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Slide of a Slide Show, San Jose, 1950
Slide of a Slide Show, San Jose, 1950
“FAMILY GROUP AT AUNT MYRTLE’S” is hand written on the mount of this slide.
In all of my years of collecting other people’s old slides this is the first time I’ve ever run across a slide of a slide show. This scene could not have been staged better. Everyone is cameras ready and picture-perfect. They are watching their own reality show. That’s why I just had to include it, right up front, in my new book AMERICANA THE BEAUTIFUL: MID-CENTURY CULTURE IN KODACHROME.
A multi-generational crowd is gathered ’round the heavily-grained, honey stained woodwork in Aunt Myrtle’s living room. Framed photos and fresh flowers add to the ambiance. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on the screen except the little boy and grandma, who’s dozing off. A baby doll sits in grandpa’s lap. Many wear glasses. Everyone is well dressed. The man in the middle sporting the snappy white shirt and smart polka-dot tie is the projectionist. He is sliding the slides, one at a time, through the projector. Little did any of them know that they would wind up pictured in a book!
This Sunday afternoon you are invited to celebrate the launch of AMERICANA THE BEAUTIFUL at Zanzabelle, the most colorful ice cream-candy-gift shop in town. I’ll be serving up the new book and FREE ice cream cones!
- WHAT: The AMERICANA THE BEAUTIFUL – ICE CREAM SOCIAL
- WHEN: This JUNE 25th, SUNDAY AFTERNOON – 3pm to 5pm
- WHERE: At Zanzabelle – 2912 Rowena Ave, LA, 90039
ph 323 663-9900
Zanzabelle is 1/2 blk east of Hyperion, near the Coffee Table in Silver Lake,
Google Map
Here’s to Aunt Myrtle’s slide show, the new book and you!
Posted Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 under Slide of the Week.
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I wonder if the older couple were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Hence the fresh flowers, the whole family gathered. Could be, huh?
And don’t they look happy? I have a feeling the old lady is snoozing, bored of seeing herself all the time, while the (many) offspring is making fun of all grandaddy’s slides with only granny in them. She is just fed up with seeing herself all the time, it confronts her with the fact that she is getting old…..
Whats up with Grandpa’s eye brows? In fact his entire grill kinda gives me a jeeb! But then I guess its not cool to pick on the old is it? Sorry grandpa.
OMG look at that wood! So that’s what the dining room/living room pillars in a Sears prefab bungalow looked like before the million layers of lead-based paint! Oooo…
What do you suppose is the subject of the slide show they’re watching?
What’s with the guy in the back eating the picture? Is that his ex-wife, or an unrequited love?
Love this. Everyone sure is all gussied up. Check out Missy Lee’s dress there in the foreground Oh yeah ! I wonder if that is Aunt Myrtle. Charles can you imagine if you had to use one of those projectors? If you look closely, I think you have to hand feed those babies one by one. Looking forward to some ice cream.
Dear Charles- LOVE it! Seriously, I’m going to print it for some of my older friends who are helping me gather some local history info/memorabilia. I was at their house LAST NIGHT and they had described a scene exactly like this. They still have some of the film “somewhere” so hopefully this will spur them to dig it out so we can check it out at work (I work at the Local History Room of our public Library.) You rock, Charles Phoenix!
A Meta-Slide! A new word and you created it.
Meta-Slide? I made up a new word? Where, and what does it mean?
Mr. Picture-Perfect Charles!
Ah! Family togetherness! What could be more lovely? All ages gathered around a slide projector, enjoying the photo skills of some relative who is undoubtedly dazzling everyone with the latest vacation pictures (although I imagine that Grandpa likely hates those attempts at arty nature slides. Bor-ring!)
As Grandpa seems to be clutching a baby doll in desperation, I rifled through my home economics textbooks and I found some incredibly helpful hints for having fun with and understanding “elderly people.” There are, indeed, a few young’uns in this picture who could probably be working harder to enjoy the company and good times of the elder statesmen and women of their family. Let’s look at a few items from _Teen Guide To Home-Making_ (1961) (yes, correct, there is no “the” in the title of this text book):
Menus for Elderly People
1.
Cream of Potato Soup
Egg Salad Sandwich
Baked Apple
2.
Broiled Chopped Beef Patty
Creamed Potatoes
Buttered Squash
Cup Custard
3.
Creamed Chicken on Corn Bread
Buttered Peas
Lime Sherbet
Cookies
Alas, there is no caveat as to whether these are lunch or dinner menus. Use at your own risk — if you upset the elderly in your care, it’s not my fault. Let’s continue:
Ideas for Activities with Elderly People
Find out what the aging person has wanted to do all his life but has never had the opportunity to do, and encourage him to do it if possible
Help him with outdoor activities such as gardening or fishing
Secure for him the materials for creative efforts, such as woodworking, clay modeling, cartooning, painting, weaving, or knitting
Help him to make up for education cut short in his youth by study of a foreign language or by guided reading
Help him to take responsibility for some family duties, such as writing letters to relatives or keeping the accounts
What? No slide shows on the list? You can’t tell me that Gran and Grandpa wouldn’t enjoy a slide show more than doing the family accounts! “Well, gee, Timmy, thanks for the broiled chopped beef patty. Grandpa will eat it when he finishes adding up this one column … Where’s my dolly? I need my dolly!”
xoxo!
Miss Sharon
Where’s the popcorn and martini’s? And what IS with that guy in the back gnawing on the girly picture???
I think this would be more of a metaslideshow if you showed this slide within your slide show, actually, but it is all very meta – I feel a bit like I’m in a quentin tarintino movie, or a john balderessi artwork…
Do you get the impression that this gathering was poorly planned? There are 16 people (including the kids) and only 6 chairs. The guests appear to be making the best of a boring event–Grandpa looks a little dazed and confused. Grandma is just plain sleeping. The guys in the far backround look like they could just “shuffle off to Buffalo” out the nearest door to a more exiting venue (a gentleman’s club, perhaps. The hosts could have at least set out some snacks to beat the boredom! See ya at the book signin’.
I think the guy in the back “chewing” on the photo is actually just smiling, kinda like the guy in all those Levitra commercials. And I think the photo, which is just above Grandma’s head IS Grandma! Sure looks like a younger version of her, doesn’t it?
Phoenix: “Meta-Slide? I made up a new word? Where, and what does it mean?”
Anything with “meta” in front of it these days seems to mean it is about itself. For instance, a meta-story would be a story about stories.
So your slide is a slide about slides – a meta-slide.
I love this picture Charles. It’s so nice. I can imagine those days in America.Oh my God I would like to be in your beautiful country in the fifties years. God bless you!
I have that projector can you tell me what year it is. My mother just passed away and I found it in her chest under so clothes..and I remember watching movies of her honeymoon on little dics…you brought back some good times thankyou..martha
It looks like the Uncle showing the slides overdosed on Popular Mechanics and built the little slide projector table/storage unit for the projector from scraps of the plywood he used to redo the interior of the home…