If you love midcentury modern style and you’re feeling down, few things are better than screening 1961’s Bachelor in Paradise, with Bob Hope and Lana Turner. This is not a witty movie; it is not important or classic at all. But it is a film that oozes delightful MCM-ness from every crack and pore. In fact, so… Continue reading Midcentury Modern Lovefest with 1961’s “Bachelor in Paradise”
Author: Lee Wallender
Deception, influence, fakes, illusions, themed environments, simulations, secret places, secret infrastructure, imagined places, dreamscapes, movie sets and props, evasions, camouflage, studio backlots, miniatures.
Brutal and Effective: C. Fred Tarver’s Advertising Campaign
“These four men have one thing in common…” Who would you rather buy insurance from if you live in Alexandria, Louisiana. Fred Tarver? How about C.F. Tarver? Wait, what about Cleston Tarver? Or C. Fred Tarver? For close to three decades, residents of that city were familiar with Tarver’s repetitive ad for his State Farm… Continue reading Brutal and Effective: C. Fred Tarver’s Advertising Campaign
Christopher Morley in the Age of Evil Cross-Dressing Men in Film
It was the period when you could shoot, stab, punch, and humiliate cross-dressing men with complete abandon and glee. It was the 1970s. If the 1960s were all about peace, love, and understanding, many identity groups were still excluded going into the Seventies. A man who dressed like a woman in Seventies film and TV… Continue reading Christopher Morley in the Age of Evil Cross-Dressing Men in Film
The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, By Sir John Glubb
Biography John Bagot Glubb was born in 1897, his father being a regular officer in the Royal Engineers. At the age of four he left England for Mauritius, where his father was posted for a three-year tour of duty. At the age of ten he was sent to school for a year in Switzerland. These… Continue reading The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, By Sir John Glubb
Margarine Mascot Monkey Gives Birth in Pipe Organ
On October 31, 1919, we find that a monkey named Nuko escaped, ran amok, hid in a pipe organ in San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium (now Bill Graham Auditorium), and gave birth. What happened? For those of you unlucky enough to be born in the 21st century, I can tell you that the entire history of… Continue reading Margarine Mascot Monkey Gives Birth in Pipe Organ