America’s Not So Square After All
[MP3]: Chromatics “I’m On Fire” (Springsteen Cover)
[MP3]: The Cribs “I’m A Realist” (Postal Service Remix)
I’ve been obsessing over my latest web discovery, the vintage photo site Square America. Its worth wasting a couple days of your job hours, I still haven’t been able to go through it all. The curator describes it as a “site dedicated to preserving and displaying vintage snapshots from the first 3/4s of the 20th Century”. Basically like Found Magazine but for photos only. You’re looking at a visual American history and human dynamics with each other. There’s some old school gems on there, like the one above taken from The Party set. That set covers all the bases of fun: “Almost 50 photos from one late 60s/early 70s biracial, bisexual, bacchanal.” It makes you wonder if Bronques‘ grandfather took them back in the day.
The photos themselves are fascinating and leave me with a chuckle but it makes you think something kind of sad. If photos are for a memory or moment, why do these make us feel relegated to being nameless faces that people forget once we’re gone? If we’re lucky our photo may just be found by someone in the trash, at a flea market or on Ebay one day. The digital age makes it even worse when we’re one hard drive crash away from losing everything.
Favorite sets so far include Photo Booth, Family Dynamics, Costume Party!! and Guns! Guns! Guns!.
The Chromatics cover of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire on top is quite good. Chhhhheck it out.
