Bad postcard of the week: Mysteries of art and hockey in Southern California

Oh, if these folding chairs could speak, what wild stories could they tell.

This week’s bad postcard takes us to Southern California and the Idyllwild Arts School.Let’s get right to it, because there is so much here to love.

The back reads: U.S.C. Idyllwild Arts Foundation (ISOMATA), Idyllwild, California. Interior, Conference Hall (seats 300) – serves as lecture, concert and dance hall, and intimate theater during the Foundations summer school in the arts. The Foundation conducts a summer school of the arts from June 15^th to September 1^st, and a conference center from Labor Day to June 15^th.

First, I know you are wondering. ISOMATA stands for Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts.The always-accurate Wikipedia tells us that Idyllwild Arts was founded by Dr. Max Krone and his wife, Beatrice, who envisioned a remote place where people of all backgrounds could come together to experience the arts. In 1950, approximately one hundred adult students began attending summer classes in the arts.

So, we’re talking summer camp for adult artists. The school was turned over to University of Southern California in 1964, and taken back from USC in 1983. It still exists, albeit with much nicer facilities.

The blue folding chairs just scream party, and it looks like we’re set up for a big night of a film and discussion.

Kids, that thing you see in the back is called a projector, and it’s what we had before DVDs and even VHS. Back in the day, school had these things attached to a wheeled cart, and students on the AV squad would bring them to the room.

It was a good day when this arrived in school.

No one knows how kids got to be on the AV squad, and how they got out of class to bring these things around the building. We also didn’t care, because when the AV squad arrived it meant that we were going to watch a movie. This was before every classroom had televisions and cable.

Someday I’ll tell you about another amazing bit of classroom technology that was called the overhead projector. It wasn’t nearly as cool. Think of it as a PowerPoint presentation with no color and bad handwriting.

Now let’s discuss the décor. Note that thing attached to the stone wall. Is that a hockey stick? A hockey stick is an arts camp is odd.

 A hockey stick in an arts camp in Southern California is off the charts crazy, especially in the 1960s. The L.A. Kings didn’t come around until 1967.

Perhaps this is some souvenir of a camper’s exotic trip to Winnipeg. Perhaps it’s a prop from some artsy thing.

I notice that the stick hangs what appears to be a fireplace, which also seems out of place. It’s almost like someone tried to recreate a corner of a ski lodge in an L.A. artsy place without the benefit of the ski bunnies and hot cocoa.

We just don’t know.