Category:
Twentieth Century
Twentieth Century
The Luxatone
Harvey Spencer Lewis was a Rosicrucian member with a flair for inventions. Besides the "Cosmic Ray Coincidence Counter" and the "Sympathetic Vibration Harp," he also invented the Luxatone.
The Luxatone or Color Organ was a device which converted audio signals into colours, displayed on a triangular screen. Lewis used it to demonstrate mystical and philosophical ideas. The audio signal was input with the aid of a microphone.
Read about it in this Rosicrucian magazine from 1933.
Posted By: Paul - Sat May 17, 2025 -
Comments (2)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Inventions, New Age, Special Effects, Twentieth Century
Miss Cereal City
The earliest reference that I find is 1961 (the photo below). The latest is 1999. It seems the contest and title are extinct.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 09, 2025 -
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Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Regionalism, Cereal, Twentieth Century
“Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79)”
Little did I presuppose that taking some clips of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and repeating them over and over could have this reported effect:Explosive bursts of fire open Technology/Transformation, an incendiary deconstruction of the ideology embedded in television form and pop cultural iconography. Appropriating imagery from the 1970s TV series Wonder Woman, Birnbaum isolates and repeats the moment of the "real" woman's symbolic transformation into super-hero. Entrapped in her magical metamorphosis by Birnbaum's stuttering edits, Wonder Woman spins dizzily like a music-box doll. Through radical manipulation of this female Pop icon, she subverts its meaning within the television text. Arresting the flow of images through fragmentation and repetition, Birnbaum condenses the comic-book narrative — Wonder Woman deflects bullets off her bracelets, "cuts" her throat in a hall of mirrors — distilling its essence to allow the subtext to emerge. In a further textual deconstruction, she spells out the words to the song Wonder Woman in Discoland on the screen. The lyrics' double entendres ("Get us out from under... Wonder Woman") reveal the sexual source of the superwoman's supposed empowerment: "Shake thy Wonder Maker." Writing about the "stutter-step progression of 'extended moments' of transformation from Wonder Woman," Birnbaum states, "The abbreviated narrative — running, spinning, saving a man — allows the underlying theme to surface: psychological transformation versus television product. Real becomes Wonder in order to "do good" (be moral) in an (a) or (im)moral society."
Anyhow, the creator, Dara Birnbaum, left us this week, so we can't expect any further gems from her. Meanwhile, it's always a pleasure to look at Lynda Carter under any circumstances.
Posted By: Paul - Sun May 04, 2025 -
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Category: Art, Comics, Television, Video, Twentieth Century
Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 62
"Erotic Gramophone" by Óscar Domínguez.Read about it here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu May 01, 2025 -
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Category: Art, Surrealism, Statues and Monuments, Music, Sexuality, Twentieth Century
Miss Omak Stampede
I was unaware until just now that some Western rodeo-style events are called "stampedes." It seems like bad karma to name your event after a disaster. But in any case, The Omak Stampede has elected a queen since 1935. They also conduct the "Suicide Race."From Wikipedia:
The Omak Stampede, which operates the Suicide Race, has been hosted at a local rodeo facility, the Stampede Arena—renovated in 2009[102]—since 1933.[103][104] The Omak Stampede occurs annually on the second weekend of August. During the event, the city has an estimated population of approximately 30,000 people.[105][106] As part of the Suicide Race, horses and riders run down Suicide Hill—a 62-degree slope that runs for 225 feet (69 m) to the Okanogan River.[107] Horses must pass a veterinarian examination to ensure they are physically healthy, and a swim test to ensure they can cross the river, to demonstrate their ability to run the race and navigate the river.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Apr 11, 2025 -
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Category: Animals, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Parades and Festivals, Regionalism, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century
Prettiest Office Girl
Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 02, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Business, Twentieth Century
Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 61
The official website is here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 31, 2025 -
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Category: Nudism and Nudists, Statues and Monuments, Europe, Twentieth Century
The Deaths of Violet and Daisy Hilton
The recent news about the sad deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, indicating that they perished days apart in the same house, with Hackman, dying second, not seeking help, has an even stranger precedent in the passing of once-famous conjoined twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton.
You can read their entire story at Wikipedia. But the salient part for our purposes is this paragraph:
On January 4, 1969, after they did not report to work and attempts to reach them by telephone failed, the police were called to investigate. The twins were found dead in their home, victims of the Hong Kong flu. According to the autopsy, Daisy died first; Violet died between two and four days later.[15] Violet had not called for any help.[14]
Realistically speaking, what could Violet do? Perhaps the corpse of her sister could have been amputated safely, perhaps not. Sharing no organs with her twin, Violet might have survived. But she made a choice.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 23, 2025 -
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Category: Death, Human Marvels, Twentieth Century
Unauthorized Dwellings 35
The Wikipedia entry on Harshaw, AZ, explains:In 1963, Harshaw ran afoul of the U.S. Forest Service. By this time, the town housed about 70 inhabitants, and consisted mostly of collapsed buildings, abandoned cars, and run down shacks. The only well-maintained structures in town were the Roman Catholic Church, and a small school.[6][16] The borders of the Coronado National Forest, established on July 1, 1953,[5] included the town of Harshaw, and because most of the residents never actually gained titles to their land, which could have been done starting in the 1880s, the government's property included the town.[29] Because no titles existed, and the land was then owned by the federal government, the residents were labeled as squatters. Further, once the National Forest was formed, obtaining titles to the land was no longer an option. Harshaw's rundown landscape proved to be an irritant to the Forest Service who, in 1963, tried to work with the residents to facilitate a plan to relocate the remaining families and clean up the town site.[6][16] The relocation efforts were not successful, however, as a few residents remained in Harshaw at least into the 1970s.[2]
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 11, 2025 -
Comments (1)
Category: Regionalism, Unauthorized Dwellings, Ruins and Other Abandoned or Shuttered Structures, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century
Pauline Wayne, White House Cow
Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 06, 2025 -
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Category: Animals, Politics, Twentieth Century
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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, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. 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. Contact Us |