Bill Scott....how about a bunch of us Streamers send off a mess of e-mail and
regular letters to the NY Times do you have an address both e-mail and street
and maybe the name of the Editor or Publisher Pearl
Sarah Calhoun wrote:
> 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.
> >>
> >>
> >> __________________________________________________
> >> Do You Yahoo!?
> >> Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
> >> http://invites.yahoo.com/
> >>
> >
> >
> >__________________________________________________
> >Do You Yahoo!?
> >Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
> >http://invites.yahoo.com/
> >
> >
