5-Bullet Friday Legacy Edition: May 27
I’m a huge Tim Ferriss fan, and his 5-Bullet Friday emails are one of the only newsletters to which I subscribe that I actually open every single time they land in my inbox. They’re brief, substantive, and interesting.
In homage to Tim’s format (and fun alliterative name), we’re launching 5-Bullet Friday Legacy Edition here on the blog, in which we compile five of our favorite articles, tweets, Instagram posts, or other shares from around the web on topics near and dear to our mission:
#legacy #FamilyLegacy #FamilyHistory #LifeStories #storytelling #writing #custombooks #OralHistory #design #genealogy #MemoriesMatter
Our top 5 #legacy links for the week ending Friday, May 27, 2016
1 - Ahh, the good old days!
Our elementary school years are rife with memories. Jennifer at Red Barn Memories shared this retro graphic on Instagram, and her blog offers quick questions to ask your loved ones about their early school years to help get their stories on record:
2 - From diaries to collages on poster board, from Snapchat to Instagram, teenagers are adept at proclaiming their interests in graphic storytelling fashion. Two recent examples that resonate for me:
- Actress Chloe Sevigny’s contribution to a magazine called “FanPages” was a collage she made in fifth grade—and, oh how familiar it looks to what hung on my own walls (if ONLY I had saved them!).
Chloe Sevigny's pinboard, courtesy “FanPages”
- And actress, feminist, and writer Lena Dunham published a limited-run book with all benefits going to Girls Write Now, an organization I support. The concept? Excerpts from her journals written during 2005-2006—when she was a vulnerable and open 19-year-old.
3 - Before you throw away your child's artwork...
Scanning or photographing kids’ artwork is a wonderful way to preserve some of the color and whimsy of their childhood. Here’s a little sketch my 6-year-old son did in between activities at school this week:
"Ladybug Dreaming," pencil and crayon on paper, by Vittorio, age 6
4 - Oral histories connect us to our cultures and identities.
Jane Jun, a student at the University of Chicago, shares some of her own personal history, and the realizations it brought her to.
"Perhaps this type of knowledge, transmitted from one mouth to another, preserves a certain kind of magic that ought not be lost, offering a real and intimate form of learning intricately tied to culture and identity. I wonder what sorts of discoveries we, as students, can also gain from examining our own family histories, and the kinds of thought-provoking and extraordinary stories we can unearth about how we came to be where we are today."
Illustration by Meera Joshi, courtesy The Chicago Maroon
5 - Is this the app you need to quickly scan all those dusty photo albums?
Tech I’m testing now: Unfade. This app looks to be a great way for the average family memory-keeper to turn shoeboxes of photos into lasting digital files, especially handy for when convenience and ease of use trump having full control over the digitization process.
Have you tried this photo scanning app yet? Thoughts?
My first “scan” took all of two seconds, and I gotta say I do like the simplicity, color quality, and auto-cropping! Full review to come.