She Doesn’t Have to Shave

Following up on Alex's "Couvade" post: here's a musical exegesis of the eternal tradeoff between daily facial shaving for men, and monthly menstruation for women.

God, I miss Squeeze!

Man Drought

Australia has been facing a drought in recent years, but according to a new book published down under, it's not just water in short supply. Australia's cities are also suffering from a "man drought." The problem is that there's a "man dam" in rural communities -- which means that all the men are staying on the farm while the women move to the city to find work, thus causing a "sheila shortage" in the outback. This prompted the mayor of the remote town of Mt. Isa to invite all the female "ugly ducklings" to move there to find a man.

Nothing particularly weird about all this. I just like the phrases.

As Boys Grow

Let it never be said that WEIRD UNIVERSE is unbalanced or sexist. Here's a companion piece to MOLLY GROWS UP.

Doesn't the coach sound just like Troy McClure on THE SIMPSONS?

Follies of the Mad Men #30

[From Life magazine for June 9 1952.]

This ad was part of a long campaign for the product, which depicted men and boys doing common tasks in public in their underwear. Kinda the male equivalent of the famous "I dreamed I went to work in my Maidenform bra" series of ads. No matter the possible plausible logic of the creators, this series conjures up nothing so much as a kind of weird nation solely populated by mentally challenged males, where outer clothing has yet to be invented.

Wild Women of Wongo

I'm just now recovered from my viewing of THE WILD WOMEN OF WONGO. But I still cannot say what my favorite moment is from the film. Perhaps the wild dance ordered by the High Priestess. Perhaps the endless scene where our heroine, the cute-as-a-button redhead Jean Hawkshaw, to the right here, wrestles underwater with a rubber alligator.

You'll have to decide for yourself. First, take a look at the unfortunately bleached-out trailer. Then view the whole film--in glorious "Pathecolor"--on YouTube, in several parts, with the first one featured after the trailer.

Also on YouTube is the MST3K version.

A Boy Today…A Man Tomorrow

Here at WU Central, we're all about providing useful knowledge to our eager readers, serving as a resource to help them with their perplexities.

For instance, I cannot count how many times readers have written in with this question:



Well, now you need no longer live in darkness and confusion, as we present the scanned pages of a 1972 youth sex-education manual: A Boy Today...A Man Tomorrow. The cover is reproduced below, and the rest of the content after the jump.

On a semi-serious note: we've all seen sex-education materials from earlier decades that are full of prejudices and misinformation. While I have not yet read every word of the current sample, I found what I did read to be highly broadminded and useful and in line with current teachings. Note that the version here is a 1972 revision of a 1961 revision of a 1959 original. I'd love to have the earlier versions, to see the differences.

It's easy to make fun of the Sixties, but their legacy in such matters as this is truly exemplary.




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Julian Eltinge

Every election year, politicians seek to invoke a mythical Golden Age, when life was simpler and more wholesome. Take the Edwardian Era in America, for instance, when the moral fiber of the country was still unpolluted--

--and when a drag queen like Julian Eltinge was a top attraction in high society and popular culture alike.

Face it: life was never any different.

Man-Goat!

A recent news item concerning animal spare parts for human transplants seems to bring closer the day when many human ills can be remedied more easily through transgenic repairs.

But surely such a day would not be imminent without the pioneering work of John Brinkley, a greedy and deranged scam artist who sought to implant goat testicles in impotent men.







I suspect that this new history of Brinkley's career will be a big hit here at WEIRD UNIVERSE.

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.