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iguana_mama's review
3.0
Posted at Shelf Inflicted
I liked the 80’s, even though it was a time where people were preoccupied with money and possessions, celebrity obsession was all the rage, and conservatism was on the rise. My brother came out at the same time as the warnings about the new “gay cancer.” I took out a loan from the bank I worked at and bought my first new car, proving my dad wrong on two points – that women were incapable of buying a car on their own and couldn’t drive a manual transmission. I had to ask the guy who sold the car to me for a driving lesson, but managed to get the car home safely. Then I moved out of my parents’ house in 1980, ready to take on the world.
This was a fun, photographic journey through the 80’s. Politics, celebrities, sports, fashion, protests, strikes, and significant world events were covered. There was a poignant photo of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt the same year President Reagan first mentioned the word. There was a photo of the Guardian Angels, patrollers of the graffiti-covered New York City subways, kids and teens playing Pac-Man and Galaxian at an arcade, and a photo showing effects the Valdez oil spill had on animals. Each year ended with obituaries. Though there was mention made of John Lennon’s murder in 1980, it must have been an oversight that he was not included in the 1980 obituaries along with Alfred Hitchcock, Steve McQueen, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mae West and others. Starting in 1981, there was a caption with the AIDS death toll (163). By 1989, that number reached 83,681.
I would have liked more narrative details about certain events and the people I didn’t recognize. Other than that, I enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
Sadly, two photos were ripped out of the 1985 section. People who deface library books should be publicly flogged.
I liked the 80’s, even though it was a time where people were preoccupied with money and possessions, celebrity obsession was all the rage, and conservatism was on the rise. My brother came out at the same time as the warnings about the new “gay cancer.” I took out a loan from the bank I worked at and bought my first new car, proving my dad wrong on two points – that women were incapable of buying a car on their own and couldn’t drive a manual transmission. I had to ask the guy who sold the car to me for a driving lesson, but managed to get the car home safely. Then I moved out of my parents’ house in 1980, ready to take on the world.
This was a fun, photographic journey through the 80’s. Politics, celebrities, sports, fashion, protests, strikes, and significant world events were covered. There was a poignant photo of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt the same year President Reagan first mentioned the word. There was a photo of the Guardian Angels, patrollers of the graffiti-covered New York City subways, kids and teens playing Pac-Man and Galaxian at an arcade, and a photo showing effects the Valdez oil spill had on animals. Each year ended with obituaries. Though there was mention made of John Lennon’s murder in 1980, it must have been an oversight that he was not included in the 1980 obituaries along with Alfred Hitchcock, Steve McQueen, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mae West and others. Starting in 1981, there was a caption with the AIDS death toll (163). By 1989, that number reached 83,681.
I would have liked more narrative details about certain events and the people I didn’t recognize. Other than that, I enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
Sadly, two photos were ripped out of the 1985 section. People who deface library books should be publicly flogged.
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