Weird Universe Archive
June 2023
June 10, 2023
Miss Three Dimension
A number of young women were awarded the title of "Miss Three Dimension" in the early 1950s. But actress Shirley Tegge seems to have been the most widely publicized holder of the title.
Akron Beacon Journal - Mar 19, 1950
New York Daily News - May 21, 1953
London Daily Mirror - Mar 2, 1953
The Munster Times - Mar 22, 1953
Below: Shirley Tegge in the 5-minute short "Natural Vision 3-Dimension". She appears about 3 minutes into it.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 10, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Movies, 1950s
James Eads How, The Millionaire Hobo
His Wikipedia page.In addition to advocating for hobos, How chose to live as one, even though he had both money and education. He wore a shaggy beard and rough tramplike clothes. It was said that even ordinary hobos looked well dressed compared to How.[3] From about age 25, he traveled around doing hard work for a living.[11] One of How's contemporaries, sociologist Nels Anderson, describes how fully How immersed himself in the hobo lifestyle and how seriously How took his work:
Millionaire that he is, How has not failed to familiarize himself with every aspect of tramp life. He knows the life better than many of the veteran hobos. He has become so thoroughly absorbed in the work of what he describes as organizing the "migratory, casual, and unemployed"...workers that he practically loses interest in himself. He becomes obsessed with some task at times that he will walk the streets all day without stopping long enough to eat.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 10, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Bums, Hobos, Tramps, Beggars, Panhandlers and Other Streetpeople, Eccentrics, Money, Twentieth Century
June 9, 2023
Cremation Bed
Use it as a couch, a bed, or a coffin.Available from dögg design.
via bookofjoe
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 09, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Death, Furniture
Conquer by the Clock
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jun 09, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Propaganda, Thought Control and Brainwashing, War, Industry, Factories and Manufacturing, 1940s
June 8, 2023
Jan Akkerman
An album cover that would also work as the cover for a horror novel. (Reminds me specifically of that Clive Barker story, "The Body Politic," in which disembodied hands gain consciousness.)
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 08, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Art, Music
All Star Festival: The Very First Modern Benefit Concert
Wikipedia informs us that the very first modern-day benefit concert is deemed to be 1971's CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH. But what has slipped thru the cracks is a 1963 album and event which has the weird distinction of being sponsored by that famous pop music promoter--the United Nations. Below the article are clips from the live performance and a portion of the album.
The album's entry at Discogs.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 08, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Charities and Philanthropy, Music, International Cooperation, Global Events and Planetary-scale Happenings, 1960s
June 7, 2023
How to quit your job and get married on $25 a week
The 1940s answer, according to the Forum Cafeteria in St. Louis, was to save money by eating at their restaurant. Based on the menu, it sounds like it was decent food.I don't think you'd ever save money by eating out nowadays, unless you're ordering from the dollar menu at a fast food restaurant.
St. Louis Post Dispatch - May 1, 1941
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 07, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Restaurants, Advertising, Marriage, 1940s
UPenn Gargoyles
Read about these weird architectural embellishments here, with more pix.And also here.
In the 1890s and the first couple decades of the twentieth century, Penn engaged Philadelphia architects Cope and Stewardson to design several University buildings. With their design for the Quadrangle, whose first section opened in 1896, Cope and Stewardson emulated several vintage eras of English architecture in a style that became known as Collegiate Gothic. In a delightful homage to Elizabethan architecture, they incorporated several dozen bosses into their design. They worked with sculptors Henry Plasschaert and John Joseph Borie (a Penn architecture alumnus) and stone carvers Edmund Wright, Edward Maene and assistants to turn these uncut stones into sculpted figures. Cope and Stewardson approved elevation views and clay models of each proposed boss, which was then carved over a period of three to four days from a fourteen-inch square piece of Indiana limestone that had been incorporated into the Quadrangle.
Mr. Plasschaert and his carvers kept the mood of these bosses whimsical. Parodic figures are abundant, such as a grotesque animal biting the corner of a block of stone, or an architect dressed in an elf costume carrying a basket of fruit. A variety of mythical creatures and bizarre monsters are on display, as is the occasional reference to academic activity, like the creatures brandishing tragedy and comedy masks atop the Mask and Wig clubhouse, or a monkey clutching a scroll labeled “diploma.”
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 07, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Architecture, Regionalism, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century
June 6, 2023
The Hidden Meaning of the Golden Arches
Text from The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive Containers (1995) by Thomas Hine:The pioneer in studying people's emotional response to packages was the marketing psychologist Louis Cheskin, who began his research in the 1930s. He was long associated with the Color Research Institute and he was later immortalized by Vance Packard as the most articulate and engaging of his hidden persuaders. His seminal experiment on packaging involved placing an identical product in two different packages, one identified with circles on the outside, the other with triangles. He didn't ask his subjects to say anything about the packages. He wanted to know which product they preferred and why. He found that 80 percent of his subjects preferred the product in the box with the circles over the one with the triangles. The reason they gave was that the box with the circles was a higher-quality product than the box with the triangles — even though the contents were identical.
"I had difficulty believing the results after the first 200," Cheskin wrote later, "but after 1000, I had to accept that many of the consumers transferred sensations from the circles on a carton cover ... to the contents of the container."
...
Cheskin found that a circle or an oval has the most positive association, but alone, each lacks personality. The circle or oval must somehow be inflected with some other symbolic form or identification. Thus, Tide's concentric circles are played against bold lettering, and the oval of the Amoco logo is bisected by a torch and filled with the company's name. With most packages, the rounded shape is not expressed quite so literally. But images of completeness, receptiveness, and enclosure — feminine forms — provide the underlying theme for a majority of packages. Cheskin worked with McDonald's at the time it was about to abandon arches as architectural elements of its outlets. He advised that the memory of the arches be kept in the form of the M in "McDonald's." His case was based, he said, on research that showed that "the arches had Freudian applications to the subconscious mind of the consumer and were great assets in marketing McDonald's food." In other words, Cheskin said, the arches are "mother McDonald's breasts, a useful association if you're replacing homemade food."
"I had difficulty believing the results after the first 200," Cheskin wrote later, "but after 1000, I had to accept that many of the consumers transferred sensations from the circles on a carton cover ... to the contents of the container."
...
Cheskin found that a circle or an oval has the most positive association, but alone, each lacks personality. The circle or oval must somehow be inflected with some other symbolic form or identification. Thus, Tide's concentric circles are played against bold lettering, and the oval of the Amoco logo is bisected by a torch and filled with the company's name. With most packages, the rounded shape is not expressed quite so literally. But images of completeness, receptiveness, and enclosure — feminine forms — provide the underlying theme for a majority of packages. Cheskin worked with McDonald's at the time it was about to abandon arches as architectural elements of its outlets. He advised that the memory of the arches be kept in the form of the M in "McDonald's." His case was based, he said, on research that showed that "the arches had Freudian applications to the subconscious mind of the consumer and were great assets in marketing McDonald's food." In other words, Cheskin said, the arches are "mother McDonald's breasts, a useful association if you're replacing homemade food."
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 06, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Innuendo, Double Entendres, Symbolism, Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink and Subliminal Messages, Advertising
Follies of the Madmen #567
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jun 06, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Hygiene, Stupid Criminals, Advertising, 1970s
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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 |
