Saul Steinberg‘s Masks
“In 1958, when photographer Inge Morath went to his home to make a portrait, Steinberg came to the door wearing a mask which he had fashioned from a paper bag. Over a period of several years, they collaborated on a series of portraits, inviting individuals and groups of people to pose for Morath wearing Steinberg’s masks.”
[Images and caption found here.]
Skokiaan, Louis Armstrong (1955)
“Skokiaan” is an illegal self-made alcoholic beverage in Zimbabwe.
From Crime in South Africa, L.F. Freed (1960): “Isikoivane (skokiaan) appears to be a general term used for all drinks other than the traditional beer sold in municipal beer halls. But these drinks are sheer poison in that they are mixed with blue stone (copper sulphate), tobacco juice, dagga, methylated spirits, snakes, carbide, rats, beetles – anything to give a kick and a bite.”
Jaw jammer [via Thompson, blog].
Knit Bone Kitty [via Everlasting Blört].
The Bizarre Ways Cephalopods Make Bebes.
The Worm With 100 Butts [via Memo Of The Air].
[Top image: 2nd place winner of the 2026 Dog Photography Awards, Studio Category. This one and others found at My OBT.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 15 years ago.
Tommy Castro & the Painkillers play a mix of blues, soul, R&B and rock. Castro began his career in the 1970s performing in cover groups in and around the San Francisco area, and has led his own bands since 1991. In 2010, The Blues Foundation awarded Castro multiple Blues Music Award honors for Blues Male Artist of the Year, Contemporary Blues Album of the Year, B. B. King Entertainer of the Year, and with his band, Band of the Year.
The Danielle Nicole Band: Bass player and vocalist Danielle Nicole Schnebelen is an American blues/soul musician born in Kansas City, Missouri. She began her career with her brothers Nick and Kris in the band Trampled Under Foot, receiving local and international recognition. Since going solo, she was inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame and earned eight Blues Music Awards
The Nimmo Brothers cover The Allman Brothers‘ cover of the Elmore James classic. In 1995 guitarists Stevie Nimmo and his brother Alan formed the band in Glasgow. Performing here with Matt Beable on bass and Craig Bacon on drums.
News of the Week: Iran’s IRGC are still being d-bags and there are rumors of a pending firestorm. Meanwhile “student protesters” are still burning down France. Midterm election season is in full swing with reports of a surge in early voting; California is already facing accusations of fraud. There was much rain and flooding in the western states.
Tomorrow seems like a good day for Time on the Porch. If it’s missing from the itinerary, show up at the crack of noon anyway. If you don’t see me, just stomp a few times.
“Uranium Rush was an ‘educator approved’ game from the 1950s. Players begin with $15,000 and prospect for uranium in an area determined by a spinner (mountain, hills, or desert). Claims can be purchased for $1000 each and may be auctioned off or tested for uranium. This involves an electric ‘Geiger counter’ that produces a buzzing sound if uranium is discovered. The claim is then sold to the federal government for $50,000. Players alternate turns until all claims have been staked and the person with the most money is declared the winner.”
Produced by Gardner & Co. (Gardner Games) in 1955.
[Found here.]
Artist Jennifer Bolande created Visible Distance / Second Sight for the 2017 Desert X biennial exhibition in the Coachella Valley:
“In a cinematic experience animated by driving along Gene Autry Trail, viewers will encounter a series of billboards featuring photographs of the very mountains towards which they are heading. Each photograph is unique to its position along this route and at a certain point as one approaches each billboard, perfect alignment with the horizon will occur thus reconnecting the space that the rectangle of the billboard has interrupted. In the language of billboard advertising this kind of reading is referred to as a Burma-Shave.“
[Pothole somewhere in Ireland ca. 2012 found here.]
[Found here and in areas accessible to Florida Man.]
Zoot Suit, The High Numbers (1964)Zoot Suit was the first single by The Who, who recorded it under the name The High Numbers in an attempt to appeal to a mod audience. It was a ripoff of
Misery, The Dynamics (1963)
Dog.
Cake.
35 years ago [h/t Bustednuckles].
Window dogs [via Memo Of The Air].
70 whistles [via The Feral Irishman].
The fate of the Zénith [via Miss Cellanea].
Geometric livestock [via Everlasting Blört].
Relativistic Asteroids [via Thompson, blog].
The contents of a ±96 year old ostrich stomach.
[Top image: Skin 2, a sculpture created in 2010 by Turkish artist Mehmet Ali Uysal, originally installed in Chaudfontaine Park, Liège, Belgium.
Found in here.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 15 years ago.
“This is the sort of band that gets booked by unwary festival promoters as an early evening support only to discover they’ve stolen the show by 8 pm.”
Since their beginnings as a Copenhagen bar band, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado have been dubbed Denmark’s premier roots rockers. The septet has performed in Scandinavia, Europe, Canada, the US and Asia for the past twenty years.
Hard to find info on the Wisconsin band named American Standard, but it was a side project of The Chris Aaron Band, both fronted by Chris Aaron Shoemaker. Shoemaker passed away in 2014 due to a heart attack. He was 44. “Aaron was one of Wisconsin’s most prominent blues musicians, based for much of his career in the Fox Valley but playing regularly all over the state. He fronted a number of bands, from the Chris Aaron Band to American Standard to National Standard, and played often with other notable blues artists.”
(This video has an annoying smoke alarm beep at 2:15. Ignore it.)
Blues legend based in Austin, Texas, Guy Forsyth has a long resume of recording and performing around the world, with many awards to boot. He’s got a knack for storytelling also, as evidenced in his bio.
News of the Week: Iran’s IRGC is still dicking around, Volod Zelenskyy got bitchy during peace negotiations. An armed civilian took out a 16 year old school shooter in Oregon. The Russian plague is MIA, but there’s a brain fungus on the loose, and Elon launched a Tesla.
I may not have covered everything, but it’s hot, dry and windy here and I get easily distracted. Besides, there’s porch time to take care of whenever you get here. See you tomorrow.
