Obscurorant 2.0

Consider this an update of earlier post, concerning libraries on Flickr. Now you can find the Smithsonian there as well. See also: The Commons. (lva)

Way back when I wrote about the things I carry. Turns out there’s a flickr pool dedicated to this idea as well.  I’ll contribute in the near future.

I love this picture: Brendan Behan and Jackie Gleason. Now that must have been one hell of an evening.

The New York Public Library also has digital archives online. Some of my favorite galleries available here include:

Dust Jackets from American and European books, 1926-1947. When I was kid, books with dust jackets like these could still be pretty easily found, in library stacks or in your grandparent’s house. Some now reside on my bookshelves.

A collection of photos of Broadway theater marquees and facades.

My favorite so far: Turn of the Century Posters. Images of book, magazine and newspaper posters from 1893 through the middle of the last century. I love this one advertising a serialization of Conan Doyle’s Sir Nigel. And wasn’t the Boston Herald classy once upon a time?

I decided to finally use the scanner function of my Canon printer, and I started with some old family photographs. The picture above is of the Mt. Washington Hotel baseball team, taken some time during the 1930s when my paternal grandfather (second row, first on the left - the real tall guy) was working there as summer help. His wife, children and large sprawling family are all in the future. Right then, I think, he was happy for a paycheck and the opportunity to play some ball.

This is my maternal grandfather, taken some time in 1944 or 1945*, somewhere in northwest Europe. I think. He was in his 30s when he was drafted out of the General Dynamics plant in Lynn and into the service. I suspect he missed his wife and daughters very much. I also suspect he was secretly pleased to have the chance to ride a motorbike, since once he returned home his wife would never ever countenance such a foolish frivolous thing.

*After posting this, I checked a copy of my grandfather’s discharge papers: he sailed for England in February 1945.

I’ve been meaning to post these Flickr links for a while…

The Boston Public Library’s collection on Flickr. Includes this awesome set of posters for long-vanished Boston breweries and this set of war posters. Great stuff to dig through.

The Library of Congress on Flickr. Reaalll easy to get lost in there.

Here we have a set of Scholastic book covers from the 60s and 70s, some of which I can remember. No Dynamite magazine covers though.

UPDATE: I neglected to point out (for those interested) a number of Quincy postcards from this BPL set:

Aerial view of Quincy. The old Fore River bridge. The Square. Thomas Crane Library.

Submitted for you consideration: Heading East, a lovely photography blog.

UPDATE:

1. I highly recommend digging around archives of Heading East. Some great writing there.

2. I recognized this picture. I haven’t thought of it in 30 or so years, but I trust the memory that was kicked loose and floated to the top of my brain. I know I owned this book at one time. ‘The Land of Counterpane’ - how did I forget for so long?

If I recall correctly, at least one person who shares my fascination with the Gurkhas will find these of interest: photos of the 9 Gorkha (Gurkha) Rifles at Indian Army Regimental Boot Camp. (lva the Ghost)

While we’re dabbling in old photographs, take a look at this series - titled ‘Medieval Boston’ posted on a message board. It’s an absolutely fascinating look at downtown Boston before the urban renewal projects of the 50s and 60s, before the Central Artery and the destruction of the West End.

Shorpy is one of my favorite websites; I love the weird array of old photographs that you can find there.  Take for example, this picture of the Graf Zeppelin hovering over Jerusalem.  The age and weathered appearance of the photo and the contrast created by a zeppelin flying over an ancient walled city combine to give this image a distinctly otherworldly air - it’s a very easy to imagine this picture as the book cover for a steam punk novel.

“I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunger back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. Their stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland. Surely there would be something eerie about a line of books were it not that familiarity has deadened our sense of it. Each is a mummified soul embalmed in a cere-cloth and natron of leather and printer’s ink. Each cover of a true book enfolds the concentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have faded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable dust, yet here are their very spirits at your command.”

-from Through The Magic Door by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

To borrow a phrase, the snow is general all over Q-town. Have a Merry Christmas!

Pictures are posted, including a bunch from the wedding.

More to come, mostly from the pre-wedding whiffle ball game.