Damn. I'm sure everyone sees why I dream of being a writer. That's some good stuff right there.
Anyway, I like history, it's full of stuff that's usually way weirder than fiction. I know it's a cliche, but it's true, real stuff is way more bizarre. I think the reason fiction works so well is that it allows us a sense of justice, or closure, or whatever, that we rarely see in real life. No, in real life, nice people get struck by lightning on their honeymoon and die. Or the biggest ass in town wins $43 million in the lottery and makes all the people he's bullied and spat on his whole life suffer even more. Because that's real life (Ironically, I made up the one about the lottery, I couldn't think of anything else off the top of my head).
Whoa, I didn't mean to take this to such a dark place. All that is just to say I found the National Archives Flickr stream yesterday and spent some time being mesmerized. Please, go waste your time there just as I have mine.
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| Global Warming: Totally Natural |
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| Too many jokes... I can't choose between them! |
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| Retirement home my ass. They put granny in a sweatshop |
8 comments:
I'm going to have to waste some time over at this site. I love looking at the pictures people take and wonder why they did and better yet, what is really going on in there.
Melissa - Then you totally should visit. Almost all their photos have captions (not the same captions I have with the photos). So you at least get an idea of what was going on the photo. For example, the gas station photo above was a real, working gas station... and the bus was the store. Wow.
That's cool. Can I go use those when I need book cover photos?
Rick and the guys on American Resoration would drool over those gas pumps.
Dr. Grumpy - the note on all the photos say "No copyright restrictions are associated with these photos." I'm not sure if that means anything - I had the same thought though. Maybe we should ask Briane.
Alex - Don't mention that show. My wife can smell it in the air when it's mentioned. Seriously, she can spend days doing nothing but watching it. Her great regret in life is that the show wasn't started years earlier.
So here's a true story for you:
About 20 years ago, there were some people (guys) out on a boat on a lake outside of Shreveport. It was a rather rainy day, and a storm was coming up. I believe the guys had been drinking, which is fairly normal in that area. Maybe, they'd been fishing and drinking. I don't quite remember. At any rate, one of the guys suddenly stands up, throws out his arms, and says, "Here I am, God! Take me now!" And BOOM. Instantly struck dead by a bolt of lightning.
True story. I swear.
I'm checking out that site--thanks for the link.
Great website. The pictures are really good and the faces of some of them are so compelling. Thanks!
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