Built-Rite is responsible for the “Zoo Fun Card Game.”  There is no date, I’m afraid: just pictures of birds, fish, and mammals: on “New shaped cards — to fit the hands – easier to hold.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner) 

Sometimes mechanical reproduction is not the most accurate.  In the 1890s, the composer Erik Satie bought seven identical velvet suits, and wore nothing else for seven years. In photos, they look gray: his biographers duly noted that; a record of his music was even entitled “The Gray Velvet Gentleman.”  Later, scholars unearthed several color sketches by his friend Grass-Mick that showed the outfit as yellow: it just photographed as gray.

Here comes jolly Mr. Sun!
Won’t you wake me when he’s done?

picnics for nitwits

I never met a man who never met a man he didn’t like that I like.

Why did St. Francis have to preach to the birds? Did it ever occur to him that he might learn from them? 

On one occasion, I visited my family out in Oklahoma; and my father wanted to know what kind of beer I drank. I said Guinness, only to learn that he’d never heard of it. In fact, none of my family had; and they were quite hostile to me for drinking some weird foreign beer that nobody had even heard of.

When you cross that busy street,
Don’t forget to move your feet.

Project: a row of geared phenakistascopes, facing a long mirror.

Won’t someone help poor Dionysus?
He’s out of wine, and that’s a crisis.

Today, I heard a newscaster call Arlington Cemetery “Arlington Seminary.”

How very noisy is the bigot!
To hear him bellow, turn his spigot.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)   

“Cowboys and Indians” was published by Ed-U-Cards in 1960.  It featured soberly rendered illustrations of cowboys and Indians, six-shooters and tommyhawks — and one cowgirl.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I recently obtained a copy of Joscelyn Godwin’s book Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World (Inner Traditions, 2009).  I mention it here so that I can plug it: it’s a wonderful overview of the 17th century savant, studded with 400 examples of his charts, maps, inventions, and other illustrations.  There’s been somewhat of a Kircher revival recently; this trove will fuel it.

Here, for example, is Kircher’s Parastatic Microscope: a glass disc, painted with small images, mounted in a wooden case.  The disc rotates; the images are viewed through a lens.  As Godwin points out, it’s much like a modern slide viewer.  And it comes close to providing a moving picture: all it needs is a shutter (like a film projector), or slits broken up with blackness (like a zoetrope or phenakistascope) to separate sequential pictures and trigger the persistence of vision.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)  

Your butt in back, in front your face:
That’s how you move through time and space.

I once found a salamander in my family’s yard. Salamanders are harmless; still, my father’s immediate reaction was “Kill it!”

Maybe we can spend the meeting
Arguing about the seating.

If you pay attention, you may notice an increasing stigmatization of cash. Credit and debit cards are the norm; cash is now sometimes called “the underground economy,” and branded as somewhat skeevy, the tender of drugs and prostitution. Obviously, people pay cash only if they don’t want their identities tracked. I recently paid dollar bills for batteries in Radio Shack, and the clerk insisted on getting my name and address — which was, apparently, Elmer Hoohah of 23 Bedspring Boulevard.

Project: a stereoscopic flipbook

It is better to curse the light than the darkness; that way, you can see what you’re doing.

On the morning of my sister’s wedding, I stepped outside and saw a feral cat eating the head of its dead kitten.

When in public, don’t make peepee:
Other people find it creepy.

Print up cards urging people to read Matthew xx: 38.

Newscaster flub: “sewer loser” for “sore loser.”

Clarence Darrow, an avowed pessimist, was asked why he didn’t just commit suicide. “I don’t have to,” he explained, “I’m going to die anyway.”

(Posted by Elmer Hoohah. The sketch is by Thackeray.)

A few members of the Ullage Group convened this week to experiment with another foodstuff unfamiliar to the dominant American culture.  The subject was chestnut honey: an Italian varietal markedly darker, earthier, and less sweet than the common domestics.  The participants in the study were Doug Skinner, Dr. Mamie Caton, and her associates Susan and Michelle.

A preliminary taste confirmed the complex flavor of the subject; the team particularly enjoyed its subdued sweetness and bitter undertones.  The following traditional recipe was prepared.

Slices of Italian bread were topped with thin slices of pecorino romano cheese and thin slices of pear (d’Anjou).  Several specimens were also prepared with gorgonzola instead of romano, a common variation.  The specimens were placed in a moderate oven (350 degrees F, 177 degrees C) for ten minutes: the objective being to heat and soften the ingredients, not to melt or cook them.  They were then removed from the oven, and drizzled with the chestnut honey.

The team judged the results positive.  The combination of crusty bread, salty cheese, fresh pear, and musky honey was pronounced significantly tasty.  The gorgonzola was assessed as particularly effective.

Those wishing to replicate the procedure should be apprised that earlier researchers have reported excellent results by omitting the bread, and simply using a bisected pear; and with substituting similar darker honeys, such as acacia or silver fir.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)  

Another “Old Maid” has arrived to add to our survey.  This one was published by Oriental Trading.  I’m not sure what Chef Sheri is cooking in this picture; it looks like mushrooms and confetti.  I’ve never tried that.

And here’s the Old Maid.

(Posted by Doug Skinner) 

Today I heard a newscaster slip up, and call a “retired admiral” a “retired animal.”

The pigeon’s not a welcome bird
When it’s in my vicinity.
I understand it forms a third
Of something called the Trinity.

robots in rowboats

I saw a children’s book called You Can Drive an Automobile. I want the children to be happy; but shouldn’t they be discouraged from driving?

If you sing about your feelings,
I will throw potato peelings.

Do maggots see flies as angels?

When Cupid reaches for his quiver,
Shiver, little children, shiver.

The other day, I was drinking coffee at a sidewalk cafe, when a man came out to tell me that he’d taken my picture. “There’s a bullet hole in the window,” he explained, “so from the inside it looks like you have a bullet hole in your head. Pretty neat, huh?”

My hand shadows aren’t supposed to look like animals; they’re supposed to look like my hands.

Take more on, moron.

So follow, if you must, your star:
Remember, though, it’s very far.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

On Sunday, May 16^th, hardcore fans of the suggestive braved suspended subway service and a glorious sunny afternoon to take in some harmless smut at the Ullage Group’s “Not Dirty, Just Spicy” event at Jalopy.

Doug Skinner started things off by reviewing the rhetoric of extended double-entendre. To drive the point home, he performed the Cliff Edwards favorite “I’m Going to Give it to Mary with Love,” and recited three examples of the genre: “The Wayside Chapel,” “Proxy Papas,” and “The Flying Lesson” (joined by Lisa Hirschfield on the last two). Mr. Skinner successfully demonstrated that, even in this age of explicit and easily-accessed internet porn, people will still laugh at merely implied lewdness.

Anthony Matt treated the audience to some vintage eye-candy and spicy cheesecake: naughty stereoscopic pin-ups. This 3-D girlie show, featuring nude starlets that time forgot, also included a selection of critically-acclaimed stereo photos by silent film star Harold Lloyd.

Lisa Hirschfield concluded the evening’s infotainment with a presentation on the striking popularity – and unsettling subtexts – of spanking imagery in popular culture, with a particular focus on comics and advertisements. Although it was well-received, more than one audience member expressed disappointment that no demonstration was offered.

All in all, the afternoon was a delightful and ever-informative detour through the slightly twisted mind of the Ullage Group.

(Posted by Lisa Hirschfield)

In recognition of our upcoming event, “Not Dirty, Just Spicy,” we will pause in our survey of the anonymous graphics of children’s games; and consider those for adults.

A wide variety of graphic information has been put on playing cards: ads, maps, political caricatures, music, aircraft silhouettes, foreign phrasebooks, souvenir photos of fairs and landmarks, nudes, smut.  During the 1950s, adult-themed cartoons were also popular.  They weren’t always bawdy; some series were devoted to such topics as golf and drinking.

This deck, “Fun Pack,” was published in 1954 by Frederic Distributors.  The gags are mild; the artwork breezy.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)