Mag Magazine

Editorials

Long form posts containing more detail, discussion, and in depth analysis

  • Medusa

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    The inspiration from this piece comes from the life cycle of jellyfish. They go from egg, to larva, to polyp, ephyra, to the adult medusa phase. After learning this, I had one thing in my mind, to depict the Greek mythological snake woman as jellyfish instead.
    There are numerous version of the story of Medusa, the earliest depicting her simply as a hideous monster that is so ugly any who look at her is turned to stone. The demigod Perseus slays her with the help of the gods and uses her severed head as a weapon, turning enemies to stone. As time progressed, her story morphs into one significantly more human and sympathetic. She becomes a beautiful human priestess of Athena, sworn to purity and celibacy. She then sleeps with Poseidon in Athena’s temple, and is turned into a monster by the goddess in revenge for defiling her temple and breaking her vows. In more modern interpretations and understandings of consent, the narrative changes to Poseidon forcing himself on her, making her a modern feminist symbol.

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  • Incitatus

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    When most people hear the name they think of the ruler of Ancient Rome renowned for his cruelty and so insane he appointed his favorite horse to the senate. While this might not be inaccurate, more recently historians have been questioning some of the claims. The majority of these accounts were written well after his death and may have been an attempt to slander the previous ruler to give more credibility to those that came after him.
    Caligula was born in 12 CE to the great general Germanicus and August Ceasar’s granddaughter Agrippina the Elder of the first ruling family in Rome. His full name was Gaius Ceasar Augustus Germanicus, but gained the nickname Caligula, meaning “little boot” or “little sandal” from his father’s soldiers. After political intrigue and ambition lead to the death of nearly every family member, Caligula succeeded his uncle Tiberius and became emperor, though he only ruled for 4 years before being assassinated by his own guard in a conspiracy to restore the Roman Republic, though instead Caligula’s uncle Claudius became emperor.

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  • Cher Ami

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    Near the end of the first World War, in November of 1917 the U.S. Army Corps’ Pigeon Service was founded. Of the six hundred English bred birds donated to the service was one named Cher Ami, meaning “dear friend” in French.
    In October of 1918, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, he along with 59 other pigeons assigned to the the 77th Infantry Division, were the desperate last attempt to communicate that the battalion was under friendly fire. After the deaths of human messengers, and also multiple birds, Cher Ami was sent with the message:

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  • Pre-Code

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    In 1878 there was a debate on whether a horse galloped with all four hooves off the ground. The photographer Eadweard Muybridge produced The Horse In Motion, a series of photos taken in sequence of a horse galloping, proving that centuries of art depicting horses with outstretched legs, none touching the ground, were inaccurate. A horse does have a moment when no hooves are on the ground, but it’s when the hooves are underneath them, not outstretched.
    As a brand new technology and art form, early film was incredibly experimental and the competition to create the biggest, most box office worthy movie was fierce.

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  • Felicia

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    On May 18th of 1972, about 40 miles outside of Chicago, The Village Crier published an obituary for a ferret. Her name was Felicia, and the paper even included a photograph, her little head and paws emerging from a tube. She’s largely forgotten today, but in 1971 she was a solution to a problem in the construction of the particle accelerator they were developing at Fermilab. The researchers were encountering many issues, one of which was metal shavings and other potential obstructions in the vacuum tubes blocking the particles they were trying to accelerate. A British researcher by the name of Robert Sheldon proposed the idea of sending a ferret through the nearly 4 miles of pipe, as it was cheaper and more readily available than constructing a robot. Enter Felicia, a very small 13 inch ferret ordered specifically for the task. With the prospect of a comfy cage and hamburger meat, she would run 300 foot sections of the tubes, some being only 3×4 inches in size, barely larger than her head. A line was tied to a harness made for her, and after she ran the tube someone would tie a swab to the other end and pull it through. She quickly became a mascot and favorite of the researchers, and when “she became bored” of her task and her robot replacement was completed, she retired to a simple life of a pet.

    My goal with this piece was to give Felicia the celebrity status she deserves. Like how Alphonse Mucha made posters for Sarah Bernhardt in the late 1800s, I made a poster for her in a similar style. The orange circle is the track Felicia ran, the flowers are violets which are the state flower of Illinois, and the color palette was inspired by a recent photograph of a modern particle accelerator.

    Prints available

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