What could be more postmodern than a farm that shifts from producing produce, to producing the performance of producing produce?
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A day with the freight agents at Willow Run
In the case of old photographs, the great equalizer is time and neglect -- by which any old photo, no matter how insignificant at the time it was taken, has a similar chance at achieving historical value. Today, we will examine a few previously unseen photos from the American Airlines freight agents' office at Willow Run Airport, taken in the early 1950s.
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The proof is in the packaging
Some products are so small in proportion to their value that a reasonably-priced package may end up being more package than product. But this presents a peculiar possibility: that a small hiccup in the manufacturing chain could lead to a case of all package and no product -- and leaving no evidence but your indignation.
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Dryad’s saddle
Dryad's Saddle is a marginally edible wood mushroom with a remarkable affinity for enchanted places.
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The last shift at Cunningham’s
Often, a photograph reaches its true potential only in the fullness of time. These previously unseen images from a Cunningham's Drug Store of the 1950s show that neglected negatives can emerge from hibernation to find a second life that is every bit as robust as the first.
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The forcing function of fire
Any public place where people can freely meet can support socialization — with the people you’ve come with, that is. What is missing is some element that allows groups to break out of their self-containment, and interact in a spontaneous, genuine, and uncontrived manner, with people they didn’t come with. On a cold evening, a shared fire pit can be a social forcing function.
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Last exit to Rawsonville
A ghost town has the power to linger on in its own absence -- perhaps through the continued use of a place name, the passing-down of oral legend, or the persistence of wooded hills and feral fallows, cloaking mysterious features that only the legend can explain. Here we take an excursion to such a site.
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The extraordinary, ordinary postcard
Despite the ongoing decline of what many disparagingly refer to as “snail mail,” there remains a segment of the population that has not yet lost touch with its unique qualities, and fears the prospect of losing this supposedly archaic medium forever.
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Below Susterka Lake
Shrouded by the wooded shoulder of a busy blacktop road, a forgotten mill dam retains the flow of a small stream -- as well as the fading summer memories of a generation of truant children.
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Excursion to an unexplained hickory grove
In a sufficiently inattentive world, sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.
