Stills from the Nursery

Little Jack Horner

A slightly bizarre book, circa 1970, features photographed tableaux of nursery rhymes. Though there really is nothing particularly “wrong” or twisted about these, they confirm the fact that dolls plus camera, equals creepiness.

Hickory, Dickory Dock and Jack be Nimble

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Zanzibar Swingers

I’d say that Wimbledon is as good an excuse as any to post the above photo of three young Swahili women with tennis racquets. I came across it while researching a post about Kanga, the cloths many African women wear that are printed with sayings.

Now I guess this might be called a match made on Google, because by some weird coincidence, shortly after finding the Zanzibar maidens, I came across their unlikely partners (across time and space) for “mixed-triples” in the photo below. It was taken in 1943 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where these young men were secretly processing the uranium-235 used the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 

But back to Tanzania, here are a few photos from the Zanzibar National Archive. 

A Makunduchi girl with coir ready to be spun into rope.

Selling Space

Tucked away in Duke University’s vast archive of outdoor advertising, is a small group of photos about the selling of outdoor ad space. In addition to the expected blank billboards and “your ad here” signs, are a handful of altered photographic prints, artifacts of the sales process. 

Easily believable as a John Baldessari series—swap out faces for buildings and apply rectangular rather than circular color patches--these photos from a Columbus Ohio real estate company, showed advertisers exactly where their ad would appear. As for the choice of using red (as opposed to the obvious white), there’s no way of knowing if it was inspired by the latest shade of nail polish, Russian Constructivism, or Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

It’s entirely possible, too, that the bright red color went beyond identifying the available space. It may have offered the subliminal suggestion that with an ad in that spot, your business could achieve a status of living color in the otherwise dreary black and white landscape of ordinary commerce.

John Baldessari, The Fallen Easel, detail, 1987

 Gustav Klutsis In Memory of Fallen Leaders, 1927 (via MoMA)

There's alway's an office wise-guy who has to be different!

It kind of makes me want to go out, buy billboard space, and actually paint it red. 

But wait ... It looks as if someone has done that already!

Wall space available in Trenton, c.1920.

Blank Highway Billboards

These road photos out-Hopper Hopper for stark, abstract loneliness.

Atlantic City Billboards

Whited-out billboards, above, from 1942 and below, 1951.

Cool “invasion arrow” is added to this 1926 day/night composite with crowds.

Separate day and night scenes from 1923.

Arm Partying

Suzy Solidor, 1932

Jacqueline Goddard, 1932

Man Ray knew a good arm party when he saw one. He famously photographed Nancy Cunard, heiress turned political activist, wearing her armloads of African bangles  (below). It also seems that Ray had a thing for the Chanel bracelets, above. He photographed both Suzy Solidor, and Jacqueline Goddard wearing the same ones.

Nancy Cunard, 1926

Madonna was arm partying back in the 80s (link) …

Indian women have been at it for

thousands of years.

Shy Bride

Nautch Girl

A Damsel Bedecked in Jewelry

In South Africa, arm partying is not

just for women …

Guys arm party too (as I hear they are 

starting to do in the US, as well).

These young men of the Ndebele tribe 

engage in serious partying

on their initiation day.

While the current incarnation of the timeless trend, was popularized last summer by the blogging Man Repeller, Leandra Medine (who also coined the phrase), the party apparently continues to be going strong.

Megan, of New York Diaries instructs:

Put as many bracelets on your wrist as you desire…throw in a watch (or two)…the more the merrier! And don’t worry about matching…that’s the fun part!

And then there was this item on WSJ.com:

Q: I notice that lots of women who are into fashion have these stacks of bracelets, sometimes with watches. They go way up their arms sometimes. This is a new trend that I want to start trying. How can I get the right mix of bracelets, and can I wear them on both arms at the same ... (To continue reading, subscribe.)

Now did someone actually write to the WSJ asking for fashion advice--would someone really do that? Or did the Journal invent this question--would they really do that? I’m still trying to figure out which of these alternatives is more disturbing.

Sorry to be such a party pooper …

Man Ray photos via auction sites.

Black and white Ndebele photos by Constance Stuart Larrabee photos via Smithsonian .

More Vintage Mardi Gras

Not quite as old as the photos of Mardi Gras 1903, the images here date mostly from the 1930s through 1970s. The parade goers in "Country Bumpkin" costumes (top) is a Louisiana WPA image. The “Indian” family is dated 1970. (Photos throughout are from the LOUISiana Digital Library.)

The moss twins and the two families above them are from

Mardi Gras 1967 and 1968. (photos: Art Kleiner)

Two 1971 photos from a Cajun Mardi Gras

in Mamou, Louisiana.
New Orleans Mardi Gras 1967. (photo: Art Kleiner)

Mardi Gras 1936

Rural Mardi Gras in Church Point Louisiana, 1972.    
New Orleans Mardi Gras during a presidentialelection year. Nixon v. McGovern, 1972.
Lafayette Louisiana, 1972

Church Point Mardi Gras, 1970s

New Orleans, 1967 (photo: Art Kleiner)