March 2023
March 31, 2023
Robin orders sparrow to be shot
Aug 1979: Frustrated by a sparrow that was chirping in his church when a guitar recital was going to be recorded, Rev. Robin Clark ordered the bird to be shot.I'm sure that, after that, no one made a sound during the recital.
The Vancouver Columbian - Aug 8, 1979
I couldn't find a recording of the sparrow-death recital, but here's some music by Konrad Ragossnig.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 31, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Death, Music
Eight Songs for a Mad King
Essay detailing history of the piece here.The creator's Wikipedia page.
Let us know when you bail.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 31, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Music, 1960s, Mental Health and Insanity, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
March 30, 2023
Oh Great, Now What?
Artists Paul Velick and Francis Shishim joined forces in 1975 to create the personae of "Bob & Bob." As Bob & Bob they engaged in performances such as the following:Text from Source book of California performance art.
I'm surprised the restaurants only threw them out. I figured an expensive restaurant would report you to the police, at the very least.
image source: BobandBob.net
Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 30, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Restaurants, Performance Art, 1970s
America’s Most Beautiful Back Contest
I can't be sure if all these videos and photos refer to the same Galveston contest, but it's likely. Except of course for the specifically Florida one.Read about the event--which was briefly revived a decade ago--here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 30, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Regionalism, Twentieth Century
March 29, 2023
“I get all excited” by Joyce Drake
From her 1983 album, Joyce.Given the devotional purpose of the album, the song title seems out of place. And for this reason, it became her most famous song.
Joyce Drake died in 2021. Her obituary at the Sealy News.
More info: discogs.com
Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 29, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Innuendo, Double Entendres, Symbolism, Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink and Subliminal Messages, Music
Follies of the Madmen #560
Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 29, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Body, Cryptozoology, Health, Advertising, 1960s, 1970s
March 28, 2023
Miss Alarming of 1952
Canonsburg Daily Notes - Oct 8, 1952
Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 28, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1950s
Unauthorized Dwellings 29
Full story here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 28, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Education, Unauthorized Dwellings, Twenty-first Century
March 27, 2023
The Dynasphere
Invented by Dr. John Purves in the early 1930s. The driver in the pictures and video is his son.
image source: rarehistoricalphotos.com
Many have noted the limitations of the Dynasphere. For instance, this is from Joe Rhatigan's Inventions That Could Have Changed The World But Didn't (2015):
It seems to me like these are all problems that computer-aided technology could overcome. So, given that the Dynasphere looks like it would be fun to drive, I'm surprised that a version of it isn't in production somewhere.
More info: wikipedia
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 27, 2023 -
Comments (6)
Category: 1930s, Cars
G.I. Hamlet
During WWII, Shakespeare's HAMLET was adapted for soldiers in the Pacific theater. As TIME magazine revealed:
The Theater: Hamlet in Hawaii
Monday, Nov. 27, 1944
The Army, taking the Bard by the horns in Hawaii, has come up with a G.I. Hamlet. Moreover, it has come up smiling. With Major Maurice Evans bossing the job and playing the introspective Prince for the first time since 1940, the effect on the dogfaces has been, for Evans, "simply staggering." They even rise above normal behavior by refraining from hollering or whistling when performers go into a clinch. Commented one G.I.: "They certainly must have done a lot of rewriting to bring that play so up to date."
A blue pencil, not a pen, helped do it: a third of the play has been hacked off.
The modernish costumes helped, too: Hamlet wears trousers instead of tights, delivers "To be, or not to be," in a dinner jacket with silver-brocade lapels. No help at all were the unpoetic sergeants who inevitably shattered the high-tragic mood of the soldier cast's rehearsals, with such prose passages as "Hey, Polonius, you and those other guys get some brooms and clean up the theayter."
Wikipedia reveals:
[the] highly truncated version of the play that he played for South Pacific war zones during World War II...made the prince a more decisive character. The staging, known as the "G.I. Hamlet", was produced on Broadway for 131 performances in 1945/46.
This interesting article has more details, and another picture.
Regarding the quote below, I can just picture Hamlet in a fistfight with his stepfather.
Evans’s romantic, extroverted, unneurotic, virile, and soldier-like Hamlet suggested Lord Byron.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 27, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Theater and Stage, War, Adaptations, Reworkings, Recastings and New Versions, 1940s
| Get WU Posts by Email | |
|---|---|
| Who We Are |
|---|
| 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 |
