How many of these names do you recognize as famous entertainers? These are their given names and many of them appear on the Memorial plaques at The Actor’s Temple. If you don’t know, Google them to find out: Benjamin Kubelsky Aaron Chwatt Sonya Kalish Edward Israel Iskowitz Shirley Schrift Mendel Berlinger Mechel Saltpeter For more[Read More]
Life Preservers Blog
Your Daily Show: The Liberation of Routines
By Pam Pacelli Cooper Verissima Productions Riding the train from Cambridge to Downtown Boston has become a lonely business over the last 5 years. The once lively cars have quieted down as passengers dive ever more deeply into reading their texts and e-mails and zoning out to the music pulsing through their ear pods. Like[Read More]
Life Preservers Podcast: Episode 11 – Donna Blinn, Genealogist
There is much that we can learn from Donna and her journey into the past. Hearing her story will undoubtedly inspire all of us to start looking into our own family histories. What we may uncover may be beyond our imaginations!
Life Preservers Podcast: Episode 10 – Exploring Black History & The Margaret Walker Center
In honor of Black History month, a podcast about famed writer and poet Margaret Walker, oral histories of the civil rights movement, and more…with Dr. Robert Luckett of Jackson State University. Show Notes: CLICK HERE to visit the Digital Archives at the Margaret Walker Center: They include a digital archives project, book[Read More]
The Things She Carried: Treasures of the Mundane
By Pam Pacelli Cooper President, Verissima Productions She always called it her “old lady bag.” When my mother in law’s purse wore out, after 10 or 15 years of hard use, she asked for another one. It was not easy to find. Black, sturdy, short handles to be gripped with the hand rather than slung[Read More]
Saved from Extinction: An Adventure in Archiving
By Pam Pacelli Cooper President, Verissima Productions Thirty heavy cans of film, each 24 inches in diameter, over 1200 feet of film in each can. Blues musicians captured in their homes, in the basement of a barbecue place in Memphis, Tennessee, and a juke joint in Clarksdale, Mississippi. For 40 years, my partner had been[Read More]
Life Preservers Podcast: Episode 9 – An interview about the history, legacy, and struggle for civil rights.
This is Part 1 of a 2 part interview with Dr. Robert Luckett, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University in Jackson, MS. In addition to a book and several publications and presentations at numerous academic conferences, he has appeared in documentaries, including the Independent Lens film[Read More]
Life Preservers Podcast – Episode 8: Audio Extras!
Our interview with Paul Adams from Mass Productions in Tewksbury, MA was so informative and fun that we wanted to share a bit more of it with you. Listen in to this quick four minute extra to hear two great stories from the field of audio preservation. One tells the tale of preserving recordings produced[Read More]
Gabe’s: A Story of Mystery and Possibility
by Pam Pacelli Cooper President, Verissima Productions Incorporated It was a small haberdashery store in Hyde Park, nestled in the shopping center where everyone in our small community shopped for groceries, went to the Optometrist and filled their prescriptions at the drugstore. I did the same, walking the several blocks from our house to help[Read More]
Life Preservers Podcast Episode 8: Preserving your Audio, Video, and film for the future
Tales of media lost and rescued, plus many ideas for digitizing your files from Paul Adams, archiving engineer, and owner of Mass Productions in Tewksbury, MA. Show Notes: Where can you go to get your files digitized? Digital transfers of media and many rare formats, also archival restoration http://www.massproductions.net/ Digital transfers of media[Read More]