Shark attack!

What can you give a 10-year-old boy who has everything (electronic, robotic, and technological) for his birthday? A knitted shark "lapghan", of course! This took A LOT of grey wool and some patience. The most challenging part wasn't the mouth with all those teeth, but the fins. They had to be suitably stiff, meaning I had to diddle around with sheets of craft foam. But the results were worth it - Ryan loved his shark!

I've never been paid $600.00/word

(Listed on Amazon today.)

HAROLD LLOYD - AUTOGRAPH SENTIMENT SIGNED

Price: $1,799.00 + $19.00 shipping

Only 1 left in stock.

Ships from and sold by HistoryForSale - Autographs & Manuscripts.

Estimated Delivery Date: March 29 - April 1 when you choose Expedited at checkout.

Authenticity Provided By Seller
Collectible Type original
Grade Rating Please see condition in item description
Entertainment Franchise Movies
Is Autographed Yes

1 collectible from $1,799.00

NOTE. I  vowed never to write about Harold again, though I'm keeping the title of my blog the same because it's too much bother to change it. But I happened on this, and thought it was interesting. That's about $140.00 per LETTER, if my shaky math is right.

Interesting, but depressing, because I am no longer paid anything at all.

And the message - I don't know who Gus Venaas was, probably the waiter with the napkin over his arm or something. So obviously Harold couldn't think of much to say.

Take you dislike most: or, you can to stop the smoke

How do I leave I want to leave smoking?

Albany Daily Star

(Blogger's note. I am not kidding. This piece ran word-for-broken-word in the Albany Daily Star. Perhaps they meant New Delhi. It has all the earmarks of my favorite thing: a very bad translation.)

March 25, 2016 4:21 pm








1. DAY

Type the root causes of smoking cessation in a list. Hang everywhere, this list will catch your eye; bathroom mirror, on the fridge or television. If you feel that a copy with you in your move will weaken again read disconnect it from your pocket.

Take your whole pack of cigarettes.

Only one pack of cigarettes and take you dislike most. So effortlessly you can not get the pleasure of smoking and you will not get what you expect when you drink. Normally you choose a brand that contains less nicotine and tar that allows the interior to adapt more easily to the days of nicotine in your body.

Paste Inside that package on your list showing the amount of cigarettes. Do not forget to save it before you burn every cigarette you drink and numbering. So soon you will have an idea of ​​how many days you smoked. “1” number one cigarette, smoking it you can not drink it, “2”, but not unbearably so much smoke you want first, and “3” of cigarette smoking is also where you can have it before drinking. The next time smoking and drinking, type in the situation you are in it. For example, the bus or while waiting for an important phone call or when you are distressed and anxious as a. When you want to drink Can any cigarettes, do not forget to complete this list to fill the job. Do not clean your ashtray. After a while you see with your eyes the disgusting ashtray picture emerges when filled to the brim.

2. DAYS

Today “3” No. smoking and drinking you will cheat yourself by enumerating errors.

Smoking, occupies the mouth of the smoker. It’s also another way to sugar-free chewing gum. With always keep gum. Instead of candy, and you can drink the water and eat fruit. Many people say that quitting smoking for fear of gaining weight. If you eat a balanced and planned to. If you have a cigarette burn your food habits developed over time by the exit for a short walk and 5 minutes from the table. Smoke filled your lungs instead will help you better enjoy the fresh air dining.

3 DAYS

“3” of torture to smoke too bad matters worse numbers. Today, perhaps “2” number can even drink it. Remember to save your cigarettes you drink list. Each cigarette before yourself, “Do I really want a cigarette? “The question of questions.

deep breathing smoke rather than try to exercise. Relax, give it two or three times to take a deep breath. You will feel really better. This exercise will support your decision to smoke.

Set a specific time you can stop the smoke. For example, the maximum period of days that can withstand up to measure how much smoke without smoking. The delay of the first day cigarette smoking as possible. If you are too addicted at least an hour, the average smoker If you are one to two hours and less than half a day smoker, try not to smoke. Please note that as the bus or the theater can judge for yourself in places where smoking is prohibited.

It’s time to change your brand of cigarettes. Now take a cigarette containing lower tar and nicotine in tobacco can further reduce the damage to your body.

4 DAYS

Today “2” you quit smoking. Be realistic. Only really need a “1” number one cigarette is really for a time as you need.

We relax a bit now. If you really go and eat what you like. Your money steak, pineapple, to spend on things like shrimp. Eat plenty of food especially a favorite. If you have a weight problem but be a little careful about the desserts.

Generally, select a media that you smoke. never smoke while you are at a cocktail party or a meeting room overwhelmed with cigarette smoke and the environment. If you set yourself your own limits, it would also have to comply with them.

Throw away your lighters and matches. Non-fire to burn you need to look for, you have to do what you think you will make it easier for many smokers.

5 DAYS

Now buying cigarettes. Carry with you the list you drink and cigarettes continue recording. Today, only “1” number of smokers will not forget.

Tell your friends that you quit smoking today. They will see great support, especially from non-smokers. Do not open your mind you know this decision ensures more.

We ask you do not shed your ashtray. Now it’s time to use them. All ashes and butts in your ashtray add a little water on to fill a jar. Keep this jar is always at your fingertips and you can smell a bit of smoke when we wanted to open the door. Can you still do want to smoke?

Remove ashtrays this evening to wash your closet on the top shelf. Tomorrow there would be no need for them will never smoke.

6 DAYS

24 hours no smoking.

Go to places where smoking is prohibited. Visit museums or your non-smoker friends, go to movies, watch movies in a row.

Stay away from alcoholic beverages. Alcohol and cigarettes go well together. Alcohol also weakens your willpower and strength.

7 DAYS

24 hours, more smoke.

Open your own money this week in a special savings account that the rest of the cigarette smoke. Pay the same amount in this account every week for a year. I will guess at the end of the year will see a lot more money is accumulated. whether this be something you can not get much money.

If you feel depression or physical symptoms associated with giving up smoking to seek help by contacting your doctor.

Do not forget that you are human. If you are a smoker you will be broken, do not succumb to despair immediately. Reread your reasons for quitting smoking and add any new reasons. Your experience will find your most effective technique on you. Continue to practice techniques that you find. Return to the program of the day when you feel forced. Go on. You can and you will leave.

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Pream? I think I'm going to scream

You already know I have a great fondness for Pream commercials. I've devoted entire posts to the product. Somehow-or-other, mysteriously, it was discontinued some time in the 1960s. Somewhere on the internet I read that it didn't dissolve properly, and if it truly had milk solids and butterfat from cream in it, it would eventually go bad.

But this commercial, and the following two gifs made from it, are from Pream's glory days. This transcends even the sublime "Pream or Cream?" ads that went on for ten or fifteen years.

Now you tell me. Can a cow's udder do something like this? What about gravity - isn't the milk supposed to go down, not sideways?  And how did that pail get so full? I'd offer multiple choice answers, but. . . no, I don't think so.

POST-POST OBSERVATIONS. It was frustratingly difficult to find any information on the demise of Pream. After all, the stuff was around for nearly two decades, then suddenly pulled from the market, never to return.

I found something listed on Amazon - one of those books you can pretty much read in its entirety on the site, so who'd buy it? - called Better Than Homemade: Amazing Foods that Changed the Way We Eat by Carolyn Wyman. Just by the title, you know she's pro-amazing, anti-natural, and in favour of the New and Improved.

The book had a little bit about Pream, and a lot about its successor. "The first powdered creamer to hit supermarkets in 1952 was called Pream. It was made of dehydrated cream, milk sugar, and nonfat milk solids. In other words, it was the real deal. But the processing required to dry it made it taste terrible. And the proteins in the milk made the product spill out in unsightly clumps."

Most of the entry is about Coffee Mate, the one that Changed the Way We Drink Coffee. It was touted as an "amazing discovery" that "eliminates the stale cooked taste of old-fashioned powdered creamers."

"Stale" and "old-fashioned" were the inverse of New, Improved, and Amazing. It's hard to believe Pream tasted THAT bad, implying that all those hundreds of ads where hubby or wifey couldn't tell if it was "Pream or Cream" were lying. I have read on other sites that the product wouldn't dissolve easily (not a problem with the filtered crank-case oil that is Coffee Mate) and left a film floating on the top. It's hard to believe that a product made of milk solids wouldn't eventually go bad or at least become stale-tasting. Coffee Mate is so processed that you can't really tell what it is, a desirable state for the manufacturers. After a while, real cream is an offense to you. You simply don't want something out of a cow's udder any more.

Or. . . whatever.

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring

Spring 

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – 

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; 

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush 

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring 

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush 

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush 

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. 

What is all this juice and all this joy? 

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy, 

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, 

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, 

Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. 

Naked as a doll

I've been enthralled with the doll art of Marina Bychkova for a number of years now. Every so often I get into a photo-collecting binge - I have whole files of them, and have even made some "fan art", having no visual talent whatsoever. Photos of her disturbingly beautiful Enchanted Doll creations are all over the internet now, along with lots of strong reaction.

Today I got partway through a comments section that seemed to go on forever. It dismayed me how little understanding there was of what - I think - Bychkova is trying to do here. Certain people seem to be shocked that she's making these vulnerable-looking pubescent dolls, often posing nude or semi-nude. Porn! they assume. Exploitation of little girls: shocking!

But could it be that the dolls are deliberately provocative - not in the usual sense (though they can be that, too) - but in the manner of "provoking" us, provoking the viewer into uneasiness and disquiet? And don't these hair-prickling, sometimes unsettling sensations lie pretty close to a sense of awe?





I could barely scratch the surface here in trying to sum up the flavour of the comments. A few seem to get it and are deeply affected, if a bit disoriented, as if lost in the enchanted tangle. But the rest are squabbling over whether or not the artist should be portraying vulnerable, "sexualized" young girls, either pre- or post-pubescent, and whether the whole thing is just "creepy" and "weird".

I think they're missing the point. Just skimming the top off the meaning of "enchanted", you come up with words like this:

bewitched, magic, possessed, charmed, fascinated, absorbed, entranced, captivated, enthralled, beguiled, smitten, engrossed, spellbound, infatuated, hypnotized, under a spell

Here be faeries, not to mention the dragons of deception. Along with threads of captivity, a state that's eroticized by a disturbing number of people, there are definite echoes of sexual thrall. Beguiled (guile meaning cunning). Smitten (ouch!). Infatuated. These mysterious juju-girls express all these haunted, hunted layers, and more. Bychkova's figures are like three-dimensional illustrations of very ancient, primal stories, what we innocently call "fairy tales". Some of them seem to have stepped directly out of the dream state. Others have heroic, aggressive or even macabre aspects which I believe are entirely intentional. These dolls practically scream story to me, and I can't look at them without dark tales multiplying wildly in my head.

But don't forget that these are enchanted dolls (not enchanting), with an alarming habit of doing what they wish. This means that they refuse to stay glued to the pedestal of myth. What grabs people's guts is the immediacy, the living-breathing quality in the waxen, porcelain beauty: we don't want to see the haunted faces of real little girls reflected here, enclosed in glass cases, mutilated and shamed, their value and and passion stunted by a culture that doesn't care about them, except perhaps to commodify them. Nor do we want to see little girls with antlers and spikes and gigantic fly wings sprouting from their heads. It bespeaks a spooky power which might actually be there, perhaps only visible to those with a peculiar kind of night vision.

The purpose of art is not just to please or entertain, but to unsettle, even disturb. I am reminded of Frida Kahlo and her skulls and dead babies and knives through the flesh. These dolls say all sorts of things to all sorts of people, and on many different levels. They command tens of thousands of dollars each, are internationally celebrated, and appear in lavish magazine spreads for expensive perfumes. In some cases, stores have insisted their "anatomical correctness" (realistic genitals complete with pubic hair) be covered up in window displays.

All these so-called conflicting dynamics are happening at once. Wealth, display, prestige, exposure (more than one kind of exposure), nakedness, tears, vulnerability, creepiness, pain, damage, mythology, bravery, exploits, exploitation, total mystery. It's all here. I think if I ever got to touch one of these dolls, my hair would stand on end.

Are they fetish objects? Depends on what you mean by fetish. In some cases, people are undoubtedly buying them as one more ridiculously expensive item to add to their doll collection. The average person has to make do with photos on the internet and can't even attend  an exhibit in places like Moscow and Paris and Rome.

The comments I've reproduced here are examples of the endless argument over whether Bychkova "should" be creating emotionally-laden objects like this. Dolls have always had a spooky power, and the idea of a doll coming to life and talking is a tired old saw worn out completely by too many bad books and movies. But these creatures don't even need to speak. Seeing a picture of one is enough to get you upset, or make you marvel, or even make you want one. I will admit I have thought of it, and Bychkova's new resin line (only a few thousand dollars rather than $10,000.00 or more) makes me realize the Enchanted Doll is beginning to go into mass-production.

These are absolutely slaying me. They look so real that it is triggering my stupid empathy and my brain just can't handle it. I just start tearing up. Damn she's good.

I don't even like dolls, but I would proudly display these in my home. That's insane.

Utterly stunning - the beauty of design and the soul of each doll is beyond amazing. I'm not a doll collector, but these would add magic to my home.

The fact that these dolls made all these people feel all these things prove that it is actual art.

Hideous. A selection of abused little girls. Maybe I'm a weirdo but I don't think a child (or adult for that matter) naked and crying is beautiful.





i wouldnt call yourself a weirdo. but id say you do have a problem with knowing a difference between fantasy and reality. probably one of those bland people with no imagination whos mind is too small to understand the reason behind art. when people like you see art that depicts the truth of your very own society you get offended. mostly because you choose to ignore the sadness of the world and pretend that everything is ok.

My gut instinct was not 'wow these are beautiful' but 'wow these look so realistically scared and how amazingly detailed is that girl's pubic region.' Are they more attractive to you because they're crying? I have enough imagination to know how these characters would feel and can see the sadness of the world reflected in it. I get it. Beautiful is not the adjective I'd use to describe it though. I'd like to see the artist make a strong woman. But I bet that wouldn't sell as well.

You're projecting the age, since the intended age of the dolls is not actually listed in the article....I assumed them to be in their 20's, some look perhaps in their 30's, and yea...a few look to be teenagers, but they all look like older teens in my eyes at that.

There's nothing wrong with nudity...so being naked while crying isn't inherently a problem. A person depicting a beautiful human being in a vulnerable state shouldn't be offensive or disturbing, but apparently it is to you and while that isn't "wrong"...you really do seem to be projecting your personal angst onto others.

The artist probably does not suffer from the same mental anguishes you do, they have their own, so calling this hideous for the reasons you are is not only callous....it also shows you don't really understand the intention behind art in general.

Also, some of these show nothing other than emotion. Some of them are simply still poses that are unsmiling. Not nearly all of them are "sad", not nearly all of them are crying, being naked is not weakness because vulnerability does not equate to weakness (which you don't seem to understand, hence your reaction), being made out of porcelain does not inherently make something weak either...the way you personally interpret symbols is not necessarily the way the artist intended for them to be interpreted. It's not that you're "wrong", but you are definitely projecting and making it seem as though your personal judgment of these dolls is finite.





You're making it sound like everyone is literally crazy for thinking these are beautiful because of your personal issues....without stopping to realize just how those issues make YOU sound to others who don't have them.

I honestly don't think the implied age is a projection. The whole concept of a doll is capturing a youthful appearance. The large eyes, slim frame, and barley developed 'bodies' all appeal to the vulnerability of youth. Let's not pretend that wasn't the intent. And let's not pretend that something can't be beautiful and disturbing at the same time. These dolls are beautiful, but it's also okay to not be comfortable with the tearful sexualization of young bodies. And that's not to say what the artist did was wrong-- it's just an acknowledgment.

I don't find them all too appealing to be honest. The dolls could be pretty without sexualizing little girls. You may not find what the artist did "wrong" per say, but I definatly don't think anyone is incorrect to find "the tearful sexualization of young bodies" totally creepy. Especially the girl put on the bed.





Understanding what a human body looks like at different ages does not mean that you're projecting, it means you understand what you're looking at. These dolls are indeed modeled after very young girls. No one that looks at a baby doll is being accused of "projecting ages" onto a doll modeled to look like an infant. Humans have very distinct growth phases, and the phase they are modeling here is very much adolescence, from breast position, pelvic structure, and face shape. It's adolescence. Just because you never took basic anatomy and physiology, or any human reproductive biology classes and don't understand how that works, doesn't mean it's wrong.

I agree that it's creepy. All of those features together are identifying traits of a 11-15 year old girl, and if you don't find that creepy, then that's your issue. You can say that it's fine that they're naked and crying, but I find it less so being that they chose to make dolls that look like girls going through puberty, then make them look like they're crying, and then photograph them nude. On top of that, pose them on a bed while crying. It's creepy. It's creepy to sexualize the form of young girls, it's even creepier to sexualize the image of young girls crying. But hey, that's just me. Maybe you're a ok with people making virtual child porn too, because you think it's "just a projection of age".

I guess the big question to ask yourself, here, is this: Why do you find depictions of female nudity to be inherently sexual? These aren't sexualized poses or situations.





So you don't think that the doll made to look like a girl between 11-15 laying on the bed crying in a very reveling outfit is sexual at all? You don't find it sexualized one bit? Remember, that doll doesn't have any agency what so ever. An adult person made the choice to construct dolls to resemble all traits characteristic with adolescent girls going through puberty into one doll. Spend hours painting their genitals, and then photograph them nude. This adult chose to then make it so that they were crying. Chose to put these dolls that they intentionally modeled to look like little girls physically, who they chose to depict crying, and looking afraid, onto a bed.

Yeah... I don't think they're projecting. I think that's pretty straight forward in creepiness. This reminds me of all those creepy 3D renditions of virtual child porn that people always get busted for. Except this isn't 3D renderings of naked kids, they're dolls. But hey, "art".





Post-blog thought. People blathering about the horrible sexual connotations of the little girl "laying on the bed" missed another point. That doll is meant to illustrate The Princess and the Pea. Laying on her bed. On top of all those mattresses, eh? Then again, "that doll doesn't have any agency what so ever". That, and "I'd like to see the artist make a strong woman. But I bet that wouldn't sell as well." But to say these creations aren't "strong" is to miss the point by a mile. Oh God, I'm going to bed now.

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Cat loves his horse: so lovely!

1948: Television's Year

There was something special about 1948. That was the year people started buying TVs, though they were still called "television sets" and built into elaborate cabinets with swinging doors (sometimes incorporating a radio and a small refrigerator). The feeling was that the big, naked glass eye was going to see right into the living room unless it was covered up. At very least, all that exposed glass was somehow disturbing. In the ads for Dumont television sets, which were state-of-the-art, an attractive woman always walked into the frame and CLOSED the cabinet doors, instead of opening them dramatically to display the set. Something odd about that message: see how you can hide the whole thing!

Like so.

People didn't watch TV then: they "looked at television", a sort of parallel to "listened to the radio". The programming was primitive, the picture quality dark and smudgy. We must take into account, however, that there was no videotape then, and all we have left from those spookily magical times are kinescopes, filmed directly off the cameraman's monitor which was probably small, dark and unstable (a good description of the shows and their stars).

Variety shows ruled. This was a hangover from vaudeville that carried on into the late '60s with shows like Ed Sullivan and Hollywood Palace. But these programs were not much more than radio with pictures. In some cases, as with Jack Benny and Milton Berle, they were performed on a stage with curtains, and even with an announcer holding a microphone. 

Not that I remember any of that. No, I really don't.

This looks like satire, but it isn't. It's an example of the kind of programming you'd see during the day - filling time, mostly. Note, at the end of this, there's a little blurb for Kovacs on the Corner - one of Ernie's earliest TV incarnations. He had to fill four or five hours of air time a day, and did radio "on the side". 

This is a strange one, an example of the way TV had NO IDEA how to handle visuals. The opening credits are just a primitive, probably hand-cranked crawl with blocky white letters on grey. Carlton Emmy and his Mad Wags sound particularly frightening. And those 50 Olsen and Johnson Punchinellos sounds like about 48 Punchinellos too many.

This is interminable, but I include it just for that reason: people's attention spans were much longer then, and/or they read much more slowly. The fact that after all that waiting and waiting and waiting, we get. . . SUSPENSE. . . seems a bit ironic. And what is that Auto-lite thing anyway?

Until I find a stranger one, this is the strangest: Okay Mother, starring. . . Dennis James? A transvestite, perhaps, sort of like Mrs. Doubtfire. And three sponsors for what might have been a 15-minute show (a common format then)?

I never know where all these come from (though I make them from YouTube videos). There's something called the Prelinger Archives that must have gazillions of them, and an Internet Archive that has never made a damn bit of sense to me. Maybe people kept them in their basements? Some people buy old VHS tapes at flea markets and at auction in hopes there's something good on them. Do I miss the good old days of VHS, or, in our case, Beta? No. I love my DVR and would never go back. But Smudgeville has its charms. 

This logo is a prime example of "don't worry, folks, TV is really just your old familiar radio in a new form". The huge microphone receiving, then blasting out sound waves, the telephone pole emitting - whatever it is emitting, lightning bolts? - almost seems like a reassurance that this is something we already know. Sort of.  Just keep it covered up when you're not looking at it.

I have a thing for logos, so I'll include this particularly dull one. The three-note chime was held over from the radio, though it took quite a while for NBC to come up with a good visual to go with it.

The NBC peacock in all its glory, before they dumbed it down into its current dull form.

Please Stand By.

(Uhhhm . . here are some more, from just a couple years later, perhaps 1950 - '52. Most of these are based on a YouTube series by MattTheSaiyan called Classic Commercials for Defunct Products. There are, so far, 119 videos, so you may be seeing these for some time.)

Though these look like animated cellphone prototypes, I think they're supposed to be dancing cameras. Though they could also be remote controls. Early TV animation was primitive, not to mention strange in its concepts.

If you look carefully at this  Dumont TV commercial, a rare instance of the cabinet opening rather than closing, you'll notice the "zoom" wobbles in a way that looks suspiciously like the cameraman is walking towards the TV. The bleary distorted picture is state-of-the-art and meant to inspire ooohs and ahhhs.

A particularly delightful ad for a hair-care product, Toni Home Permanent. The ads in this era showed women with lacquered, military-helmet-like hair which was touted as "soft and natural". The do-it-yourself perms, always described as quick and easy, were a mass of "pin-curls" all over the head which would be impossible to do on your own. The real irony here is that in the "before" pictures, the women have hairstyles much closer to what we see today,

Yes, yes, I know I devoted at least one entire post to Pream commercials. But this reaction is hands-down my favourite.

I love the element of surrealism here.

This is a riff on Jack and the Beanstalk, an example of bizarre early-TV animation. Dancing oat flakes are a new one on me.