Ephemera

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I’ve written several posts in fits and starts, none reaching completion. The longer the delay between posts, the more irrational pressure to post, resulting in panic about the post, resulting in finding any excuse not to post, increasing the pressure, panic, delay, all resulting in a Singularity of Not Posting. To avoid this, I’m taking a suggestion from Cat Party and posting the detritus littering my desktop. This includes images from the aforementioned aborted posts, as well as results of the various Ebay, Google and Wiki-holes fallen into.


These are but a small fraction of the bootleg Simpsons images scrounged up from all over the internet. This one in particular – why is it copyrighted? Was it published somewhere? Maybe MAD or CRACKED or something?


This sweater perfectly illustrates the Simpsons show dynamic – even on the rare occasion Maggie and Lisa are front and center, they look wary as they’re bracketed by an unaware and smiling Bart.


I have no idea which episode this is from, and that’s coming from someone who watched over 3 hours of MST3K this weekend alone. Who’s a precious Kitty Bride?


Stare


STARE

Speaking of Ebay, it’s strange, but if I collect all the images from an auction, it lessens the need to own the actual object. E-hoarding? The colors in all three of these are wonderful to me.


Ah yes. Gothic Holy Mountain is my ‘look’ for 2012. I just need to find the right hat.


An image from my David Lynch party invite.


In the future, all communication will be through animated GIFs. I stared at this one for 3 full minutes. Why? I cannot say – the bus is clearly endangering EVERYONE….I cannot say.

http://www.classicmoviefavorites.com/harlow/
Ah, Jean Harlow. I find the image above, with her chubby cheeks and unairbrushed-eyes, is more appealing, though the strawberry-blonde/emerald green coloration below is very appealing.
http://www.classicmoviefavorites.com/harlow/

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Thank you once again, Internet Archive. You have created the Most Ironic Thing on the internet – a downloadable copy of Playboy, in braille, scanned into a computer. By the Library of Congress.

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This was another irresistible Strand Rare Book Room purchase, partly due to the bombastic, hysterical tone of the cover, and partly because it never, ever, ever acknowledges the GIANT elephant in the room. What might that be, you ask? Why, let’s look at the subheader there:

“THE GREATEST CRIME IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY”.

This book was republished in 1910. Wasn’t there maybe something, say, about 40 years earlier, that might have been just as, if not a tad more great in its magnitude of criminality and immorality? No? You sure? Okay then, onward and upward!

I don’t mean to make light of any form of slavery; the horrors that this book speaks out against are still going on today – if you’d like to see a modern take on the exact message presented here I recommend watching ‘Lilya 4 Ever‘. Human trafficking is a deplorable and shameful practice we all need to help eradicate, especially those of us in countries where these women, and yes, the majority of the victims are still women, are taken.

What gets me about this book is the thick layering of Victorian morality over the message, how once a woman ‘falls from grace’ she’s doomed forever, how she’s to blame for whatever happens to her. Hence the major focus being how to prevent women from falling in the first place, which happens to include bringing down traffickers and making sure ladies are aware of potential traps. Of course, once the trap is sprung, if they’re caught it’s their own fault.

Below is a gallery of all the images from the book – click for comments on each image and a larger view.

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When visiting the Strand, I usually end up in their 3rd floor Rare Books room. This is partly because the room is accessible only via one elevator, making me feel slightly badass and spy-like just walking into it, much like discovering a hidden room in a video game. It’s partly because entrants are left free to roam in a sizable, open room smelling pleasantly of old leather and paper, FILLED WITH RARE BOOKS.

The rarest of the rare are displayed behind thick glass in an old-timey bank vault next to the main desk. Here you’ll find your Mark Twain signed first editions and rare monographs handwritten by former kings. Otherwise, everything else is out in the open. You can just wander around leafing through early editions of ‘On The Road’, children’s books from Soviet Russia, or pulp Victorian romance novels with ornate jewel covers. There’s even a tiny room in the back filled with books so ancient they disintegrate before your very eyes (it smells very nice though).

Now, ‘rare’ doesn’t always translate to ‘unaffordable’. Rare just means something you don’t come across very often, something there’s not very much of. This is an irresistible proposition to me, the possibility of having what may be the ONLY COPY LEFT of something, even if that something has little or no practical application or resell value. Actually, especially if it’s impractical with little resell value. Imagine my joy then, after wandering around looking at lovely and far too expensive tomes, to come across this baby on a shelf for a mere $15.00:

‘How To Click Before The Camera’ is a 1949 step-by-step guide for models on posing. I’m not sure why it’s so rare – the back page implies this was one of several booklets the company sold regularly, and How To Click seems the most comprehensive of those offered. In any event it’s a treasure trove of surreal imagery – floating heads, disembodied limbs standing on clock faces, and articulated mouth gestures with strange phrasings beneath.

Seeing as the magazine’s apparently so rare I thought I’d share the whole book right here, so in the unlikely event my computer and apartment simultaneously spontaneously combust, the world can go on learning which poses are FOR EXOTIC HIGH FASHION ONLY. Please, use this knowledge wisely.

Click to learn the dark secrets of ‘How To Click’.

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I cannot sing the glory of the New York Public Library’s research archives high enough. On a previous excursion, I took out 5 catalogs from the typesetting era, giant books detailing all typefaces available for purchase along with decorative flourishes and a variety of creepy and disturbing images. Page after page of glorious fonts! Behold!

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