I've been reading Matt Novak's Paleo-Future blog since it launched in 2007. His obsession with "retro-futurism" has made him something of a scholar on the subject. Visit the blog today and you'll find posts on a "mechanical man" from 1930 and the futuristic visions of a French commercial artist in 1899.Now Novak wants to make a magazine, and you can help.

He's fundraising over at the collaborative fundraising site Indiegogo, and here's his vision for the magazine and the benefits of funding it into reality:

Paleo-Future Magazine will look at past visions of the future including: jetpacks, flying cars, meal pills, end of the world prophecies, robots, gender roles, architecture, fashion, videophones, monorails, space travel and much more!

If you're the podcast type, you can hear our interview with Novak last year for the UtneCast. You can also read Novak's Utne.com guest post about the best online archives you've probably never heard of.

Source: Paleo-Future

I'm a faithful reader of Matt Novak's Paleo-Future blog. His "look into the future that never was" never disappoints, especially if you like laughing at foolish futurists (because you never lulled yourself into a prepubescent sleep with images of jet packs and flying cars, right?). I'm most fond of Novak's posts about children imagining the future. There's the 14-year-old from Milwaukee in 1901 who imagines a advertisement on the 199th floor of a 120-floor skyscraper in the year 2001 that reads: "Old People Restored to Youth by Electricity, While You Wait." And there's another 14-year-old from Milwaukee, also imagining 2001, who predicted that "The people of the Earth will be in close communication with Mars by being shot off in great cannons. The cannon ball will be hollow to contain food and drink."

My favorite might be Letters by 4th Graders to the Year 2000. "These kids really hit all the major futurism topics of the 20th century," Novak says in his setup, "robot maids, moving sidewalks, flying cars, meal pills, push button everything, education through television, socialism, and candy. Lots of candy." Here's the future these kids imagined:

In the year 2000 I think that cars can fly in the air as fast as they want to without using gas. You can get whatever you want, including candy. Houses will be way up in the sky. You can have robots to do the housework for the mothers. Instead of walking, the the sidewalks will move for you. Your friend, Laurie Smith

In the year 2000 I think thay kids will be taught at home on their TV. The army will be using lazor guns. Cars will be like spaceships and the strreetlights will be on long tall poles. Another means of transportation will be push buttons. Select where you want to go, push a button, step through a door, and you'll be where you wanted to be. Food will be in tablet form, put on water on the tablet and your food will be on your plate. Sincerely yours, R.C. Brown

I think in the year 2000 the earth will be much more polluted than it is. I also think that we will have no more school, and cars can go as fast as they want without getting a ticket. Sincerely, Yolanda Tejeda

Want more? We asked Novak all about Paleo-Future for the Utne Reader podcast.

Source: Paleo-Future 

Image by Bruce Mcall.

Alt Wire is a morning digest of links and information collected and explained by a different guest blogger every weekday. Today's guest is Matt Novak of Paleo-Future. We asked him for five links. He sent us the best online archivists you may not know (want more paleo-future goodness? Listen to our Utnecast interview with Matt).

Charlie Shopsin has cornered the market on 20th century popular science magazines. If you're looking for inspiration from pure American ingenuity, look no further than the Modern Mechanix blog.

While the name of this blog has never made sense to me, the collection of amateur photos from '50s and '60s tourists to American theme parks on Gorillas Don't Blog is pretty interesting to peruse.

The Animation Archive collects comic books, single-panel cartoons and animated films from all eras of illustrated history.

After discovering the Prelinger Archives in college I spent about 3 sleepless months downloading and watching an amazing collection of old industrial and ephemeral films. You've been warned.

BIO: Since he started the Paleo-Future blog 2007, Matt Novak has become an accidental expert on past visions of the future, and has amassed the world's largest (only?) library of media related to the study of paleo-futurism. 

Previous Alt Wire Guests: Jason Marsh, David LaBounty, Jen Angel, Will Braun, Regan Hofmann, Josh Breitbart, Andrew Lam,  Jessica Valenti, Jessica Hoffmann, Noah Scalin, Rinku Sen, Paddy Johnson, Melissa Mcewan,  Fatemeh Fakhraie , Joe Biel , Anne Elizabeth Moore 

If 2007 is the future, then the future is lame. All the flying cars and ray-guns promised by scientists and science-fiction writers have failed to materialize. Proof of the past’s broken promises can be found at Paleo-Future, a blog devoted to antiquated visions of what today could have looked like. The website recently posted a scanned page of the Ladies’ Home Journal from 1900 that asked  “the most conservative minds in America” what the year 2000 would look like.

Here are a few of their expert opinions (with added commentary):

• Efficiency will force Americans to bid goodbye to the letters C, Q, and X. English will be “a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas.” O RLY? LOL!
• “Ready cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today.” Yeah, they’re called restaurants.
• “Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons.” Well, we don’t have the pneumatic tubes yet, but we do have delivery pizza.
• “Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes” giving even the “best music to the families of the untalented.” Would listening to my iPod count?
• The Ladies’ Home Journal also predicts central heating, airplanes, and international phone service.

For all its anachronistic predictions, the Ladies’ Home Journal article evokes a better and more-efficient future. Most of today's future visions aren’t nearly so hopeful. Where do you see us 100 years from now? Leave a comment here, or discuss it in Utne Reader’s online salon. —Brendan Mackie 

Image from the Library of Congress.