Videos

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I know a lot of you have probably already seen this Kemrit-centric video of New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, but it just makes me so happy.

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The wonderful folks at the Found Footage Festival have posted this infomercial for the most frightening beauty product ever created. Dynasty catfight champion Linda Evans encourages you to purchase this vibrating hockey mask, which was supposed to somehow make you more attractive. Two positives: It didn’t interfere with magazine reading and it frightened small children.

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Stupid-looking and not very functional, this two-wheeled German invention never took off (literally and figuratively) after being introduced to an unimpressed public in the 1950s. There’s not much info online about the Duoped, but it looks to have been the dorkiest way ever to break your ass.

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Mom's working on a sewing machine in the center of this multi-person bicycle.

Charles Steinlauf and his Chicago family were known in the Windy City from the 1930s through the 1960s for creating and demonstrating outrageous freak bikes that somehow worked. The vehicle pictured above was known as the “Goofybike,” and it was probably the oddest of the clan’s many hand-built bicycles. Read about Charles Steinlauf’s wheeled wonders in a 1947 Chicago Daily Tribune article and watch the family take a wild ride in a 1939 newsreel.

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From 1960-64, there was an incredibly ambitious theme park about American history located on 200 acres in the Bronx called Freedomland. It was the brainchild of Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood, who helped Walt Disney create the original Disneyland. The two men had a bitter falling out and Wood went his own way. Freedomland looks like it was amazing, with frontier stagecoach rides, a recreation of the Great Fire of Chicago and park theme music composed by Broadway legend Jules Styne. Unfortunately, it went out of business quickly and was supplanted by the Co-op City housing development.

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A man named Jim Steager sings about Jesus while wearing dog make-up and the world collectively shudders. (Thanks Cynical-C and Boing Boing.)

 

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Shaw photographed in 1934, two years before his voyage to Miami.

Playwright George Bernard Shaw visited Miami in 1936 and sat for an interview with the press on the deck of a cruise ship before setting foot on land. He was in a joking, happy mood, and mostly kidded the press about their idiotic questions. But he did talk (seemingly) seriously about his objections to America’s Constitution. One thing I didn’t realize about Shaw: He walked like a huge dingus. He’s partially kidding, but partially dingus. Watch the video.

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Thanks to Dangerous Minds for posting this trailer for a Hulk film made in Bangladesh. It’s inspiring. I want to drop everything now and make movies.

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A photo of the burning-rope trick, though I don't believe it's Alan Alan himself. (Image by Magicusb.)

Alan Alan (born Alan Rabinowitz) is a retired British magician and escapologist who gained fame in the 1950s for stunts in which he had to escape being buried alive and being suspended and shackled from a burning rope far above the ground. (The latter trick is one he is credited with creating.) I don’t really like such things because they can always go wrong and life seems dangerous enough already. But Alan Alan carved a nice life for himself with such suspenseful acts. In 2006, he was honored by the Magic Circle. Go here to see him performing the burning rope trick in 1959.

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The twisted folks at the Found Footage Festival dug up this jaw-dropping ’80s music video by the Glamour Boyz. I’m not sure, but I think the fellows might have been fans of Michael Jackson, especially that “Billie Jean” song. You can mock them all you want because their gigantic shoulder pads will protect them.

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For those unlucky few who can’t make it over to B.B. King’s in NYC tonight to see Peter Lemongello in person (yes, he’s really booked there), I present you with this 1976 “moon rock experience.” It’s $8.98 if you want the 8-track tape version. Don’t delay–order today! Thanks to PCL Linkdump for posting it.

P.S. I recalled right after I added this post that Peter Lemongello had a cousin who was a mediocre baseball pitcher in the 1970s. His name was Mark Lemongello. What I didn’t know was that in 1982, Mark and another man kidnapped and robbed Peter and his brother, Mike, who was an ex-pro bowler. The criminals took a plea deal and were given seven years’ probation.

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Driving in Los Angeles is cruel and unusual punishment. (Image by Downtowngal.)

The Associated Press has a story about Los Angeles trying to undo the traffic mess it created for itself when it long ago destroyed its beautiful streetcar system. L.A. has temporarily raised taxes and is appealing for a federal loan to reinvent its mass transit system. An excerpt from an article by Daisy Nguyen:

“In the first half of the 20th century the Los Angeles region boasted an extensive system of streetcars and high-speed electric railways including the famed Red Cars. After World War II, Southern California began abandoning those systems in favor of personal automobiles and freeways, leaving mass transit to buses.

Now, with gridlock commonplace, the focus is back on high-capacity transit systems–light rail, interurban heavy rail, dedicated busways–to catch up with the transportation demands of millions of people.

But with federal and state transportation funds dwindling due to a reduction in gas tax revenue, experts say the time is right to test innovative ideas in transportation financing.

‘The national government should help cities that are helping themselves and take advantage of these bold plans to transform how these places operate and function,’ said Robert Puentes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.”



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A nattily attired Bruce Lee does a screen test in 1964 for The Green Hornet. The physical part of the audition begins about three-and-a-half minutes into the footage. Thanks to Marginal Revolution for pointing me toward the video.

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Via kottke.org comes this video of a Korean instructor teaching students how to curse in English. Remember: It’s “bitch,” not “beach.” What a potty mouth.

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This video, which was made in 1898 by Thomas Edison’s film company, shows an Arab-American street urchin doing a proto-breakdance. He’s pretty great.

 

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Sharon Tate in "Eye of the Devil."

It was in 1968, though it seems a million lifetimes ago that Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate wed in London. He dressed in mod fashion and she in a wedding dress miniskirt. Michael Caine, Candice Bergen and Joan Collins were guests. It was the year before Tate was murdered in Los Angeles by the Manson family and about a decade before Polanski’s fall from grace. British Pathé was on the scene to make a newsreel about the nuptials. View it here.

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Back during the original Ed McMahon Star Search of the 1980s, aspiring comedian Nick Gomez sent in an audition tape. Luckily, the twisted geniuses at the Found Footage Festival recovered it and saved his comedy stylings for posterity. There is some serious Rupert Pupkin energy going on here.

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Thanks to the great Kottke.org for pointing me toward this incredibly rare footage of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, sitting for an interview and explaining how and why he created the most famous detective of them all, Sherlock Holmes.

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I may not be the most observant person, but I do believe that Steve Lee likes guns. The Australian singer-songwriter recorded an album of 12 ditties about how much he goddamn loves firearms.

 

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This video will change your life but not for the better. I will never visit you, Jamaica. (Thanks Dangerous Minds.)


Thanks to the fabulous science geeks at Boing Boing for pointing me in the direction of this entertaining video made by the clever engineers at Dyson. They made a helium ballon neutrally buoyant and allowed it travel on its own through a complex maze of the company’s very cool bladeless fans. Fun.

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Thank you to the comedy writer and crap video enthusiast Robert Popper for posting this incredible clip of one man’s battle with gravity. Remember: It’s not so easy to dance while the Earth is constantly moving. There is, however, no excuse for the singing. Science has no answers. None at all. Enjoy.

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A boy water diviner from the early 18th-century.

Water divining or dowsing or water witching is the process by which a human being allegedly uses some divine gift to find where water is located below the earth’s surface. This magical thinking helped folks decide where to dig for wells. It’s hokum, of course, but hokum with a long history. In 1954, a brief newsreel profiled Catherine Bent, a Brit who supposedly was an expert in the field. She believed fully in her “powers,” her body going into wild spasms as she received information about where the H2O was hidden. Watch it here.

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I already posted a video by that tool Ryan who created instructional videos about the art of trash talking. But I can’t leave well enough alone. The dipshit made a bunch of clips on different aspects of talking smack, including one where he teaches you how to use physical imitations to humiliate your “opponent.” Watch closely, aspiring actors: This is how young Olivier did it.

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This footage, from something called Expert Village, is an apparently sincere how-to video in which a dillweed named Ryan teaches you how to talk trash to your “opponents” and defeat them with your brilliant insults. Never, ever take any advice from this genius or you will be punched repeatedly in the face.

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