Weird Universe Archive
January 2023
January 21, 2023
Ballads for the Age of Science
The whole playlist is here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 21, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Education, Science, Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings, Children, 1960s
‘The Girl With Whom I Would Most Like To Go Skiing For Two Weeks in the Cairngorm Mountains’
Dec 1966: Instead of simply being called 'Miss Cairngorm Mountains,' or something similar, June Fletcher was awarded the oddly specific title of 'The Girl With Whom I Would Most Like To Go Skiing For Two Weeks in the Cairngorm Mountains'.
Lincolnshire Echo - Dec 2, 1966
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 21, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Sports, 1960s
January 20, 2023
Noses
Read it here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 20, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Body, Science, Psychology, Self-help Schemes, 1950s
Midwatch In Verse
A new book explores the obscure poetic tradition of sailors in the U.S. Navy writing the first deck log of the new year in verse. As explained by the NW Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:For the average person, the deck logs of the U.S. Navy are what Dave Johnson would call mind-numbing and indecipherable.
The records, quasi-legal documents, were a requirement of each ship to note various bits of technical information -- ship speed and direction, even the number of propeller rotations and other things that would only be useful or make sense if you were in the Navy.
But one time of year, sailors were allowed to deviate from the benign record keeping and exhibit creativity with brief storytelling. During the first watch of the New Year, from midnight to 4 a.m., the Officer of the Deck could record in verse.
The records, quasi-legal documents, were a requirement of each ship to note various bits of technical information -- ship speed and direction, even the number of propeller rotations and other things that would only be useful or make sense if you were in the Navy.
But one time of year, sailors were allowed to deviate from the benign record keeping and exhibit creativity with brief storytelling. During the first watch of the New Year, from midnight to 4 a.m., the Officer of the Deck could record in verse.
No one is sure when, or why this tradition began. The earliest known example (reproduced below) dates back to 1926, but the tradition was apparently already well established by then.
More info: midwatch-in-verse.com
| I stand on the deck at midnight As the clocks are striking the hour And I’ll keep the watch until morning To the best of my humble power. We are anchored in Pedro harbor Tho there isn’t much of a lee And why they call it a harbor Is something I never could see But our hook is in hole A seven And our center anchor chain Has forty-five in the hawse pipe And a very gentle strain. When we anchored our trusty leadsman Made a very careful cast Finding eight and a half good fathoms As the bugler blew the blast. And down below in the fire rooms Which the black gang ought to man The steam is blowing bubbles In number seven can. All the battleship divisions Swing nearby on the blue Except the West Virginia And the Mississippi too. The Senior Officer Present Floats peacefully in his sleep On the good ship California The guardian of the deep. At one fifteen Roskelly A pill rolling pharmacist’s mate Returned from his leave on schedule He’s lucky he wasn’t late. That’s all the dope this morning Except, just between us two If the Captain ever sees this log My gawd what will he do? E.V. Dockweiler, Ensign, U. S. Navy |
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 20, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Military, Books, Poetry
January 19, 2023
Casseroles I Have Known
For some reason, this 1973 cookbook sounds rather melancholy.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 19, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Cookbooks, 1970s
Gamma Goochee
A YouTube commenter explains:
According to the notes to "Great Googa Mooga" (Ace CHCD 830) Gamma Goochee Himself was a dental technician named John Mangiagli from southern California. Each year, he would spend his summer vacation making and promoting a self-produced record. This disk was the only one that even came close to charting in the US. The backup singers were his pre-teen nieces. Strange song, even stranger story behind it..
Hear another song by Mangiagli at the link (non-embeddable).
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 19, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Amateurs and Fans, Jabberwocky, Scat Singing, Nonsense Verse and Glossolalia, Music, Outsider Art, 1960s
January 18, 2023
An eccentric spelling of height
I came across the following anecdote in Coronet magazine (Sep 1955):John H. Holliday, peppery founder and editor of The Indianapolis (Indiana) News, stormed into the composing room one day, determined to find the culprit who had spelled height—"hight." A check of the original copy showed that it was spelled "hight" and that, furthermore, the copy had been written by Mr. Holliday.
"If that's the way I spelled it, that's correct," he said—and the word was spelled "hight" in The Indianapolis News for the next 30 years.
"If that's the way I spelled it, that's correct," he said—and the word was spelled "hight" in The Indianapolis News for the next 30 years.
I thought this sounded like an urban legend of journalism, but a check of The Indianapolis News archive confirmed that the newspaper did indeed consistently substitute 'hight' for 'height' — and not just for 30 years. They did it from 1887 until 1947 when, as reported by Time magazine, they finally updated their style guide.
The misspelling occasionally attracted the attention of readers:
The Indianapolis News - Aug 10, 1934
But as far as I can tell the paper never told their readers why they were misspelling the word. It was a long-running, private joke kept going for sixty years (long after Holliday had died) by the editors.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 18, 2023 -
Comments (8)
Category: Journalism, Puns and Other Wordplay
The Miss Ka Palapala Beauty Contest
Contestants divided into racial categories? Seemed like a good idea at the time. Until a cow almost won.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 18, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, South Pacific, Twentieth Century
January 17, 2023
People who know… buy Bigelow
The carpet for when you just got back from the clown convention and feel like lying on the floor.
Or for topless, indoor sunbathing.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 17, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Advertising, Interior Decorating, 1960s
Shoes with Hinged Soles
There must be a good reason why, for millennia now, all shoes have come with unibody-construction soles. But Robert M. Lyden thought differently.Full patent here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 17, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Body, Inventions, Patents, Shoes, 1990s
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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 |
