MJ

One of my first musical memories is hearing Vincent Price’s creepy intro to Thriller echoing through my grandmother’s dining room. I distinctly recall crawling under the table across the room to seek solace from the huge, dusty console radio. I guess it freaked me out a little.

I, like so many kids my age, was also obsessed with dancing like Michael. And like so many other lanky, awkward kids, I thought I could. Or at least, I knew I might be able to, if I could only convince my mom to buy me that rad red leather jacket with all the zippers.

So thanks, Mr. Jackson. I never got the sweet jacket, but I have always and will always enjoy your music. I hope you’re creeping out Vincent Price right now, wherever you are.

Merry nostalgic Christmas!

I was just watching a BetaMaXmas – an 80s TV with remote and TV Guide, filled with holiday specials and commercials – and I realized something. I want Drakkar Noir for Christmas. I’m bringing it back. Oh, gotta go – Designing Women is on. Suzanne Sugarbaker just got a pig for Christmas.

Life through an SX-70 lens

This has been blogged ubiquitously today, so much so that the original site exceeded bandwidth. It should be back up soon, but until then there are still pictures around, and more background on the story here. Mental Floss says it best:

He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died

Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.

In 1979 the photos start casually, with pictures of friends, picnics, dinners, and so on.

Sadly, the story ends abruptly. But the Polaroids live on, giving their owner’s life a warm tint as only Polaroids can – a Time-Zero flipbook of a man’s daily life from 1979-1997. It’s such a powerful piece of work to me: the thousands of neatly categorized images, the inherent nostalgia of the Polaroid color palette, the mundane alongside the intimate portraits of happiness and illness, and those who lived on and honored their friend with this exhibit – the story of a life recounted by an SX-70.

Old mixtapes and stories

I’m going to steal Ben‘s job for a minute. I can’t resist a good web-based nostalgia site, especially one that elevates analog. CASSETTE FROM MY EX takes old mixtapes, streams them, and posts the interesting stories from interesting people to go along with them:

They were into you, so they made you a tape. Today you dont have a cassette player, but you still cant toss that mix. We share the stories and the soundtrack to your earliest loves.

There are some really great stories and some interesting mixes to be heard. I love the sound of a needle scratching vinyl. This one’s going in my feeds.

Youngme / Nowme

This is such a cool project!

As you can see, people are submitting pics of themselves from when they were young, and in roughly the same poses today. You can submit your own, too. If only I could find that Snoopy London t-shirt…