Historic shopfronts ‘selling nostalgia’ win big at national awards
Antoni Neal, left, built the sets, designed by Alex Burnett, right, and painted by both Alex and special-effects artist Sparky Burnett. This replica Caltex is based off a historic petrol station from Tāhunanui. Braden Fastier / Stuff/Nelson Mail
From Stuff.co.nz: A three-person team has cleaned up at the national sign and display awards for their work at a classic car museum recreating retro shopfronts.
The Old Sign Studio team, Alex and Sparky Burnett and builder Antoni Neal, submitted two shopfronts to the annual NZ Sign & Display Awards, and both won awards – three gold, one silver.
Johnson’s Park dinosaur is set to be restored
Photo courtesy of Chad Covert
From OnMilwaukee.com: The concrete Tyrannosaurus Rex that stood for decades at 76th Street and Good Hope Road, at Johnson’s Park mini-golf, is about to finally get its makeover.
Chad Covert, who bought the 13,000-pound dino for $11 in 2017 and moved it to his property in Saukville, says restoration work is set to begin and when that’s complete, hopefully by the end of the year, the 16-foot-tall dino will be installed on his land.
‘Not Very Fast Food’: 2,000 Year Old Restaurant Reopens In Pompeii
The beautifully preserved Pompeii ‘thermopolium’. Image: Archeological Park of Pompeii
From the travelling ramen carts of shogun-era Japan to Aztec tamale vendors, fast food is almost as old as modern human history. Indeed, the development of fast food is, perhaps more than any other marker of civilisation, closely connected with the development of modern humanity.
One ancient society where fast food thrived was the Ancient Roman Empire. Fast food or street food was an absolute necessity for poor urban Ancient Romans, whose basic tenement homes did not have ovens or hearths, making cooking at home a challenge.
Arizona Charlie’s donating original casino sign to Neon Museum
The sign at Arizona Charlie’s on Decatur will be donated to The Neon Museum in Las Vegas. (Photo courtesy Golden Entertainment)
From news3lv.com: LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — The Neon Museum is getting an addition to its already impressive collection.
Arizona Charlie’s announced Wednesday it will donate the original casino sign from its Decatur location to the museum later this summer.
The signage, which measures 17 feet long and 8 feet tall, features the iconic Charlie and has been in place since 1988 at the casino on 740 S. Decatur Blvd.
The media has erased the long history of Black barbecue, skewing our understanding
Rodney Scott mops racks of ribs on July 3, 2018 in Charleston, S.C. (Alex Holt for The Washington Post)
From The Washington Post: Part of the reckoning in the year plus since George Floyd’s murder has been a newfound awareness of how racism has deeply burrowed itself into aspects of our culture that might seem to have little to do with race.
One great example: how the media portrays the art of barbecue. Piles of smoked meat have long been portrayed as “dude food,” — the ultimate in male indulgence — but now it’s more like “White dude food” than ever before. And that’s because since the 1990s, a robust barbecue-related media has overly celebrated White men and greatly diminished the contributions that African American men and women have made to this beloved food. Restoring barbecue’s true history paints a much different picture, one that might even change how we think of piles of smoked meat.