This is, literally, my wife’s favorite part of Parks and Recreation this week:
Pretend English
The news often shows how foreigners think about Americans, with protest signs and yelling and effigies, but that’s about America as a whole. For the most part, this video is probably a much more accurate view of how foreigners see an American, on an individual level: swagger, self-assuredness, and lots of ‘r’s.
SF’s Wooden Ladders
Firemen in San Francisco have a unique problem: low old-style power lines are a dangerous issue when swinging around metal ladders, and light fiberglass ladders aren’t sturdy enough to stand up to fire department service. So, the San Francisco fire department has its own wooden ladder-making shop which supplies San Fran’s Finest with the means to climb as high as they need without adding further risk to the firefighters’ lives.
The Cartoonist’s Piano
Mell Lazarus was the creator of the Miss Peach comic strip, and he served as a mentor and a leader in the cartooning world. Once upon a time, Mell and his wife decided they needed a piano, so they found a beat-up white Wurlitzer with the intention of refinishing it. Instead, Mell’s friends in the cartoon world started drawing on it, which has resulted in this awesome piece of illustration history: Mell’s Piano.
Cameras In Flight
Artist Paul Octavious decided to allow his photography take flight — literally — by composing photos of old cameras with wings. The effect is haunting, but I don’t know that I can forgive him messing up a Stereo Realist viewer. Old Brownies are a dime a dozen, old SX70s are pretty common, too, but that Realist viewer never hurt nobody.
Via.
Microphone Museum
The Bob Paquette’s Microphone Museum in Milwaukee is home to more microphones than you can shake a stick at. Not that you’d shake sticks around microphones, that doesn’t make much noise.
(via Frank DeFreitas)
Book Camera Obscura
An enterprising young man has put his old books to good use by converting them into a camera obscura. If you’ll remember, a camera obscura is the precursor to a camera, acting more like a projector for painting from a reference than capturing an image directly, like my favorite Vermeer.
Vertical Vega
Here’s what happens when engineers get high: the Chevrolet Vega was shipped to auto dealers on special train cars which unfolded like a flower in the morning dew to release their multi-colored metal cargo. The car itself was redesigned to allow it to be stored this way, in running condition, with all the oil and other fluids inside. As you might guess, cars aren’t designed to sit in the nose-down position, so while the engineers had a lot of fun, traveling around the USA in your Chevrolet wasn’t that great for the Vega.
Blade Runner Magazine Covers
For a brief moment in the film Blade Runner, a 21st century newsstand appears in the background — about as quaint a prediction as the continual use of telephone booths — with a few futuristic magazine covers visible. Take a closer look at those covers online.
Repurposed Cameras
Now that film is getting scarce, particularly the kind of film used by medium-format camera, you might want to find new uses for your old cameras. Jason Hull turned his into cute night-lights.
