Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime

✎2225 INFO SubscribeRSS FB TW IG

Juliet

Sort:  Alpha  Chrono  Rando

Jenny Shimizu

Jenny Shimizu is a Japanese-American model and actor who became one of the defining androgynous faces of 1990s fashion. She was working as a mechanic in Los Angeles when she arrived at a Calvin Klein casting on her motorcycle and was noticed in the parking lot. Her crew cut, tattoos and men’s clothes were retained rather than styled away. Within weeks, she was appearing in Italian Vogue, walking for designers including Jean Paul Gaultier and becoming the first Asian model to walk for Prada. A Banana Republic billboard later placed her above the words “American Beauty”—a description she had never felt applied to her.

John C. Lilly

John C. Lilly was an American physician and neuroscientist who developed the first modern isolation tank in 1954 to study a mind deprived of external stimulation. He later established a partially flooded laboratory in the Virgin Islands, where NASA-supported researchers attempted to teach dolphins spoken English. Lilly believed communication with another species might prepare humanity for contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. His later investigations became increasingly cosmic, including reported contact with an organization he called the Earth Coincidence Control Office. The isolation tank survived as a wellness device. The dolphin-English programme did not.