Reading Life, Michigan, 1956
Solid honey-blond wood chairs, a matching lampshade and tropical print sofa easily stand out from the deep forest green walls and white trim of this deluxe vacation cabin somewhere in the wilds of Michigan. The door is cracked open. Sitting on the arm of a green leather arm chair, a young lady with a long leg fusses with the clasp of a necklace.
A lean and lanky young man scantily clad in a swimsuit and a suntan, wearing sturdy classic loafers, is reading the magazine that shows up in more slides than any other, Life. Rarely is it ever just sitting on top of the coffee table or squeezed and getting wrinkled in a magazine rack, people are always reading it. This is, by the way, the June 4, 1956 issue. At first glance I thought it was Yma Sumac on the cover. She is the over-the-top chanteuse who billed herself as the “Incan Princess” and sang exotic songs with her four octave range. But that’s not her. The cover story is about the first great civilization. How epic!
Life is the first magazine I remember looking at as a child. Several years later when I was about nine or ten, I discovered a small stack of Life magazines that my mother had saved in a drawer. They all had one or more of the Kennedy’s on the cover. She thought they were “worth saving”. The ads, especially the car ads and the liquor ads, inspired my imagination. I looked at those magazines over and over again.
Life is the ultimate Americana magazine. The red bar containing the title spelled out in white in the most basic of font styles never changed. It’s timeless. Between 1936 and 1972 Life was published weekly then returned as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. Fort Peck Dam in Montana was on the cover of the first issue. I wonder which issue is the most valuable?
Here’s to Life Magazine and YOU!
Which fits this better….Barry Levinson’s dialogue from TIN MEN
“We keep LIFE magazine on our coffee table”
or Stephen Sondheim’s lyric in “The Ladies Who Lunch” from COMPANY
“Keeping house but clutching a copy of LIFE, just to keep in touch”
Charles:
How many of the slides have been found labeled ? It seems like most of yours so far…..I have seen.
I made the car sales place in Phoenix my desktop. I was so happy that was labeled and people commented they remember the place. that was yesterday?
Love,
drive-in land
Hey I want all you guys to check into Sam Wagstaff. One of the first important to collectors to collect early photography. He collected some Julia Cameron Howe Maybe? An English woman.
this photo is almost surreal. You have a treasure Trove Charles! I saw you here in Denver and I am visiting LA soon.
aitch5@hotmail.com
http://www.sceneoutlines.blogspot.com
We can thank Margaret Bourke-White for Fort Peck’s amazing image..
Your lecture at The Henry Ford was fabulous ( I was in the front row with a friend)….Here’s to Oscar Mayer..
All the best..Elayne
I love the clash of patterns from the seat cushion to his shorts…I’m dizzy! Love the blonde wood, my grandmother had a chair almost identical to this one!
Vonne~~no, your skin doesnt come off, but the sick,slurpy sound was just as bad ! Not to mention the back of your legs had a bit of a aligator hide look for awhile !!
I’m just trying to get around the guy with no socks w/leather loafers, phew, phew !!
Wonder if the carpet matches the drapes, couch fabric and bathing suit? Too many visuals for a quiet summer day in loafers checking out the best of what “life” has to offer, longing for simpler times….
Not just ANY man can pull off leather loafers minus socks let alone in a “swim suit”. This guy has style and knows who he is. He reminds me of my own dad…who lived on the east coast and did dress just like that every summer:~)
If you’ve got it…flaunt it…his legs could not be any sexier!
All I could think of was “I hope that girl doesn’t rip the skin off her legs getting off that chair.”
Hi, Charles. Don’t know why I didn’t know about this website beforhand, but I do now. Fab-U-Lus.
Re: R. Thorne 12/13/06. She must be from California, cause EVERYONE from the mid-west, east, wore loafers (without socks, yuck) when I was growing up. Every summer we would go see the Grandparents back east & I was always surprised about the fashion statement. Of course all my cousins, etc. thought I was nuts wearing my flip-flops or tennies, w/socks, in the heat & humidity. By the way, my first recollection was of going across country in our 1955 Ford Customline 2-dr sedan, white top/aqua body, auto trans, 272 ci V-8, radio/heater & NO A/C! Funny how those deserts didn’t appear to be so hot back then. In ’62 it was in our new Plymouth Belvedere wagon, sandstone color (basically, dildoe beige),318 ci V-8, pushbutton auto trans, power steering/brakes/tailgate window, heater & again, no A/C! In ’66 Dad added a Chrysler under dash A/C unit. It was so cool, really, it even lighted up like the dash, in a light turquoise. Then, after I wrecked the Plymouth, we got the first of our string of Buicks. A ’67 4-dr hardtop Wildcat, WITH A/C!! But that’s another story.
Hi Charles. Thanks for adding me. About this picture it’s interesting. I remember in the early fifties the magazine Life. God protect always our memories!
I have friends in Okemos, Michigan that have a home full of this honey blond furniture and other relevant decor. Spending time being with them in their home is like being on vacation in Southern California, Florida, or the islands, even if it is snowing outside. Love the look!
Great slide! Must be a swimsuit he has on as long Bermuda shorts were in fashion in 1956, not these short ones. Also the woman seems to be in a one piece swimsuit.
What’s with the loafers? Even in 1953 it was considered tacky to wear shoes with shorts or a swimsuit — canvas shoes, moccassins, sandals or flip-flops, but leather loafers!
Life was anticipated every week and made the rounds of my two parents and all five children — dog-eared and falling apart by the end of it’s “cycle”. Also kids loved to use the pictures for reports in school.
All the best.
There probably wasn’t any air conditioning in the cottage. He had the window open, so it might’ve been a warm July evening. I wonder what part of Michigan that slide is from? I was born in lower Michigan and spent a good part of my life in Upper Michigan. Either way, the guy looks comfortable. As always, your web page rocks. Keep up the good work.
No matter how lavish the structure, we always called them “cpttages” back in Michigan…and everyone had one. Love the pics from those distant years of my childhood.
Dear Charles,
As always I love the slides you select. As an “oldie but goodie” who grew up in Los Angeles of the fifties, I remember fondly all of the LIFE magazine issues we read and prized. The photograph was the best example of photojournalism – it made everything come alive and connected us to the rest of the world.
I remember walking home from junior high and stopping in a collectors’ magazine and book store along the old Melrose Ave. to look at older LOOK and LIFE magazines from the forties. Melrose Ave. was a whole different place than it is today. It was a quiet, peaceful street to walk down but always so interesting (where else would I have found old magazines?)
Keep up the good work
If Slide is dated “Michigan 1953″ how can the magazine be June of 1956?
Charles….he may be hot, but that chair!!! Rustic yet chic, comfy yet full of tailored charm….much like your newly updated site….I love it!
It’s like a scene from the Technicolor extravaganza, “Leave Her to Heaven” (1945), starring Cornel Wilde and Gene Tierney, shown earlier today on the American Movie Channel. (Parts were filmed near Bass Lake, CA. )
But Charles’ 1956 Michigan slide shows fewer layers of expensive costuming!
He’s HOT!
And so is the new web design! Kudos!
This is one HOT slide! Michigan, who knew? This shot could launch a thousand fashion collections . . . Thanks Charles!
Mr. Charles!
I’m not sure if Mr. Sexy Stems is host or guest in this scenario, so I had to make a call. I imagine that Master Gams is a guest who arrived equipped with his tiny shorts and his Life magazine for a little light reading. As a guest, I thought he might want to follow these rules for being “the easy guest” as made clear by _The New Esquire Etiquette: A Guide to Business, Sports, and Social Conduct_ (1953).
The Seven Basic Standards of being an easy guest:
1. The guest must shake hands with his host and hostess, in greeting and goodbye
2. He must acknowledge introductions and retrieve conversational balls tossed him by the host
3. He must be pleasant to the other guests
4. He should circulate, or least be a part of the group
5. He should spend a little time with his host and hostess
6. He should go when the going’s good.
7. He must not carry tales from the party
Our man looks so tan and tame in his loafers … I imagine the wilds of the party would be safe with him. He does, after all, read Life magazine like a good citizen.
xoxo!
Miss Sharon
Yes, Charles, tip of the hat to your upgrade, here!
The slide is cool and kitschy — as always. What I wanted to comment on is the new e-mail deivery system: Much, much better. With Yahoo groups, the slide, which was supposedly attached, never was. The new way works perfectly…
Charles….don’t read too much into this slide. He’s reading the women’s underwear ads. There’s no culture going on here.
Remember “Look” magazine?