Royal Recipe Parade '42

'Ten shun! Who asked for a fun 40's gelatin 'n pudding recipe booklet populated by puny lil parading puppet people pictures? You did, that's who! And if you didn't, here they come now anyway in all of their cutesy puniness. Okay, puniness aside, this post is actually huge, and everything you see below was exhaustingly photographed and edited on my Iphone, so of course once I imported every image over to my Mac here at home, you can clearly see all of my crappy contrast 'n poorish paint edits sticking out like a dumb sore thumb. Annnnnd seeing as how much time 'n energy I had already pumped into this beast, I guess I'll just call it a day and you'll all just hafta deal with it! Meanwhile, the definitely worth looking for booklet itself is actually still full of tons more terrific puny puppet people imagery, --and least we forget those 171 rockin' Royal recipes teased on the cover too! Now who's ready to scroll? Let's go!

ADA Milk Maid Glass

I found this cute ADA (American Dairy Association) milk maid collector glass recently, and after tirelessly researching it, still have not unearthed much information about it. There is of course very much online info about ADA itself, as well as the rich history behind the "Alice in Dairyland" program which began back in 1948. But, despite all of my tugging and squeezing of the 'ol internet tit for more, and whether or not this lovely milk maid mascot glass illustration below is part of that fine tradition too, well... let's just say I'm left udderly clueless.

Hell's Angels Herald

Another great item I spotted last week while out on my rockin' road trip was this incredible Garrick Theater flyer for the WW1 aviation film, Hell's Angels from 1930. Directed by Howard Hughes and James Whale, and starring platinum screen superstar, Jean Harlow in her first credited major feature film role, this appears to be an original 30's ''last days run" theatrical herald, mounted and shellacked on a piece of antique wood. Super pricy, unfortunately, but convinced me enough to re-watch this bombers 'n bombshell blockbuster again as soon as I returned home from my trip. A true motion picture classic, --and be sure to click the Wiki link above to read about some of the more fascinating (and deadly) details surrounding the film's production.

Midcentury Corpse Reconstruction Wax Practice Model (Cincinnati School of Mortuary Science)

Spent the last week driving completely around the entirety of Lake Erie. Saw a lot of great stuff too, starting in Chicago with The Outsider's Musical, as well as Marc Martel's amazing "One Vision" Queen tribute band (even Brian May can't tell the difference between him 'n Freddie!), also toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and an ancient Nubia Bestiary exhibit! Then it was off to Detroit to visit Jack White's Third Man Records home base HQ studio / store. Spent quite a few bucks there too, natch! Crossed the border from there and went right into Canada (please refer to a map if you're getting lost or confused) and floored it all the way to the magnificently monstery, tourist trap chaos of Clifton Hill, which overlooks Niagra Falls from the Great White North side. Ventured through many haunted houses, found some nice antique shops, and ate a lot of great Canadian food, before once again crossing the border back into the US again via Buffalo NY. More fab antiquing to be found, as well as seeing The Falls from the opposite side now, and yet another Frank Lloyd Wright house! And from there, --now a bit more than half the way around Lake Erie-- it was off to Cleveland. So what does a "Midcentury Corpse Reconstruction Wax Practice Model from the Cincinnati School of Mortuary Science" have to do with any of this? Cleveland Curiosities (in Cleveland, duh!) A real gem of a shop, loaded with macabre goodies, both real and unreal, a little bit kooky, and a lotta bunch spooky-- and just as mysterious as it is mystically magical. All era of oddities are displayed, going as far back as the Victorian days, possibly even earlier. Everywhere you turn it's a freaky feast of cleverly curated taxidermy mishaps, side show spooks, religious relics, horror heroes, and vintage funeral home fun. And that's where our beautiful boy below comes in. I suppose the card under his chin is pretty self explanatory, though I will add that, to me, this was the the most unique thing I encountered on my entire eerie trip of the Erie, --and the perfect end to six much needed days away out on the open road. I still had one more day to drive back to MO, and if you're wondering, this smiling, side-burned, eternal slumberer below was unfortunately not my co-pilot.

Birdwatcher's Handbook (Hospital Edition)

Here's a silly, multi-paged, midcench "get well" greeting card that doubles as a hilariously helpful "handbook." And lol, birdwatching was never more bird-brained than this because for one, we're being led by the cover to believe that this edition is in reference to actual shapely, female human birds, --when in fact, we're simply getting cutely clever comparison gags about our actual literal feathered friends of flight. It's all very well illustrated though, and quite funny too, poking fun at not only the nursing staff and their distinctive behaviours, but our fellow hospital patients as well.