Unlike our resident fashion mavens, I have little interest in the clothing that adorns my corpulent and odious frame. Owning, as I do, one filthy, purple suit and a wide array of burlap sacks, my attire is merely utilitarian; allowing me to leave the house, if I so choose, without being arrested or shot.

I present these twin ads for SHS clothing, then, without the faintest knowledge of the products they represent. For all I know SHS may deal in fine, iron shoes or suits made from reappropriated hobos. No, I am only interested in the images; and these have it all. Moustaches! Fezzes! Various and sundry corpses of beloved childhood characters!

Yes, there is little that is not amazing here, although the implication that ears are actually solid bone is a bit odd. Lastly, I have no doubt that someone, somewhere will look past the bleached skull of Hello Kitty and the robot skin rug and become apoplectic with rage over the depiction of Caucasian models being flanked by servants whose skin tones are of a decidedly darker hue. Any bets on how long that will take?

Goodbye innocence [electro^plankton] : Thanks, Nark!

Finally, a toy seemingly made specifically with Ectomo in mind. A fez, smoking jacket, slippers, and sunglasses can be a hard combination to pull off, but Ennui Man, the creation of Nick Dewar, does so with a singularly apathetic aplomb. Tentacles and virgin sacrifice sold seperately.

Ennui Man [Nick Dewar : Who Killed Bambi?]

The Friday Fez: I Was Meant for the Stage, originally uploaded by vebelfetzer.

When the Flickr hits for “circus fez” just aren’t that great, improvise.

OH SWEET GOD THAT MAN HAS TENTACLE PIT! Thanks, Andreas!

r ator reminds us that the Tcho-Tcho people of Leng, located on a plateau just north of the Dreamlands have been making fine, Eldritch chocolate for generations or, perhaps, for a few months.

I’ve been fired many times from Ectomo; once for not procuring a picture of Spiderman for Eliza for the front page of the evening edition. Where was CB with Scott C’s Fez wearing Spiderclique then?

Ever wanted to be suspended from the ceiling in sculpture that looks suspiciously like viscous fluid excreted from the loins of a giant? Kimi points out that artist Ernesto Neto has you, eh, covered.

Llamapillar! Thanks, Shark Diver!

Anders Sandberg points out that Britons are already preparing their children for the return of the Old Ones.

Oh, and the moustachioed, zombie Octobee? Perhaps a subtle reminder, via Rhys Hale, that there is still an Octobee Coloring Contest going on!

I Made You a Mai Tai, But I Drank It [Eye of the Goof]

In a word of explanation of the horrifically racist “Banania” print inexplicably hanging upon the walls of my German kitchen, garrulous frog Guillaume writes:

Cher John —

Never heard of him.

As an arrogant Frenchman, I will not let you tarnish a proud part of France’s glorious colonial advertising past. The tirailleur sénégalais (tirailleurs sénégalais were Senegalese soldiers enrolled in the French army back in the 19th and 20th centuries) on the Banania ad is definitely not eating banana custard, but rather drinking chocolate milk.

I am relieved to hear it. A stereotypical African eating a dessert made entirely of bananas might have pushed the boundaries of social taste in a way that a black person smacking his lips over a tin can full of chocolate milk would not. Chocolate milk! It’s dark milk for dark people!

Banania is a cocoa powder brand still popular in France. Paradoxically, the ingredients never included bananas in any way, but the name must have sounded exotic at that time.

The slogan “Y’a bon” means “It is good” in petit-nègre (literally : little nigger) which is the French equivalent of broken english.

Again, let’s congratulate the French on their progressive stance towards renaming their linguistic dialects.

Due to legitimate complaints, the current Banania ads are slightly less racist.

I was in Dijon a few weeks back. No joke: I stumbled across an entire licensed shop selling nothing but vintage Banania memorabilia. There, I bought a cafe au lait cup larger than my hydrocephalic head with the “Y’a Bon” guy on it. I love it, but let’s face facts: obviously, they are still cashing in on this guy.

No, seriously, thanks Guillaume for setting the record straight. This is the best comment we’ve gotten all week.

A folio detailing my adventures as a house renter in Berlin would be filled with the most curious illustrations of art I have encountered in the pre-furnished tenants I have sublet. You are all, of course, familiar with the giant vagina hanging on the wall of my last apartment in Kreuzberg (the picture’s bad; it does not detail the lurid pinkness of the horizontal slit very well, nor does it show it’s horrifying depth. Trust me on this: skeptical house guests have all agreed with me it is, and only could be, a vagina). This same apartment had a very curious picture of two giant blue extraterrestrials, leaning in for a homoerotic kiss; this proved to be a theme, as the bathroom of another penthouse I inhabited for two weeks in Kreuzberg was decorated with a photograph of the pudendum of another cerule-colored alien, this one a woman, which afforded me many opportunities for excretionary contemplation on the divine nature of Neptunian motherhood.

I have just moved into yet another apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, and I thought you might all like to see the culturally sensitive vintage advertisements and magazine covers which tastefully adorn the kitchen walls.

Continue Reading…