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TitleIt's being unusually dark the other morning, ...
Author
PublisherFree City Collective
PlaceSan Francisco
Year
Date 110/1/1967
Date 2n.d., ca.
Publication
Volume
Issue
Page(s)
MediumBroadsheet
Dimension
Extent
Imprint
Collation
CatalogFC-1-003a
CollectionSOLA-o; SS-o (MH)
Cit. No.
Keywords
Trans. Title
Section
Group
Sub-Group
Series
Folder
FC-1-003a
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Notes
Abstract
This sheet takes the form of a comic monologue but underneath it is a pointed critique of managed desire, technological delay, and the absurd promises of modern progress. Framed as a visit to a “framestore” in search of the long-awaited “1967 model,” the text parodies the logic of endless postponement, in which people are told to be patient, grateful, and content with obsolescence while the future is always deferred. The salesman’s oily reassurances—full of “you know” and pseudo-reasonable explanations—mock the language of authority and expose a world in which scarcity and delay are normalized. Visually, the sheet is anchored by a large stylized face with a vaguely solar or hypnotic force, interrupted by a clipped biographical fragment that gives the whole page the feel of collage-poetry assembled from the debris of print culture. The final turn, in which the speaker is busted after smashing an old model, turns the joke into a small parable of frustration and revolt in a world where even the sun has been bureaucratized.
Full Text
It's being unusually dark the other morning, I went downtown to the framestore where the salesman, who was very polite, showed me a fine old 1914 model, a racy '23, and a simple but practical '38. I thanked him but told him I wasn't a collector and what I really needed was the 1967 model.

Also the Sun

He said that he understood but that the '67 wasn't expected until sometime early in the next century. When I asked why he said that I would have to be patient since these things take time, you know, and money. I told him that all of that was well and good but that it was 1967 and it was only logical that...and he said that we should be grateful, you know, because the world's leading scientists and technicians were hard at work on the 1946 model.

      '04 BArch -- Robert C. Dunbar lives with his daughter Mary (Mrs. H. S. Strandness), Jamestown College Box 82, Jamestown, N.D. He is still an ardent Cornellian--singing the Alma Mater and other Cornell favorites daily. He says his brain is going haywire and his eyes are only ornaments, but as long as the sun rises and the rivers flow, he will not forget Cornell.

Which, he felt, would rival even the classic 1866. When I said that all I wanted to do was keep count he told me I was lucky to have the choices that I did and that in China and Africa, you know......and, after all, while he and I might be ready for a '48 model or even a '49, the average sun-worshipper could hardly be expected, you know......too hot, you know, to handle, you know and then

That's when he called the police and had me busted for disturbing the peace; claimed I'd smashed up an elegant old '28 he'd been saving for his wife.

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