an blog | AJBlog Central | Contact me | Advertise | Follow me:
You are here: Home / Archives for Jeff Weinstein

Can Tweets Save Letters? The Postcard Solution

April 14, 2013 by
Sent to Miss Freda Fayman, Hall, West Virginia, June 30, 1913 (this and all postcards from collection of Jeff Weinstein)

  Can tweets, texts and email save the post office? Seems a foolish question, same as asking if Facebook or HuffPo could rescue newspapers. Congress has again been going postal about the semi-Thatcherized U.S. Postal Service, on the one hand not wanting to spend a sou to keep it going, on the other not willing to offend business lobbies and scotch that expensive Saturday delivery. Yet there was a time when a similar absurd idea really did work: More than a century ago, the tweetlike penny postcard, enemy to the ostensibly profitable … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

A Repost Re: Photographer Milton Rogovin

August 22, 2012 by
By Milton Rogovin. Copyright and reprinted with the permission of the Rogovin Collection LLC and the Board of Regents at the University of Arizona.

"Out There" has been on indefinite holiday, but during this cheerful pre-election period of lies, greed, and cynicism, Obit Magazine has taken the opportunity to repost an essay and video slideshow (with an odd voice, mine) about a man whose life was an antidote to all these awful things: the late photographer Milton Rogovin. So I'm using this opportunity to say hello, "Out There" friends, and cheer you up with an appreciation of a life lived right -- rather, left. … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

Frankenthaler Reminder (Tag: ‘Right-Wing’)

December 28, 2011 by

I haven't read each and every worshipful Helen Frankenthaler obit, but of those I have seen, only the Los Angeles Times version mentions that she was one of those responsible for gutting the National Endowment for the Arts, especially the visual part: eliminating direct grants to artists.  She worked with those who earlier had defunded those pathetic hangers-on, art critics. Frankenthaler was proud of her conservative stance, as this 1989 piece by her in the New York Times opinion section makes clear. A sample: "I feel there was a time … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

Learning To Cook: Meatloaf

December 27, 2011 by
meatloaf jewel

Neither my brother nor I can recall sitting down to eat meatloaf when we were Brooklyn kids.  But we must have, because we share a childhood "meatloaf ghost." "It had something red and burnt on top," he told me on the phone. "But I can't remember anything else about it." That must have been tomato sauce or, more likely, ketchup -- probably Heinz in our conventional household. We have no idea how the ghost's corpse tasted. I wouldn't blame Mom's particular meatloaf for that. No matter how good the food she gave us every single night … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

More About Old Menus

November 7, 2011 by
New York Central wartime menu, c. 1943

My favored outside writing-home of the moment, the cheerful Obit Magazine, just published a piece and a slideshow, What the Dead Once Ate, about old menus and the stories they tell that partners last week's Out There post called Menu Time-Travel. Both include links to the New York Public Library's collection of 10,000 examples of past gluttony -- the library has massed 40,000 -- that are definitely click-worthy. Do you wonder, as I do, what every faded stain once tasted like? Oh, the captions for the Obit slideshow seem to have slipped … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

Menu Time-Travel

November 1, 2011 by
Uncle Tom's Cabin Fried Pies

You need not ask me to explain the piles of old restaurant menus and food ephemera loaded into boxes and bags in my closet, because each item is more than glad to tell its story. The 1920s candy wrapper with crumbs of ancient chocolate hiding in the creases or stained S.S. Lurline dinner card (to and from Hawaii) are straining to brag about their former flavors and who last sampled them. Vintage object are patient in the long run, but they ultimately demand total attention. When I brought that candy wrapper home from the flea, it forced me … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

The Google Ghost in the Window

October 27, 2011 by
Google-Bugs-thumb-350x262

Who among you onliners has not Google Mapped your own address? The satellite bird's-eye shots are thrilling enough, especially when you see how your neighbor's yard looks like hay while yours is a plot of emerald. But city folk can make street-level swoops up and down stoops and even jaywalk without being mowed down by taxi or bike. You may guess in what season the image was grabbed by checking trees and clothes, though NYU "boys" in my East Village nabe wear fetching shorts at all times, even in the snow. The other day I typed in my … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

Occupy My Wallet?

October 16, 2011 by
"Protest Stencil Toolkit" pages in a gallery

Late last week I received this email: Attn Jeff Weinstein, Blogger Out There In light of the current Wall Street protests, the PROTEST STENCIL TOOLKIT could really come in handy. A clever book of die-cut stencils, each page reflects a concern (financial, environmental, political...) while including examples from the great protest movements of the 20th century. An interesting resource for designers and artists, this book is also a serious look at the powerful graphics of protest. J-pegs and books are available upon request. Thanks for … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

Ciao! Ray’s Pizza Bows Out

September 22, 2011 by
Ray's Pizza, 27 Prince Street, New York -- but not for long

If you read the New York Times, you may know that Ray's Pizza is about to bite the dust. I'm going to direct you to a piece I wrote for Obit Magazine on that very subject in just a minute, and all the pertinent links are there. But first, I need to say some things to those few who hadn't heard the tremendous news and are now beginning your slow swoons of nostalgic regret. Ray's isn't that good. It never was. It's just OK. Ray's, the first one on Prince Street and not the many famous original first authentic namesakes around town, isn't … [Read more...]

| filed under: |

Writing: My 9/11 Time Machine

September 10, 2011 by

Like many of my colleagues, I am quesy about the full-scale media attack on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Of course, I understand the civic need to weight the event and personal need to recount our losses, but I am less sure about the form any media memorial should take. Still, I'm going to take a risk and post a piece I wrote right after 9/11 for the Philadelphia Inquirer, if only to demonstrate to myself how words can erase a decade. I was then a back-of-the-book arts editor, and though departments dissolved as we all pitched in to … [Read more...]

| filed under: |
«Older Posts

an ArtsJournal blog