The “Space Age Edition” of Old Maid was published by the Russell Manufacturing Company in 1960.  Most of its pairs are, like this one, cartoon versions of NASA spacecraft.  However, the UN building, Albert Einstein, and a skin diver are also part of the roster.  I guess they help keep the kids on their toes.

And here’s the Old Maid herself.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

[Here is, approximately, the outline Dr. Mamie Caton and I followed for our bit in our Medi-Vaudeville event.  I prepared it to allow interaction with Mamie (who was too busy to write anything herself) and with the audience.  And I’ll pursue it on another page, to keep the home page tidy.]

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

[Read more →]

“Dandy Candy,” a “Built-Rite Toy,” parades anthropomorphic junk food before its young audience.  Pies, cakes, candy canes, gum drops, and other sugary citizens laugh and frolic before jagged pastel backgrounds.

I suppose the idea is to encourage children to up their sugar intake.  I had no interest in sweets as a kid; my family, of course, was appalled, and warned me that I was endangering my health, but I wouldn’t get with the program.  Grown to maturity, I still don’t see the point of this stuff.  Maybe if I had this game to teach me, I would have learned my lesson.  And maybe not.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)   

I made this sketch of that curious old building, the Faust House, on a trip to Prague a few years ago.  I post it here for whatever pleasure it may trigger.

The Faust House, for those unfamiliar with it, sits on Charles Square; it houses the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, and is not open to the public.

There are many stories told about it.  The first is the one that named it: that it was indeed the home of Dr. Faustus, and that the Devil whisked him off through a hole in the roof — or, in some versions, from the second floor of the corner tower.

It sheltered a gaggle of savants over the years: in the 15th century, the alchemist Prince Vaclav of Opava; in later years, the astrologer Jakub Krucinek, and another alchemist, Ferdinand Antonin Mladota.  In the 19th century, Karl Jaenig indulged his romantic morbidity there, rigging up a gallows, painting the walls with dismal mottoes, and sleeping in a coffin.  He also asked in his will that he be buried face down.  Ah, youth.

The most familiar Faust Householder though, is undoubtedly Edward Kelley, John Dee’s rather shady accomplice, who settled in Prague for a while.

And, not surprisingly, there are other rumors: unexplained fires, cat skeletons found in the walls, and reports that 16th century alchemical paintings still cover the walls and ceilings.  But we can’t go in, so we can’t see them.  We can just study the facade, and ponder the folklore.

By the way, I recommend sketching while traveling.  It’s less accurate than photography, but you really have to look at something to draw it, and that’s a treat.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)  

Ah, the Old Maid returns: here she is in a nicely rendered “Peter Pan Card Game” from the Whitman Publishing Company.  Again, I’ve selected the painter from the deck, since I always wonder if the anonymous artist has slipped in a self-portrait.

And here’s the Old Maid.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Today is Robert Browning’s birthday.  If he were alive today, that beard of his would be even longer.

I suspect few read him today; I don’t know the statistics.  If so, it’s a pity.  I cracked him open not long ago to examine his portrait of a spiritualist, “Mr. Sludge the Medium,” and have been reading him with pleasure ever since.  Believe me, he’s full of surprises.

And few surprises are more surprising than his famous error in “Pippa Passes.”  I wanted to celebrate it here: what could be more ullagistic than a boner from a now-neglected poet?  I thought it most fitting to couch it in verse.

Come shed a tear for Robert Browning,
The butt of countless students’ clowning,
The laughingstock of English classes.
For in his drama, “Pippa Passes,”
He made a choice that wasn’t clever,
And marred his masterwork forever.
If you will fetch your dusty copy,
I’ll show you where old Bob got sloppy.
It’s near the Epilogue’s conclusion,
Line ninety-six.  See his confusion?
That’s not the word that he was after;
It’s bound to raise our ribald laughter.
What happened?  This is so unlike him.
Did rashness or impatience strike him,
As he sped toward that final curtain?
Was he too hasty to make certain?
Was he so fixed upon his mission
He couldn’t check the definition?
So pleased with his vocabulary
He scorned the humble dictionary?
He read, in some old seldom-read piece
A word, and said, “That means nun’s headpiece.”
But no, it’s not a nun’s regalia;
It means “the female genitalia.”
No nun’s brow bore a “twat” as bonnet;
Now his has “twit” emblazoned on it
Forevermore.  Till life’s last flicker,
We’ll read that line, and we will snicker.
So shed a tear for Robert Browning,
A poet reckless with his nouning.

(Posted by Doug Skinner.  Careful with those candles, R.B.)

In May 1776, the Continental Congress proclaimed a day of “Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer.”  Since then, our presidents have occasionally marked off a special day for prayer; and in 1988 Reagan fixed the first Thursday in May as “The National Day of Prayer.”  Humiliation and fasting have apparently been cut.

Not all presidents have hopped onto the clasped-hand bandwagon.  Madison declared a National Day of Prayer, then regretted it, feeling it violated the separation of church and state.  Jefferson was quite the party-pooper, opining that “civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of the constituents.”

The Ullage Group suspects Jefferson may have been on to something.  After all, presidents have a lot to do: there are those pesky constitutional duties, as well as such traditional ceremonies as jogging or cutting brush for the press.  Our current exec certainly has his hands full.  Perhaps religion should be left to the private sector.

We also think that we’re as qualified as anyone else to direct religious exercises; and so we proudly announce the establishment of the Ullage Group National Day of Prayer (the U.G.N.D.P.) as an alternative.  Depending on demand, we may also incorporate fasting and humiliation.  Today, unfortunately, is not an U.G.N.D.P.: you’re on your own, and will have to decide for yourself whether to pray or not.  But check back with us.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)   

“Letters and Numbers,” from the Russell Manufacturing Company, is a curious creation.  It’s essentially an alphabet book; some of the letters are repeated to pad the deck out to 40 cards, which are arranged into four suits (Planet, Moon, Star and Comet) of ten cards each.  Several games are suggested; but children are encouraged to make up their own.

But the pictures are handsome; and the gravure process makes those colors delicious.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)  

[The flurry of activity that went into our event, “Medi-Vaudeville,” delayed the last installment of this talk on Darwinism.  Please do read the earlier parts; it’s all connected.]

If “BC” could introduce the Bible into the caveman cartoon, then, obviously, the next step is to introduce the caveman cartoon into the Bible.

So, busy theologians have been combing their scriptures for evidence that men and dinosaurs co-existed, thus reconciling the Bible, the fossil record, and “Alley Oop.”

To be specific: the Behemoth in Job (chapter 40) is now identified as a brachiosaurus.  The “fiery flying serpent” of Isaiah 30:6 is now a bioluminescent pterosaur.  And Biblical illustrations and dioramas now show the tyrannosaurus lumbering about the Garden of Eden, and Mr. and Mrs. Triceratops lining up for the ark.

According to a rather wonderful talk by John Goertzen, presented at the Midwestern Evangelical Theological Society Conference in 1998, Moses and the Israelites had to fight off pterodactyls as they fled Egypt.  Furthermore, pterodactyls survived on the ark, and only became extinct a few centuries ago.

Of course, Goertzen’s thesis is controversial, since some creationists insist pterodactyls are not extinct.  They call them “ropens,”and are now mounting expeditions to comb remote jungles for them.  And so the most dogmatic fundamentalism winds up yoked to the unorthodox speculations of cryptozoology.  What would Heuvelmans do?

I don’t know if Peter Piltdown will appear in the new 25 million dollar creationist museum in Kentucky, right outside Cincinnati.  I do know that the curator, Kenneth Ham, plans to, in his words, “take back the dinosaurs,” and to correct the poor scholarship of secular natural history museums, that place dinosaurs living millions of years before man, and don’t even address the issue of what the tyrannosaurus ate in the Garden of Eden.  The latest evidence is that he was vegetarian before the Fall.  I don’t know how this jibes with the doctrine equating vegetarianism with Satanism.  Obviously, scientists have work to do.

And now, evolution is simply not taught in many schools.  In some areas, it’s not officially prohibited, but teachers don’t want to take on angry parents by mentioning such a controversial subject.

Our politicians often don’t accept Darwinism — as they sometimes put it, “the jury is still out.”  Or at least that’s what they say.  I don’t think they’re real politicians, any more than Fred Flintstone was a real caveman.  They’re just mascots for the oil companies — like the bright green brontosaurus Sinclair used to post at its gas stations.  They’re here to reassure the faithful that God created them to rule the Earth; and that Jesus will soon fly down on his bioluminescent pterodactyl, riding his ropen, and turn all dead dinosaurs into gasoline, to bring our lumbering gas guzzlers back to life.

In 1989, the Post Office released a set of dinosaur stamps, including a lovely brontosaurus.  When scientists objected that this wasn’t accurate, the Post Office explained that most of their customers weren’t scientists.  As Edwin G. Conklin, a Princeton biology professor, observed at the height of the Scopes Trial, the popular idea, especially in politics, is “that one man’s opinion is as good as another’s on any subject whatever.”

In a democracy, ideas are accepted or rejected not necessarily according to evidence, or to verification, but to popularity.  And in a mercantile society, ideas are judged on profitability.

(Posted by Doug Skinner.  Happy bicentennial, Mr. Darwin…) 

“Old Maid at the County Fair” is an Arrco “Pla-Mor” game.  In this one, our Old Maid meets “all the funny folk at the County Fair.”  Unlike most decks, she (or her cat) is also in each picture.  The Arrco people certainly had some stylish illustrators on board.

And here she is.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)