The Artist who Made Many Instruments

The Artist who Made Many Instruments // An interview with Ken Butler
By Ben Zoltowski, Photography by Drew Anthony Smith

Talking with Ken Butler is a completely exhausting experience. Hell, walking through his gigantic Brooklyn loft is tough enough to wrap your mind around. Towering walls adorned with lawnmower parts, toy guns, spinal cords, damaged laptop frames and mannequin busts. A grand piano sitting innocuously in the middle of the room, only to reveal with a closer look, the entire thing’s been gutted; the keyboard replaced with just an octave’s worth, the body chock-full of fully-functioning alarm clocks. A single key is pressed and the entire thing explodes like a pinball machine, alarms firing, light emanating all over the room. All that ephemera on the wall, those are instruments; exquisitely sculpted out of items we understand as utilitarian – and they’re 100% playable. Stepping back from them gives an overwhelming sense that the earthly and the divine can actually be made inextricable with a mad genius like Butler behind the wheel.

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Creative Class // An interview with Author Doug Cameron, Chief Strategist, Creative Director & Founding Partner of Amalgamated

Creative Class // An interview with Author Doug Cameron, Chief Strategist, Creative Director & Founding Partner of Amalgamated

By Rachel Horlick, Photography by Angie Cope

No one cares about life in the ER anymore. Lobotomies, transplants and malpractice; total snoozefests. Agencies are the new front lines. Creatives are shifting the paradigm completely. Even my spellcheck is catching on. Phrases like “Oh, are you a Creative?” or “My wife is always telling me about the Creatives
in her office but I’ve never actually met one” are becoming more and more popular. Creatives are doing far more than just changing our canon; they’re revolutionizing our consumer culture, stimulating our economy, widening our tolerance, enhancing our visual landscape, infiltrating our subconscious and giving “The Man” a real run for his money. In today’s society, the Creative Class is a force you’d be foolish not to reckon with.

Doug Cameron is a Chief Strategist, Creative Director, Executive & Founding Partner of Amalgamated, an exceptional multi-disciplinary advertising agency responsible for rebranding branding as we know it. He is both a soon-to-be-published author as well as an award-winning Creative. He and his co-author Doug Holt, a marketing professor at Oxford University, have just finished a book called Cultural Strategy (forthcoming from the Oxford University Press). Cameron is also a founding member of The Boerum Hill Chapter of the Robert Burns Society and an absolute badass on the bagpipes.

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Solid Gold // A Short Story

Solid Gold // A Short Story
By Lloyd Stein, Illustration by Adam Collison

In 1986, I was graduating from Tulane’s A.B. Freeman School of Business and my trajectory was about as unspectacular as you can imagine. In an effort to put off the boring job I’d lined up, I stayed in New Orleans one last summer parking cars at the 4141, an uptown dance club.

I was standing next to the front door of the club at around 2am when Bea Arthur and another Golden Girl stumbled into the humid night looking for trouble. Golden Girls was a huge hit in 1986, and these ladies were definitely enjoying the spoils of their recently acquired fame. Incidentally, the other Golden Girl asked that I withhold her name if I ever retold this story, so from here on out I’ll refer to her as “Rue.

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The Sweet Cheat // Re-experiencing Memories in a Post-Apocalyptic New York

Jeff Stark

The Sweet Cheat // Re-experiencing Memories in a Post-Apocalyptic New York
By Sophie Harris, Photography by Tod Seelie

A community of artists led by Jeff Stark—founder of the Nonsense List— presents a play in an abandoned warehouse. Sophie Harris braves the broken glass to find out why.

“We apologize for the elevator situation,” says a man wearing a train conductor’s cap and smart shirt. He is standing next to a gaping elevator shaft, which drops down three floors and is surrounded by tangled rusty steel. Next to it, there’s a staircase—except that most of the stairs have flaked away leaving just bars. The landing has fallen out completely, and another man, dressed in a suit and fedora hat, is straddling the empty space, guiding intrepid/ scared-looking folks across [“Square yourself. Hold on to the grating with your right hand, and reach forward with your left”]. “I’m in love with you!” one relieved young lady tells him, once she gets safely to the next floor.

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Conjoined Twins // Connect With the One You Love

Conjoined Twins // Connect With the One You Love
Photography by Steven Brahms

There is a new look this Summer. The weather has heated up and that means the streets are filled with duos, two sets of glassy eyes staring out at you from under their conjoined hoods. When did all of these perfect mates find one another? Where were you? You were in bed for the winter, hibernating in a den of self-pity & fro-yo. Now, the weather is warm and you emerge lonely; you’re one set of eyes with no better half. Your hood is attached only to the back of your sweatshirt. You’re looking for a way to fit in, a way to say, “I am half of a whole, too!”

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Illustration : Metamorphisis By Meta Gary

Illustration : For You, With My Bear Hands By Jess Gomez