Pictures of Towels

You can find groups on the internet dedicated to just about anything. Still, this one seems to me to be scraping the bottom of the barrel:


Doesn't seem to have had much activity lately. I can't imagine why not.

Follies of the Mad Men #37

[From Life magazine for June 9 1952.]

We saw how the advertising industry created the concept of "B.O." for "body odor." Here, less successfully, they tried to triple the problem. Note how coyly the term "other personal odors" is used to refer to farting.

Is there any scientific proof that chlorophyll tablets do anything in the human body?

And don't you just love the look of disgust on that gal's face?

Random Rant

I dug this out of my files, and although it's nearly twenty years old, a good psychotic rant never goes out of style.

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.

Jetpack Dreams

That most silly and pointless and inutile, yet much desired of flight mechanisms, the jetpack, is back in the news. You can read a New York Times piece about the latest model here.



And a review copy of this book recently arrived in my mailbox, portending lots of fun.











Yet such mechanisms pale before the magnificently insane accomplishment of Yves Rossy, who, a couple of years ago, basically turned himself into Iron Man. Watch his jet-powered flight below.

Micronations

The concept of micronations is a fascinating idea. I utilized the notion in one of my recent stories, the title piece from The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories. But I hardly began to exhaust the narrative possibilities of the idea.










Here's a recent article on one such place, the Republic of Molossia.

Spit-take

This fellow has many cuspidors.

This museum actually wants them.

Two simple facts. Yet what a wealth of weirdness.

Follies of the Mad Men #2

[From The Saturday Evening Post for December 16, 1967]

Whenever you put a giant woman in a skirt next to normal-sized people, the inevitable first thought engendered in the viewer is, "Can I see up her dress?" In this instance, the second thought is: "Is she going to pick up that car and use it as a marital aid?"

Put your gas masks on!

I came across two unusual photographs of gas masks while browsing in the library recently. The first is from 1939 (from the collection Photohistory of the 20th Century). The caption reads:


I doubt the image did much to take the terror out of gas masks, but I'm sure it made the fetish crowd happy.

The second photo is from Scientific American (October, 1922). The caption reads:


Coincidentally, this very much resembles the uniform worn by the staff of Weird Universe while we work.

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.