by Cat DeSpira
In Clio Genesee County, Michigan, in the Thetford Township Cemetary, Michael Leroy "Pac Man" Luther slumbers for eternity beneath the marble likeness of an arcade game he loved so much. Find a Grave listing According to Jeff Smith of Lapeer, Michigan, an arcade aficionado who shared the photo with me and whose older brother … Continue reading Pac-Man Headstone in Michigan
Almost 40 years ago, at the very height of Discomania with a capital "D", and only just a few months before Space Invaders would usher in a national obsession with electronic games, a forgotten yet almost imperceptible ancestral link to competitive gaming occurred in Los Angeles, California. This momentary experiment, launched during the infancy of … Continue reading TV POWW!: The Earliest Televised Video Game Competition From The 70s
That renowned photo-essayist Ira Nowinski recorded the very beginnings of the video craze in California is something short of a miracle. Most of his work up to that point was more focused on local arts and sociopolitical topics; i.e. "urban renewal" forcing pensioners from their longtime homes, the American migration of Soviet Jews and, of … Continue reading 5 California Arcades in The 80s: Looking Through The Lens of Ira Nowinski
Aren't you more than just a little curious about the fantasy of being able to live forever in The 80s, back when the arcade raged and the music smiled?
I don't know about you but old photographs of the Christmas of yore are rather remarkable and fascinate me to no end. All those shiny aluminum trees dripping in tinsel, standing next to the most popular object in the room -the Television set- or if it's pre-1950, a Zenith or Imperial tube radio. It all … Continue reading A Blast of Christmas Past: 5 Decades of Retro Photos, Toys and Fashion