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Friday, 31 December 2010

Yesterday's Gone


.

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Lonely soldier and recruiting poster on New Year's Eve, Detroit, Michigan: photo by Arthur S. Siegel, December 1941



and it's good to see the back of it



Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Celebrators standing at a bar on New Year's Eve, Detroit, Michigan: photo by Arthur S. Siegel, January 1942

Photos from Farm Security Administration/ Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress
at 05:45

7 comments:

Julia said...

I love the contrast. Great choice, Tom.

31 December 2010 at 07:41
Anonymous said...

Yes, yes. (And I love these Siegel photos).

31 December 2010 at 07:46
TC said...

Well, there are all kinds and sizes of celebrations, I guess.

Personally I prefer the quiet kind, as in, check the remaining body parts, celebrate the ones that aren't broken (and don't mourn excessively for the ones that have gone missing).

Then again, here's how they rang in the new year in Hong Kong.

31 December 2010 at 09:46
Julia said...

Amazing fireworks, a bit overwhelming...
For me is usually hard to FEEL the emotion of these temporal landmarks and festivities.
¿Por qué tenemos que sentirnos diferentes de un minuto a otro si nada cambió?
Perhaps all the noise and magnificent fireworks help us to feel what we "should"...

31 December 2010 at 11:14
TC said...

Yes, I always stand off from the show a bit too much to really get the recommended thrills. However I will admit the HK show built to a certain over-the-top climax that left one gasping. (Maybe it's the rib problem, with the breathing).

One of my earliest "memories" -- I was more or less forced to "remember" it, since great fun was made of it in the family -- was my profound terror during my first attendance at a Fourth of July fireworks show in the football stadium of the high school in the town where I was attempting to grow up.

The spectacle was so overwhelming that I crawled upon my grandfather's lap, shut my eyes, and refused to look.

As to feeling "different" from the last minute of one year to the first minute of the next, the older one gets, the more ridiculous that seems.

31 December 2010 at 11:33
Julia said...

My elder daughter (she's 11 since last Monday) even today hates fireworks. She tries to be brave... but I must say she doesn't seems to have much success with this.

Happy new year! (let's be like normal people and believe it makes a difference :-)

31 December 2010 at 14:26
Ed Baker said...

HEY
- "The Shape of Things to Come
-AND, you being 3 months OLDER than me

THIS ARTICLE FITS in this box:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/us/01boomers.html?pagewanted=1&hp


check out Butch... he was THE FIRST Baby Boomer/Bummer (born 1946)

looks like 2.8 MILLION people will become eligible to retire &and draw SS & get a Senior Drink at Roy Rogers) this year

bur ALSO dig this by 2thousan30 ONLY 18% of USA population will be over 65!

and 17% of them will need one of those $5,000-a-month nursing/Al's Heimers places to live!

well

now off to the mail-box
..see if my SS check ($425) is yet here

New Year's Day
paying my beer-tab
with my Social Security Checque

1 January 2011 at 06:16

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