Trio Portrait

Two of my maternal great-grandparents, and my great-aunt, ca. 1909. Location not known; probably Missouri.

The Devil's Messenger

Last night I watched a DVD someone sent me years ago, of The Devil's Messenger, a three-part anthology with Lon Chaney, Jr, (directed by Curt Siodmak and Herbert L. Strock, and based on a Swedish TV series), who gestured palm-up, leered plaintively, engaged his eyebrows, and searched a Rolodex, as he played Old Scratch. I expected some execrable throwaway movie, based on the lurid DVD cover, but found myself engaged by the stark acting and sets, and effective supernatural concepts. The production felt like a sort of bridge between film noir, and the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits. The ending was exceptionally odd.

Lon Chaney, Jr., has no grave. 

The Devil's Messenger (1961)

image © 2003 Alpha Video

Alexander Graham Bell's Experimental Kites

Lara McCoy-Rolofson's Tumblr blog, from which I retrieved these photos, made me aware of Alexander Graham Bell's  experiments with kites, pursuant to human-piloted flight.  

And I include this site I found, not for the content, but for its having survived from the very early days of the World Wide Web (the site last updated 10/31/95). This is what the Web looked like when I first checked it out around 1996, which is why I mostly abandoned it for several years after.

Even Clowns Started Small

 

From my collection.

Mazeograph Studio

Mazeograph Studio (look for the "Wild West" photo with the same backdrop as this card)

oo

Pathseeker unleashed this Earth of Mankind, Mules and Side Effects

Some of the books I gleaned at the local library's book sale last week. I dowsed some serendipitous finds, including This Earth of Mankind by Indonesian author  Pramoedya Ananta Toer (This Earth of Mankind... As opposed to this earth of ... the aliens?  Yaaaaah!) A Groff Conklin-edited anthology, Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men, The Pathseeker by Imre Kertész, and a boxed set by Woody Allen (one of my high school English teachers used to read to us pieces from Side Effects once in a while).

I also procured this Günter Grass collection and 1959 Mad anthology.