Weird Universe Archive

February 2023

February 8, 2023

For Carl Andre

For Carl Andre is a 1970 artwork by Lynda Benglis. It consists of a heap of polyurethane foam sitting in the corner of a room. It's owned by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.



The title refers to the sculptor Carl Andre, known for his ultra-minimalist works. For instance, one of Andre's more famous works, Equivalent VIII, consisted of a rectangular stack of bricks. The Fort Worth Art Museum catalog notes:

Benglis uses Andre's name in her piece, but the point she makes is not strictly pejorative. The work is an ironic and humorous homage to Andre's art, which is characteristically made of ordered, flat, modular shapes combined with simple slabs of metal or stone that sit directly on the floor or, like Benglis's piece, are installed in the corner.

So it's not "strictly pejorative," but maybe it's slightly so? Or satirical?

Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 08, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Art, 1970s, Satire

Miss Color TV

Apparently the contest continued beyond 1956 (first and second images), because the advertisement that follows is from 1959.



Ann Daly (No. 25) screams as she is declared "Miss Color-TV" in beauty contest at Palisades Amusement Park, N.J.; other contestants stand alongside her.








Posted By: Paul - Wed Feb 08, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Television, 1950s

February 7, 2023

Heating Gas From White Clover

The future in which our energy needs were met by white clover never materialized.

I wonder if there was something special about white clover that produced more/better gas? Or had they simply succeeded in producing the kind of biogas that can be derived from any plant material?

St. Lous Post-Dispatch - Nov 17, 1935



Lowry City Independent - Dec 26, 1935



Two Students Learn Secret of Clover Gas

ST. Paul, Minn. Nov. 6 (1935) — Discovery of a method for manufacturing a commercially adaptable gas from ordinary clover was claimed today by Dean R.U. Jones, head of the MacAlaster college chemistry department, for two of his students.

Dean Jones attributed "great possibilities" to the discovery. William Mahle and Harold Ohlgren, the latter a football star, said they developed the gas from a secret process, accidentally encountered.

Both seniors, Marle and Ohlgren conducted experiments under the direction of Dean Jones and Prof. R.B. Hastings of the college physics department. They worked with white clover plucked from roadsides.

"I am convinced," Dean Jones said, "there are great possibilities in the boys' discovery, and I believe it can be worked out commercially. I am proud of the boys, for I gave them a problem and they went far ahead of me."

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 07, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: 1930s, Power Generation

February 6, 2023

God Speaks To Modern Man

Looks like he's asking for a raise.



The illustrations inside the book (which you can read for free via archive.org) are equally odd.

















Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 06, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Religion, Books, 1950s

Trick Bass Viol

I would have enjoyed seeing the dogs emerge from the viol itself, but--as I interpret the patent--they are in the box at the base of the instrument. Still, a musical instrument filled with beer is also acceptable.

Original patent here.





Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 06, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Magic and Illusions and Sleight of Hand, Music, Patents, Dogs, 1900s, Alcohol

February 5, 2023

Puppidog Water for the face

In her 1690 pamphlet Mundus Muliebris, Mary Evelyn included a recipe for a woman's facial lotion. She called it "Puppidog Water for the Face":

Take a Fat Pig, or a Fat Puppidog, of nine days old, and kill it, order it as to Roast; save the Blood, and fling away nothing but the Guts; then take the Blood, and Pig, or the Puppidog, and break the Legs and Head, with all the Liver and the rest of the Inwards . . . to that, take two Quarts of old Canary, a pound of unwash’d Butter not salted; a Quart of snails-Shells, and also two Lemmons . . . Still all these together in a Rose Water Still . . . Let it drop slowly into a Glass-Bottle, in which let there be a lump of Loaf-Sugar, and a little Leaf-Gold.

The recipe was intended to be satirical, but Fenja Gunn, in her 1973 book The Artificial Face: A History of Cosmetics, notes that it was satire rooted in contemporary realities — notably the persistent rumor that Elizabeth I's pomade was made from puppy dog fat, and the seventeenth-century belief that drinking puppy dog urine was good for the complexion.

Some more info about puppy dogs used as moisturizers can be found on the Early Modern Medicine blog:

The medicinal use of puppies, known for their moisturising quality, is detailed in French physician Ambroise Paré's The Method of Curing Wounds by Gun-Shot (1617), which included a recipe for a healing balm that requires boiling two young whelps. The same recipe can be found in Nicholas Culpeper's Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1653). To make 'Oleum Catellorum or Oil of Whelps,

Takes Sallet Oil four pound, two Puppy-dogs newly whelped, Earthworms washed in white Wine one pound; boil the Whelps til they fall in pieces then put in the worms a while after strain it, then with three ounces of Cypress Turpentine, and one ounce of Spirits of Wine, perfect the Oil according to Art.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 05, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Dogs, Seventeenth Century

Pixillation



The creator's Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 05, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Movies, Special Effects, Surrealism, Psychedelic, 1970s

February 4, 2023

Win A Diamond Doorknob

Dr. Pepper celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1960, and in honor of this ran a contest with the unusual prize of a diamond doorknob. Specifically: "a doorknob of special design encrusted with 50 small diamonds and a huge two-carat, blue-white diamond mounted in its center. As the grand award the diamond doorknob will be attached to a $25,000 Swift Home having a family-size Refinite-Shedon swimming pool in its backyard and a new Rambler station wagon in its driveway."



Edith Dillion of Roanoke, VA eventually won the prize. Reportedly she sold the house but kept the doorknob. And perhaps the doorknob is still owned by the Dillion family.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 04, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages, 1960s

Brief Intro to PRESTEL

This kind of tech will never catch on!

Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 04, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: PSA’s, Technology, 1990s, United Kingdom

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