The mix downloads as a .zip file and then you’ll have a bunch of songs in a folder - it doesn’t really matter the order they play in but I’ve numbered them in a sequence that’s nice. Here’s the link. My liner notes:

The iconic facade and sets of Disneyland’s It’s a Small World attraction were designed in the late 1960’s and bear the unmistakable markings of that time (and the couple proceeding decades). But I wanted specifics. What had Mary Blair, the attraction’s main designer, been exposed to that may have inspired the famous styling of that ride? Here’s a sampling of what I found:

Top image below: Mary Blair, Small World concept art, 1965. And below, two pieces by Auguste Herbin, 1951 and 1950, that are undeniably similar to Blair’s work.Below is a collage by Ray Eames in 1949. Besides a similar styling to Blair, the collage technique and use of transparent layers was something Blair would later use in many of her Small World collages.Below is another Blair illustration, and below that, a Paul Klee painting, Burg und Sonne, 1928I saw many similarities between Klee and Blair, like the three images below. The first image, Klee’s Landscape with Yellow Birds, 1932, uses leaf shapes seen in the Blair piece below it. The third piece is also a Klee and has some subtle similarities to the work above it.The Small World attraction debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair with a an enormous kinetic sculpture at the entrance called the Tower of the Four Winds (second image below). Designed by Rolly Crump but I see inspiration in an unproduced Do Nothing solar-powered kinetic toy designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1957 (first image below).And lastly it seems It’s a Small World continues to inspire others, like perhaps Rex Ray (second image below) whose work possesses the same sense of retro-whimsy seen in Blair’s art for the finale scene in the attraction (below).SEE ALSO MY: Patty Wickman Paints Women Wrestling and I’m All Hey that’s from Epcot

The Film:

In 1923 Cecil B. DeMille filmed the Ten Commandments, a film he’d make again in 1954 with full color and sound. At the time, its sets were the largest ever made; the walls of The City of the Pharaoh were 720 feet long, 120 feet high and required 1,500 laborers to create. When filming was complete Cecil ordered the sets toppled and buried to prevent rival film crews from using them. The film itself was hugely successful and more than recovered the cost of production making over $4 million.

The Designer:

In 1906, designer and illustrator Paul Iribe launched the satirical journal Le Témoin (The Witness), a weekly anti-fascist publication produced with artists Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, and others. Two years later, Iribe became famous among the design community after illustrating a brochure of Paul Poiret’s new fashion collection with clean, elegant lines and flat color. Shortly after, Iribe opened his own studio and began designing fashion, fabrics, and home furnishings, Mesopotamian inspired works art historians would later cite as the beginning of the art deco movement. Iribe then moved to New York after WWI and began working for Vogue. By the 1920’s, he’d traveled west to take part in that new moving picture business where one of his first jobs was designing the giant sets for DeMille’s 1923, Ten Commandments. After designing and directing several films in Hollywood, he moved back to Paris and designed a jewelry collection for Coco Chanel, a woman he would be romantically linked to although never marry. He died in 1935 at 52.

The Ruins:

In 1998 I heard about “The Lost City of DeMille,�? as it has come to be known, and insisted I see it for myself. This was in the early days of the internet and all I had to go on was “it was filmed 100 miles north of LA in dunes near the ocean.�? I got out my maps and the only dunes I could find were near a small town called Guadalupe. So I told my college roommate we were going on an adventure to see some real fake Egyptian ruins. He was game and we headed off up the coast. Nearly 200 miles later (not 100) we were there. (Well, I’m leaving out us getting lost and the car sinking in the sand.)

The exact location was easy to spot. It was the one dune covered in plaster debris. The sand was so soft we could reach our arm in and feel the whole set right under us. But we didn’t even need to dig; whole areas were exposed, including a hand (of Ramses?) lying on the sand. Because the film was shot in a duo-tone process, giving some range of color but not the full spectrum, the sets were painted in color, color that was still intact on unexposed pieces.

I’ve since read that excavations were underway, and a team was brought in with ground-penetrating radar that revealed as much as two-thirds of the set were still burried. So a month ago (September 2006) I went back to see the progress. Sadly, there is no progress; the dunes look the same. Only now you can’t even see what was there because the Ten Commandments ruins share the dunes with the Snowy Plover, an endangered bird. The entire area is roped off now with signs every 20 feet all the way to the ocean.

This is all well and good, save the birds, protect the set, but nothing seems to be happening in terms of raising money for an excavation. I’m not surprised Hollywood doesn’t care, they’ve never seemed too interested in their own history, but you’d think the art and design world could pool resources to uncover Iribe’s sets. Considering his chairs from the same period sell for $15,000, and an Iribe cabinet auctioned at Christie’s earlier this year was valued at $750,000(!), you’d think his set would be worth something to someone. Until then, if you want to see the sets you’ll have to settle for the artifacts on display at the charming craftsman style bungalow that houses the Dunes Center in Guadalupe.

For more info:

The Lost City of DeMille

The Dunes Center

Hello Kitty wine exists. I bought it in Japan. The white is “Bouquet d’Amour” and the red is “Mariage.” I’m guessing they’re fruity and very sweet.

This week, the world’s largest sporting goods store opened in Fargo, North Dakota, the same week I happened to be visiting. Now, understand, sports are huge up here, huge as spectator sports, that is. Actual athleticism isn’t as popular. It’s “sports as leisure,” if you will. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for Fargo’s mega-sporting goods store to feature a Ferris wheel, candy shop, and shooting arcade. A rock-climbing wall would require effort, possibly sweat, and that’s no fun.

A “living statue” has nothing to do with sports but no one seems to care.

You can practice with toy guns in the shooting gallery.

Or aim for your husband with the real thing.

Buckets of candy replenish valuable carbohydrates.

And for no logical reason, Lincoln, and seven other presidents, line the second floor balcony. That’s my Fargo!

Last week friends threw a 70’s-teen-cartoon-mystery themed party. Seems there’d been reports of a sea monster scaring away visitors to the Balboa Fun Zone. We interviewed the salty sea captain and a grumpy caretaker, but it turned out Greg Brady was behind the whole thing. Zoinks!

…and that’s me with hair.

I realize New Orleans has seen better days, but if you’re running for Mayor of that city you should probably pose in the real thing, and not, as Kimberly Williamson Butler has done here, pose in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square.

UPDATE: Her slogan is “The end of politics as usual.” I couldn’t agree more. Oh we’re having fun with this. Her mayoral campaign has expanded to other lands and even New York
And now Keith Olbermann, Arianna Huffington, and some British paper are all running with it. I’ll pat myself on the back for breaking the story of Crazy Lady Running for New Orleans Mayor.UPDATE: Readers noticed the Disneyland trashcan in the photo has now been Photoshopped out but the photo still remains on her site. And previous evidence of the digitally blurred Blue Bayou restaurant sign seems to indicate the campaign knew from the get-go this was not an actual New Orleans setting. Some one please get her on a morning talk show ­ put her in front of a green screen and change her backgrounds throughout the interview.
UPDATE: It’s all done now - she finally changed the photo to something not fake, so sad.

With stickers, my Aunt improves what Monet started.

I’m not into enemas but there was a guy living around the corner from Bob Hope who was. Seems this guy died recently. At the estate sale I was climbing through the garbage pile in the backyard, and found boxes and boxes of enema and rubber fetish gear, including an audio tape letter containing some of the freakiest shit you’ll ever hear. (I’ve transferrall 90 minutes to CD, email me if you want a copy.)

The two pics below were the tamest of the 400 or so I found. The first one is a man wearing an adult diaper, probably holding in an enema (I like the painting though), and the other is possibly the same man after having an enema blowout in his jeans. More of the photos will be in the first issue of Dirty Found magazine, out this fall.

Had a great party for the launch of my book, "Obscene Interiors," book and print collection. Restauranteur, Fred Eric, tickled our tummies and eyes with bizzaro cheese towers among other eats.