The Art of Gyros
William Swislow is the author of The Gyros Project, an online gallery of 246 photographs of gyro signs. He explains:
Gyros signs — the hand-painted pictures found at hot dog stands, pizza parlors and Greek fast-food joints — are modern-day icons, literally: devotional images produced by anonymous artisans to bring the faithful into communion with the object of their fervor.
While the signs themselves had my mouth watering, it is Swislow’s description of “The Gyros Experience” that captures the true decadence of the gyro:
Gyros is supremely sloppy, and dangerously volatile. The afterglow of gyros suffuses your being, oozing through every pore to fill out your aura as well.
… Externally crispy, internally soft, it encompasses meat that is as sacramental in its mystery as it is greasy, the true composition of the beef-and-lamb blend hidden in the dripping hours on the spit.
The final kick that pushes the sandwich beyond guilty pleasure into whole-body experience can be found in its tangle of onions topped by a huge wad of yogurt-garlic sauce, with tomatoes the crucial buffer that keeps the rush of salt and grease and tartness just this side of manageable.
Read more at The Gyros Experience.
via J-walk
17th Century Skull and Crossbones Automaton Timepiece
This breathtaking brass antique is nearly 400 years old and puts every clock I’ve ever owned to shame.
Crafted in 1610 by German designer Nicolaus Schmidt der Junger, this skull table watch sits atop a pair of crossed shin bones mounted on a tripod. The automaton jaw opens over the course of three minutes, then quickly bites down, and a snake darts out of each eye socket twice a minute. The clockface is revealed by popping open the hinged brass skullcap.
This impressive piece of steampunk worthy craftsmanship recently sold for $135,000 USD. The above photo of the clockface is from the Symbolic Collection site, where it appears to be available for sale (at an undisclosed price.) If you’ve got an astronomically high credit limit, they happily accept Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx.
Celery and Fallen Panties: The Pin-up Art of Art Frahm
While writing my post about Brenda’s Babes, I was reminded of Art Frahm’s cartoonish fallen panty pin-ups.
While Frahm’s pin-ups get points for being campy and kitschy, they’re more the stuff of perverted fantasy than cause for fiendish delight. But somehow James Lileks
… the falling-panty theme is a staple of his work. These pictures aren’t taken from a calendar he did when hungry and desperate, chafing against the dictates of some gnomish pervert who wanted a year’s worth of falling-panty pictures. These date from throughout the 50s. It’s a theme to which he returned again and again – and you have to wonder why.
Lileks’ observations include the recurring celery motif in Frahm’s paintings, the frequent presence of a silently leering pervert, and of course, the improbability of losing one’s panties. His criticism of each painting makes for a good read. Check out more at Art Frahm: a study of the effects of celery on loose elastic.
Creepy Abandoned Chi-Chi’s
Behold, the crumbling turquoise and salmon stucco:
A nasty hepatitis A outbreak in 2003 was the beginning of the end for the Chi-Chi’s chain – the last U.S. restaurant closed its faux Southwestern doors in 2004.
But the Chi-Chi’s legacy lives on in the abandoned cantinas that remain in dozens of mall parking lots across America, and the Creepy, Abandoned Chi-Chi’s blog is there to document each and every fading hot sauce mural and squatter’s pallet. Many of the restaurants are like eerie Tex Mex ghost towns, the strands of tacky colored lights still hanging forlornly from the ceiling, begging for suburban explorers to stake their claim.
via Slashfood
Pin-up Paraphernalia
Think you’re into pin-up art? Brenda has you beat. Her lust for pin-up paraphernalia has transformed her apartment into a veritable pin-up girl museum.
In addition to the expected pin-up calendars and coffee table books, Brenda has pin-up trading cards, letter openers, shower curtains, toilet seat covers, pillow cases, salt and pepper shakers, plates, shot glasses, bottle openers … you get the idea. She has over 500 items, easily qualifying her as a finalist in the apartments.com Possession Obsession contest.
But Brenda doesn’t just track down vintage pin-up collectibles – she really knows her stuff. Her blog, Brenda’s Babes, is full of beautiful scans and detailed posts chronicling the history of pin-up girl art and collectibles. She started posting to the Brenda’s Babes blog to promote her entry for the Possession Obsession contest, but hopefully she’ll continue even after the results are in (which should be any day.)
I’d urge you to vote for Brenda’s contest entry, but unfortunately, I’m late to the game and voting is closed. Instead, check out her blog and see if you don’t develop a lust for pin-up paraphernalia.
The Castle Halloween Museum
With Halloween behind us, it’s time to start conjuring up activities to help stave off the inevitable Christmas nonsense that starts earlier and earlier each year. A trip to The Castle Halloween, perhaps?
Located in Benwood, West Virginia, The Castle Halloween Museum is a year-round ode to all things Halloween. But this is no haunted house – The Castle Halloween is a thoughtfully curated “archaeology of Halloween and its periphery in facts, fiction, and fantasy.”
The scope of the collection is 1860 to the present, and the content ranges from antique postcards and signs, to folk art and movie collectibles. There are more than 15,000 individual Halloween artifacts in the Museum.
photo credit: Akron Beacon Journal
Check out the virtual tour on The Castle Halloween Web site for more photos of the collection.
Castle Halloween is run by Pamela Apkarian-Russell, the official Halloween Queen®. (Yes, she trademarked the moniker in 2003. Note to self: register a trademark that makes me queen of something.) When she’s not writing books