All Alone At The ’64 World’s Fair? Hopefully Not
Outside of a connection to more than one They Might Be Giants song/video, there’s not much to say about Altrok’s kind of music in this post, but maybe that’s enough.
I was born a New Yorker in 1964, lived in The Bronx until 1970, and have near-memories of having been brought to the 1964 World’s Fair in its second season by my parents. I’d have been one year old, give or take, and that’s why I say “near-memories”, because I think what memories I have are really my parents pointing out the scenes from “It’s A Small World” as they played during the opening for Walt Disney’s Wonderful World Of Color and saying “you saw that when you were a baby”. Of course, back then they told me I was a model for Carter’s, so I guess I peaked early.
(Truth? I actually was a model for Carter’s when I was a baby, and my contract with the Marge McDermott Agency expired when I turned 18. So, hey, apparently I was a cute kid, and I can say with some level of truth to my wife that she’s married to a male model. Aheh.)
But I’ve harbored a lingering fascination with the World’s Fair and the diaspora of its attractions as I’ve stumbled across them as they’ve moved from their original installations (The Skyride at Six Flags Great Adventure! The whole “It’s A Small World” ride at Disneyland in California and the Carousel Of Progress at Disney World! Etc.) and whenever I get the opportunity to stumble across ephemera from the time, well, that’s pretty much a day I’ll be spending doing more stumbling.
So, feeding this fascination, I’ve collected a few conveniently uploaded videos from YouTube, but I have a yearning for more. Like, for instance, it’d be nice to see something that audiences saw in the egg-shaped IBM pavilion. All I can find is the folk trio (made up of IBM employees – my father, a former IBMer himself, remembers the woman on the left from Personnel) at about the 6 minute mark in the clip below.
There is much more video to post, but I’ve probably given you enough links to enough related videos to keep you busy a while.
But what about what I can’t post? Some thirty million people went to the fair, surely there’s a pile of home movies out there…
Enter the folks behind this here Kickstarter project:
So they’ve apparently put many thousands of dollars of time and effort into collecting and shooting film and video of the before-and-after of the Fair, and I’d like to see it – and if you’re here, you might, too. Follow this link to kick in if you’re interested…I have.
When it’s done…well, it’ll be another little something to distract me from keeping Altrok 90.5 HD2 up to date, but since Altrok 90.5 HD2 is a distraction all its own…not for long.
