winged and finned

sarahspy: Tandem unicycle built by Corbin Dunn

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:38:56 -0500

Tandem unicycle built by Corbin Dunn

“Help Yourself,” from a set of photo cards...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:39:01 -0500

“Help Yourself,” from a set of photo cards advertising for Honest Long Cut tobacco. The image features two women, one in masculine stage dress. [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

“The Guarantee Protects You” (from this guy?) ...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:39:01 -0500

“The Guarantee Protects You” (from this guy?) [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

"M. But, uncle William, the man might have been killed in building a house or a ship. U. Yes, so he..."

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:38:14 -0500

“

M. But, uncle William, the man might have been killed in building a house or a ship.

U. Yes, so he might, that is very true; but then, Mary, houses and ships are needful things, but circuses are not needful; indeed, so far from being needful, they do much harm.

M. I should like to know what harm they do, for I have heard that in some places they allow the children of schools to go; and if they do harm, it cannot be right for them to go, nor for me either. But indeed, uncle William, I cannot see what harm there is in men riding beautiful horses.

U. O there is no harm in that, but it is only part of the performance; for I have seen women doing so, standing on the saddle, gaily, or indeed gaudily dressed, with very short dresses, and throwing themselves about in an unbecoming manner. This cannot be right, for do you not remember what the Bible says about the dress and conduct of women?

M. Yes; that they “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-facedness and sobriety.” 1 Timothy, 2:9.

U. There is none of this in the circus.

”

- From Are You Going to the Circus?, from the 1850s, archived at the Library of Congress collection.

planchette: lacontessa: Rolf Armstrong

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:37:11 -0500

planchette:

lacontessa:

Rolf Armstrong

“Four Roses” Barometer: Infallible Weather...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:33:09 -0500

“Four Roses” Barometer: Infallible Weather Indicator. [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

Durham Bull Fertilizer: Makes Me Grow. ...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:28:44 -0500

Durham Bull Fertilizer: Makes Me Grow. “Potato-Bug.” Dated 1887. [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

Voices from the Days of Slavery: Audio Interviews

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:28:12 -0500

Voices from the Days of Slavery: Audio Interviews:

Fascinating collection held at the Library of Congress. It’s worth noting, as with any interview work, that the interviewer’s appearance and attitude no doubt affected the interview’s content; that, however, speaks even more to the situation created by slavery in America.

"As they stepped into the large, gray military cargo plane, their eyes widened and their expressions..."

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:26:00 -0500

“

As they stepped into the large, gray military cargo plane, their eyes widened and their expressions were equal parts wonder and bewilderment. This was the first time many of the Iraqi children and their parents had ever flown in an airplane, and none had ever been in an aircraft as large as the U.S. Air Force’s C-17 Globemaster III.

On April 29, airmen flew 110 Iraqi children and 97 of their parents, guardians and escorts from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad in support of “Operation Smile.”

Operation Smile, an international nongovernmental organization, provides corrective surgery for children with cleft palates and cleft lips, congenital birth defects that affect about one out of every 600 children, according to the Cleft Palate Foundation. Operation Smile had evaluated the Iraqi children and transported them to Amman for corrective surgery.

”

- Defense.gov News Article: Air Force Helps Bring Smiles to Iraqi Children

This is from 2006, but, over three years later, it still has the power to make me want to barf.

(via chuffedlittlemuffin)

Muffin! You are awesome! Paul Longmore is doing fascinating work on just this subject — disabling charity and telethon representations of impairment — and Tobin Siebers explicitly addressed Operation Smile in a recent lecture I saw. All of the Operation Smile celebrity endorsees are white, and all of the children are people of color. The website shows a panoply of children, zoomed in on their faces to show their different faces as a kind of cornucopia of (supposed) pain. The posters show a child with a cleft lip crying a single tear. There is so much wrong with that particular charity that it actually has the power to make me laugh through my nausea.

I would like to name a book “Grand Velocipede.” ...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:58:36 -0500

I would like to name a book “Grand Velocipede.” Source: An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

A Capable Cat. No date, made to advertise Diamond Dyes. ...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:57:10 -0500

A Capable Cat. No date, made to advertise Diamond Dyes. [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

Baseball player inserts, for Piedmont Cigarettes, no date. ...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:56:12 -0500

Baseball player inserts, for Piedmont Cigarettes, no date. (Late nineteenth century.) [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

i12bent: Final Nickolas Muray, take 2: Woman in cell, playing...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:56:11 -0500

i12bent:

Final Nickolas Muray, take 2:

Woman in cell, playing solitaire, ca. 1950 - Transparency, chromogenic development (Kodachrome) process. George Eastman House Collection

Dated 1916. [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:55:05 -0500

Dated 1916. [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

ihatethismess: Amy Sedaris Queen bee of my bonnet, top bat of...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:55:07 -0500

ihatethismess:

Amy Sedaris

Queen bee of my bonnet, top bat of my belfry.

Compliments Great Damily Wine & Bottling Company. Undated,...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:54:05 -0500

Compliments Great Damily Wine & Bottling Company. Undated, late nineteenth century.

I believe the image of an overturned tub is meant to reinforce “important over,” which indicates that the reader should turn the card over to look at the information on the back. You may decide if this is sufficient explanation for the image. (If anyone knows the actual reason, let me know via comments, please! I believe I’ve seen this overturned tub motif before, in a picture that had children and violence included in the tableau.)

Source: [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

55 Ways to Save Eggs [Emergence of Advertising in America:...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:53:15 -0500

55 Ways to Save Eggs [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

Produced to advertise Duke’s Cigarettes. No date;...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:52:28 -0500

Produced to advertise Duke’s Cigarettes. No date; probably made mid- to late-nineteenth century. This image one of 14. 50 Scenes of Perilous Occupations [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

“Money. Money. Money. Money!” It’s...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:51:00 -0500

“Money. Money. Money. Money!” It’s fascinating to look at the diversity of advertising images from the nineteenth century, and to recognize simultaneously how much the visual language of advertising has changed over time. 1880! A Great Opportunity 1880! [Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920]

The Shadow Percussion Project (via glueckauf). “Tracks...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:50:26 -0500

The Shadow Percussion Project (via glueckauf). “Tracks from DJ Shadow’s Entroducing played live by a student’s percussion band, directed by music instructor Brian Udelhofen.” This interests me — beyond being beautiful — because there’s an implication that the change in performance medium changes the song in some way. It’s a cover, but what does the re-performance (live, with instruments) of the “original” (recorded, with computer) tell us about music?