Dollarshort

Turn of the Century Autochromes

It's amazing what a little color can do. Take these vivid color photographs from the 1930s-1940s available from the Library of Congress collection. Or these photos from turn-of-the-century Russia. It's the presence of color that make these folks look like they aren't that far removed from modern times. (Actually, he's not like anyone I've met lately.)

Here's a collection of color photographs (actually, autochrome) that is new to me. Found via The Commons on Flickr, these autochromes are from the George Eastman House.

What's an autochrome, you may ask?

The process used a screen of tiny potato starch grains dyed orange-red, green and violet. Dusted onto a glass plate, the dyed grains were covered with a layer of sensitive panchromatic silver bromide emulsion. As light entered the camera, it was filtered by the dyed grains before it reached the emulsion. While the exposure time was very long, the plate could be processed easily by a photographer familiar with standard darkroom procedures. The result was a unique, realistic, positive color image on glass that required no further printing.

I also love these photographs because they're obviously the result of experiments with a new toy. 

You've got the requisite flower portraits reminiscent of a modern-day photographic ritual: when trying out a new camera, who doesn't take a couple of pretty pictures of nearby flowers?

And then there are the staged portraits that imitate the only real color "photographs" these photographers would have had as a point of reference -- oil paintings.

But my favorite is this photo of a baby in a high chair from c. 1915.

The Oxford Project

From this story on CNN, I learned about the Oxford Project.

In the spring and summer of 1984, Peter Feldstein used a red marker to make a sign announcing that he wanted to take free portraits of everyone in Oxford, Iowa (pop. 673)... Twenty-one years later, Peter set up his camera again. Some of the original residents had died and some had moved away, but a surprising number still lived in Oxford.

I'd love to check out the book, but, given my tendency to feel morose about time passing, I suspect it might not be a good idea.

Update: Thanks to photographer/author Peter Feldstein for stopping by in my comments and providing this more comprehensive  link to The Oxford Project.

The Start of Something Beautiful

Here's something from the absolutely useless, but absolutely needed department:

I don't use eBay often (once every couple years), but when I do, you can bet it's for the really premium stuff in my life. 

Take, for example, my recent win -- this HO Scale Kentucky Fried Chicken. My dad built HO structures for fun and I remember loving this one. And when Ben, Pen and I went to the Randall Museum on Saturday and I saw this on display as part of their model train set, I just knew what I had to do. Twenty-four hours later I was the proud owner of a NIB KFC kit. And, if you can believe it, I beat out five other bidders.

Above is a pic from the Randall Museum's train town. 

I'll keep you posted on the progress of my little town.

Five Facts About Mena Trott

When meeting new people at Blogher, every introduction inevitably starts with the "what's your blog?" question. For the first time in the past seven years, I don't have an easy answer. The answer, for years, has been rote -- I'm dollarshort.org, but I blog at something called Mena's Corner. But that hasn't been true for a while. Then I blogged privately at Vox -- an answer that didn't really excite those who wanted to check my posts out. As I awkwardly explained this answer to one woman, I jokingly said "I need to come up with a better answer for tomorrow."

So if the answer is "dollarshort.org," here's a view into the old Mena and five fun five facts about the new Mena.

I still speak at conferences now and then.

I'll be speaking tomorrow at Blogher about taking back "naked blogging." It's all about pulling back from the blogging spotlight and retreating for various reasons. The past week has caused me to do a lot of thinking about my choice to stop blogging publicly (I've blogged consistently and privately on Vox for the past couple years). For example, not making this list of the "50 Most Influential 'Female' Bloggers (don't know what the awkward quotes around female are all about) gave me a chance to reflect on my role in the blogging world. On one hand I questioned if making myself so forgettable was a good thing. On the other hand, I didn't the same pangs of jilt (I like that phrase), I would have felt if this list had been posted a couple years ago. This makes me feel I made the right decision to pull away. That said, I still want to participate and build back my blog. And I still want to be out there and speak. So I'm taking more speaking engagements lately, including The Start Conference in August.

I've been blogging at another blog -- Nested -- off and on since I was pregnant.

This has been a quite a fun project of mine because I started completely anonymously. I wanted to see the blogging experience from the point of view of someone starting completely fresh and didn't want to rely on any of my connections in the blogging world to build traffic. I'd love to get back to the two to three posts daily schedule, but am still struggling to find the time to do this and take care of my daughter, Penelope. Which brings me to the next fact.

I'm a stay-at-home mom now.

When you are a co-founder of a company and your spouse (and co-founder) still puts in crazy start-up hours, it's impossible to ever really be removed from the day-to-day. I'm part-time now which means I come in once a week (with Penelope in tow) and work from home on a individual project basis. I actually have been putting in almost full-time hours designing a project launching soon and have had a chance to blissfully do some pure design work. I'm a stay-at-home mom that just happens to work-at-home too.

 

Having a child has changed me (in a good way).

I had no idea I was going to be the parent I am right now. Many of the neuroses I carried with me my entire life seemingly vanished overnight. This isn't too say I'm still neurotic, I'm just less neurotic. I like to think of it this way -- I'm like the patient in the mental ward (figuratively) who has gone from self-soothing through rocking to just looking like there's a good song playing somewhere.

Being a mom has forced me to become less self-centered and more aware of the small thing/big thing differences in life. Yes, I still have dreams that I'm being picked on by my seventh-grade classmates but when I wake up I'm able to laugh it off a bit better. Being at Blogher has made me more aware of this change. For example, in 2005, when I attended the first Blogher someone had written a post about how (and I paraphrase) "Mena Trott had the chance to talk to all these fabulous and interesting women at Blogher and instead chose to sit by herself and bury herself in her computer." The person didn't take in account that I'm actually quite shy when it comes to introducing myself. I almost never approach anyone because I'm intimidated, but once we're in a conversation I'll become quite extroverted. Since Penelope has been born, a lot of this fear has disappeared, though I still find it difficult at times to go up to a person and say hello.

I'm so so proud of Six Apart and everyone at the company.

Once again Blogher has been a massive reminder of why we do what we do. I have met women at this conference who have used our products since inception and they're incredibly complimentary and effusive. I've been wanting to say this for a long time: Yes, we seriously messed up when we changed our licensing FOUR years ago. The industry was a bit different then and for a company that (at the time) had only about 500k in funding, we wanted to be sustainable. We may have been stupid with our decisions and execution, but we were always ethical. And, we paid the price by losing a number of our best customers. But to this day, we're a company of bloggers for bloggers who really want to do the best for this industry. Hating Six Apart is so 2004.

Bonus Fact

I'm even more proud of our customers and all bloggers (whether they use our products or not)

Back to Blogher. When I'm talking to these women, I'm amazed how far we all have come. When I go to my dentist or see a relative, I don't have to explain that my job has something to do with "online journals that are often written daily and in reverse chronological order." If someone has internet access, they read a blog (even if they don't know it). It has been a revolution and any tool that can make a person feel less isolated and connected to a greater group is remarkable. I've talked to bloggers who have been saved emotionally (and physically) because of blogging. And that's a really awesome thing.

Dreaming About Childhood

The other day, after a particularly stressful dream, I twittered "At what age will I stop having dreams about the mean girls from elementary school?" I should have known that my public acknowledgement of those elementary school demons would only serve as a encouragement to my brain bring them front and center -- all week.

The agonizing thing about these dreams? They usually follow the same script. In my mind, I know what to say and do, but I always ended up regressing to a nine-year old. You know, like a dream.

Here's a little powerpoint to show you what I mean...

I hadn't planned for the New Dollarshort™ to rehash childhood traumas -- that's what archives are for -- and I'm sticking to that decision. However, if I'm dreaming about this shit, it's technically occurring in the present day, therefore I'm not rehashing my past. 

Wasted on the Young: Vlogging from the Past

Yesterday, I spent way too much time watching teenagers on YouTube bleat and bitch about their daily lives. You have to hand it to these kids with regard to production values -- they've mastered the art of self-indulgence. And they're just so addictive to watch! 

It got me thinking. What would my own vlog be like if I had had the tools available now, but in 1994 -- when I was sixteen years old. 

I'm pretty sure it would have went something like this (watch it on YouTube for the larger size):

 

I'm a Pioneer Woman, Not a Polygamist!

To Ben's dismay, I'm a big fan of those Old Time photo shops that take up real estate at most tourist attractions. Ben hates them, but has, on more than one occasion humored me and taken photos. I know they're pretty tacky and a rip off but I just can't resist the lure of tie-in-back costumes.

So when we were in Old Sacramento this past weekend and I got the urge to take ye old fashioned shot, I let Ben take a pass and instead partnered with my wee buddy who can't yet protest. She had been in a bad mood the entire day, so Ben was worried about a breakdown. But, as soon as she put her little costume on, she started beaming! In fact, with the exception of this photo of the two of us, she was smiling in every shot.

As an aside, in my copious free time, I'd like to start an Old Time Photo business that uses period costumes that are a lot less gimmicky -- like clothing from the 20s or 30s, that is not gangster or flapper-themed, but something that your great-grandparents might have worn in a family photo.

Compare and Contrast: John McCain's 1936 with Barack Obama's 1961

Growing up, my two favorite books were the yearly Almanac and The Book of Lists.  That's  why I enjoyed The Age Factor, a very brief piece in the latest issue of Time Magazine, in which Mark Halperin presents a few famous people who share birth years with John McCain and Barack Obama.

I decided to do a little more research and see who else shares the birth year with these two. As with the Time piece, I left out Hilary Clinton because she's almost right in the middle of McCain and Obama, being born in 1946.


Going a bit further, I looked up milestones that happened in 1936 & 1961. Here's a few:

1936

• 1936 Summer Olympics open in Berlin, Germany
• The first edition of Life is published
• King Edward VIII abdicates the throne
• Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected to a second term

1961

• John F. Kennedy becomes the 35th President
• The Beatles perform for their first Cavern Club gig
• The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins
• The Vietnam War officially begins

No political analysis here.  Other than the obvious observation that twenty-five years really makes a difference when it's presented with historical events and famous faces  And I may be bias since I'm already an Obama supporter, but anyone born in the same year as George Clooney and Michael J. Fox is alright with me.

Slavery? Really?

Here's something from the "marketing-tips-from-J. Peterman" department -- the Bourbon and Branch "Spring Telegram" that showed up in my inbox today. An excerpt:

RUM By Thad Volger

Pirates, Revolution, Plantations, Slavery, Communism, Smuggling, the English Navy, Colonialism, Beaches, Palm Trees. What do these all have in common? Rum! If this doesn't excite your interest, keep in mind that rum plays a key role in the evolution of what we now refer to as the cocktail...

They lost me at colonialism. Up until then, my interest was quite excited by the imagery of plantations and slavery. Even with that pitch, I'm afraid that I'm a tequila girl -- I'll drink anything that has to do with conquistadors and the massacre of indigenous cultures.

A Bumper Sticker View into Somebody's Soul

On my drive to work today, the pickup truck driving in front of me was sporting a partially peeled off bumper sticker that had seen better days. And by better days, I mean the 1980s. I could only make out a couple words from where I was driving so once we hit some traffic I was delighted to finally read the sticker in all its classiness. The sticker read:

I Wonder if You'd Drive Any Better if that CAR PHONE was UP YOUR BUTT?

I spent half of the remainder of the drive trying to imagine if the owner of the truck -- assuming he was not the original owner -- was more embarrassed by the sentiment or the dated reference to car phones. The sticker was peeling, but had obviously been scraped repeatedly in an effort to restore some dignity to the truck.

The other half of the trip ^[1] was spent trying to figure out the text of bumper sticker that would be even *more* dated and embarrassing than "Car Phone Up Your Butt ^[2]". I came up with "I Get More Tail than Spuds McKenzie" and "Alf is My Co-Pilot."

In writing this post, however, I have decided that "Alf is My Co-Pilot" is a pretty awesome sentiment.

^[1] Keep in mind, I was driving alone with Penelope in the back seat. This was a conversation in my head, not with another person.
^[2] I can imagine this phrase has been uttered during the voting portion of America's Funniest Home Videos.