Yah, but whadda we know, after all we're just a buncha rubes from the hicks,
in our "rival" club with our quaint and picturesque lifestyles. But at
least we didn't need Hollywood to make us aware of how great Airstreams are.
---Sarah
At 11:51 AM 8/2/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Well said -
>
>watch out though - it's hard to hide from glamour.
>maybe that's why some of us are installing solar
>panels?
>
>Should we forward our responses to the author?
>
>Toby 2029
>
>--- Bill Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> This article by Philip Nobel, is one of the most
>> factually incorrect and
>> misleading statements I have seen in modern
>> newsprint. What he says
>> makes very little sense, and it seems as if he is
>> writing for the
>> artistic and design community, and just interested
>> in spouting a bunch
>> of words. This is the most misleading article
>> about Airstreams I have
>> ever read.
>>
>> Bill Scott
>> 61 Bambi, VAC & WBCCI #3221
>> 1VP & Membership Chairman , WDCU
>> http://www.servintfree.net/wbcci-dc/
>>
>>
>
>> ATTACHMENT part 2 message/rfc822
>> Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 09:36:08 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: Toby Folwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Subject: Re: [VAC] NYTimes coverage (full article)
>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> An Accidental Icon of American Pop
>> By PHILIP NOBEL
>>
>>
>> The Airstream has moved from the popular and
>> functional family tool advertised in a 1964
>> brochure,
>> to a nostalgic Pop accessory.
>>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>>
>>
>> Of all the things that roll down American highways,
>> few are as strange and perfect as the Airstream, the
>> R.V. for the Atomic Age. Produced since 1952 at a
>> factory in Jackson Center, Ohio, the cylindrical,
>> self-contained Airstream "land yacht" has become a
>> middle-American answer to luxury on the high seas.
>> By
>> the 1960's, the distinctive trailers were available
>> in
>> a range of models, from the little bubble of the
>> 18-foot Bambi to the 30-foot Sovereign Double, an
>> airship for the road. At one time or another, every
>> corner of the country, much of the world, and
>> countless envious gawkers have been reflected in the
>> Airstream's shining aluminum skin.
>>
>> The popular interest in Airstreams is such that
>> Airstreamers, as the owners call themselves, have
>> cooked up a term -- "trailer tappers" -- to describe
>> those who buttonhole them on their travels. But what
>> do the curious ask when they knock on the door? Does
>> it get hot in there? What happens when it hails?
>> Maybe
>> they want to poke around inside to see the nautical
>> details, the berths, the ship's galley, the marine
>> toilet, the portholes. Do they ask who designed it?
>> Probably not; that would be like asking who designed
>> the Interstate.
>>
>> Until recently, the Airstream has led a quiet life,
>> loved by the cult of its owners who gather by the
>> thousands to park in radiating "wagon wheels" at
>> annual rallies or who caravan in comfort to
>> hardscrabble destinations. The caravan tradition
>> began
>> with the the father of the Airstream and the
>> company's
>> founder, Wally Byam, who led Airstreams on dozens of
>> goodwill missions overseas, including a 34,000-mile
>> trip through Asia and Europe in 1964. Following
>> Byam's
>> lead, Airstream owners -- weekenders, retirees and a
>> core of "full-timers" -- have continued this quirky
>> community, carrying on as a kind of folk tradition
>> well outside the public gaze.
>>
>> At the most recent rally, near Bismarck, N.D., this
>> month, 2,000 Airstreams gathered under the auspices
>> of
>> the Wally Byam Caravan Club International. Since the
>> 1980's, Airstream has only produced what purists
>> call
>> "squarestreams," blunt but still shiny
>> approximations
>> of the old models. At the Bismarck rally, most of
>> the
>> trailers were these clunkier, post-streamlined
>> designs, but the presence of a devoted minority of
>> classic Airstream enthusiasts, members of the rival
>> Vintage Airstream Club, attests to the growing
>> popularity of the older models.
>>
>> The splinter club formed in 1994, around the time
>> that
>> designers and consumers began to rush in numbers to
>> all things mid-century. As curiosity became a
>> full-blown design revival, Airstream's happy
>> obscurity
>> eroded. The revival announced itself, as so many do,
>> in an embrace by Hollywood. On the screen, Tim
>> Burton
>> (owner of three vintage trailers) pitted alien
>> flying
>> saucers against earthling Airstreams in his 1996
>> comedy "Mars Attacks!" And on the ground, just as
>> free-form modern homes by John Lautner are being
>> snapped up by young stars, an Airstream in the
>> driveway has become another kitschy status symbol: a
>> few Eames chairs scattered around, some period
>> Formica, a 1963 Airstream Bambi parked out back for
>> the guests.
>>
>> The shelter and lifestyle magazines picked up on the
>> trend, paving the way for Airstream chic. An issue
>> of
>> Flaunt included a pop-up Airstream, presumably as a
>> kind of tiki for the road-deprived urbanite. Even
>> Manhattan has its token Airstream, a vintage
>> 20-footer
>> used as a projection booth for summer movies in
>> Bryant
>> Park. In May, Wilsonart, the laminate company,
>> parked
>> a trailer at the Javits Center to show off an
>> updated
>> interior concept they hope to sell to Airstream Inc.
>>
>>
>> Now, at last, there is a book for the armchair
>> Airstreamer, "Airstream: The History of the Land
>> Yacht" ($19.95), written by Bryan Burkhart, a
>> graphic
>> designer and owner of a vintage Airstream, and David
>> Hunt, a New York-based art critic. It was published
>> this year by Chronicle Books of San Francisco, a
>> house
>> known as a leader in repackaging retro styles for
>> contemporary consumption; the book takes its place
>> on
>> the backlist not far from "Patio Daddy-O: 50's
>> Recipes
>> With a 90's twist."
>>
>> What happens to a design when it goes from popular
>> to
>> Pop? The Airstream can survive a gloss of nostalgia,
>> but it may not fare so well with that late, late
>> 90's
>> twist: seeing it as a fashion statement, an
>> accessory,
>> not a tool. There is something unfortunate about
>> glamorizing this thing, which was meant to be used,
>> to
>> be bashed about, hitched to the family truck and
>> towed
>> to Lake Victoria. For Byam, function ruled; he once
>> said of the Airstream, "Let's not make any changes
>> --
>> let's make only improvements."
>>
>> That aversion to styling is what made the Airstream
>> so
>> good. If you parse the design, as the authors of
>> "Airstream" did, you'll find Pan Am seaplanes, old
>> Chryslers and fast trains, a hint of the Dymaxion
>> House, maybe a touch of Roswell, certainly a big
>> dose
>> of the American passion for ameliorative gadgetry
>> that
>> achieved such unusual elegance in the functional
>> designs of the fetishized 1950's. But, as Mr.
>> Burkhart
>> said recently: "It's all accidental. There was no
>> way
>> Wally knew Buckminster Fuller." It's not fashion or
>> its opposite, na�vet�: dedicated problem-solving
>> made
>> the Airstream that rare and wonderful and fragile
>> thing, a genuine American design icon:
>> purpose-built,
>> frankly eccentric, infectiously optimistic; branded,
>> but stubbornly anonymous.
>>
>> Philip Nobel is a columnist and contributing editor
>> for the design magazine Metropolis.
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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