Spindle (sculpture)

Spindle was a sculpture created in 1989 by artist Dustin Shuler (1948–2010). It consisted of a 50 foot spike with eight cars impaled on it.

History

From 1989 until its demolition on May 2, 2008, it was located in the car park of Cermak Plaza shopping center, at the corner of Cermak Road and Harlem Avenue (Illinois Route 43) in Berwyn, Illinois.

It was originally commissioned by the shopping center developer and owner, David Bermant, a collector of modern art who also donated his BMW car to be placed second from the top of the sculpture. Shuler himself owned the red 1967 VW Beetle that crowned the sculpture. The foundation of the sculpture reached nearly 30 feet into the ground; the cost of erecting it was over $75,000. The sculpture has been featured in the film Wayne's World, on the cover of a book, on postcards, state tourist brochures, and maps. On August 28, 2007, it was featured in the syndicated comic strip Zippy the Pinhead.

The impaled cars on the spindle, from top to bottom, were:

Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (/ˈɡeɪmən/; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards.

Early life

The Sleeper (The Leisure Society album)

The Sleeper is the first studio album by English indie folk band The Leisure Society.

Their self-produced debut album, The Sleeper was initially released on 30 March 2009 on Willkommen Records. It received lavish critical praise, being named a Rough Trade album of 2009.

The first single from the album, "The Last of the Melting Snow'", was released on 15 December 2008 and has received extensive radio play on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show,Marc Riley's BBC 6 Music showLauren Laverne's 6 Music show and Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie's Radio 2 show, where they were voted 'Record of the Week' by listeners with a record 90% of the vote.Marc Riley also invited them to perform a live session for 6music on December 15 and Mark Radcliffe tipped the single as a candidate for a left field Christmas number one. Guy Garvey named the song his favourite of 2008 and has been a vocal supporter of The Leisure Society continually since then. "The Last of the Melting Snow" received a nomination in the Ivor Novello Awards 2009 for Best Song Musically/Lyrically, competing against Elbow and The Last Shadow Puppets. Hemming told The Times that he "spent New Year's Eve sitting on the floor with a bottle of vodka, writing 'The Last of the Melting Snow'" after breaking up with his girlfriend.

Spindle

Spindle may refer to:

Textiles and manufacturing

Computing

Biology

Chris Riddell

Chris Riddell (born 13 April 1962) is a British illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for The Observer. He has won two Kate Greenaway Medals, the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002. Books that he wrote or illustrated have won three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes and have been silver or bronze runners-up four times. On 9 June 2015 he was appointed the UK Children's Laureate.

Life

Chris Riddell was born in 1962 in South Africa where his father was a "liberal Anglican vicar" and was opposed to the system of apartheid. The family returned to England when Chris was one year old, where he spent the rest of his childhood with his sister and three brothers who are now living in South Africa, Brighton, England, and Egypt. Chris displayed artistic talent from an early age, and was encouraged in this by his mother. (She gave him paper and pen to keep quiet during father's sermons.) As a child, he admired the work of John Tenniel, the first illustrator of Alice in Wonderland, and W. Heath Robinson. At Brighton Polytechnic he studied illustration; one teacher was Raymond Briggs, an earlier winner of two Greenaway Medals. In 2002 he named as influences Tenniel and E. H. Shepard, the first illustrator of The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh.