Shorpy love

So my google reader hasn't dropped below 50 unread posts in awhile, due to things I've been keeping unread to re-read, or post for you. At least 6 of them were Shorpy posts, and here they are:

Elk's Parade: 1916 - Great street/parade scene. Look at how big of a deal this is, when really all it seems to be is the local Elks lodge walking down the street. LOVE the simple elk silhouette banner.

Deer Island Light: 1906 - I love the simplicity of this image. The peaceful desolation. Check it out full size and imagine living on that thing for a bit. Peaceful and terrifying. Awe inspiring and boring. That's how I imagine it would be.

Clerks: 1925 - I have always enjoyed libraries. Stacks and stacks of information. This massive looking patent office is impressive in much the same way. So much stuff in there.

Donnie Cole: 1910 - This is one of Lewis Wickes Hine's images of young children at work. These pictures always have a tragic beauty to them. Apparently the truth behind the stories that go along with his pictures has been called into question before, as he was working to try to get these kids out of these situations, so he may have exaggerated a little. If that's what it took though, more power to him. Pictures of Donnie Cole by Hine have showed up before, and the accompanying story always gets me: "'Our baby doffer,' they called him. Said, after hesitation, 'I'm 12,' and another small boy added, 'He can't work unless he's twelve.'" Damn.

In My Room: 1943 - It feels like such a real moment has been captured here. Like you're actually in the room with her or something. Nice.

Westbound Freight: 1943 - Gotta close with a Jack Delano. I LOVE so many of Delano's pictures. They're always so crisp and perfect. And I can't argue with classic pictures of trains. His colour stuff is amazing. You can just feel the cold snap in this one. Bonus Delano.

(That's Delano up above by the way. Funny that the only pictures I could find of a guy who took such striking pictures are really boring...)

Oh, and if you're checking these pictures out, I highly recommend taking the whole thing in, then hitting that "View Full Size" link at the end of the info about the picture, and getting in there real close. Then maybe go back out to the smaller version to get it all back in context. Then maybe go back in real close and pore over that image but good.

I'm telling you, Shorpy is a pretty amazing site. What a chance to see the world of the past, and in nice high quality images too. Great site. Extremely highly recommended. Even if you only really like 1 picture in every 10, that one is enough to warrant looking at every other picture that did nothing for you.

purge

So if everything goes as planned, and all my work gets done, we're leaving on a mini road trip tour of Ontario this weekend. Can't wait. I can definitely use the break right about now.

The picture above comes from this pretty great site here. Here's three more pretty awesome map covers.
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So, as I've mentioned, I've had a number of tabs open waiting to be posted. Time to finally clear them out.
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This may be my favourite Lunch Bag Art post yet. Clever funny, and a nice nod to the shark. Good one.
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I can't believe I haven't linked to this yet: Barack Obama is Tired of Your Motherfucking Shit. Amazing. Kind of makes me want to listen to some books on tape. David Sedaris kind of makes me want to do that too. (I was reading him today and thinking about how much I love to hear him read.)
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Plaid duct tape. Great idea. I kind of need this.
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The smallest bank in America. Down home, honest people keeping other people's money in check the old fashioned way. Impressed.
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New additions to the Penguin great ideas series on the Book Cover Archive. We own a couple of these from when the series first came out. Great idea. Little books, great graphic design. This one is, not surprisingly, one I kind of want to own. Definitely a favourite. I'm pretty into this and this too, both for the fact that they are Orwell, and the fact that they are classic Penguin styles. Really seems to suit Orwell.
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I am loving this old S.O.S ad. The lettering, the illustration, the baby bear, all of it. (via BoxVox)
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Jenna sent me this link to this pretty great salt & pepper shaker set. Love it. It was sold by the time I saw it though. Jenna said it was overpriced, but it still would have been tempting...
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While I've known about the Alamo Drafthouse for awhile, I've never seen all of these posters they've had done. This Ferris Bueler one is pretty amazing. Thanks to Jennifer G. for sending that to me.

Listening to the CBC the other morning they were talking to the a county official about the idea of shrinking Flint Michigan. Sounds like a really interesting idea. It also sounds like Flint might be a place I want to visit before they do that, just to see all the abandoned houses. I've been mildly interested in the idea of abandoned houses/buildings/neighbourhoods for awhile now, but have never really checked any out. A couple summers ago I wanted to go looking for Ontario ghost towns (there are many), but then I found out that they weren't so much abandoned towns as just towns that are gone.

Speaking of abandoned houses and Michigan, this post here about Feral houses in Detroit has been making the rounds lately. Crazy, interesting stuff.

The idea of a road trip to Michigan has been discussed before, to check out the nice things highlighted in their amazing ad campaign, but I'd say if we went, I'd definitely want to make a stop to look at all of the decay along the way.
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A quick poke around Sweet Juniper! (where the Feral houses post comes from) reveals many other fascinating examples of Detroit decay. Here's a quickly cobbled sampling:
A street where 60 of 66 homes are abandoned
An abandoned Zoo
An abandoned school (this one is especially good/bad as I was in awe at everything left behind, including student psych records, of students still in the system, with social security numbers listed. That's just not right, but would be interesting/terrifying to see/read)
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As you may know, I am pretty excited about spectacle when it comes to my movie going experience (either that, or the most accurate reflection of how I feel life is, like Away We Go, which was amazing by the way). As such, the movies I have seen in the theatre most recently tend to be 3D (My Bloody Valentine, Coraline, Up) or IMAX (Watchmen).

Possibly breaking new ground to this end is XGames 3D. It could quite possibly be terrible, and totally not worth it. And, of course, there's the corporate aspect to the whole thing. But seriously, "extreme" sports in 3D? I definitely hope I'll get the chance to see this.
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Here's a movie I'm going to have to see. (finally something design related in my blog!)
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This is weird.

We've finally figured out when Rogers typically airs Structures, which makes me very happy. Structures seems to me to be the only really good reason to watch our community television station. It's a show that explores older buildings in the region, discussing idiosyncrasies and histories of each house. I love this kind of stuff. Previous to recent days, I had only ever caught the same episode 3 times. Now I've seen 3 or 4!

Unfortunately they only seem to have made it for one season ('06-'07), and it's hosted by local radio personality Mark Payne, who I've never been a big fan of, but I think it's a great idea for a community station to discuss the history of the community.
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Excitingly, while looking for more info on a house the show was just highlighting, I found this page. I'm definitely going to have to put some time into going through everything there.
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Didn't know my love of Waterloo extended to being geekily excited about historical homes?
Knowing that now, can you bet that I'm excited about this?
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In yet more local geeking out, I was recently excited to find out that Words Worth Books has a number of blogs. If you know other things about me, you might guess that Edge of Seventeen, with its focus on young adult fiction, is my favourite.
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Okay, so I still have a large number of design stuff I want to share, but I've also been thinking about local things that excite me lately, so here's this post for you instead. I do love this area.
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One more. Hilary, who was previously behind the local independent glossy magazine Qatalyst, has a new blog featuring her adventures around town. You can find it here.

Disc golf was, not surprisingly, awesome. I would have already mentioned that, but things have been wicked busy around here. The image above is the shirt I designed for the day. It's a little different in real life, because it got printed on a black shirt, so all of the white was reversed, but you get the point. I was told to make it Jamaican themed, so Red Stripe it was!
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I think that The Dieline is just about to cause someone to have a lot more business. They posted some work by Minneapolis based Neatly Trimmed Beard, which already sounds like a designer/company that I would like, and it's already hit multiple blogs. Seems like they don't have a site, but seriously, how could I not like this stuff?

Their quote about the Civilized stuff is just amazing: "We created the Civilized brand for a new microdistillery in northern Michigan. The concept is based on the woodland gentleman of yore; the sort of man who cut wood for a living and wrestled grizzlies for fun but still found time to wax his mustache and comb some pomade through his hair."

Yeah, that's right, you see how I would love them now. I need to see more!
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I don't remember the last time I went to a show in Toronto, but it turns out I'm going to want to go there twice in September.

First I found out that Cymbals Eat Guitars are going to be playing on September 7. Awesome. Their album Why There are Mountains has been one of the most exciting things I've listened to in awhile.

And just now, while looking for a torrent of anything by Ganglians, who I've been wanting to hear for awhile, but haven't been able to find downloads of, and it turns out they're coming to Toronto on September 22 with Wavves. Wavves' album Wavvves (note the extra 'v') has been another big album for me lately. And though I haven't heard them the review I just read in Exclaim reffered to their sound as "pure naive headphone acid pop to drive to" and as taking "cues from surf rock, droning bedroom experiments and sublime chamber pop but sent through a grinder". Damn, that sounds good.

Unfortunately, September also equals gutting our kitchen, having walls built, having a new kitchen installed, my mom visiting, and 3 weddings. So I guess we'll see how my excitement now pans out then...
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Well, I have more to say, and I've been wanting to post, but instead I really want to take this chance to do nothing for a bit. So that's what I'm going to do.