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| Cher Ami |
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.
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
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".
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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.
--
nubɪveɪgænt (phonetically: new-bih-vayg-ant)
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| 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.
In the early 1930s, there was a record label in America called Hit of the Week. They catered mostly to the poorer majority of people during the Depression. Their records were made of a mixture of paper and resin, called durium, unlike most other label's shellac phonographs- which were more durable and resistant to time's persistent weathering abuse. Their phonographs were usually sold at newsstands, as opposed to record stores, in a rice paper sleeve for 15 cents a piece.
These flimsy little records weren't made to survive an extended amount of time, they were made for the people who loved music and couldn't afford to not have them. I really like the idea that people who largely couldn't afford a meal would spend the money to purchase a record instead. There's something to be said about the sentiment behind that (it certainly wasn't materialism or consumerism that drove these people to the newsstands).
Luckily, for us, this company has found and reproduced the songs from that short lived era of desperate hunger for music. Lucky for you, the reader: I have decided to post a song from this ephemeral little record company weekly. I hope that, in light of all the convenience of downloading albums and movies for free, this can serve as a small reminder that some things and feelings are well worth the money.
One of the most notable things about American movies made pre-1960s is the way the actors and actresses speak. They have this rather elegant way of dropping their R's and emphasizing their T's. This Transatlantic Accent was not a conventional accent, by any means; rather, it was taught in theater classes and most boarding schools prior to the sixties.
Alternately: "apanthropinization"
æpænˌθɹəʊpɪnaɪˈzeɪʃən (phonetically: uh-pan-throw-pin-eye-zay-shun)
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| Henry David Thoreau |
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| Jerome David Salinger |
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| Bill Watterson |
