What sparked your fascination with the "Golden Era"?

[HOP UP]

WOW !! Great thread....

Let's see.......

The Cars - esp hot rods & kustoms !!
The Aircraft
The Buildings
The Dance Clubs
Art Deco
Streamline Design
Mid Century Modern architecture/design
Clip Art
The Clothes
The Accessories
The male/female defined roles
The Music
WWII - the hisotry, effects and people.
The vernacular
Cinema
Values
Family
The Pragmatism
The thriftiness
The delayed Gratification
The Decorum
The Honesty
Devotion to duty
Hope
Respect
Honor
Orignal and timeless designs

Everything that today's sanitised, over-regulated, over-controlled, overly corporate, insanely politically correct, nothing original anymore world lacks. eah you're right, I don't belong in today's world.

I could go on and on.

HOP UP

 

[Steven180]

Hop Up...I like the way you think!

M.

 

[HOP UP]

While everything changes - the AMOUNT and SIGNIFICANCE of the changes we have seen, particularly over the last 15-20 yrs have been absolutely and undisputably STAGGERING.

And change can be defined by both positive AND negative changes - I for one see more negatives than positives and Im a fairly positive person. Social engineering Im afraid has brought us to this point and critical thinking Im afarid has gone the way of the dodo.

I see it all around me.

People actually think "Reality" TV .....is REAL !!!

And whats worse, they have children.

But I digress.....thanks for the compliment M.

HOP UP

 

[Adam James Walker]

Well it was the August of 2007 and the game I had been waiting for for so much time had finally been released and, not to attach to much hyperbole to playing a video game - though if it can be said for other forms of art then I refuse to disclude video games - , it really changed my life. BioShock, ir's been mentioned here before but for those not-in-the-know it's an otherwise standard First-Person-Shooter -gameplaywise anyway - set in a failed underwater capitalist utopia built after the then style of Art Deco 1940's Manhattan. I was pretty psyched for it to put it very lightly.

One of the trailers was set to Bobby Darin's "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" and I just loved the song so I followed a few links to related music and some of the giants of the era that my late Grandfather told me about such as Glenn Miller and his own personal favourite Les Brown. I guess it's worth noting that before this point I was pretty much a blank slate, I was 14 and had no interest in music at all and simply wore whatever my mother bought me. Now though I had an interest in music that was slowly growing - much to the beamusement of my parents - and it was about this time that I asked for some more shirts; she bought me what one could consider a typical "party" shirt, short-sleeved with a basic pattern and of woeful quality. Sometime later I made the jump to proper white shirts - though of equally little quality - the defining moment though was when I got my first sleeveless jumper...

Now I have a fledgling collection of LPs consisting of mostly jazz compilations, multiple crooners of 50's & 60's - of whom Darin is still my favourite - and even some of the truly classic artists such as the Ink Spots; a '60's Box Brownie, a '30's PYE P75 Radio, an Encylopedia from the '30's and an Olivetti Lettera 22 mark the begining of what will be a lifetime spent hoarding the remnants of the Golden Age. My wardrobe contains a large number of white and blue shirts of varying shades along with the begining of a collection of trousers as I can finally fill a 30" waist - with a belt it must be said - in a year or so once I have stopped growing I will have completely phased out jeans.

I have to say that the obsession with the Golden Age of times gone-by has really given me character and style, despite being largely ostracised from common youth I still wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[TidiousTed]

Back when I was a young man I was a dog sledge runner for the Norwegian Red Cross and one of the ways we made money to run the local organizations was to arrange paper collections for recycling (a usual way to raise money for organizations here in Norway).
The way this is done is that people put boxes or paper sacks full of all sorts of paper on the roadside outside their house an we picked it up. One place there was five large paper sacks crammed with old magazines from the forties, fifties and sixties. To make a long story short, those five sacks never got recycled.
Now I have a family, woman’s, news, men’s whatever magazine collection containing more than 20.000 magazines in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and English spanning from 1900 to 1975.
And this collection obviously sparks interests in almost anything vintage and retro

 

[Sam Diamond]

It's got to be movies. Also when I was young I was really into Doc Savage books.

 

[Belladonna_dea]

I was always "into" vintage.... whatever from a very early age. I remember the first time I saw the 50's portrayed on one of my kids programs (probably Are You Afraid of the Dark?) and I felt electric. I just craved knowing more about that time period. I had a crush on Elvis when I couldn't even write. My mom asked me how I knew all the "doo-wop" songs on the radio by heart. I dunno I just liked them. She actually would want me to turn the station because I liked the old stuff so much. When I was younger I was more into the 1950's and 1960's but as I got older I realized I love the 20's-40's best. I've since modeled vintage pin up items, had a vintage themed wedding, engagement photos etc. I don't think it was because my grandparents practically raised me, but I definitely also have the utmost respect for the Depression Era/ WWII generation. The values, hardships and no nonsense do or die attitude I wish we still had to day is very appealing to me. The styles required more time, there was a more self respecting attitude and not cockiness that goes into pin curling your hair every night etc... Everything was made to last, the cars were great, the houses and decor - timeless. The music, simply amazing! I know I didn't live back then and am probably putting it on a pedestal a bit. I've spoken with many older people who actually preferred the 60's, mostly for what was going on with women and civil rights and because war times were tough. But I think that is the appeal for me, tough. Like a gilded butterfly.

 

[shazzabanazza]

Hop Up...I like the way you think!

M.

Me too!

 

[shazzabanazza]

Back when I was a young man I was a dog sledge runner for the Norwegian Red Cross and one of the ways we made money to run the local organizations was to arrange paper collections for recycling (a usual way to raise money for organizations here in Norway).
The way this is done is that people put boxes or paper sacks full of all sorts of paper on the roadside outside their house an we picked it up. One place there was five large paper sacks crammed with old magazines from the forties, fifties and sixties. To make a long story short, those five sacks never got recycled.
Now I have a family, woman’s, news, men’s whatever magazine collection containing more than 20.000 magazines in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and English spanning from 1900 to 1975.
And this collection obviously sparks interests in almost anything vintage and retro

WOW! What an impressive collection you have, how Id love to look at some of those magazines!

 

[Silver Bird]

While everything changes - the AMOUNT and SIGNIFICANCE of the changes we have seen, particularly over the last 15-20 yrs have been absolutely and undisputably STAGGERING.

And change can be defined by both positive AND negative changes - I for one see more negatives than positives and Im a fairly positive person. Social engineering Im afraid has brought us to this point and critical thinking Im afarid has gone the way of the dodo.

I see it all around me.

People actually think "Reality" TV .....is REAL !!!

And whats worse, they have children.

But I digress.....thanks for the compliment M.

HOP UP

This has to be one of the most intelligent, significant,and at the same time, saddening posts. I believe you've pretty well nailed it with this one Hop Up.

P.S. you're previous post was spot-on as well!

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Money! Money money money! Mulah!

 

[Belladonna_dea]

This has to be one of the most intelligent, significant,and at the same time, saddening posts. I believe you've pretty well nailed it with this one Hop Up.

P.S. you're previous post was spot-on as well!

:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap (very true to both comments)

 

[Marzena]

It was first of all "Cabaret" movie. I was in my teens and remember the sense of discovering a world unsuspected.
It was soon my own way of teenage rebellion, my way of going completely against my parents world. I especially adored the Golden Era women - already so modern and yet evidently still in possession of traditional feminine arts .

I had and still have very difficult time with my passion. My grandparents did not survive the war; of material things very little did. Little artifacts that you would find in thriftshops, here are treated (and priced!) like museum value antiques.

 

[Dank]

What sparked it for me was a videogame (fallout). What keeps it alive is the style, the music, the way people used to act. Whats not to love?
Makes me wish i was born 75 years earlier

 

[Edward]

I can't recall if I've contributed to this thread before - can't find it, anyhow. My interest in the mid Twentieth century began with the cinema and clothes. Since then it has certainly broadened into broader social history and customs. I have a level of interest in WW2 (more than enough t be extremely thankful I didn't have to live through it), but moreso it is the lives of the little people trying to muddle on as best as that interests me rather than the military campaigns. I consider myself to be a Diesel Punk, in that what I want to do is to preserve what was great about that period of time while jettisoning the negative aspects, and not being closed to the new. I tend to avoid the "golden age", "greatest generation" and similar terms; I hate terminology that is bound up in escaping into a fantasy version of the past and setting that up as a shining beacon of light as an alternative to an (often equally fantastical) dystopian reading of the present.

 

[HOP UP]

Why thank you BD

HOP UP

 

[Alex]

Back to the Future part I

 

[plain old dave]

It's a lot of things for me... Earl Hamner's generation saw some of the most profound changes the world has yet known. Consider, when your Papaw was a teenager:

One car in a household was a luxury.

A portable radio took 2 hands to carry.

He probably knew several people in elementary school that either died or were crippled by polio.

If he lived in the country, **electricity** was an expensive luxury.

If he wanted to learn something, he went to the public library.

I came in to this Golden Age stuff right around the end of the Soviet Union and the time of Desert Storm. Had a real sense that history was over and there was nothing Important left to do. The Greatest Generation liberated a planet at places like Bastogne, the Central European Campaign, Anzio, Peleliu, Guadalcanal and a hundred others.

Then 9/11 happened.

Now, people I know are making history at places like Tora Bora, Fallujah and a thousand others that won't be known for 50 years yet. I feel a sense of kinship with them, having sent subordinates off to war;

I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.

 

[Mr Vim]

I think my interest has always been with the quality of most items from the era... how a suit lasts more than 70 years and still looks beautiful when you wear it today.

The overall desire for eloquent beauty is apparent in the era's designs, everything from cars, planes and skyscrapers to the simply vacuum cleaner... everything just had more style than they do today. Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, Googie, to Space Age it all had so much more than what we have now.

That's how I feel, anyway.

 

[renaissancemedici]

My super cool grandmother who lived through wwII, nazi occupation and a civil war looking gorgeous.

Film noir and the music of the era. Greek songs as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MiE63RJmDs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6bC148wXwE


WWII films and documentaries. Oh, and Casablanca!