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return to 2014
Dec. 31st, 2014 12:07 pmJust one more day in the year? Less than a day in fact! Start counting down. Our NYE plans fell through because of host sickness so I don't know if we're going to go out or stay in.
We did drive down to Atlanta for the Christmas holiday. The drive down had good weather and we made good time and got into ATL after a fun ride through Asheville and into some small mountain roads that were a nice change after interstate, interstate, interstate. The family is doing well and we did manage to see a bunch of folks while in town, though not as many as we'd like to see. I always feel like we should take another week and just goof off. Maybe that'll be our vacation one year, just lying around the parents' house and aimlessly wandering through the South.
And yeah, we did get to hit some antique malls.
We saw several Japanese pachislot machines in the antique malls, which is an understandable place for them to show up, I suppose. We also saw a lot of... well, the 1940s style racist "mammy" Aunt Jemima advertising material is always present in antique malls. It was part of the culture of America at the time, that's all there is to it. But for some reason, a lot MORE of that material was on display this trip. Old racist advertising signs, modern reproductions of old racist advertising signs, modern fakes cobbled together to resemble old racist advertising signs (who would want this??), okay, whatever. But when these items are displayed next to framed photos of Klan rallies, next to framed racist 45 singles from the 1960s, a context begins to emerge, and that context is not a positive one.
To contrast, the Chamblee antique mall has racist advertising material, displayed with actual slavery memorabilia - auction posters, bills of sale, etc, along with abolitionist material, Civil War relics, Jim Crow era material, and Civil Rights era memorabilia right up to Nation Of Islam newspapers. That's the context this material needs to be seen in, here in 2014, the context of a region and a nation grappling with these issues in all arenas of society. Not the context of "remember when we could openly mock other races with impunity."
Anyway, we're ready to put this year out on the curb and open up a fresh new one, and play my Colecovision Flashback, and watch the Twin Peaks BD set, and admire my new watch. Happy 2015!
We did drive down to Atlanta for the Christmas holiday. The drive down had good weather and we made good time and got into ATL after a fun ride through Asheville and into some small mountain roads that were a nice change after interstate, interstate, interstate. The family is doing well and we did manage to see a bunch of folks while in town, though not as many as we'd like to see. I always feel like we should take another week and just goof off. Maybe that'll be our vacation one year, just lying around the parents' house and aimlessly wandering through the South.
And yeah, we did get to hit some antique malls.
We saw several Japanese pachislot machines in the antique malls, which is an understandable place for them to show up, I suppose. We also saw a lot of... well, the 1940s style racist "mammy" Aunt Jemima advertising material is always present in antique malls. It was part of the culture of America at the time, that's all there is to it. But for some reason, a lot MORE of that material was on display this trip. Old racist advertising signs, modern reproductions of old racist advertising signs, modern fakes cobbled together to resemble old racist advertising signs (who would want this??), okay, whatever. But when these items are displayed next to framed photos of Klan rallies, next to framed racist 45 singles from the 1960s, a context begins to emerge, and that context is not a positive one.
To contrast, the Chamblee antique mall has racist advertising material, displayed with actual slavery memorabilia - auction posters, bills of sale, etc, along with abolitionist material, Civil War relics, Jim Crow era material, and Civil Rights era memorabilia right up to Nation Of Islam newspapers. That's the context this material needs to be seen in, here in 2014, the context of a region and a nation grappling with these issues in all arenas of society. Not the context of "remember when we could openly mock other races with impunity."
Anyway, we're ready to put this year out on the curb and open up a fresh new one, and play my Colecovision Flashback, and watch the Twin Peaks BD set, and admire my new watch. Happy 2015!
