Carnation's Glory Gravy

Glorify gravy? Really? I'm trying to imagine the brainstorming session where the ad executives came up with this campaign. It's eleven o'clock and everyone's ticked because the boss demanded they sacrifice their Friday night for this "big client". Everyone's a little slap-happy and there's been a little too much hitting the wet bar when Jensen perks up and says "I've got it, glorify your gravy". Sold, everyone's out of there in twenty minutes and you've got the glory gravy campaign.

It's a little presumptuous to add "chicken" to the tagline. Maybe it's a sign of my modern sense of serving size but it looks a little like this chicken spent some time in a gulag. That's the skinniest drumstick I think I've ever seen.

Kelly Madden - Dance of the Phoenix

Great news everyone, my dear wife Kelly's latest novel Dance of the Phoenix is available on Amazon. It's a young adult novel and sequel to her previous release The Reckoning. Here's the blurb:

Q'ella might appear to lead a glamorous life: her appearance is human standard perfect and unlike many fairy creatures, her kind is admired and sought after. Meet Que, short for Q’ella; a former royal forest fey, now the owner of a dance studio post-Reckoning, the day when all fairy creatures became visible to humans. Que doesn’t like humans all that much, but does her best to get along in a world she’s rather have no part of. But involved she becomes when a handsome new dance recruit draws her into realms of magic outside her own, and in the process she realizes her heart and mind have been locked tighter than she ever knew…or wanted.

My biased opinions, you should go out and grab a copy of both books. They're great!

The Funnies - Centaurs (1900)

Life Magazine, September 1900

Happy Arbor Day!

Happy Arbor Day everyone!

Hotpoint and the Stepford Hostesses

When I came across the glazed, psychotic looks on the faces of these cake-wielding women an involuntary shiver ran through my body. This sort of maniacal happiness only appears under two sets of circumstances: mom's gotten into her kids stash of brown acid or we're dealing with the Stepford Wives. I'm not sure which, but neither possibility makes me want to run out to my local appliance store to buy a new Hotpoint Pushbutton Range.

I do wonder if its coincidence that the hot burner element behind the women forms a glowing, hypnotic spiral...stare into the spiral...you want a new range...you want cake...you will obey...

Hunt's Tomato Sauce and Murder...

Judging from the picture, I think those daggers found their mark.

Even though Easter is behind us, I thought one more lamb-inspired ad might be in order. I'm not exactly sure about the creole origin of this recipe. Ladling Hunt's Tomato sauce over chops hardly seems to speak of the Caribbean or Louisiana, but this ad did air in 1948, a somewhat less worldly time.

I also thought that the copy didn't really go with the artwork. I mean staring daggers isn't exactly "pouting". Looks like Aunt Mary is contemplating her role in a Mrs. Marple murder, not trolling for compliments on her cooking. My mind completes the vignette with a detective standing over the body of Uncle John, "Strychnine," he says, pushing his rumpled hat back off his forehead. "What is it with dames and poison?"

Happy National Administrative Professionals Day!

The second world war changed a lot of things in America, one of which being the number of people who made their living in the field we would call "administrative personnel". Back then they were known as secretaries, typists, or in forward-thinking offices executive assistants. The growth of the field gave birth to the National Secretaries Association, an organization formed with the stated goal of bringing recognition to the contributions secretaries and other administrative personnel make to the US economy. In 1981 the association changed its name to Professional Secretaries International and again in 1998 to the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP).

Back in the 1950's, when this IBM electric typewriter ad ran, it seems like the male dominated world of the office could only conceive of women as secretaries and believed all they wanted out of their work life was an "easy" job and they promised to deliver it with their electric typewriter.

The first practical powered typewriter was introduced by Kansas City, MO native James Fields Smathers in 1914, but World War I got in the way of his efforts and he wouldn't complete development of his invention until 1920. The idea of electrically-driven typewriters bounced around for a little over a decade, with the company which had purchased Smathers' prototype being bought by General Motors, its typewriter division spinning off as a solo concern, and in 1933 the current owner (Electromatic Typewriters) became a division of IBM.

So on National Administrative Professionals day why not do your admin a favor, buy them a new typewriter ribbon and a scuttle of coal for the fire. There's a good Scrooge.