Just a quick heads up. The gallery I Shot Him shares space with is having an opening reception on Thursday September 4th, 6-9 PM. This installment is called Art of Democracy: War and Empire and will highlight new political art from artist across the country. I’ve seen a few of the pieces waiting to be hung and it looks to be a great installation.

Learn more at Merridian Gallery and come out for the opening on the 4th of September.

This past week I printed and pieced together some actual (not comped) packaging for the Anarkon Basic Gas Mask. I bought the mask from Amazon.com of all places. It’s an Israili Civilian mask and was a mere $30 after shipping. The photos aren’t the greatest but I was pretty happy with how the packaging itself turned out. I made a little warranty card and a product description piece that goes inside.

This past weekend I was down in San Diego and ended up randomly going to swap meet. I found some great stuff including some manuals from the 70’s and early 40’s. One is a small manual entitled, “The United States Marine… Essential Subjects,” and covers everything from uniform specification and measurements, to types of shelters good for weathering out a nuclear attack. The other one (pictured here) is a little booklet called, “Miscellaneous Chemical Munitions,” and gives  a detailed run-down on all the chemical munitions available to soldiers, covering what they are made of, how to use them and when to use them. Both are packed with some great instructional illustrations.

This week over a short flight to San Diego I started reading Kalle Lasn’s Culture Jam. Though its not particularly research heavy, most of his rants about the state of American consumer culture and its effects on all of us carry a lot of truth. One such bit in a chapter about the emergence of modern advertising and how we’ve come to experience the world not as it is, but as it is seen through commercial messaging goes as follow: “(Modern Advertising) marks the end of the authentic experience, and therefore the end of the authentic self.”

This made me think of another bit of related genius I read recently in a magazine: “When you cut off arterial blood to an organ, the organ dies. When you cut the flow of nature into people’s lives, their spirit dies. It’s as simple as that.”

Both of these made me think about how living in a large urban area, exposed to almost constant commercial messaging can sometimes feel like slow death. I think I’ll join a small farming community when I finish grad school. : )

Wanted to re-post some good reading that I’ve recently been tipped off to. An instructor of mine recently reminded me of Naomi Klien’s new book The Shock Doctrine, in which the author “explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically.” If you are not familiar with the author, I highly recommend her first book No Logo.

Another book I just ordered by Rob Walker is entitled, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. Once again I’ve heard some great things about this one. A quick excerpt to get your attention, “Brands are dead. Advertising no longer works. Weaned on TiVo, the Internet, and other emerging technologies, the short-attention-span generation has become immune to marketing. Consumers are “in control.” Or so we’re told.”

Not completely unrelated to this project, the firm I work at just had it’s grand opening and launched its first project. To learn more about the firm and it’s mission to “Change Hearts, Minds and Habits,” visit www.ishothim.com. Our first project is working to promote line drying as a symbol of patriotism, intelligence and environmental activism, rescuing it from the symbol of poverty and dispear it seems to represent in America today. Learn more at www.right2dry.org.