Sunday, March 12, 2006

Oh, my aching brain

No, I haven't died or been dragged off by giant frogs to mate horribly with their giant frog females to bring about a horrible mutant race of frogmen, I've just been diligently working at my job. And by diligently I mean involuntarily. Dang, I hate my job. Anyway, on to the blog-post.

My sister's recent post on vintage graffiti she found in a book reminds me of some strange drawings I found years ago in an ancient Bible I bought at a thrift store. The Bible was printed in 1864 and has a handwritten inscription dated 1869, but the most interesting thing about this book are drawings of bald women in hoop skirts smoking pipes.

These drawings are the types of things that may cause a concerned teacher to ask, "Is everything OK at home?" Or maybe the teacher would just drag the kid in front of the class and savagely paddle his/her ass with a freshly cut pine board. They had to cut this kind of nonsense out early or it could lead to even worse things like self-pollution or even dancing.

Maybe grandma strolled around with no wig on and smoked a pipe. Hell, maybe dad strolled around in a dress. These types of scenarios never turn up in those sappy, sentimental made for TV movies about American life in the 1800's.

I like how the arms are straight out as if the bald, hoop-skirt wearing, pipe-smoker were sleepwalking. Imagine coming upon that on your way to the outhouse at three o'clock in the morning.

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