We Are Leisure, Laughter & Joy

Because we must...

Of Monorails, Rockets & Gyroscropes: 1962 Seattle World's Fair

  

Magazine views of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, including an illustrated map.

Bottom Of The Stack

The last of literally HUNDREDS of National Geographic magazines that were handed down to me by my grandfather.  He handed many twine-gathered bundles of these to me before he passed away in 1999 and I inherited many more afterward. Not content to let items such as these accumulate and stagnate on shelves, I've been cutting them up for two purposes: as source material for collages and also as clippings to be put in the many reference binders I began keeping years ago.  These binders aren't genteel scrapbooks with quaint notions from other decades, but instead act as reference for paintings and drawings.  The contents range from vintage advertisements and postcards to typography samples and purchased or found photographs... in other words, artifacts that have shaped my visual vocabulary.

  While my reference binders (and two large boxes of collage material) are culled from 1940s - early 1970s issues of many publications (such as Life, Esquire, Look, and Better Homes & Gardens) a sizable chunk of what I've extracted and utilized has come from what you see a miniscule slice of above:  something I like to call The Norman Nelsen Collection.  

I thought I had processed them all ages ago, but last week my parents told me that several bundles of old Nat-Geos were sitting in an upstairs closet at their house and asked me to take them... so I did.  Shortly before cutting them up, I decided to photograph them so I could share these last few iconic covers here and cast a short tribute to yet ANOTHER great thing that one of my grandparents gave me.  

THANKS, POP!  ...For this, and MANY other awesome things.

The First Book Of They (1961)

  

A nice piece of Late 1950s - Early 1960s design...

The First Book Of They (1961).  Written by William Scudder and Designed by William Duffy.

A nice piece of Early 1960s design purchased at a vintage book shop about 10 years ago.

My First Vintage Book: Dick And Dot (1935)

One Happy Year With Dick And Dot.  Written by The Sisters Of Saint Joseph.

Illustrated by Marion and Doris Henderson.  Published by MacMillan New York in 1935. 

This was the very first book that gave me a clear understanding of the passage of time and the things that remain.  I was a first grader at Saint Joseph Hill Academy in Staten Island.  My classmates and I had been led to the small, low-ceilinged library in the basment of the Holy Infancy Building, also known as The Bungalow.  We were given a selection of books to take with us and this was the one I chose.  Though I'm not sure if we were told to return them or keep them, this one somehow ended up at home with me.  

It was with THIS book that a lifelong lover and collector of all things vintage was born.  

We Go Way Back: Mitch & Me

      

 In Memoriam: Mitch Miller (1911 - 2010): Columbia Records Executive, Orchestra Conductor and Recording Artist.  Upon learning of his death from my friend Steve (who knew I kept a stash of my grandparents' 1961 - 1964 "Sing Along With Mitch" records) I decided to share these classic, crisp and spritely-designed sleeves.  Each LP was a gatefold which contained perforated pages of lyrics to be passed around to party guests.  Even as late as the mid-to-late 70s, people in my family would play one  of these discs for a laugh, causing EVERYONE in the house to sing "Finiculi, Finicula" at the TOP of their lungs.  Upon looking at these records today, I realized that none of the perforated lyric sheets were  removed.  Perhaps this had to do with the fact that after a few drinks, lyrical accuracy is not exactly a virtue.  Regardless, I'd like to say thanks for the sing-alongs and laughs, Mitch... Now you sing with angels.