FIVE SECOND STORIES

We weren't exaggerating about the dark January: according to the local paper, the sun was out so seldom it tied for the second darkest first month of the year in the last 100 years. Ayup.

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2/8-9: 60°! Crazy weather continues. It is confusing many:

The daffs are up!

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2/8: WI recorded its first February tornado on record. It touched down in Evansville, a town of 6,500 located between the IL border and Madison.

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From www.you can't make this stuff up.com:

-In the NV Republican primary, Nikki Haley and "none of these candidates" were the only two choices on the ballot. She lost in a landslide. Trump is being anointed by the NV Republican caucus.

-Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas was saved from impeachment when TX Dem Al Green was wheeled in by Democratic colleagues from the hospital, shoeless and wearing scrubs, to cast the deciding vote.

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The CALL SAM Bernstein Law Firm has been around for 50 years as personal injury specialists, a polite euphemism for ambulance chasers. In one of their latest ads, the next generation with Mark Bernstein as their spokesman, gives his spiel in rhyming verse!

Trust me, I say! Whoever hit grandma, will pay!*

 *This is not an actual Bernstein rhyme, only one created as a demonstration, although admittedly satirical, as an attention-drawing device and not reflective of the attitude of the Bernstein Law Firm towards their valued clients or their situation.

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Buddy continues to show us how smart he is in figuring out human behavior. Bud and I were sitting together on the couch surfing YT when my cell phone, sitting over on the desk, rang. He has learned that when he hears this sound, Dad will move, so he immediately jumped off the couch. 

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1951 pulp that appealed to the anti-cannabis, anti-jazz, anti-Negro, anti-free sex, anti-kicks in general moral crusaders. From the back cover:

Joyce Taylor was a nice high school girl, maybe a little wild, and when she is kicked out of school for doing a bump-and-grind number on a cafeteria table she moves to the big city and gets a job. There she meets a man who introduces her to the smoky world of jazz and before she knows it, she's inhaled some of that sweet, sweet smoke. When the cops get in on the action the misery starts and Joyce finds herself on a roller coaster ride to oblivion. N.R. de Mexico wrote as if he knew his subject, yet refrained from getting as preachy about dope as many of his contemporaries did. The pot-smoking jazz scene of the 50s is well described and filled with smart, sympathetic people.

 

Despite such warnings, what does this crusade lead to? The counter-culture of Beatniks then Hippies. The battle still rages on.

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In a similar nostalgic vein, I was wondering if the Soap Box Derby still existed? I never was interested but it seemed to be a piece of Americana and have not heard any mention of it since I was a kid. Well, it is now known as the International Soap Box Derby seemingly still going strong since 1934.

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Ludwig Hohlwein 1874-1949, German Poster Artist. As a printmaker, I admired his graphic style.

1907-Fashion catalog

1912-Munich Zoo

1914-Red Cross

c.1920 Riquetta chocolate

1929 Passau Bavaria

1935 Nazi propaganda students

1936 Olympics

1943 Nazi propaganda-civil air defense RTB

From Wiki:

Holhwein was a pioneer in Plakatstil (German for "poster style"), also known as Sachplakat, was an early style of poster art that originated in Germany in the 1900s. It was started by Lucian Bernhard of Berlin in 1906. The common characteristics of this style are bold eye-catching lettering with flat colors. Shapes and objects are simplified, and the composition focuses on a central object. Plakatstil turned away from the complexity of Art Nouveau and propagated a more modern outlook on poster art.

Holhwein was also an ardent Nationalist, working for the government during both World Wars.

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 Sly and the Family Stone "Stand) from 1969. Still timely!

Stand
In the end you'll still be you
One that's done all the things you set out to do

 
Stand
There's a cross for you to bear
Things to go through if you're going anywhere (ooh)

 

Stand
For the things you know are right
It's the truth that the truth makes them so uptight

 
Stand
All the things you want are real
You have you to complete and there is no deal

Stand, stand, stand
Stand, stand, ooh
Ooh

 

Stand
You've been sitting much too long
There's a permanent crease in your right and wrong

 
Stand
There's a midget standing tall
And a giant beside him about to fall

 

Stand, stand, ooh
Stand, stand, ooh
Ooh

Stand
They will try to make you crawl
And they know what you're saying makes sense and all
Stand
Don't you know that you are free?
Well, at least in your mind if you want to be

Everybody
Stand, stand

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Curious vid concerning the Book of Enoch, an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the patriach Enock who was the father of Methuselah and the great-grandfather of Noah. The earliest section is believed to date to 300-200 BCE and while accepted in the canon of the earliest Christian churches and still is by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (see 12/31/23 post Church Forests), it is not by the majority of Jewish or Christian church bodies. 

 

This piece is a weird amalgam of cheesy graphics, heavy X-File material regarding alien abductions, a alien/human hybrid project that created a race of giants, cherry-picked facts of world-wide ancient tales about visitors who arrived from different star systems and taught humans stuff that fit into this particular narrative: speculation of alien involvement in human civilization creating a 2001 monolith moments where Shazam!-humans make giant leaps forward, figuring out, for example, both the wheel and algebra. 

 

It is a rather radical manifesto: we need to offend the worldview status-quo dictated to us from Church and State in order for us to widen our concept of the human species and the universe. The host also takes a strong advocacy for abductees and returnees, opining that they should be valued and listened to.  Hmm, our neo-prophets?

 

I do agree, however, that there has been a lack explanation by the "experts" concerning something that has fascinated me for some time: there was some kind of worldwide giant leap that created calendars out of stone circles, pyramids, earthen mounds as humans transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agriculture. These were massive undertakings--not only the many years of communal labor but the amount of time to track celestial movements and translate this data into a giant calendar often with no written language! How did they do it?

Stonehenge

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Don't be a loser-feed your FOMO and buy your MUDMERCH for a mere $25, operators are standing by.

I recently came across an ad for this:  MUD\WTR, the anti-coffee morning drink for those who are "not mad, just disappointed" with coffee and most likely, the whole genre of heavily caffeinated drinks. It contains a wee bit of caffeine from the 100% organic cacao, ayurvedic herbs and functional mushrooms. No, not those 'shrooms, silly. Functional mushrooms are mushrooms with qualities some say go beyond their nutritional value such as natural health properties: brain-boosting, stress-reducing, immunity-fueling, mood-enhancing. This evidently is the newest craze--mushroom energy bars and mushroom lattés. Not surprisingly, the headquarters for this company is Venice, CA.