the good old days

Via Writes Like She Talks, I learned of a cute bit of Stalin-esque photoshopping:

Two women serve in Israel’s new Cabinet, but some Israelis would rather not see them.

Newspapers aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers tampered with the inaugural photograph of the Cabinet, erasing ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver.

Ultra-Orthodox newspapers consider it immodest to print images of women.

The daily Yated Neeman digitally changed the photo, moving two male ministers into the places formerly occupied by the women.

The weekly Shaa Tova simply blacked the women out, in a photo reprinted Friday by the mainstream daily Maariv. — Associated Press/Washington Post

The “ideal” solution would have been to not print the photo at all, rather than tamper with it; I suppose a black box saying “OMG WOMAN DO NOT LOOK!” is better than pretending somebody else was standing there, if I have to choose between the two. Censoring part of the picture escalates the insult.

I’d like to recommend a book I enjoy about this topic, The Commissar Vanishes, as background reading — it is an excellent overview of photographic manipulation during Stalin’s reign. There’s a website which covers the main points; frequently Soviet officials being removed from old pictures once they were decided to be unwelcome (any evidence of Stalin associating with them had to be removed). There’s one photo in the book (not on their site) in which four or five party officials leave the same photograph as it’s published over time, eventually leaving only Stalin and a couple others in the “group” shot.

While I’m impressed by the technical skill required to “fix” some of these shots (especially considering they were working on actual photographic negatives, not with Photoshop), the effect is pretty disturbing.

In general, it’s not a good idea to follow the lead of despotic regimes when choosing your editorial practices. It’s just bad journalism.

“OK, Joe, now just sit here and relax while I spray this shit in your face. If we made the respirator right, you’ll be just fine!”
“Wait–what? Did you just say IF, Bill?”
“Haha, no, of course not! Just breathe deeply…”

Via Modern Mechanix, and appropriately tagged “just weird”

Soooo, what do you think this is an ad for?

Listerine.

Nope, not kidding. (Hey, it’s not nearly as bad as Lysol douching.) I honestly don’t know enough about dandruff to know how effective this might be — of course, people shower much more frequently nowadays than they did in 1930.

Apparently men must violently assault their own head, while women simply dab it onto their scalp.

Via Modern Mechanix and inspired by Kitchen Retro.

It’s supposed to prevent wrinkling in prunes by letting the plums be harvested without any hand contact.

Because wrinkled surface on dried fruit is totally caused by handling, not the drying process. (And plums were totally gathered by women in nice dresses in 1932.)

Gotta love Modern Mechanix for the latest and greatest in wacky ideas

When production of the Model T ceased almost twenty years after they were first produced, there were millions of them in the world in various conditions. New Uses for Old Fords (Modern Mechanix, 1928) described many ways the “defunct” cars could find new purpose, including an ultra-safe saw rig. (Bullshit inventions like that are why OSHA came to be, by the way. Don’t put your face within 12 inches of a huge freakin’ saw, unless you aren’t a big fan of your face.)

It’s interesting just how modern the idea of designed obsolescence is. Modern Ford would laugh for a week if you suggest their cars should have a life and function after their time as cars. (To be fair, Henry wasn’t intentionally designing his cars to be sustainable and reusable, simply durable.)

Excerpt of a 1947 advertisement in Popular Mechanics, scanned and posted by Modern Mechanix

Here’s a tip: if you don’t want people to know you’re wearing a girdle, perhaps you should put on some pants and a shirt. But who am I to complain about people wearing restrictive undergarments while fondling fishing poles in the privacy of their own home?

It’s interesting to see the gradual progression of how people stored written information. Clay tablets become lighter, flexible scrolls. Scrolls became codexs (books), increasing their capacity. Books became typeset rather than hand-copied, decreasing font size and increasing capacity. In the nineteenth century, microphotography was invented to miniaturize images even further.

A 1936 Modern Mechanix article, Canned Libraries Open New Vistas to Readers, commented on the spread of microfilm technology in libraries:

All of the reading material in the vast Library of Congress may be housed in a few small filing cabinets! To anyone who has seen the thousands of massive volumes in this great building, such a statement seems fantastic. But it remains a fact. Through recent developments in microphotography and the perfection of a new type of micro-grain film, the contents of two 10×15 inch pages can be reduced 400 times to occupy but three-fourths of a square inch of film….

Verneur Pratt, president of the International Filmbook Corporation, pioneers in the field of library microphotography, predicts that the filmbook will effect as big a change in the printing industry as the invention of movable type.

He points out that large telephone directories can be held in the palm of the hand, can be inserted in the machine in a moment, and with a few turns of a dial the desired number is brought to light. There is no thumbing of pages, and the pages cannot be torn out. In the same manner bulky catalogs, city directories, and dictionaries can be reduced.

One of the greatest advantages of film books is that small schools and libraries with limited space and money can afford to have all the material which is now available only in the large cities. Files of perishable newspapers can be photographed and thus preserved indefinitely. The cost of making film books will be much below that of printing regular books and their small size also eliminates the storage problem.

The last idea was a wee bit ambitious. While microfilm did become vital for archiving material, it certainly didn’t replace regular books. Can you imagine bringing a microfilm reader on the bus to read during your commute?

Nowadays, digital storage has enabled even more condensation of information. My current holiday wishlist includes an e-ink “digital book” (e-ink, unlike LCD screens, doesn’t cause much eye strain) which can download various text, PDF, or e-book files, putting thousands of documents in one small pamphlet-sized device. Continuing to increase compression of digital files and decrease memory size is basically the modern version of “smaller fonts”.

From Page 114 of Junior Home Economics, ca. 1933.

From Page 151 of Junior Home Economics, ca. 1933.

The Hoosier Journal of Inanity, in addition to having a good blog title, has been posting screenshots from various Harryhausen movies for the last few days.

You may not recognize the name, but you’ve almost certainly seen at least one of his movies. Ray Harryhausen was responsible for the truly great stop-motion animations of his time — or really any time. Jason and the Argonauts, any of the Sinbad movies, First Men in the Moon, The Lost Valley… all were Harryhausen. CGI has nothin ‘ on this guy. Not only were his models creative and believable, they moved realistically.

It’s not a monster movie until a dragon and a cyclops fight each other. Aw yeah.

A fun YouTube compilation of Harryhausen animations: