Fake

The Scariest Photo That Never Happened

Alex Fake, Funny Tags: , , 1 Comment

It’s Halloween — and so I figured it was as good a day as any to scare myself and actually make time for a spooky post!

As an amateur history aficionado with less time for extensive research, nothing is quite as scary as a nicely done fake photo like this one of Mr. Lincoln and the Raven-master himself, Edgar Allan Poe:

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While the photo originates from one of my favorite Lincoln-related pieces of fiction out there (yes, I’ve come around to liking AL:VH quite a bit…) it also serves as a great reminder to do a little bit of Googling before you post something!

Got any other scary Lincoln things out there? Share them with me at honestabeblog@gmail.com!

Anti-Lincoln Super PAC

Alex Video Fake Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Just caught wind of this incredibly hilarious anti-Lincoln campaign out of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s part of a really excellent project known as flackcheck.org highlighting the impact of deceptive political advertising and divisive media reporting.

I love the parallels they are drawing and I think the McClellan/Lincoln and whomever-the-republican-candidate-ends-up-being/Obama metaphor is decently appropriate (albeit, clearly inaccurate and anachronistic). I highly recommend checking out the additional videos on their site.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

‘Killing Lincoln’

Alex Fake, History Leave a comment

I just recently heard that Bill O’Reilly is publishing a story on the Lincoln assassination. In an interview from USA Today, O’Reilly hints at the filmic qualities of his new book:

O’Reilly says he’s also talking to “big hitters” about turning Killing Lincoln into a cable TV special. “It’s very cinematic. Action! Action!”

Who would he like to play Lincoln?

“I’d always thought Harrison Ford would make a great Lincoln — the brooding, the physicality.”

And Booth, the actor turned assassin?

“That sleazy bastard? There are so many sleazy bastards in Hollywood. It would be a big casting call.”

(Read the full text here.)

Now, I’ll make this pretty clear, I am a Harrison Ford apologist to the extreme – the man can do little wrong in my eyes, but I wonder – would he be a good Lincoln?

I guess this gets down to the meat and potatos of a question that I’ve been pondering for some time: what does it take to portray Abraham Lincoln successfully?

I’ll have to mull this over a bit more… but it does bring up an interesting line of inquiry.

Beautiful Lincoln Art Exhibit

Alex Art, Fake Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Photo Nineteen Lincolns artist Greta Pratt’s webpage: http://www.gretapratt.com/index_liabout.html

I happened upon this piece by pure chance – while visiting Seattle I ended up at the Frye museum with my friends. I walked into the room which had the Nineteen Lincolns and was so blown away.

I think one line in the artist’s statement really resonates for me:

These photographs are a continuation of my quest to understand how I, and we, remember history. My intention is to comment on the way a society, composed of individuals, is held together through the creation of its history and heroic figures.

And really – to be frank, that is an excellent summation of why I am so intrigued by our sixteenth president. It is our shared history, or our mutually understood story of what has happened that makes our nation so particularly interesting.
Here is the link to the artists main page for this project: http://www.gretapratt.com/index_li_main.html