Flag Day Tribute

It's Flag Day here in the good ole USA. Or is it flag day around the world???

In any case, we Americans are pretty gosh-darn proud of our banner and Gary Roberts is living proof that hideous, atonal hymns extolling the virtues of our....um...flag is what makes this country a great fucking place. Love it or leave it. U-S-A. U-S-A. U-S-A!!!





via The Wonderful and the Obscure

Voices Of Lynchburg

" ... This was recorded at Lynchburg, Tennessee in the late 1970`s I`d say. Someone went down there and just recorded stories about the area from some local old timers. Of course, Lynchburg is famous for one thing mainly, the Jack Daniels distillery is there. ... "
At Allen`s archive of early and old country music you'll get to listen to Voices Of Lynchburg.

"Moonshine - and other Natural Phenomena..."
(Personal reminiscences of whiskey-making in Moore County - both legal and otherwise.)

USA

"USA is a four-hour-long "mix-album," conveniently divided into 10 separate mixes. The history, geography, culture, and politics of the United States is all fair game for RIAA's musical collages, incisive observations, and cheap jokes"

"USA," a "Mix-Album" in 10 Parts by Mr. Fab and his RIAA.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

I was on my way back from Eastern Ohio through Pennsylvania and just HAD to stop in at one or two of the many you-can-buy-fireworks-if-you're-not-from-here-so-you-can-burn-your-own-state-down fireworks stores and saw that the design standards had, erm, evolved somewhat capturing the zeitgeist with a 12"x12" cube of 36 shots or so of full color pyrotechnic chaos. Apologies for the shite pix - I'm waiting for my Droid......

My Out-Of-Touchness Continues

USA! USA! USA!
The People of WalMart

Tempus Fugit

Square America has gotten linked all over the place in the past (here, 3 times, at least) but recently I backed into it via an image search and found a series of these:



timeline portraits made into animated gifs.
The stuff of genius. Now go look. What the hell elase are you doing? Somebody needs to give these M.F.s a grant.

And that's......the rest of the story.....good day?

Paul Harvey R.I.P.
Thanks for all the cross-country drives where you told us how the beautiful movie star who developed Nazi beating radar was none other than ..........................................Hedy Lamar.

Just a few more: Citrus Labels !!

Unvarnished truth. The smell of a wet dog from the chemical bath the fruit was placed in. The domesday book open to the citrus page. The ever widening gyre whose center cannot hold. Rough beasts slouching towards Jerusalem. Allen Ginsburg farting at your table as you slice into your Christmas pork loin.

Yay!.... for California produce!





JK OK ? LOL BRB

Pete

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Does America Have Any Culture?

" ... Here's what happened: I'm teaching a class on twentieth-century popular culture at the University of Leipzig. I don't know why the school asked me to do this, but it did. And it turns out that any seminar on U. S. consumer culture is extremely attractive to every non-American kid majoring in American studies, because ninety-six students signed up for the class in the span of three days. Due to the size of the classroom, I was forced to immediately reduce this number to twenty. I was unsure how to do that fairly, so I decided to give them a competitive online essay test before the first day of class. The question was this: "Who do you consider the most interesting twentieth-century American -- not necessarily the most historically important, but the individual you find most personally compelling?" The responses were well written, habitually understated, and devoid of any pattern whatsoever.
...
Since my arrival in Leipzig, I have continually been reminded about the way many Germans view American culture. They essentially feel it does not exist. One grad student only half jokingly told me that an entire semester of American cultural studies "should probably take about twenty-five minutes." But this, of course, is crazy. Now more than ever, I feel certain that the United States is as good at manufacturing culture as the rest of the world combined, probably because we often do so accidentally. A lack of culture is not our problem. The problem is we've become too effective at distributing that culture -- at the same time, in the same way, and with the same velocity. It all ends up feeling interchangeable, which makes it all marginally irrelevant. As it turns out, my initial question was beyond impossible. There are no interesting twentieth-century Americans. There can't be, because they all are."

Chuck Klosterman (for Esquire) goes to Germany to teach a class. His students teach him a lesson about how the world views us: Does America Have Any Culture? (via Unpop)

1930s-40s in Color

"Backstage" at the "girlie" show at the Vermont state fair, Rutland. 1941 Sept.


Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. 1941 June.

"These vivid color photos from the Great Depression and World War II capture an era generally seen only in black-and-white. Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1939 and 1944. ..."
1930s-40s in Color, a spectacular documentation uploaded to Flickr by Library of Congress. (via Coudal Partners)

The Nostalgic Glass

Mercantile National Bank
"Since its last tenant left in the early 1990’s, the Mercantile had loomed like a ghost ship over downtown Dallas. Once the center of power in the city and the pride of R.L. Thornton, the building now projected a blighted and musty air through the surrounding blocks. Buyers came and went; the years and seasons passed, and slowly, people forgot even what was inside."

"When the 20-story Dallas Building was added in 1958, R.L. Thornton moved his office over there. Perhaps the view here no longer suited him.

Reflected in the mirrors was the Republic National Bank, the Competition. That building, with its rocket-shaped spire, ultimately took away the Mercantile’s title as the tallest building in Dallas."


"The boardroom sat vacant, though likely no one had ever seen a larger conference table. The few people who came to visit in those last days could fancy themselves captains of industry, and who was there to say otherwise?"

The Nostalgic Glass - Photographical explorations of the ruined historical architecture of Russia and Elsewhere.
(via del.icio.us/lonita_links)

Disneyland, construction and first years

"Disneyland construction"

"Alligator for the Jungle Cruise"

Old Disneyland - Pictures from its construction and first few years of operation. Set at Flickr uploaded by Tom Simpson. (via Boing Boing)

The Enemy Agent & You

"Cold War counter-spy instructional film created to convince government officials traveling with top secret info to watch their backs.
Watch hapless G-men get seduced and setup for blackmail by treacherous Soviet she-spies.
Includes clandestine spy gadgets a la James Bond and jarring, film noir-esque music."
The Department Of Defence (the 60s version) presents 'The Enemy Agent & You':

Added by weirdovideos

The Village Muffler People

Photo arrangement by Martin Klasch

The Muffler Men - Roadside America

Casino Carpet Gallery

Left: Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada: Plaza
Right: Mississippi Gulf Coast: Boomtown

The Casino Carpet Gallery (via Martin Klasch)

Where Americans Live

Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection.
Exhibition at The Getty.