Sunday 11 May 2008


UK Tower Blocks and Architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.





Soviet Tourist Labels.


'Some of the best Intourist labels and brochures produced during the 1930's were designed by A. Selensky. Some of the labels in this set are signed by him, including a rare constructivist style travel brochure I have included as well.'




Field Guide to New York City Subway Maps.


1924 to now.




Coolville Supermarket.


Vintage supermarket product packaging. 'Hopefully while strolling through the Coolville Supermarket you'll fill your shopping cart full of fun memories!'




Bridget Riley's Optical Art.


Riley creates art which exploits the fallibility of the human eye - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Riley




Cleaning the Great Buddha of Nara, Japan.


'The ceremony of cleaning the image of the Great Buddha of the Tôdai-ji Temple, in Japan, is performed on 7th of August every year. About 230 people, including priests, work in the dusting of this 16-metre giant statue. The cleaners have to climb all over Buddha to be able to polish the hands and feet and ride in baskets hung from the ceiling in order to clean its head. '




Hindu Gods on Flickr.





Delaware Postcard Collection.


'The University of Delaware Library Postcard Collection comprises over two thousand postcards of Delaware and nearby areas. The postcards in the collection date mainly from the very end of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, although there are also postcards from throughout the later part of the twentieth century. Most of the cards in the collection were commercially produced and represent well-known Delaware buildings, monuments, and views, such as the State Capitol in Dover, Wilmington’s downtown buildings and historic structures, and Rehoboth’s beaches and boardwalks.'




Jean Thomas, the Traipsin' Woman.


'Jean Thomas was born Jeanette Mary Francis de Assisi Aloysius Narcissus Garfield Bell in Ashland, Kentucky on November 14, 1881. She earned the nickname "Traipsin' Woman" when, as a teenager in the 1890s, she defied convention to attend business school, learn stenography, and become a court reporter, traveling by jolt wagon to courts in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Her exposure to the musical traditions, dialect, folkways, and costumes of the mountain people she encountered, combined with her later work in "show business," led to her avocation as a popularizer of mountain music and as proprietress of the American Folk Song Festival, staged in and near Ashland, Kentucky from 1930 through 1972...'

The Jean Thomas Collection: http://digital.library.louisville.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fjthom




The Official R. Crumb Website.


The underground comix artist. 'I was one of those social rejects, but then, you know, a lot of people were — nothing unusual about being an outcast in high school.'

Crumb family art gallery : http://rcrumb.com/artgallery.html



Querying the Hive Mind.


How to concentrate.





History of the Mao Suit.


From Evolution and Revolution: Chinese Dress 1700s-1990s - http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/evrev/




The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936.


A US Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit.

'For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. Minimizing its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to impress many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that contemporary observers claimed might have restrained Hitler and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny. After the Olympics, Germany's expansionism and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust...'




Introduction to Psychology.





A Mission Record of the California Indians.


'This is an 'interrogatorio,' a survey taken in 1811 by the Spanish government of Mexico regarding the status of the Native Californians at each mission in Alta California, translated and heavily annotated by A.L. Kroeber. Along with Boscana's account, this one of the few glimpses we have of the Native Californians, when pre-contact individuals were still alive. The accounts vary from friar to friar, but some are very detailed and mention completely unknown placenames and languages. There are reasonably value-free descriptions of religious beliefs, mythology, language, dance, music and ethnobotany.'

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