Since I began subscribing to National Geographic in 2004, as a  sophomore in high school, I have only paid for the issues that I get via my membership to the Society. But I acquired an enormous collection, every additional one having been gifted to me. That meant that a good friend would find a singular old copy in a thrift store and pick it up for seventy-five cents, or my Mom would buy me a few if were somewhere together where they were a decent price.

Twice it meant that a retired person was looking for a place to pass off their collection–decades of being a Society member and magazine recipient–once it had grown so massive.

I know exactly what they felt like.

Through these two sizable donations of magazines, I had a spotty collection of 1958 through about 1982 (with some years almost complete, others almost incomplete) as well as an impeccable, full-run of 1990 through 1999, packaged neatly in brown leather containers, two per year. My Mom and I trekked to Macon for that collection, answering an ad in the newspaper that anyone was welcome to the collection, no charge, if they came to get them. We drove. Add to that the years I have, uninterrupted, from 2004 to 2012.

Basically, this was a huge number, a massive group of famously dense and beautiful magazines. I had them stored for years in my parents’ barn in Rubbermaid containers filled so high I could not even lift them. If I moved them, I had to solicite help from my brothers. No one tells you how unwieldy a collection can be, how cumbersome it can be to store, keep, and move giant colletions. I can see how old packrats would just never, ever move.

Well, my parents are mobile people, and we move a lot–my independent self included. In 2011, they sold their 4-bedroom home–finally empty-nesters–and downsized to a one-bedroom converted loft in an old brick building on Main Street in Dublin, Georgia, as part of their larger plan to move into the Methodist mission field in Europe.

This meant I was faced with the task that most adult children handle in the wake of their parents’ deaths, weeding through everything they own to determine what you want to keep, what goes where, who gets what, and all those other, kind of difficult questions. Because we do have issues, as humans, with the stuff we have, the things we keep, the things we carry.

Do you keep the dolls you played with, so that in a decade or more your own daughter can play with them? That’s a long time to keep dolls for an eventual purpose. Will your daughter even care to play with them? They take up a lot of space. (They are American Girl dolls, and yes, I kept them. They occupy a stuffed Rubbermaid in my coat closet now.)

What about sweaters hand-knitted by your grandmother? Dishes, quilts, paintings, the Christmas ornaments we made as kids, which are basically old faded construction paper and popsicle sticks, glue peeling off … you can only say its sentimental so many times, before you are inundated with too much stuff. We had some difficult sessions. And my Mom kept those old Christmas ornaments, just some of the best ones that were still in mostly one piece, in a separate container with the Christmas stuff.

Anyway, I got rid of a huge amount of my National Geographic collection. There were just too many. I kept a few dozen of my favorites from the 1958 to 1982 collection, and then all of the 1990 – 1999 and 2004 to present collections. This is still, probably, far too many for me to have. But I’ll see to that when I need to.

They went to a good home, a center that helps children in Dublin. They were certainly not fit for the trash, with so much knowledge, culture, history, science, perspective on the world, and beautiful, classic photography. I get nostalgic, but then I remember how many I can still see in my house right now. I guess that’s why my tattoo is an homage to that yellow-bordered magazine, that opened up my high-school, teenage perspective to the world, deciding what my goals would be in life.

a photo shoot upon receiving a massive collection, in my room in Dublin, 2006

gracing various bookshelves in my apartment, 2012

Lena Dunham is third from the left.

Last night I finally began watching a show I’d been reading about, and to be quite honest, sounded just like something made for me, whose characters I might love. Girls, on HBO, which premiered in April.

I love the characters. They are confused, they have both aim and absolutely no aim, they are figuring out men, career, life. I was crying laughing as we breezed through the first three episodes. Lena Dunham, creator, writer, and one of the stars of the show, is a 25-year-old, and she has captured perfectly many of the topics and issues of exactly this–my–generation. Out of college, mediocre economy and job market, living in the city… and from there, the story grows. The hilarious discourse on exactly life right now hit so many touchstones for me.

Hannah makes a ton of bad decisions, but man, how I love her already. She unabashedly tells her parents she thinks she is “the voice of her generation,” and asks them to keep giving her money so that she can determinedly finish her memoir. “Or at least a voice of a generation,” she adds. She also eats a cupcake in the bathtub (which I have been known to do), has the most spectacular tattoos, is perfectly not skinny, and has existential freak-outs about HIV/AIDS that are absolutely ridiculous and hilarious.

Today Lena Dunham talked about the show, and its discourse on twenty-somethings and all the mess of life, with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Terry Gross on why Girls has been striking a nerve with many:

I think women in particular are so hungry for a series or a movie, or movies, about young women who are kind of feminist–whether they describe themselves that way or not–and aren’t just all about clothes and engagement rings, and who are trying to  really figure out who they are where they fit in in the world.

Full disclosure — this is an HBO show. Be prepared for the sex scenes. A la Games of Thrones…

But many of these names I will never have the chance to name a child, for the elemental reason that I won’t have more than a few kids, and I have scores of names on my “short” list. The other major reason is that many of these names, though romantic and incredible in my mind and when I write them out in notebooks, are serious handles to put on infant babies that will have to wear them the rest of their lives. Some, like Francis/Frances, are harder to wear as they can sound dated. And some are just stupid (see here).

A recent article points out that as more and more names, variations, and spellings are used in our age, the name you give your cute little newborn does mean more, says more about you as a parent and your child’s household, than it might have fifty years ago. According to Wattenburg, a name blogger and one of the article’s sources:

According to Wattenberg, it took a list of six names to cover half of the population of children born in England in 1800 (U.S. Social Security Administration records don’t begin until 1880). By 1950 in the United States, that number was up to 79. Today, it takes 546 names to cover half of the population of U.S. babies born.

What that means, Wattenberg said, is that names send more tailored messages now than in the days when there were significant numbers of little Johns and Marys running around.

This is an extraordinary increase in a short span of time. And we don’t add this many names without handing at least a few kids some very heavy handles. As parents seek out that perfect name–unique, yet appealing–baby name books have swelled to include 14,000 of them (a number that includes many spelling variations). But baby names are the same as salad dressings and ice cream: more choices doesn’t really help at all, and in fact is probably more detrimental.

And so, the buyer’s remorse effects have also been increasing:

Some are frustrated because their unique baby name keeps getting mispronounced. Others learn of some distressing association with the name after they chose it and stamped it on Baby, she said. But most parents she hears from simply feel that another choice on their top 10 list would have fit their baby better.

Another effect? NAME HATRED. There are some names that absolutely make my skin crawl. I feel sorry for the generation who carry these monikers. There have been surveys of the most-hated names, and many include names with many spellings, like Caitlin (the traditional spelling) or Mackenzie.

The ones I loathe made the list, too. All the Jaydens, Braydens, Craydens, Aidens, and Kadens (what?!). Also still-hated are those kind of creepy ones like Heaven, Destiny, and Precious.

We weirdos who are fascinated by names spend time each year observing, reviewing, critiquing the names that wound up on the list of most popular baby names of the previous year. But I think it’s healthy to look at lists on the other end–and to continue to make lists like this–of the most-hated, yet popular names, if to serve no other purpose than as forewarning for expecting parents. Beware the Jaydens!

No offense to anyone whose name is Jayden or Precious.

If you are the parent of someone named Jessyca, then please, take high offense by me. What on earth were you thinking, giving your poor daughter that name? If you don’t want to give her a common name, go for Josefina or Basilia. But at least spell it right. (This is a real name, and a real pet peeve.)

I happened upon a display of a small segment of the AIDS Quilt on campus at GSU last night. It is here for three days, to promote health and awareness of HIV/AIDS, sponsored by the GSU campus health and auxiliary services. I have seen small bits of it, but they were specific panels I had asked them to pull for me when I visited the headquarters of the NAMES Project Foundation in January. The difference this time was spending time as an anonymous visitor, as much time as I wanted, to observe, to read, to cry, to ponder the lives of these hundreds of souls whose squares ensure they remain part of the legacy, that they will not be forgotten in the midst of statistics on AIDS and the lives it has cost us.

My favorite thing about this artifact is that it is explicitly not an artifact. Cleve Jones, the one to conceive of the idea of this Quilt–as an awareness tool SO BIG that it would not be possible for politicians and heterosexual men and women to ignore it laying across the land–specifically explains in his memoir that this is not to be something to be tucked away and not seen, enjoyed, laid out in the grass, touched. It is here to provocate. It makes people sad, angry, nostalgic, happy, and often, all of these at once.

I have the constant urge to lay down and wrap one of the panels around me. This is silly and probably violates some giant rule (it certainly would in a museum), but this is what I really want to do when I see the squares laid across the ground. I want to be near them. I kneel down and stroke the sides, the edges, the various materials–velvet, polyester, silk, synthetic silk, cotton, leather, corduroy, pieces of clothing that were formerly owned by the namesake of each–I love reaching out and touching them, feeling myself connect to the names, the words written by mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers, nieces, friends, coworkers, children. I feel the pain in the words, the grief, the hurt of every day this person lives without this person they have lost.

One of the first panels I approached when I got to the student center was simple, with a photo in the center, birth and death dates, and beneath it read, “I loved being your mom.”

I was instantly moved. Ten seconds into my experience with this enormous, emotional piece of folk art. I wanted to share just a few images, moments, and words I found during my visit. You might notice that people put every kind of thing onto these Quilt panels. Shirts and clothing are very common. But one square below is two shirts, and below them, the man’s name is spelled out using an extension cord. I broke into a smile seeing this, and other odd momentos that surely carry such meaning.

My friend Margi shared with me some of the meaning behind her brother Parnell’s double-panel they made for him, and it contained so many more, subtle notes of significance than I imagined first seeing it. Every bit of his panel is steeped in vast, loving, meaning. I can only imagine the same amount of thought, love, and meaning poured into each of the details of every one of the squares I saw last night.

For clarity, the Quilt itself is not all connected, as it is miles and miles long. It is contained of 12-foot by 12-foot squares that each contain eight panels. So when you see a panel by itself, that is 3-feet by 6-feet, roughly the size of a human coffin. The portion on display in our student center is less than one percent of the entire Quilt.

yes, yes, yes

this sentiment is very similar to the one my Mom wrote on Craig Koller's square

Akron, Ohio remembers its numbers lost to HIV/AIDS. so moving.

yes, that is an extension cord spelling out his name

favorite shirts are a common bit included on panels

the graphic enlarged on his panel (above) is this tattoo

the hats and scarves on this one again made me wonder what life this man lead, where he went, what he did in his career, who he loved. I wish I knew so much more about him.

Atlanta Gay Mens Chorus

"lover of bluegrass and flowers." I adore the bits I do learn about these lives, told by the ones who love them

He was 11 when HIV/AIDS took his life. On his quilt square is a poem he wrote about dying, for all those who also have HIV/AIDS, to let them know it is all right to die.

James Lewis, age 11

what I look like when I leave that quiet, reflective room

Panels hanging on campus again today

Panels hanging inside the student center, through our windows peeking out onto GIlmer by twilight. So serene. So powerful.

The 1982 film Diner was groundbreaking in that its characters spent a lot of time talking in a diner, and talking about popular culture. And it turns out that until the 1980s, filmmakers were generally wary of including popular culture references in their films. Immediately what comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino, and the films he has propelled with chatter, conversation around a table, or equally as often in his films, a dead body.

An excellent article in this month’s Vanity Fair explains all the hiccups, details, casting triumphs, and other lore behind the now-classic film (which I’ve never seen, actually, I shall have to fix that). Author S.L. Price credits Diner with having been the forerunner to the entire Bromance category of films, and Judd Apatow’s entire career. (The film is also,incidentally, Apatow’s favorite of all time.) Seinfeld, The Office, and Tarantino’s dialogue sequences are all based on the same mundane nothings that occur in life–the stuff in between the big moments, dramatic episodes in life and in fiction on the big and little screen.

Author Nick Hornby was interviewed for the story, discussing the influence of films over time, including Diner, and he brought up something interesting, indeed, about what we consider to be on the list of “best films of all time”:

‘Influence’ can be a tricky word. ‘When people talk about influential movies, what did they influence?’ Nick Hornby asks. ‘It’s a very good question. Come on, what did Raging Bull influence? What did Blue Velvet influence? Can you see it anywhere else? It seems to me those movies were sui generis–you can’t see their influence anymore. People just mean that they were really good movies. Whereas Diner did start a way of thinking about writing about popular culture. It did create a mindset where people like me and Jerry Seinfeld and all sorts of others thought, Oh, I can see how to do this stuff now.’

Another wonderful bit came from Stephen Merchant, who with Rickey Gervais, created the BBC series The Office. 

‘Ricky and I often talked about how, in The Office, we featured life’s boring bits–the bits other shows would cut out,’ Merchant says. ‘That’s something Diner taught me: that there is charm and interest and value in capturing the way real people behave. You don’t have to have 90 minutes of shouting or fist-fights or blue aliens. Eavesdropping on the people who drink next to you in your local bar can be just as interesting.

Merchant is speaking my language. I have long thought that walking into any institution of dining or entertainment or place of work, there are so many stories and lives that I do not know, and how interesting some of these lives must be. I love eavesdropping and hearing tidbits of lives I won’t be a part of. It’s all very intriguing.

Buddy Holly waits on Mrs. Mia Wallace and Vince Vega in the restaurant Jackrabbit Slims

And it is probably one of the reasons that I was initially mesmerized by John Travolta and Uma Thurman sitting in a diner talking about a $5 milkshake, when I came across the scene on a random cable channel sometime around age 16. No one ever told me, hey, you should watch this movie about drug addicts, thugs, double-crossers, hit men, and their wives. I was vaguely aware of Pulp Fiction having been considered a good movie. But I basically discovered it, and eventually sought it out, on my own. (And later on became, arguably, a Quentin fangirl.) It is one of the most amazing, well-made, truly great and groundbreaking films I have ever, ever seen. I eventually bought it on DVD after never successfully catching the whole thing on TV. And let’s be honest, how do you even properly experience Pulp Fiction on cable television? The L.A. underbelly sans cursing, drug overdoses, and rape? Why even bother to air it?

But while Seinfeld mass-marketed Levinson’s [the creator of Diner] focus on minutiae, the ultimate film geek made it cool. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction won praise for its ultra-stylized, ultra-violent take on the L.A. underworld. But what made the movie click were the jazzy back-and-forths between hit men John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson about Big Macs, foot massages, and the virtues of eating pork like ‘that Arnold on Green Acres.‘ Tarantino’s genius, first demonstrated in 1990′s Reservoir Dogs, sprang from the decision to make his reprehensible characters sympathetic–to make the audience laugh in recognition while wincing at the blood–through dialogue that any truck-driver would recognize. Guy talk. Diner talk.

Beatrix Kiddo / Black Mamba, Assassin

Two souls, lost in Tokyo. Love, love, love them.

Learning about Diner was important to me, as I did not undersand as I do now how significant a shift there has been in what chatter takes place on television and in the movies. The irreverence of many of my favorite shows and movies would not be there at all without the changes in attitude and approaches to dialogue that occurred thereafter. Do you think Sofia Coppola could have gotten away with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson spending an entire film in quiet spurts of dialogue followed by longer spurts of silence and bonding–and a great soundtrack–without these shifts? Lost in Translation would not have been green-lighted.

Now, which of these should I go watch right now?

An article I just read, from November 2011′s Atlantic magazine, is just one of those articles. I laughed at myself, thinking of Mindy, as I enjoyed every page, nodded my head at each argument, and added a mere two books on the institution of marriage to my Amazon wishlist (out of the many works referenced in her article). “All the Single Ladies,” by Katie Bolick, is a highly fascinating romp through our perceptions of marriages, monogamy, childbearing, and the usual suspects, and how in flux the institution of marriages has been throughout history and continues to be. But, don’t roll your eyes and walk away yet, she explores things far more interesting than that old rant. And Bolick is interesting even when she is saying things like that.

Her main argument is that while women have been improving their livelihoods and social statuses and are ready and seeking men of equal caliber, the men counterparts are simply not there in as many numbers. Any way I try to say this, it sounds like I’m elitist and theoretical and that I’ve been in grad school (and on a college campus) far too long. How to solve this? How about a nice historical reference. No? (I just think this is truly a fascinating piece of history, on life in the U.S. after the Civil War, but more interestingly, the life of single moms in post-revolutionary Russia):

EVERY SO OFTEN, society experiences a “crisis in gender” (as some academics have called it) that radically transforms the social landscape.

Take the years after the Civil War, when America reeled from the loss of close to 620,000 men, the majority of them from the South. An article published last year in The Journal of Southern History reported that in 1860, there were 104 marriageable white men for every 100 white women; in 1870, that number dropped to 87.5. A generation of Southern women found themselves facing a “marriage squeeze.” They could no longer assume that they would become wives and mothers—a terrifying prospect in an era when women relied on marriage for social acceptability and financial resources.

Instead, they were forced to ask themselves: Will I marry a man who has poor prospects (“marrying down,” in sociological parlance)? Will I marry a man much older, or much younger? Will I remain alone, a spinster? Diaries and letters from the period reveal a populace fraught with insecurity. As casualties mounted, expectations dropped, and women resigned themselves to lives without husbands, or simply lowered their standards. (In 1862, a Confederate nurse named Ada Bacot described in her diary the lamentable fashion “of a woman marring a man younger than herself.”) Their fears were not unfounded—the mean age at first marriage did rise—but in time, approximately 92 percent of these Southern-born white women found someone to partner with. The anxious climate, however, as well as the extremely high levels of widowhood—nearly one-third of Southern white women over the age of 40 were widows in 1880—persisted.

Or take 1940s Russia, which lost some 20 million men and 7 million women to World War II. In order to replenish the population, the state instituted an aggressive pro-natalist policy to support single mothers. Mie Nakachi, a historian at Hokkaido University, in Japan, has outlined its components: mothers were given generous subsidies and often put up in special sanatoria during pregnancy and childbirth; the state day-care system expanded to cover most children from infancy; and penalties were brandished for anyone who perpetuated the stigma against conceiving out of wedlock. In 1944, a new Family Law was passed, which essentially freed men from responsibility for illegitimate children; in effect, the state took on the role of “husband.” As a result of this policy—and of the general dearth of males—men moved at will from house to house, where they were expected to do nothing and were treated like kings; a generation of children were raised without reliable fathers, and women became the “responsible” gender. This family pattern was felt for decades after the war.

If you’re still here, go read the article. She talks about the gender imbalance in the African American community, with so many single moms, and the same gender imbalance on college campuses, which has created “hook-up culture”–which is an enigma and myth all its own. Very interesting stuff. She touches on biology and babies, having them and not having them.

She also talks about “matrimania”–a myth which proclaims, “that the only route to happiness is finding and keeping one all-purpose, all-important partner who can meet our every emotional and social need. Those who don’t have this are pitied. Those who don’t want it are seen as threatening.” As much as we buck this convention, claim it’s not holding us to this, we are held to it, on some level, and I think it must get harder to live with these expectations the older you get without marrying. Sorry if I still haven’t rid myself of the college-sociology-class aura, but I find this all truly fascinating. Ask any history major about race, class, and gender within any topics, and you will have a hard time getting us to shut up. By the time she was talking about what defines womanhood–to many, having or not having children, I was already hooked.

If you found everything I have said to be obnoxious, well then don’t read her article either. I’m not crying, as perhaps Kaling might be. But I’m also more determined than ever to be published in time to have a really good reason to keep my maiden name, and not be dismissed as one of those people who read and love articles like this.

In 1988, the NAMES Project staff and an enormous group of volunteers brought the Quilt to the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. for the second time (a year after its first memorial display), and he gave a speak that can be found on YouTube–filled with emotion and setting much of responsibility for where we stood in 1988 on inaction from the government of the United States, the one country in the world with the most resources to act. The story behind the Quilt, its legacy, meaning, and growth–not to mention the hundreds of thousands of stories contained within its squares–are incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed reading of its provenance and meaning through Cleve’s eyes.

But I will not share all of this here. I will share an excerpt from that 1988 speech.

We stand here tonight in the shadow of monuments, great structures of stone and metal created by the American people to honor our nation’s dead to proclaim the principles of our democracy. Here we remember the soldiers of wars won and lost. Here we trace with our fingers the promises of justice and liberty etched deep by our ancestors in marble and bronze.

Today we have borne in our arms and on our shoulders a new monument to our nation’s capital. It is not made of stone or metal and was not raised by engineers. Our monument was sewn of soft fabric and thread and was created in homes across America wherever friends and families gathered together to remember their loved ones lost to AIDS.

We bring a quilt. We bring it here today with shocked sorrow at its vastness and the speed by with its acreage redoubles. We bring it to this place, at this time, accompanied by our deepest hope: that the leaders of our nation will see the evidence of our labor and our love and that they will be moved.

We bring a quilt. We’ve carried this quilt to every part of our country, and we have seen that the American people know how to defeat AIDS. We have seen that the answers exist and that tens of thousands of Americans have already stepped forward to accept their share and more of this painful struggle. We have seen the compassion and skill with which the American people fight AIDS and care for people with AIDS. We have witnessed the loving dedication of volunteers, families, and friends and the extraordinary bravery of people with AIDS, themselves working beyond exhaustion. And everywhere in this land of ours we have seen death.

In the past fifteen months over twenty thousand Americans have been killed by AIDS. Fifteen months from now our new president will deliver his first state of the union address. And on that day, America will have lost more sons and daughters to AIDS than we lost fighting in Southeast Asia–those whose names we can read today from a polished black stone wall.

We bring a quilt. It grows day by day and night by night and yet its expanse does not begin to cover our grief, nor does its weight outweigh the heaviness within our hearts.

For we carry with us tonight a burdensome truth that must be simply spoken: History will record that in the last quarter of the twentieth century a new and deadly virus emerged and that the one nation on earth with the resources, knowledge, and institutions to respond to the new epidemic failed to do so. History will further record that our nation’s failure was the result of ignorance, prejudice, greed, and fear. Not in the heartlands of America, but in the Oval Office and the halls of Congress.

The American people are ready and able to defeat AIDS. We know how it can be done and the people who will do it. It will take a lot of money, hard work, and national leadership. It will require us to understand there is no conflict between the scientific response and the compassionate response. No conflict between love and logic. Some will question us, asking how could that be. We will answer, How could it not?

We bring a quilt. We hope it will help people remember. We hope it will teach our leaders to act.

There are many, many things more I could share. There is so much meaning, lore, love, and anger contained in the Quilt. Over time, I will share more.

I have also learned so much more about Parnell Peterson and Craig Koller, the two men whose squares I visited, since writing about what I wish I knew and then about visiting their panels. In some way, over time, I would like to share that here, too. I must figure out how best I want to express it, share stories. For now, they are mine, held close, and written in the notebook I’ve dedicated to the stories I collect of their lives.

Its way of lessening the distance between artists, authors, and other people we admire is my absolute favorite reason for the micro-blogging social network. (A close second place is how it has changed the way I think in my own head. In pithy little statements on life and what’s occurring in mine.)

I have squealed in delight when a respected writer or journalist responds to me on Twitter. It’s like little brushes with fame, or relative fame, and with people whose work you greatly admire but that you would almost never meet in your entire life. Yet here, on Twitter, it’s like they are those living, breathing people, who pass their thoughts along into the Twitter-sphere like the rest of us.

The relationship between authors/writers and social networking is also changing our perception and idea of what exactly makes the writer/artist. And as the title of this post suggests (and the NYT article from which it came), the digital age is transforming the way we understand authorship. I, after all, am also a digital author, this website as my outlet for things that would only otherwise exist in my head or among my friends and family (who can only hear me ramble about some things so many times before tiring, understandably). This blog has changed the way I communicate with everyone around me, and so has Twitter. So it makes sense that it is doing the same thing to professional writers, authors, journalists, artists everywhere, best-sellers or no. Some authors become humorists on Twitter, as it becomes an outlet for personas they didn’t have an outlet for elsewhere. The internet is well-known to affect people’s actual or perceived personas. The fascinating New York Times article on authors tweeting is well worth your time:

At their best, social media democratize literature and demystify the writing process. As Suzanne Fischer tweets of following her favorite author, “It’s fascinating to learn what an unsettling & emotional process it is for her to write characters into the world.” When that mythic author comes down for a chat, she gets followers.

Some of my favorite people to follow on Twitter:

@patricox / Patrick Cox, reporter for PRI’s The World, and creator/host of The World in Words podcast on all things language.

@elizabethlittle / Author Elizabeth Little. She has the best sense of humor. I think we would be excellent real-life friends.

@jenny8lee / Jennifer 8. Lee: Journalist, freelancer, author, Chinese-American. Her real middle name is 8.

1954 sampling of Christmas decorations, which were one way that people made use of electricity in the Tennessee Valley, and the reason someone was paid by the TVA to document and photograph these things.

One day last week, I spent the morning compiling and digitizing documents to go in an exhibit case we have in the lobby of the Archives, and the goal was to fill it with Christmas-y documents that we have there at the Archives. Hard when you’re a non-religious institution that does not keep records of… I don’t know, religious events? So I found some WWI draft cards with names like “Dasher” and “Reindeer” and “Santy Claus” (A REAL PERSON!) and the rest of the reindeer. I also pulled a man named Partridge and a man named Peartree, my favorite pairing.

Another view of those wise men creeping towards that branch thing.

But we used some TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) photos from the 1950s, where someone had gone around and documented what people did with electricity. (It is wonderfully fantastic that someone has this job. I imagine an amateur photographer trying to expand his novice abilities.) One of those uses for electricity was Christmas decoration, in the home and outside the home. It is a fantastic collections of photos, and I was ogling over them, studying every bit of each photo–having just ended an entire semester in material culture class where we studied kitsch, consumerism, and what people buy, make, and keep in their lives. So this set of photos was an absolute treat to pour over, one at a time. I want to digitize some for myself, they are so special. So far I have digitized three of them, the one above, and two that I will be printing and framing for my mom.

They are accidentally artistic. I think whoever was taking the photos was trying to make them look classy and professional, setting up backdrops, and placing each item in a vignette. But the background walls, floors, electricity outlets, and other elements belie all that, making them ironic, stark and cold, and all the more fascinating. The photographer obviously had the rights kinds of professional equipment. Someday, I would love to write some sort of scholarly piece on the kitsch of Christmas decor in the 1950s, using this goldmine of photos.

Snowman couple, with illuminated "snow" behind them

Each one was more mistakenly charming than the last. I was examining the light fixtures, the wall colors, the window blinds, the chairs, the floor tiles, the table designs, and the use of shadows–all elements surrounding the actual focal points. I also found each item to grandly reflect the same kind of kitschy things we have continued to use over the years, and that take on more memory and sentimental meaning for us as the years go by. We realize over time the things we loved as children or adults may have been a bit tacky, or cheap, or downright weird, but this often endears holiday decorations to us more. We keep plenty of things we’ve collected for the holidays that we might not otherwise keep, because of the way we feel around this season, the memories we keep of family members being around us, or of the effort they may have put into making an item. Also, since we don’t have to look at them all year, and they are packed away all that time, they are welcomed back into our vistas each year more cheerfully than if we had had to look at the holly creation atop a dresser all year round.

We didn’t talk extensively about holiday fare in my class, but we talked about style, kitsch, memory items, family heirlooms, items associated with loss, love, memorial, and all of these things influence our relationship to and meaning applied to the holiday season, and Christmas.

A tad scary-looking tree taking over this door

I know there are particular things I will never forget in homes that have been the backdrop to Christmas memories: I have vey specific memories of my Auntie Nessa’s house from the early and mid ’90s, plush carpets, low lights, Amy Grant playing, a very tall Christmas tree, and villages set up with snow and a pathway across one of her long tables. (This is a strange memory to keep, since we have not been to that house since this era, she no longer owns it, nor hosts Christmas events.) My grandma and grandpa’s houses, both the Maple Street and Birch Street locations, in Kingsford, harbor Christmas Eve memories too, warm lighting and protection from the outside cold, so many cookies–the best gingerbread–I could never begin to eat them all, or fathom recreating the amount. Loving family around me, socked feet, Christmas clothing, taking pictures. Grandma’s tree with the ornaments we’d all made for her decades ago by now. And my parents’ homes through the years, always filled with happy decorations, numerous themed trees gracing corners and cozy spots throughout. My mom often did up a few together, a little Christmas tree forest, including the Happy Meal toy tree that took us upwards of 15 years to collect toys for, and took a few years in construction itself as well–this tree continues to make children happy and joyful, even as my Mom’s own children have grown and moved out of the house. I always loved how very tall and thin it is, taking on a caricature nature that reflects all the playful toys that grace its branches; some of those ditties are from the late 1980s, my earliest days of youth. Vintage!

I have wonderful memories of Christmas holidays across many homes, northern and southern locales. Some have been frozen and snowy, others bright and downright sunny, and they all mean something to me, combining to create my own meaning of the season, and adding to how I create my own space in my adult homes each year.

Anyway, these historical images got my rejoicing about Christmas decorating of days gone by, when my Dad was a small boy and my Mom was not yet born. I don’t know how prevalent these pieces were back then, in 1954, but it’s worth investigating, in a future project, and definitely worth having kept, for the moment.

Super-shine reflects back in this first in a series of table-toppers on a bookcase/side table combo piece.

The shadows, the plug, fantastic unintentional artistry.

Another tabletopper

At some point I'm not even sure these use electricity. Or if they do, it's less clear how. TVA documentation getting a bit arty?

A cozy corner, with illuminated tabletop branches and vintage home decor magazine.

Candle pieces, wreath, framing '50s long table and blinds and curtains

The back-end of a reindeer hangs in the middle of the door's wreath...

And the front-end of the same reindeer, on the other side of the door.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season, spending time with family and good friends, recalling years past, and making new memories. This includes creating your own craft, art, and yes, kitsch, to add cheer and spirit to this lovely time of year.

The photographer took several shots of this quirky, mod-style Mary and Baby Jesus scene. Rightly so, it's quite fantastic.