Weird Universe Archive
October 2018
October 17, 2018
Mystery Gadget 67
What's going on here?
The answer is at the link.
Or after the jump.
More in extended >>
Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 17, 2018 -
Comments (5)
Category: Science, 1920s
October 16, 2018
Smalt
It was intended to be a hi-tech salt shaker that could play music, had mood lights, and could sync with Amazon’s Alexa, while also dispensing salt in measured amounts. Plus it would track your salt intake. Its creators were looking for $25,000 in crowdfunding to start production, but only raised $9426.More info: indiegogo
Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 16, 2018 -
Comments (5)
Category: Inventions, Technology
Early Uber
Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 16, 2018 -
Comments (0)
Category: 1960s, United Kingdom, Cars
October 15, 2018
Exploding Goose
“Mrs. Stewart told deputies the goose, a wild bird which had made its home with the Stewarts, was flying and then suddenly exploded in midair.”
Roseville Press-Tribune - June 16, 1972
Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 15, 2018 -
Comments (5)
Category: Animals, 1970s
The Marionettes of Donald Cordry
The green fairy is one of four marionettes used by Donald Cordry in his production of "The Three Wishes" that played in Minneapolis between 1930-1934. "The Three Wishes" was first written as a play for puppets by German writer Fronz von Pocci around 1900 and continues to be a popular play performed in many versions. Hand carved from wood, the fairy has an ethereal green painted face with joined eyebrows, black lips, large eyes with some hint of Asiatic features. She wears a clear blue glass pagoda head ornament in her golden hair , and she is wearing a long blue-green velvet dress, with beige tights,and rhinestone shoes with leather heels. Her wings are made of plastic. These charming carved and painted marionettes are great examples of Cordry's decorative sense of design and craftsmanship. The angel is operated with an airplane holder and eight strings.
The Three Wishes was first written as a play for puppets by German writer Fronz von Pocci around 1900. Donald Cordry (1907-1978) was a well known and highly respected American artist, craftsmen and puppeteer of the 1920s and 30s. He was gifted with a great decorative sense and his craftsmanship was extraordinary. Born in Minnesota, Cordry attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1924-1929 and after graduation he went to work for the Board of Education. While his main job was to lecture and teach classes, Cordry took used the opportunity to create and perform his own marionette show with both hand puppets and marionettes. From late 1930 to early 1931 Cordry joined the Rufus Rose Company, owned by Rupert and Margo Rose that played the school and college circuit on the East coast. In the summer of 1931 he traveled to Mexico where he developed a life long interest and dedication to the arts and landscape of Mexico. An avid collector of ethnographic material for over 40 years, Cordry amassed a large collection of indigenous Mexican arts and crafts which he meticulously documented and researched. His passion also included Native American cultures, and in the mid 1930s he worked at the Heye Museum of Indian Art in New York City where he cataloged and researched objects for the museum. (The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History owns a large collection of Mexican masks donated by the Cordry family in the early 1980s.) After returning to Minneapolis in late 1931, Cordry started creating his own puppets. He formed his own company and performed shows until 1934.
The Dolly Sisters and the Three Wishes were popular with young and old audiences alike. In June of 1934, Cordry moved to New York and worked with Tony Sarg, a well known and established puppeteer in his own right, and taught classes at Sarg's Summer School. Cordry made a number of puppets for Sarg and toured with his company from 1934-1936. By 1937 poor health forced him to give up puppetry and he moved to Mexico. He did however, continue his field research on indigenous peoples and later on published two books - Mexican Indian Costumes (1968) and Mexican Masks (c1980). "The Three WIshes" was Cordry's final production before he moved to Mexico with his wife. The puppets and sets from this production were shipped in crates to Mexico and remained there almost fifty years. In 1982, his widow Dorothy Mann Cordry donated this collections to the Smithsonian which included not only the marionettes, but props made to scale and a fully operational puppet stage.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 15, 2018 -
Comments (5)
Category: Art, Design and Designers, Puppets and Automatons, 1930s
October 14, 2018
Old Milk Perfume
Created by Swedish grocery chain Coop as a way to promote their campaign of lessening food waste. The logic here being to teach people that they shouldn't throw out their milk until it actually smells rotten. More info: CNET
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 14, 2018 -
Comments (4)
Category: Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents
Follies of the Madmen #389
"Our whiskey tastes like carrots."
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 14, 2018 -
Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Business, Advertising, 1940s, Alcohol
October 13, 2018
The smell of dead rabbits
Weird science: Spanish researchers have determined that rabbits can differentiate between the poop of predators that have eaten rabbits and those that haven't. From New Scientist:The researchers ran an experiment on three plots of land spread out across the Spanish countryside. One plot was sprayed daily with the smelly essence extracted from the scat of ferrets on a beef-based diet. Another plot was sprayed with the scat odour from ferrets on a rabbit-based diet. The third was sprayed with water as a control. Every few days, the team counted the rabbit pellets left behind on the plots and used the number as an indicator of how often rabbits were visiting the plots to feed.
There were fewer pellets in the plots sprayed with rabbit-based scat odour than in those sprayed with the beef-based scat odour, suggesting the rabbits were avoiding places where it appeared other rabbits were being eaten.
There were fewer pellets in the plots sprayed with rabbit-based scat odour than in those sprayed with the beef-based scat odour, suggesting the rabbits were avoiding places where it appeared other rabbits were being eaten.
I assume this means that some researcher had to search around in a field every day to count rabbit pellets.
The journal article: Acta Ethologica
Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 13, 2018 -
Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Science, Excrement
Progressive Schooling
Posted By: Paul - Sat Oct 13, 2018 -
Comments (0)
Category: Children, 1960s, Universities, Colleges, Private Schools and Academia
October 12, 2018
Compliment Mirror
A new, weird invention from Japan. A mirror that compliments you. More info from JapanTrends.com:The mirror, apparently only available as a prototype right now, has a sexy male voice that will compliment and chat with the woman looking into the mirror. Incorporating a monitor display, camera, and speaker, the device can scan and read the emotions of the user from her face, changing the way it interacts accordingly.
This reminds me of the Digital Wife I posted about recently. Seems like another device aimed at the large number of Japanese people who seem to live alone.
The company website
Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 12, 2018 -
Comments (2)
Category: Inventions, Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Love & Romance
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
