The Recently Deflowered Girl with Illustrations by Edward Gorey
Do you know the right thing to say when you’ve been deflowered by the elevator operator? What if said deflowering is at the hands of a mustachioed marimba player, a Chinese detective, or a perfect stranger? Miss Hyacinthe Phypps, maven of feminine etiquette, has the most practical of advice in her 1965 guide, The Recently Deflowered Girl: The Right Thing to Say on Every Dubious Occasion.
Illustrations by Edward Gorey are paired with text by Mel Juffe in this simultaneously innocent and hedonistic volume attributed to the delightful Miss Hyacinthe Phypps. Her “simple rules of propriety and common sense have helped a generation of girls over the threshold to womanhood.”
The book is out of print, but a complete set of scans may be viewed on Joey deVilla’s blog. Copies are occasionally available on Amazon and at other online used booksellers.
One final thought: it seems like the text of this book was heavily influenced by the wit and whimsical humor I associate with Edward Gorey. I wonder whether Gorey’s involvement extended beyond illustrating The Recently Deflowered Girl.
Found via The Presurfer
Zombie Dogs Created-in Pittsburgh
Scientists have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.
US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.Pittsburgh’s Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject’s veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.
The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity. But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.
Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.
Sounds like a great idea.
Astrogirl?
Been awhile since anything went up, but in our defense it’s been a pretty wild couple of months for everyone. When I saw this clip of some sort of Japanese made rip-off of Supergirl I thought it would be a perfect way to restart posting here regularly. Not fiendish but certainly delightful and most of all mind blowingly bizarre.
Enjoy:
I don’t know if this was an actual movie, sophisticated CosPlay or some of that (shudder) super heroine fetish porn that’s been floating around.
Frankly, I don’t think I want to know.
Abandoned Haunted City in Taiwan!
A perfectly fiendish destination for a far east vacation, the city of San Zhi is said to have been a proposed resort town for the nouveau riche of Taiwan’s booming 60s economy. Apparently a series of unfortunate accidents claimed the lives of so many workmen the place began to be shunned by potential vacationers before it was completely finished, so now it sits unused and abandoned. The ghosts of the workmen who died “in vain” constructing the unfinished city are said to haunt the place, perhaps stalking visitors in Grudge-like fashion.
Web Urbanist has a list of other abandoned cities, some closer to home if traveling to Asia doesn’t fit your budget, that are equally delightful. And devoid hopefully of vengeful ghosts.
A tip of the chapeau to WebbAlert.
An Evening With The Undead: Romero and Bava
An Evening with the Undead was a 1968 drive-in double feature of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace. The promo ad warned that before you could be admitted to see “The 8 Greatest Shocks Ever Filmed,” you would be required to sign your own death certificate.
Over at Scenes from the Morgue (where they’ve uploaded tons of retro pulp movie ads), The Beerman says he’d probably have given his left nut to see a first run of these flicks. Being of the XX chromosomal persuasion, that’s not a sacrifice I’ll ever be called upon to make, but I’m with him in spirit.
The Vest Pocket Motorbike
Actually it doesn’t fit in a pocket but it did store behind the seat of of planes owned by men of leisure. Whatevs. You know you want one for the back seat of your Honda Civic:
h/t The Clockworkers Guild’s Journal