June 2024
June 15, 2024
Miss Electric Sign
The primary job duty of Miss Electric Sign was to endure being dangled from a crane beside electric signs.But she also had to sing the anthem of electric signs:
What would everyone do if there were no bright lights?
Would our nation be grand if signs weren't there to show the proper way to everyone in this land?
Time - Mar 25, 1966
Lancaster Eagle Gazette - Sep 19, 1966
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 15, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Signage, 1960s
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 18
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 15, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Death, Europe, United Kingdom, Nineteenth Century
June 14, 2024
Soviet Bus Stops
Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has been on a mission to raise awareness of Soviet bus stops. He feels that they're an under-appreciated form of architectural art, "built as quiet acts of creativity against overwhelming state control." But he warns that they're disappearing fast due to demolition.He collected together over 150 of his photographs in the 2015 book Soviet Bus Stops. More recently, a documentary film, again titled Soviet Bus Stops, follows his years-long effort to photograph the bus stops.
More info: Soviet Bus Stops
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 14, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Architecture, Mass Transit, Books, Documentaries, Bus
Satellite Queen
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jun 14, 2024 -
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Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Children, Space Travel, 1950s
June 13, 2024
The 1975 McDonald’s Puke-In
Oct 17, 1975: A group of protestors calling themselves the Radical Vegetarian League staged a "puke-in" at a McDonald's on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. The protestors drank down a mixture of mustard and water, and then they vomited from the second-floor balcony of the restaurant onto the floor below. They said they were "protesting the poor quality of food served in places like this and the fact that fast food chains go into local communities and drive out small, independent restaurants."Thanks to this story I learned that mustard water has been used as an emetic since ancient times.
Michigan Daily - Oct 18, 1975
Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium - Oct 18, 1975
The McDonald's at which the puke-in occurred. The building was torn down in 1995.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 13, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Restaurants, Riots, Protests and Civil Disobedience, 1970s
Ice Cubes and Beer
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jun 13, 2024 -
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Category: Music, 1960s, Women, Alcohol
June 12, 2024
Patience Worth
Pearl Lenore Curran wrote four novels and many poems, but claimed that they had all been dictated to her by a woman named Patience Worth who had lived over two hundred years earlier. So, A body of work that was literally ghost-written.Info from Superstition and the Press (1983) by Curtis MacDougall:
Note: the Patience Worth poems were included in Braithwaite's 1918 anthology, not the 1917 one.
More info: Wikipedia, Smithsonian magazine
You can also find the Patience Worth novels on archive.org.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 12, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Literature, Books, Poetry, Paranormal
Intermarket Basket-Carrying Derby
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 12, 2024 -
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Category: Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Tradesmen, Manual Laborers, and Skilled Workers, 1930s
June 11, 2024
Passenger safety pods
Landon Tinder had a plan to make air travel safer by putting passengers inside near-indestructible pods. The plane could crash and the pods, he claimed, would survive.Details from the Chicago Tribune (Aug 27, 1989):
Each of Tinder's "passenger pods" would be equipped with its own airtight door, crash bag, cooling system, shock-absorbent shell and oxygen supply.
In the event of a crash or terrorist threat, the pod would seal itself off and the air bag would engage—all in two to three seconds. The 5-inch-thick honeycomb shell of aluminum, fiberglass and titanium could withstand temperatures up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 20 minutes. If the plane crashes in water, the pod would float.
"The aircraft around it can perish; this will stand strong," Tinder said.
Why the airlines didn't like his idea:
At $40,000 a seat, airlines would have to pay about $2 million to fit each plane with ALPS containers. More importantly, the system would reduce each plane's seating capacity by 19 to 28 percent—a proposition that makes industry analysts profoundly skeptical.
"It would ruin the operating economics of every known airline," said Paul Turk of AV-MARK, a consulting firm specializing in airline economics.
Santa Cruz Sentinel - Aug 7, 1989
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 11, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Air Travel and Airlines, 1980s
Girl Stowaways
As you're reading the first column, jump down to the second image, which is a continuation of same.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jun 11, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Stupid Criminals, 1950s, Women
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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 |
