Mystery Illustration 24

What historical figure is this rooster intended to represent? Lord Nelson? Oliver Perry? Maybe Captain Cook?

The answer is here.

Or here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jul 09, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Animals, Nineteenth Century

Sunscreen-Pooping Seagull

What if seagulls were robots and they pooped sunscreen on small children? Nivea made it a reality.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jul 08, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Video, Advertising

Human Thigh Bone Tibetan Trumpet

Full story here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 08, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Music, Religion, Asia, Skulls, Bones and Skeletons

Shave the Corpse

Another phrase that would be a great name for a band.

According to the Charles Addams blog, this ad was originally published in January 1912 in Casket and Sunnyside ("The foremost journal of the funeral profession since 1871").

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 07, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Death, Baths, Showers and Other Cleansing Methods, 1910s

Chicken Croquet

Coolest. Games. Ever. from Athena G on Vimeo.

I'm willing to bet that this is one of a very limited number of toys whose genesis can be traced directly to someone making a bad pun.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 07, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Toys, 1990s, Jokes

Shortest Boxing Match

Great moment in boxing. Dec 29, 1953. Boxer Les Stork entered the ring, took one look at his opponent, and passed out.

I'm guessing that Stork was suffering from dehydration, or some other medical condition. But still, it cannot have been good for his reputation as a fighter.

Washington Post - Dec 30, 1953

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jul 06, 2016 - Comments (6)
Category: Sports, Martial Arts, 1950s

Giant Baby Heads

Full story here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 06, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Art, Babies and Toddlers

9 Beet Super Stretch

Back in 2002, Scandinavian sound artist Leif Inge created a version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that was digitally stretched to be 24 hours long. Which is to say that the music played very, very slowly, but Inge somehow processed the sound to eliminate distortion and pitch shifting. He called his creation "9 Beet Stretch."

There used to be streaming versions of this online, but apparently no more. I couldn't get the stream on Inge's website to work. However, there are some brief samples of 9 Beet Stretch on YouTube, such as this one:



But even though you may not be able to listen to a 24-hour version of Beethoven's Ninth, it is possible to listen to an even longer, slower 24-DAY version of it. Earlier this year, someone (who hasn't revealed their identity) created a "9 Beet Super Stretch" and posted the entire thing, as a free streaming download, on bandcamp.com. Next someone needs to create a 9 Beet Super-Duper Stretch which could be, what, 24 weeks long?

I wonder what it would sound like if you took the 24-day version of the symphony and sped it up to play in one hour?

You can check out a brief sample of 9 Beet Super Stretch below:

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 05, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Music

Follies of the Madmen #287

Click to enlarge.

Original images here. (Pages 10 & 11.)

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 05, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Food, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Comics, 1950s

Skydiver lands on grandmother at 4th of July party

It's like the Fourth of July version of "Grandma got run over by a reindeer."

Ukiah Daily Journal - Aug 14, 1992

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jul 04, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Accidents, Holidays, 1990s