Old School

The co-founder of the Gap, Donald Fisher according to reports died yesterday after a long battle with cancer at his home in San Fransisco.

Mr. Fisher was the keynote speaker at a youth journalism event back in the roaring 1990's. The speech was covered by a young spunky scribe who would later become your humble FBLA editor. Mr. Fisher was funny, engaging, generous with his time and patient. This will be no shock to anyone who has followed the Gap's corporate image over the years, Mr. Fisher was an unapologetic liberal who believe deeply in art, education and philanthropy.

We have always admired Donald Fisher even though we've never liked the clothing at the Gap. Call it our own personal "gap."

Our condolences to his family and may he now rest in peace.

LIFE magazine recently stumbled across a stash of unpublished photos of Marilyn Monroe in their archives. It is unknown why LIFE never used the photos, but they can finally be seen on the magazine's website. They were taken 59 years ago this month in Griffith Park by LIFE photographer Ed Clark.

An asbestos lawyer sent us this ad. As far as we can figure ran in an European trade publication circa 1998.

"When life depends on it you use asbestos".

Uh...yeah. Wow.

UPDATE: Boing Boing says the ad is from 1981. Still. Ick.

A photograph of Marilyn Monroe never before seen in its entirety recently surfaced, and with it some old Hollywood gossip. The photograph is part of The Travilla Tour, a exhibit of costumer William Travilla's designs and memorabilia currently on display in Palm Springs. Seems the designer and Monroe once got in trouble with their employers for (gasp!) being photographed with a black man. Details from the Travilla Tour website:

The story of this photo, as Travilla and [longtime partner] Bill Sarris tell it, is that he and Marilyn spent the evening at an almost exclusively black club in Los Angeles - something that just wasn't done in 1952. The studio was outraged, especially after her nude photograph scandal in March of that year, and the fact that she had just been on the April cover of Life magazine and hailed as 'The Talk of Hollywood.' As a result of being 'caught on camera,' they fired Travilla from the film they were working on. But Marilyn - one of Travilla's closest friends - stood up and said 'If he goes, I go.' And of course, they let him stay, but they were successful in keeping this picture out of the press.

UK blog The News in Print features an amusing round up of advertisements from the days when office technology was big. As in ginormous. Below, a Xerox machine from 1977, which retailed at $500,000 and was over 16 feet long:

Found via Neatorama