emily boots

Photo

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:10:26 -0500

menthalightfoot: Carnegie Museum Christmas Trees Every year the...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:26:48 -0500

Walter Gay in Paris Tree

Hats of the Worlds Fair Tree

Architecture of the Worlds Fairs Tree

Architecture Tree 2

Decorative Arts of the Worlds Fair Tree

Decorative Arts close-up

Expo 67 Tree

Expo 67 rocket ornament

Expo 67 Tree Top

Midway Tree

menthalightfoot:

Carnegie Museum Christmas Trees

Every year the Carnegie Museum puts up 12 HUGE trees in the Hall of Architecture, and decorates each of them around a single theme. This year’s theme was World’s Fairs, which I thought was kind of lame (all the Pittsburgh museums are displaying things having to do with the Worlds Fairs, so that’s why), but the trees were spectacularly done, as usual. A group of ladies in Pittsburgh make all of these decorations BY HAND, which astounds me, since a lot of them are 60 years old or older.

New summer passion project: My So-Called Life Styles.

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 20:18:00 -0400

New summer passion project: My So-Called Life Styles.

dailydoseofdylan: North Country Blues

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 07:37:46 -0400

dailydoseofdylan:

North Country Blues

LOUIE LOUIE LOUIE LOUIEEE No but really, the song in the...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:51:27 -0400

LOUIE LOUIE LOUIE LOUIEEE

No but really, the song in the opening credits of “Lucky Louie” was the greatest.

Photo

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:44:55 -0400

nationalpost: RIP, George: Lonesome George, the last La Pinta...

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:49:46 -0400

nationalpost:

RIP, George: Lonesome George, the last La Pinta giant tortoise, dies in the Galapagos Islands

Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise of his kind and a conservation icon, died on Sunday of unknown causes, the Galapagos National Park said. He was thought to be about 100 years old.

Photo

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 12:16:42 -0400

Mad Men: The Minor Characters in Season 5 The online recaps and...

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:30:00 -0400

Mad Men: The Minor Characters in Season 5

The online recaps and analysis that followed every episode of Mad Men, particularly this season, have been nearly as enjoyable for me as the moment on Sunday nights that the intro credits begin. Slate, AV Club and Television w/o Pity were the first sites I visited on Monday mornings, and the insightful style recaps from Tom & Lorenzo gave me an entirely new and fascinating way to study the fashion within the scenes of each episode.

One of the other things I tried to pay close attention to this season was the show’s seemingly minor characters. Some, I hope, are never seen again, but we all know that others will inevitably play a role in Mad Men’s final two seasons. As we’ve seen, a character’s growing presence can sometimes sneak up on you.

This is Don’s secretary — you know, not Allison, the one after Miss Blankenship.

This is Megan Draper, aspiring actress. She likes ye-ye, dry spaghetti and angry sex.

Trudy Campbell

Trudy isn’t really a minor character. She’s Pete’s wife and she’s been around since the beginning. But this season, in part because of Alison Brie’s role on Community, we’ve seen little of Trudy outside of the suburban Connecticut home she’s made with Pete. She’s the hostess of dinner parties and the doting mother of the little girl she wanted so much.

Pete, who is attracted to vulnerable women and has cheated mercilessly on his smart and self-possessed wife since his wedding, is clearly not in love with her. By next season, they will probably have returned to the city. I’m rooting for the liberation of Trudy in 1967.

Tumblr to follow: Texts from Trudy Campbell

Stan Rizzo

Michael Ginsburg: ”Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

Stan Rizzo: You should read the rest of that poem, you boob.

Everyone is more interested in talking about Ginsberg, but Stan appears to have more going on between his ears than his brawn and chauvinistic quips would suggest. He worked on LBJ’s 1964 campaign and recognizes Ginsberg’s line from “Ozymandias.” (I didn’t.) Is he also desperately in love with Peggy?

Tumblr to follow: Stan Loves Peggy

Pauline Francis

Pauline may have offered Sally a Seconal to alleviate nightmares, but as a straight-shooter and Sally’s only (step)grandparent who actually seems to notice her, Pauline may be the closest thing to a role model this poor girl has. Pauline knows Betty is a “silly woman,” and Sally is beginning to realize it too.

Tumblr to follow: The Life of Sally Draper

Émile Calvet

He observes that Don’s manners are studied and he’s absolutely right.

Bobby Draper

Bobby - How old are you gonna be?

Don - Forty. So when you are forty how old will I be?

Bobby - You will be dead.

Don’s son was replaced for the fourth time in five seasons this year. He didn’t get many lines, but he had this one. Try imaging what a mess Don Draper’s middle-aged son would be like by the 1990s.

Andrea Rhodes

To everyone’s relief, Don didn’t actually strangle former lover Andrea and stuff her body under the bed he shares with Megan — in fact, his fever dream indicated that in his own mind, he was trying to resist temptations to cheat on his new wife.

We probably won’t see Andrea again, but the most interesting thing about her to me is that she was a lover of Don’s that the viewers didn’t see in earlier seasons. Much has been said about the Lincoln Center comment that adds debate to when exactly the tryst took place, but I find it more fun to contemplate how many more affairs Don had off-screen.

One more thing about that episode: The fever dream involving Andrea’s first “visit” shows Don rising from bed to answer the door. After dismissing her, he gets back into bed and shuts his eyes. This latter scene is literally the same footage of Don waking up minutes before, aired in reverse.

Pete’s Rifle

Pete’s rifle — only mentioned in conversation at Trudy’s dinner party — is its own reoccurring character in this show. I think some of us thought it might play a bigger role this season, but after everything else that happened, I’m so glad it didn’t.

Adam Whitman

I feel like it was unnecessary to see Adam in this last episode — I get it, everyone gets it. Lane’s empty chair in the conference room was much more powerful than seeing this guy standing over Don in a dentist’s office.

Joan’s Fur Coat

In a heartbreaking scene, Joan arrives to the Jaguar slimebag’s hotel room wearing the same fur coat Roger bought for her at the beginning of their love affair. Let’s hope she never wears it again.

Julia

Megan’s friend is another aspiring actress, always dressed in bright neo-hippie colors, and has no reservation crawling around on an office desk in front of the SCDP creative team nor introducing Sally to the “Do the carpets match the drapes?” entendre. She also kind of told off Megan at one point this season, so I guess I like her. She serves as “Don’s wife’s redheaded friend/frenemy” much like Betty’s friend Francine did in earlier seasons.

Scarlett

The new SCDP or (as I suppose it is now, sadly) SCDH executive board meeting secretary is Scarlett, who seems to be doing her best to imitate Joan in manner and appearance. Scarlett hasn’t appeared to have slept with anyone in the office yet, and seems to be capable enough to handle the task of executive assistant. Remember Jane’s first episode? Joan initially liked her — it wasn’t until Jane started unbuttoning her blouse at her desk that there was any bad blood between the two of them. I’m assuming that Scarlett’s been behind the scenes long enough to know better than to sleep with any of these people, especially the partners. Keep your distance, Roger.

The Movie Theater

I’m in favor of weekly movie dates between Don and Peggy as a way to keep them connected throughout the rest of the series. Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate, and In Cold Blood all came out in the last half of 1967. Which matinee will open the sixth season?

Cheers.

nprfreshair: Mr. Rogers, the remix.

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 13:13:06 -0400

nprfreshair:

Mr. Rogers, the remix.

Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival Three Rivers Art...

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:57:00 -0400

Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival

Three Rivers Art Festival, images via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The festival began as an outdoor art show hosted on the mall of the Carnegie Museum of Art, founded by the museum’s women’s committee, and moved in 1960 to Point State Park. On the fourth day, a storm damaged 50 paintings and sent 10 of them flying into the river, but the festival is a great success.

“Three Rivers Arts Festival Opens at Point State Park,” The Pittsburgh Press, 1960:

“The Three Rivers Arts Festival may well become the cultural pivot for the people of our great Ohio River Valley. The scope of this cultural program will be nurtured and vitalized through the participation of all of our people. The Three Rivers Arts Festival is dedicated to the conviction that to have a democratic culture, “Everyman” who has the inclination shall have the opportunity to define his culture through his participation.”

- Robert A. Boudreau, Director, American Wind Symphony - 1960 festival program

By its next year, the festival grows from 20,000 to 100,000 visitors. In letters to The Pittsburgh Press editor in 1962, one resident calls the festival a “waste of time” due to the increasing presence of abstract art, and another calls those who found the exhibits laughable “sore losers” whose works were not selected.

Exhibit featuring Pittsburgh as its subject, with Gateway Center buildings as a backdrop, mid-1960s. John Heinz History Center, via University of Pittsburgh Digital Archives.

In 1965, local artists protest the selection of 17 artists chosen without jury process, saying the anonymous committee has set a “dangerous precedent” and risks making the festival more of a museum exhibit than a community event. Most festival events are rained out as it rains 9 out of 10 days.

Eugene McCarthy, former presidential candidate and Democratic senator from Minnesota, read his own poetry at the Three Rivers Art festival in 1972.

Image via The Pittsburgh Press, 1977. The festival is largely criticized this year for a lack of quality (including the growing exhibition of photography) from its earlier years and a shift of focus from regional artists to artists unknown in Pittsburgh. Interestingly, many of those pieces are a part of the Pittsburgh landscape today — Clement Meadmore’s “Up and Away” is still on display in PNC Bank Plaza; Kenneth Snelson’s “Forest Devil” now resides in Mellon Square; and “Pittsburgh” by John Henry is in Frank Curto Park on Bigelow Boulevard.

John Jay takes over as the festival’s executive director in 1979. That year, Joan Mondale (a ceramist and the vice president’s wife) and the nation’s mayors are in town for the festival, which ends with a disco party for 3,000 people.

Jay is credited for the festival’s expansion, spreading the events to six sites with a budget of $250,000. Allen Ginsberg performs a poetry reading on opening day. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1981.

In 1982, the festival expands from 10 to 17 days.

In this 1999 Post-Gazette timeline of the festival, Jay admits that he was traumatized by the publicity that followed his comment and his subsequent resignation, but he kept a stiff upper lip back in 1983, saying that he was just “a high-energy guy who needs change.”

The Three Rivers Arts Festival creates controversy in 1990 with the display of “Hunky - Steel Worker,” a sculpture by Luis Jimenez.

“The steelworker was big and buff, but that wasn’t the kind of hunky Jimenez was channeling,” the Post-Gazette reported after the artist’s death in 2006. “He [Jimenez] meant no offense, believing “hunky” was a term of admiration and respect used among steelworkers. Pittsburgh erupted. Press conferences were called, ethnic outrage was expressed, letters to the editor were written. Soon the word was ground off the base of the sculpture, saving the steelworker formerly known as Hunky from being floated down the river, a scenario predicted by a United Steel Workers’ union spokesman if the situation wasn’t resolved.”

The change is made and immediately met with protests. “Steel Worker” is now on display at the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston.

In 2008, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust assumed control of the festival, ending its 49-year partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Art. This is its 52nd year at Point State Park.

Three Rivers Arts Festival at Gateway Center, 1960s, via University of Pittsburgh Digital Archives.

animalrescueleague: Pittsburgh Pridefest is just one week away....

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 19:50:00 -0400

animalrescueleague:

Pittsburgh Pridefest is just one week away. In addition to our booth at the festival that we have every year, the ARL also has a float in the parade this year! The picture is just a preview of what you can expect from us!

Trying the new Cuban menu at Conflict Kitchen today.

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:13:00 -0400

Trying the new Cuban menu at Conflict Kitchen today.

stanlovespeggy: RIP CREATIVE LOUNGE Will never be the same...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:09:28 -0400

stanlovespeggy:

RIP CREATIVE LOUNGE

Will never be the same without the Queen.

shortformblog: In honor of both Richard Dawson’s passing and a...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:27:00 -0400

shortformblog:

In honor of both Richard Dawson’s passing and a certain Kevin Costner-starring miniseries on The History Channel, here’s the greatest individual moment in television history: The descendants of the Hatfields and McCoys playing one another on Family Feud. You’re welcome.

“Elizabeth is 18,” Life magazine, April 1942....

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 16:16:00 -0400

“Elizabeth is 18,” Life magazine, April 1942. Story here.

On April 21 Princess Elizabeth of England is having her 18th birthday and receives her 18th birthday pearl from her father. If England were at peace, she’d have a great ball. However, she gets her own “household,” meaning one lady in waiting, in addition to the maid and footman that she already shares with her sister Margaret. She also acquires the right to act as councilor of state or senior regent in case her father falls ill or leaves the country. In short, at last she becomes a Royal Personage.

Posted in celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this weekend, I found this a few years ago among piles of Life magazines at the Hanna’s Town flea market. What else?

At 18, Elizabeth (“Betts”) controls her income of $24,000 per year and inheritances of “unknown amounts,” but only handles a pound ($4) a week, the rest in the hands of the Queen’s treasurer.
She has two fur coats and uses her mother’s designer, Norman Hartnell.
She’s had one ride in a London subway but has never ridden the bus or been in a movie house.

What I ate this week.

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 14:58:26 -0400

What I ate this week.

Two girls with former slave Sabre “Mother” Washington,...

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:56:04 -0400

Two girls with former slave Sabre “Mother” Washington, Pittsburgh, early 1950s. Teenie Harris. [Carnegie Museum of Art]

One of the girls, a neighbor of Washington’s, discovered the photograph years later. Washington, who grew up in South Carolina before moving to Pittsburgh, passed away in 1960 at the age of 113.

thepittsburghhistoryjournal: On This Day in Pittsburgh History:...

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:23:00 -0400

thepittsburghhistoryjournal:

On This Day in Pittsburgh History: May 23, 1966

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, built for magnant Edgar Kaufmann, is deemed a National Landmark. [Wikipedia]

xfouronetruex: 4.18.12 Someone just showed up at work and...

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:22:21 -0400

xfouronetruex:

4.18.12

Someone just showed up at work and handed one of my co-workers this plate of wrapped cookies saying “For national library week I made cookies of my favorite book for you guys.” (they’re from a legit bakery btdubs) So the favorite book ended up being The Great Gatsby, to which I squeed over but my coworkers in the clerical section were kind of “whatever.” I thought they would last a while since they were so nice, I was wrong… people are vultures around food. I did get one, as a cookie it was okay.