Greenwich Village 1960

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 15, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Regionalism, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, Landmarks, Monuments, Sightseeing, 1960s

Merry Christmas from the Family

Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 23, 2008 - Comments (1)
Category: Holidays, Music, Regionalism, Stereotypes and Cliches

Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas)

Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 17, 2008 - Comments (5)
Category: Holidays, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Music, Regionalism, Children, Husbands, 1970s

The Chattanooga Twist

I'll bet you never knew what song Chattanooga Hookers like to dance to, did you?

What else but 1962's "The Chatanooga Twist," by Danyel Gerard!




Here's DG's other big hit.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 25, 2008 - Comments (5)
Category: Music, Regionalism, Foreign Customs, 1960s, 1970s, Dance

Road Maps: real and imaginary

An unusual hobby: Adrian Leskiw designs fictional cities and nations, and then he draws roadmaps of them. In painstaking detail. He describes himself as a "roadgeek". You can browse through his collection of fictional roadmaps at The Map Realm. One use I can think of for these would be to sneak them into rental cars. (Mislabel them, of course.) Tourists would spend hours examining them, trying to figure out where they were.



But wait, there's more. Leskiw also collects covers of real roadmaps. He has an extensive collection of the official Michigan, Ontario and Ohio road maps. In the old days transportation departments apparently hired artists to design these covers. Now they seem to just slap generic photos on them.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 25, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Art, Regionalism, Travel

Lucifer in Chatanooga

More proof that Chatanooga is a happening place.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 21, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Regionalism, Religion, Video

Ghost Riders in the Sky

I don't think we heard enough of Vaughan Monroe's big hit in yesterday's Forest Service post, so here's the whole thing.

We know here at WU that mortal cows are deadly--so just imagine how evil a ghost cow is!

Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 19, 2008 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Music, Paranormal, Regionalism, 1940s

The Elves of Iceland

Maybe the Icelandic banking meltdown can be remedied with pots of elvish gold.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 10, 2008 - Comments (6)
Category: Cryptozoology, Fictional Monsters, Eccentrics, New Age, Paranormal, Regionalism, Religion, Foreign Customs, Europe

German Humor

Some might regard the phrase "German sense of humor" as an oxymoron. Nevertheless, the Caricatura Museum, recently opened in Frankfurt, is dedicated to exploring exactly that subject. According to the Telegraph:


It's first event: a Mohammed lookalike competition.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 28, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Humor, Regionalism

Lost in Translation

I'm posting this from a Starbucks in Bremen, Germany. (I'd prefer to be in a German cafe, but Starbucks turns out to be the easiest place to find an internet connection.)

Most Germans speak very good English. Which means it's not common to find the kind of bizarre translation errors that are a common feature of Japanese or Chinese English. But they do pop up occasionally. I walked past this sign outside my hotel in Bremen at least ten times before I noticed that something was wrong with it.

This German department store would probably have to change its name if it wanted to open a chain in America.

Finally, when I saw these "Berliners" (jelly donuts) on sale, it reminded me of one of the most famous mistranslation urban legends of all time: the claim that when Kennedy proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" to a crowd in Berlin on June 26, 1963, that he was actually proclaiming he was a jelly donut. Yes, a Berliner is a jelly donut, but the word can also mean a citizen of Berlin, and everyone in the crowd would have known what he meant.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 27, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Regionalism, Signage, Travel