Events that transpired this past month brought to mind how far removed we are from those eras we romanticize, like the Roaring Twenties and American Graffiti’s fifties. We view them with a nostalgia that may not even be ours if we’re among those who never experienced them firsthand, but simply absorbed their flavor from media and the cinema. Let me tell you, after the recent storm that knocked out electricity in our neighborhood for five days and then losing my laptop for a week to a virus, I’m thinking modern times come highly recommended.
My number one proof for this would be the evolution of women’s underwear. I don’t know who invented pantyhose or when, but I can guarantee you it was not someone who belonged to womankind. If you don’t believe me, get a bungee cord and tie it around your waist like a tourniquet and then go to work. See how productive you feel. I’m not convinced garter belts and stockings were any better. When I watch movies from the studio days of MGM and Warner Brothers, I look at actresses like Lana Turner and Joan Crawford trussed up like turkeys in their cinched waists, high pointy brassieres, and pencil skirts. Forget emotion and expression; the fact that they manage to look comfortable is all the acting I need to see. On a History Channel show one evening, Husband and I watched women suffragettes marching in some of the most restrictive clothing you can imagine. I was thinking, now that’s something to rebel against. Get the vote next; first get out of the corset.
I’m often whining here about how technology has taken over our lives and made the world impersonal and intrusive at the same time. Not having my computer for a week was disorienting. I felt strangely unproductive. Which is interesting, since most of the world’s greatest discoveries were achieved before the advent of computers, and they weren’t even present in the workplace until about twenty years ago. Fax machines only slightly preceded that in the ’80s. Back then, the office network consisted of phones and conference rooms and workers who got into their cars to go visit clients. If you watch old sitcoms like Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best, you see the dad at work sitting at his desk with a pen in one hand, the phone in the other, and a writing pad in front of him. End of story.
I recently received my college magazine in the mail, and the main article was about the man who founded our school in the early seventies. There was a picture of him in his office, a room devoid of a computer, fax machine, or electronics of any kind. No PowerPoint for presentations; no Excel for budgets; no Word for correspondence; no ListServ for fundraising. Just how did he make it all happen under such primitive conditions? Apparently, he didn’t know what he was missing because he went ahead and founded the school anyway.
Instead of being the Featured Fotographer, Daughter is the subject
today as she and friends pose for glamour shots at Pandemic Gallery
blue bunny
red sailor
80s rocker
can anyone say librarian?
too cool
homage to patti smith