History in my hands…

[pigeon toe]

As Pigeon Toe knows, I've visited UCLA's Special Collections. It's a whole ritual: when handling photo negatives, one has to wear thin cotton gloves and examine each photo one at a time. A wonderful, somehow gloriously democratic experience.

.

Ahh, I'm so glad whoever was on desk gave you gloves! We switch every hour and it can get pretty hectic in there, so sometimes the desk attendant forgets. That happens so often it's ridiculous.

 

[Diamondback]

I could feel the bad vibes coming off the set, and to this day I don't know if it was just my imagination or if we stepped on some metaphysical toes trying to "recreate" the rioting.

Y'know, sometimes I've wondered if something similar happens when filmmakers and reenactors show up at Gettysburg or Antietam... both places where you can very definitely feel a certain energy of restless spirits about.

Isn't it interesting how a discussion about holding an artifact in one's hands (or, in my case, being strapped into one) goes all metaphysical?lol
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Now playing: Danny Elfman - The Chase
via FoxyTunes

 

[Lorena B]

I get that same feeling of respect that you are talking about whenever I handle a vintage piece either clothing or not, yes, they are max about 60 or 70 years old but i just cant stop thinking about who had it or wore it.

Also whenever I am in a museum or an old church or cathedral, again, the same respect feeling.

Is a strange feeling but great at the same time, makes you thing of mortality and somehow most of times, amazes me that with a bit of care things do really can last almost an eternity.

 

[Luddite]

The thing which gave me that direct link to history feeling was working on old aircraft. In a previous career I used to work on pre-WW2 aircraft, and when removing the fabric, I would quite often find the pencil marks made during the airframe's original construction, and sometimes comments from the original builder. It gave me the feeling that although the technology may have changed, I lived a very similar life to those earlier generations. One aircraft which particularly captured my sense of history was a Nieuport 28, which not only had a military career, but was used in the film dawn Patrol, and subsequently as a Warner Brothers' wind machine.