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Frankfurt, Germany

One of my colleagues at Circle mentioned this morning that her daughter was off to school for her first day of Grade One. I then brought up the tradition I knew from growing up in Germany—upon entering first grade, parents and/or grandparents present the child with a “Schultüte“ or Zuckertüte (literally School Cone or Sugar Bag); a decorated cardboard cone filled with chocolate, candy, toys, school supplies, and other goodies. The idea is to make the anxiously awaited first day of school a little bit sweeter…

I came across this old photo of my Mom and me (at the age of 5) on my first day of school… with my Schultüte.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnian graphic designer Zoran Lucić has put together a lovely series of vintage-style poster-portraits featuring football icons from the 1950s and on… more here.

New York, New York

Puerto-Rican-born Antonio Lopez (1943-1987) was a major figure in fashion illustration from the 1960s through the mid-1980s; his work appeared in  publications such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Interview and The New York Times. Lopez is attributed with discovering and launching the careers of Jerry Hall, Grace Jones, and Tina Chow.

Shown above are Lopez illustrations from a 1967 editorial in Elle Magazine.

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Tel Aviv, Israel

Masters on 45s is a new series from Israeli photographer Tamir Sher who took his turntable, attached images of Old Master artworks, and shot photos of the classic paintings and sculptures while rotating them at various speeds. It’s a contemporary twist on timeless masterworks that reinterprets their meaning and creates a surreal visual style…

(source)

Toronto, Canada

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message. Enjoy, here…

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A sampling of unlikely vehicles envisioned many decades ago…

—Ambrose Bierce

Winnipeg, Canada

My 92-year-old Dad called a few hours ago to inform me that his 98-year-old brother Pete had passed on into the next dimension earlier this afternoon. Peter Jacob Peters (Uncle Pete to me and many others) will be remembered by his family as a joyous, poetic, green-thumbed patriarch; and to others as a truly remarkable and many-faceted “character” in the true sense of the word.

Peter J. Peters immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine with his family at age eleven (when my father was six). He took his schooling at Gretna in Southern Manitoba, and later enrolled in teacher training. At the outbreak of World War II, Pete enlisted in the RCAF—upon his eventual return from overseas service he attained his BSc. in Agriculture. Following graduation, he worked with the Extension Service of Manitoba Agriculture as a potato specialist (where he became known as “Potato Pete” to those in the field)—among other significant achievements he is credited with paving the way for the commercial potato industry in Manitoba. He also applied himself to the Strawberry Experimental Demonstration program at Hadashville in Eastern Manitoba, and as a direct result of his efforts, the Strawberry Growers Association of Manitoba came into being. Pete served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Manitoba Horticultural Association, was President of the Western Canadian Society for Horticulture, revitalized the periodical The Prairie Gardener, and wrote and published A Century of Horticulture in Manitoba. Aside from his horticultural pursuits, Pete was also a prolific poet (with too many published books to list here) and was active throughout his adult life in church and community activities, renowned for his entertaining hundreds with his photography-poetry-musical presentations.

Photo: Peter J. Peters in 1945 (while requisitioned to serve as a tri-lingual interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials after the war [on account of his fluency in Russian, German, and English]—a time he prefered not to speak about). Thanks to my brother Jim for the scan from an old photographic print.