From the City of Suicides to the Smile Club

Posted on September 21, 2014 by

Reported in 1937 in an Australian newspaper:

Although a magnet for tourists from all over the world, Budapest has for several years been known to its own people as The City of Suicides. The favorite method adopted by most Budapest melancholics [is] drowning, and patrol boats are stationed along the boundary near the bridges to rescue citizens who seek consolation in the dark waters of the Danube.

Now, however, a “Smile Club” has been inaugurated to counteract the suicide craze it was originally begun more as a joke by Professor Jeno and a hypnotist named Binczo, but somehow it caught on.

The organizers have now a regular school and guarantee to teach the Roosevelt smile, the Mona Liza smile, the Clark Gable smile, the Dick Powell smile, the Loretta Young Smile, and various other types

I half-wonder if the “solution” wound up causing more suicides than it saved. At the very least, those smiles should be part of a horror movie. It’s like clowns without the makeup.

Sunday Times Perth via io9.

IBM’s 1937 Corporate Songbook

Posted on September 20, 2014 by

The 1937 edition of the songbook is a 54-page monument to glassey-eyed corporate inhumanity, with every page overflowing with trite praise to The Company and Its Men.

The booklet reads like a terribly parody of a hymnal – one that praises not the traditional Christian trinity but the new corporate triumvirate of IBM the father, Watson the son, and American entrepreneurship as the holy spirit.

“For thirty-seven years,” reads the opening passage in the book, “the gatherings and conventions of our IBM workers have expressed in happy songs the fine spirit of loyal cooperation and good fellowship which has promoted the signal success of our great IBM Corporation in its truly International Service for the betterment of business and benefit to mankind.”

The key takeaway to deflate a lot of the looniness is that the majority of the songs came out of the Great Depression era, and employees lucky enough to be steadfastly employed by a company like IBM often were really that grateful.

The formal integration of singing as an aspect of IBM’s culture at the time was heavily encouraged by Thomas J. Watson Sr. Watson and his employees co-opted the era’s showtunes and popular melodies for their proto-filking, ensuring that everyone would know the way the song went, if not the exact wording.

Such brilliant examples as, “If they use machines in Mars / We will sell them some of ours!” and “T. J. Watson, we all honor you / You’re so big and so square and so true / We will follow and serve with you forever / All the world must know what I. B. M. can do,” make it easy to watch one’s brain melt.

Thankfully, after Thomas Watson Senior’s death in the 1950s, his son Thomas Watson Junior tactfully let the great era of corporate songsmanship fade, disbanding the symphony orchestra.

It’s actually very reminiscent of the corporate Japanese “Salaryman” concept.

Via ars technica.

The Horseman Balloonist

Posted on September 19, 2014 by

Pierre Testu-Brissy (1770? – 1829) was a pioneering French balloonist who achieved fame for making many flights astride animals, particularly horses.

Testu-Brissy made his first balloon ascent in 1785. He made the world’s first electrical observations on June 18, 1786, as he ascended into thunderclouds, and said that he drew remarkable discharges from the clouds by means of an iron rod, carried in the car.

He subsequently undertook more than 50 flights in his lifetime, including the first ascent on horseback on October 16, 1798 from Bellevue Park in Paris. He and his horse made more than fifty of these documented flights.

I can’t help but wonder what was going through the horse’s head during the first such ascent, at least.

Via Wikipedia.

The Brilliant Black & White Animated GIF Art of Kevin Weir

Posted on September 17, 2014 by

[D]esigner Kevin Weir uses historical black and white photographs to transform them into quirky animated GIFs. He got into making black and white GIFs as a way to occupy himself during the downtime of an internship he had during grad school.

The basis of his works are old pictures he finds in the Library of Congress online archive.

I wonder if he takes requests…?

Also, check out this awesome music video he made:

Artist Kevin Weir via IGANT for more.

The Architecture of Privacy

Posted on September 10, 2014 by

The Romans of Pompeii had a notion of public and private life very different from what we see in many Western cultures today. Sexual imagery we would keep hidden was out in the open, but many other parts of private life were open too.

[T]he ideal layout of a Roman house [was] devoted almost entirely to public areas. The main part of the house, which would have been open to the street, was called the atrium.

By contrast, bedrooms were often small and windowless. These private areas were obviously not places where people expected to spend any length of time.

“Beware of Dog”

Cultural assumptions are hard to shake.

Architectural assumptions in modern society assume primarily private sanctums that are opened only grudgingly to the public – consider the expression, “A man’s home is his castle,” in comparison to the Roman ideal suggested above, or even more extremely the cultural assumptions of many Amerindian groups which involved homes with no doors at all – such as the Aztecs – who would place a stick in the door to note when someone was not at home.

While Pompeii had disembodied penises as street corner decorations, today we have vases with flowers, or pretty green lawns that have military roots in their unobscured fields of fire.

Top image via Heater09’s Blog.
Via io9 for the full article.

The Nubian Pyramids of Meroë in the Sudan

Posted on September 9, 2014 by

[T]here are more pyramids in one small section of the northern Sudanese desert than there are in the whole of Egypt.

During Egypt’s 25th dynasty (760 BC until 656 BC), Meroe, now located in Sudan, was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, ruled by Nubian kings who had conquered Egypt. Often overlooked in the history books, these black pharoahs presided over an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to present-day Khartoum.

In all, about 220 pyramids were built in Meroë, spread across three sites. They remained relatively intact until the 1830s, when Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini smashed the tops off 40 pyramids while searching for gold and jewels.

It’s easy to forget the the Egyptians were far from the only – or even first – people to build great pyramids and pyramid-like structures.

In addition to the well-known constructions of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Toltecs, the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians, and Assyrians all built ziggurats and similar structures.

Via Atlas Obscura for the full article and additional photos.

The Mostly-Invincible Man

Posted on September 8, 2014 by

Meet Jack Lucas, born in 1928.

After sneaking into the Marine Corps three years early, he was determined to see combat in World War II, but military censors busted his plans when they figured out he was underage. First grounded to driving a truck, he then got double-grounded to making small rocks out of large rocks before he snuck onto a transport ship heading out into the Pacific theater.

When he finally was accepted back into combat, he found himself on a little island called Iwo Jima. Yeah, that one. In a trench under fire he saw two grenades land in his trench, whereupon he jumped on top of the first and pulled the second under him, saving his fellow soldiers and gaining some impressive internal shrapnel decorations.

Oh yeah. He survived.

After World War II (and a lot of surgeries to try to patch him up), he did the only logical thing for a man of his temper. He enlisted again. This time, he joined the Army. In his first airborne jump he was the first man on the ground.

The problem? He was also the last man out. Neither his main nor his backup parachute deployed.

He lived with only minor injuries, and two weeks later he was jumping out of planes again.

Even later, one of his wives tried to have him killed. (He survived).

Finally, at the age of 80, Jack found something that was able to fell him in the form of leukemia, but able to rightfully claim the title of the (Mostly) Invincible Man.

Via Today I Fond Out for the full article, or his book (up there in the sidebar).

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Category Archives: History

From the City of Suicides to the Smile Club

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IBM’s 1937 Corporate Songbook

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The Horseman Balloonist

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The Brilliant Black & White Animated GIF Art of Kevin Weir

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The Architecture of Privacy

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The Nubian Pyramids of Meroë in the Sudan

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The Mostly-Invincible Man

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