On a recent visit to Hearst Castle I discovered  that the man who built a newspaper empire had a predilection for ancient typography — and expressed it in an unusual manner. He (or his architect Julia Morgan) had vellum sheets from Gregorian chants made into lampshades. These lamps adorned not only his private office, but his bedroom as well — basically his entire inner sanctum.

As an admirer of both history and typography, I couldn’t resist taking a few photos. I’m sure the pages were extraordinary in their original form. The subject of why they were turned into lampshades in the first place is a discussion for another time.

Midtown Manhattan, 1:00am

Found: Manhattan, Upper West Side, October 2010

I dug up this old advertising pamphlet in my mother’s basement and beyond the New York City connection, I was inspired by the retro artwork of 1960’s advertising (not to mention the cocktail culture which it was a part of).

A few other interesting notes:

• The Unisphere (which just underwent a $2 million dollar renovation) appears to be a registered trademark of United States Steel and copyright of the New York World’s Fair 1964-1965 Corporation. I never would have guessed that.
• The entire brochure is produced by Southern Comfort and is essentially a product tie-in for the World’s Fair event. For every category of cocktail in the brochure, they provide a Southern Comfort enhanced version. I guess some things never change.
• Strangely enough, I do take pride in how the pamphlet boasts of the skills of New York bartenders (or mixologists to use the modern vernacular). This has nothing to do with my sampling of the wares of said mixologists and more to do with my belief that NYC is the center of the universe.

Stay tuned for more 1960’s advertising dug up from my mother’s basement.

Want to know what it’s like to live in NYC? This short film pretty much captures the feel.

THE BEAT OF NEW YORK from tim hahne on Vimeo.