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Help Me Out, Alex Ross (Or Anybody Else)
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Alex Ross, books, design
My mom is from Austria. I lived in Vienna for three years after college. I’m more than tolerably familiar with the Wiener Werkstätte, used to go to the MAK all the time, been to Otto Wagner’s famous Kirche am Steinhof several times (I call it the “Narrenkirche”—Narr means “fool,” the church is located in a mental health facility).
All of which helps explain why the cover of Alex Ross’s new book The Rest is Noise was so deeply familiar to me. I grew up with images just like this around the house. I “knew” exactly what work that referenced. I also “knew” that I’d be able to Google the referent in a couple of minutes, at most.
Well, I was wrong about that. I never was able to track down the original, and it wasn’t for lack of effort.
So I am reduced to this: Alex (or anybody else): where have I seen the cover of your book before? First person to supply the answer will receive a handsome selection of stickers featuring utterly obscure Austrian soccer players (I am so not kidding about this). —Martin Schneider
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Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
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Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
Oh! Martin! Good question!
But I think you may have gotten yourself into one of those situations where there is no single referent, no original, but instead an endless series of lovely repetitions …
I might be wrong. I sort of hope I am. Good luck to you.
I must concede that it is a distinct possibility. You may be right that there is no single referent … and yet Ross and the designer of the cover did set out to mimic something.
At this point I would accept anything close — one thing I should do is go through my art books, it might be in there somewhere … .
Close.
But no cigar?