CHF archivists set out to capture the long of it, so they hired artist Keith Ragone to execute their vision in splashy colors and kitschy displays. Some objects were loaned from private collections and acquired through auction, while others were bought on eBay or borrowed from staffers’ garages and jewelry boxes. The objets d’art include plastic bracelets, rhinestone Lucite stilettos, silly putty, toy action figures and old Perry Como 45s. Ads were harvested from Life, Good Housekeeping and McCall’s, then scanned and collaged into striking visual wallpaper.
Most entrancing is the rehabbed Zenith television running Maypo commercials and loops of duck-and-cover footage showing schoolchildren diving under desks and picnicking families literally stopping and dropping at the flash and crack of a simulated atomic attack.
Science types can get their geek on with the 1950 RCA Model EMT3 Desktop Electron Microscope Unit, images of the 1960 Launder-O-Meter (which tested wash-fastness of dyed fabrics) and a host of atomic-era junior chemistry sets featuring all manner of hazardous materials. Should little Billy improperly handle the ammonium chloride and copper pellets included in his Porter Chemcraft kit, the radioactive protection screen would prove as effective against alpha emitters as an umbrella facing a tsunami.
“There was a naive impression of atomic energy,” says senior archivist Jennifer Landry. “People put on shades and brought lawn chairs to watch an H-bomb test in Nevada. It was a lack of knowledge, but the same thing is happening now and we just don’t know it. People will be standing in an exhibit like this 50 years from now going, ‘Gosh, didn’t they know better?’”
Old photos prove even the scientists themselves were guilty of walking around in street clothes with a cigarette in one hand and a Geiger counter in the other.
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Back in the day, New Joisey's My Chemical Romance was a scrawny little quintet singing about vampires and opening for the Movielife and Finch. Of course, "the day" refers to its early 2003 tour -- before MCR upgraded from Eyeball Records to the major label Reprise Records, before its sophomore CD, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, sold gold and before vocalist Gerard Way stopped speaking to his former BFF, the Used singer Bert McCracken. In fact, My Chemical Romance v.2.0 is bigger, badder, and more emo and goth (although less intoxicated) than its former self. But catch its first headlining
It's been a big year for My Chemical Romance. The New Jersey emo band's second album, last year's "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge," finally drew the notice of mainstream music magazines like Rolling Stone.
My Chemical Romance also scored a gig opening for Green Day and headlined this summer's incarnation of the Warped Tour. Now, with a third album due in November, the band is headlining on its own, with Alkaline Trio and Reggie and the Full Effect.
The tour stops Sunday, Oct. 16 at the Connecticut Expo Center, 265 Rev. Moody Overpass, Hartford. Tickets are $19.99 for the 7 p.m. show.
The hardest-working band in New Jersey, My Chemical Romance, are going to to release CD/DVD set entitled "Life On The Murder Scene" sometime early next year.
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The cover looks quite curiously, while simply replacing the watercolored couple on the front of the band's
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"If you're gonna go buy our record this week, don't buy our record just donate to the Red Cross or anything you think can help the hurricane victims," Way said, speaking on MTV's Total Request Live show yesterday.
Way insists the goth-rockers are planning to do everything