Weird Universe Archive
October 2024
October 22, 2024
Follies of the Madmen #608
Man, this ad is all over the place!
Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 22, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Scatterbrained, Unfocused and Ditzy, Advertising, Junk Food, Twentieth Century
October 21, 2024
Werther’s Hard Caramels Pocket Jeans
Continuing our occasional look at odd blue jeans: Werther's candy is currently holding a contest to give away 200 pairs of limited-edition jeans. The jeans feature, down the side of each leg, "30 tiny pockets perfectly designed to fit a standard bag of Werther’s Original hard caramels."If you don't want to put candy in each pocket, I guess you could store knickknacks in them.
Enter the contest here. You've got until Oct 25.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 21, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Candy, Denim
An Optical Poem
Creator's Wikipedia entry here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 21, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Movies, Stop-motion Animation, Music, 1930s
October 20, 2024
The Sonata of Sleep
The Sonata of Sleep wasn't a musical composition. Instead it was a building designed (but never built) in the 1930s by Soviet architect Konstantin Melnikov. He envisioned it as a place where Soviet workers could enjoy scientifically-enhanced sleep. Details from Cabinet magazine:“Without sleep,” Melnikov argued, “fresh air will do little for our health.” He devised a building in which hundreds of workers could partake of its benefits at the same time. Named “Sonata of Sleep”—a pun on son, the Russian word for sleep or dream—the building consisted of two large dormitories either side of a central block containing washrooms. The dormitories had sloping floors, to obviate the need for pillows, and the beds were to be built-in “like laboratory tables,” in the words of Frederick Starr, author of the standard monograph on Melnikov. Starr goes on to describe the further pains Melnikov took over the ambiance:
At either end of the long buildings were to be situated control booths, where technicians would command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft salubrious scents and “rarefied condensed air” through the halls. Nor would sound be left unorganized. Specialists working “according to scientific facts” would transmit from the control centre a range of sounds gauged to intensify the process of slumber. The rustle of leaves, the cooing of nightingales, or the soft murmur of waves would instantly relax the most overwrought veteran of the metropolis. Should these fail, the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost.
At either end of the long buildings were to be situated control booths, where technicians would command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft salubrious scents and “rarefied condensed air” through the halls. Nor would sound be left unorganized. Specialists working “according to scientific facts” would transmit from the control centre a range of sounds gauged to intensify the process of slumber. The rustle of leaves, the cooing of nightingales, or the soft murmur of waves would instantly relax the most overwrought veteran of the metropolis. Should these fail, the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost.
Model of Melnikov's Sonata of Sleep
image source: interwoven
Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 20, 2024 -
Comments (8)
Category: Architecture, Sleep and Dreams, 1930s, Russia
2002: Child Life One Hundred Years from Now
We have a theme on WU of predictions of a future we have already reached. Some are way off, others more accurate. You may decide for yourself how this book fares. While we do not yet have personal winged flight for kids, we do have telephones with visuals.Read the whole thing here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 20, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Predictions, Yesterday’s Tomorrows, Children, Books, Science Fiction, 1900s
October 19, 2024
Every Book-of-the-Month Club Selection
The Book-of-the-Month Club launched in 1926. New York lawyer Eustace Seligman became the first member.Life magazine caught up with Seligman 23 years later and discovered that not only was he still a member, but he had bought (and still owned) every monthly selection, plus the various extra books offered, for a total of 449 books.
source: Google Images
Seligman died in 1976. I wonder if he had continued to purchase every monthly selection.
So what were the titles of all those books that Seligman owned? Blogger Jeyla Briar has compiled a list of every monthly selection from the Book-of-the-Month Club since 1926. (Around 2015 they started offering 4 or 5 monthly selections rather than one).
I don't recognize the majority of the titles. But if you're looking for a reading challenge, working your way through every Book-of-the-Month Club selection would be a daunting one.
And yes, the Book-of-the-Month Club is still going strong, with around 100,000 current members.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 19, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Clubs, Fraternities and Other Self-selecting Organizations, Books
The Letkiss
One of the weirder life-of-a-mayfly dance trends of the 1960s.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Oct 19, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Fads, 1960s, Dance, Europe
October 18, 2024
Irv Teibel’s Environments
Irv Teibel pioneered recording environmental sounds (thunder storms, waterfalls, and the like). His "Environments" albums sold millions of copies.The interview below, posted on YouTube by his daughter, took place sometime in the early 1980s. In it he describes how he recorded the thunderstorm album by sticking a microphone out his bathroom window.
More info: wikipedia
Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 18, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Nature, Weather, Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings
Whatisit on the Loose
Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 18, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Cryptozoology, 1930s
October 17, 2024
Miss Bombsight
In 1944, U.S. airmen selected Kathleen O'Malley as "the girl we'd most like to see in our bombsight."Being in the bombsight doesn't sound like a good thing.
Kathleen O'Malley's IMDB page. Her earliest credited role was in 1926 when she was thirteen months old. Her final one was in 1998. That's quite a career.
More info: wikipedia
Santa Rosa Press Democrat - Nov 24, 1944
Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 17, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Military, 1940s, Weapons
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