I’m a great fan of Tony Sarg.  He’s perhaps best known today for his work on the first Macy’s Thanksgiving balloons; but he also made animated silhouette films, designed children’s books (often with elaborate inserts and paper engineering), mounted a memorable sea serpent hoax, and pioneered puppet theater in the US.  There’s not much about […]

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Ask me no questions, I’ll punch you no mouth. the caregiver and the caretaker a musket that shoots musk Not the courage of our convictions, but the courage of our doubts. Minicheckers: the opposite of Charles Fort’s “Supercheckers” — each player has four game pieces a radio flub: the marriage was “uncomplicated,” for “unconsummated” the […]

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“Wizard Problem Solvers,” a 1993 offering from Playmore, provided “36 fun-to-do challenges,” all in this casual cartoony style. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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The Ullage Group has long been fascinated by changing customs in diet. Foods go in and out of fashion; what we eat is telling. I have here two menus from meetings of the Order of the Eastern Star, both from September 1950, both from Connecticut. The Eastern Star was founded as an order for wives […]

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There were many decks around 1900 that promoted the different states; each card had a different picture, usually black and white photos with pastel overlays.  This Floridian sample offers a handsome razor back hog as Joker.  The backs were quite decorative as well. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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In dog math, 2 + 1 makes 4: further evidence that anthropomorphic systems are not objective. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Piatnik, in Vienna, was responsible for this “Black Peter” deck.  Black Peter accompanies St. Nicholas at Christmas; the card game is similar to “Old Maid,” with Peter as the jinx.  He was once represented as an African in colorful silk, but is now usually seen as a chimney sweep.  In this animal themed deck, he’s […]

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Benjamin De Casseres wrote books on Shaw and Emerson, contributed copiously to magazines, played Super-Checkers with Charles Fort, went on drinking sprees with Don Marquis. He summed up his attitude like this: “Hope the whore and Knowledge her pimp were not motived profoundly enough in my nature to save me from death. Only thee, Alcohol, […]

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Captain Turtle cuts a dashing figure in this early edition of “Old Maid.”  His colleagues include Ching Chang Chung (a Chinese citizen), Billy Bat (a baseball player), 15th Amendment (a freed slave), Dicky Fop (a fashion plate), Fast Horse (a boy on a rocking horse), and Corporal March (a soldier). The Old Maid is, atypically, […]

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