Tag: nostalgia

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Whenever I discover a good junk shop, my final act, after exploring every other dusty crevice for oddball antiques and rare tiki finds, is to locate the inevitable box full of other people's old photographs. I'll then spend an hour or two rustling through fragile, curled bits of paper, picking out the most unusual and enigmatic shots from the lives of people I've never met.

Until now, I've simply added all my photographic finds to a collection accumulating in my closet. Starting today, however, that collection will reside at Junk Shop Photos, a new photographic blog featuring all the unusual snapshots I've liberated from dust-covered obscurity.

Check them out, rate them and, by all means, add you own captions!

Roadside Resort reader Neil has reminded me of a terrific blog featuring articles from the now defunct Modern Mechanix, a science and technology magazine first published in the late 1920s to compete with the already successful Popular Science and Popular Mechanics.

Many articles, like those of its competitors, were simply outrageous. Two of Neil's favorites cover a 1934 plan to dam up and fill in the Hudson River to reconnect Manhattan Island with the mainland and a 1932 proposal to convert city intersections to two under-over levels topped by a high-rise, eliminating traffic signals (and also, apparently, left turns). ... Continued

Few vehicles capture the classic midcentury spirit like the Italian Vespa, a time-honored mode of transport that has maintained its stylish and practical design even into the 21st century.

If my circumstances permitted, I'd get my hands on a classic model myself and use it as my primary source of transportation. Unfortunately, the sprawling layout of Texas just doesn't accommodate the use of such a practical vehicle.

Still, that won't stop me from enjoying Huro Kitty's collection of vintage Vespa imagery as recently featured on D+R.

And if you like those, you'll also like the photographs of the exhibits and collections from the Piaggio Museum, the official museum of the Vespa's manufacturer located in Pontedera, Italy.

Technology geeks, especially those like me who are fascinated by retrofuturism, aren't going to be getting much done lately, seeing as Google has recently made available as part of its Google Book Search entire issues of Popular Mechanics dating back to 1905 Popular Science reaching all the way back to 1872!

And when I say entire issues, I mean every page in full color, including the ads (which can be quite fascinating in themselves). Plus, each issue appears to be searchable.

Pictured here are a few of my favorite covers, which tease enticing articles like "Making Movies in a Volcano" (April 1933) and "Rocket to the Moon — No Longer a Fascinating Dream" (May 1950).

Wrap those Christmas gifts now, because the rest of your vacation is going to be spent browsing these archives.