Keeping Up

I feel bad I haven't been posting to my blog. I do love pinterest, but it's still sad when I notice that there's no new months in the archive column of the blog.

So here is my latest shopping task: finding small affordable and thematically appropriate prizes for my students. In Postwar US History, I am making them host a 1950s theme DRY cocktail party in class. To make it more fun for them (since I assume it will already be awesome for me), I bought old swizzle sticks to give out at the door. I personally think these things are awesome. We will see how they feel. And then in my urban history class, I told them that I would give a small prize to anyone who had to use microfilm for their research project. I'm trying to buy enough of these tiny old license plate keychains to give one to everyone who ends up at that damn machine. So far I have 8.



(Neither of these images are things I've bought, but they're representative of what I'm going for. Ebay will no longer let me pull images for some reason).

Lyrics

I love these lyrics from the 1920s: “Still the Census taker tarried/ With a poised and ready pen; / ‘One more question, Are you married?’ / Came the answer, ‘Now and then.”
--cited in DiFonzo, Beneath the Fault Line, 18.

The Future and the Past

The Future:
AT&T's really accurate commercials from the 1990s
100 Things to Look Forward to in 2011
2011 Midseason Shows
The Future of Alzheimer's Care
The Texas Omen by Paul Krugman

The Past
Young Johnny and Elizabeth Edwards. I find this unspeakably sad for all sorts of reasons.
James Tiptree Jr. in another era
Cigarette cards featuring Old Hollywood Players
Hidden Mother photos. These are deeply creepy.
Vivian Maeir. I love this genre of photography.

BONUS LINK: The Past of the Future also dealing with AT&T

Links

Sci-fi about each of the 7 planets
Tintypes and ambrotypes of Civil War soldiers
Interview with the writer of one of my new favorite comics
A Very Important Pyramid
I love tiny art and Alfred Hitchcock
The craziest story I've heard in a while.

Soviet Postcards

I should be writing Thursday's lecture. Instead I am looking at this tumblr I discovered via Miss Moss.

Best Facebook Ad Ever

Elle Shushan Fine Portrait Miniatures. How do they know so much about what I would like and so little about how much money I make?

Embarrassment of Riches

All of November, in one post:
FDR probably died of cancer. Discovered by brilliant neurologist and journalist.

Gorgeous dollhouse.
The best movies et al of the 00s. I might do this soon.
Jezebel reminded me of this Lisa Simpson quote, which would look nice under my theoretical Lisa Simpson-as-Jolly Roger tattoo: "beneath my goody two shoes lie some very dark socks."
Five comics I'm not reading, but might read soon.
Another fascinating story on autism.
And more weird things about the brain.
Possible inspiration for twitter.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

NYMag and others have referred to Sally reading Decline and Fall to her grandfather in Mad Men as heavy-handed foreshadowing. I guess I don't buy this so much; I think it's foreshadowing the rise of a conservative movement that interprets the social change to come as the decline and fall of the American empire. Decline and fall doesn't seem like the kind of value judgment Weiner and his writers would make. It's the judgment that Harry Crane will make--ie the one that Reagan, Schlafly, et al made.

RIP

I hope we get you health care.

Anniversaries

The New York Times commemorates two anniversaries today.

Frank Rich celebrates Stonewall. The entire column is great, but here is the end:
"It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places."

And Ray Robinson remembers Lou Gehrig's resignation from baseball. This is the text of Gehrig's farewell, courtesy of this site:
"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.
Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.
When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.
So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

Umbrellas

I waited a long time to find this third umbrella. And then I spent forever trying to find these very very very old links. I especially like this Victorian postcard depicting life before widely available, affordable, and legal birth control.

Weegee

I think I've posted about how much I love Weegee before, but hearing his voice is awesome. Peter Sellers based his Dr. Strangelove accent on Weegee's, which this blog describes as "part Austro-Hungarian immigrant by way of the Lower East Side and part Elmer Fudd."

Most people seem to like the murder Weegee photos, but my favorites are the sex ones.

Link Attack!

My brother's impressive video of a grass-roots organization in IN.
Errol Morris explores forgery. See pic above.
A kids' book list.
A really crushing assessment of Tiller's murder.
Nesting dolls in danger.
Vampires saving humans from zombies.

Chapel Hill

I am going to the Louis Round Wilson Library for a research trip next week. Recommendations for Chapel Hill are welcome.

Politics and History

ARGH. On the alleged danger of Gay New York to children.
And a historical perspective on Somali pirates. Image here.

History matters.

Links

Where the Wild Things Are trailer via kottke
Fifi Lapin and LeSportSac together
Cootie catchers and other fortune tellers
Chic Chicago
GQ's slideshow of the 50 most stylish men also via kottke