Do you? I'm not sure you do, unless of course you start browsing the many family photos in this online memory project. DoYouKnowWhatItMeans.org hopes to avoid the type of catastrophic loss of visual history as which happened with the floodwaters of Katrina. Many photos seem to have survived a hurricane or flood or two, which would not be beyond the realm of possibilities for residents of New Orleans who seem to suffer a major "natural" disaster every generation or so. The snapshots instantly bring me back to my childhood. I have fond memories of "hurricane parties," where several families on a street would convene to one house with the kids all running around the back yard and the dads setting up a giant cauldron atop a propane stove to boil crawfish, crabs and shrimp. Once the rains and heavy winds began the party would move indoors where the moms played Bourré under hurricane lamps, the men tweaked their transistor radios and the kids pulled out their Nash Roberts hurricane tracking maps waiting for the inevitable eye to come...

Labels: ephemera, mardi gras, new orleans, old paper, photographs

Back to the Home Page

While I do own a lot of the 45s in this collection, NONE of my singles have their original picture sleeves. This is where my jealousy of Michael, Erwin & Alex begins. These guys are the proprietors of Demon Fuzz Records, what appears from their photos to be quite the vinyl record store located in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. I've never been there in person (unless it was unknowingly in 1991), but I have been on their website, which sports such wonderful record cover and picture sleeve galleries as "Mysterious Ladies" (Ritual), "Products" (Steinski), and "Singles Bar" (Nina Simmone) among others. Join me as I gaze in the greenest of envies at the seven-inch picture sleeves of Ray Barretto's Soul Drummer or Willie Henderson's Funky Chicken...

Labels: 45rpm, 7-inch, album covers, music, records

Back to the Home Page

Pedal on over to Taliah Lempert's unique collection of bicycle "portraits" and see if you can find your own...model that is. The bikes in her artwork belong people she knows and, she claims, represent an extension of their personalities. She has a loose painterly style that fits the portraiture concept and clearly has developed a mastery of capturing her subjects' likeness. Oh, and check out her coloring book, while you're there.

Labels: Art, bicycles, Drawing, environment, hand-painted

Back to the Home Page