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
It's not quite the Nile, but there is political strife there too. The Illinois river town of Cairo (KAY-row), IL, is
surrounded by the Ohio and the Mississippi, and is in danger of being flooded. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to activate a flood mitigation plan by breaching some levees into spillways designed to mitigate such a flood. Unfortunately, those floodways are in Missouri, and they would rather not have a bunch of farmland flooded just to save some little town in Illinois. Judge Limbaugh (
yes) gave the OK, but the battle isn't over yet.
posted by gjc
on Apr 30, 2011 -
39 comments
Curt Teich (1877-1974) was a printer who immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1896. Curt Teich & Company, opened in 1898 in Chicago, was the world's largest printer of view and advertising postcards. Teich is best known for its "Greetings From" postcards with their big letters, vivid colors, and bold style. Flickr user amhpics has archived nearly 2000 Teich linen postcards in his set
Vintage Curt Teich linen postcards 1930s-1950s.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Nov 28, 2010 -
5 comments
"When we started Windy City, it was a means to an end, because there wasn't a distributor in Chicago that wanted to touch craft beer," Mr. Ebel says. "We went around to bars and they said, 'Great beer. How many free cases can you give me?' We just had to walk out of those accounts, set a price, and stick to it. And nobody asks us that anymore."
Pay-to-play contreversy in the Chicago beer scene, with appearances from a who's who of Midwest beermeisters: Tracy Hurst of
Metropolitan Brewing Co., Deb Carey of
New Glarus Brewing Co., the Ebel Brothers of
Two Brothers Brewing Co., and Josh Hall of
Goose Island Brewing Company
posted by d1rge
on Nov 22, 2010 -
30 comments
Out of the blue, Sufjan Stevens, most famous for his epic indie symphony
Illinois (which can be streamed from this link), released an "EP" called
All Delighted People. It's 60 minutes long, you can play it all online for free, and the title track is a deliriously gorgeous 12-minute epic. He's also announced an upcoming new album, scheduled for release this October, called
The Age of Adz. You can stream its first single,
I Walked.
[more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich
on Aug 30, 2010 -
52 comments
Cairo, Illinois is mostly abandoned. It was once a thriving city of 15,000, but the Mississippi barges don't stop there anymore, and
racial turmoil, including
a three-year boycott of white-owned businesses that refused to hire black workers, killed the town's economy.
The Cairo Project, from Southern Illinois University, is a good overview of Cairo's history and its current situation.
Can punk label
Plan-it-X start a rebirth by
moving to Cairo and
opening a coffeeshop? If it helps,
there's still good barbecue.
posted by escabeche
on Jun 12, 2010 -
54 comments
Mr. Kearney, who says he has spent thousands of dollars renovating the leased building, said: “If these people had such fond memories of this place, then they should be ashamed — because it was falling apart.”
Bob Kearney, an out-of-work electrician, and his partner, Travis Funneman, have turned the former Pioneer Elementary School at Zike's Corner, east of Neoga, Illinois, into a strip club.
[more inside]
posted by kipmanley
on Jun 4, 2010 -
56 comments
Blagojevich impeached by State House. With only one dissenter Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was impeached by the Illinois House of Representatives while
out jogging (video). This is the first step for removing the governor from power. Next the state senate puts Blaggo on trail, and that is scheduled to happen shortly after Obama's inauguration in a couple of weeks.
Capital Fax Blog is reporting that Blaggo is not going to resign, and the governer has scheduled a press conference this afternoon with an official response to the vote. Previously on
Mefi [more inside]
posted by zenon
on Jan 9, 2009 -
78 comments
Menorahs glowed in almost every living room window during Hanukkah. Hasidic Jews streamed down the streets on Friday night and Saturday morning, walking to and from synagogue services. "There was total freedom," marvels Magda Brown, 81, who survived Auschwitz. But inside their homes, at night, the survivors—and their families—were roiled by their pasts. The rest of Skokie did not know the troubles that stirred behind the immaculate facades of the close-packed houses.
[more inside]
posted by scody
on Dec 14, 2008 -
5 comments
Is there no end to the shady associations of Barack Obama? Crack journalist Dave Barry has published photographic proof that
the president-elect is a Lawn Ranger. What's a Lawn Ranger? Glad you asked. Dave Barry has written about this nefarious organization not
once, but
twice and their strange and eldritch rites have been profiled on
WILL public television of Central Illinois, where the organization has its headquarters, in the town of Arcola, where they
parade every year.
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 14, 2008 -
19 comments
Making It, in which a young, black, upstart politician rises through the Chicago political scene by having his opposition stricken from the ballot, turning against his endorser, and redistricting himself into a fundraising monster.
[more inside]
posted by Weebot
on Jul 14, 2008 -
32 comments
"
The Photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard (May 15, 1925 - May 7, 1972) suffered a fate common to artists who are very much of but also very far ahead of their time. Everything about his life and his art ran counter to the usual and expected patterns. He was an optician, happily married, a father of three, president of the Parent-Teacher Association, and coach of a boy's baseball team." "His images had nothing to do with the gritty "street photography" of the east coast or the romantic view camera realism of the west coast. His best known images were populated with
dolls and
masks, with
family,
friends and
neighbors pictured in
abandoned buildings or in
ordinary suburban backyards." His most well known and last photography series "
The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater" (1972) was based on the short story by
Flannery O'Connor, "
The Life You Save May Be Your Own."
[more inside]
posted by Del Far
on May 28, 2008 -
13 comments
Geologists have discovered the remains of one of the world's oldest
tropical rainforests , near Danville IL. The four square miles of fossils are in a coal mine 250 feet below the surface.
posted by Green Eyed Monster
on Apr 24, 2007 -
11 comments
Wag the dog. No fat cats can save Gov. Ryan now. An update on the MIFI hero former IL Gov. Jim Ryan and perhaps why he issued a death penal moratorium in 2000. [more inside]
posted by Bag Man
on Dec 17, 2003 -
19 comments
