Weird Universe Archive
January 2012
January 25, 2012
Football Championship Game 2012
Isn't this what all the headlines are all about in the sports pages lately? What, no, huh--Patriots, Giants? What the hell are you talking about?!?
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 25, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category: Sports, Underwear, Women
Walrus-Skin Blanket Tossing
A photo I came across in The Lure of Alaska
(1943) by Harry A. Franck. The caption reads: "Walrus-skin blanket tossing is a popular Eskimo sport even in Nome."
Here's a similar image (from the University of Washington Library)
Joseph Oxendine, in his book American Indian Sports Heritage, offers this explanation of the sport:
In this activity one player would stand on a blanket or skin (usually made of walrus or buffalo skin) while many others around the perimeter of the skin took hold and tossed him or her into the air. The person on the blanket attempted to keep his or her balance while the others would try to throw him or her off balance. Individuals were tossed as high as fifteen to twenty feet into the air...
Originally, blanket tossing was used by hunters as a means of sighting game animals at faraway distances in the flat lands. However, it has more recently been used as a source of amusement or as a game of courage for young people. According to Ewers (1944), boys were divided into teams, and the boys of one side tossed a member of the opposite team as high as they could. "The object was to make him cry out that he had enough. If they could not do that, the other side was declared the winner" (p. 185)...
Blanket tossing is still a popular source of amusement among the Eskimos for both adults and children.
Originally, blanket tossing was used by hunters as a means of sighting game animals at faraway distances in the flat lands. However, it has more recently been used as a source of amusement or as a game of courage for young people. According to Ewers (1944), boys were divided into teams, and the boys of one side tossed a member of the opposite team as high as they could. "The object was to make him cry out that he had enough. If they could not do that, the other side was declared the winner" (p. 185)...
Blanket tossing is still a popular source of amusement among the Eskimos for both adults and children.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 25, 2012 -
Comments (7)
Category: Sports
85 Year Old Woman-1 Moose-0
When her 82 year old husband, George Murphy, was trapped in a snowbank by an attacking moose Dorothea Taylor took action. She distracted the beast and when it came towards her she beat it with a grain shovel till it ran off. Way to go Dorothea!!!
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 25, 2012 -
Comments (9)
Category:
January 24, 2012
3-Finger Rings
Metsa Design offers 3-finger wood rings. The 3-finger rings are inspired by knuckle
But you might be upstaged if you bump into someone wearing this 4-finger ring with an embedded strip of growing moss.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 24, 2012 -
Comments (10)
Category: Fashion
Tobor the Great
Does the world need a sequel to Tobor the Great?According to wikipedia, someone at Diamond World Pictures thinks it does. But this is a case where I'm not sure whether to believe wikipedia.
Bonus strangeness: some guy built a full-size Tobor replica.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 24, 2012 -
Comments (7)
Category: Movies, Robots
January 23, 2012
Chinese New Year
Could some scholar of Asian Studies among the WU-vies please explain the iconography of flying sentient bananas to me?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 23, 2012 -
Comments (13)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Holidays, Asia, Fictional Monsters
The Wellcome Collection
This might be a museum WU-vies wish to visit when they are next in London.
Home page.
PS: if I shut my eyes and just listen to this video, why do I think I'm hearing the cast of A Hard Day's Night?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 23, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Body, Skin and Skin Conditions, Eccentrics, Museums, Weird Studies and Guides
Snake-Handling Sect
This photo feature ran in a lot of newspapers back in July 1953. But the Woodside Community Mission church seems to have disappeared soon after. I can't imagine why.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 23, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category: Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Religion, 1950s
Chuck’s Weekly Cite-Seeing (January 23, 2012)
Chuck's Weekly Cite-Seeing TourThe Crème de la Crème, Every Monday
January 23, 2012
(datelines from January 13 or later) (links correct as of January 23)
Seattle: Michael Bertsch is
Winter Haven, Fla.: He shot the laundromat's change machine four times with his semi-automatic, but the brave, stoic machine still would not give up the cash. Winter Haven News Chief
Buffalo, N.Y.: Why Does Buffalo Pay for Its Teachers to Have Plastic Surgery? Actually, even the union wants that benefit to be killed, but the way collective bargaining works, it just keeps hanging around. Last year, 500 teachers exploited it. The Atlantic
Atmore, Ala.: U.S. Supreme Court justices Scalia and Thomas, dissenting to their colleagues' sympathy for a death-row inmate whose appeal got lost in the system, renewed their deeply-held belief that, under the Constitution, "actual" innocence in the face of conviction is irrelevant--even if the actually-innocent person is facing the needle. Wall Street Journal
Meghalaya, India: Women rule, at least in inheritances; men are left to become alcoholics. Now, the ones whose testicles haven't yet been bred out are demanding equality. BBC News
Seoul: Eight smugglers were arrested for a 2010 scheme to avoid paying import taxes in Japan. Their bright idea: hide the gold in their rectums. Associated Press via Yahoo News
More in extended >>
Posted By: Chuck - Mon Jan 23, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category:
The Periodic Table of Meat
Full Sized Image Here
I found this Rosetta Stone on Pleated Jeans
Posted By: Expat47 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category:
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
