Scot points out that your cheap, uncomfortable paper towels may be turning your employees against you. Indeed, this gentleman has already acquired both the demeanor and moustache of the Communist. In other news, were you aware that you can catch Fascism from public restroom toilet seats? Believe it.
Gentlemen: An instruction manual for the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer, distributed by Densmore, Yost & Co. The Sholes and Glidden was the first of its kind to be commercially successful, and coined the term “typewriter”. Included in the manual is a handy QWERTY layout which allows future typists to practice, as well as testimonials from the likes of R.H. Badcock, a blind man from Kalamazoo, Edward H. Magill, president of Swathmore College, and this guy:
What “Mark Twain” says About it.
Hartford, March 19, 1875.
Gentlemen: Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge the fact that I own a machine. I have stopped using the Type Writer, for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I not only describe the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don’t like to write letters and so I don’t want people to know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.
Yours truly,
Saml. L. Clemens.
It must be noted that, seeing his explicit instructions ignored, Twain’s revenge was swift and brutal. No one knows exactly what transpired that day at the offices of Densmore, Yost & Co., but it must have been horrific, as many of the bodies were beyond recognition. Needless to say few, if any, fucked with Clemens again.
Admiral ‘Spike’ Blandy and his wife celebrate the success of Castle Bravo, the detonation of the world’s first practical hydrogen bomb — and the largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States — at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands on March 1, 1946. The fallout plume spread dangerous levels of radiation over an area over 100 miles long, including inhabited islands.
Records showing fallout levels from the cake are unknown. However, testimony from those who attended the event depicts a frosting that was nice to look at, but inedible otherwise. The raspberry filling was said to have been delicious. Five people fell ill, though this was attributed to excessive amounts of Scotch.
Update: Christ, have I been doing a lot of these lately or is it just me? Anyway, as wile_e_quixote points out in the comments, this photo does not depict the celebration after Castle Bravo, but a previous exercise involving atomic bombs. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
You may think that sending your children out to the train tracks to fetch coal is a good idea; after all, since those absurd child labor laws were enacted they don’t contribute anything to the family. However, you should know that trains — hateful, metal monstrosities that they are — will take every chance to mow them down. Keep in mind though, trains have a fatal flaw in that they have one chance to extinguish your child’s life, meaning that, should their homicidal run fail to kill them, you may be left with a crippled mouth to feed. Just look at young Johnny there. How will he make money now? No one’s going to hire a one legged paper-boy and it goes without saying that no woman is going to want a husband with a missing leg. No, Johnny is coming to the harsh realization that being a pirate is not a realistic goal and his parents are considering moving away and not telling him where they went. It’s something to think about the next time you get it in your head to procure some free coal.
Welcome to Ectomo’s 33rd Mostly-Weekly Saturday Morning Cartoons Show. Today we present to you a smorgasbord of delectable animated dishes; a smattering of drama, horror, humor, and vintage erotica served up steaming hot for your enjoyment. So sit back, relax, and prepare to have you senses assaulted with ‘toonage!.
• Don Hertzfeldt. welcomes you to the show!
• Transformers: “”More Than Meets the Eye Parts 1-3″. Over an hour of thinly veiled toy commercials masquerading as a children’s cartoon. Learn how the Autobots and the Decepticons came to Earth and which plastic and die-cast metal action figure to beg for! Seriously though, while the cartoon doesn’t hold up particularly well and while it is just a glorified toy commercial, I still can’t shake my love for Transformers.
• Comedian Louis C.K. uses animation to explore some of his father issues.
• Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure: A piece of animation history; the first pornographic cartoon. Rumor is that it was made for a private party in honor of the great Windsor McKay and that such visionaries as Max Fleischer and the Mutt and Jeff studio were involved.
• The Real Ghostbusters: “The Boogieman Cometh”. One of my favorite episodes of this show, the design for the Boogieman is just brilliant, his oversized head, replete with glass-shard like teeth, and cloven hooves makes for a great image.
• Intermission, by Don Hertzfeldt.
• Welcome To Eltingville: “Bring me the Head of Boba Fett”. The first and only episode of this cartoon based on Evan Dorkin’s Eisner-Award-winning “Eltingville Comic-Book, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Role-Playing Club” published in the pages of Dork. Featuring four gentleman — Bill Dickey, Josh Levy, Pete DiNunzio, and Jerry Stokes — who are friends of a fashion, but geeks to the fullest. In this episode a battle erupts over the ownership of a Boba Fett figurine and hilarity thus ensues. Cameo by MC Chris, which I’m pretty sure was a prerequisite for [adult swim] cartoons for a while.
• Paranoia Agent: “The Holy Warrior”. Detectives Ikari and Maniwa interrogate Lil’ Slugger who confuses his realities and believes that the world around him is a medieval-style RPG while his quest is to defeat the evil Gouma who possesses other people to fight. Ikari and Maniwa follows Lil’ Slugger through his “journey” and see that it does coincide with all of the attacks — all except for Tsukiko Sagi. However, Lil’ Slugger points the detectives to where the old lady is who may posses the truth.
As this ad from 1944 so astutely points out, there was a halcyon era when a man whose domestic servant wife presented him with a less than satisfactory meal, could lay into her with his ring hand with zeal of a bare-knuckle prize fighter at a Clown Punching club. Those days are gone, however, and the young people with their absurd, namby-pamby, “feminist” ideas have cast a bad light on what is now known as “domestic abuse” but was once more commonly known as “constructive corporal criticism” (CCC).
Indeed, in the absence of physical punishment husbands are left with few ways to voice their displeasure with the culinary talents of their private cooks wives. As Heinz is well aware, boredom expressed through yawning — or, perhaps, terrible halitosis; the illustration leaves room for either — is, at the current juncture, one of the few, fool-proof means to impress upon these women that their dishes are not up to par. Never mind the fact that one would assume that these women wouldn’t have to be reminded of the fact that their husbands did them a favor by marrying them in the first place, providing them with money and a home, allowing them to birth and rear their children, thereby saving them from a sad, empty life as a common prostitute or a frigid, spinster librarian.
So it’s a good fucking thing for them that the happy Heinz Chef is there to save their asses with his delicious soups, for how else would these “sensitive souls” be able to deal with ignominy of a man struck dumb with ennui at dinnertime. It’s almost too painful to imagine.
Some pages from a 1950s pamphlet entitled “Protection from the ATOMIC BOMB” which outlines the proper procedures when a nuclear cataclysm occurs. This is easily my favorite page. Indeed I was previously unaware that, should I witness a flash of light brighter than the Sun, I should immediately do a face-plant and stay down for one minute because really, once your retinas have been seared by an atomic explosion, there’s not much else to do. After that one minute though, you should be able to get up and go about your business, safe in the knowledge that you’re too smart for those Communists.
Krazmo attempts to dispel any attempt to discern an over-arching narrative for Don’t Cry sweet potatoes:
I don’t think the theme of the label really has much to do with the type of produce inside. As evidence, I cite the following gallery full of such lovely, obsolete art.
Comment by Krazmo — May 1, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
However, based on the image above it would seem that not all produce imagery is without cohesive thematic intentions. Less can be said for the likes of, say, Gay Johnny Texas Vegetables.
I admit to being properly confused by this image for Don’t Cry Brand sweet potatoes. What is going on here? Is it the story of one man losing a game of dice to a sugary tuber, or maybe the other way around? Is the gentleman rolling dice in order to procure said tuber? Are they comparing the consumption of sweet potatoes to illicit gambling? If anyone can definitively explain the imagery here please, leave a comment. Any illumination would be most appreciated.
Brass Goggles is kind enough to remind us that that yesterday was Air Kraken Day, a day set aside to commemorate this historical document of an attack by an Air Kraken on an ocean-bound steamboat. The scene of carnage and destruction is serenely overlooked by a hot-air balloon floating on the horizon. Contemporary historians suggest that this balloon was commanded by none other than the insane abyssmonaut Muad-Dib Al Masoud, directing the ectoplasmic tentacles with a combination of mad chantings and incense of extraterrestrial origin.
Brass Goggles suggests that her readers should all go out and fly kites shaped like air krakens to commemorate the event, and while we’re a day late to the festivities, we’re going to suggest our readers do the same.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
