Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Barbaretro

As requested, here's the cover of the vintage Life magazine I bought on the weekend:


Babs


The main news articles are wonderfully representative of their day - the Paris student riots, Biafra, the Vietnam War - but it's the lesser items that are more subtly evocative. The cover story on "international cuisine in your own kitchen" offers a rather delightful insight into the culinary expectations of Australia forty years ago. Apparently in 1968 "international cuisine" meant pepper steak and chocolate cheesecake. Well ooh la la, Mr Fancy French Gourmet; next you'll be telling us to drink that "wine" stuff and not boil the brussel sprouts for two hours.


The advertisements are similarly hilarious - cars with the aerodynamics of shipping containers, cigarettes, and cameras used for taking pictures of doe-eyed girls with big hair and minidresses. I'll scan some and post them when I get a chance, if only to remind us how lucky we are to live in age of digital cameras, ciabatta and seat belts.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

And any interesting expats?

5:06 PM  
Blogger Blandwagon said...

The only ones I recognised were Sidney Nolan, Brett Whiteley and Robert Helpmann.

It's funny that Sidney Nolan is always trumpeted as an "important Australian artist", but the fact is the bastard left here at the age of 33 and never came back.

8:33 AM  

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