It’s a 1936 marketing video from DuPont in your header. I know, sounds lame, but it’s absolutely fascinating. And creatively filmed too. Check out the deets and link to the film here:
Fun fact: In my almost 30 years as a Fire Officer and Hazardous Materials Specialist, I have responded to incidents involving everyone of those fabulous molecules. Also, polymerization is sexy.
Wow, that "cellulose chemistry" informer sent me way, way back to the Monsanto exhibit at the World's Fair in NY. Lots of Better Living Through Chemistry naivete in black and white...
Your TABZ! are perfectly timed as always - yesterday as I was moving some boxes (I am a collector - not a hoarder) I came across a reel of one of my first cellulose films -YAY! - I thought they were all lost - my stuff was looted from my studio (twice!) during the first days of the pandemic lockdown (looked like vandals or somebody searching for something specific cause they ignored a lot of electronics and just trashed the stuff on the shelves (lots of shelves - whispered in Neo’s voice) it was days before I got back across the country - and my focus was just on piling stuff into boxes and getting the window, wall and door replaced - I was already in the process of rebuilding my studio and had jammed most of my things into little rooms and hallways - but the two big rooms were filled with construction tools, etc., - that’s mainly what they took along with the electronics they could get to - but I still have years of films, videotapes, digital videos, piles of hard drives, and columns of desktops to sort through and see what can be salvaged - but what is neat about Cellulose Film - is I don’t need to resurface some computer from 2001 to see what it is - You just unreel a few frames - “Oh this is the reel for the opening credits for my first projected film, cool!” - much better than - “I think these are the seven hard drive that have my first nonlinear edit on them, let me see, where is that Amiga 4000 and my Newtek Nonlinear Editor (Wow, all these cables.) (4 hours later) - Nope, just my taxes.”
Those old black and white films fascinate me. That this video was made four years before my mother was even born kind of blows my mind. I too often take it for granted how advanced so much of American industry was even at that point.
That reminds me so much of how I feel like some sort of skilled seamstress when I absent any patterns start cutting out doll shapes from scraps of fabric and create detailed, Victorian-type dolls with nothing but the scaps and odd buttons and bobs I have at the bottom of my sewing box.
Love the music. And mad props to that actor for the convincing “holy fuck I’ve got spiders coming out of my hand and I shouldn’t have taken so many of those uppers” facial expressions.
Every Christmas, my daughter buys me a new calendar with a pretty 50's "housewife" in her kitchen wearing a shirtwaist dress (and sometimes an apron) and showing off her new Amana (or whatever) appliances. The captions are always modern snark. Sidenote: she used to give me Gary Larsen calendars, but he stopped doing them. Sob!
One thing I love about that era's advertising is their ads almost always used drawings rather than photographs. It just conveys a sense of style and class that photographs cannot recreate.
I'm with you. Unlike folks who find advertising to be some kind of categorical evil, I'm sort of fascinated by it.
"Advertising the American Dream," by Roland Marchand, is a really good look at the history of advertising. I read it for a class when I went back to school. It focuses on the 1920s through the 1940s, which was when a lot of the current theories about how to market stuff came into being.
When I was little ('61 or so), there was a man who lived in the apartment building across the alley from us and he worked in advertising and drove a ROLLS ROYCE. In our little German/Irish Chicago neighborhood! My dad was very impressed with the car and was certain he (the man) was mobbed up. Anyway, he either wrote the jingle "My baloney has a first name . . ." or invented the Weinermobile (maybe both). Nice man too.
Advertising should be taxed to pay for the life cycle cost effects of psychic poisoning of the weak minded and annoying those more resistant to its effects. 1000% tax on monies spent sounds about right for political ads.
OK, so Gavin did not go to China to prop up his presidential ambitions or whatever that heinous blonde chickie was saying. BTW, where is she running for Congress from? Must be OC someplace...
But, Gavin went to China because we are the 5th largest economy in the world, China is one of our largest trading partners and California is highly focused on dealing with global climate change. China has the technology that can help with that.
California tends to set the pace for the US in dealing with climate change (conversion to electric vehicles, more usage of renewable energies, etc.) and has set goals for clean energy that the rest of the US auto industry has to accept since we represent such a large market.
Where do these people find such an inexhaustible supply of blonde, empty-headed bimbeaux?
So, President Xe of China will be in San Francisco later this month (as will USAn President Biden--if I read the awkwardly phrased article correctly.) If you're coming to protest, remember this is the same week as the monthly wonk meet up. 3rd Friday (17th), 6PM, Eclipse Restaurant and Bar in Hyatt Regency Embarkadero. We sit twoards the back, look for a woman in a wheelchair.
A former business colleague of mine, whom I liked very much, quit her career and sold everything so that she, her husband and their preschool daughter could go live on a houseboat. She blogged about the experience, which I followed.
One entry describes how the little one inhaled a bean up her nose, as three-year-olds will, and they had to spend thousands seeking health care to get it out. The entry was titled something like "The $5,000 Bean."
Overall, though, she was very positive about it, IIRC. Hope the little girl won't have different memories when she grows up.
(I don't know if they're still at it, because I stopped following.)
I don't understand the craze for open shelving and racks in kitchens or hanging things from hooks on the outside or underneath cabinets. Between the dust and the cat hair and the smoke from the fireplace and the pollen, these items would get very dirty very quickly. I don't want to have to wash a coffee mug or plate every time I need to use one. Give me enclosed cabinets every time.
It’s mind boggling how much effort creeps like MAGA Mike put into coming up with seemingly high minded reasons why women shouldn’t have control over their bodies. They’re not producing enough “able bodied workers?” As if women are nothing more than brood mares who have to pump out the next generation of drones for corporate America.
I’ve never heard of this “America Sunrise” show and have no idea where it airs. But the way its generic blonde host spits out names like “Newsom” as if she can’t get the taste of it out her mouth fast enough is just priceless.
My own theory about Sinema is that Greedy Spice goes wherever the money is and for an ex-Green, that means faux moderate positions while protecting the tax breaks for hedge fund managers.
Nothing says more about how republicans are motivated by spite more than how fast they went from wanted to name the vaccine after Trump to refusing to take it because Biden was telling people to. And now there’s a good chance that the republican deaths from Covid will make the difference in key races for the presidency and control of Congress next year.
I've never understood how a 2 state solution could work in the geography they have. Gaza is physically split from the West Bank, so where would it be set up? And I'm very skeptical of how Israel's security could be achieved.
Olive oil herb ice cubes. I did that last year with an abundant parsley crop. I did not use them all over the course of last winter. The rabbits enjoyed the rest of them this summer.
And, of course, this summer, I did NOT get an abundant parsley crop. Sad face emoji.
Huh. Just found out that my cousin, M, was in jail for a week. Being third-hand, the details are a bit unclear, but it sounds like their synagogue was demonstrating against what they consider to be Netanyahu's heavy-handed handling of the whole Hamas thing. Their demonstration was a counter-demonstration against an anti-Palestinian demonstration. Yay, M, boo, police!
Given that M is a disabilities activist, and has a few health issues themself, I need to talk to them to find out how they are doing, and maybe why they ended up in jail so long. Hopefully the length was their choice, rather than police indifference or brutality.
It's been a week. Sure, just minor, first-world problems, but they add up. The air fryer died. The fucking foster kitchens somehow managed to knock the ceramic bread cloche off the counter, which took a bit of effort on their part. And last night, we noticed that after having the roof cleaned, one of the skylights leaks. Three days, three problems. Hopefully this trend does not continue, as we still have plenty of things for the kittens to destroy, plenty of pieces of house to fall apart. Also, a long drive to Burlingame on the weekend. I'd rather not experience the thrill of car failure, please and thank you. On the plus side, my Concerta was just increased, so I probably will not be sleeping until Monday.
It's been a week? Let me tell you about the month.
Started out October learning that I was a victim of paper check fraud, which required the closing down of the checking account and opening another. That left me with the responsibility to change all my online withdrawals and payments to the new account. In the middle of that, my computer died, and I had to get a new one and deal with getting all the necessary files transferred to the new machine.
Although all the vintage Pyrex in #33 made me swoon, almost all of the kitchen organizing tips in that article assume that I already have WAY more storage space than I actually do, or that I can blithely do things to my apartment that I'm pretty sure would get me evicted.
We have very little space in our little condo, BUT! A couple of weeks ago I got a spice rack with uniform jars and labels and I am in love with it. We used to have all our spices just in our little cupboard with no rhyme or reason, and it's so nice to just be able to tell at a glance what we have and how much, rather than having to pull everything out of the cupboard or just assume we need more cumin or whatever.
Somehow, I know /two/ families who went and lived on boats with their young children (oldest was I think 12, youngest 2) on extended round-the-worlds. Those kids came back FUCKED UP. Entirely possible the fucking up of the kids was in process when they made the decision to sail around the world, bc both families were kinda fringy to start with.
I only know one family that did that, and the daughter (the only one I got to know well) turned out okay. She ended up becoming a pilot after college, flying tourists around in a small plane in Mexico, then later Hawaii. I think she still bounces between the two. Being solitary, and in a vehicle that is constantly plotting to kill her is what living on a boat as a child taught her, I guess.
“Most conservatives support border barriers even if they injure or kill someone,”
Even if?? Most conservatives are HOPING they will injure or kill someone. Most conservatives positively jizz themselves at the thought of "illegals" being injured or killed. These are the same people who considered a lynching to be the high-point of a picnic.
It’s a 1936 marketing video from DuPont in your header. I know, sounds lame, but it’s absolutely fascinating. And creatively filmed too. Check out the deets and link to the film here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/better-living-through-chemistry
Your motives a very transparent
They seem very clear to me
You enjoy seeing through
To the end of your task
You open our eyes to see.
LOL!
MWIDH.
It might be industrial propaganda, but it's still informative.
Fun fact: In my almost 30 years as a Fire Officer and Hazardous Materials Specialist, I have responded to incidents involving everyone of those fabulous molecules. Also, polymerization is sexy.
Wow, that "cellulose chemistry" informer sent me way, way back to the Monsanto exhibit at the World's Fair in NY. Lots of Better Living Through Chemistry naivete in black and white...
"Better Living Through Chemistry"
Wasn't that Dupont rather than Monsanto?
Your TABZ! are perfectly timed as always - yesterday as I was moving some boxes (I am a collector - not a hoarder) I came across a reel of one of my first cellulose films -YAY! - I thought they were all lost - my stuff was looted from my studio (twice!) during the first days of the pandemic lockdown (looked like vandals or somebody searching for something specific cause they ignored a lot of electronics and just trashed the stuff on the shelves (lots of shelves - whispered in Neo’s voice) it was days before I got back across the country - and my focus was just on piling stuff into boxes and getting the window, wall and door replaced - I was already in the process of rebuilding my studio and had jammed most of my things into little rooms and hallways - but the two big rooms were filled with construction tools, etc., - that’s mainly what they took along with the electronics they could get to - but I still have years of films, videotapes, digital videos, piles of hard drives, and columns of desktops to sort through and see what can be salvaged - but what is neat about Cellulose Film - is I don’t need to resurface some computer from 2001 to see what it is - You just unreel a few frames - “Oh this is the reel for the opening credits for my first projected film, cool!” - much better than - “I think these are the seven hard drive that have my first nonlinear edit on them, let me see, where is that Amiga 4000 and my Newtek Nonlinear Editor (Wow, all these cables.) (4 hours later) - Nope, just my taxes.”
Those old black and white films fascinate me. That this video was made four years before my mother was even born kind of blows my mind. I too often take it for granted how advanced so much of American industry was even at that point.
I'm currently experimenting with air dry "clay" recipes and it often strikes me how I feel like an alchemist compared to all the mechanized builders.
That reminds me so much of how I feel like some sort of skilled seamstress when I absent any patterns start cutting out doll shapes from scraps of fabric and create detailed, Victorian-type dolls with nothing but the scaps and odd buttons and bobs I have at the bottom of my sewing box.
We are the creators and contrivers of dreams.
Exactly. My brother and sisters often say stuff like "Why are you doing this?" The best answer I have is because I can, and it's fun!
Does there need to be any other reason?
❤️
I'll admit I'm a fan of the "How It's Made" show, I find automation fascinating.
I love How It's Made!
Tritto!
(That's triple ditto)
It's calming, right?
I love the guy's voice.
I sometimes use corporate films for my music videos. They're public domain and some are really bizarre.
For example. This one was taken for some old drug promotion film called Atarax.
https://youtu.be/jJqc0Gy7lVk?si=xiWgvGciDrTvGnWX
Nice song - it reminded me of Sparks a bit (that's a compliment) - but that video was creepy AF.
I like Sparks so that's a great compliment IMO.
Thanks.
I can’t like the YouTube video from inside zsubstack - but good job -
LOVE IT! we still give Atarax occasionally in the the hospital - mostly for uncontrolled itching.
Hot tip: for access to bunch of such films, check out the San Francisco-based Prelinger Library. (on-line too).
Oh, DUH! That's where you found the clip!
Anyway, terrific place, and worth a visit if you're ever in SF.
Will do. Thnks.
Doh!
Nice, nice!
Thanks.
You ever look at the periscope station on YouTube? Lots of great stuff.
No but I will check it out. Thanks.
Love the music. And mad props to that actor for the convincing “holy fuck I’ve got spiders coming out of my hand and I shouldn’t have taken so many of those uppers” facial expressions.
He reminds me of Mr. Bean
Thanks. Great description of his "acting". I found the film at
https://archive.org/details/prelinger
Will check out. Seems like it could be a goldmine for the silly things I do.
Yup.
I neglected to mention that this video, by the way, is a Prelinger Archive find from the Internet Database, where I do a lot of my searching.
EI du Pont's death anniversary was yesterday.
Are you TRYING to seduce me, Tini? You KNOW how hot and bothered I get when you go steampunk.
I find a lot of advertising pre 1970's to be kind of fascinating - particularly 1950's stuff.
Every Christmas, my daughter buys me a new calendar with a pretty 50's "housewife" in her kitchen wearing a shirtwaist dress (and sometimes an apron) and showing off her new Amana (or whatever) appliances. The captions are always modern snark. Sidenote: she used to give me Gary Larsen calendars, but he stopped doing them. Sob!
Taintor?
Yes - thanks for the reminder.
One thing I love about that era's advertising is their ads almost always used drawings rather than photographs. It just conveys a sense of style and class that photographs cannot recreate.
Bring back advertising artwork!
Not so much. I remember reading Seventeen magazine and seeing color photos of famous movie stars in shampoo ads.
That was my dream as a kid, to do those ads in the paper, especially the fashion / department store ones.
I frame old beer ads--they make drinking seem so much classier, even if it's Schlitz.
And they had cool jingles, too! Like this jazzy bit for Schaefer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P55kYs15p_o
( without cheating by watching your video )
"...the one beer to have when you're having more than one..."
I'm with you. Unlike folks who find advertising to be some kind of categorical evil, I'm sort of fascinated by it.
"Advertising the American Dream," by Roland Marchand, is a really good look at the history of advertising. I read it for a class when I went back to school. It focuses on the 1920s through the 1940s, which was when a lot of the current theories about how to market stuff came into being.
Lots of stuff about Freud's nephew?
The main ad theory, then and now: Show a beautiful woman. Sex sells.
When I was little ('61 or so), there was a man who lived in the apartment building across the alley from us and he worked in advertising and drove a ROLLS ROYCE. In our little German/Irish Chicago neighborhood! My dad was very impressed with the car and was certain he (the man) was mobbed up. Anyway, he either wrote the jingle "My baloney has a first name . . ." or invented the Weinermobile (maybe both). Nice man too.
Advertising should be taxed to pay for the life cycle cost effects of psychic poisoning of the weak minded and annoying those more resistant to its effects. 1000% tax on monies spent sounds about right for political ads.
Mad Men says hello.
OK, so Gavin did not go to China to prop up his presidential ambitions or whatever that heinous blonde chickie was saying. BTW, where is she running for Congress from? Must be OC someplace...
But, Gavin went to China because we are the 5th largest economy in the world, China is one of our largest trading partners and California is highly focused on dealing with global climate change. China has the technology that can help with that.
California tends to set the pace for the US in dealing with climate change (conversion to electric vehicles, more usage of renewable energies, etc.) and has set goals for clean energy that the rest of the US auto industry has to accept since we represent such a large market.
Where do these people find such an inexhaustible supply of blonde, empty-headed bimbeaux?
Keep in mind that this film is explosive a.f.
So, President Xe of China will be in San Francisco later this month (as will USAn President Biden--if I read the awkwardly phrased article correctly.) If you're coming to protest, remember this is the same week as the monthly wonk meet up. 3rd Friday (17th), 6PM, Eclipse Restaurant and Bar in Hyatt Regency Embarkadero. We sit twoards the back, look for a woman in a wheelchair.
Thank you
A former business colleague of mine, whom I liked very much, quit her career and sold everything so that she, her husband and their preschool daughter could go live on a houseboat. She blogged about the experience, which I followed.
One entry describes how the little one inhaled a bean up her nose, as three-year-olds will, and they had to spend thousands seeking health care to get it out. The entry was titled something like "The $5,000 Bean."
Overall, though, she was very positive about it, IIRC. Hope the little girl won't have different memories when she grows up.
(I don't know if they're still at it, because I stopped following.)
Ladies and Gentlemen ... Halloween night time. Guess who he is talking about.
----
Good morning.
Here is a sampling from his nightly panic attack.
75 posts in the last 24 hours. 🫠
https://twitter.com/7Veritas4/status/1719684149521367162
I don't understand the craze for open shelving and racks in kitchens or hanging things from hooks on the outside or underneath cabinets. Between the dust and the cat hair and the smoke from the fireplace and the pollen, these items would get very dirty very quickly. I don't want to have to wash a coffee mug or plate every time I need to use one. Give me enclosed cabinets every time.
It’s mind boggling how much effort creeps like MAGA Mike put into coming up with seemingly high minded reasons why women shouldn’t have control over their bodies. They’re not producing enough “able bodied workers?” As if women are nothing more than brood mares who have to pump out the next generation of drones for corporate America.
I’ve never heard of this “America Sunrise” show and have no idea where it airs. But the way its generic blonde host spits out names like “Newsom” as if she can’t get the taste of it out her mouth fast enough is just priceless.
My own theory about Sinema is that Greedy Spice goes wherever the money is and for an ex-Green, that means faux moderate positions while protecting the tax breaks for hedge fund managers.
Nothing says more about how republicans are motivated by spite more than how fast they went from wanted to name the vaccine after Trump to refusing to take it because Biden was telling people to. And now there’s a good chance that the republican deaths from Covid will make the difference in key races for the presidency and control of Congress next year.
This Saturday's movie is 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝑨𝒍𝒍 𝑨𝒕 𝑶𝒏𝒄𝒆
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-42875310?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
Great movie!
Israel has officially killed any chance at a two state solution and PROBABLY has eventually signed the death warrant for the Zionist State of Israel.
Another time I really, really hope I am wrong but I envision a year-long Kabul-like operation to bring Israeli Jews to America in the next 3-5 years.
I've never understood how a 2 state solution could work in the geography they have. Gaza is physically split from the West Bank, so where would it be set up? And I'm very skeptical of how Israel's security could be achieved.
It can't. The only real viability is a one-state solution with an international peacekeeping force for a generation.
Olive oil herb ice cubes. I did that last year with an abundant parsley crop. I did not use them all over the course of last winter. The rabbits enjoyed the rest of them this summer.
And, of course, this summer, I did NOT get an abundant parsley crop. Sad face emoji.
Huh. Just found out that my cousin, M, was in jail for a week. Being third-hand, the details are a bit unclear, but it sounds like their synagogue was demonstrating against what they consider to be Netanyahu's heavy-handed handling of the whole Hamas thing. Their demonstration was a counter-demonstration against an anti-Palestinian demonstration. Yay, M, boo, police!
You can always count on the police to find an excuse for imprisoning Jews.
Given that M is a disabilities activist, and has a few health issues themself, I need to talk to them to find out how they are doing, and maybe why they ended up in jail so long. Hopefully the length was their choice, rather than police indifference or brutality.
Excellent idea. I hope he's okay. Please post what you find out.
It's been a week. Sure, just minor, first-world problems, but they add up. The air fryer died. The fucking foster kitchens somehow managed to knock the ceramic bread cloche off the counter, which took a bit of effort on their part. And last night, we noticed that after having the roof cleaned, one of the skylights leaks. Three days, three problems. Hopefully this trend does not continue, as we still have plenty of things for the kittens to destroy, plenty of pieces of house to fall apart. Also, a long drive to Burlingame on the weekend. I'd rather not experience the thrill of car failure, please and thank you. On the plus side, my Concerta was just increased, so I probably will not be sleeping until Monday.
It's been a week? Let me tell you about the month.
Started out October learning that I was a victim of paper check fraud, which required the closing down of the checking account and opening another. That left me with the responsibility to change all my online withdrawals and payments to the new account. In the middle of that, my computer died, and I had to get a new one and deal with getting all the necessary files transferred to the new machine.
Yes, it was a month. November has to be better.
November, the last dying embers of the year before the darkness of December settles in to haunt us until the end. (of the year)
Although all the vintage Pyrex in #33 made me swoon, almost all of the kitchen organizing tips in that article assume that I already have WAY more storage space than I actually do, or that I can blithely do things to my apartment that I'm pretty sure would get me evicted.
We have very little space in our little condo, BUT! A couple of weeks ago I got a spice rack with uniform jars and labels and I am in love with it. We used to have all our spices just in our little cupboard with no rhyme or reason, and it's so nice to just be able to tell at a glance what we have and how much, rather than having to pull everything out of the cupboard or just assume we need more cumin or whatever.
It is my favorite thing I have purchased in ages.
Somehow, I know /two/ families who went and lived on boats with their young children (oldest was I think 12, youngest 2) on extended round-the-worlds. Those kids came back FUCKED UP. Entirely possible the fucking up of the kids was in process when they made the decision to sail around the world, bc both families were kinda fringy to start with.
I only know one family that did that, and the daughter (the only one I got to know well) turned out okay. She ended up becoming a pilot after college, flying tourists around in a small plane in Mexico, then later Hawaii. I think she still bounces between the two. Being solitary, and in a vehicle that is constantly plotting to kill her is what living on a boat as a child taught her, I guess.
“Most conservatives support border barriers even if they injure or kill someone,”
Even if?? Most conservatives are HOPING they will injure or kill someone. Most conservatives positively jizz themselves at the thought of "illegals" being injured or killed. These are the same people who considered a lynching to be the high-point of a picnic.
And yet why are personal booby traps at home to protect personal property illegal? Hmm?