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My automatic reaction to this sequence from Al Hartley's 'Archie's Family Album' was to feel simultaneously furious and sick to my stomach, I disagree with it so much. I read these comics because I like Hartley's art and can enjoy the stories ironically... but at times, I get these flashes of realization of what his actual goals were with using these characters as vehicles to get across his fucked up ideas and I feel horrified at myself for taking them so lightly, (and at Hartley for choosing them for exactly that reason. )

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Gray Morrow 70s B-Movie tie-in comic based on a movie based on real-life 'super cops'(who were subsequently busted for corruption). I think this cover does its job very well; the comic itself is a series of brief, very unsatisfying stories, with some flashes of nice art.

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(The first Microwave Oven)

From the New Yorker, Feb 5, 1949

THE Raytheon Manufacturing Company, of Waltham, Massachusetts, an old hand at turning out radio tubes and radar equipment, has now produced the Radarange, which, as its name implies, cooks food by radar. The most astonishing aspect of this spooky invention is the speed with which it operates. A large pan of gingerbread can be baked in twenty-nine seconds, and water comes to a boil faster than you can say "instantaneously." At the moment, the Raytheon Company is still experimenting with Radaranges and, instead of selling them, rents them to hotels and restaurants, at a charge of five dollars a day. The only local hotel equipped with Radaranges is the Roosevelt, which has two and is delighted with them. We stopped in there the other day to try a few samples of radar cooking, and we're delighted, too.

It will be some time before the department stores have Radaranges. The present model would have to sell for twenty- five hundred dollars a unit, if the Raytheon people were willing to sell it at all, and they haven't even got around to drawing up plans for a home model, We were escorted into the Roosevelt kitchens by Louis Del-Coma, assistant to the general manager of the hotel, who informed us that the bulk of the hotel's cooking is still being done on regular, old-fashioned stoves but that the Radaranges have been very useful in emergencies. Faced with an unexpected run on baked potatoes, Del-Coma said, the chefs turn calmly to the Radaranges, which can bake a potato in four and a half minutes, as against an hour in a conventional oven. The Roosevelt Radaranges stand about five feet high, are about two feet wide and two feet deep, and have a control panel of comforting simplicity: an on-off button, a high-low switch, and a five-minute timer, calibrated in seconds. The oven is of stainless steel and has a steel door perforated like acoustic tile, so that a cook can see in. The ranges produce energy the way a radar transmitter does, but it is directed into the ovens, for cooking purposes, instead of out into space, for detection purposes. The heart of the device is the magnetron, a tube of very high frequency and very high cost, which sends out microwaves at 2,450 megacycles, spang in the middle of the band the Federal Communications Commission has assigned for cookery and other industrial transmissions. Most affected by that particular foods are frequency. They are, in fact, practically given a nervous breakdown by it, and the heat that cooks them is a product of friction among their agitated molecules. One odd thing is that while water boils so promptly, paper, which has molecules that react to a different frequency, is unaffected, and if you put a paper cup full of water in a Radarange the water will all boil away, but the cup will remain undamaged. Metal reflects the microwaves, so the oven itself never warms up; glass and china conduct the waves, so plates and casseroles stay cool while the food on or in them gets piping hot. Mr. Del-Coma turned on one of the Radaranges, set the timer for four and a half minutes, and put a large, unpeeled potato in the oven, on a plate. The potato immediately began to sizzle and jiggle. "You see how fast it is," Del- Coma said. "As a matter of fact, it's too fast for some foods. Eggs, for instance. One of the boys put a whole egg in a Radarange one day and it blew up with a terrific pop." When the oven shut itself off, Del-Coma removed the plate and potato. The plate was cool, but the potato was too hot to touch. Del-Coma slit it open, tucked in a pat of butter, and handed us a fork.When it had cooled enough to eat, we sampled it and found it to be done to a turn and fluffy-the best baked potato we've had since our Second-Class Boy Scout days. Then Del-Coma cooked us a hamburger patty, in two minutes. It couldn't have been better. "The Radarange cooks foods evenly all the way through," he said, "and this means people are accustomed to. If we're cooking a mackerel fillet, we get around that problem by using a special seasoning, which has a coloring effect. Steaks cook perfectly in these ranges but end up looking gray. Our solution to that is to sear them for a few seconds in a broiler, then put them in the Radarange. We cook a ten-ounce steak forty seconds if you order it rare, forty-five seconds for medium, and fifty seconds for well-done. Up in Massachusetts, there's a quick-order place with a Radarange, and when they get a takeout order for a hamburger, they put the raw meat in a bun, smear on mustard, wrap the sandwich in wax paper, put it in a paper bag, and toss the whole works in the oven. They say it tastes fine."

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Corey Feldman, Chicago, July 2024

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Bimbo the Birthday Clown on the Uncle Bobby Show wishes you and you, a very happy birthday!!!

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CLUB LIFE IN AMERICA

Saturday Afternoons at the Tennis Courts Split the Neighborhood Club Wide Open

By Gluyas Williams, The New Yorker, June 1935

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Constantin Ajalov, The New Yorker, June 23, 1929

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Constantin Ajalov, The New Yorker, Nov 11, 1933

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From the The New Yorker, June 22, 1935:

A la Belle Étoile

WE went up to Central Park last Tuesday night, to see the dancing on the Mall. Just as we had expected, it turned out to be a fine, cheerful occasion, not in the least like that gloomy little number in the Theatre Guild's revue which shows tenement girls dancing with despair in their hearts. The orchestra was tuning up when we arrived: twenty-five work-relief musicians, stripped to their shirts and ready for action. The tentative squeaks and moans of their instruments had kept the starlings awake past their bedtime; you could hear restless chirps and flutterings in the trees. The benches surrounding the cement dance floor were filled with girls who hadn't any boys, boys who hadn't any girls, men who would probably sleep in the Park that night, and elderly folk who had, like us, come to see the fun. The dance floor was sprinkled with powdered wax, and was unoccupied except by Park employees and playground instructresses, who were to act as chaperons. The rules they had to enforce were simple and few: persons of the same sex were not to dance together; the boys had to wear coats, and couldn't wear hats; no cutting in; no smoking; no dancing in one place.

At eight-thirty the music started. First number was "It's An Old Southern Custom." The boys played it with lots of oompah—all during the evening, in fact, they seemed to lean to wholesome rhythm rather than seductiveness. It was evident from the start that the rule against dancing in one spot was superfluous. The first on the concrete, a tall youth in pimples and horn-rimmed glasses, and his chubby little doxy, covered about thirty feet in their first two seconds. In general, we found the dancing incredibly complicated; we'd watch a couple until they were out of sight in the crowd, and they wouldn't repeat a step. It implied hours and hours of rehearsal, and people no more thought of changing partners than acrobats would think of changing partners. There was tapping; there was stomping; there were twirls, dips, glides, and deep knee bends; there were interludes during which partners separated, strolled in opposite directions, then turned and fled again to one another's arms. It made us feel tired to watch the dancers couple—tired, and a little old.

Several whimsical couples in evening dress showed up, took a turn on the waxed concrete, and went back to their waiting cars. We can't be sure about it until we hear from Lucius Beebe, but we're afraid it's Being Done. We resented these intruders fiercely, and so did all the other people to whom the Mall belongs. But to the really simple and pure in heart (which takes in all our readers) we recommend at least one trip up to the Mall this summer. If you don't want to dance, you can close your eyes and listen to the sound —sweeter than anything, sadder than anything which is a blend of work—relief dance music, leather shuffling on concrete, and thousands of very young people singing as they waltz.

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Leave It To Beaver (Places 'The Beave' thought of running away to)

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Weeki-Wachi Spring "The City of Mermaids", Florida park guide pamphlet, 1991

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New Yorker Ads, 1929

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Guide to Weeki Wachee Springs (an amazing attraction in Spring Hill Florida) from when I went with my buddy Joseph in September of 1991. (I found it being used as a bookmark in my copy of Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac) As it says this was the first year of the all underwater Little Mermaid show which we loved. We also saw the Birds of Prey show (which was just us and a family of Italian tourists) and the Wilderness River Cruise (the highlight was feeding a family of raccoons). We were also very impressed with the photo of Elvis visiting that hung in the cafeteria. The Mermaids are great and the spring is legitimately beautiful. I was joyously surprised that this old Florida attraction still existed in 1991 and even happier that it still does. Go there!

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Some of the more disturbing panels from Al Hartley's 'Christian' versions of Archie stories from Archie's Parables (in Hartley's version of the Betty/Veronica dynamic Archie seems to always choose Betty and Veronica ends up punished or with Reggie)

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Jughead's pet Hot Dog becomes a human then learns a lesson that dogs are lesser spiritual beings I guess? And Betty teaches Veronica about saying 'no' to drugs and 'yes' to Jesus.

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Puppet books Pictures by Tadasu Izawa and Shigemi Hijikata