.: Nerd Alert!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Nerd Alert!

About 3 times a year I do a major clean up of what I like to call the museum! My nerd collection which as we learned on "The 40 year old virgin"(which I am definitely not;-) is worth thousands of dollars... Let me give you a seriously nerdish look at one of my passions!: 1- German Enterprise D poster knock off!(your not famous until you have been illegally copied!) 2- The latest Enterprise D Model w/working everything! 3- Voyager model (Japanese high end kit) 4- The press proof of my first Enterprise poster! 5- Robbie The Robot from Forbidden Planet 6- An Eagle from Space 1999 7- A bloodied Cylon Centurion from Battlestar Galactica 8- Robo Cop Detroit's true super hero "Dead or alive your coming with me!" The mis-marked 7-8 The Jupiter 2 and Space pod and the B9 Robot! "Danger Will Robinson!" 9- The armed loader from the Matrix 10- The original Apollo figure from BSG! 11- My Voyager buck used to create my poster of the ship 12- Enterprise NX01 13- Johnathan Archer Captain of the NX0! 14- Captain Pikes Original Enterprise 15- An Original Phaser circa 1964 16- Kirk and the chair! 17- Kirk and Khan!!!! 18- My Licensee VIP Credentials from 30th Anniversary Party 19- Kirk's original Enterprise 20- Full size original away team gear, Tricorder, Phaser and Communicator..Beam me up I'm ready to go! 21- New Kirk Action figure 22- Porcelain Spock and Data busts 23- Commemorative Franklin Mint medallions 24- DS9's Captain Sisko's collectors baseball 25-26 USS Defiant Models 27- Next Gen Tricoder 28- The New Enterprise model 29- Make it so - management via Next Gen lessons 30- Next Gen Phaser 31- Patric Stewart autographed CD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons 32- R2D2 Pez dispenser 33- Star Wars X Wing Fighter 34- Detroit Science Fair Awards Program where I gave the keynote to 5000 kids and their families!!! 35- The Millennium Falcon 36- Various Sci-fi Books ..mostly Star Wars 37- Star Trek V & VI Phaser 38- Various Shuttle Craft models 39- Official 30th Anniversary Cap 40- Space 1999 Manual(The present from my Grandmother) 41- Every Trek Manual known to mankind! 42- Favorite Super Hero, Superman! 43- Enterprise NCC-1701A 44- My Picture with my brother and the Star Trek Art Department!(We official!) 45- Light Sabre given to me by George Lucas at a Star Wars Licensee conference 46- More Star Wars books! 47- Tom Corbit Space cadet lunch box(everyone should own one of these!) 48- An autographed and personalized Vader pic signed by David Prowes 49- Every Star Trek TV Guide issue made 50- Resin Bridge piece from original Enterprise D Model(only 2 in existence) 51- Collection of Sci-Fi Movie programs including an original from 2001 A Space Odyssey 52- A copy of the original sailor manual for the USS Enterprise, WWII Aircraft carrier circa 1941 53- Autographed and personalized photo of my favorite Dabbo girl Chase Masterson! 54- 24" Jupiter 2 Model from Lost in Space 55- My Rouges gallery, Buzz Lightyear, A working Pee Wee doll and Taco Bell Dog(the crap I sometimes collect!) 56- Halo's Master Chief action figure and warthog vehicle 57- Original Doug Drexler(Academy Award Winner) illustration of the Enterprise E!
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

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The Dance Through Life Project

Photograph project dedicated to capture the Art of Dance within the parameters of everyday life. The project hopes to capture the innate relationships between dance and everyday life. Images of dance performed in non-traditional locales hopefully demystifying dance as being inaccessible and drawing the obvious metaphor that while all can not express life with such movement and physicality, we all love with our own signature grace. Therefore we all dance.

Order your copy today by clicking on the books above!

Through New Eyes: The Photography of Christopher Cushman by Rinaldo Walcott

The Black male body remains an enigma despite its over representation in the public sphere. The dominance of hip hop culture globally, driven in part, but not exclusively by the innovative sounds of rap music have made Black men a standard by which Black men and other men judge themselves in contemporary culture. However, there is a paradox, because despite the prevalence of hip-hop’s popular global impact, Black men are also still some of the most despised men in Western culture. Stereotypes of criminality, disease and danger still abound and organize Black men’s lives, even within hip hop culture. Thus representations of Black men tend to be much more restricted, than open-ended. The struggle to bring Black men into complex open-ended representations has been an on-going historical struggle. One of the most potent forms of representation in the last one hundred and fifty years has been the photograph. Photography has offered the promise to represent the real in a manner that has both seduce its viewers and baffled them with its artifice. Black male photographic representations in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have promised to rescue Black men from the confines of mis-representation and stereotype. One of the most difficult and complicated circumstances of Black male representations has been in the realm of representing their sexuality. Black men’s sexuality is still over-burdened by a perceived threat and danger, especially now in the hyped-up era of the downlow. Then along comes Cushman. I first hear of Christopher Cushman’s photography from my boyfriend. He told me of a guy who was taking photographs of black nudes based upon how they wanted themselves to be seen, not how he posed them as his models. When I met Cushman he confirmed that he did indeed work from the models’ suggested posed and not impose his own. The idea is a great one because it allows the models agency in choosing what they believe to be an adequate representation of who they are. While it is now true that in contemporary culture subjects have learned to play for the camera, offering us artifice on command, this artifice can be understood as exposing inner senses of self and being. Cushman’s photography captures and reveals those inner desires. Look at me, many of the models seems to say. But look at me anew, is also what they seem to project and insist on. Cushman’s eye lavishes these Black male bodies with glimmers of light revealing their nuance personalities. While most of the men are naked their individuality comes clearly through. And yet, their eyes too reveal that they belong to a community, a family and possess desires, fantasies and needs. In these photographs, as viewers we are given new eyes to see beyond our inner voyeur. Cushman channels, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and many other artists, commercial and amateur photographers who seek to rescue the Black male body from the disastrous depths of mis-representation, and who almost always fall short. The conversations that his models create between his work and others whether unconscious or not reveal the profound influence of the image in our time. However, in Cushman’s eyes the Black male body is not being rescued, instead it stands on a self-made pedestal, not arrogantly announcing its existence but coolly (its signature) singing its own praisesong as swathes of light and behind the camera love washes over it. In each moment a small but significant revelation is made. Each revelation offers us the opportunity of an Epiphany – to think a thought about a Black man that we have not thought before. Professor Rinaldo Walcott is a cultural critic and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He lives and writes in Toronto.

FIERCE! Being Black, Being Gay in America

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who love-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com