Friday Ephemera

Proud father. (h/t, Dicentra) || 50 notable special-effects movies. || Things the Soviets made. || Continue the research. || An encouraging sign. (h/t, Julia) || Remember, citizens - always respect the media. || We must listen to the children. || Campus tolerance, part 4,022. || Painting with light. || Luminous women. || Thirsty lions. || Bored Tourists, an anthropological study. || Call it ambition. || Instagram boyfriends. || The crab bucket life of the woke resistance. || Bitesize. || Want one. || It’s all in the ankles, you know. || Hong Kong in ‘49. || It was 1988, when phones were the size of shoeboxes and Milli Vanilli roamed the Earth. || And finally, perhaps symbolically, something small but strangely maddening.

Comments

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

For those who like cheese

[Sam Duncan]

“Things the Soviets made.”

#1, the Gulag. Oh... wait, no. Robots, eh? One of those is the spit of Marvin off the Hitchhiker's Guide TV series. No wonder he was depressed.

[Pogonip]

Advanced Cheese Technology!

If we have the meetup at my house, you can all behold the wonder of my toaster.

[Peter]

Remember, citizens - always respect the media.

*laughs*
*despairs*

[Clam]

Remember, citizens - always respect the media.

*laughs*
*despairs*

https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1025042854350077953

[David]

Morning, all.

*laughs*
*despairs*

The “Sydney-based writer and activist” Osman Faruqi, linked above, was last seen demanding that someone else – taxpayers on the other side of the world – should pay for his leisure activities. Specifically, by nationalising Twitter. Mr Faruqi was subsequently astonished to hear that many readers had assumed his article was a cunning satire of leftist entitlement. Apparently, this failure to appreciate his seriousness of purpose and personal brilliance merely “shows how right-wing our political debate has become.”

Mr Faruqi, a Guardian contributor, also believed that the So.Much.Guardian Tumblr was clearly a “parody” and some kind of smear campaign, intended to bring the left into disrepute. It does in fact use untouched screengrabs of actual Guardian headlines.

[David]

Then and now.

Via Damian.

[JuliaM]

I'm deeply unconvinced by the Soviet robots....

[David]

I’m deeply unconvinced by the Soviet robots....

I was, though, impressed by the rounded household appliances.

[Hal]

. . . and Milli Vanilli roamed the Earth.

And then there were the Milli Vanilli dolls . . . one pulled the talk string and out came the voice of Teddy Ruxpin.

[Chester Draws]

Apparently the round washing machines were excellent for making home brew.

The model they shipped to Cuba was notorious for shaking so hard it would feel like the house was going to collapse.

[David]

The model they shipped to Cuba was notorious for shaking so hard it would feel like the house was going to collapse.

I remember being a wee seedling and staring in wonderment at my mother’s twin-tub contraption, use of which entailed many yards of rubber tubing and the violent juddering of kitchen cupboards. Judging by the ear-splitting noise it made, you’d think she was drilling to the centre of the Earth.

[Adam]

The mistake the UGA Dean made was in apologizing for "offending" assholes who think they get to dictate personal relationships. His apology validates their evil intentions.

[David]

The mistake the UGA Dean made was in apologizing for “offending” assholes who think they get to dictate personal relationships.

It will embolden the scolds and ensure more of the same.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Soviet rounded appliances, leaping boldly into 1910.

Of course they had nothing on this innovative Scandinavian design that doubled as an iron lung.

[Hal]

. . . you can all behold the wonder of my toaster.

Advanced technology.

[Monty James]

Squadron Leader Zemarcuis Scott, Wakandan Air Force, encounters flak from some snowdrops before he can light the toasters on his kite and get upstairs, finds himself deadstick in a real fizzer, pancakes right into Stalag Luft Texarkana instead old chap:

Police: Man tried to steal plane for concert
Report: Suspect thought flying would be easy

[Captain Nemo]

Things the Soviets made.

That Art Deco multiline telephone is quite stylish.

[Pst314]

“Bally Whitey, pranged his kite right in the who’s-your-mother...”

[Mags]

staring in wonderment at my mother’s twin-tub contraption, use of which entailed many yards of rubber tubing and the violent juddering of kitchen cupboards.

For our host…

https://youtu.be/cGIMC7z8-mg

[David]

For our host…

Heh. Yes, that kind of thing. Though the one in the video seems more upmarket, and quieter, than the rattling grey monster I remember. The rubber ‘spider’s web’ (around 3’00 in) brought back memories. I was once told off for using it as a toy.

[Chester Draws]

My mum's machine when I was wee didn't vibrate too much. It didn't spin at all. She used a wooden stick to move the clothes around as the agitator was pretty vicious in its back-and-forward.

It had a mangle.

I think the only time I heard my mother swear during my childhood was that thing getting another finger.