February 21, 2013
Living across the street from an auction house, John Maloof ended up purchasing a box full of negatives for $380. From there, he discovered the work of Vivian Maier and began trying to unravel who she was – her history, and her passion for photography.
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February 14, 2013
Local authorities received an alert regarding a potential altercation in the Logan Square area. On arriving at the scene, they found a male toucan unresponsive. Attempts to revive the victim were unsuccessful.
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January 20, 2013
Could it be in reference to the same guy, perhaps? In my head, I’m imagining it’s all part of a long-term conversation between the general public and some anonymous graffiti artist.
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September 7, 2012
GO AHEAD and STAND THERE LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO… IT’S THE SAME GOD DAMN THING EVERYTIME YOU JUST STAND THERE WITH YOUR EYES open Like a stupid Fuck! WHATS A MATTER WITH YOU IF I DIDNT KNOW YOU, I WOULD BE BETTER OFF. I WOULD BE BETTER OFF. I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE. Just leave already!!!
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September 4, 2012
A few days ago, Liz and I went to Wolff’s Flea Market over the Labor Day weekend. There, I happened across three reels of old movie film, and decided to buy them for $1 apiece.
I later learned from Alex that the film I got was Kodachrome, a type of film that is no longer processed. There was one place in Parsons, Kansas (Dwayne’s Photo), that used to do all the developing work (even Kodak outsourced their lab work to these guys)… but Dwayne’s processed their last roll of Kodachrome on December 30th, 2010.
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August 30, 2012
I love that the interviewer decided to use this avenue of communication to try to contact the artist/group. I guess he could also have tried to pick up the phone.
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August 16, 2012
I was doing laundry the other day, and as I was putting quarters into the dryers… I came across one quarter that had a colorful side.
It was a Pennsylvania state quarter, and looks like it was created in 1999. This is the first time I’ve come across a colorized quarter before, and it kind of caught me by surprise. At first glance, I thought it was some kind of a token.
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June 13, 2012
I don’t know any of the people mentioned, and I haven’t read enough of the other letters to recognize names yet. But found items like this are what attract me to flea markets – these old and misplaced things, these magical objects that provide the briefest of window into other people’s lives.
What I love about old photographs and letters is how they can transport you, how a small bit of paper in your hand can take you a half century or more into the past.
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March 29, 2012
About a year ago, I noticed a small bracelet, dangling from a small branch on a tree near our apartment. At the time, I thought it was kind of an odd placement (the branch it was on was super small, and I couldn’t tell if it was put there on purpose, or left there accidentally).
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February 10, 2012
The more of these pages I scan and transcribe, the more I tend to really appreciate the notes and comments. Finding names and dates might be exciting for genealogists, but they’re just so terribly dry. It’s like someone signing a receipt or bill.
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February 6, 2012
This was a tough name to decipher, and even after staring at it for a long time… I’m still not sure if I’ve gotten it correct. My initial impulse is to read the name as “Moom Hegemein.” I’m not sure if I’m reading the first name properly (or if it’s a shorter first name, with “M” as the middle initial). I’m also having a tough time with the last few characters in the last name.
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February 6, 2012
George Terry,
Mattituck, L.I.
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January 17, 2012
In the book of life, “Gods Album”
May thy name be traced with care,
And may all who here have written
Write their names forever there.
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January 15, 2012
Unsure if the first letter is an “E,” but it’s my best guess. Whatever it is, it looks like a very fancy letter to make. If you look at the larger version, you can see that the letter was formed in one stroke, with the circular swirl done as the pen made its way down the letter.
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January 4, 2012
Lives of great-men oft-remind us,
We can make our own sublime,
And in dying leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time,
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