After my recent post about Jason Taylor it feels fitting to appreciate another kind of underwater photography; the gravity-defying kitschy scenarios that Bruce Mozert brings to life.
I love this. Such innocent wickedness. (*evil smirk*)
His subjects look surprisingly at home underwater, like any typical retro poster boys and girls. He doesn’t seem to have a website, but he does have a book. And there’s a nice little collection here.
I love the lost innovations of mankind. Someone thought the Banana Su’prise (with its questionable apostrophe placement) was going to be the “GREATEST SELLING SENSATION OF THE GENERATION.”
Not only could this device pass for a torturous medical instrument, but I see disaster in the delicate attempt to hollow out and fill a banana with frozen confections.
Delicious? Oh, most definitely. Yet so disturbing and difficult to execute. The abject fear on the childrens’ faces also hints at terrible, unthinkable mysteries. I just don’t want to know.
The Union Pacific children’s menu…ensuring that children of the 1960’s were far too terrified to eat.
Now here’s the kind of efficiency that seems to have gone out of vogue in modern snack foods: a napkin, conveniently built right into the popcorn package.
We have countless novelty candies designed to make a mess (an undeniable part of their charm). But this harkens back to the days before Cheetos turned our fingers neon orange and the “ick factor” of powdery, gooey, drippy treats became so alluring.
Here we have a comic book-esque sea creature ushering in the giant Imperialist boat, much to the chagrin of the proud communists on shore. The caption reads “DEATH TO IMPERIALISM.”
Placing personal politics aside, I plan to make a series of Ultra Mundane Propaganda posters in the same comic book style. Keep your eyes peeled for “DEATH TO SLIGHTLY OVERCOOKED MEAT!”…“STOP THE MADNESS OF UNTIED SHOELACES!”…“42 CENT STAMPS IS ROBBERY!”
This is undoubtedly the first of MANY posts that will feature prints from my favorite retro art/ad site, Plan 59.
If space were indeed filled with floating, fluffy biscuits, I would become an astronaut without hesitation.
(Why they fail to equip this little girl with a proper space helmet is beyond me…don’t girls need to breathe too? Oh wait…it was the 50’s).
And here’s what it’s like in space (Mars, to be exact) WITHOUT biscuits. Not so blissful anymore, eh? My guess is that the Methane and Argon in the Martian atmosphere do not support biscuit life. Biscuits thrive only in monochromatic sky blue dimensions of outer space, clearly.
Ah, Plan 59, you brighten my days.
Though I do have a Cheshire Cat-like tendency to speak in riddles and metaphors, it’s my general skepticism and misanthropy (rather than a thinly veiled jab at anyone currently in my life) that makes me love this vintage post card so much.
The text reads:
Where a heart is the bait
One will great chances take:
But is it a heart?
Or is it a fake?
I love the sheer terror on the rat’s face as he eyes the tempting heart, and the concerned onlooker (bottom left) watching the entrapment.
*Note: I will not hesitate to repost this, should it ever become personally relevant.
A while back, I frantically called Artie on his lunch hour to tell him that a local office was discarding a vintage dentist chair and I HAD to have it (don’t ask why this compulsion struck with such force…some things are better left unexplored). Never one to deny my schemes, he rushed over after work to help me procure it…only to find that the chair was already gone. *Sigh*
Anyway…
Oobject has a feature on dental chairs throughout history ranging from high tech to “for the love of God, don’t put me in that thing!”
The model above comes from Havre Montana; an underground mall like structure, built over a century ago. It was used as a brothel and opium den, amongst other things. Where exactly dentistry fits in the equation, I’d rather not ask.
THIS beauty is also listed as a dentist chair in the collection, though I remain dubious. Last time I checked, my torso did not have enough teeth to warrant six “helping hands.”
Bad lighting in the photo…or a celebration of impending nuclear annihilation?
SheWalksSoftly 
