In 1976, RiverCountry opened up at Walt Disney World in Florida. By 2001, it had closed. Now, it stands–rotting and decrepit in a manner that J.G. Ballard would have approved of. These photos come from an excellent thread about River Country on Dis Boards. It was just a waterpark, although one of the first generation… Continue reading Disney’s RiverCountry Rotting in Fittingly Ballardian Way
Month: December 2009
Spite House: Is This For Real?
I have heard of spite fences. I have heard of architectural holdouts. But spite houses are a new thing to me. Spite fences are built by people who want to “spite” their neighbor, building a fence that often blocks the view of the unoffending neighbor or otherwise is designed to irritate him or her. Here… Continue reading Spite House: Is This For Real?
The Almighty Helvetica
We see this everywhere at some point towards the latter half of the 1960s. Helvetica font runs rampant. It’s everywhere: in the LIFE copy, in the ads. It permeates other publications, as well, but rarely as much as in LIFE. Not only that, but lower case. It’s more of that faux humility. Helvetica is a… Continue reading The Almighty Helvetica
The Gentlemanly Library that Never Was
One feature I see again and again from the 1930s to the 1950s is the Gentlemanly Library. In so many cases, I imagine a permanent set at MGM or Warner’s where actors would sit down for their LIFE feature about Errol Flynn the Distinguished Scholar (or something). Or at least Errol the scholar when he… Continue reading The Gentlemanly Library that Never Was
From Happy Beer to Glum Tick Spray
So what happened here. How, in the span of 19 years, did we go from this to that? The first image is from a beer ad dated October 31, 1949. The second image is from a tick spray ad dated August 9, 1968. Most people might actually be more familiar with the 1949 image. It’s… Continue reading From Happy Beer to Glum Tick Spray