The Girls of Murder City

I just read this book (pictured to the right, with link) which offers a rich and fascinating glimpse of a moment in Chicago when there were several female murderers simultaneously occupying the headlines and jails. This is always prime WU material in any era, and I don't believe you will be disappointed if you read this excitingly written historical account.

Why the video of an old song in this post? It's the tune that one of the murderesses played and danced to, over the corpse of her victim!

Jug Band

Is there any musical instrument derived from a common domestic item that is weirder or less likely than the musical ceramic jug?

New York City Driving--1928

I have no idea of the provenance of this material. Is that Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd driving? Is that really Babe Ruth in the back seat? But I do know it's amazing.

Cartoon Character Sex

Recall the court decision of a few weeks ago, determining that cartoon depictions of sex by underage characters were child pornography?

Does that mean that there will be retroactive prosecutions against Tijuana Bibles, a comic book tradition that frequently featured popular underage cartoon icons of the day having sex? Or perhaps contemporary scholars will come under fire, such as this site, where scanned samples exist.

The main page is Safe for Work, but of course, not the scans themselves.

The Comedian Harmonists

The Comedian Harmonists were a German vocal group of the 1920s and 1930s. The vast majority of their songs were performed in their native language. But in the clip below, they tackle an English-language song phonetically, producing a language that does not resemble any on Earth.

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.

They’ll Do It Every Time

When I was a kid, I loved the comic strip THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME, by Jimmy Hatlo. It was one of my first introductions to poking fun at irrational or weird human behavior.

What I did not quite realize is that the strip had a revival under artist Al Scaduto. But unfortunately, he passed away on December 8, 2007, and his last strip ran on February 3, 2008.

Here's an archive of that current version.

Amazonian Miracle for Sale!

If only you had been reading Popular Mechanics magazine for February 1929! Then you could have purchased the same Purple Ray healing device that Wonder Woman uses! Okay, so it was a "Violet Ray." Same difference, right?

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.