Let's Live In The Past Together

[nfotxn]

I had an Up With People button?

Cleaned out the basement with my Mom last night. Found all sorts of fun stuff from when I was a kid including my button collection! This is everything that I could fit on my scanner but the collection is much larger. Including some huge-normous Toronto Blue Jays World Series Champions commemorative novelty buttons.

Additionally I found lotsa stuff I'd forgotten about or thought I'd lost. Including my viola pick-up, a good omni-mic and a whole bunch of photography stuff I'd bought. Including some old lamps, an enlarger and all sorts of chemistry and dark room stuff (trays etc.) that are all vintage 50-60's. I am going to re-appropriate them into my workspace somehow to hold like papers and misc. bits or something. Or perhaps they'd make a nice collection of hats or bed pans? The sky really is the limit.

The funny and heart-warming thing about looking at old possessions. Some say that smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. But perception of an object that marks a space and time evokes the strongest recollection in my mind.

Comments

[backawayslowly.livejournal.com]

What a find!

Did you wear these proudly? Will you now?

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I did at one point. I had a collection on a wind sock in my room as a kid. Most of them stay there.

I don't think I'll wear them now. Mostly because all the hipsters are doing it. And because I'd rather keep these than risk losing them.

go wild!!

[gusmacroy.livejournal.com]

Who are the aryan twins with Santa?

Re: go wild!!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

That is my brother and I. We were twins until puberty. I got fat and hairy, he got tall and skinny.

Re: go wild!!

[gusmacroy.livejournal.com]

Is the other one still blonde?

Re: go wild!!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Nope.

Re: go wild!!

[theotherqpc.livejournal.com]

you're the one on the right, i take it?

Re: go wild!!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am the slightly chubbier blonde haired blue-eyed Aryan prince.

I had a Ronco Button maker.

[whiskerfish.livejournal.com]

For the longest time I sat here wanting to respond but couldn't. I kept mulling over the images, not knowing what to say and then it hit me.
It is not the message conveyed by the button but the fact that there is the button.
I had a massive collection of buttons when I was a kid. The other kids that I identified as fags also armoured themselves with buttons.
Is it a gay thing?
A teenage thing?

Re: I had a Ronco Button maker.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Well I was more of a kid when I collected most of these. I think I just liked having collections of things and comparing items to each other. Maybe they are a badge of identity when you feel you don't belong? I'm not sure of that really.

There certainly is something about buttons though. They provide some sort of cultural communication in a cheap format that is effective. I think as our society has become more rich and bourgeois, by and large, we have moved to t-shirts to communicate.

I like buttons the most.

Re: I had a Ronco Button maker.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

I only ever bought buttons. the one I regret passing up the most was at a garage sale in the Haight/Ashbury district of SF. An old hippy couple was selling their stuff and they had a button that said "Greenpeace You Can't Sink a Rainbow" around a picture of The Rainbow Warrior. Five years later, the French sank it in Australia as it was preparing to hector nuclear test sites in Polynesia.

*regret*

[urso.livejournal.com]

I have a huge collection of buttons and pins. I should photograph them sometime.

I have the same Tour of the Universe button. :-)

[pink-prototype.livejournal.com]

i really dig the 'we wash hands because we care' button..

...the ALF button would be a close second..

yay.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

I have a couple from the Christmas elf series! My button collection got ridiculous, and I stopped collecting. I've kept them all, though. Let us see the others if you scan any more! :D

[andywhobear.livejournal.com]

I used to collect old buttons from bands( mostly punk and bad metal). This brought back memories. At one time had over 50 buttons on the front of my jacket.(Well it was the 80's)

Hey I just got the new M83 - "Before the Dawn Heals Us" I love it. Reading your journal is like working at the record store again.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd hate that new M83 after Pitchfork railed it for being too pretentious or something. But I really like it! "Before the Dawn Heals Us" is so super over the top that you can buy into it. It becomes total fantasy.

[theotherqpc.livejournal.com]

i REALLY like the Chuck E Cheese button with the [insert namer here] field.

p.s.

[theotherqpc.livejournal.com]

"Broidie"?

Re: p.s.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Broidie, Boidie, Brady, Brody, Brian but never NEVER Brodie.

[iahklu.livejournal.com]

the chuck e cheese button makes me wet...

[gyvyr.livejournal.com]

I think the bigger question is you had an "Alf" button?
hehe

i loved alf.. but it was awful... Alf was on the same time as MacGuyver! What was I to do?!! fortunately at some point I bought a VCR.

:)

[sunflower1969.livejournal.com]

I used to collect buttons, especially campaign buttons....

[abearius.livejournal.com]

You push my buttons, Brodie. I especially *heart* the Chucke Cheese birthday putton. :-)

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

that Brodie 'n rainbow button so needs to be a LJ user icon for you.

[plaidninja.livejournal.com]

Awww you have a Prince Philip button. Please, please, please wear that button the next time we go out to a gay bar. Please!

P.S. Download those Matthew Good Files already. Sheesh.

[duncan02.livejournal.com]

That is very cool; I'm inspired to hit my mom's place and start rootin'

[deafeuphoria.livejournal.com]

Hehe, coming across old things is always neat.

That new Books is pretty excellent too.

[campn.livejournal.com]

Sweet haul from memory lane!

My mom tossed out everything from my younger years when she remarried and moved into a new house (including all my hot wheels and track! Evil shrew*g*).

[umkinda.livejournal.com]

Yummers on Freaky Folk 2, and double-yummers on Up With People, which I'm drooling for.

[birddog.livejournal.com]

"Fish'n Chicken" & "We Wash Hands! Because We Care" are the collective bomb.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Now memory may be failing me here and in fact this might be a totally convoluted recollection. But I believe there was a brief but powerful alliance of Canadian Fisheries and Chicken Farmers whom fought together to inform consumers of alternatives to Canadian Beef.

Hence the Fish'n Chicke'n (not Beef'n) buttons.

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

Nice to see that African Lion Safari was in the news this week...

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yes! That story has lead to much joking in and about southern Ontario. I mean honestly, a big animal attacks and you, oops, roll down the power windows! They were obviously high or something but who can prove it?

That fact that it was a stripped and a professional accordion player is but a journalistic cherry up the absurdity. Her lawyers argued that she was going to be a model, apparently.

[jenneferre.livejournal.com]

It's so sad that they misspelled your name at your own birthday party!!! What's with the extra i?? HOW CUTE IS THE SANTA PHOTO!!!