#hellomuddah

For some much-needed levity, please consult the photographs in 'Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah: Andy Sweet's Summer Camp 1977' — a book that came out right when all of our holiday plans collapsed last summer, and did NOT get its proper due. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Published by @letter16press this is the companion volume to 'Shtetl in the Sun,' Andy Sweet's love letter to the colorful Jewish community of late 1970s South Beach. Here, he chronicles the summer of 1977 at Camp Mountain Lake, serving up a knowing portrait of the era's fashion, pop culture and frank expressions of adolescent sexuality.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Set against the cherished rituals of camp life—from the parade of trunks as 300 campers arrive at Mountain Lake's rural North Carolina setting to the end-of-August Dionysian frenzy of "Color War"—Sweet's photos tell a classic coming-of-age story, one full of awkward crushes, intense friendships and the kind of deep truths that emerge over late-night, campfire-toasted marshmallows.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ As the camp's photography instructor and one of its counselors, Sweet brings an intimate familiarity to his subject, capturing the rhythms of the camp's daily life through both posed compositions and spontaneous images. By turns nostalgic, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, this collection includes a foreword by award-winning Miami arts journalist Brett Sokol and an introductory essay by New Yorker staff writer @frynaomifry⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Let yourself be transported. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Read more via linkinbio.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ #hellomuddah #summercamp #andysweet https://www.instagram.com/p/CJBm8neJ4xu/?igshid=8mws7ztx8cdc

For your summer weekend reading pleasure… we highly recommend this remembrance of awkward summer camp experiences past by Naomi Fry in this week's @newyorkermag — reproduced from 'Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah: Andy Sweet's Summer Camp 1977,' the new photobook from @letter16press⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Fry begins the essay: "When I was a kid growing up in Israel, in the nineteen-eighties, my father’s job as a research scientist sometimes took us to the United States for the summer months. It was there that I first encountered the alien, forbidding rites and rituals of sleepaway camp, though not through personal experience. I was a reticent and bookish child, easily spooked and prone to homesickness, and the idea of leaving the familiar and comforting world of my family to jostle among a bunch of tough-skinned strangers filled me with dread. What if I were excluded, or ignored, or laughed at? In the country where I came from, you stuck close to home until you were made to leave it, at eighteen, for the Army, and, even then, Israel’s almost comical smallness made it impossible to stay away for too long, even if you wanted to. As far as I was concerned, even day camp, the relatively tame waters of which I dipped my toe into for a couple summers, felt like a social and psychological stretch, with its lip-synching talent shows and Madonna-look-alike contests, its aggressively noisy bus trips and brash talk of lip-gloss brands and crushes and training bras. I preferred to experience shiny, scary, titillating American culture from the safe distance of the living-room couch, watching “General Hospital” and 'Family Feud' and eating Lays potato chips. I might have been bored, but at least I was unscathed…" ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Read more via linkinbio.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ @frynaomifry #andysweet #hellomuddahhellofaddah #hellomuddah #summercamp #70ssummercamp #70sstyle⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ https://www.instagram.com/p/CDpGHMSJM7n/?igshid=i80tbr2k1g29

"Dr. Demento's #Delights" is one of his best anthology collections. It helped give Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!" renewed interest. Find it here on #Vinyl #LP: #AllanSherman #HelloMuddah #BarryHansen #DrDemento https://etsy.me/3egFp61 https://www.instagram.com/p/B--Y7rBpBqJ/?igshid=1b70619pglafa