In 1969, pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome commissioned renowned modernist architect Paul Rudolph to design its new corporate headquarters and research facility in Durham, North Carolina. The result was a visionary modular complex whose geometries created a futuristic melding of spaces and forms…
In the 1970s, public belief in astrology and adherence to horoscopes rose to somewhere between a quarter and a third of Americans, but awareness of one’s own sun sign was quite high, at over 75%. Even those who did not believe Western astrology was in any way a predictive science enjoyed it as a pastime…
U.S. Space Camp was inspired by Saturn V designer Werner von Braun—a longtime advocate of a “public program for space science education”—and pioneered by Edward O. Buckbee, a NASA public relations specialist and director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the location of Space Camp since its inaugural session in 1982…
In August of 1987, thousands of New Age believers, curious skeptics, and others in search of a weekend road trip gathered at dozens of famous destinations across the globe to celebrate the combination of rare astrological alignment and the (purported) end of a Mayan calendrical cycle…
By Tom G. Wolf
Lurking within the mire of modern UFO lore are the Men in Black—black-suited, mysterious agents of uncertain origin who reportedly intimidate witnesses and abductees into silence. Their presence has been controversial within the UFO community, and there is no doubt that they have had a significant impact in wider pop culture…
Bob Peak, who I’ve talked about before, did not become readily associated with science fiction until his work on Norman Jewison’s Rollerball, for which he illustrated the theatrical poster and at least six additional lithographs, the latter distributed in press kits and displayed at theaters…
Though positing itself as an architectural practice, ONYX—like many of the progressive architectural concerns of the day—was as much a conceptual initiative as it was anything to do with concrete and construction…
During my late-’80s adolescence on Boston’s North Shore, no automobile better represented a kind of aspirational working-class freedom than the IROC—so much so that it became a broad stereotype and cliché, even among marginally self-aware Italian-Americans such as myself…
By The Mutants
I’ve always been sort of morbidly fascinated by the music that toiled in the shadows of the big 1980s pop behemoths, which is why I love it when we do these “Six Songs” features. And as far as pop behemoths go, 1984 was The Year: Thriller was beginning its gradual slide out of supremacy, making way for other titans…
By Ted Mills
It starts as it always does, with the sound of a cold, synthetic wind, whistling tones, and the nervous twitch of a Morse code signal. There’s a short intake of breath, a low om-like hum. A message needs to get through. And then our singer steps up to the mic…
We Are the Mutants 