Visual Convergences Of NSUs And Sonic Youths: Cold Start

I wish I understood more about how the interaction between visual images and brains and memories worked. Sometimes I’ll see a particular image, and almost instantly some neurons are firing that are associating that image with some other image; the connection is made before the other bits of my brain, which presumably run at a lower clock speed, are able to properly identify and categorize the associated images and then apply language to the result. I happened to see an image in a 1958 NSU Sport Prinz brochure, and a detail of the image reminded me of a famous Sonic Youth album from the early ’90s. The visual association is tiny and tenuous, but it’s undeniably there. I mean, at least I think so.

This isn’t the first time I’ve shared a strange visual convergence with you; I remember not too long ago I shared how a Volvo P1800’s taillights and rear quarter reminded me of the same section on an otherwise quite different Opel wagon. I think I also shared with you another visual convergence I noticed years ago and that was run on the McSweeney’s website, one involving a goofy movie about golf and the assassination of a famous assassin:

Good times, right? Anyway, let’s get back to this one with the NSU Prinz Sport, which was sort of the Karmann-Ghia to the Prinz’ Beetle. These were really attractive little rear-engined cars, full of all that NSU charm and some clever packaging.

These svelte little weasels had a 598cc inline-twin engine making a pretty respectable 36 horsepower. I think they’re quite attractive, too, especially the way the rear wheelarch extends straight back to the rear of the car, and that surprisingly tall and airy greenhouse.

The people in this cutaway – which shows quite nicely the multiple luggage areas and how remarkably canted that engine is – feel almost exactly like the cartoon couple shown in Sonic Youth’s 1990 album, Goo. I mean, they’re not exact, but the woman, the one who stole her sister’s boyfriend and killed her parents, I think is a dead ringer for the woman riding shotgun in that NSU Prinz Sport:

Enlarged, I’m not certain the man there is even wearing sunglasses, but it feels like he is, in the way that black ink spreads. These two seem like another view of the famous Goo couple, just in a far more interesting car than I think is implied in that original drawing. Raymond Pettibon, the guy who designed the famous Black Flag logo, drew this image, and based it on another image, a then-famous, perhaps infamous photograph of David and Maureen Smith, who were witnesses in the Moors Murders trial, which was about the sexual assault and  murder of five children by a couple near Manchester, England.

Yikes. Anyway, look at the photograph, as it’s quite familiar:

Huh. I must have seen this drawing a snacktillion times on albums and CDs and posters and T-shirts, but I think this is the first time I knew who it was based on or the Moors Murders or anything. Look at us, learning together!

Anyway, let’s celebrate with some Sonic Youth, specifically this song about my friend Goo:

She always knows just what to do.