writer, editor, crafty gal
In the era of tl;dr it’s time to reconsider how we publish (online). I’m as guilty of this as anyone. Long-form is important but it’s also important to realize that most of the time your transition sentences are filler. I find this acceptable in print but tedious when skimming news on the web.
I expected to love this book. It takes place on a single day. A snowstorm is coming and the Red Lobster is closing forever. This is an oddly promising scenario to me.
I spent much of my twenties waiting tables. I did a particularly long off-and-on stint at an ailing T.G.I. Friday’s in Flint, Michigan. Eventually it shut down.
While I enjoyed the overall mood and tone of this little book I have to say that the detailed inner workings of a restaurant, as seen through the eyes of an overly loyal middle manager, don’t particularly fascinate me. Of course, my disinterest in the seemingly sad but “real” lives of the staff is partly because I’ve met these people–they are real so far as that goes–but they lacked the spark that most restaurant employees who’ve worked together for a spell enjoy.
The inappropriate sexual humor was nonexistent. The endless banter between front of the house and back of the house staff was missing. The big dreams that most wait staff secretly harbor was long gone from this crew.
Honestly? Any manager as dedicated to minutiae as Manny was? Would probably have been promoted long before the Lobster closed.
I think the characters, such that they were, felt real. But the sparks that existed in every restaurant I ever worked at–Fridays, Damon’s, and a host of others (from crappy bars to upscale steak houses)–was just missing. And in its place? Was a lot of worrying about checklists and protocols that nobody would have followed on a restaurant’s last day, even if they were being moved over to the Olive Garden up the road.
I avoided reading this book for the last couple of years. And I’m not sure why. I think I always had a soft spot for Frank Lloyd Wright’s first wife, Catherine. I’ve spent a lot of time in her house and learning about her husband’s mistress seemed rude. You see, the story starts in my own neighborhood—the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District in Oak Park, Ill. It’s a historical novel set during Wright’s era.
For about two years I volunteered at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio as a tour guide. I know his home pretty intimately because of that. And while the work of the great architect was all about me I felt that it was Catherine’s house. During my training they scrupulously avoid talking about What Happened, about why Wright left his family in 1909 to go to Europe. And the tour makes no note of the fire and murders that occurred three hours north in Spring Green, Wisconsin, at Taliesin in 1914.
What Happened—the scandal that led Wright to leave Oak Park—was his affair with a client’s wife. Mamah Borthwick Cheney abandoned her marriage and her children to run off with Wright after they began an affair while he was building her home on East Ave.
Loving Frank is told largely from Mamah’s point of view. It’s a flawed book, densely packed with big ideas and lots of ruminating instead of acting (at least in the first half). It drags a bit as Mamah seems downright possessed by Wright before finally leaving her marriage. At no point does she seriously consider what would happen to her, her children, or her sister. This seemed rather off to me. A woman in 1909 would know that she would lose her children. Men got automatic custody at that time. She was, in many ways, her husband’s legal property. She would know that her sister, who lived in her home, could be put out on the street.
I’ve read reviews that say Mamah is incredibly unlikable. But I found myself sort of liking that. In the second half of the book she spends as much time ruminating on how mean the press is being as she does worrying about how her abandonment might be affecting her children. Her ambivalence about motherhood—she loves her kids but they’re not where she defines herself—is a nice antidote to most accounts of motherhood.
Of course, we live in a time where children are the center of the family. They are the Most Important Thing that Is/Was/Will Ever Be in a parent’s life. But I don’t think that has always been the case. Frank and Mamah certainly struggled with the same self-involvement that plagued parents in during The Me Generation of the 1970s. Mamah regularly wonders why anyone’s happiness should come before her own—and that if she is happy her children will benefit from that (during the few days a year she’d be allowed to see them, I guess).
Self-interest makes the lovers less likeable, of course, and by the last third of the book the reader might want to roll their eyes at how Mamah is sort of surprised by how badly everyone has taken being left behind while she pursued her Great Love.
It’s the tension that Mamah’s behavior creates for the reader that is perhaps the most interesting thing about the book. That strange sense that Mamah is a self-involved ass who put her romantic interests above any thoughts of self-sacrifice is interesting. It made me stop and think about the nature of self-sacrifice (and particularly how we apply it to women). It’s human nature to reward those who don’t upend the order of things. But why do people stay in mediocre marriages for the welfare of the children? Who decided a child’s stable upbringing was more important than the well-being of their adult parents? Might the kids survive—even thrive—anyway?
Mamah’s untimely demise—and the horrific nature of how she and others at Taliesin died—upends the novel. The author lets us run through Frank’s head for a moment at the end as he rejects the notion that her violent end was a kind of comeuppance from God himself. She was murdered by a mad man, nothing more.
I’m inclined to agree with him on that point. But, in the end, the real sadness I felt was for the people who had been hurt by Mamah’s and Wright’s selfish behavior. I felt more keenly for her ex-husband that I did her Great Love.
Though it is now known primarily as a child’s toy, View-Master was launched at the 1939 New York World’s Fair as a way to see the world from home in full-color 3-D images. It was marketed as a more exciting souvenir than a traditional postcard and reels were often sold at tourist destinations across the globe. View-Master reels featured beautiful photography of famous places and people through the 1960s.
Medical schools and the U.S. military used View-Master viewers and reels as educational tools, providing educational 3-D images to students of everything from internal organs to fighter planes.
In the 1960s, View-Master underwent a change of ownership and became increasingly targeted at children. The reels of that era de-emphasized education and scenic themes and moved aggressively toward entertainment titles focusing on cartoons and popular television programs.
Interesting rabbit hole to leap down: The Hidden History of View-Master
Today, View-Master is owned by Fisher-Price and is considered a young child’s toy but the collector market thrives online.
Though the look of the viewers themselves has changed over time the reels have remained consistent. Any View-Master brand viewer will show any View-Master brand reel from any decade. Most vintage items are relatively inexpensive, but the price goes up exponentially for rare items.
Looking to buy/sell/trade/give away View-Master stuff to a good home? Let me know.
This website provides not only detailed information on every View-Master branded viewer in existence but a long list of knock-off brands with detailed photos and specifications. The site also features images of rare variants in viewers, such as unusual materials or colors used in production. Most importantly for collectors, it offers detailed specifications on the internal projection and overall quality of each View-Master viewer.
The View-Master Single Reel List (Site may be offline?)
While it promotes itself as an animated, searchable list of individual reels, the best thing about this website is the 360-degree videos of every View-Master brand viewer produced since 1939. This is the most comprehensive visual representation online, featuring 20 distinct viewers and their various attachments. From the earliest “clamshell” style viewer to the brightly colored molded plastic viewers used today, this site has them all. There is also an area to view 360-degree videos of each of the four View-Master projectors available on the collectors market.
Spreadsheet made from the Ultimate Reel List
The Ultimate Reel List was an invaluable resource. It listed every known reel by logical numeric or alphabetical grouping as well as every known variant in images. I adapted the site into this handy spreadsheet.
Adapted from the View-Master Ultimate Reel List. From their site: As there was no official list of titles, this View-Master Database is an attempt to build a complete list of every individual reel, set, and their variants known to have been issued. It is hoped that the site will be of value to collectors and can continue to be expanded in the future.
View-Master Single Reel VariantsÂ
From the site: The aim is to make the most comprehensive and complete list of known variations within the same reel variety.
Nostalgia, Semiotics & Weird Stuff
I wrote this photo-heavy article for Stereosite that details some of the key content categories that View-Master covered over the years.
Fisher-Price/Mattel currently owns View-Master and the official site is the place to discover new releases, most of which are for the virtual reality viewers. New releases are limited to children’s titles and education; travel reels have been slowly phased out over the years, finally ending production entirely in March 2009 (though there has been talk off and on over the years, I haven’t seen anything noteworthy in awhile). In early 2013 it was announced that Basic Fun had licensed the View-Master name from Fisher-Price and is producing new products but they are cheap and basically a nostalgic thing for parents and grandparents to buy little kids.
The View-Master Resource provides information on creating personal view-master reels. However, it also helpfully provides scans of envelopes and packaging so if a collector acquires a set of reels without the original envelope it came in, they can print a reproduction from a .pdf file and have a copy of the original packaging. Not as comprehensive as a collector might like but it’s a great a resource if a collector has reels that are in great shape but are missing the packaging.
Stereo Views: An Illustrated History and Price Guide by John Waldsmith (book)
One of the few print resources for View-Master history and values, this exhaustive guide provides a history and context—as well as a price guide that lists most known reels and approximate values at the time of publication. However, it does not list reel variants. Higher values items are generally rare so this book provides a quick reference for what reels are rare and thus worth the added expense, even if the exact market price is outdated. It also provides a history of the precursor to View-Master, the stereoscope and detailed information on the collectability of stereoscopic photo sets.
View-Master Memories by Mary Ann and Wolfgang Sell and Charley Van Pelt (book)
This is a limited edition book written by the foremost View-Master historians and collectors. This book offers both a behind-the-scenes look at the history of the company from interviews conducted with former employees and detailed information about collecting View-Master products.
View-Master Reels and Packets: A Collector’s GuideÂ
A huge, expensive, illustrated guide that is up to three volumes, last I looked. The author died and it’s best to find these volumes on ebay now.
The ViewMaster and 3D Stereo Group
This is a members-only group populated with some of the most knowledgeable View-Master collectors in the world. Anyone may join. New members are welcome to search the archive for information that dates back more than 10 years and to ask questions of members to benefit from the group’s collective wisdom. From collectors selling off their massive collections to questions about the right light bulb to get for a vintage lighted View-Master, the ViewMaster and 3DÂ Stereo Group knows everything a collector wants to know.
The Nation Stereoscopic Association
The NSA is a group dedicated to all things 3-D, with an emphasis on photography. The site includes a long list of links for View-Master enthusiasts. The organization’s annual gathering includes a day of selling and swapping 3-D items with some View-Master collectors in attendance. The annual event is a great chance to scoop up or swap items from other members.
An active Facebook group dedicated to sharing the View-Master love. Lots of knowledgeable members.
It is one of the only stores online to specialize in View-Master viewers and reels, as well as 3-D paraphernalia in general. They offer new reels and old, as well as viewers, generally in excellent condition. They also offer hard to find, limited-run View-Master sets that are independently produced. Topics tend to focus on design and architecture and include reels, a viewer and a book on a specific architect or designer, such as Frank Lloyd Wright.
It is by far the most popular place for collectors to add to their collections. Ebay generally has dozens of pages of search results offering everything from single reels to large lots, from the common to the completely obscure–even personal reels created by amateur stereo photographers during the product’s heyday. Generally considered the only place to find educational reels produced for the military or medical schools, as well as other older and hard-to-find reels.
Online, Craigslist and Facebook marketplace are also good resources. In person, check flea markets and second-hand stores.
I share images from View-Master reels I find.
If you have red/blue 3D glasses this link is an archive to my 3D photos, some of which have made it onto my personal View-Master reels. If you want to create your own View-Master-style reels, check out Image3D.com.
View-Master items, by and large, are inexpensive. Of course, if the item is rare, value goes up exponentially. The best way to find out what your item is worth is to search for it on eBay and check the completed and sold listings in the advanced search functions. Don’t assume anything. The “cool” old bakelite viewers are a dime a dozen because they were produced for decades. But if you have the viewer with the focusing feature (the Model D), you might get a nice return on it.
This pathfinder provides information for those interested in learning more about View-Master products and collecting. It should be of interest to new collectors interested in finding more information on this still relatively small community of enthusiasts.Â
Last updated on 6/18/2021.
Not many people know this about me but I have a long-standing, abiding—some might say irrational—fear of home invasion.
My fear is not just the thought of someone breaking in and snatching my laptop and the Wii (They’d have to have the strength of Hercules to snatch the TV) and leaving the door open for my cats to get outside. Those are fears, certainly. But my fears are more graphic, violent, often involving bloody scenarios that lead to the death of my husband, sometimes even the cats, and leave me violated and alone.
Most of the time, in my daydreams and nightmares (there have been many of each), I’m at my most vulnerable: taking a shower in an empty house. This scenario has played itself out in my subconscious so many times that at various points I have had actually plans in place. For example, in my current apartment there is a wooden stand that holds our towels. If I tip it in front of the door this will slow the assailant down and leave me time to either cry for help or jump out of the bathroom window. Preferably both.
I have kept knives in the bathroom within reach so that if Norman Bates happens to appear I can at least stab back. I have also kept cell phones in the bathroom so I can call for help.
This is sounding insane even to me and I’m the nut who does it. I have come to understand that I misplace anxiety and turn it into fear. Once I realized that the fears subsided greatly. I stop myself in the midst of anxious thoughts for a moment and think things through. I tell myself crime statistics for my neighborhood. I remind myself that even if there is a break in the carnage that ensues in my dreams is a rare occurrence. So, at least I’m not that crazy, right?
In order to curb these imaginings, I put limits on things that escalate my paranoia. I don’t watch scary movies, generally speaking. I avoid most murder-of-the-week shows. Despite my love of science to solve crimes I no longer indulge in any of those crime TV shows that use the miracles of science to figure out who killed the girl (it’s almost always a girl).
And so my paranoid fears are still there but have greatly subsided. But still. They linger.
If there’s one thing I always liked about myself in my horrific visions it’s that I am usually calm in the face of terror. I am terrorized but I am fierce. My hands do not shake.
Turns out I’m not so cool in real life.
This morning I was in the shower. I was not thinking about break-ins or murderous lechers lurking in the hallway outside.
And then I heard it.
A rattling pound. A pounding door? It happened twice but after the first one I was in a panic. I scrambled out of the shower, grabbed my towel, tore open the bathroom door and demanded, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE?â€
Silence.
Shaking. I ran to the front door—it seemed it had come from that direction, but had it? I listened but all I could hear was the pounding of my own hearts in my ears. I ran to the bedroom so I could look at the back porch. A light dusting of snow lay undisturbed.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the first knife I could and whipped around, ready to fight to the death while actually clutching my towel around me. Looking down I realized I had the bread knife. Bad idea. I turned back around and grabbed the smallest, sharpest knife. I could keep hold of it and make a stabbing motion, if needed.
I walked back into the hallway and headed toward the front door. Still no sound except the shower. The water from the shower sounded louder than anything. I looked down, ashamed to see that my hand was shaking so badly that I’d be lucky not to stab my own fool self.
I pulled my arm in tighter, hoping that would calm my hand, and walked the perimeter of the entire apartment.
When I got to the bedroom I saw that three or four books had been knocked off my nightstand. Suddenly I felt foolish. I was shaking like a frightened animal over a few books. Or was I? It had been a calamitous sound that seemed as if it were coming from another direction.
I couldn’t talk myself into it either way. I called my husband, looking to him to tell me I was overreacting. But, of course, he doesn’t understand the extent of my fears. He’s seen me wake up out of a dead sleep to double check locks on doors. But it’s not like I call him every time I get spooked, which is more often than I’d like to admit.
He chastised me for not calling the police. “There’s nothing I can do from work! Call the police and call me back!† And he was right. I should have trusted my instincts that something was wrong.
But, of course, in my innumerable dreams the police are never an option. It just hadn’t occurred to me to call them.
I did call the police, just to be safe. They checked the apartment hallway and found nothing. But there was a gouge in the wood next to my doorknob I don’t remember ever seeing before. And downstairs the neighbors’ lock had four gouges by it. Their door was locked. There were no chips on the floor so I have no way of knowing when those gouges occurred. Nobody answered the door when the officer knocked.
The police were polite. They found nothing but said they’d be on high alert and keep an eye on our block today.
I have no idea if there was an intruder but it felt like there was one. And sometimes I just need to trust what I feel instead of talking myself out of it. Instead, I found myself caught up in a drama that plays out in my head instead of dealing with what was really going on.
Now I find myself at Starbucks trying to shake the feeling of dread that settled in after the initial fight-or-flight response kicked in. I should be doing the dishes, the laundry and my homework.
But right now I just don’t know what to do.