kontextmaschine

kontextmaschine:

the Civil War until WWI while railroads happened people just deadshit had no idea what a unified country would even mean and worked up the craziest local shit

Also I should point out that that song was first released in 1960, after the “singing cowboy” vogue that came in with talkies, I’m not sure it’s fair to call it an “Old West ballad”

The singer was inspired by a gun he saw in North Hollywood, and used his country music career to fund his hobby of NASCAR racing, so still pretty ‘Merica though

vintagelasvegas:

Las Vegas Blvd neon in the 90s

Silver Bell Wedding Chapel (607 S Las Vegas Blvd), Monterey Motel (1133), Yucca Motel (1727), Holiday Motel (2205), Candlelight Wedding Chapel (2845). With the exception of Monterey, these signs are all now with the Neon Museum.

trveroman:

your-raifu-is-shit:

Hecho en Switzerland (mixed media, 1985) is a functional breech-loading shotgun made by artist Tom Sachs out of trash and hardware store plumbing parts.

Firearms like this one were made by Sachs and his studio to be sold to the NYC Cash for Guns program for $200 each, in order to fund future large-scale projects. Sachs’ studio also produced similarly improvised breech-loading single shot pistols in .22LR and .45 ACP.

What a hero.

From a thread on active shooter training for teachers. And it struck me, I’ve seen this pattern before

1. Unarmed people fight an armed attacker with at-hand materials

2. Specialists study this, identify best practices, teach others

3. That’s it, that’s how you invent a martial art

Developing a martial art for use against long guns is so ‘Merican my heart swells with unironic pride

redlipstickresurrected:

Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - 1: Police, 2016  2: Repair, 2016  3: Ice, 2016  4: Dish, 2016  5: Night Off, 2016  6: Mansard, 2016  7: Save-A-Lot, 2016  8: Takeout, 2016  9: 50 Percent, 2016  10: Vacant, 2016 from Night Stories  Paintings: Oil on Linen

Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Police, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Maniacs, by Joshua Ferris) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Repair, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short screenplay, Repair, by Ted Tally) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Ice, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Ice, by Andre Dubus III) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Dish, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, The Walk, by Elizabeth Strout) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Night Off, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Alley’s End, by Luanne Rice) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Mansard, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Mansard, by Lily King) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Save-A-Lot, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Save-a-Lot, by Anthony Doerr) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Takeout, 2016 from Night Stories Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Takeout, by Tess Gerritsen) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - 50 Percent from Night Stories, 2016 Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Vital Signs, by Lois Lowry) Linden Frederick (American, b. 1953, based Belfast, ME, USA) - Vacant, 2016 Paintings: Oil on Linen (Inspired the short story, Constellation, by Ann Patchett)

This wrestling villain praises Hillary and invokes Obamacare. Meet the Progressive Liberal, who’s body-slamming his way through Trump coun

Harnsberger is the Progressive Liberal, a professional wrestler whose renewable energy politics and preening arrogance have riled supporters of President Trump across the Appalachian Mountains. He praises Hillary Clinton and invokes the Affordable Care Act. Worst of all he’s an outsider, a real estate agent from Richmond, Va., who drives south on weekends and slips on “blue wave” tights and a conceit that he’s better than out-of-work coal miners and Baptists with rifle racks in their pickups.

kontextmaschine:

• Christ is born and HE is savior! (Levant, 00-100)

• The day of his birth is a holiday called Christmas (Rome, 300s)

• Nicholas is sainted in his name (Anatolia, 400-500)

• St. Nicholas is “Santa Claus”, bringer of presents! (Dutch-American legend, NYC, USA, early 19th cen.)

• Santa Claus fills stockings riding a sleigh pulled by 8 reindeer (Clement Clarke Moore, USA, 1823)

• Christmas is a day where capitalist magnates are inspired away from profit-maximization by popular sentiment (Charles Dickens, London, UK, 1843)

• Christmas is a holiday where you erect a lit pine tree and trade store-bought presents (mid-late 19th cen., German lands)

• Santa Claus wears a red cap and suit (Coca-Cola and others, USA, 1930s)

• Santa has a 9th reindeer, a pathetic runt named Rudolph (Robert L. May for Montgomery Ward, Chicago, USA, 1939)

• Christmas is a day where people erect evergreen trees and exchange presents but a fuzzy green monster representing capitalism wears a red suit and teams with an ersatz runt reindeer to undermine it, but popular sentiment inspires him away (Theodore Geisel as “Dr. Seuss”, La Jolla California, USA, 1957)

Cultural evolution!

Meanwhile in half a century the other thread born from A Christmas Story and Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone becomes a story of a boy alienated from his parents because they don’t trust him with a gun pulling it together to kill invaders but also realize his life is richer putting up with them than it would be without

jordtheborednord:

ivan-fyodorovich:

enrique262:

Submitted by crynyd-award

is it bad I like this unironically

Teddy flexing on Lesser America.

squareallworthy:

kontextmaschine:

Seeing a lot of barcades these days

But then saw a lot of explicitly 50s-throwback diners with neon-bubble Wurlitzers (if not tableside coin-op jukeboxes) when I was growing up 80s-90s

Our local was Nifty Fifties, in the original location that became a Dairy Queen

Don’t see them anymore

Huh, there’s also a restaurant called Nifty Fiftys in Port Townsend. Appears to be an unrelated business, though.

If you want tableside coin-op jukeboxes, though, there’s still Luna Park Cafe in Seattle.

FIFTY NIFTY UNITED STATES, FROM THIRTEEN ORIGINAL COLONIES

Was at a bar and they were showing Tombstone, and I left right when Curly Bill killed the Marshall and the boys realize they have to take the lead in pacifying the town they intended to retire to wealth in

Went across the street and the bartender was talking about Butch Cassidy while the jukebox played Pancho & Lefty

I took it as a sign, and I mean that literally. As I get older I’ve got much more spiritual, except I identify the thing I commune with and take prophecy from not as God but America

Which 2 things: first, this is why I take the Mormons and their prophecies seriously, because I suspect they were in contact with the same thing; second the clearest this sense comes through is when I’m alone riding a motorcycle long-distance over rural highways, which is a little ridiculous but exactly how you WOULD pray to America

Anyway my take is that sign was to remind me that frontier hellraisers settling down to be the cornerstone of the further frontier is absolutely an American tradition, and maybe that’s my calling uh, calling

I hope; I hope the proper interpretation isn’t that I’m specifically destined for the interior scrubland desert; the Oregon forest was really a comfort matching my Pennsylvania upbringing after LA. I suppose there’s that Germanic forest in the Mississippi Midwest and east Texas too though.

kontextmaschine:

Hey yo real question: who do poor Israeli Jews identify as the secret power behind an economic conspiracy keeping them down?

Or is settler colonialism the valve that makes sure you never get there so it’s always externalized?

(‘Merica!)

ain’t no one there earned talking down to me in English

HSwMS Sverige

xhxhxhx:

youzicha:

There’s a talking point that “if you want higher taxes, why don’t you just write a check to the government, huh?”. In 1912 Sweden, they actually did.

In 1911 the government decided to defer the planned construction of a coastal battleship for budget reasons, and in January 1912, a group of individuals responded by founding the “Swedish Coastal Battleship Association” to raise money for it by “voluntary taxation”. Members pledged to donate, over three years, the same amount they paid in taxes in 1911. By May 1912, there were enough pledges to cover the planned budget for the ship, which was indeed ordered in November. The association raised enough money to cover the entire cost of the ship, with a little bit left over which was spent on other military improvements. There were 112,792 individual donors (2% of the Swedish population).

This reminds me of a section in James Sparrow’s Warfare State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011):

The Treasury accordingly worked the theme of equipment into as many promotions as possible. Bond drives and special promotions featured an ingenious array of equipment “sales” in which bond buyers could attach their purchases to a specific piece of matériel. Indeed, promotions featuring equipment were such a regular feature of the War Savings Staff’s activities that it maintained an accurate price list of munitions, vehicles, vessels, and other matériel as a reference for the Special Events Division and the state committees. Large items, such as a bomber, could serve as a tangible quota that a war plant or community could try to “buy” over the course of a drive. The small town of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, population 4,300, “bought” its own bomber during a forty-seven-day drive in early 1943 that netted more than $175,000. It was unusual for such a small town to make such a large “purchase,” which was a more plausible goal for cities the size of El Paso, Texas, or Napa, California. Students at Union Endicott High School were electrified in December 1943 when school officials received an official press service wire describing how the “Endicott Special,” an Airacobra fighter they had sponsored through bond purchases in the Schools at War program, had “bagged three bombers and a fighter on its maiden combat flight in the South Pacific.” After praising the “grand little ship” the students had paid for, the captain proceeded to describe in satisfying detail the fighting that had downed the four “Jap planes.” The news inspired the students to buy yet another fighter—their fourth—during a special holiday bond drive.

The Treasury’s strategy of tying bond sales to particular items needed for combat allowed bondholders to “buy” military equipment in place of the consumer durables on which they spent their disposable income in peacetime. (Courtesy of the National Archives Still Picture Records Section, ARC #513992)

This approach to setting drive quotas became quite popular, stoking competition between rival towns, local organizations, and even different shifts working in war plants. In May 1942, the Treasury found itself in the difficult position of having to explain an unfortunate navy policy to state sales organizations wanting to have their names affixed to large ships they had “bought” with bonds. Even if they could raise the bond sales commensurate with a $6.5 million submarine or a $65 million aircraft carrier, the navy would not release the name of a vessel until twenty-four hours prior to its launch. The Treasury devised a solution that allowed organizations to hang a plaque on the bow. Army policy likewise allowed “decalcomanias” to be affixed to mobile equipment such as tanks and jeeps that schools, towns, and organizations had “bought” with bonds. Treasury research found that stoking competition through such concrete goals was an extremely effective sales technique employed in the war plants attaining the highest quotas.

Individual bond buyers enjoyed an abundance of opportunities to “buy” equipment in a more personal fashion. Students could “adopt” a soldier by saving stamps toward bonds in amounts that would pay for his food, clothing, ammunition, or rifle, each of which could be displayed along with its price on a wall chart that fit nicely on a bulletin board. For those adults who wanted their bonds literally to outfit a friend or relative in the service, the V-mail Christmas bond letter was a perfect opportunity. It proved so popular during the 1944 holiday season that Morgenthau ordered it to be made available year-round as a “V-mail gift certificate.”

President Roosevelt, once again showing his finely tuned understanding of popular sensibilities, forwarded to Morgenthau a promotional idea to help civilians identify more directly with the machinery of war in April 1943. Why not follow the example of the British, the letter asked, and allow citizens to paste their war savings stamps directly onto bombs that would be dropped over Germany?

back-then:

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
1934

via 6sqft

antoine-roquentin:

.

Seriously, a repaganized America could have Jesus as the patron of the first three months, bookended with the two seasonal festivals he oversees – Talladega Nights was really onto something with the Christmas Jesus/Easter Jesus distinction in vernacular ‘Merican Christianity

trying to think of recent innovations in non-fusion white American cuisine and so far I have beer can chicken and backyard deepfrying

yeoldenews:

So a comment in a letter I was reading from 1898 (“To think of you witnessing that row in Congress Wednesday afternoon!”) led me to come across a forgotten episode of history that I feel needs to be re-remembered…

It seems the heated debates in Congress over whether to authorize military intervention in Cuba (the Spanish-American war would be officially declared  12 days later) led to a book/fist fight on the House floor.

Rachel’s cousin Will was on spring break in DC at the time and apparently witnessed the entire thing from the House Gallery.

I read some other letters from that week to see if anyone else mentioned the fight and Will’s cousin Edith had this to say:

“I think it was perfectly disgraceful, think of our dignified American Senators flinging books at each[other], I would liked to see them do it though, if it had to be done.”