Suggested Mobile Housing

Lloyd Kahn is one of my heroes. His book Shelter has been a guide and comfort through many, many years of dreaming of building my own home somewhere.

His blog is highly recommended for lots of pictures and great writing about structures and the people who build them. And he's still skating at 70+! This short documentary has some footage of Lloyd's amazing home.

Check out this gorgeous converted school bus that he recently featured; maybe it's just because I'm from a world vortex of converted school busses, but it got me thinking about long road trips, woodstove cooking, and making do with a little less.

Archival Reprint: Filson Japan Lookbook

Per yesterday's entry, I'm reprinting a few of my favorite views from the strangely compelling, Filson Japan lookbook, "The Ballad of Portraits". I love the stylized presentation of the figures who look like colorized, plasticized transplants from a 19th century daguerreotype (if Dodge Sportsmans appeared in daguerreotypes). Since most web image content disappears from view or gets redistributed away from its original source, I wanted to archive a copy for myself for future reference. It's a shame we cannot mail away for a print copy.

Archival Scout Trip

We love ACL's Kodachrome digitization project. On a small scale, I've done my own part to rescue orphan slide collections from Goodwill and neighborhood garage sales. But most of my finds remain unsorted in boxes in our back "bonus" room. In one instance, I salvaged a slide collection for its unique homemade carrying case.

It would be great if we could scan, tag and pool our collections into a single, keyword searchable database of images. For example, I'd like to be able to search out a women's trouser style from a specific year or decade. We need a Cushman collection for heritage clothing on Kodachrome.

I'm wishing I had been invited along on this found Kodachrome field trip from the 1940s. I'm assuming that the event was scout sponsored with a loose forestry education theme.






I'm ecstatic to see rare screen surrogates for myself in the way of these cardigan clad ladies:


In packing for this scouting trip, I'd supplement my stock collection of buffalo plaid shirts, duck trousers or knickers with a few provisional accessories ordered from Boy's Life and Catalogue Manufrance 1931.

Packsacks and pocket knives via Boy's Life archive.

Equipement du Scout (via Pillpat)