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American Can Company promotional booklet featuring some nice pop art puzzles. No date but I'm assuming early 70's.
Hartwig & Vogel "Odysseus" c1905
#5 The contest of the bow, where Odysseus slaughters Penelope's suitors
Occasional stream, Orange County, North Carolina
Pentax K-1
SMC Pentax Shift 1:3.5 28mm
Iridient Developer
"Best Wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving. Ellen H. Clapsaddle. Painting only copyrighted by S. Garre, 1909."
I recently acquired this in an auction box lot. It's a typewritten draft of what seems like a short piece for a magazine. My hunch is it was never published. I also suspect that the true author is Charlotte G. Moulton; her contact info is furnished at the end of the piece and her middle name is Glidden. Ms. Moulton was for several decades the UPI wire correspondent covering the Supreme Court. She was among the very first to report some momentous decisions in the 20th century, among them Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and the Miranda case.
Here's a transcript of the article:
Moteling — 1955
By Susan K. Glidden [probably a pseudonym of Charlotte G. Moulton]
To those who have never moteled may I say that in this pursuit, as elsewhere in life, it’s the little things that count.
Motel owners please note.
Having just returned from a grand circle vacation tour of the United States, where three of us located for a night in 16 different motor courts and three cabins in national parks, I speak with the voice of experience — not bitter but pretty well seasoned.
Of course after a daily 350 miles or so of dusty wayfaring, any modest billet with a clean-sheeted bed looks like a corner of heaven.
Cabins in national parks are designed to rent as cheaply as possible and naturally have to be rustic, with no fancy extras. The government now hopes to embark on an ambitious development program to meet the needs of an ever-increasing tourist load.
But the better motels go all-out for the motorist’s comfort. Wall-to-wall carpeting is usual, with gay draperies, easy chairs, radio and/or TV (usually the “insert a coin” type), immaculate tiled shower and air-conditioning. One motel clerk asked us to select either foam rubber or inner spring mattresses. All for prices ranging from $7 to $10 a night.
But, as I said, it’s the little things that count. And we soon had our own list of small desirables. After a few days on the road it became a standing joke to them off on arrival to see how the night’s stopping place met the test.
A shelf in the bathroom and a hook on the inside of the door headed the list. It’s right difficult to dispose of your toothbrush and toothpaste, lotion, soap flakes, pajamas and robe, soiled undies and other accessories when the bathroom offers no place to hang anything or set anything down. When even the toilet seat lacks a cover, it’s downright frustrating.
A wastebasket in both the bathroom and bedroom is also a help. We were always walking from one room to the other with crumpled paper or other rubbish in search of that essential article.
Small nightly laundry is highly important to the traveler but apparently seldom enters the thinking of motel designers. Bathroom basins are usually small, with no rim to hold wet garments between washing and rinsing. After the laundry is finished there is no place to hang it up to dry.
A shower curtain rod is a life-saver. But the trend in showers appears to be toward glass doors rather than curtains. Stretch clotheslines are obtainable at department store notion counters, but motels seldom provide any convenient appurtenances between which the line can stretch.
So bedtime usually found nylons panties draped on doorknobs, socks dangling from uplifted covers of vanity cases, and T-shirts on wire coat hangers balanced on door frames.
Many motels provide water glasses wrapped carefully in crisp little paper bags labeled “sterilized for your health and safety.” We had added this fine idea to our list until we observed the “sterilizing” being effected in something less than a super-safe manner. But even after that the little bags with their reassuring message made us feel protected anyway.
There were other acceptables — nice but not necessary. They included a real closet, instead of a clothes rack, a separate dressing alcove with a shelf for toilet articles, etc. (seldom found), and more than one luggage rack.
Frequently a room with two double beds would boast only one rack for a suitcase. The only other out-of-the-way space was often between wall and bed or even under the bed. Access to the bag’s contents could be had most conveniently by lying flat across the bed on the stomach.
Most motor courts had their own ideas of the “little extras” a traveler likes. A bottle-opener attached to a door jamb was a virtual certainty. Also small cakes of soap and bath mats, either cloth or fiber. Ice cubes were usually readily available, frequently in enormous quantity in a freezer in either the motel office or outside in the patio.
About a third of the motels provided face cloths along with the towels. Some had paper cups and facial tissue. One had a couple of super-fine quality tissues in envelopes inscribed with the management’s compliments. Another supplied two tough-fiber utility cloths for bathroom use which we used on the car for three weeks afterwards.
Free post cards bearing a picture of the motel were common. A few supplied stationery. In one or two we found packets of instant coffee for an early bracer. One advertised a continental breakfast of coffee and sweet roll for a quarter. And one even offered hot coffee and a doughnut “on the house.”
We seldom found a telephone in our room but there was always one in the office or in an outside booth.
Free reading matter included newspapers, the Bible and the Book of Mormon. One motel office offered borrowers an assortment of recent magazines.
Eating is always a travel problem. Some motels also operate cafes, with fairly good food at reasonable prices. But restaurants that would be considered A-1 in New York or Chicago simply don’t exist in small cities and towns. The motel manager directed us to the nearest eating place and we hoped for the best.
In first-class motels, serious defects are virtually nonexistent. In one place, however, the bathroom fixtures came off at the slightest encouragement. Sometimes the faucets dripped. A rodent gnawing away in the woodwork overhead caused one wakeful night.
We never realized how many systems there are for turning a shower on and off. But we always solved the mystery after a few tries. Soundproofing in all but one instance was excellent.
Of course we had to take in stride the afflictions suffered by the local residents themselves. For instance, as we approached one court in Oklahoma, we saw the manager pacing back and forth menacingly, with fly swatter in hand. It turned out that a horde of king-size crickets, different from the reassuring Eastern chirpers, had descended on the town, invading stores and homes. We found only one in our room, which we promptly dispatched.
Because motels must be on highways, we were sometimes disturbed at night by traffic noises. But this disadvantage was more than offset by the convenience of driving in and obtaining comfortable accommodations in less than five minutes.
Sometimes we didn’t even have to get out of the car. The manager came out to meet us, determined our needs and directed us to a room. Later we registered at the office, stating name, address, license plate and make and model of car.
From there we were on our own. Motels offer no bellboy service. Managers offered in a half-hearted way to carry our bags but they never insisted.
Names of motels run to a pattern. The country is dotted with Knotty Pines, Sunsets, Skylines, Westerns, Holidays and Trail’s Ends. Many owners concentrate on the atmosphere of their own region — El Rancho, Sea Breeze, Coral Sands, Plantation, Westward Ho, Desert Inn, etc. But some go to great expense to be different. One owner was importing blue spruce trees from another state so his patio would justify the name Blue Spruce Motel.
We soon became expert at telling from the outside what the inside of a motor court would look like. The safest bet is to choose one recommended by the American Automobile Association or some other reputable travel agency. That way you can’t go wrong.
[END]
Charlotte G. Moulton
Falls Church, Virginia
Fun fun fun! This new Frigidaire DeLuxe electric range is for YOU, dear housewife! Nice pattern for her dress, by the way.
Note the date: 1955.
This is the cover to a brochure you get accompanying your newly bought household appliance. It's rare for these little booklets to stick around as they were mostly thrown away after a couple of years, or once the appliance was replaced with a newer model.
In the mid-20th century, Kentucky-born Paul Twitchell evidently cribbed and plagiarized any number of mimeographed texts full of spiritual hokum, pasted it all together, published it, and — shazam! — he had himself a new “ancient” religion, which he infelicitously named Eckankar.
Evidently the religion (which was set up as a corporation in California) was going gangbusters there for a while, because, well, look, they had book marks, which they labeled as such, presumably for the rather less sophisticated among the flock. Twitchell and his successor, Darwin Gross, gave themselves the honorific “Sri,” which is IRS backwards.
Twitchell died sometime in the early 1970s. If I remember correctly, after three weeks of an all-pineapple diet, his tongue developed eckankar sores* that got infected, leading to sepsis. Or something like that.
*Apologies for my terrible, labored pun. According to the internet, Twitchell died from a heart attECK.
Cut & paste collage: using vintage ephemera and auction catalog images, monoprinted tissue paper, commercial tissue paper, brown ink.
This was part of a lot of paper items that I picked up at the Scott's Antique show in Columbus, Ohio on 11.29.08
Cassette sleeve for a David Lynch compilation I made in December 1990
1977 - Eraserhead
1986 - Blue Velvet
1990 - Twin Peaks
1990 - Wild at Heart
Why are you asking me this question - Dialogue excerpt (Eraserhead)
Twin Peaks Theme - Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks)
Mysteries Of Love - Julee Cruise (Blue Velvet)
Cool Cat Walk - Angelo Badalamenti
Be-Bop A Lula - Gene Vincent And The Blue Caps (Wild at Heart)
Perdita - Rubber City (Wild at Heart)
Love Letters - Ketty Lester (Blue Velvet)
Laura Palmer’s Theme - Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks)
Up In Flames - Koko Taylor (Wild at Heart)
Smoke Rings - Glen Gray And The Casa Loma Orchestra (Wild at Heart)
In Heaven - Tuxedomoon (not from film)
Dance Of The Dream Man - Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks)
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton (Blue Velvet)
The Nightingale - Julee Cruise (Twin Peaks)
Akron Meets The Blues - Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet)
Blue Vervet/Blue Star - Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet)
Dark Lolita - Angelo Badalamenti (Wild at Heart)
Into The Night - Julee Cruise (Twin Peaks)
Audrey's Dance - Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks)
Love Me Tender - Nicolas Coge (Wild at Heart)
Falling - Julee Cruise (Twin Peaks)
Freshly Squeezed - Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks)
In Dreams - Roy Orbison (Blue Velvet)
Dark Spanish Symphony - Angelo Badalamenti (Wild at Heart)
Blue Spanish Sky - Chris Isaac (Wild at Heart)
In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) - David Lynch & Alan R. Splet, Peter Ivers (vocals) (Eraserhead)
Mysteries of Love - Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet)