An experimental film from 1960 about flicker effect. Or, as one commenter on YouTube puts it, "One of the most horrible things ever in the history of the cinema."
Arnulf Rainer premiered May 1960 in Vienna, where most of the audience walked out of the screening. Kubelka has stated that after the premiere, he "lost most of [his] friends because of Arnulf Rainer".
Wikipedia also notes that Kubelka refused to digitize the film because "cinema is a completely different medium which cannot be imitated by the digital medium." But it's on YouTube, so someone digitized it.
Inexplicable fashion fad: In 1962, San Francisco adman Howard Gossage came up with the idea of putting the faces of classical composers on sweatshirts and selling them for $4. Consumers could choose between Beethoven, Bach, or Brahms. He quickly sold around 60,000 of them.
If you want one of these sweatshirts today (at least, an original one), you'll have to pay significantly more. On eBay, the asking price ranges from $1500 all the way up to $9000.
Wikipedia defines an answer song as "a song (usually a recorded track) made in answer to a previous song, normally by another artist." For example, "Yes, I'm Lonesome Tonight" by Dodie Stevens was the answer to Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
Frank Hoffmann and William Bailey, in their book Arts and Entertainment Fads, note:
Answer songs were released in particularly large numbers during 1960-1962. The impetus for this deluge of recordings appears to have been the notable success of Jeanne Black's "He'll Have to Stay" (Capitol). Based upon Jim Reeves' "He'll Have to Go," Black's record entered Billboard's "Hot 100" on May 2, 1960, peaking at number four.
In this case, there was even an answer to Jeanne Black's answer: "I'm Gonna Stay" by Johnny Scoggins.
The Original: "He'll Have To Go" (by Jim Reeves, 1960)
The Answer: "He'll Have To Stay" (by Jeanne Black, 1960)
The answer to the answer: "I'm Gonna Stay" (by Johnny Scoggins, 1960)
But back in 1968, reporter Jed Drews heard something else there.
Source: Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) 24 Feb 1968, Sat Page 15
I can find literally not one other online endorsement of this interpretation of the lyrics--except when Mr. Drews's article was inserted into the Congressional Record upon his testimony in DC.
Stinker Stations were (and still are) a chain of gas stations in Idaho. Their corporate symbol was a skunk. During the 1950s they adopted an oddball advertising campaign which involved posting yellow signs with strange messages along the side of roads. Most of the signs were removed after the passage of the Highway Beautification Act in 1965.
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.