Category: Art

Vulcanizers In The Motor Age, Part I

Motor Age1919006

I spent last night, flipping through a 1919 Motor Age, browning and brittling as it nears the century mark. I wish I could post all 150 pages, as interesting as they are, but of course, you would fall asleep by page 20. As I am no Kerbey the Riveter, I know nothing about machines or cars in general, so most of these words my mouth had never spoken. Vulcanizers, carborundum valves, aloxite wheels?

Motor Age1919005

I don’t know what a “jobber” is, but the magazine is filled with the term. And who’s this Dutch girl?

Motor Age 1919Between the Velie Six and the Cleveland Six, I hadn’t heard of half the automobile manufacturers. See how many of these you recognize.

Motor Age1919002

Here’s the Cleveland Six. Ain’t she a beaut?

Motor Age1919010

Check out this handy luggage carrier. So convenient!

Motor Age1919008With “The War” having ended only the year prior, life was getting better and better.

Motor Age1919009

Stay tuned for Part II, as we discover more of the 95-yr-old Motor Age.

Crazy Eyes

Sometimes I look through old yearbooks and wonder, “What in all that is holy?”

KU-Spring47012

My best guess here is that these fellas are wearing Groucho Marx glasses. Except that there aren’t any glasses at all. And Groucho was neither blond nor ginger. In fact, Hirschfeld drew Groucho with facial hair as black as night.

http://artthreat.net/2012/02/groucho-marx-what-this-country-needs/
http://artthreat.net/2012/02/groucho-marx-what-this-country-needs/

So I’m terribly vexed.

Politically Incorrect Yearbook Comics 1949

This is all in good fun, but folks would cry “domestic abuse” in this day and age.

49Comet007When I think of Mary Wana, I think of hippies, not high school students in 1949. My bad.
49Comet005Fun with intentional homicide!49Comet006Uh-oh, bestiality!49Comet004 Mental illness was a laughing matter.

49Comet011

Hints of polygamy…

49Comet008And the grand finale of I-Don’t-Get-Itness…a bowlegged sheriff fondling a cactus made of student’s heads, as a vulture flies overhead. Because that’s normal.

49Comet009

 

Mint Is Busting Out All Over

Springtime April 001

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

–William Wordsworth

April (minus the ominous dark clouds and lightning that never once lead to a drop of precipitation but simply pass over us like the Jake Ryans of the world to the wallflowers at a high school dance) is lovely. As you can see, I have more mint than I can shake a stick at. I doubt I’ll use it for more than one glass of iced tea. What I will eat, and what my best friend and I called “pickles” in our childhood, are these little sour cones:

Springtime April 002I don’t know what they are, but I know you can eat them (pesticide-free!), and you won’t die. Other than that, my plant knowledge is limited. I would never make it on Naked and Afraid. I lack any survivor skills, and rather than try to determine which mushrooms are edible and non-toxic, and knowing I’m bound for eternal glory, I would simply shuffle off this mortal coil and head toward heaven’s brunch buffet. Surely they have migas!

However, while I remain in this mortal body, I have already spent (statistically) half of my years–which means half of my Aprils are gone, and that is a shame. Perhaps heaven is eternally April? But then I would miss my Octobers…