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Erik Ledbetter

@bandoblue.bsky.social
1.3K followers 88 following 243 posts

Park Ranger, former cultural property policy wonk, CCC obsessive, escaped historian.

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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Rudolf Schlichter (German, 1890-1955). “Portrait of the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch” (1927). H/t @adamtooze.bsky.social My God, the set and costume designers of Babylon Berlin really did nail the look and feel of urban Weimar.
Oil painting1 of a Weimar German journalist on a sidewalk, in front of a Cafe, posters behind him.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Goodnight, Park.
Sunset after a storm at North Point State Park.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
Marylebone a la nuit, one last stroll.
Corner by St. Mary's Church, palimpsest of 150 years of architecture.Huge paper flowers and print dresses in a shop window at night.Night travellers at Marylebone Station archway.Victorian canopy from station to grand hotel, Marylebone. Doorman in tophat talking with two young boys.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
One moment of beauty snatched from the hellscape of LVMH Parade. Uh, I mean, Kensington High Street.
Flower market in front of Gothic arch, Kensington High Street.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Spare ribs and dear friends.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Night stroll around Marylebone and Edgeware Rd.
St. Mary's Church, Bryanston Square. Neoclassical portico and Italianate spire.Pizza smotor. Night, with delivery drivers by the curb on motos.Arabic grocery storefront at night, with patrons and passers by, Edgeware Rd.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Is being American enough to qualify? Asking for a friend.
Metropolitan Police anti-social behavior special enforcement zone placard on a council housing estate back of Marylebone Station.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Friends: old and new. Also the trio of devils who somehow persuaded me to buy a shockingly nice, and shockingly spendy, linen jacket at Oliver Spencer.
Oliver Spencer at Lamb's Conduit, purveyors of lovely clothes.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Out and about in Bloomsbury, including the inaugural Lamb's Conduit Waiters' Race.
Former art deco petrol station, sensitively adapted to new use.One of London's last remaining timber cab ranks. From the horse-drawn hansome "Black Beauty" era of cabbing.And they're off! Waiters carrying trays of glassware in a footrace along Lamb's Conduit.Finishing in style, a waiter waves while carrying her tray to the finish line in the Lsm's Waiters' Race.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
More railway stations: Marylebone, loveliest, least altered and most overlooked of London's great termini, and Russell Square on the Tube, an art nouveau classic. Lynn is giving me side eye for more station facade pictures. Reader, she married me anyway.
Street facade of 1899 Marylebone railway station. Later HQ of Brtish Rail.Art nouveau Russell Square tube station.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Lynn is re-reading Pattern Recognition. I'm wearing a pair of well-worn Buzz chinos. As one does when you're back in Gibson's London. @greatdismal.bsky.social
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
And a bit more Grand Canal. Still life with bench.
Deserted plaza on Grand Canal, early evening.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Out and about in Marylebone, Bayswater and the Grand Canal.
Fruit stall near Paddington.Mews in Bayswater.Bar, Grand Canal.Pub life, Leinster Arms in Bayswater.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Paddington Train Shed. As a onetome history of technology major, this is one of the industrial cathedrals of my secular religion.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
The first night I ever spent in London was behind one of these stucco porticos in Lancaster Gate, Christmas 1986. It was stuffy and dusty and caught somewhere between Fawlty Towers and Margaret Thatcher. Now, apparently, being refitted as luxe condos.
Victorian townhouses, later hotels, now condos. In Bayswater, London.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
London skyline.
London rooftops, looking from Edgeware Road toward Canary Wharf in the far distance.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Coots! And cootlings!
Eurasia Coot mom and adolescents swimming in Paddington basin
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
When I first saw Paddington Basin in 1984 it was all stygian old warehouses, basically a good place to be murdered in a Le Carre novel. Now it's all steel and glass, except for this lone survivor.
Paddington Basin warehouse, Westminster, London
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
London called. I came.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
This is another very thoughtful reflection on the military parade, focusing more on the perspective of the troops involved. Col. Urban (ret.) is a veteran (I am not) and brings a soldier and a scholar's persective.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Former United Railway and Electric (Baltimore Md) trolley line, now a trail at North Point State Park.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Welcome to folks who followed me lately from the parade thread. Fair warning -- this account is mostly just sporadic pretty park pictures and nerdy CCC history.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Some thoughts about the military parade in my hometown of Washington DC today -- specifically, the route. Military parades in DC are quite rare. But when they happen, they have always begun, symbolically and geographically, at the Capitol and moved outward. 1/
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Gloomy gusty evening at North Point State Park.
Marsh grass and Cesapeake Bay ar North Point State Park.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Terrestrial snail, tentatively an eastern whitelip. Seen while rangering around at North Point State Battlefield yesterday.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Frank Bruni's shout out to Maria McKee in his newsletter this week reminded me how much I adore this album: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is...
en.m.wikipedia.org
Life Is Sweet (album) - Wikipedia
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
10 miles-- six of which were straight along my trail network. Spent the rest of June and July chainsawing.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Now that's a provenance: Jane Birkin's Birkin -- THE Birkin--goes under the hammer at Sotheby's. amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/06/...
amp.cnn.com
Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag goes on sale | CNN
The original Hermès Birkin bag, which acted as the blueprint for what would become one of the most desirable celebrity status symbols in the world, will go under the hammer in Paris next month.
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Reposted by Erik Ledbetter
Garth Marenghi's Catbus @catbus.phd · 04/06/2025
the Inhuman League
if you face swap Mulder and Scully they look like a great Synth Pop band.

(above a photo of face swapped Mulder and Scully)
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Urban and front country park rangering today is much more challenging that it was even a mere 10 years ago. Rangers are often tasked to try to resolve difficult situations, driven by large social forces, that manifest suddenly in specific parks and places. www.abc10.com/article/news...
abc10.com
'Unsafe and unacceptable': Sacramento community pushes for William Land Park crackdown
The online petition, which has collected more than 300 signatures, outlines a litany of concerns.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
This is a great thread on the inner experience of depression, and how hard but imperative it is to overcome self-isolation.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge... www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Common People: Pulp's 'rubbish' riff that became a Britpop anthem
Thirty years after its release, what made Pulp's Common People one of Britpop's defining anthems.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
YES. all of this. So well said, Talia. @swordsjew.bsky.social
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
When I visited USS Nautilus in New London the logbook open on the control room plotting table reading "Lat 90 degrees, Long indeterminate" gave me goosebumps.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
From our colleagues in Wisconsin: "Many park structures built by the CCC ... still stand but need to be shored up. Heavily traveled... trails often need upkeep. Another example is the cost of removing trees decimated by emerald ash borers over the past several years." www.wpr.org/news/loved-u...
wpr.org
Much loved and underfunded, Wisconsin State Parks celebrates 125 years
Wisconsin’s 50 state parks comprise nearly 156,000 acres and are enjoyed annually by about 20 million campers, hikers, anglers and others. The parks differ in size, popularity, staffing and ability to...
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Maryland rolls out mandatory reservation system for two state parks.
marylandmatters.org
'We had to do something': Maryland rolls out mandatory reservation system for two state parks - Maryland Matters
The Maryland Park Service is rolling out a weekend reservation system, that kicks in Memorial Day weekend, to battle park overcrowding that led to long lines and park closures. Reservations will begin...
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Happy 40th birthday to New Order's "The Perfect Kiss." youtu.be/l_12gjuysec?...
youtu.be
The Perfect Kiss (2023 Digital Master)
YouTube video by New Order - Topic
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
It's still a romantic job, and you've gotta be at least a bit of a romantic to put up with it. flatheadbeacon.com/2025/05/11/r...
flatheadbeacon.com
Rangers to the Rescue - Flathead Beacon
In the winter of 2017, Jim Dahlstrom reported to the Polebridge Ranger Station for his new assignment in Glacier National Park. For a career National Park Service ranger, it was the type of assignment...
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
.
Tall pine trees with grassy path underneath.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Out and about at Wrightsville Beach NC
Black skimmers and American OystercatcherSun over empty beachJelly washed up on beach, pastel colors.Laughing gulls.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Make your own metaphor.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Beach break. 4 days hiding from the madness.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
That is an amazing story -- history really is a palimsest. I am the temporary custodian of a CCC lumber jacket that was taken back into inventory and later reissued to an internee at Granada. I'll be arranging for it to go there permanently in due dourse.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
That's not trash, mam. That's a Cultural and Historical Resource.
Old car in woods.Old car in woods from rear.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
I've seen them twice, once on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky and once way up Mt Audubon in Indian Peaks Wilderness.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
On this day in 1933 President Roosevelt signed Public Law 73-5 which provided the relief of unemployment through the performance of useful public work -- the birth legislation creating the Civilian Conservation Corps. Happy 92nd birthday CCC!
Historical reenactor dressed as a typical CCC enrollee.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Epic thread, this.
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Reposted by Erik Ledbetter
Gerry Canavan @gerrycanavan.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
every college, corporate, and nonprofit president right now
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
RIP Kevin Drum, a good soul and great practitioner of truly independent public thought and opinion. Say hi to Inkblot and give him a scratchy for me, good sir.
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Erik Ledbetter @bandoblue.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Meanwhile, in the WaPo newsroom, "“Text will no longer be a default and length no more a measure of quality." Okay. Buh bye. Lemme know how that works out for you.
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