RANDOM WEDNESDAY: Power Girl (2023 DC) #6F

Cover Art: Dan Panosian

Tim Conlon

Art Appreciation

Tim Conlon was born on October 7, 1974, in Alexandria, Virginia, and grew up in nearby Washington, D.C. Immersed in the vibrant urban culture of the 1980s and '90s, Conlon was drawn to graffiti at an early age. He began documenting and painting freight trains in the early 1990s, often "benching" -- waiting by tracks for trains to pass -- to study styles from across regions and build his visual vocabulary.

Conlon's career bridges street practice and fine art. By 2008, his work was included in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's Recognize! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture exhibit -- the first modern graffiti displayed in the Smithsonian. HE later curated the G-scale train section of LA MOCA's Art in the Streets in 2011. His pieces have appeared in major venues including the Corcoran Gallery, Sotheby's first Hip Hop Auction in 2020, and exhibitions across New York, London, Paris, and Shanghai. He also produced Rolling Like Thunder (2021), a documentary on freight train graffiti.

Conlon is best known for his Blank Canvas series: large-scale, hyper-realistic renditions of freight car surfaces. Using spray paint, paint markers, and acrylics, he recreated cladding, rust, stencils, logos, and graffiti tags with trompe-l'oeil precision. Often based on specific railcar reporting marks (e.g., "Blank Canvas #132 -- WPRR"), these works zoom in on texture and typography, isolating elements that usually traverse the country unseen. 

In parallel, he customizes G-scale model trains -- 3D sculptures that marry folk-style realism and pop-culture lore. Together, these works pay homage to the layered culture of freight-train graffiti and America's industrial landscape. 

Black Canvas #84 - UP, 2017

Blank Canvas #132 - WPRR, 2023

CNW #9, 2024

Sources:

Wikipedia

https://www.timconlon.com/

https://www.instagram.com/conoperative/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/conoperative/

https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/tim-conlon-the-freight-painter

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/hip-hop/tim-conlon-blank-canvas-85-cirr-2017

https://www.widewalls.ch/artists/tim-conlon

https://beyondthestreets.com/collections/products-by-tim-conlon

Body Art: Amit Bar - Red & Blue

Model: Helene

via AmitBarArt 

Dance: Kelis - Milkshake

Choreography: Robbie Blue for Gap's denim campaign

Directed: Bethany Vargas

Dancers: Madison Alvarado, Jaiden Anthony, Hezekiah Anthony, Kyndall Ash, Fatou Bah, Natalie Bebko, Dario Boatner, Dexter Carr, Nicole Cardona, Guero Charles, Athena Cruz, Lucas Debiasi, Charlize Glass, Kebahb Glanville, Selena Hamilton, Kaelynn Harris, Maija Knapp, Pearl Leary, Kaiven Lin, Nico Lonetree, Yuli Maldonado, Alex Mateo, Peyton Matthias, Misha Metelkov, Stephanie Mincone, Gavin Morales, Daniel Santiago, Madelyn Spang, Tacir Roberson, Byron Tittle

via Gap

Spinners: Laura van Dam - Capture Radio 050

via Laura van Dam 

The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag by Sasha Velour

About eighteen months ago, I heard Sasha Velour on a Vulture podcast interview, and I was so struck by her ideas that I immediately added The Big Reveal to my audiobook library (long before I even made time to listen). The delay turned out to be worthwhile: The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag is not simply a memoir — it’s a richly layered exploration of drag’s history, theory, and the personal journey of one of its most lucid voices.

Velour traces drag’s roots across time and cultures, from shamans’ rituals to ballroom houses, and frames drag as a poetic force of resistance and reinvention. She interleaves her own journey — a child who experimented with gender expression, the drag artist she became, and the challenges she has faced — with scholarly research, archival finds, and vibrant illustration. She dissects the definition of “drag,” considers its colonial and transgressive contours, and asks: What does it mean to perform gender? How has drag historically been censored, embraced, or co-opted?

She resolves that if she made a quilt of drag, it would include pieces from "a stretched hide from a shaman’s tent, silk from Gladys Bentley's tuxedo, sequins from Divine’s wiggle dress, hair from RuPaul’s wig. Each of us is just a small fragment of a larger picture, whether we admit it or not.”

And the core revelation: “Sasha Velour was made like a quilt … it took community to finish me up, weave me together, see me as whole, and push me out into the world.”

Velour’s view of drag is expansive: inclusive, messy, and always part of a larger conversation about queerness and art. Her prose is incisive without being academic, accessible without flattening complexity.

BookTrib calls it “a quilt, piecing together memoir, history, and theory into a living portrait of an artist and an art.” The L.A. Review of Books notes its timeliness in a moment of rising political attacks on drag culture. 

As a parent of a trans woman, the book enriched my understanding — not by preaching, but by opening new frames of reference through historical depth and personal honesty. After I listened, I bought a copy for my daughter immediately. 

My verdict: The Big Reveal is worth your time — part manifesto, part archive, part love letter — and, for anyone wondering how drag fits into queer history, it functions as a kind of essential textbook.

Sources:

https://www.vulture.com/2023/04/sasha-velour-on-drag-bans-rupauls-drag-race-predictions.html

https://booktrib.com/2023/04/06/the-big-reveal-sasha-velour/

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/among-the-rose-petals-queer-possibility-on-sasha-velours-the-big-reveal/

Harry Styles - Music For a Sushi Restaurant

Music Appreciation

“Music for a Sushi Restaurant” is a track by English singer-songwriter Harry Styles from his third studio album Harry’s House. Written by Harry Styles, Thomas Hull (aka Kid Harpoon), Tyler Johnson, and Mitch Rowland, the song was officially released to hot adult contemporary radio in the U.S. as the third single from Harry’s House on October 3, 2022. 

Harry Styles has said that the idea for the song came while he was in a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles. He and his collaborators thought about how “strange music for a sushi restaurant” felt, and it became a fun starting point for writing a song meant to capture that contrast in mood and setting. 

Musically, the song leans funk-pop with playful touches: flat brass, energetic rhythm, falsetto vocals, a bit of scatting, and free associative lyrics. The lyrics mix food imagery and cooking metaphors with relational desire and admiration.

The music video was directed by Aube Perrie and released on October 27, 2022. In the video, Styles is first found washed up on a beach as a half-human, half-squid creature. He is transported by fishermen to a restaurant called Gill’s Lounge, intended to be served as sushi. As the video proceeds, Styles unveils his voice, takes over the restaurant, turning it from a sushi restaurant into a lounge and performing in it. But during the performance he loses his voice; the video shifts as the owners drag him away and eventually transform him into sushi. 

Sources:

Wikipedia 

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/music/a40059341/harry-styles-music-for-a-sushi-restaurant-lyrics

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/harry-styles-harrys-house/

https://storyofsong.com/story/music-for-a-sushi-restaurant/

https://www.hercampus.com/culture/music-for-a-sushi-restaurant-meaning-harry-styles/

https://lbbonline.com/news/harry-styles-stars-as-a-sushi-restaurants-singing-squid-merman-in-latest-music-video