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  1. Inkstainedwretch

    Science Fiction Genre - Religion vs Scientific Origins, and the Nature of Self Destruction

    I've been involved in the sf field for more than forty years and I've seen it change drastically. It's well known that any era's science fiction is about that era, not about the future. Sf of the 20s-40s was all gosh-wow, space opera and problems being solved by smart, brave people. In the post...
  2. Inkstainedwretch

    Ok, so some things in the golden era were not too cool...

    When I was college age if you used the term Wall Street"as a pejorative, you were branded a communist. Now, it's commonly used in that sense by right-wingers. If you called the police "pigs"it meant you were un-American. Visit any extreme-right website and you'll see the cops described as...
  3. Inkstainedwretch

    Hoboes, homeless and such during WW2?

    The shortage of housing led, especially in the industrial towns, to a sort of "time sharing." Factories worked three shifts around the clock, and people slept that way. Three families (or similar domestic arrangements) would all live in a single apartment, using the beds and couches in shifts...
  4. Inkstainedwretch

    Ok, so some things in the golden era were not too cool...

    The strangest thing is that the distance is almost insane for a .45, which is intended strictly for close-range self-defense. By the end of its trajectory the impetus of the gunpowder would have been all but gone and gravity would have taken over. As to the presence of guns, this was just...
  5. Inkstainedwretch

    Your Most Disturbing Realizations

    I turned 69 last month. I used to have pretty elaborate routines of diet and exercise to hold off the inevitable. Now, I just try not to start drinking before noon.
  7. Inkstainedwretch

    You know you are getting old when:

    Some years ago I was in my hometown doing research for a book. I got the microfilms (yes, that was what they had) of the old town newspapers and I looked up the one that had my birth announcement. On the front page was a picture of Virginia Hill, mistress of mobster Bugsy Siegel who had been...
  8. Inkstainedwretch

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    Passenger buses haven't entirely disappeared, but they have become exceedingly uncommon. 30+ years ago, when traveling on major highways it seemed that every third or fourth vehicle you saw was a long-range passenger bus, usually Greyhound or Trailways, but there were many smaller lines. Now I...
  9. Inkstainedwretch

    Men's Adventure Magazines

    Lizzie, you just made my day.
  10. Inkstainedwretch

    Men's Adventure Magazines

    Many, if not most of the comic artists of the 50s had a sideline in porn. Even beloved Wally Wood of MAD magazine fame did some raunchy stuff. The fact is, you have to be pretty weird to be a comics artist in the first place. Even the conventional comics could get pretty close to porn in their...
  11. Inkstainedwretch

    Hoboes, homeless and such during WW2?

    That's a pretty spiffy-looking bunch of hoboes. Suits and neckties - is that hobo attire?
  13. Inkstainedwretch

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    Today I went to a local dollar store and got my annual shock of seeing shelves stocked with back-to-school supplies. I mean, summer just started, didn't it?
  14. Inkstainedwretch

    Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

    It's just occurred to me that, when I was a kid, there was always a boy or girl in your grammar-school class who had a hoarse, almost basso-profundo voice. These kids were usually cruelly nickname something like "Froggy"or "Foghorn." It happened because of a botched tonsillectomy. Numerous...
  15. Inkstainedwretch

    Men's Adventure Magazines

    All it lacks is the "yellow peril" factor.
  16. Inkstainedwretch

    How has the Evolution of the Silver Screen affected the theater and movie going experience in the...

    I know the Arlington well. Some of my family lived in Santa Barbara from 1960-2013 and it was a part of my life for more than half a century. Many Hollywood movies were sneak-previewed in the Arlington, perhaps most famously Capra's "Lost Horizon,"which was a huge disappointment. In Capra's...
  17. Inkstainedwretch

    How has the Evolution of the Silver Screen affected the theater and movie going experience in the...

    I sometimes imagine what a different experience moviegoing could be during the Depression. You see a bit of this in Woody Allen's movie "The Purple Rose of Cairo." The shopgirl goes to the movies to escape her boring, humdrum world and deadend job. In the '30s, even if you had a job and a decent...
  19. Inkstainedwretch

    Men's Adventure Magazines

    There was a sharp divide in the magazines around 1950. Pre-50, the pulps prevailed. Whatever the genre, they were primarily short fiction (with an occasional novel published in installments). In the postwar era the paperback book took over the cheap fiction field and the men's adventure magazine...
  20. Inkstainedwretch

    What Happened....

    For me, college was about broadening one's outlook. That's what the liberal arts are for. When I talk to young people who are hesitant about ending up with a useless degree I tell them, "You'll never regret that you're educated."
  21. Inkstainedwretch

    Old restaurant "PARIS CAFE 1959" food menu in window

    Lizzie, except for the abundance of New England seafood, that was the menu of Middle America before Julia Child seized America by the throat and forced us to regard European (especially French) cuisine. You'd have found that menu (minus the fish) at any restaurant in Kansas City, Dallas, Los...
  22. Inkstainedwretch

    What Happened....

    My wife and I are putting a granddaughter through college. It's an arts school in Portland, OR and she wants to get her degree in computer animation. That's what I call a specialty with a real future. Shell probably get a well-paying job right out of college. If I hadn't been able to break in...
  23. Inkstainedwretch

    What Happened....

    My mother's family were big shots in their little South Texas town. They were the lawyers and politicians. Unfortunately for her and my grandmother, her father was the black sheep of that family, the shiftless drinker and gambler who could never keep a job. She, her sister and their mother...

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