Yuma Swastika Bridge

I spent New Year's Day in Yuma, Arizona, where I had a chance to see a local oddity — the Swastika Bridge, which can be found out in the desert just north of the city.

According to local legend, the swastikas were carved into the bridge by German POWs held nearby during WWII. Another story has it that the bridge was designed by the Nazis and shipped to Arizona from Germany.

The reality is that the bridge was built in 1907 by the U.S. Reclamation Service. The engineers decorated it with swastikas after seeing similarly designed and decorated bridges during a trip to India.

The bridge was part of the larger effort to dam the Colorado River and create an agricultural oasis around Yuma.

More info at the Yuma Sun or smoter.com.

And you can find a lot of other examples of the pre-Nazi use of swastikas in American culture at the American Swastika blog.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 07, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Buildings and Other Structures, Evil, Signage

Real or Fake?

Would you drive by the above and keep going thinking it was fake? A man beheaded his mother and kicked her head around before stepping in front of a train. Passers-by said they thought it was a Halloween prank.

Posted By: patty - Thu Oct 30, 2014 - Comments (6)
Category: Crime, Evil, Dismemberment, Nausea, Revulsion and Disgust

The Mark Of The Beast

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NewDealDesign, a design house out of San Francisco, is behind an idea for implanted tattoos that carry information about the wearer that could be exchanged by touch. The Bible has long been quoted about the mark of the beast and the Anti Christ being from the Middle East, guess where the CEO of the company is from, just sayin'.

Posted By: patty - Sat Oct 18, 2014 - Comments (15)
Category: Armageddon and Apocalypses, Evil, Gods, Religion, Rituals and Superstitions

The Coldest Case

It appears that the 126 year old cold case of Jack the Ripper has been solved by DNA testing. A shawl that was alleged to have been found next to Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper's victims, carries mitochondrial DNA profiles from both Eddowes' line and the familial line of one of the Ripper suspects. Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski, who subsequently spent his later years in mental asylums, lived in the area of the killings, and was a suspect, left his DNA behind on a bloody shawl. That shawl turned out to be a time capsule for justice.

Posted By: patty - Fri Sep 19, 2014 - Comments (9)
Category: Crime, Death, Evil, Science, Historical Figure, Seventeenth Century, Blood

Devil Man

He used to be Gavin Paslow, security guard. Now, thanks to thousands of dollars worth of body modification, he's become Diablo Denefer, Devil Man. But he says he's actually not satanic at all, "it's just a piece of fun." He's hoping to get a real, organic tail to complete his look. [catholic.org]

Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 13, 2014 - Comments (9)
Category: Body Modifications, Evil, Religion

Weird Snowmen

Evil snowmen is a horror trope that had never occurred to me. But I'm sure it's in one Stephen King novel or another already.



Anthropomorphic icicles is another notion I was blissfully unfamiliar with. Can they really run far enough and fast enough to the north to escape Spring?

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 28, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Destruction, Evil, Seasonal, Cartoons, 1930s, 1960s, Fictional Monsters

Tales of Dark:  Of Grandiose Fevers and Passion Arcane

If H. P. Lovecraft were alive today, sixteen years old and a Goth, this is the song he would have written. The only things missing are the word "eldritch" and some tentacles.

More on the band here.

Reach the ancient heart of the stygian obscurity
Wherein all the names of mine are written
In pits profound,where festered dreams sigh
And longings scorched seek reason to return.
Admire the flame flowered mansions arcane
The sulfurous secrets gowned in rapture profane
Fear not the fire of all-knowing wisdom
Furiously burning with such ravishing splendour.

On the wings of my most fervent passion
Which the fools dare name blasfemia
To thee I have returned from the heart-dead sunworms domain
A coffin-shaped lair they have woven around me
For I've pledged no allegiance
To their fabulous sacred theories
Those spurious servants of a crownless king
Who holds their cross in vain.

No Phoenix phenomenon shall their fall contain!
Leave their carcasses scattered and slain!

And now I'm visualised
To blind-faithed eyes
Lofty and proud, to be recognized.
As the mourning-scented bloodstorm winds
Of their final downfall blow
Like a nightclad werewolf upon the moonlit glade
I shall hunt them down in the snow.

...and the frostbitten ground
now consumes their wretched gore
My victorious hiss fulfills the oceans ethereal
And the stars gleam nameless above
As shadows call forth the seas of Cthulhu
Be wide awake my dearest
Of my fiery necromantic kiss!

Thine arms soothing around me enfold
To cease my yearning cursed
The sweetest witchcraft thy lips do hold
Can only quench my thirst.

'Neath the enchantingly blazing corona of night
drown thy desire into mine!
With all the senses cast to a feverous grandeur
In the sins of the flesh we entwine.

Eternally...We entwine...

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 23, 2012 - Comments (6)
Category: Armageddon and Apocalypses, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Dreams and Nightmares, Evil, Goths, Music, Noises and Other Public Disturbances of the Peace, Europe, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults

Swastika Clown Puzzle

This puzzle appeared in The Strand magazine, December 1903, demonstrating that swastikas and clowns had an affinity for one another even before the Nazis came along. (Technically it's a Sauwastika Clown Puzzle, not a Swastika one.) The answer is below in extended.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 21, 2012 - Comments (9)
Category: Clowns, Evil, Quizzes, 1900s

Peter Prim’s Portraits of Good and Bad Girls and Boys

[Click to enlarge]

Why do the bad kids always seem to be having so much more fun than the little angels?

There are only eighteen illustrations in this old book, but each one a gem!

Read them here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 29, 2012 - Comments (8)
Category: Etiquette and Formal Behavior, Evil, Children, Nineteenth Century

Babymetal

Japanese pre-adolescent heavy metal girl group.

Learn more here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Aug 15, 2012 - Comments (8)
Category: Evil, Goths, Music, Children, Foreign Customs, Asia