K as in Knife

Unknown quantities, resonant frequencies, moving parts, and everything in between -- an ongoing mixtape of great music, comedy, film, photography, and design, chosen and obsessively annotated by C. Mason Wells.

New here? Hit random and go exploring.

And then, try a little tenderness:
c.mason.wells [at] gmail.com
twitter.com/cmasonwells
The “West Coast Weegee,” Mell Kilpatrick moved to Southern California with his wife and kids in 1928 to find work as a coronet player, but bad oral hygene cost him both his teeth and his budding musical career. After a temporary gig as a film projectionist, he found work as an automobile accident photographer, first part-time for an insurance company and later (because of his stellar work) full-time at the Santa Ana Register. Though he’s still relatively unknown today, his photos remain both gruesome and gorgeous, and raise plenty of hairy questions about aesthetics and spectatorship. (They’ll also bring to mind Ballard, Cronenberg, and The Normal: “See the breaking glass/In the underpass… Hear the crushing steel/Feel the steering wheel.”) Like a driver passing the accidents themselves, you won’t be able to look away.The “West Coast Weegee,” Mell Kilpatrick moved to Southern California with his wife and kids in 1928 to find work as a coronet player, but bad oral hygene cost him both his teeth and his budding musical career. After a temporary gig as a film projectionist, he found work as an automobile accident photographer, first part-time for an insurance company and later (because of his stellar work) full-time at the Santa Ana Register. Though he’s still relatively unknown today, his photos remain both gruesome and gorgeous, and raise plenty of hairy questions about aesthetics and spectatorship. (They’ll also bring to mind Ballard, Cronenberg, and The Normal: “See the breaking glass/In the underpass… Hear the crushing steel/Feel the steering wheel.”) Like a driver passing the accidents themselves, you won’t be able to look away.

The “West Coast Weegee,” Mell Kilpatrick moved to Southern California with his wife and kids in 1928 to find work as a coronet player, but bad oral hygene cost him both his teeth and his budding musical career. After a temporary gig as a film projectionist, he found work as an automobile accident photographer, first part-time for an insurance company and later (because of his stellar work) full-time at the Santa Ana Register.

Though he’s still relatively unknown today, his photos remain both gruesome and gorgeous, and raise plenty of hairy questions about aesthetics and spectatorship. (They’ll also bring to mind Ballard, Cronenberg, and The Normal: “See the breaking glass/In the underpass… Hear the crushing steel/Feel the steering wheel.”) Like a driver passing the accidents themselves, you won’t be able to look away.