert in Rio, its going to be like 1-2 mi ppl… Did you ever talk with each other? I understand she was in an adjacent scene at some point in the early 80s.