Go Santa, go Santa, go Santa…

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’.

Here we have a classic image: the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.

But why is she giving you saucy eyes? And why does baby Jesus look like he’s coming down from the mother of all hangovers?

He’s definitely pointing at that kid’s wonky eyes. They look like the cover of Aenima.

Was this a normal thing for saints? The Devil just popping up all the time for them to throw their comb at or use as a footstool? Then again, he’s probably just making it look easy; that’s how you get to be a saint.

One of many black on black paintings in dim rooms featuring Irene of Rome pulling an arrow out of Saint Sebastian’s arm. Fun fact: being plugged “till he was as full of arrows as an urchin”, the traditional artistic depiction of St. Sebastian, is NOT what killed him! No, he miraculously survived that, then decided to march right up to the emperor and personally criticize him, whereupon he was clubbed to death.

Speaking of patently bad ideas, here, if memory serves, is a triptych featuring St. Christina of Persia with a pal telling the locals what for.

And here she is about to be scourged to death; a pretty standard A->B sequence:

But the joke’s on them! Her god is a vengeful God and He does smite His enemies…with fire!

Speaking of God’s enemies, here’s an unflattering portrait of Salome and her mom holding the head of John the Baptist while looking around all shady-like.

There was no shortage of beheadings in this museum.

Time for a breather! Here’s a much friendlier take on the Virgin and Child. Just ignore the blatantly pagan crescent moon and putti head-crushing.

BACK TO THE GORE. I believe this is St. Ignatius of Antioch being disemboweled by Roman soldiers.

Check out the detailing on those intestines.

Here is someone, possibly St. Bartholomew who was so closely associated with his martyrdom by skin-flaying he was usually pictured holding a flaying knife, being flayed.

And finally, the piece de la resistance, a full, wall-sized Flemish tapestry depicting the Massacre of the Innocents in all its bloody, baby-murdering glory.

Right down to the beautifully woven baby brains. Catholicism!

Ah, the long stretch of drudgery after the hectic holiday season. It’s a time of sickened overindulgence and desperate boredom in equal parts. What better moment to post pictures from my own simultaneously crammed and void seasonal stretch? Early in December, arriving home and seeing the full mass of Christmas decorations heaped on our dining room table, I felt inspired* to grab the ol’ point n’ shoot.

(*inspired = wanted to avoid getting pine sap all over me.)

Years of family history lay in tangled heaps, briefly exhumed only to be packed back up in short measure for another year’s basement exile.

This is the oldest ornament my family has, from my mom’s family. I think of her as the Sugarplum Fairy. She’s too fragile and precious to risk hanging low on the tree, easy cat bait, so we tend to hang her high. Wait, that came out wrong.

These must have been created at the behest of some well-meaning elementary school teacher – too clunky to actually hang on the tree, but with photos specifically taken for the holiday season. Nothing says ‘Merry Christmas!’ like awkward personal poses.

One small testament to the skill of Grandma Tillie, not a blood relation but our grandma’s best friend. Aside from copious canvas needlepoint, she stitched each of us stockings for our first Christmas. We still use them.

Brass and vague resemblance to ‘Love Is’. Ah, the ’70s.

Another well-intended class project.

Something about the kid’s expression…I can’t quite place it. It wouldn’t be out of place on a DEVO album, especially with the plate of giant sausages floating next to him.

These bright, saturated orange and yellows popped cheerily on the shelf and drew me right in. Then again that could be due to placement next to a refrigerated case full of de-fleshed cow legs. Whole cow legs, hoof and all. Mmmmm boy.

Yes, come shop at Wally-Mart and enjoy the ice-creamed products at Dari King- totally independent shops with no affiliation to nationwide chains at all!

The Devil looks like he just got back from Burning Man.

Between the rock snot and the bear warnings, upstate New York truly impresses you with the peaceful beauty of nature.

I was kicked out of Scouts for trying to reassure an idiot bunkmate who was freaked out bears would eat us because of the handful of acorns I collected. I calmly pointed out this was silly because a) they do not really eat acorns, b) we were ‘camping’ between two highways in central Jersey, not exactly their turf and c) we were in a solid wooden shack with a lock on the door, not a flimsy tent. However, the kid’s parent was troop leader and just as dumb, and booted me out for endangering the group. With a handful of acorns. In a room just off Route 18. Ironically, I now have a constant camping phobia of bears eating me. I have not even watched Grizzly Man so there is absolutely no excuse. Imagine my terror when the first thing seen upon entering the campground was the above sign. Terrified, I asked one of the two friendly older ladies working the entry booth what we could possibly do if confronted by one of these malevolent beasts. “Oh, just wave your arms around a bunch and make a lot of noise. That usually scares ‘em off.” Ah. There hadn’t been any bear sightings at Little Pond that year, but the ladies aimed to keep it that way through the season.

Driving back home we came across a covered bridge. Take that, Madison County! Upstate New York has several, and an aficionado informed us one had been completely swept away by the flooding, only to be found downstream mostly intact. Inside, the beams were covered in years and years of carvings.

This was the oldest visible year carved in – 1937.

Yes, it’s not truly a State Fair without a wizened man of the land sitting on his horse in the middle of the street, waiting to answer any questions you might have about farming or life.

I saw small children clutching enormous Rastabananas tottering around the food stands. It’s either due to a mistranslation in the Chinese manufacturing company’s order sheet or the trendspotting companies responsible for such pap have officially resorted to random word generators. I defy anyone to connect bananas and Rastafarianism. Wait a minute…

(The secret is to offer them a nice picnic lunch in exchange for their honey.)

The Family Nail Box, with something for everyone! Tiny wood tacks for little Susie, steel bolts for Mom, and don’t forget roundhead screws for Dad’s special projects!

Speaking of which, it wouldn’t be a large gathering in the Midwest without at least one Juggalo sighting. Here, I came across an entire family (no, the baby was not wearing face paint):

Yep.

Just outside, anachronisms ran rampant at the Civil War reenactors’ tent site. He is so irritated by that tie-dye!

Over at the 4H tent, this fellow represented endangered species or something:

I am still unsure how not seeing a snake is inconveniencing.

There’s something poetic about this man, gazing upon a purple tractor as the warm summer twilight falls around him.

State Rocks! All the excitement of geology plays out state-by-state RIGHT BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!

A nested WTF within WTFs, this model railroad had its own (delightfully air-conditioned) room, right next to a special snake exhibit. Pretty much a modified trailer, the entire room save one narrow pathway around contained a glass-walled enclosure filled with an enormous model train set. I got to walk around with a 10-year old who ran ahead of his family (or, more likely, they left some lag time), calling out the name of each train, car type, rail system and engine number like he some kind of train-specific form of Asperger’s. I got the strange impression he said all this out loud assuming persons nearby (ie me) would be impressed. We were not. However, I was taken by some of the smaller details in the gigantic tiny world; it seems model train makers are a mischievous sort as opposed to the dour caricatures of them portrayed in so many movies and TV shows. Some highlights:

Faster than a speeding bullet! Tinier than a G.I. Joe! It’s…Superman! Off to destroy something with some rock he found!

I’d like to think the placement of the Batmobile in this wee parking lot was an obscure nod to the classic monorail episode of the Simpsons, where a mention of help from Marge has Homer query “Is it Batman?” “No, he’s a scientist.” “Batman’s a scientist.” “IT’S NOT BATMAN!” Then I looked over at Lil’ Rainman rattling off train cars as they went by and kept the thought to myself.

A slice of everyday Americana, if your neighborhood constantly reenacted North By Northwest. Given the ridiculous stunts people pulled with small aircraft in the past (playing tennis, doing the hully-gully on the wings), flying one under a train bridge towards a small-town bike race wouldn’t surprise me too much.

Ah, bringing some much-needed gravity to the comical world of models. Here we have a reenacted scene from COPS: Iowa. Is that show still on? Is it just 90% meth arrests now, or do they still get the occasional shirtless convenience store robber caught down the street (still shirtless) sitting at the local bar?

The cemetery was just a tad too far away and underlit to get a proper, focused photo, but rest assured, that’s Beetlejuice sitting on a tombstone. No sight of the Maitlands though. So meta!

(click for a larger image)

Eventually I snapped some photos in a continued attempt to figure out what the point of this all was. Dinosaurs didn’t go extinct, they were drowned in the Great Flood, maybe? A friendly older woman came up to me and said all the pamphlets were free; I could take what I wanted. I took several before my friend dragged me away; I think he thought I’d angrily start correcting her, when really the only thing I wanted to ask was ‘what are you trying to tell people?’

After reading the pamphlet, detailing the hows and whys of dinosaurs being left off the ark, along with a confusing tangent about animals being ‘paired in twos’, not necessarily male/female couples (God would take care of it?), I was more confused than ever. I think the point of the exhibit wasn’t dinosaurs at all, but how the Earth is much younger than scientists believe. If anything, the experience was a comfort- no matter how well-funded and deeply believed the silliness is, without competency the message doesn’t get across.