Friday Ephemera
How to deal with telemarketing calls. (H/T, Dr Westerhaus.) // Reposted by request: BT courtesy call goes horribly, horribly wrong. “Do you comprehend?” // Faces in places. // BBC TV idents. From the Fifties to the modern day. // Further to this, behold the future of re-entry. In emergencies. // Running countdown to fictional future events. Some overdue. (H/T, Grow-a-brain.) // World freedom atlas. Scan the world for freedom of expression, freedom of belief and individual rights. // Robert Spencer casts a critical eye over the “Islam is peace” PR campaign. // What does ‘jihad’ mean? “The 199 references in the most standard collection of Hadith all assume that jihad means warfare.” // The pearl of Allah. // Islamic comic book heroes. “Questions have been raised about the clothing the heroes wear.” // Nuns disagree. Things turn ugly. // A gallery of ejector seats. // How missiles work. // Exchanging Greetings and Introductions. (1960) How Earthlings greet. // Kavel Rafferty’s vintage record sleeves. (H/T, Coudal.) // Lava lamp packaging. The classic Century 102. // The American Package Museum. Gum, cocoa. tinned marshmallows. // The Birotron. Retro-electronica. It didn’t catch on. More. // Via Grow-a-brain, the, um, magnificent Belinda Bedeković. Video. Warning: it seems not to end. // And, via The Thin Man, Kathy Kirby gets groovy and bombastic.
The American Package Museum is great. I recall that when I was a lad we used many of those products, most in still-similar packaging. Ahh, memory lane.
While I was at the Museum, I looked at their Links page, which includes Dismuke’s Virtual Talking Machine – vintage music from 78 rpm records from about 1900 to 1930 that you might like – at http://www.dismuke.org – including “When I’m With You I’m Lonesome”, by Harry Archer and his Orchestra, 1926: http://tinyurl.com/2hfkxb (streaming).
That reminded me of the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the Department of Special Collections, Donald C. Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara – http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu – which is preserving and digitizing over 7,000 Edison cylinders from about 1890 to 1930. Three of my favourites from the Jewish Wit and Humour section – http://tinyurl.com/yd6rk5 – are (pick Download MP3 to play):
“The Yiddisha Professor”, Maurice Burkhart, 1913
http://tinyurl.com/3do7a8
“Cohen at the Telephone”, George Thompson, 1916
http://tinyurl.com/2c89x2
“That’s Yiddisha Love”, Edward Meeker, 1910
http://tinyurl.com/288vmq
Vitruvius,
Thanks for the 78s and cylinders. A heady confection.
Well, David, your first ephemeron made my day. I wish I had that gift of gab. Meanwhile, I’m trying without success to find the electronic transmitter on my premises that signals to telemarketers that I’m just sitting down to dinner.
Yes, the telemarketing riposte is a fine piece of work. Eerily composed and utterly merciless.
The trick with Telemarketers is simple. You ask them to hold the line while you get a pad and pencil. After 20 minutes, check to see if they’re still holding on. Repeat as necessary.
Unfortunately these days there is no shortage of people running around claiming to be progressive, when all they are doing is tilting at pansies. No, we can’t just all get along. Nevertheless, it remains the case that progress is not unknown, as can be clearly seen from these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfrL9ktP_E0 – Before-progress
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGB9bcIJFio – After-progress
“Tilting at pansies”?
Um, yes, sorry about that, I was just thinking about windmills and spreading manure and there are some autumnal pansies outside my window and we Rocky Mountain eastern-slopers are known for obscure turns of phrase anyway, and to put the last nail in the coffin I had just finished watching the great Netherlander Mr. Hans Liberg interpreting the great Dane Mr. Victor Borge’s shtick – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltZo3gvQN8w – shortly after watching the Canadian Brass performing their “Tribute to Ballet” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Brr-xTKA0 – so you can, I hope, imagine.
Belinda Bedekovic is a real musical threat. Her song instantly transports you into a realm of cat-urine perfume, intermittent electricity, disco balls, musty pantyhose, Binaca and mortal danger.
The perfect soundtrack for those special occasions when one finds one’s anoxic self approaching torso failure as you scramble, flailing-knock-kneed, over the Gorsky kotar with a border guard in pursuit after a whirlwind weekend with a Belinda Bedekovic lookalike whose “cousin” in the leather jacket was always — for *some* reason — sitting impassively at a neighbouring table drinking only water.
Am I bitter? No. I’ll always have the music. Thanks, David.
BTW, I emailed the BT courtesy-call to a bunch of friends, and there’s widespread consensus that “All it takes, sir, is a couple of seconds” is, in the context in which it was delivered, one of the all-time great straight-lines. It’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t be funny in a skit; such impeccable comedy timing can only be delivered by a couple hundred years of behind-one’s-head kismet. Almost too funny.
Yes, it’s the BT guy’s heroic, if bewildering, perseverance that makes it work.