Weird Universe Blog — November 12, 2024

Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 59

Remember my rule for this series? The artwork in question had to be made during Khrushchev's lifetime. Well, I thought 1968 was too late. But no! Nikita lived till 1971.


The artist's Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 12, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Art | Avant Garde | Television | Self-referentiality, Circularity, and Endless Loops | 1960s | Russia

November 11, 2024

Unofficial Insignia of the 509th Operations Group

Info from wikipedia:

In addition to its official insignia, during B-2 stealth bomber test flights, some members of the 509th Bomb Wing procured an unofficial insignia involving an alien, the legend To Serve Man (referring to a famous Twilight Zone episode), and the inscription Gustatus Similis Pullus (Dog Latin for "Tastes like chicken").

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 11, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Aliens | Military

The Panama Ship Tunnel

You know, once you state the idea, it just all seems so obvious and practical.

Read the article here.








Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 11, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Inventions | Oceans and Maritime Pursuits | Caves, Caverns, Tunnels and Other Subterranean Venues | Mental Health and Insanity

November 10, 2024

Sharing too much during a job interview

Asheville Citizen Times - July 16, 1975

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 10, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Police and Other Law Enforcement | Stupid Criminals | 1970s

One Dozen Phil Roses





Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 10, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Fashion | Humor | Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings | 1960s

November 9, 2024

A Five-Year Pregnancy

According to a sixteenth-century legend, recounted in the 1560 manuscript Histoires Prodigieuses by Pierre Boaistau, there once was a woman who suffered through a five-year pregnancy. Here's the story as summarized by Dr. Irvine Loudon in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (May 2003):

The woman in question was Marguerite, the wife of George Walezer, who lived in 16th-century Vienna. In 1545 she became pregnant and felt the normal movements of the baby during pregnancy. When she went into labour with 'furious and sharp pains' she called her mother and some midwives. During the long labour they heard a noise and commotion like a cracking inside the mother and thereafter the fetal movements ceased. They assumed, correctly it seems, that the baby had died. The midwives used all their skills but failed to deliver either the baby or the placenta.

Some days later, feeling her pains return, Marguerite summoned a series of most eminent doctors from far and wide, imploring their help. The doctors merely gave her a series of drugs but with no effect. Marguerite therefore 'resolved to let nature take its course and bore with exceeding pain for the space of four years this dead corpse in her stomach'. In the fifth year she finally persuaded a surgeon to open her up and remove the child which was 'half rotted away'. The operation took place on 12 November 1550. Marguerite soon recovered and was 'so full of life and so healthy that she can still [i.e. in 1559] conceive children'.

"The operation on Marguerite of Vienna"



As unlikely as the story may sound, Dr. Loudon argues that it could be true:

Marguerite’s ordeal may have been due to an abdominal ectopic pregnancy. Most ectopic pregnancies occur when the fertilized ovum becomes implanted in the fallopian tube, and a tubal ectopic pregnancy almost always dies after two or three months of gestation. But just occasionally the fertilized ovum becomes implanted in the wall of the abdominal cavity. Sometimes, it is thought, abdominal ectopic pregnancy starts with implantation into the fimbriated end of the fallopian tube and then migrates to the abdominal cavity and invades the peritoneum secondarily...

It may be that Marguerite’s dead baby was never delivered vaginally because it was never in the uterus. Being shut off, so to speak, from the outside world, a dead baby could have escaped being the source of an infection...

In this case, when a surgeon finally agreed to operate, he did not perform a caesarean section; he simply opened the abdominal wall and promptly saw and removed the remnants of the baby. The placenta would not have been a problem because in abdominal ectopics if the baby dies the placenta soon shrivels and can be left intact. This one had five years to shrivel.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 09, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Medicine | Surgery | Medieval Era | Sixteenth Century | Pregnancy

Refrigerator Bowl Queen



Jacksonville State College gamecock football team played against the University of Rhode Island on December 4, 1955 in the eighth annual Refrigerator Bowl at Evansville, Indiana. Gamecocks won 12 to 10. Shown players from the University of Rhode Island and Jacksonville State select a Refrigerator Bowl Queen.







Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 09, 2024 - Comments (4)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests | Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues | Sports | Appliances | 1950s

November 8, 2024

A kiss goodbye

Staten Island Advance - Jun 7, 1975

Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 08, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Suicide | 1970s

Heidi Bruhl

German pop of the Sixties. Was it as weird then as it is now?

Her Wikipedia page.













Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 08, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Music | 1960s | Europe

November 7, 2024

Nati-anal Airlines

Joshua Alper's 1978 book, The Documentary Record of an Infringement, documents his "pseudovandalist" alteration of a damaged billboard to make it read "anal Airlines."

Pre-alteration and damage, the billboard was for National Airlines, which is now defunct.

The book is quite rare, but you can get a copy for $100.

I haven't been able to find a picture of the billboard post-alteration, and I'm not going to pay the money for his book.





Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 07, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Books | Air Travel and Airlines | 1970s | Billboards

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All original content in posts is Copyright © 2016 by the author of the post, which is usually either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.

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