A beautiful photo essay on storefront churches by Randy Fox.
©Randy Fox Photography, posted by permission
See the entire collection at Randy Fox Photography
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Category Archives: Culture
Random Stamps and such.
I’m not a philatelist, but I have a few old stamps lying around, ones that I saved because they pleased me, others which came to me in the files of my parents. Here are a few that I liked. The engraving work on some of these old stamps was elegant.
Betty Crocker, by Betty Crocker
“Early 1950s era commercial for Betty Crocker Spice Cake Mix….hosted by Betty, in person!! From 1949-64, the fictional Crocker, was played by actress Adelaide Hawley (born Dieta Adelaide Fish), who had studied piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester before entering vaudeville. From 1937 to 1950 she hosted THE ADELAIDE HAWLEY PROGRAM, a daily talk and new program that reached an audience of over 3 three million daily. So popular was Ms. Hawley as General Mills’ living trademark, she was was considered one of the “most recognizable women in America”, second only to Eleanor Roosevelt. After being dropped by General Mills, she returned to school and earned a diociorate in speech education from New York University in 1967. She moved to the Pacific Northwest with her second husband, Naval Commander Laurence Gordon Cumming and taught English as a second language until her death in 1998 at age 93.”
Text from the YouTube page. Found at Frog Blog.
The BirdsEye Pea Car
One of my musician acquaintances over on Facebook1 posted this pic with the caption, “I’m going to start attending movies in my Bullet Proof Movie Pod.” In light of the tragedy in Denver, it’s sad that this would have to be my introduction to this adorable little thing, and my heart goes out in its fullness to the victims of this senseless act of barbarism – those injured and those left behind.
But dang, that car is adorable. A little digging revealed that it was constructed for this advert over in the UK:
It may be nothing more than a one-off prop for an ad, but to my way of thinking it’s about 10 times cuter than the Smart Car – no offense intended.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
1He makes darn good music, too.
No wonder little girls want to be sexy
An article in the Huffington Post explores a study published online in the Sex Roles journal. Of greatest interest was a slideshow illustrating some toy lines which have, over time, morphed themselves into a “sexier, girlier” version.
Lego
Holly Hobbie
Candy Land
Strawberry Shortcake
Rainbow Brite
My Little Pony
Trollz
Cabbage Patch Kids
Lisa Frank
I have no brief with any of these toys in particular, other than to illustrate a general trend. What I do have a real problem with is this:
Bad enough that the Bratz line was sexualizing 8-year-olds; now they’re zooming in on the infants, and this comes right up to the line of catering to pedophiles. I’m astonished that an abomination like this made it anywhere near an American shelf.
Children need to be allowed a childhood. The way things are going, layettes will someday include infant bikinis and makeup. {Note: Don’t point me to websites that are already advertising such things. There must be some rule of the internet that says “if you’ve imagined it, someone has already done it.”}
The Old Wolf has spoken.
A Day in the Life of a Little Girl – Norman Rockwell
I just really, really like Rockwell’s work.
Day in the Life of a Little Girl, 1952, The Saturday Evening Post
© 1952 The Curtis Publishing Company
Kinshasa, DRC: A Photo Collection
This gallery contains 29 photos.
Four times during my career between 1999 and 2000 I had the opportunity to travel to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s the only place in the word that I truly experienced culture shock, even with multiple trips to places like Albania, Serbia, Egypt, Jordan, and other locations considered wild and […]
Kecak: Balinese Monkey Chant.
Best representation of the Kecak I’ve found.
Gunung Kawia is an 11th century temple complex in Tampaksiring north east of Ubud on Bali, Indonesia.
Kecak (pronounced [ˈketʃaʔ], alternate spellings: Ketjak and Ketjack) is a form of Balinese dance and music drama, originated in the 1930s Bali and is performed primarily by men, although a few women’s kecak groups exist as of 2006. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 150 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting “cak” and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance. From Wikipedia.
Even though it’s a completely different scenario, I had flashbacks to “Avatar” here.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 