This is an anti-prostitution propaganda poster from 1912. The details are amazing and quite evident of it's temporal gender biases too. I like how the dancing floor gives way to the petulance below. The detail on the lamp ('red light' if you will) is also quite stunning. The childish inner voice is laughing at the 'puck' that is on the title above the image.

Like I said, my favorite detail is the lantern of death. Warmth is death, joy is disease. All that propaganda goodness. Fascinating stuff. (In a side note, I've been quite late updating this blog, right?)

 

September 1937. Japan had just stepped into the second Sino-Japanese war, that in part leads to World War 2, a few months previously. This is the cover of the beautiful Asahigraph, previously published by the Asashi Newspaper company. This issue is stuffed full of pro-war propaganda, but yet the pictures are still honest and poignant.



Nothing conveys the brutal honesty of this cover better than a close inspection of the faces of the soldiers. Pain, fear, nativity all play across their faces. Their faces are the true faces of war. It's fascinating. (Not to mention linguistically curious, being pre-World War 2, all the Japanese titles are printed "backwards" in regards to current convention.)



With this post, I take my archiving up a notch. This was not sourced from the endless corners of the web somewhere. (Although being that it is public domain in Japan, I'm sure it will end up on Wikipedia and what not!) No, this was found in an antique store with my own hands. I hope to upload a lot more in this manner too.

I was browsing through old American horticultural magazines from over a 100 years ago (this one featured here was from 1896!) Yup, I do odd things with my free time. I was collecting old diagrams of rare plant species. Uh huh. So anyway, I was flipping through the back ads, giggling at the people of long ago. And I stumbled on an ad for "Tokyo Nurseries" and it caught my eye. For you it's a quaint old ad for bulbs and seeds that uses the modern spelling for Tokyo, and the old spelling Tokio. But for me, I find it odd that the address (scant that it might be) is literally *walking distance* from where I sit right now. I could get up and go find this company. Well, if I had a temporal displacement device, because somehow I think they are long gone. Curious random world.

The wonderful march of time has rendered these 1916 swim suits almost totally "street worthy" if not even a little too covered up for even a summer street in our own modern times. Extrapolating, will people of the not so distant 2109 wear what we consider underwear when they walk about their towns? Well, that is to say, if they still have towns and such social constructs.



The hats are almost better than the suits. Those would so rock in today's world. My favorite is the pointy one on the far left, it seems retro-futuristic to me.

This is from the cover of some odd sheet music from way back in the 1870s. I heard they were way more morbid about death than the average present day person, and a quick glance at the actual first verse of this weird song helps cast light on that.

Oh, father, come and sit by me, And let me take your hand in mine,
And tell me you forgive your boy, For all ere he shall life resign;
Dear father, I am growing weak, I feel that death is coming now,
And yet I know I shall awake, With mother's hand upon my brow.
Forgive me, father dear, forgive me, Though I am dying, do not weep;
For I shall go where mother dwells, So kiss me, and I'll go to sleep.


I also find this picture quite creepy. Not to mention the gender in the song is a male and this looks like two females embracing. And the castaway doll on the floor adds to the creepy mood. What a weird chunk of forgotten history. Now I dare you to make this into a power-ballad rock song.

This comes from a war propaganda newspaper from 1919. The iconic communication is lost with some of us modern viewers perhaps. None the less the images of intended patriotism invoke some kind of post-modern ironic sensibilities in me. Uh huh.



Like this for example. War. Made in America. Is that a good thing?

This is Coogee Beach from way back sometime around 1900s. (Thats in New South Wales, Australia if you didn't know!) The cracks on this picture add so much cool texture to it. I love old pictures, they are almost like a time machine's window. They let us gaze into the past.


They also challenge our "temporal stereotypes" so to speak. I was under the impression that European people of the 1900s were kind of prudish and would bathe at the beach in a lot of clothes (like those on the right) unlike those on the left that seem to be revealing a whole lot more. Was this common for some at the time?

And I'm back from my deep diving silence. Heres a newspaper from more than a 100 years ago. Its a beautiful black and white photo album of Japan of years gone past. Purrty.


I think it's fun to see an example of cross lingual language mistranslations. Or in other words how they incorrectly call this mountain "fujiyama". Although yama does mean mountain in Japanese, it is not how mountains are marked. This should of course be "fujisan" or more simply in English, "Mount Fuji" or some such. (And to continue the rant, I believe that should be "Lake Motosu" if my limited knowledge is correct.) Pretty shot though.

Even NASA didn't know when this one was produced (how do you miss a date on something internally produced?) but it still triggered a fondness for old space-art. Although, the shape is all wrong. They'll never spread through the galaxy with that shape.

And don't miss these guys dancing up here on the space-station ship thing. What are they doing? I can't think of any logical reason. They must be space-nuts. Speaking of which, this "cross section" view thing really does make it look like the space thing has sustained heavy damages in battle, don't you think?

A very detailed map made in about 1884, showing a "bird's eye" perspective of a small town "Cedar Key" that all but burned to the ground a few years later. The town was rebuilt, but not in this style of course. The detail on this map is wonderful, so many little details.
For example, on this zoomed-in clip, you can even see the smoke coming from the train running along the tracks to the dock. Kind of brings the picture to life. Although, I can't help but wonder why the smoke from the train is blowing in a different way than the smoke from the boats?

This is a classic tarot card from the 1450s, hundreds of years ago, from an incomplete set. It's the Trump card number 13, the death card, from the Visconti Sforza set of cards made in Italy. I like it.

(1887) Nothing says "family time" like getting around the fire (they didnt have TVs or PCs back then, OK?) and signing up a promise for everyone not to drink. Every last one of us, even little Johnny. Added to that but we promise to make the lives of anyone else who drinks living hell. Oh yeah! Thats the way to do it!



The text typed out for easy reading:

Family Temperance Pledge
Temperance Leads to Virtue & Happiness.
Intemperance Tends to Poverty and Ruin.
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is decieved thereby is not wise."
We the undersigned Family of ________ Agree with each other that we will not Buy, Sell or Use intoxicating Liquors as a beverage and will use our Best Endeavors to Qurtail and Prevent the Sale and use of the Same by others.

Signatures





I can't get enough of the details on this. Don't drink and life is easy-street, drink and everything goes to crap. Nice! If I had a printer I would so print this out and get all my friends to sign it and put it up on my wall, and then have a bigass wild drinking party because I'm that immature! ha-ha OK, I guess that means you have an assignment.

Why surf when you can dive? Thats the concept behind this journey. Don't really need to say much about that, it kind of explains itself. A few words about my "mission statement" ... I will dig through ancient information (mostly online) and present it here. I might edit it, I might play with it, or I might present it raw. I might chop it up or even fuse it with something else. Basically this is just an effort to froth up old content. Shake up the bits that have settled to the bottom of forgotten memory. Yup. Enjoy!