Weird Universe Archive

August 2023

August 31, 2023

You do the dishes

Performance artist Brian Feldman is selling tickets to a new performance — one in which you (the attendee) is the performer.

This is what you get for the $17 admission price:

You go to his home, handwash the dirty dishes in his sink, and cold read a monologue. Are you a better actor or dishwasher? Brian Feldman decides.

Each performance is an exclusive event. Just you and Feldman.

To be fair, he promises to pay you back the admission price. So the event ends up being free. But he still gets you to wash his dishes for him!

More info: eventbrite


Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 31, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Performance Art

Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 52

I must confess to a slight divergence with this entry. All previous ones have featured artwork from within Khrushchev's lifetime, stuff he could have theoretically seen and reacted to. (He died in 1971.) But this one postdates the man.

That is all.

Full info here.



Posted By: Paul - Thu Aug 31, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Animals, Statues and Monuments, Public Indecency, Europe

August 30, 2023

Linemen training

I assume bucket lifts have now made pole climbing a thing-of-the-past for linemen.

Popular Science - Feb 1951

Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 30, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Jobs and Occupations, 1950s

1969:  A Record of the Year

I think every year should have its own vinyl LP. What soundbites would we start to compile for 2023?

Meanwhile, take an aural timetrip back to 1969, via the player below.







Posted By: Paul - Wed Aug 30, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: History, Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings, 1960s

August 29, 2023

Clipboard Gun

The justification for this clipboard gun was that it would allow police officers to approach stopped vehicles looking as if they were holding a clipboard, not a gun.

The problem that I see is that it wouldn't take long for the public to realize that the clipboards were actually guns. In which case, even if a police officer was genuinely only carrying a clipboard, everyone would assume it was a gun.

More info: Patent No. 4,016,666



Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 29, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Police and Other Law Enforcement, Patents, 1970s, Weapons

August 28, 2023

Miss Garbage Disposal

Miami News - June 5, 1951



I couldn't find a picture of Mary Gleason as Miss Garbage Disposal, but below is a picture of her from the same month that she gained the title. It looks like the photo was taken at the theater where she was performing.

Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin - June 10, 1951



I also found reports stating that in 1946 Shirley Halloran was named "Miss Automatic Garbage Disposal," but I couldn't find any pictures of her.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 28, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1950s

Follies of the Madmen #574

Just in case you can't parse what's happening in the top panel of this ad, the woman has been inundated by the spill out of a gigantic dirty clothes hamper, like the one in the second pic.

Source of ad.




Posted By: Paul - Mon Aug 28, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Domestic, Enlargements, Miniatures, and Other Matters of Scale, Hygiene, Advertising, Clothing, 1940s

August 27, 2023

Hot Testicle Hypothesis

Elephants rarely get cancer. This seems odd because one would think that, elephants being larger than us and thus having more cells, they should be more prone to cancer than we are, not less.

Oxford professor Fritz Vollrath has proposed the "Hot Testicle Hypothesis" to explain this mystery.

The gist of the hypothesis is that elephants have unusually hot testicles for a mammal. Their hot testicles result in more mutations in their sperm. So the elephants have evolved more mutation-suppressing mechanisms in their cells. In particular, they have more copies of "p53 encoding genes" than we do, and these genes play a role in repairing damaged DNA.

All things considered, it appears that the elephant's testes may experience temperatures dangerously high for mammalian sperm production, even under normal body temperatures. High temperature metabolism tends to be coupled with cellular oxidative stress, which increases the probability of mutations. Such mutations could be gene duplications, including multiplications of the TP53 gene.

More info: technologynetworks.com

Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 27, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Science

Harrison Dyar, Amateur Tunneler

Earlier this year, I posted about THE MOLE MAN OF LONDON, an eccentric British fellow who liked to dig tunnels. Well, the USA can hold its own in this category, thanks to Harrison Dyar of Washington, DC. Wikipedia gives a short account of his habit. This long account is much richer.

Dyar told the Washington Star that the urge started when he dug a flowerbed for his wife around 1906. "When I was down perhaps 6 or 7 feet, surrounded only by the damp brown walls of old Mother Earth, I was seized by an undeniable fancy to keep on going."


Posted By: Paul - Sun Aug 27, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Caves, Caverns, Tunnels and Other Subterranean Venues, North America, Twentieth Century

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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.

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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.

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