The Burton Holmes Archive has information about Burton Holmes, the travel writer who became the first person to make filmic travelogues. More importantly, they also have a lot of
film clips by Holmes and his associate,
André de la Varre, who was also a great travelogue maker himself. Watching these clips is not quite time travel, but it is as close as we can get. Take a look at
Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1926,
Lake Michigan in 20s,
Cairo in 1932 and
the 1955 Rio de Janeiro carnival. The later films have sound and narration, but I prefer the silent ones.
[Burton Holmes previously, André de la Varre previously, and the Travel Film Archive, which runs Burton Holmes site, previously]
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 26, 2011 -
5 comments
Walking Home: stories from the desert to the Great Lakes. Laura Milkins is walking home. Home is Grand Rapids, Michigan. Laura lives in Tucson, Arizona. That's 2,000 miles (3,219 km), or about 4,473,976 steps. Right now she's in the shoulder of the road somewhere around Holbrook, Arizona. She has a pack on her back, a
webcam streaming 24 hours strapped to a sun visor on her head, and hopefully, a place to stay tonight. You can follow her every step of the way, by watching live video broadcast from her hat.
Or
walk with her.
[more inside]
posted by Tufa
on May 25, 2011 -
26 comments
Children in foster care in Michigan get an allowance for clothing. Republican State Senator Bruce Caswell wants to limit their clothing purchases to
thrift stores only.
posted by helloknitty
on Apr 24, 2011 -
241 comments
On Sunday, ESPN aired an acclaimed documentary about the University of Michigan's
Fab Five. In one segment the members of the Fab Five discuss their hatred of the Duke University basketball program, and Jalen Rose goes so far as to say that at the time he felt like Duke players were
"Uncle Toms".
Link goes to clip of relevant segment (1:24), after a short ad.
Grant Hill, who played for Duke against the Fab Five,
responded in today's New York Times. [more inside]
posted by auto-correct
on Mar 16, 2011 -
88 comments
Midwest label
Suburban Sprawl puts out a CD of X-Mas music every winter. They've collected the last eight years of them
here. Highlights include The High Strung, The Hard Lessons, and the common lament, "Santa Just Crashed Into My House and He's Drunk as Fuck."
posted by klangklangston
on Dec 1, 2010 -
16 comments
CK Prahalad, Paul and Ruth McCracken
Distinguished University Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business in the University of Michigan
passed away on 16th April 2010 after a brief illness. His core
competency was strategic insight and vision and his
legacy to the world, the
concept of the
Bottom of the Pyramid, which changed
the way big
business viewed the teeming, huddled poverty stricken masses of the
former third world as
micro-innovators, micro-
producers and so, micro-consumers in
their own right. Among others,
his work inspired Ratan Tata as the
Nano turned conventional wisdom of automobile manufacturing on its head and
paved the way for Indian industry
to focus on the
high volume/low margin potential of their domestic
market. In
2009, he was named the "
world's most influential thinker" .
Though not
uncriticized for
his theories on the
Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, one can acknowledge his role in overcoming the "
tyranny of dominant logic" that the poor should
not simply be recipients of charity but
demanding customers in
challenging environments. RIP, sir. {
previously,
previously}
posted by infini
on Apr 17, 2010 -
14 comments
Cats for Clunkers? It had to be Michigan where the Humane Society is promoting its free cat adoptions like
used car sales... That's right folks, Certified Pre-Owned Cats! Standard 4-paw Drive! 100,000 Purr Warranty! Made in Michigan and Better than New! But before you take that cat home, check out
Catfax.org because nobody wants a lemonpuss. lol.
Found at Consumerist so it must be legit [more inside]
posted by wendell
on Aug 21, 2009 -
20 comments
Detroit is one of the most visually interesting cities in the world, however it is also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented.
Detroit Book of Love is a group of photographs illustrating what contemporary Detroit artists have been doing in regards to developing an understanding and appreciation for this complex and diverse city; from street portraits of the survivors, to the landscapes of wild new growth, to the industrial leftovers. As a group they show Detroit as it is, not what it should be or what it once was.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Aug 7, 2009 -
27 comments
A year and a half ago, a professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan University
discovered a pattern of stones 40 feet below the waters of Lake Michigan. The story has been surprisingly under-reported, given that the Stonehenge-like structure is potentially estimated to be 10,000 years old. One of the stones even appears to have a
mastodon carved on it.
posted by jon_hansen
on Jan 5, 2009 -
42 comments
Politicians and
citizens alike are struggling with the decision to bail out the under-performing American automakers. But
what will happen to the cities and towns of the Midwest if the automakers fail?
Flint, Michigan provides an interesting template. In the 1960s and 70s, Flint had a population of 200,000 and was home to some 80,000 autoworkers. Today, after many
plant closures, relocations, and worker buyouts, only 8,000 autoworkers remain. So,
what are we to do with cities like Flint? There have been lots of ideas, like
demolishing dilapidated houses, renovating brownfield sites like
Chevy-in-the-Hole [pdf], downtown business
renovation, and increasing community participation by
giving ownership of vacant lots to local homeowners.
[more inside]
posted by billysumday
on Dec 5, 2008 -
54 comments
For over a thousand years, fishermen all over the world have been using
cormorants to help them fish in lakes and rivers. In Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan,
cormorant fishing on the
Nagara river has continued uninterrupted for the past 1,300 years. In
Guilin and
Yangshuo, China, cormorant birds are famous for fishing on the shallow
Lijiang River.
The islands of the Beaver Island archipelago in Northern Lake Michigan host what may be the densest concentration of the big, black diving birds on the continent, an estimated 50,000 that eat about 9 million pounds of fish from the surrounding waters from spring through fall. Fishermen and tourism interests want the state and federal governments to
cut the number of double-crested cormorants around the Beaver Island group by half, raising the ire of bird lovers and animal-rights activists who say the cormorants aren't at the root of the problem.
posted by mrducts
on Jul 1, 2008 -
13 comments
Fiscal Pressures Lead Some States to Free Inmates Early, says the Washington Post. Across the United States, a financial crisis is brewing in our nation's correctional systems. California, which has
the largest prison system in the nation, (housing 170,000 inmates with a capacity of only 100,000), plans to increase the budget for
new prison construction by
7 to 14 billion dollars, on top of releasing 22,000 nonviolent prisoners on unsupervised parole. Other states, especially Michigan, face an even more dire situation...
[more inside]
posted by Avenger
on May 5, 2008 -
41 comments
Adultery could mean life, Michigan's second-highest court reported that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Michigan's Supreme Court majority has held that it is for the Legislature, not the courts, to decide when the absurdity threshold has been breached.
posted by IronWolve
on Jan 16, 2007 -
122 comments
Creativity, Inc: Dave Eggers of
McSweeney's is a proprietor. A shopkeeper. Perhaps even a franchise magnate! It was his keen perception of unmet needs in niche markets that led to the opening of a growing array of supply houses across the country. Among them:
The Pirate Store, for the well-outfitted swashbuckler;
The Boring Store, a subtle, unassuming purveyor of goods for secret agents; the
Superhero Supply Store, in Brooklyn, carrying all the eyewear and accessories today's world-savers require; and
Greenwood Space Travel Supply, where customers are reminded of the space-travel axiom "A lack of preparation is a prescription for mishaps." If these sound like curious business ventures for a celebrated author, there's a reason: the
storefronts, though real, are just that -
fronts. They're the streetside faces (and fundraising arms) of the nonprofit
826National, a family of learning centers for kids ages 6-18. The 826 'stores' provide free
field trips, creatively themed
writing workshops,
publishing, and
one-on-one instruction. Supported by an impressive field of
cultural types (including Ira Glass, Sarah Vowell, Sherman Alexie, and others), the program is growing. Coming soon: Michigan 826 will open
Monster Union Local 826, and
826LA will open the Echo Park Time Travel Mart.
posted by Miko
on Jan 11, 2007 -
51 comments
America's worst school violence ever was not a
recent event, but the
Bath School disaster of 1927.
Andrew Kehoe, a school board member upset with his tax bill, used dynamite and some
pyrotol from WWI-era military surplus to blow himself up along with the elementary school of
Bath Township, Michigan, leaving 45 dead and 58 injured. See a
1927 book on the disaster, a
list of victims, the
coroner's inquest, a
historical marker, a
memorial park, an
oral history from a witness, and a 1920s
KKK rant denouncing Kehoe as an agent of the Roman Catholic conspiracy.
posted by jonp72
on Oct 5, 2006 -
14 comments
Take a trip with me to 1913.
To
Calumet, Michigan, in the
Copper Country.
I'll take you to a place called
Italian Hall,
Where the
miners are having their big
Christmas Ball.
This time of year,
Woody Guthrie's haunting ballad "
1913 Massacre" brings to mind one of the most tragic incidents in American labor history. At the midpoint of the bitter and violent
miners' strike of 1913-14, miners and their families gathered for a Christmas party given by their union. An unidentified "
stupid person" gave the shout of "
fire", causing a panicked rush to escape. Unable to get out the door,
more than 70 people, mostly children, were smothered to death. A forthcoming documentary (main link) explores the legacy of the event, using Guthrie's song as its starting point.
posted by Miko
on Dec 21, 2005 -
19 comments
Transit in Detroit details an urban planner's initiative to cut the costs of the city's traffic congestion-relieving highway expansion by proposing a transit system combining light rail and bus-rapid-transit. [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007
on Nov 25, 2005 -
15 comments
