Category: True Stories

Inkyman

Erasure- Art inspiration: Zhang Huan (Chinese, born Anyang, 1965). Family Tree, 2001. China.

A series of nine photographs in which the artist Zhang Huan’s face gradually becomes covered in ink and traditional calligraphy.

The text on the artist’s face consists of words, names, and stories related to his cultural heritage—words with personal meaning to him. The dots on his face in the first photograph represent moles and their connection to one’s fate. In Chinese cultures, it is said that having moles in certain areas on the face symbolizes good luck and fortune.

By the last picture, Huan’s face is completely covered in ink. Though the words on his face are about his character and fate, they ultimately obscure his entire identity. The piece seems to say that traditional words and ways of thinking can erase the things that make us individuals.

[Image and description found here.]

Updated: Corrected spelling of performance artist’s name Zhang Huan & added link: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/zhang-huan/

Glass’ & Reed’s Contribution to the World

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Mr. Machine is a once popular children’s mechanical toy originally manufactured by the Ideal Toy Company in 1960. Mr. Machine was a robot-like mechanical man wearing a top hat. The body had a giant windup key at the back. When the toy was wound up it would “walk”, swinging its arms and repeatedly ringing a bell mounted on its front; and after every few steps emit a mechanical “Ah!”, as if it were speaking. The toy stood about 18 inches tall (roughly 46 cm).

The gimmick of Mr. Machine was that one could not only see all of his mechanical “innards” through his clear plastic body, but one could also take the toy apart and put it back together, over and over, like a Lego toy or a jigsaw puzzle.

Mr. Machine was one of Ideal’s most popular toys. The company reissued it in 1978, but with some alterations: it could no longer be taken apart (owing to the tendency of very young children to put small pieces in their mouths which could be accidentally swallowed or present a choking hazard), and instead of ringing a bell and making the “Ah” sound, it now whistled “This Old Man”.

This later version of Mr. Machine was brought back once more in the 1980s. In 2004, the Poof-Slinky Company remanufactured the original 1960 version (using the actual Ideal molds whenever possible), which made the original sounds and could be disassembled, and with the intention of being marketed to nostalgic adults as a collectible.

[U.S. Patent image found here. Unfortunately it’s only a single page, but it refers to related patents. Description and more found here.]

Just Push The Red Button

SALESMATE
New Portable Audio-Visual Selling tool.
Automatic Sound Slidefilm Viewer in an Attache Case. Self-Winding, Self-Contained, Ready to Use. Just:
1) Open the screen
2) Plug it in
3) Push the red button, and The Show is On!

The 1961 Beseler Salesmate Projector included a built in cassette player for sales presentations. The Charles Beseler Co. was founded in 1869 in Germany as a manufacturer of a variety of products including inhalers, magic lanterns with oil lamps and stereopticons.

[Postcard with caption found here.]

Bizarropillar

The larva of the Pacific fruit-piercing moth eat leaves and are usually kept in check by Trichogramma, tiny parasitic wasps.

The moth stage does the real damage. The adult moth flies at night and sucks out the juices of ripe mango, banana, tomato, melon, citrus, guava, papaya and other fruit through its nose, and is considered an economic pest in the Pacific Basin Area.

[Image found here; more here.]

Heliocopter

USS Halsey (DDG-97) conducts flight operations in the Arabian Sea on Aug. 21, 2021. US Navy Photo

Destroyer Squadron 15 is based in Yokosuka, Japan, and is embarked on the carrier. U.S. 7th Fleet has not fully specified the escorts accompanying USS Reagan on its patrol, but the CSG includes the USS Halsey (DDG-97), homeported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

[Photo and caption via USNI News.]

The $2 Million Dollar DUCK

“The sale, titled ‘L’Universe des Arts Decoratifs,’ included an array of Art Deco treasures and furnishings. […] François-Xavier Lalanne’s giant duck stood out, especially since it more than doubled its initial estimation of $1.1 million. The sculpture itself is almost five feet tall, and, more notably, stretches to almost seven feet in terms of its length.”
The sale/auction was held in Paris, April 2021 .

[Image and caption found here.]

Lawrence Lipton’s Contribution To The World – DUHAB the Beatnik Robot

July 19, 1965 – L.A. Times

GADGET FOR TODAY–Author Lawrence Lipton, chronicler of the beatnik scene, demonstrates his “robot,” Duhab (Detector of Undesirable HABitués). Lipton says robot ferrets out the undesirables – including censors, book-burners.
[…]
“The Venice West beat scene was the most promising attempt ever made to bring avant-garde culture to Southern California, and it was murdered by self-righteous, puritanical busy-bodies and hostile police,” he said.

[Image and story found here.]

Nigel Cockerton’s Contribution To The World – Vodkahead

Nigel Cockerton received a Master’s in Forensic and Medical Art from the University of Dundee, Scotland, and has also trained and worked with FBI officials in the U.S.

One day Cockerton decided to perform some forensic facial reconstruction on  a bottle of Crystal Head Vodka.

The skull-shaped bottle is based on 13 crystal heads that have been found in various regions around the world – from the American southwest to Tibet. The heads – believed to be between 5,000 and 35,000-years-old – are thought to offer spiritual power and enlightenment to those who possess them.

Mr Cockerton said the skull he reconstructed was a European female aged between 21 and 30 – although without the real fragments of teeth, he was not able to be more precise.

[Found here, more here.]