On The Road Again
Category: Photography
Cosplay 1961
Not sure what’s going on here, whether it’s a Greek college costume party or Halloween or what. I do know that stuffed animals that size are on the pricey end, and usually don’t belong to adults, unless it was won as a carnival prize on a date.
I’m all for fun and frolic and costume parties, but only for an evening. I deplore the current subculture of cosplay. Detest anime. Loathe manga. I don’t understand the lengths to which grown people play pretend and the time and money and travel spent to escape their real lives. I understand being a child at heart, enthusiasm, awe, seeing the world with fresh eyes. But playing dress-up with other grown-ups as a lifestyle? Perhaps I’m a crotchety old fart, but I don’t get it.
Back In The U.S.S.R. (Don’t Know How Lucky You Are)
When we studied WWII in middle school, I remember trying to wrap my head around the murder of six million Jews. It was a number I couldn’t fathom. I currently can’t imagine having a million dollars, and I can’t process that there are over a million people in my hometown now. It’s still too big of a number for me. So when we think about the estimated 26 million Soviet citizens who died during WWII (according to the Washington Post), it’s mindboggling. Can you process that number? There are only 25 million people in all of Australia right now. Less than 26 million in all of North Korea. Can you imagine just annihilating that many folks?
And the men above were spared. Survivors of forced labor camps with nothing to their names. What a hard road that must have been to travel.
Per a January article about Soviet slavery in Russia Beyond:
“They crammed us into wagons, as many as they could, so we couldn’t move our legs,” recalled Antonina Serdyukova, who was captured in Ukraine. “For a month, traveled that way.” Describing her life at a plant near Dresden, she said, “We ate once a day, a bowl of soup, with carrot and swede.”
For the Ostarbeiter (“workers from the east”), forced to live thousands of kilometers from home, fate was like the lottery. Metallurgical plants, mines and farms needed workers, and where they ended up depended on who paid the most.
“When we arrived, there was a transfer point, I would call it a slave market,” said Fedor Panchenko from Ukraine. “In an hour, they sold the whole group of people to different hands.” Among a group of 200 people, Panchenko found himself in a factory, at the ironworks in Silesia (now Poland). For those who came home, life was also hard: German captivity was a stigma. “Fellow citizens despised us,” calmly recalls Panchenko. “I couldn’t apply for a decent job and spent 37 years working at a factory, and if there was any kind of breakage, they would say to me each time: “Oh, no surprise, you worked for Hitler.” Others kept silent about their experience in Germany for decades – they didn’t want the stigma to impact their careers or families.
When He Gets You No-Neck Strain Center Seats To Lion King
How To Pair Peppermint Mocha With Frozen Caribou
Hunters chop a frozen caribou and devour it uncooked. Indians called these northern tribes Eskimos, “Eaters of raw flesh.”
So go the words of this 1947 National Geographic article. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. But evidently we’re not supposed to say “Eskimo” anymore; Eskimo is considered offensive, especially in Canada, being widely thought to stem from a Cree pejorative meaning “eaters of raw meat,” which is precisely, accurately what they are doing in that very image. So I don’t know how that is offensive. But in this day and age, isn’t everything?
Demeaning any group for their race or heritage is clearly wrong, but good luck staying abreast of all the latest victim classes and subsequent acceptable language. It shouldn’t be too hard to avoid the E word if you live in a non-igloo location. Is it okay to say “igloo”? Will the judge allow it?
Calling an eater of raw flesh the word for “eater of raw flesh” seems fine to me, but a sliver of my race pie is European (read: privileged) so what do I know? And I’m in the South, and them is up in the Nawth. So what do I know from Eskimos?
I DO know this is racist:
Absolutely. I get it. Demeaning.
But this next ad from 1958? All I see is a cutie patootie selling me delicious chocolate, which I imagine is waaaay better than frozen caribou. Is there a word for “middle-aged eater of chocolate”? I’ll take it!
There isn’t any hate behind this ad that I can see. But some folks will go looking for it, scavenging for it, desperately trying to find malicious intention. Cute kids sell ads. Always have, always will.
In 2016, then-President Obama signed legislation that replaced Eskimo with “Alaska Native” in federal laws because Non-Inuit people had assigned the term. Isn’t that what all language does? It assigns terms? I guess I just don’t get it there. Does that make people feel like they’re taking their power back if they get to change the language?
So what about Eskimo kisses? Is that okay to say? Is it okay to do?
Is a Native American eskimo-kissing a white male offensive? (If I am to assume she is even Native American based on looks). The boy-child Peter Pan is culturally appropriating a Native American headdress, and that is in the “no-no” column these days. No race is ever allowed to wear anything that another race has ever worn; that is theft, plain and simple. But what if you’re many races, like many of us? A dozen different results from Ancestry.com? Can you “appropriate” the customs of any of your ancestors and don the gay apparel of your forefathers? Or should I say foremothers? Well, that gets tricky. But let’s be honest: even though she is literally pushing him back, he is metaphorically pushing her down both by being white and male. And immortal.
Rattle And Hum
I Am A Winter, And My Glasses Are Hidd-Yuss
Actually, these owlish, oversized specs aren’t as hidd-yuss as most of the following glasses from 1985. But these Ted Lapidus ones certainly qualify.
She seems to be gritting her teeth to prevent from cursing their bulky black bamboo frame, perfect for eating kung pao shrimp.
The next model seems to have moved on to dessert.
I guess boys DO make passes at girls who wear glasses–especially if it’s Sophia Loren. She must have loved her some curlicues. And pearls. And lace.
How about supermodel Paulina, sporting patriotic fingernails?
Sorry, but those hoopy metal sunglasses are awful. Just awful. Even on Paulina.
And who among you wants their frames to be at nostril level? Not I.
These white ones might have appealed to me as a teen, but what they delivered in style, they lacked in peripheral vision. Thus the pout.
And what about these? They remind me of spreading butterfly wings. Is she in an indoor wind storm?
Well, I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane (and I hope you’re wearing your glasses). After all, it’s the best way to enjoy the interwebs.
Making Merry Music
In the fall of 1947, the Jawhawker published its seasonal magazine, full of pictures of musical students on campus at the University of Kansas. Here we see trumpet major Dorothy Brewer (from Olathe) showing us what she’s got.
But she wasn’t the only one.
Horns were in fashion.
But the piano never went out of style. Old mentored young.
The ladies of Miller Hall gathered to tickle the ivories during this late night pajama party.
These days, however, they may look more like this.
It Beats Hunting For Wabbits
Before Scrubs, There Were Nurses’ Caps
Why We Didn’t Keep Our Old PC’s
This picture says it all. Get a load of this atrocity. Look at the angles, the depth of product, requiring a solid foot from teensy screen to drywall. Who would bother to keep this dinosaur when new technology arrived? Not me.
Some people still have their old phones (a Nokia that fits in your palm) or their old cameras (I still have my old Nikon) or maybe their old camcorders from the pre-digital world. But I don’t know anyone who kept their personal computer relics from the 80s, 90s, or even the Oughties. Now, I am certain there are plenty of computer peeps who hold on to them (and hoarders who just. can’t. let. go.), but again, I don’t know them. Beige paint on the walls isn’t even acceptable anymore; how could one stare at a beige computer?
In the same 1987 Cactus yearbook, you can see this student studying at what looks to be a computer terminal. You can bet your bippy this was beige as well. No Windows. Was there a prompt screen?
The RTF (radio/tv/film) dept was cutting edge. Back then, it didn’t stand for Residential Treatment Facility. But surely some of the RTF majors I knew are now in one.
You can see how it was a precursor to today’s Communication Dept at the University of New Haven. Much snazzy, as Engrish would say.
Still, at the time, all personal computers seemed pretty rad.
With a little coaching from the Big Boss, even girls could do it.
Speaking of girls, a contestant on Ellen’s show yesterday didn’t know how to identify what she was handed in the game of Millennials vs Boomers. It was a floppy disk. Even once identified, she didn’t believe Ellen. I guess Millennials don’t know a floppy from a hard. Remember the write protection notch?
Let’s all be glad for the death of the beige and the modern ease of use for a world that demands personal computer use daily (even if it’s inside your phone). Cheers to that!
Sniff Flowers, Not Glue
I’ve heard of stopping and smelling the roses, but I hadn’t heard this twist on it.
I don’t believe I’ve ever stopped to smell the rosé. Perhaps a cab sav, but not a rosé.
Evidently Hillary Duff enjoys a good rosé.
Perhaps you should pop a cork this evening! After all, it IS Wine Wednesday.
I Don't Get It 