Abram Sauer Online

Back in June 2008, Print Magazine put together an impressive collection of the “A Frame.”

Print Mag: “But on book covers and on film and theater posters, the leg has evolved very little. In fact, the “A-Frame,” a cut off-torso-spread-leg framing device, is the most frequently copied trope ever use… The earliest known uses were 19th-century engravings that showed spread-legged, Simon Legree–type slave masters lording over cowering victims. In Westerns, the quintessential showdown frames one duelist through the legs of the other, and mid-20th-century pulp magazine covers were known for their noir images of recoiling women seen through the legs of menacing men. Eventually, designers used the conceit to frame all manner of things…” 

I remembered this gallery when I came upon several spectacular examples of the A Frame, which, unsurprisingly given their extremely niche B-film nature, Print missed. By all means check out Print’s gallries. (To the left, the current cover of Psychology Today, which, unfortunately, does not feature an investigation into the latent meanings of the A Frame means)

After the jump, the two A Frame film posters, one very notable because it features some absurd product placement for Bud (and Nike) and because it’s (maybe) the most offensively suggestive A Frame I’ve ever seen..

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A recent Vanity Fair piece by Buzz Bissinger (?!) looks at how  John-Wayne’s legendary dom John Ford more or less made Utah’s Monument Valley an iconic backdrop: “The 1939 movie Stagecoach created three icons: John Wayne, John Ford, and the 30,000 acres of glory on the Utah-Arizona border known as Monument Valley. It was a pioneering rancher, Harry Goulding, who brought Hollywood to his home, and helped shape America’s vision of the West.”

The whole thing is online.

Near the end, Bissinger writes, “They had both lived long enough to see the valley become a cliché—once Madison Avenue had decided it was the right icon for American ruggedness. As Richard Klinck wrote in 1995, “It’s been a long time since Monument Valley was more than just a gimmick—a readily identifiable backdrop.”

And then, just a couple pages after the one pictured, proof that mishaps in contextual advertising are not solely the province of ad-served websites.

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I love collecting old postcards. This one is apparently from an age before a certain group controlled the media.

March Madness has come to an end, with North Carolina being crowned the 2009 NCAA champion.

But as high school seniors (and other potential students) weigh their options for cinfirming their autumn enrollment, how about  2009 NCAA tuition madness.

Using the figures provided by college service company Peterson’s, I took the original 2009 NCAA tournament bracket and ran each school against one another. (Note: When available, in-state tuition numbers were used.) Needless to say, Noth Carolina is not the champion:

Midwest

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