1970s
The Ghost Parking Lot of Hamden, Connecticut
The "Ghost Parking Lot" was the 1978 creation of artist/architect James Wines. It consisted of twenty cars, placed in a mall parking lot, then buried to varying degrees, and finally covered with tarmac.
image source: sitenewyork.com
Torrance Daily Breeze - June 1, 1978
Wines explained: "this fusion of typically mobile artifacts with their environment takes advantage of people’s subliminal connections with the rituals of shopping center merchandising and the fetishism of American car culture."
But over the years the tarmac peeled off the cars and no repairs were made. So in 2003 the city decided to remove the cars. They were replaced by a Starbucks drive-thru. Wines commented, "If (the sculpture) was in a museum, it would've been preserved."
More info: sitenewyork.com
Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 08, 2024 -
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Category: Art, 1970s, Cars
Practising yoga in Hyde Park, London
Photograph by Patrick Ward from Wish You Were Here: The English at Play. Gordon Fraser (publisher), 1977.You can check out Ward's book of photograhs at archive.org, although the metadata incorrectly lists it as "Once a year: some traditional British customs." (which is the book I was looking for, though I enjoyed Ward's photographs also).
Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 05, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Photography and Photographers, 1970s
Slammed door, house fell down #2
Four years ago we posted about the case of Mary Adams of Stockport, England, who slammed her front door shut, causing the house to fall down.The exact same thing happened to Claudine Rossi of Caderousse, France in 1971. She left her house to go shopping, slammed the front door shut, and the whole building fell down.
If I can find one more example of this phenomenon, I'll classify it as 'no longer weird'.
Daily Mirror - Oct 23, 1971
Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 04, 2024 -
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Category: Architecture, 1970s
Asparagus, by Suzan Pitt
Let us know when you bail!The creator's Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 02, 2024 -
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Category: Surrealism, Cartoons, Stop-motion Animation, 1970s
Dis-Gorilla
Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 26, 2024 -
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Category: Animals, Fads, Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Music, 1970s
Va-rice-ity
Heavy sexual innuendo to sell rice.
Life - Oct 3, 1969
Life - (L) Mar 13, 1970; (R) June 19, 1970
Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 19, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Food, Innuendo, Double Entendres, Symbolism, Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink and Subliminal Messages, Advertising, 1960s, 1970s
Rowland Emett’s “Lunar Cycle”
Watch the video below the screenshot.His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 14, 2024 -
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Category: Humor, Inventions, Rube Goldberg Devices, Cartoons, Space Travel, 1970s
First Alaskan Pipeline Oil
I wonder if anyone still has one of these sitting on their desk. I didn't find any for sale on eBay.
Los Angeles Times - June 1, 1978
About a year later it was selling for less than half its original price. Mustn't have been a lot of demand for it.
Salem Capital Journal - Oct 16, 1979
Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 13, 2024 -
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Category: Kitsch and Collectibles, 1970s
How to hold a press conference
Chico Enterprise-Record - June 7, 1972
Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 09, 2024 -
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Category: Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, Officials, 1970s
Subversive Coca-Cola Bottles
In 1965, thousands of sealed Coca-Cola bottles containing "subversive bulletins" were found floating off the coast of the Northern Celebes.
Miami Herald - July 30, 1965
I can't find any information about who was responsible for this strange act of subversion. But it recalls a later subversive use of Coca-Cola bottles by the Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles.
It was during the 1970s when used glass bottles would be returned and refilled. Meireles would modify the bottles before returning them by adding white text on the side showing messages such as "Yankees Go Home" or instructions for turning the bottle into a Molotov cocktail.
More info: Beach Branding and Packaging Design
Posted By: Alex - Sat Sep 07, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Art, Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages, 1960s, 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, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. 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. Contact Us |