HomeHuman target decor: Bad mojo, very cool or just plain ugly?
16. Nov, 2009 
10 Comments
For much of the sixties, seventies and eighties, Batman’s costume had a big yellow logo around the bat. Stylish? Debatable, but I think most of us would say no. Plus, the bright yellow circle made a pretty good target. As comics took a so-called grim and gritty turn in the 80′s, the emblem also seemed increasingly silly.
How silly? Watch this . . .
Surprisingly when writer / artist Frank Miller finally addressed the yellow oval emblem issue in the now classic 1986 graphic novel the Dark Knight Returns, Batman’s apparent incompetence made perfect sense. You just have to think like him (it’s easy if you try). If you know people are gunning for you and you don’t want them shooting at your head, encourage them to point someplace else (like your heavily armored chest). It made perfect comic book sense.
But trying to trick would-be shooters is not why I hung targets above my headboard. The people gunning for me are far too clever to be fooled by such an amateurish diversion. I just liked the targets (which I find disturbingly difficult to type without capitalizing ala Target). I’d been looking for something to hang above the bed ever since a reader named Tasha publicly skewered me for lecturing people on the importance of being original on one hand and then on the other hand, hypocritically hanging a large print of the Brooklyn Bridge I bought at Crate and Barrel* above my bed. While I normally don’t negotiate with readers (it emboldens them), Tasha had a point.
So when my friend Albert and I visited an ammunition shop in Melrose Park last summer after spending a torrential-y rainy day at Kiddie Land, the site of which will regrettably soon be a Costco, I was instantly attracted to a packet of targets that cost like two bucks. But I didn’t really know what to do with them, so they sat in my closet until a few weeks ago when in a stroke of inspiration, I bought some framing supplies at Blick, ordered a piece of glass cut at Devon-Clark Hardware, which I broke while trying to hang, bought another piece of glass at the same Devon-Clark Hardware store and the rest is history. So my question is, creepy or no?
My friend Marla says they were created for a bad purpose, so it’s bad mojo. But she lives in San Francisco. I like the repetition of the targets, and there’s just something graphic and cool about them. Even if objects do retain energy from their past (weapons, Nazi propaganda, any products ever mass produced), these targets were used for something else, something kind of creative, certainly. . . ugh . . . craft-y.** So I don’t sense any bad energy here, but I don’t entirely discount Marla’s energy theory for other types of objects. What do you think?
Tune in tomorrow. Same bat time! Same bat channel!
* Before I found Vintage Religion, which is a pretty great name for a blog or shop, don’t you think?
** But your crafts are really spectacular.
Hey the targets remind me of men standing in front of windows a la Roger Brown paintings….seems cool to me……
I love them!
I like them very much.
mmmm. Being from Austin Texas, “a tiny blue dot in a sea of red” I agree with the bad mojo. Maybe bad feng shui? Do you worry about your safety while sleeping? How do you feel about people who keep loaded weapons under the bed?
But then they also remind me of “Obscene Interiors” which is hilarious and very tongue in cheek. So I guess it depends on your sense of humor.
They might be more Decorator less Full Metal Jacket if they were in various colors.
“Opinions are like elbows, everyone has one and none are as interesting as your own”
I love them!!!! Bad mojo is created. You didn’t hang a used body bag, you hung an item that was created by a graphic designer. People that go to target practice don’t generally use their guns at all.
What I love about using this target for a decorative purpose is that its BOLD, masculine, and unafraid of swaying from a trend- it’s not vintage, not antiquarian chic, not industrial fad, not anything that might appear on a national magazine (not yet) so I say it’s cool mojo.
People use knives to kill but you still have them in your kitchen.
Its a piece of paper with cool graphics nothing more. NOW, if you don’t like them give them to me because I certainly need more cool stuff in my house. Will you throw one of your vintage phones…..there’s a chair I really like…..oh and…..
I think they look very cool!
But maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.
When my boyfriend and I bought our place, my mome came to visit and help us get settled in. I decided to hang these two Hold Steady posters above our bed that read “Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” She was really put off my the sadness of the message. It had never crossed my mind.
at first i had reservations about them being in your bedroom and especially over your head while sleeping (feng shui) but Albert’s right. they are great examples of graphic art… very masculine and perfect with the bold plaid and the helmet. i think you may have started a TREND!
What sort of bullets will you fire at them as you recline in bed?
I don’t think I started a trend Diana (and yes, I am from Morris), but I hopped on Albert Tanquero’s idea that targets are cool pretty quickly. By the time they hit West Elm, mine will be long gone (for a change).
Hi, Tate. Those targets are a naturally symmetric graphic element in a room that thrives on both graphics and symmetry. With my ex-military background, they appeal to me on many levels. The more I look at them the more I pick up on tiny idiosyncrasies that make them different from each other….
Loved Albert’s comment, and would love to meet him to discuss decor, definitions of masculinity today, and many other things. Would his wife object?