Rare Pic Of Young Santa Reveals True Rizzle For The Sizzle
Month: October 2019
Cypriote Labor
Yesterday, we got a taste of the laborious jobs on the island of Cyprus in 1928. But one post could not do the many jobs justice.
The men below are taking a reprieve from sacking, weighing, and carrying heavy bags of carob pods. Carob is the nasty chocolate substitute that my folks made me eat from Whole Foods. No wonder it was so expensive. Most of this crop went to England, France, Spain and Egypt to feed cattle. What? Yes, for energy-rich fiber. But some of it was made into sweets and syrup.
Understandably, men’s work differed from women’s work, though both wore them down. In front of this dyeshop hung with yarn dyed a deep blue for men’s trousers, this elderly woman spins yet more yarn. The trousers had full seats that were tucked into the belt for cross-country walking.
Speaking of walking, here we see another baker (similar to yesterday’s baker), carrying an entire bread counter on his shoulders.
If you didn’t like carrying, you could spend the day tossing, like this man and boy at a Famagusta pottery pile. The ones he neglected to catch would up in the dovecote.
The broken jars became shelters for doves, who made their way into lore in the tale of the Cypriote king who kept himself cool by causing doves to flutter around him. This was before boxed fans. 
If you looked like a Mediterranean Charlie Chaplin, you might find yourself in this job, where another version of Chaplin scrunched down inside a kiln.
There they fired oil, wine, and water jars. I would suggest a pair of shoes.
This might be hard to detect against the backdrop of the Sea Gate Tower, part of the city’s Venetian fortification, but here we see a two-man sawmill.
That kind of work calls for Gatorade. But that wouldn’t be invented till ’65.
Join us tomorrow for yet more fun and fabulous career choices! I leave you with this image of a 12-year-old on her day off from breaking rocks, enjoying a day of rest.
Cyprus Classifieds
Finding work in 2019 can be a problem. Otherwise, I’d be working right now and not typing up a free blog post. But the Craigslist jobs of today pale in comparison to the backbreaking jobs available in the country of Cyprus in 1928.
First off, we have the arduous task of rockbearing. Don’t let the smiles fool you; as soon as the sun went down, they were off to the local chiropractor and physical therapist to straighten up those spines.
For those of you who enjoy being bent over all day (but don’t like transporting rocks), consider washing laundry with your feet, like the women of Kalopanayiotis traditionally do. Bonus duty: using a paddle to bludgeon the water out of the clothes.
Helene and her mother seem to have found a more suitable alternative to leaning forward. However, they were only briefly upright for the picture, as their job entailed breaking rocks to make them usable for road work.
This farmer may have found the best seat in town, seated on his sledge as the oxen move forward. The children serve as makeweights.
While none of these jobs seem to be pleasurable in any way, the next one offers gluteny fruits of one’s labors. The “itinerant Cypriote bakery” must delight all those who encounter it–despite the dust, flies, and stray dark hairs of the baker who made it. If nothing else, he clearly has the best work uniform among the bunch.
Tomorrow, we’ll peruse yet more want-ads of the Cyprus papers, and perhaps you can find your niche!
It’s Not What You Thot
InSTYLEAug2019
Flipping through the pages of the August 2019 InSTYLE magazine, I recently stumbled across this Loreal ad of two stunning models, Duckie Thot and Luma Grothe. While one could argue that Luma Grothe is a fine funny name in its own right, there is no humor there, save supposing one said her last name as “Gross” with a lisp.
Rather, today we celebrate her Loreal lipstick sister in crime, Duckie Thot.
Duckie (understandably) is the nickname for 23-year-old Nyadak Thot. Born to a family of South Sudanese refugee, she was raised in Australia, where Aussies could not pronounce Nyadak. Thus, “Duckie” was born. We’ll get to that later.
Now, if you are of a particular age, or still say “far out,” then you might not be aware that THOT is an acronym for “that ho over there.” Yep, kids say it.
YouTube
An IG THOT is an Instagram THOT…
View original post 266 more words
Farmers Market Looking Weak Today
Imagine yourself in Famagusta, a city on the east coast of Cyprus, over 90 years ago. The tiny Mediterranean island of Cyprus currently has a population just over a million, or a scooch more than the capital of Texas. So you can imagine how sparsely populated it must have been in 1928. You could hit the open-air market early for coffee in the cafe on the left. Then you could purchase fresh fruit and grab a goat carcass to go.
Or if you were feeling especially fancy, you could travel 30 miles to dine at the restaurant in nearby Nicosia. There they would serve you a meal of nutty breads, ripe olives, sour cheese, roast goat, and you could wash it all down with a draft poured from a pink-clay pitcher.
While gnawing on tough goat, you could enjoy the lovely view of the Ayia Sophia mosque, as it was known back then, meaning “Holy Wisdom” in Greek. Take in the scars of Turkish cannon balls hurled at her walls, the broken buttresses and ruined belfries, and the one Gothic turret elongated into a minaret. Today it is known as Selimiye Mosque. The foundation stone is from 1209, so yeah, it’s old.
Stop by tomorrow for more images and history from the little island of Cyprus!
I Don’t Know About The Caps, But The Gowns Were Fabulous
Pie Season
October is finally here, and pies are on my mind. While no season is “pie season,” we don’t typically eat much pie when it’s 100 degrees in Texas, which it mostly always is. God willing, soon we’ll be down to 90 degrees, and the glory of autumn will usher in the holiday season.
Longtime readers will know I forewent a wedding cake in favor of blackberry and key lime pie, so you know where my heart is. In fact, we only watched the movie “Waitress” because I wanted to see her make pies!
Y’all, I know there are pizza pies and meat pies, but I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about the reason to buy a Martha Stewart magazine, for the sheer artwork of her pie pics. Her site is full of moist pie porn pics.
Pie can be art.
Or patriotic.
Many pies are better a la mode.
But mostly pie just makes us smile.
Bills Are Rising, And So Is My Mailbox
This Little Fork, Minnesota farmer was tired of state road plows burying his mailbox beneath 10 foot drifts. So he used his noggin and attached the mailbox to a log boom, resembling an old-fashioned well sweep.
“Kerbey, what’s a well sweep?” you may be asking.
Per http://galleryatwellsweep.com,
A well sweep is a device used to bring water up from a well. The term “sweep” refers to the long pole which is lowered until the bucket on the end goes down into the well and fills with water. Because the pole is anchored in the middle on another pole, creating a fulcrum, it can be counter balanced, thus making it easy to raise the pole, and lift the bucket from the well.
And never confuse a fulcrum with a philtrum–that groove above your lip that Millennials pierce.
Golden Ply Silvertowns
Because Coke Said That’s What Santa Looks Like
Not until artist Haddon Sundblom illustrated Santa Claus for Coca-Cola advertisements in 1931, did Americans associate a large snowbearded man in a red suit with the image of Kris Kringle. Below is Sundblom, enjoying a frosty bottle of his labors.
Most of us grew up with the image he created and cannot fathom a slender Santa, much less one with dark hair or no facial hair at all. In 2015, this model tried to offer a trimmer version at Yorkdale Shopping Center in Toronto.
What do you think? Should Santa be svelte and hipster, rocking a Beat It jacket? Possibly even vegan?? I don’t think so. I like my Santa jolly and obese, and borderline diabetic from all that Coke and plates of cookies we leave out. I’d tell skinny Santa to beat it.
I Don't Get It 