Infinite Art Tournament: Boring Postcards -- Back to the Future

Showing posts with label Boring Postcards -- Back to the Future. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Wednesday Post

California Then and Now: Revisiting the New Boring Postcards
The ideal setting for professional and spiritual growth

F L A M I N G O A P T . M O T E L
904 No. Strand OCEANSIDE, CALIF.

The Flamingo Apt. Motel is kind of still there. It has been been remodeled to make more residential space, and it looks like the casual lounging area on the postcard has been replaced by more units. Also, it's now The Blue Whale, and it's a time-share resort. Perfect if you need a laid-back home base for your annual trips to Southern California, I guess!

Bungalow Drive, Gilman's Relief Hot Springs, San Jacinto, Calif.

Gilman's Relief Hot Springs no longer exists as a resort. It was purchased in 1978, in cash, by the Scottish Highland Quietude Club. This turned out to be a front for the Scientology organization, which has since developed the property into a heavily guarded compound called "Gold Base" which serves as its world headquarters. Described by the organization itself as "the ideal setting for professional and spiritual growth," Gold Base is also described by many past residents as a sort of prison camp where inmates work 16-hour days, are isolated from the outside world and encouraged to inform on grumbling coworkers, are occasionally subjected to bizarre punishments, humiliations, and physical abuse, and are tracked down by recovery squads if they make it over the razor-topped fence. I have no personal insight into this, of course; I'm just summarizing a colorful Wiki article that includes passages like:

The Church acknowledged that the rules under which the Headleys lived included a ban on having children, censored mail, monitored phone calls, needing permission to have Internet access and being disciplined through manual labor. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals noted in a ruling given in July 2012 that Marc Headley had been made to clean human excrement by hand from an aeration pond on the compound with no protective equipment, while Claire Headley was banned from the dining hall for up to eight months in 2002. She lost 30 pounds (14 kg) as a result of subsisting on protein bars and water. In addition, she had two abortions to comply with the Sea Org's no-children policy.

So that's what's up at the hot springs these days! Oh, and apparently there is a mansion waiting in readiness in case there is a second coming of L. Ron Hubbard.

The year 'round greenery of Southern California's magic climate is a feature of Ferndale Lawn, a part of Greenwood memorial Park and Mortuary, San Diego.

Greenwood Memorial Park is still there. No surprises on this one. Cemeteries tend to stick around.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The Wednesday Post

Chicken In A Basket in Our Time
the meta-clue that you are approaching a solvable puzzle

A while back, I passed on a boring postcard puzzle that had arrived in the mail. Here's the postcard:

Lest you get all excited and buy tickets to Honolulu in order to visit the Wells Fargo Chicken in a Basket Pizza, I better break it to you that the Wells Fargo Chicken in a Basket Pizza no longer exists. Here's what 1067 Alakea looks like these days:

Frankly, I have mixed feelings about the change.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Wednesday Post

Michael5000 Returns to High Hawsker
Yeah he was a complete little bastard.

On July 22, 2010, this was your Thursday boring postcard from Michael5000:

NORTHCLIFFE CARAVAN PARK,
HIGH HAWSKER, WHITBY

Last week, somebody left this delightful comment on the old post:

Ha. I spent my childhood holidays here. In the spring mornings it used to get major fog. My three cousins and I would run up and down the fog towards the sea with my oldest cousin screaming that we [were] near the edge of the cliff and not to move. Yeah he was a complete little bastard. I can see [that] one man's meat is another man's poison. Anywhere is boring, very especially if the people around you are boring.

Of course regular readers will understand that the Northcliffe Caravan Park is "meat" to me and the commenter alike, since when I call a postcard "boring" I am essentially confessing to be half in love with it. Nor do I know what it is to have boring people around me, for I am never more than a click away from readers of Infinite Art Tournament, am I right?

All that aside, I was immediately infected after reading the comment with aching nostalgia for High Hawsker. Nostalgia, coupled with a painful certainty that such a place must long ago have been ground beneath the wheel of time.

But no:

Northcliffe Caravan Park is still there! In fact, "Northcliffe & [neighboring] Seaview Holiday Parks have been in family ownership since 1967 and both parks are still personally managed today by the third generation of the same family." You can check out amenities, rates, and local attractions at their website!

If you pull back for a little context, modern aerial photography reveals that the parks are on a spectacular agricultural tableland. The fancifully named "Robin Hood's Bay" is just a few miles away, over to the south. And, after a careful perusal of the visual evidence, you can at least say this about the commenter's oldest cousin...

...he was right to be scared of the cliff!

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

The Wednesday Post

Greetings from 5000 Miles!
The Avatar, just to be clear, has not run 5000 miles.

We interrupt our tour of Washington for this important update from Central Missouri!

I reached 5000 miles on Monday! 5000.83, to be exact.

What that means is, I've logged 5000 miles since I started keeping track in August 2009. I had flirted with running off and on for eight or nine years at that point, and figured "hey, I like data. Maybe keeping a spreadsheet would be a good incentive to track my mileage." It has worked like gangbusters.

I didn't really notice the "5000 for Michael5000" thing until Mrs. pointed it out. That has to be a post, she exclaimed, and sure, absolutely. So we've got a postcard here from Marshall, Missouri, where the Avatar was hanging out the day before the big 5K happened. The Avatar, just to be clear, has not run 5000 miles. He came into being long after the spreadsheets did. He has only run 2880.91 miles.

Since tracking my running is a jolly sort of obsessive-compulsive hobby that, as a side benefit, keeps me from ballooning up to 370 pounds, I've decided to keep a small, EXTREMELY niche-audience blog just for yapping about it: michael5000runs.blogspot.com/. Feel absolutely no compulsion to look at it. (Or on the other hand, if you share my enthusiasm for quantifying your physical fitness or other deeds of note, let me know and you can post to it too. It could be, like, a numbers-driven mutual admiration society.)

We'll still want to check in with the Avatar here from time to time, of course, especially when he visits an art museum or sends in postcards. In a few months, actually, I expect to take a trip where I will be able to track him down and see how he's doing. Who knows! Maybe I'll even go for a run with him.

Downtown Marshall, Missouri is still there. Marshall has lost a lost of downtown buildings, but the church at the bend in Arrow Street (it's a curious thing about modern cities, that their streets are more permanent than are their buildings) is altered but recognizable, and the building just to the left of it is almost completely unchanged from this distance. Country Floral Keepsakes, on the right, still describes itself as being "on the South Side of the Square."

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Wednesday Post

Song of the American Road, part 4, take 2
We are here and it is cool today

Catching up with the postcards of February, 2010.

GREETINGS FROM NORTH DAKOTA

We are here and it is cool today. We are marked on the map. 1275 miles. -Fran

North Dakota is still there. Well, it is in as much as anything as abstract as a "state" can be said to be "there." In truth "North Dakota" exists, like money, only through an act of consensus imagination. But the concept is still very much alive in the collective geographical consciousness, as evidenced by a thousand blithely confident maps. They show you the lineaments of North Dakota, thereby implicitly arguing that North Dakota is a real thing, and that it merits mapping.

TILLAMOOK CHEESE FACTORY -- OREGON

World's largest cheese kitchen (one of them).

Monday. Had 16 for Sunday dinner. 11 slept in the cabin. Mary and I slept in the car. Her cousin caught a big salmon. Weather is perfect. A little windy today.

Now there are just 6 here. Mary's cousin is here with us. -- Wish you were here. Love -- Linda.

The Tillamook Cheese factory is still there, although it is an entirely new building, I believe. It is certainly not the world's largest "cheese kitchen" anymore, or "one of them" for that matter. I have very grave doubts that it was ever in the running.

SKYLINE, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

Hi you all. We are really having fun our trip was smooth the weather is warm, but not too, only so sticky see you all before too long

love E Russell

The skyline of Minneapolis is still there. It has even grown a bit. If you look closely, you can find the building that dominates the postcard in the modern landscape.

DORRIS, CALIF.

Hi -- Having a break from the Rat Race. Weather perf.

The Bakers

Dorris, California is still there. Its skyline has not grown as much as Minneapolis', and although many of the buildings are still extant, they all have new uses. The water tower, and the crease in the hills, remain the same.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

The Wednesday Post

Song of the American Road, part 1, take 2
I know you would love it here; it's beautiful

Six years ago today, I started the occasional "Song of the American Road" series, featuring boring postcards and the messages they carried. Not everyone likes the boring-postcard aspect of this here online entertainment, but sister jen got it:

Oh my god, fab. These are so lovely I ache. Little fragments of people's lives, like rose petals pressed in a favorite book. Love it.

Well, sister jen and I share some tastes and interests. We're actually quite closely related.

Let's take another listen to the Song of the American Road, and find out how things have changed along the way!

FLORIDA's BEAUTIFUL SINGING TOWER
Located in the Mountain Lake Sanctuary, Lake Wales, Florida, the 205-foot Singing Tower is on the highest ground in the Florida peninsula.

Dear Ula and All, Haven't been to tower this year. Guess weather the reason. So glad your better & keep it up. Will be home next month & see you. We'll all be glad to have spring come. Love to all, Mabel & Nellie.

The Singing Tower is still there. It's the highlight of the Bok Tower Gardens, a large private park and bird sanctuary in Central Florida that was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Why is it the "singing" tower? It has a carillon, is all.

THE STOCKS AND PILLORY IN THE KING'S PARADE AT ST. GEORGES

We finally arrived. I know you would love it here; its beautiful. I'm very glad I came. Have a Happy New Year. Love, Myra

Well, no one calls it the "King's Parade" anymore. They call it "King's Square." But it is still there, and, as is clearly visible on this recent imagery from a well-known online source of street-level photography, the stocks and pillory are still kept in tip-top condition!

K-1690
CRATER LAKE, OREGON IN WINTER SPLENDOR
The shimmering blue lake as seen in mid-winter with Mt. Scott looking 9000' in the distance.

Dear Grandma, We're spending our 2nd nite in Ontario, Oregon. Linda and I are a little tired from just sitting on our bottoms. Give my love to Helen and Mary. Will try and write all of you later. Love, Melissa

Well, Crater Lake is still there of course. It's not in winter splendor just now, because it's not winter. In fact, last I heard a fair chunk of the mountain was on fire, but that was a few weeks ago.

Frankly, I kind of feel that, although the idea of a lake in a volcano crater seems pretty nifty, the execution falls a bit flat. But then, appreciation of natural splendor is not one of my strong suits. Lots of people think Crater Lake is fabulous.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

The Wednesday Post

Where are they now?
Revisiting the six original boring postcards

Lake Claremore, Claremore, Okla.

Lake Claremore, near Claremore, Oklahoma, is still there. It is not really a lake, but that's by the by. I think that, after only an hour or so of fussing, I found imagery from just about the same vantage point as that of the original postcard. Time well spent, as I'm sure you'll agree.

EAST PARLOR SHOWING BULLET HOLE IN SHUTTER MADE BY AN INDIAN
THE WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON MANSION. VINCENNES, INDIANA.

The Harrison Mansion is still there. I couldn't find any modern pictures of the East Parlor, but this dining room certainly shares most of its architectural features:

As for the bullet hole, it's apparently still there too. Or at least it was in 2009, according to this blogger. I guess that's a bullet hole. It's hard to tell. Apparently the shutter stopped a bullet that was heading for William Henry while he was holding baby Ben; had the shutter been open, the shooter might have killed two future Presidents with one shot. That's a nasty sort of crime, but one that would have been hard to prove in court.