Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas)

2008 Wife-Carrying Contest

Although the most famous wife-carrying contest--the original event in Finland--came and went in July, as you can learn in the clip below, other such events are going on regularly, such as this recent New Hampshire contest.

I'm thinking we need to enter a WEIRD UNIVERSE team in one of these competitions. Any volunteers?

Follies of the Mad Men #35

[From Life magazine for June 2 1952.]

Yes, in the 1950's every husband and father had to be emasculated in every possible way. Imagine trying to conduct some kind of Tennessee Williams-inspired affair with your local Liz Taylor of the suburbs while wearing these. The laughter would be heard from one end of the motel to the other!

Follies of the Mad Men #27

[Frpm Life magazine for June 9 1952. Two separate scans, upper and lower.]

James Brown's got nothing on this guy!

Follies of the Mad Men #25

Didn't you enjoy the vivacious and perkily sexy Tad Tadlock in yesterday's DESIGN FOR DREAMING? How could anyone resist a sequel?

Let's watch A TOUCH OF MAGIC.

One Touch of Homer Makes the Whole World Kin

In this NEW YORK TIMES article from today, scientists reveal their latest findings about which brain cells are excited during the recall of memories, and how closely memory tallies with literally re-enacting the events. And they use a tantalizing example:

After briefly distracting the patients, the researchers then asked them to think about the clips for a minute and to report “what comes to mind.” The patients remembered almost all of the clips. And when they recalled a specific one — say, a clip of Homer Simpson — the same cells that had been active during the Homer clip reignited. In fact, the cells became active a second or two before people were conscious of the memory, which signaled to researchers the memory to come.

Why is Homer Simpson singled out as the test case? Obviously because the human brain has specific neurons that emulate or actually induce and compel Homer-Simpson-style behavior.

And there in a nutshell you have the whole basis for ninety-nine percent of the contents of 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.