The back of this photograph tells the viewer that this is "Gail Staniewicz, and her special boy friend, June '68".

1968 was a huge year in American history. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, we were in the midst of a war with Vietnam, the Civil Rights Act was brought into legislation, and a resurgence in women's lib. was in full swing. In the month that this picture was taken Andy Warhol and Kennedy were killed.

Gail Staniewicz' young man is wearing a United States Air Force uniform. It makes me wonder about what these two had to go through and what it was like to live through such a tumultuous time, especially as a young couple. What's really great about this photograph, though, is how happy they are. Gail is making an all together silly face while her special boyfriend looks on admiringly. I'd like to know what happened to these two. Was there relationship one that lasted or was it short lived? What did they like to do in their spare time? What did their parents think about what was all going on? This photograph presents this weird feeling because we know that the time in which they were living was filled with real heartbreak and tragedy, but these kids just looked so happy together. It's nice and comforting in this strange naive way.

Carrier pigeons are a variety of the Rock Pigeon that are selectively bred for their innate homing abilities. Their innate homing ability made them very useful for carrying messages. However, because they can effectively only store one memory of their home, they can only really send messages one way: the sender of the message must have the receiver's carrier pigeon with him/her and release it when ready to deliver a message. However, it is possible to train them to fly back and forth, reliably, between two locations (home and where its food is) up to twice a day.

Cher Ami

Carrier pigeons were used fairly extensively throughout both World Wars. Of the 64 Dickin Medals given since 1943, 32 were awarded to pigeons. One particularly famous pigeon, Cher Ami, was responsible for saving the Lost Battalion of the 77th Division in the battle of the Argonne during World War I. The 77th Division were trapped in a small depression behind enemy lines without food or ammunition. They had already lost a lot of lives to the Germans and were being shot at by allies who did not know where they were. The first two birds they tried to send out were quickly shot down. Cher Ami, their last homing pigeon, was sent out with their location and a plea for help. As she first begin to take flight, Germans began to shoot her down and bullets flew all around. She was eventually shot down, but was soon able to fly again. She survived the 25 mile flight to the division headquarters despite being shot through the breast, being blinded in one eye, and having one leg held on with just tendon. The doctors worked very hard to save her life and even carved a new small wooden leg for her. She went on to receive the Croix de Guerre medal and the Oak Leaf Cluster for her service. She eventually died at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey on June 13, 1919 from her battle wounds.

Carrier pigeons have all but gone entirely out of use with the advent of telephony. Is there any room left for the carrier pigeon in a place and time where the postal service is dying a slow death? Is there any interest left in a way of communicating that doesn't rely on the immediacy we have come to expect?

Mark A. Thomas, The Payphone Project guy, is someone of extreme interest to me. Shortly after I found The Payphone Project, I went rooting around to see what else I could find out about the person behind it.

Read more »

At least 90% of the American population owns a cellular telephone, which means pay phones have mostly gone out of use. I can count the number of times I've used a pay phone on one hand (2, maybe 3 times) and I only used them because I had forgotten my cellular telephone or I left it somewhere. I'm sure that they go unnoticed by most passerby.

However, there's this website that serves as a digital ode to pay phones. The story about how this website came to be is pretty great, but I'll let the author, Mark Thomas, speak (as it were) for himself (the story includes anonymous piano recordings and audio voyeurism[!!!]).

Mark has archived the list of all the telephone numbers he received. Beside some of them are these great descriptions of where these public telephones are:

Inside Associated Student Body room at the Hanford High School East Campus. Many students come in here to partake of vending machine food and soda, or to get out of the rain. (209) 583-9856

This phone booth is in a big parking lot of an Exxon station in Galt, CA just So. of Sacramento along Hwy.99. (209) 745-9910 It's pretty lonely out there.

Phone located outside of a little market in the little farming community in Strathmore Ca in the Central California. The only town in California where the females outnumber the guys 5 to 1........Just ask for Greg, he's got all the connections. (209) 568-9098

by food 4 less on alamo dr. i'm always at this payfone waiting for someone to call, gimmie a call any weekday around 6 p.m., btw, my names joe (707) 448-9830  

And so on and so forth.



The pictures submitted are both quick snapshots, meant to instruct and illustrate more than anything, and more carefully framed shots, ones you just know the person took while they were walking around alone. They have this feeling that Edward Hopper was able to capture so well in the American landscape and that I find so oddly comforting to look at.



I really like this small online museum. What's great is that the website seems to have surfaced sometime in 1995 and is still being updated. Mark Thomas encourages people to send him photographs of pay phones and their respective phone numbers, though you are not able to call most of them anymore. Having websites like this, and people like this, allow you to be a little more aware of the things that are often looked over: small, but not necessarily trivial things, that can help add depth to our lives.

In light of the forthcoming Salinger documentary (something I dislike very much and would like to go away immediately), this week's Hit of the Week is Freddie Rich's Radio Orchestra playing Call Me Darling and Comin' Thro' the Rye. This comes from Holden Caulfield's misreading of the Robert Burns' poem Comin' Thro' the Rye. He thinks the lines are: "If a body catch a body", but Robert Burns' wrote "If a body meet a body".

--

O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
  Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
  Comin thro' the rye!

Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
  Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
  Comin thro' the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
  Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
  Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
  Comin thro' the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
  Need the warl' ken?

Gin a body meet a body
  Comin thro' the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
   The thing's a body's ain.

--
 

Read more »

nubɪveɪgænt (phonetically: new-bih-vayg-ant)

Etymology:

Examples:

René Magritte's Infinite Gratitude

The Irish Elk is misrepresented by its name, they were neighter exclusively Irish nor were they elk. They were one of the largest deer that ever lived whose skeletons have been found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They are called Irish because a great number of well preserved skeletons were found in the peat bogs of Ireland.

They weighed between 1300-1500 lbs., stood about 6.9 feet tall, and had the largest antlers of any known deer. Their antlers, at their most, stretched 12 feet long- from tip to tip. Comparatively, the average antler on deer still alive range from 3"-60" (approximately). 

These enormous animals fell victim to the Ice Age and dropped into extinction around 10,500 years ago. If these deer had managed to live through the Ice Age and subsequent years, what would it have been like to have them be among us? Would we place their antlers over our mantle places, keep them captive in zoos? I think that most people tend to think of an animal's value only in relation to themselves. This is evident in our obsession with pets, zoos, and whole websites devoted to baby animals. I think we love animals because we love how they make us feel.