December 5, 2011

Link Groupie: RealTimeWWII

Posted by meghanpurvis under 1930s, 1940s, Blog Link | Tags: , , , , |
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Okay, so if the New York Times has already written a profile piece on it, you know I’m behind the times on this one. However, if you are not already following RealTimeWWII on Twitter, you absolutely should be. It is…well, pretty much exactly what it sounds like: tweets from contemporary news stories from World War II, starting (as of last month) in 1939 and, hopefully, proceeding for the next six years.

Yes, yes, we all know how it ends—but at the risk of sounding like some pothead having a SUPER DEEP EPIPHANY, it is so easy to forget that when history was happening, nobody knew how it was going to end. When—as is going on right now on the feed—the USSR was invading Finland and Britain was waiting out the Phony War, nobody knew it was all going to end in Hitler’s defeat and the Greatest Generation and Tom Hanks storming the beaches somewhere. It was confusing and disorganised and really, really frightening, and I’ve been surprised by how well having these tweets pop up in my feed has gotten that across. And that reaction is only partly motivated by the fact that I keep forgetting it’s a historical feed, so suddenly think Russia is attacking the Finnish people for no reason and we’re about to enter World War III. Which, I suppose, is exactly in the living-history spirit of the thing.

 

September 9, 2011

Link Groupie: Giant Pants of the 30s

Posted by meghanpurvis under 1930s, Blog Link | Tags: , , , , |
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Tumblr is a gold mine of one-trick-pony photoblogs. That sounds like faint praise, but I actually adore blogs dedicated to ridiculously niche-y collections of photos. There are about a million variations within the fuckyeah genre (FY Marilyn, FY James Dean, FY Ava Gardner, and on, and on…), but one of my newest favourites is simultaneously wider-reaching and more specific: Giant Pants of the 30s.

If you too get a gleeful kick out of ludicrously wide-legged trouser styles, this is the Tumblr for you. Celebrities, civilians, men, women, and even the odd fashion illustration—there’s an enormous range of models, but what they all have in common is a silhouette that might be smuggling small dogs, for all we’d know. It’s a love poem to a very particular look, and the title makes me laugh every time it pops up in my blogroll. Giant pants: fuck yeah.

 

July 11, 2011

Link Groupie: My Daguerrotype Boyfriend

Posted by meghanpurvis under 1860s, Blog Link | Tags: , , , , |
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Daniel McCarthy

This guy could get it, if he weren’t dead and about 170. (source)

Allow me to introduce you to my newest source of eye candy, My Daguerrotype Boyfriend. It is…pretty much what it says on the tin, yes.

I kind of love seeing photos of famous hotties, because I’m fascinated by how average-looking many of them would be considered today. Standards of beauty are often so time-specific that what was scorchingly hot in, say, 1920s America (wispy, melty eyebrows, anyone?) would be unremarkable or just kind of weird today. This site, though, flips that comparison on its head by showing you that yep, if you were able to time-travel back to the nineteenth century, you might be the only competition for the man of your choice, but you’d probably still be able to get laid without hating yourself and your tinily-mustachioed boyfriend in the morning.

Oh, but a single demerit to the site for making me shriek in horror as I discovered the reasonable-looking dude I’d been eyeballing was actually Ernest Hemingway. Of course a prick like that would have been decent-looking in his twenties. Of course.

 

May 23, 2011

Link Groupie: Globe Genie

Posted by meghanpurvis under Blog Link | Tags: , , |
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Bit of a strange one today, but for the last 24 hours or so I’ve been completely obsessed with it. May I present to you Globe Genie, a deceivingly simple website that uses Google Earth to teleport you around the world.

The interface is appealingly low-tech: the focus here is on the picture that takes up most of the screen. On the right, you can narrow down your teleportation options by continent, and choose the auto-teleportation option if you want to switch locales every thirty seconds. Oh, and there’s a map, to help you visualise where you are in the larger scheme of things. You press a button, and…are presented with a Google Earth Streetview of a random locale.

It sounds like it’d be fascinating for about ten seconds, but once I gave it a few clicks, I couldn’t close the window. The option of seeing one more totally random place—a place you would never know an address for to look up for yourself—is damn near irresistible. So far after a long run along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. (and as a side note, who knew how many Country Road #Whatevers there are?), I’ve now got a lovely ocean view in Tenerife. It’s lovely, but I can’t help itching my clicking fingers towards the teleport button. Just…one more…go!

 

May 16, 2011

Link Groupie: The Vintage Cookbook Trials

Posted by meghanpurvis under Blog Link, Historical | Tags: , , , |
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Another retro foodie website recommendation today: The Vintage Cookbook Trials. It’s a blog written by a collective of curious cooks (god, months after Beowulf and STILL I cannot resist the Comedy Alliterative), trying out recipes from damn near anywhere as long as they’re over twenty-five years old (uh, the recipes, not the cooks). Recently, they’ve tried out Mrs. Beeton’s recipe for lemonade (which uses bicarbonate of soda for carbonation…?), some legitimately tempting-looking cookies, and a 1965 recipe for rumbledethumps, which sound ridiculous but taste amazing (or at least the Sainsbury’s pre-made one I’ve had was).

There are a few reasons to read the blog—the variety of recipes tried, the honesty of the reviews, the hilarity of the writing. A special bonus, though, is that the authors are enthusiasts but not experts. That sounds like a particularly undermine-y compliment, but bear with me. I love reading blogs by people who know exactly what they’re doing, whether that’s someone sewing a 1930s dress from the original instructions with ease, or someone who can read “rub a fair amount of butter into flour” and know what the hell that means quantity-wise. However, I think I get more out of reading about a fellow modern seamstress, cook, etc, approaching vintage instructions and having to decipher his or her way through it. This isn’t to say the women of The VCBT are rank amateurs, but there’s a transparency about their trials, as they put it, that I find makes for very good reading. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to dump some bicarbonate of soda into milk to see if I can make an egg cream.

 

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