Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The cult of The Kirk

I got the BEST MAIL today. Some explaining is required.

If you read my post about the Wexford walk, and looked at the corresponding photoset, you may remember seeing this picture:

The Kirk's Lounge

The Kirk's Lounge is attached to the Wexford Restaurant, and has a great cheesy/swanky/'50s suburbia look to it. I was amused by the use of the definite article, and by the enigmatically textless mugshot of the Kirk that appears on the strip mall's sign -- here's a small fuzzy closeup:

Close-up of The Kirk

The image of The Kirk created some excitement on Flickr. A dude in the UK was fascinated and puzzled: Who was this Kirk? Why did he have a lounge named after him? And was his image available on t-shirts? (Click on the first photo to read the discussion.) A Scarberian stepped in to explain that the Kirk was the owner of the strip mall & founder of the Wexford (est. 1958). I agreed that there ought to be t-shirts.

So, today I got a large manila envelope in the mail, postmarked in Brooklyn & bearing American dinosaur stamps. It is very exciting to get snailmail from Brooklyn. I did a little dance when I got the envelope, and then when I opened it up I laughed so hard I think my neighbours now believe I am possessed by demons.

This is what Ranjit sent me:

Stencil of The Kirk

It is a mylar stencil of The Kirk's face, with a note saying, "Now you're stuck -- you HAVE to make t-shirts!"

Click here to see what the stencil looks like on paper.

I e-mailed Ranjit to tell him I got it, and he wrote back: "It didn't occur to me until after I sent it that the stencil would be good not only for t-shirts but for graffiti. The Kirk Has A Posse!" Yes, clearly he does.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am inspired that I may have had a hand in creating a cult through some banter on flickr.

May this take off the way the Burton Cummings cult did in my native Winnipeg:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezz/5889683/

for more on this
http://dev.thismagazine.ca/issues/2005/09/qa_selfloathing.php

7:46 a.m., July 05, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Carl here, Nadia: Sign me up for a The Kirk shirt as soon as they roll off the line, mos def. That's quite a find.

1:28 p.m., July 07, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I totally want a the kirk shirt. I'll help with production if needed.

4:47 a.m., July 09, 2006  
Blogger JuliaMazal said...

I'm in.
Er, it'll be under $20, right?

And then can all the shirt wearers go there together for grilled cheese?

2:54 a.m., July 11, 2006  

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