Inspirational - Be a beacon.

Inspirational - Nothing you can't accomplish.

Inspirational - Don't pose.

Painter of Light - Thomas Kinkade.

https://news.avclub.com/painter-of-light-thomas-kinkade-arrested-for-dui-esc-1798220984

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/may/09/thomas-kinkade-dark-death-painter

Inspirational - Each new day.

Christmas shit.

Planet balls.

Scotch Tape - Holds together Christmas!

Hey everybody! Tape! You know what Christmas? Tape! Everybody must have tape! Tape tape tape! Tape is required! All must tape! Tapetapetapetapetapetape!

This ad from the 12/18/1950 issue of LIFE magazine is here to help you figure out what to do with all that tape your bought for unrelated reasons. Use it to Christmas! First among tape's many uses that you would never figure out on your own is making a "friendship tree"!!! That's right! "What the hell is a friendship tree?" Well, first you start by friendshipfully killing a tree and dragging it into your house. To find out the rest, just tilt your eyeballs downward slightly!

**Service announcement**
This two-page ad has been scanned in two parts, because Google doesn't let you post pictures larger than 1600px in their longest dimension. So, instead of a single image 1600px across, we have posted two pages, each 1600px high. So now, you might have a chance of reading the text in the ad, if that's what you're into. See? Always thinking of YOU! That's our motto or whatever! If you printed these pictures out and are trying to reassemble them in the form of the original ad, here's a hint to solving the jigsaw puzzle. The page with Bing on it goes on the left. You're welcome!

[-Mgmt.]

If you follow Scotch's advice about how to Christmas, you'll use about nine dollars in Scotch tape per gift. Use it as ribbon! Use it instead of wrapping paper! Tape your lights to the tree! Use it to keep your eyes open while assembling a bike at 3am in total silence! Then there's your friendship tree thing, which means taping cards to your Christmas tree! What's in the roast turkey instead of stuffing? Tape, idiot! If the Scotch marketing department had had their way, every American family would simply forgo the gift-giving tradition altogether and just spend their entire annual income on tape and just sit around sticking things together.

Hey. I just thought of this. Why weren't there any tapecentric Christmas carols written by Scotch's marketing department? Missed opportunity, guys. They really dropped the ball and taped it to the floor on that one.

Maybe you feel like listening to an ancient Bing Crosby family Christmas radio show? Okay, here. Have that.

https://youtu.be/Bcp8dyys8Ok

Betty

Puerto Rican Rums - A who and who?

This 1950 weird ad isn't for a brand. It's from an organization. The Puerto Rican Rum Institute ("Oh! You mean the PRRI!") was generally in favor of Americans buying just, sort of, all rums from Puerto Rico.

"In all the world, the smoothest, most mixable of drinks, according to connoisseurs, is a fine light, dry rum... and in all the world no rums are finer and lighter than the rums of Puerto Rico".

...where "connoisseurs" means "The Puerto Rican Rum Institute staffers", naturally.

It's whatever-holiday-you-want-to-call-it time, (and I like to call it Saturnalia, just for the sake of predating all the other bandwagon holiday posers) and you know that means people are going to be making nog. And immediately afterward, they're going to all be asking each other "What the fuck is nog anyway, and are there other nogs apart from egg?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggnog#History

Anyhoo, there don't seem to be other types of nog. The Simpsons, back when the show was funny and deserved to still be in production, once made a really good joke about this when Marge was shopping for emergency hurricane provisions and the store shelves were nearly empty. All she could find were creamed eels, corn nog, and wadded beef.

https://youtu.be/szfLB-SSjA8

Most of the variously disagreeing explanations for nog have the term coming from the word "noggin" which was a type of wooden mug that the drink - always dairy based - was served in. It's easy to understand how syllables are dropped from words once the speakers have a few drinks in them, and that's where the rum comes in.

You can make a virgin eggnog, but mostly, any spirit added to eggnog seems to be rum. Fair enough. The PRRI to the rescue! National Talk Like a Pirate Day didn't exist back in 1950, so Saturnalia was the seasonal high water mark for rum makers. This ad helpfully recommends several rumcentric recipes for holiday drinks, and here are some nicely-resolutioned crops of the recipes just in case you want to give them a try.

Insert record scratch here. Tom and Jerry are a drink, and not just a hyperviolent / hilarious cat and mouse cartoon team? Internet, you gots some 'splaining to do...

https://whatscookingamerica.net/Beverage/tomjerry.htm

There is debate on the origin of the Tom and Jerry Drink, whether it was invented by a British journalist who named the drink after characters in his popular novel in the 1820’s or if it was invented by an American bartender in 1850 who first published a recipe. The Tom and Jerry drink used to be extremely popular in the United States. For over one hundred years, you could even buy Tom and Jerry drink sets. A resurgence of the drink’s popularity came about in the 1940’s after the World War II. This is most likely due to more families entertaining at home instead of the bars.

Oh. That'll do nicely, Internet. Ho-lee shit. Tom and Jerry were a drink WAY before they beat the hell out of each other to the delight of a young Phil Largo..

Anyway, if your Saturnalia seems like it would be made a little easier by drinking a rum-and-pancake combination, or if you have the need to drown your no-more-legal-cockfighting sorrows, we're got you covered. You're welcome!

Fence

Up Your Decor - CHRISTMAS TREEEEES!!!!!!!!!

Hey, decorators! It's Christmas time! Do you know what that means? That's right! It means it's Christmas time!!!! Let's get your stupid crap of a house looking ship-shape for a super fab Christmas season! Today! We're helping you with your Christmas tree!

I know you're probably planning on getting a growng-in-the-gound, planty kind of tree, just like always, but you know what? This is 1971! We live in the future! Let's get mod!!!!

I know what you're thinking: "Flowers for Christmas decorations? Vorbia, darling,
are you an idiot or a genius?" Correct! Do you know why? Because it's always
flower season somewhere! Anyway, this golden fake flower Christmas tree was
easily made for under a hundred dollars! Just get a hundred dollars, and go grab
a large punch bowl, and some aquarium gravel, a broomstick and, well, all the
things in the picture. Cram them together so they look like the picture and just like
that you're done! Of course, once you've got a Christmas tree like this in your
living room, you'll want to instruct all your family to only wrap presents in a way
that is color coordinated with your decorating or they'll be thrown away!

Oooooh, so maybe a flower Christmas tree is too conventional for you? I hear
you, and I applaud your fashion-forward Christmas sense! In that case, this
eye-challenging postmodern design is so up-to-date you'll think you're celebrating
Christmas in a dreary Dadaist poem! It's made from coat hangers and nylon mesh
and yellow garland and some electric candles. There's only one thing your family
will love more than putting gifts underneath this po-mo tree, and that's taking them
out from underneath it!

If you're feeling more playful than profound this season,
then you can easily make this fanciful Christmas tree from
colored duct tape! What? You don't have colored duct tape?
Well, go get some and color it! You'll also want another
ever-useful broom handle to hold the whole thing up. And three gold balls. Then, just watch your family stare at your curly Christmas creation!

You're welcome!!!!

Ants and Waterslide

This Picnic.

Let Me Drive?

Up Your Decor - Add eye-food!

Howdy-do, my hungry little lookers! Guess what? I've decided that you are all starving your eyeballs! They need color and pattern to grow big and strong! Yes they do! No, your house is NOT fine the way it is! SHUT THE HELL UP! Don't take away my joy or I will KILL YOU! Let's get started!

Starting with your kitchen, you need to realize that if you like your wallpaper, like really like your wall-
paper, you'd just wallpaper it right up onto your ceiling! See? Now don't you think you owe your wallpaper
an apology?

What time is it? Daytime? NO!!!!! It's time to cover those windows with decoration! These screens are
easily made from other screens, or even panels! Then, just fill them with stretched fabric in whatever
pattern drowns out the voices inside! There! Now you can't even hear them at all! Just the blissful racket
of your children playing, completely unaware of... things! Nice!

Have you found where your husband goes all weekend? Is it some kind of stupid workshop that is outside
your control? Yay! You found it! And he's a silly goose! You control everything! Now's your chance to teach that whatever he gets up to in that shop of his is just as pointless as a toddler playing with blocks. Paint the whole place in fun, bright colors! What's that? He won't like it? Awwww, what's wrong? Doesn't the widdle baby like his playpen? Then he can come back in the house and help you wallpaper the television like an adult!

Now that he's back in the house, you both should spruce things up in the rumpus room! Let's start with a fiberglass elephant-foot table... only because the goddam World Wildlife Fund won't let you buy a real
elephant foot on the open market! What do they know about decorating? Psst! Here's a pro tip! They'll never know if you just cover a real elephant foot in fiberglass, but you didn't read it here! Now just cruise the rummage sales for a plywood rooster, a tambourine, a wicker reindeer and some blacktop buckets made into stools! Paint it all in a pleasing red and fuscia motif and you're ready to pumpus that rumpus! I think that's enough for you to do until next time! See you soon, decorators!

DuBouchett. So inscrutable.

More holiday times interestingness today from your friends in 1950! Holiday times means entertaining friends and family at your house, and if you ask DuBouchett, that means cordials! And, if you ask anyone (because you're less than sixty years old), "cordials" usually* means "alcohol plus sugar plus fruit. And, alcohol plus sugar means "instant hangover"! Holiday times, mon frer!



*Clearly, by looking at the ad, DuBouchett understands cordials to mean "pre-mixed" cocktails, but cordials are another word for "liqueur".

Okay, so what, technically, is a "liqueur"?

See? Instant hangover! Never question Professor Google! If you want to try it, spend an evening drinking "hard lemonade" and see for yourself. In DuBouchett's defense, the cordials in their ad here aren't very sugary. Manhattans, vodka, rye... It's nice that Dubouchett wants you to get hammered, but doesn't want your head to explode till tomorrow morning, instead of just before bedtime.

But more importantly, there is a greater mystery here. Double-you tee eff is that weird harlequin evil-looking mascot guy? He's playing that brandy bottle like a guitar, and that implies that he's the life of the party, and he's had more than a few cherry cordials. There's no explanation from simple context in the ad. Is he just DuBouchett's icon/logo?

Whup. He's called "The DuBouchett" man. There's your answer.

https://www.printmag.com/branding/dubouchett-paul-rands-harlequin/

As a piece of corporate branding the harlequin guy is pretty clever. The red and green diamond pattern vibrates your eyes in their sockets and can be spotted easily while flipping thro ugh the pages of a magazine... even after you've had a few cordials, which is just how DuBouchett likes you. Doncha go changing, Drinky McDrunkerson. Their harlequin guy is just kind of weird looking, is all, which is fine, because they're not trying to attract kids to their brand, with enormous, trying-so-hard-it's-creepy smiles and saucer eyes like you see on a cereal box. Here in The Future, with our hyper focus-tested omni-cutesy mascots everywhere, to see a weird jester pirate guy with an inscrutable French expression is refreshing, kind of.

Oh, The French. You're so inscrutable. If you really really like the DuBouchett harlequin man, you can maybe find a plaster one of him on Ebay. It'll cost you, though...

DuBouchett. Does that mean something? I think "bouche" means "mouth". Let's go back to Professor Google and ask.

Say what? "Stuffy"? Let's swap their places and see how "stuffy" translates.

Huh. Odd. Okay, what is French for "mouth", then?

Oookay.

Well, that's our inscrutable French friends for you. They simply cannot be scruted, and neither can their language. Viva France!

Evil Mansion

SPACEJESUS

Kaiser Golden Dragon - Give it away, give it away now.

"How come everybody want to keep it like the kaiser? Give it away, give it away, give it away now."

"Here in time for Christmas... America's most exciting new car. 1951 Kaiser Golden Dragon." A constant favorite tactic of car advertisements is the idea of buying someone a car for Christmas. Do people do this? Or, maybe the better question is "Do enough people do this to make it worthwhile for the car companies to keep re-using this old advertising trope?" I dunno. Never made it without biting. Ask Mister Owl.

Anyway. What's a Kaiser Golden Dragon? Never seen one, and never heard of one. So, that's why this one had to go into the post today.

By all accounts, the Kaiser didn't do well.
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/1951-1953-kaiser-dragon4.htm
One thing that Kaiser did really well? Names. Man, if there's a better name for a car than a Kaiser Golden Dragon, I haven't heard it. Badass, man.

And, Kaiser kept it going in the names for their options, too. The Golden Dragon was available with a special type of upholstery called "Dragonleather". Pretty damn cool. Uuuh, it was, however, just embossed vinyl. Cue the sad wah-wah trumpet.

Weirdly, articles that I found described the car as being expensive. The Dragon sold for somewhere around $2500, which comes out to just over 25 kilobucks in today's money. Maybe there's better pricing info somewhere else? Maybe I'm too lazy to go look for it. I already got what I wanted. The coolest car name ever.