Robert Krulwich has a story on NPR about meat-eating furniture, including the flypaper clock featured in this video. At least it doesn’t show the coffee table that guillotines and devours mice that it attracts with cheese bits. No joke.
Tags: Robert Krulwich
Clown. (image by Robert Lawton.)
Clown Painting – $20 (holbrook)
For people who like clown paintings.
Computer made from found wood by Ron van der Ende.
Juxtapoz has a photo series about the work of Dutch artist Ron van der Ende, who uses found wood to carve hyperrealistic sculptures of artifacts of the Industrial and Information Ages. In an interview with diskursdisco, the artist explains how he creates his work:
“Ron van der Ende: I collect old doors and stuff. Old painted wood that I find in the street. I take it apart and skin it to obtain a 3mm thick veneer with the old paint layers still intact. I construct bas-reliefs that I cover with these veneers much like a constructed mosaic. I do not paint them!”
Tags: Ron van der Ende
Nineteenth-century slot machine. (Image by Marcotis.)
Ragged urchins were everywhere in Brooklyn in the 1890s. One such lad, named Jon Wright, had an adventure that involved a hatchet, a slot machine and some chocolate. The Daily Eagle reported on his thievery in its August 5, 1891 issue. An excerpt:
“Jon Wright is a ragged urchin 12 years old and living at 39 Bergen street. He was arrested this morning by Officer James W. Webb at 4 o’clock while parading West Brighton armed with a hatchet.
When the officer asked him what he was doing out at that hour he explained that he was ‘hustling.’
‘You’ll hustle to police headquarters,’ said the officer.
On the way the officer noticed the boy’s pockets bulging out, and on searching found in them a couple of quarts of chocolates, such as come out of the nickel slot machines. The boy said he had broken open some machines with the ax because he liked chocolate. Beside, he had not been home for some days and was hungry. He was a cool little fellow and asked for a cigarette as soon as he got in the cell. He was held until his story should be verified.”
Tags: Jon Wright, Officer James W. Webb
China simply doesn’t have this type of ingenuity. (Thanks Reddit.)
You can't tell from the gates of Hollybrook Cemetery in Southampton, but it's like a Disney cartoon inside. Click the "Daily Mail" article to see some examples.
Emily Dickinson’s words about religious worship (“Some keep the Sabbath going to the Church —
/ I keep it, staying at Home”) should apply equally to mourning. For some people it’s a private occasion and for others it’s a New Orleans funeral. No one should tell someone else how to mourn.
Marginal Revolution pointed me to an article by Bel Mooney in the Daily Mail about colorful graveyards in England, which are overflowing with bright balloons, toys and sculptures of cartoon characters. Some people are not happy about it. An excerpt:
“There is a growing trend for graves to be festooned with toys, plastic ornaments and trinkets, balloons, wind-chimes and hanging objects.
The sight and sound of these exhibitions grows ever more exuberant – so much so that an Essex council is introducing a one-month limit on what can be put on a grave. Other councils are surely likely to follow.
Traditionalists argue that graveyards are places of peace and contemplation and those who visit to lay flowers on Mum’s grave shouldn’t have to negotiate their way past piles of soft toys or be disturbed by the cacophony of competing wind-chimes.
But for their part, those who want to heap graves with cuddly toys protest their right to remember their dead in whatever way they choose. Which means that anything goes, from a gravestone in the shape of a Newcastle United shirt, to life-sized effigies of the deceased, to resin pigs and dogs, plastic dolphins and even meerkats.
I would never use the word ‘tacky’ to describe such displays – though many people do. It sounds too snobbish, too much to do with a certain kind of taste.”
Tags: Bel Mooney
“God’s Angry Man,” Werner Herzog’s 1980 look at Los Angeles televangelist Gene Scott, follows the colorful Stanford grad who screamed at and threatened his television flock with pro-wrestling flair. Herzog’s portrait captures the holy man at the height of his powers. What became of Scott in the years after the film? He divorced and remarried in his dotage, becoming wedded to a pretty 32-year-old woman named Melissa, who was previously known as porn star “Barbie Bridges.” Scott, who died in 2005, was remembered in a Los Angeles Times obituary. An excerpt:
Gene Scott, the shaggy, cigar-smoking televangelist whose eccentric religious broadcasts were beamed around the world, has died. He was 75.
Scott died Monday after a stroke, family spokesman Robert Emmers said.
For three decades, Scott was pastor of Los Angeles University Cathedral, a Protestant congregation of more than 15,000 members housed in a landmark downtown building.
In the mid-1970s, Scott began hosting a nightly live television broadcast of Bible teaching. His nightly talk show and Sunday morning church services were aired on radio and television stations to about 180 countries around the world by his University Network.
Scott was most recognizable by his mane of white hair and scruffy beard.•
Tags: Gene Scott, Melissa Scott, Werner Herzog
"Interesting things in jars." (Image by Gaetan Lee.)
AUTOSKREELIK (SOZO)
Private collector seeking: Prosthetics, lusus naturae, medical devices, anatomical bits, mech, 3-D, tools, analog communication, taxidermy, interesting things in jars, conjoined_____?, head(s) on stick(s), dolls no one will look at, foetus, scientific ephemera, parasites, curious moulds, masks, skin, iron maiden, photographs, skellingtons, exotic ducks, eyes, flail. I am not in retail. Pictures appreciated.
Arthur Jones' workout regimen included Nautilus pullovers and chain smoking.
Bill Bowerman, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the recently deceased Jack LaLanne all helped spark fitness crazes in America, but half-crazy Arkansan Arthur Jones may have had a bigger influence on the modern health club than anyone else. Jones created Nautilus machines, which resembled the exterior of a shellfish, selling his first unit in 1970. This equipment shifted the focus of exercise from barbell lifting to high-intensity machine training.
In 1985, Time profiled Jones and his growing empire. If he just pioneered exercise equipment, Jones would have been interesting in a small way. But he was also a cantankerous world traveler and adventurer who was married six times to much younger women and had the kind of massive ego and appetites particular to the self-made American male.
His 2007 obituary in the New York Times included Jones’ famous quote: “I shot 630 elephants and 63 men, and I regret the elephants more.” An excerpt from the Time piece about Jones when he was 58:
“The gravel-voiced Jones has none of the polish of his machines. He wears horn-rimmed glasses and ill-fitting pants, gulps coffee, chain-smokes Pall Malls and often totes a Colt .45. ‘When I was broke, I was crazy; now that I am rich, I am eccentric,’ he declares. He is about 65 but refuses to confirm it. His motto for summing up his favorite pursuits: ‘Younger women, faster airplanes and bigger crocodiles.’
Jones has had five wives, all of whom he married when they were between the ages of 16 and 20. He lives with his current spouse Terri, 23, on his 600-acre Jumbo Lair spread near Ocala, Fla., which is also home to 90 elephants, three rhinos, a gorilla, 150 snakes, 300 alligators and 400 crocodiles. The animals come in handy for Jones’ research projects, which he and his staff conduct with no particular goal. ‘If I knew what I was going to discover, I wouldn’t do it,’ huffs Jones. ‘Very little in life happens according to plan.’ But with his growing fortune, Jones has plans that tend to happen.”
Tags: Arthur Jones
Arianna Huffington: a friend of measles.
The acquisition of the Huffington Post gives AOL ownership of some brilliant muckraking.
Tags: Arianna Huffington, Jenny McCarthy
While on the subject of U.S. Postal Service history, I should point out that the above photograph comes from the Smithsonian with the following eye-popping caption:
“After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service (with stamps attached to their clothing; the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination). The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.”
Taken from the 1893 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac.
- Explosives
- Poisons
- Liquids
- Ardent
- Inflammable oils
- Animals (alive or dead)
- Fresh fruit liable to decomposition
- Insects (except queen bees and their attendant bees and dried insects when safely packed)
- Substances exhaling an offensive odor
- Obscene and indecent books, prints, writings or papers
- All letters upon the envelopes of which, or postal cards indecent, lewd, obscene or lascivious delineations, epithets, terms or language are written or printed
- All matter concerning lotteries or other similar enterprises offering prizes, or concerning schemes devised or intended to defraud the public or for the purpose of obtaining money under false pretences.
- All mail matter not addressed to a post office or to no particular person, firm, company or publication
The 1905 IRT wreck occurred just a few minutes after seven in the morning.
September 11 was an ominous date in NYC history even before 2001, if on a smaller scale. Due to a switching error, a horrendous 1905 train wreck killed 12 and seriously injured another 48 in Manhattan on the erstwhile IRT Ninth Avenue line at West 53rd Street. As this astounding (and anonymous) photo illustrates, it was a horrifying calamity of Hollywood blockbuster proportions long before movies were capable of simulating such disasters. The motorman, Paul Kelly, faced criminal charges for the crash because police suspected the incident was a willful act connected to an imminent strike by the motormen. Kelly went on the lam and eluded capture for nearly two years. The July 1, 1907 New York Times reported on his arrest in San Francisco. An excerpt:
“Paul Kelly, wanted by the New York police on a criminal charge growing out of the death of twelve persons in an elevated railroad wreck on Sept. 11, 1905, was arrested here last night by local detectives and detained pending orders from New York. Kelly admitted his identity.
The day before the strike of the elevated railroad men in New York, Kelly, who was a union motorman, was in charge of the train which was wrecked. It was charged that Kelly willfully disobeyed orders. He disappeared, and the Police Commissioner of New York offered a reward of $500 for his arrest.
Kelly has been here for a year, and has been in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad in a local freight yard.”
Tags: Paul Kelly
I previously posted a clip of a 1950s housewife on LSD, but let’s see what acid does to a girl with an orange.
Tags: Larry Fine
"If you don't wait on me I'll report you."
Of all the important and momentous events in the life of writer Oscar Wilde, riding on a Long Island train wasn’t one of them. But that didn’t stop the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from reporting on a minor kerfuffle he was involved in while aboard a train headed for Long Beach, in its August 24, 1882 issue. Wilde’s haughtiness with a conductor was apparently met with pure cheek. An excerpt:
“Oscar Wilde has been badly snubbed by the guests of Long Beach and other resorts on Long Island. In traveling between Hunter’s Point and Long Beach in a drawingroom car the other day he occupied two chairs in the laziest kind of way. Presently Conductor Billy Reynolds passed through.
‘Conductor?’ called out Oscar.
‘What is it, sir?’
‘Hand me some ice water,’ commanded Oscar.
‘There’s the tank; fill in,’ tartly replied the conductor.
‘Impudence, damned impudence,’ chimed in Sam Ward. ‘I’d report the fellow, Oscar.’
‘See here, young man,’ cautioned Oscar, ‘if you don’t wait on me I’ll report you.’
‘Report and be damned,’ said the conductor. ‘I sized you up long ago.’
Oscar was as good as his word. The railroad officials laughed over it, and that conductor is said to be in line for a promotion.”
??????????
Dan Callahan’s Coat – $1 (Oakland Gardens, NY)
For sale is a worthless coat formerly owned by a worthless person that goes by the name of Dan Callahan. The coat is roughly 90 years old and reeks of shit. It’s covered in dog hair and numerous other unidentifiable pieces of fuzz and/or actual dog shit.
By purchasing this item you will also receive the pocket contents which are as follows:
– 1 used and broken golf tee
– 1 empty box of cigarettes
– 2 broken cigarettes
– 1/4 empty tin of mint skoal pouches
– 15 State Farm Business Cards
– No Life
– 1 half consumed dog biscuit
– 1 dead frog
– 4 bags of Nike’s shit
– Dan Callahan’s 10 steps to success guide
– Sidewitz’s dad
– Forged scorecard
– Croxley’s coupon for 10 cent wings
– 1 giant sarcastic asshole
– Voucher for a free fluoride rinse
– Tee time for Bethpage Black in 2028
– The most hated human being alive
– His dad’s friend Leo
– Unlimited bitching & moaning
– Unlimited horseshit golf advice
– 1 really wide driveway
– 1 more of anything anyone else has
Ehhhhh you should probably buy this. Price negotiable.
Tags: Dan Callahan
A few search engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:
Afflictor: Encourgaing circus strongwomen to break chains since 2009.
- New DVD: Dogtooth.
- Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Rivers and Tides (2003).
- Miscellaneous Media: Willie Mosconi’s 1965 book about pocket billiards.
- Listeria: Attractions at NYC dime museums (1880s).
- Old Print Articles: Alcoholic acrobat dies in Brooklyn (1887) + Jugglers cause mayhem (1889-1901) + Circus performers have grand NYC wedding (1863),
- Classic Photographs: Artist Neysa McMein carries the flag (1917) + Swimming in NYC’s East River (1921).
- Featured Videos: What’s the Internet? (1994) + Inside Punk magazine’s offices (1976) + London latex fetish doc (1977) + How Silicon Valley came to be + Computer coaches basketball (1959) + Attack of the Puppet People trailer (1958) + Octopus exits from empty beer bottle + Scenes from Cyber Seeker (1993).
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Selling my urine + Will trade my artwork for couple’s therapy + Selling crappy Mets for $750 + Ugly paintings wanted + Need inexpensive engagement ring + Looking for a cheap V-Day gift.
- Charlie Smith did not live until 137.
- The businessperson who most influenced Steve Jobs.
- Condom kingpin Julius Fromm was ruined by the Nazis.
- Sven Birkerts prophetically explains the Internet in 1994.
- The 1978 assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan as recalled by his daughter.
- Darcy Padilla’s brilliant photo series tells the heartwrenching story of Julie Baird.
- Mickey Rourke remembers his dog days in NYC.
- Legless NASA robot heads into space.
- Gay Talese recalls his first article for the New York Times.
- A smart look at the ’60s fashion scene in London.
- Urban spelunkers tour subterranean Paris.
- Stem cell spraygun cures burn victims.
- Has any tool ever disappeared completely from Earth?
- The fastest solar-powered car in the world.
- Roads that automatically melt snow.
- Afflictor Nation: Canada dethroned in January.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.
A fascinating five-minute clip about the landmark NYC magazine, Punk, which began publishing in 1975. The mag featured interviews conducted by writer Legs McNeil, who, according to the narrator of this British doc, was encouraged to ask his subjects “the dumbest questions because punk…is anti-intellectual.” I don’t know that McNeil really required much encouragement. I interviewed him once and he was (unsurprisingly) a huge asshole. Fuck you, Legs. (Thanks to The Documentarian.)
Tags: Legs McNeil
Gay Talese in 2006, (Image by David Shankbone.)
During a 2009 interview with the Paris Review, New Journalism legend Gay Talese recalls how he published his first article at the New York Times. An excerpt (Thanks Longform):
“The copy boys had to go at night to Times Square to wait for the arrival of the late-evening tabloids, which we’d deliver to the editors so that they could see what the other newspapers were reporting. While I was waiting in Times Square one night I became transfixed by that electronic news ticker scrolling around three of the sides of the old New York Times building. Fifteen thousand lightbulbs spelling out that day’s headlines, in five-foot-high letters. I wondered, How do they do that?
"Fifteen thousand lightbulbs spelling out that day’s headlines, in five-foot-high letters. I wondered, How do they do that?"
After I delivered the papers I had some free time, so I went back to the old Times building and I climbed the stairs until I found a door open on the fourth floor. Behind it was a man standing on a ladder, holding what looked like an accordion. I said, Excuse me, I’m a copy boy, and I was just wondering, what are you doing? He said, I’m doing the headlines. I asked him how he did it. He said, They call me and read me the headlines, and I type them into this device here, and it makes the bulbs light up in the right way. He said he’d been working there for twenty-five years. I asked him what his first big headline was, and he said, Oh, election night, 1928. HERBERT HOOVER BEATS AL SMITH. I asked him if I could come back with a notepad and interview him about his career and some of the famous headlines he’d written, and he agreed.
One of the good things about being a copy boy was that you got to know a lot of people on the staff. Especially if you were polite. I had good manners, thanks to growing up in the store—a reverential attitude toward the customer. So I approached Meyer Berger, one of the famous reporters on the paper at the time and a wonderful, generous man. He said I could write up the piece on his typewriter and show it to him. I did, and he liked it. He showed it to his editor, and soon it was published, without a byline, on the editorial page.”
Tags: Gay Talese, Meyer Berger
Even the guts of Paris look beautiful. (Thanks Open Culture.)
"I am a wanting a used designer handbag for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day."
I could use your help please read Looking for a Designer Handbag for my GF
I could use your help
I am a Wanting a used Designer Handbag for my girlfriend for Valentines day PLEASE HELP last year she hated my Gift she said it looked like I bought it at a garage sale could you please kindly respond for more details I reside in newyork Thanks again for your help
"There will be plenty for R2 to do while waiting for its lower extremities." (Imaghe by NASA.)
The specimen pictured on your left is Robonaut 2 (or R2 for short), the first human-like robot that NASA will send into space. In February, R2 joins the International Space Station to aid in conducting scientific projects. The robot’s legs aren’t ready yet, so it’s launching ahead of them and they will be sent up and attached in space when they’re ready. The same thing happened with Buzz Aldrin, who was merely a torso when he first went to the moon. His limbs and genitals were shipped separately. An excerpt from a NASA news release:
“NASA’s Robonaut 2 is primed and ready for launch aboard space shuttle Discovery in February. R2 is so ready, in fact, that it’s going up ahead of its legs, which will follow on a later launch.
‘The robot’s legs aren’t ready yet,’ says Rob Ambrose of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. ‘We’re still testing them. But there will be plenty for R2 to do while waiting for its lower extremities.’
R2 will be the first humanoid robot to travel and work in space, so it’ll be training for some big responsibilities.
‘This robot will eventually become the space station crew’s right-hand ‘it.” (Ambrose says R2 is neither male nor female.)
Thanks to the legs and a few other upgrades, ‘it’ has a bright future. In fact the ultimate goal is for R2 to help the astronauts with EVAs. But first, like a student in school, the robot must progress stepwise as new features – like legs — are added and it acquires new abilities.”
Tags: Rob Ambrose, Robonaut 2 (R2)
Guangzhou is one of the cities included in the Pearl River project. (Image by Myouzke.)
Yglesias has a post about the latest Chinese mass development, a megacity along Pearl River which will link many of its urban manufacturing areas with a dizzying array of infrastructure projects. The post also decries the lack of regional planning in the United States, while completely ignoring the land grabs and uprooting of reluctant people necessary to make such sweeping changes. Also: Some Chinese megalopolises, like Ordos, become insta-ghost towns. But here’s the Yglesias screed:
“I would say the key merit of this plan isn’t just the possibility for more coherent regional planning (it might work out well, or the planning might be out of touch and inept) so much as it is the deliberate desire to keep filling in China’s most prosperous, highest-productivity area. And it’s quite reasonable to expect people to continue flowing away from the poor countryside to opportunity in richer areas, and specifically this area which is quite prosperous by Chinese standards. Rich, productive urban areas are, after all, where the best opportunities lie and it’s sensible for the Chinese to be planning for the infrastructure needs of a future in which more people flock to them.
The tragedy is that we’ve largely stopped doing this in the United States. Of course people still flock to the Boston-Washington corridor, the Bay Area, etc. But we don’t adopt the kind of infrastructure and zoning policies that would facilitate those areas becoming substantial denser. Consequently, instead of having the fastest net population growth in the richest metropolitan areas (or states) we have people flocking to Houston and Phoenix in search of cheap housing.”
After watching John Samson’s infamous, trippy 1977 documentary, “Dress for Pleasure,” which profiles leather, rubber and vinyl fetishists, I don’t really have any better idea why some people gain sexual gratification from dressing in these materials. But it’s still a powerful movie that’s hard to look away from. It also gives a glimpse into Malcolm McLaren’s SEX clothing shop in London and serves as a pretty great fashion documentary of the type of punk wear that his partner Vivienne Westwood later brought to the mainstream. I would point out that several bare breasts make this film NSFW, but if you’re watching fetish documentaries at your desk, you obviously stopped caring long ago. (Thanks to The Documentarian.)