Weird Universe Archive
November 2019
November 10, 2019
Possibly in Michigan
A recent article in the NY Times describes how artist Cecelia Condit’s weirdo 1983 short video “Possibly in Michigan” is finding a new audience via social media site Tik Tok.At the time of writing, the #PossiblyInMichigan hashtag on TikTok had over 12 million views. The video’s YouTube upload had over 750,000 views, while another recently deleted excerpt had around 875,000. “This is a wild time in my life — you couldn’t predict it,” Condit said. “It’s funny, I don’t have a gallery, I don’t have those things, but the internet has been,”— and here she interrupted herself — “I get so many hits,” she concluded.
Condit describes her video as “A musical horror story about two young women who are stalked through a shopping mall by a the cannibal named Arthur.”
Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 10, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Movies, Outsider Art, 1980s
Jackson Barnett, “The World’s Richest Indian”
From Wikipedia:
With the discovery of oil on Barnett's lands in 1912, a series of court actions by interested parties litigated the control of Barnett's trust. Barnett was declared incompetent and denied access to his affairs simply because he only spoke the Muscogee Creek language and not English. Barnett was permitted a modest income and was installed in a house near Henryetta. In 1919 the courts allowed the diversion of money from Barnett's trust to the construction of the "Jackson Barnett Hospital" in Henryetta. In 1920 Barnett, then in his seventies, married Anna Laura Lowe (1881-1952), a fortune hunter whom he had met only once before. The couple had to marry in Kansas after a marriage license was denied in Oklahoma. Barnett's guardians were unable to annul the marriage and the hospital plans were never pursued. Instead, the trust was divided between Anna Barnett and Bacone Indian College.[3]
The Barnetts moved to Los Angeles and bought a mansion on Wilshire Boulevard, where Jackson passed his time directing traffic at a nearby intersection. Legal actions continued from 1923 to 1929, which provoked congressional hearings on the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in establishing and administering the Barnett trust and others like it. The hearings led to criticism of BIA administrator Charles H. Burke's actions, and during the 1930s, to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. In 1927 Barnett v. Equitable again proclaimed Jackson Barnett incompetent in federal court. In March 1934 another federal ruling annulled the Barnetts' marriage and Anna Barnett's rights to Jackson's trust on the grounds that Jackson had been "kidnapped" by a woman of suspect moral character, but allowed Anna to act as Jackson's caretaker. Jackson Barnett died on 29 May 1934 of natural causes: allegations that Anna had poisoned him were found to be false.[3][4]
Anna was finally evicted from the Wilshire Boulevard residence after four years, even though she had gained significant support from Los Angeles society,[5] including Los Angeles District Attorney Burton Fitts and California Governor Frank Merriam. Anna had to be tear-gassed after she threw a hatchet during the eviction,[5] and lived the remainder of her life with a daughter while unsuccessfully attempting to regain a share of the Barnett estate, which amounted to $3.5 million in 1934 ($55.4 million estimated value in 2012 dollars).
Source.
Lots more info here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 10, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Crime, Unauthorized Dwellings, Forgotten Figures and Where Are They Now?, Frauds, Cons and Scams, Government, Hospitals, Twentieth Century, Native Americans, Weddings
November 9, 2019
Take-My-Lips Kit
Back in 1972, South Mountain Passage offered people the chance to have their lips cast in bronze for only $21.75. That seems like a pretty good deal, considering that the next year Yves Saint Laurent was going to charge $400 for the same thing.
Pittsburgh Press - Mar 16, 1973
Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 09, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Body, 1970s
Clutch Cargo in “Pipeline to Danger”
Clutch gets involved with the Saudis!The IIMDB page.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 09, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Annoying Things, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, Surrealism, Cartoons, 1950s
November 8, 2019
The Armageddon Bra
"the 'Armageddon Bra' includes a sensor on the shoulder strap, and a control box to warn of objects falling from the skies."
The Vancouver Province - May 13, 1999
Montreal Gazette - May 13, 1999
Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 08, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, Underwear, 1990s
Valentina Perfume
Smell like a comic book.
Full story here.
Wikipedia page on original comic here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 08, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Advertising, Comics, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents
November 7, 2019
Trampled by cows
The annual ceremony practiced in the Indian town of Bhidawad sounds a bit like Pamplona's Running of the Bulls, except with cows, and instead of running away from them, you lie down and let the cows trample you. From Dunya News:The ritual that is performed a day after the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, in Bhidawad village, about 75 kilometres from central temple town of Ujjain, is part of the ‘Gaay-Gauri Puja’ (Cow worship). The cows of the village were decorated and worshipped as devotees danced and took out a procession. After the prayer ceremony, some of the devotees lied down and let the cows trample them by running over them.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 07, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Ceremonies, Parades and Festivals, Cows
Edmund Love and His Restaurant Quest
In 1964, THE SATURDAY EVENING POST profiled Edmund G. Love, who intended to eat his way through approximately 5000 NYC restaurants.
By 1973, when THE NEW YORK TIMES took notice, his quest had ballooned to 6000.
His 1990 obituary in the NYT says he managed to hit 1750 of them.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 07, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Addictions, Bums, Hobos, Tramps, Beggars, Panhandlers and Other Streetpeople, Eccentrics, Food, Restaurants, World Records, Twentieth Century
November 6, 2019
Pabst-Ett Cheese
The ad copy claimed that it wasn't cheese. Instead, it was "more than cheese." So what exactly was this stuff?
San Francisco Examiner - Aug 7, 1927
Pabst-ett is not cheese — but more than cheese. It is made by the Pabst process which conserves the nutritive value of whole milk — the milk sugar, milk proteins, and body-building milk mineral elements lost in cheese making.
It is as digestible as milk; more nourishing than milk; the cheese-product young children, elderly persons, even invalids may enjoy. A valuable regulative food for the system — rich in vitamins — health-building.
It is as digestible as milk; more nourishing than milk; the cheese-product young children, elderly persons, even invalids may enjoy. A valuable regulative food for the system — rich in vitamins — health-building.
The Vintage Recipe Blog explains that it was a "a processed whey cheese similar to Velveeta but more spreadable." The Pabst Brewing Company created it in the 1920s as a way to find an alternative line of business during Prohibition. When Prohibition ended, they sold the rights to Kraft, who discontinued the product a few years later.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 06, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Food, 1920s
Mystery Illustration 88
In the Golden Age of comics, there was no internet to provide reference fotos for odd creatures or other objects/places/people which an artist might need to draw.
What creature is this artist attempting to depict?
The answer is here (page 23).
Or after the jump.
More in extended >>
Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 06, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Comics, 1950s
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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 |
