You've Got to Hide Your Anachronisms Away

The York (Pa.) Sunday News had an interesting article on the cost of being a Civil War re-enactor.

It costs $1,500 to $2,300 to authentically fight, dress and camp as if it's July 1863 and you're an infantryman in the Federal or Confederate army.

If you wear glasses, as [Keith] MacGregor does, another expense are antique spectacles with prescription lenses.

"The idea behind re-enacting is you want to keep all modern anachronisms away from the public view," he said.

"You're putting forth an impression of 1860s America, and you want to remain there as much as possible. You don't want to be sitting there with a plastic bottle of soda." [Link]

[Photo credit: Gettysburg by Joe Shlabotnik]

Youngme/Nowme

Check out these childhood photo recreations at Ze Frank's Color Wars 2008. My favorite childhood photo is of me getting my first bath in the kitchen sink. I'm off to buy a tripod and a bigger sink.

[via kottke]

Atlanta, Before and After

Greg Germani has been recreating old Atlanta-area photographs since 2003. He's even duplicated aerial photos! From a 2005 article:

He stands exactly where the original photographers once stood, and trains his 3.2 megapixel Nikon digital point-and-shoot in precisely the same direction. Today, he has taken more than 400 pictures that way. Pairing each photo with its antecedent, he posts them on his website, www.atlantatimemachine.com.

The pictures comprise a remarkable look at how much Atlanta has changed in the past half-century. The Atlanta Crackers' old outfield is now a Borders parking lot. An old gentleman's club is now a MARTA station. And downtown, which was once the entertainment and social center of the city, is now a ghost town on nights and weekends. [Link]

[Via Neatorama]

Love, Colonial Style

Folks in East Hartford, Connecticut, want to re-enact the 1661 wedding of William Pitkin and Hannah Goodwin—"East Hartford's most famous colonial couple."

The town's Historical Society and Friends [of Center Cemetery] say they would be most pleased to have a couple who are planning a real life, present-time wedding, to join their festivities. A wedding service will be donated by a Justice of the Peace who is a direct descendant of William Pitkin and Hannah Goodwin and who will be performing the service in the costume of a time long ago. [Link]

Standing in Another Photographer's Shoes

I love the paired images in Flickr's Then and Now Group Photo Pool, though some of the attempts to recreate historical photographs are more successful than others. Irish Hermit's shot of Perkins Square in South Boston is just about perfect.

Reversing Murphy's Curse

If your surname is Cohan, Chance, Steinfeldt, Tinker, Howard, Sheckard, Evers, Moran, Williams or Murphy, you can help the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. It all started in 1908, just after the Cubs won their last Series.

The night after the big win, Broadway legend George Cohan hosted a celebratory dinner at Rector's Restaurant for the victorious players. Conspicuously absent from the guest list was Cubs President Charles W. Murphy. Murphy was met with considerable criticism for his handling of World Series tickets and poor seat availability for the fans and subsequently was not invited to the dinner.

Harry Caray's Restaurant wants to go back in time and "reverse the curse" by recreating the guest list—and including a Murphy.

The restaurant believes it's time to forgive Mr. Murphy and invite him back to the table. On the night of the 9th Annual Worldwide Toast to Harry Caray, his namesake restaurant will hold a reenactment of the 1908 dinner, only this time Murphy will be there. [Link]