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After World War II, collecting whimsical ceramic dishes, accessories, and figurines became very popular in the U.S. -and for a while they were all made in America. Some designers became more popular than others, and their works were in high demand. Collectors Weekly talks to Donald-Brian Johnson, author of the book Postwar Pop: Memorabilia of the Mid-20th Century about some of those designers, who were mostly named Betty.
“Betty Cleminson’s pieces were whimsical, but also useful,” says Johnson. “A lot of them had cute sayings on them that Betty wrote. She made string holders, pie birds, wall pockets, and other things you’d use around the house. Her razor-blade bank was a popular one, as was the girl with freckles that looked like a head vase. When I first saw it, I thought it was a mug, except it didn’t have a handle. Turns out you were supposed to put a dish scrubber in it.”
With ceramic figurines, the biggest sellers were usually the pairs. “People put them on end tables on either side of a couch, or on night tables at either side of a bed,” says Johnson. “There was just more of a market for pairs.”
Ceramic Arts Studio made the most of this trend by making its pairs as both regular figurines and salt-and-pepper shakers. That way, they could appeal to multiple audiences. “The unlikeliest figurines were sometimes made into salt-and-pepper shakers,” says Johnson. “One Betty Harrington design paired a ‘Fire Man’ and ‘Fire Woman’, each around 11 inches tall, that were artistic representations of what fire would look like if it assumed a human form. They had human faces, but their clothing and such were all rendered as flames. They’re wonderful figurines, but it’s difficult to imagine using them as salt-and-pepper shakers.”
These ceramic works from the 1940s and ’50s are regaining popularity, but the original American-made designs are not so easy to find. Link -Thanks, Ben!
(Image credit: John Petzold)
We
don't talk a lot about politics on Neatorama, but surely you've heard
that Greece is in a big economic trouble that threatens the very foundation
of the European Union.
What's going on there? Russell Shorto visited Athens, Greece and wrote this intriguing story over at The New York Times about how regular Greeks are living today:
By many indicators, Greece is devolving into something unprecedented in modern Western experience. A quarter of all Greek companies have gone out of business since 2009, and half of all small businesses in the country say they are unable to meet payroll. The suicide rate increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2011. A barter economy has sprung up, as people try to work around a broken financial system. Nearly half the population under 25 is unemployed. Last September, organizers of a government-sponsored seminar on emigrating to Australia, an event that drew 42 people a year earlier, were overwhelmed when 12,000 people signed up. Greek bankers told me that people had taken about one-third of their money out of their accounts; many, it seems, were keeping what savings they had under their beds or buried in their backyards. One banker, part of whose job these days is persuading people to keep their money in the bank, said to me, “Who would trust a Greek bank?”
Link (Photo: Lars Tunbjork/NY Times)
The
hipsters have their flash
mobs, the criminals their flash
robs, and now regular Americans, too, have something: cash mobs.
Emery's 5 & 10 is believed to be oldest family-owned five-and-dime store in the U.S. But the store is struggling, the victim — like its neighboring businesses — of the economy and a bridge construction project that has diverted traffic away and turned the stretch of Chapman Road in Knoxville, Tenn., into what the mayor himself acknowledges is a "ghost area."
Then came last Friday.
Beginning at 10 a.m., nearly 800 people streamed through the doors at Emery's 5 & 10, ringing up 526 sales — many multiples of the store's usual take. The checkout line wrapped through the store, leaving barely enough room to move, said owner Ron Emery, the third generation of Emerys to tend shop there since the business opened in 1927.
"It's beyond our imagination," Emery said.
It was Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett's doing. Recently, Burchett was watching late-night TV and saw a report on "cash mobs" — flash mobs that organize to drive customers to struggling locally owned businesses — and the light bulb went off.
"Somebody was doing something at a hardware store in the Northeast, and I just thought: 'Dadgum. We ought to do that right here in Knoxville,'" Burchett said in an interview with NBC station WBIR.
Nothing says “waiting for the bus” like the smell of baked potatoes. Okay, clearly that sentence didn’t make sense, and people usually don’t want to think about food while they’re waiting for the bus. And the sad truth is this bus stop is probably going to smell like the worst scents a human beings can muster in a few weeks anyway, so why bother with a gimmicky ad?
Well, the folks at McCain Foods are betting that these bus stop ads, with the scent of a baked potato available at the push of a button, will help them sell their Ready Made Jacket Potatoes.And there are coupons available, in case you decide to grab a box on the way home.
Maybe they’re on to something, but I’ve personally never wanted to think about food while waiting for the bus, and bus stops in my town tend to be akin to outhouses, without that crucial front door. But what do you think-are scented advertisements a good idea, or are they a real stinker?
You have to wonder if the eight-foot-tall woman has to pay extra to get her legs waxed. Or is the aesthetician just very small? There’s some question of whether this picture is a Photoshop disaster or just a photo taken at a strange angle. What do you think? Link
Hooters, the chain restaurant that is built around showing off women’s *ahem* assets, is getting an extremely unlikely crossover in their Japanese restaurants as they introduce Hello Kitty elements just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Apparently, the Japanese don’t feel like characters intended for children should be kept separate from adult and sexually suggestive merchandising, which makes me wonder-where do they actually draw the line?
And were those Hello Kitty “personal massagers” I saw online actually licensed by Sanrio? Ewwwww!
It's election season and the economy is in everyone's mind, so Zach Weiner of SMBC comics came up with this handy dandy chart of How To Talk About The Economy: Link - via Blame It On The Voices
Is there any wonder why metal detectors are so popular in the UK? This list of six found treasures are all from the British Isles. Shown here is the treasure called the Hoxne Hoard, uncovered in Suffolk and valued at £1,750,000! Peter Whatling and Eric Lawes found it while searching for a lost tool in 1992. Link -Thanks, Danny!
(Image credit: Mike Peel)
It’s so true and just so sad that they still haven’t gotten the point.
Link Via BoingBoing
Want fries with your job? The good news: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics's latest job growth prediction, the US economy will add millions of jobs for Americans with only a high school diploma.
According to the BLS, there will be 20.4 million more jobs in 2020 than there were in 2010. About 12.8 million of those jobs will require a high school degree or less. Many of those will be clustered in services. The country will need more healthcare aides to look after a rapidly aging population. There will be more work in food preparation, retail, and office administration. The graph below depicts the occupations requiring a high school degree or less that are expected to add the most jobs (from left to right).
The bad news? They don't pay well.
There are a few solidly middle-class jobs tucked in here -- a good salesperson for a wholesaler averages $62,000 a year. An administrative support supervisor takes home more than $50,000 a year. A carpenter makes $43,000. But most of these jobs offer between $18,000 and $30,000 a year. The pay for the jobs at the far left, which will generate the most employment growth, is particularly abysmal.
Jordan Weissmann of The Atlantic has more: Link
Certain subsidies and tax breaks for married couples and families were enacted to encourage marriage and keep children from falling into poverty. But is this fair to people who aren’t married? Fewer U.S. households are headed by married couples every year. And all those single people aren’t happy about paying more and getting less.
Activists say that unmarried people are systematically discriminated against. They pay more for health and car insurance than married people do. They don’t get the same kind of tax breaks. Co-op boards, mortgage brokers, and landlords often pass them over. So do the employers with the power to promote them. “Single-ism—stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against people who are single—is largely unrecognized and unchallenged,” says activist Bella DePaulo, the author of Singled Out.
There are justifications for every one of these, but that doesn’t mean much to individuals who don’t like being lumped into a group. But the differences swing both ways, depending on a person’s circumstances. I personally know people who choose to cohabit instead of marrying because of economic reasons. Low income people can lose Medicaid and other benefits if they marry, and elderly widows can lose pensions by remarrying. And we’ve all heard stories of married women being passed over for promotions because they might get pregnant. So is there really any way to achieve equity between those who are married and those who aren’t? Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Alan Cleaver)
How
do you tout the benefits of your fancy-schmancy lawn mower? Lawn mower
maker Jacoben turned to advertising icon Stan Freberg to create (now classic)
ad campaign.
Stan's answer? Compare it to a sheep. The Presurfer has the video clip: Link
Do you watch the Super Bowl for the sports or the commercials? Back in the 1960s, a 30-second ad spot cost about $42,000. Now, it's $3.5 million, a whopping 8,300% increase. And something that costs that much money ought to be good, right?
This one above from 1973 is Noxzema's "Creamed" ad with football star Joe Namath and pre-"Charlie's Angels" Farrah Fawcett.
The Los Angeles Times has the timeline of the Best Super Bowl commercials through the years: Link
AMC is promoting the return of the TV show Mad Men with a minimalist poster showing a falling man, with a blank expanse around him. The only other thing the poster contains is the date at the bottom right. That’s just asking to be embellished, and plenty of folks have great ideas about what to add. Gothamist asked for submissions, and has been collecting the “improvements” to post for your pleasure. Link to gallery one. Link to gallery two. -via Laughing Squid
Feeling
miserable today? Maybe you live in Miami, Florida. The city - famous for
mega-million mansions and South Beach clubs - has just gotten the unenviable
title of America's Most Miserable City.
Forbes Magazine took a look at 10 factors (including violent crimes, unemployment rates, and foreclosures) for the 200 largest metro areas in the United States to find the 10 most miserable cities in America. See if yours make the list:
Miami, Florida
The housing crisis has devastated Miami with 47% of homeowners sitting on underwater mortgages. Foreclosures have been rampant with 364,000 properties in the Miami area entering the foreclosure process since 2008 according to RealtyTrac.Detroit, Michigan
Detroit has closed schools and laid off police in an effort to avoid a bankruptcy filing this year. Home prices are down 54% the past three years, worst in the U.S. The median price was $38,000 last year in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn metro division.Flint, Michigan
Flint razed 775 abandoned homes in the year ending October 2011, to try and change the city landscape. The state of Michigan appointed an emergency manager last year to take over Flint's budget and operations. Crime remains a severe problem with the violent crime rate the third worst in the U.S.West Palm Beach, Florida
South Florida has long been stained by corruption. One of the latest examples: Jose Rodriguez, the mayor of Boynton Beach (part of the West Palm metropolitan division) was suspended from his office last month by Gov. Rick Scott after he was arrested for allegedly using his position to obstruct a child abuse probe involving his wife's estranged daughter. Home prices in the West Palm area are off 50% since 2006.
See the rest at Forbes: Link (Photo: Shutterstock)
Who showed up in MetLife's toon-filled Super Bowl ad? And can you find Waldo? Cartoonist Mark Anderson has the answers (and one question in his blog - see if you can identify the mystery character): Link - Thanks Mark!
They had the best of intentions, but certain public service campaigns ended up making something really bad for you appear awesome. The bad experiences were tempered to keep from frightening children, which only undermined the message. And some downright pushed the bad stuff, like a 1997 physical fitness campaign featuring children gorging themselves on chocolate cake.
Look back at those screencaps! You’ve never enjoyed anything as much as those children did those chocolate cakes. They make fudge smoothies (which, we’re sorry, is a bad idea how? That’s the entire business model of Cold Stone Creamery) and even build whole fortresses out of chocolate; that’s like the most fun afternoon of anybody’s childhood. Have you guys never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? It’s like all the best parts of that movie come to life, and without all the child murder.
Other campaigns managed to make drugs and venereal disease look attractive. Read about them all at Cracked. Link
This Super Bowl commercial from Budweiser Canada features two recreational league hockey teams in Port Credit, Ontario. No, it’s not an original idea, but it is done well in this instance. The ad will not be broadcast in the U.S. so we have to show it to you here. -via Buzzfeed
If you’re so broke that you must stoop to buying a card that screams “economy!” on the front, then you’re better off making one from bubblegum wrappers, or not sending one at all.
Cheekily, the message inside reads “My love for you is priceless!”
The card costs 7p. However much that is in American cents, it’s pretty cheap. Link -via Metafilter
After all the impressive additions they’ve given this world, it’s easy to think of famous inventors as brilliant creators who can simply do no wrong. But the reality is that no one is perfect and just because someone came up with a device that revolutionized the world around them doesn’t mean they didn’t have their share of failures as well. Here are some of the less famous (for good reason) inventions of some of the greatest inventors on Earth.
Edison had over 2000 patents by the time he died, so it’s not really much of a surprise that among his innovations on the phonograph, the light bulb, the kinetoscope and the telephone, he also had some utter failures as well.
Interestingly, one of his worst failures was actually a great idea that was just too far ahead of its time for the current technology. The Edison Doll was the inventor’s attempt to bring the joy of the phonograph to children. While talking dolls are common place these days and widely loved by little girls around the globe, the problems with the Edison Talking Doll were many. For one thing, phonographs of the time still had to be manually cranked at the appropriate speed in order to play correctly. That’s asking a lot for a child to do with her toy. Another problem was that even when cranked at the proper speed, the doll sounded simply terrible because voice recording still wasn’t very good at the time. In fact, Edison himself admitted “the voices of the little monsters were exceedingly unpleasant to hear.” As if those two issues weren’t bad enough, the mini phonograph inside the doll was incredibly fragile –meaning even if a little girl did manage to play the sound at the right speed and not run away from the shrieking abomination, she’d almost certainly destroy the wax record after only a short amount of play time.
Of course, all the new technology didn’t come cheap and the doll would cost between $10 and $25 depending on the outfit she came in. That’s the equivalent of between $240 and $600 these days, which is a whole lot to spend on a doll that terrifies your daughter and breaks without any effort. Of 2,500 made, only 500 were sold and most of the dolls were returned. With all of these failures, it’s no wonder the doll was only sold for a few short weeks in early 1890. Of course, the rarity of the failure has only increased the doll’s value over the last century. These days, an Edison doll in good condition can easily go for over $15,000 –and that’s without the original phonograph, since most of the excess inventory was sold off without a sound device inside.
The terrible toy doll wasn’t Edison’s only failure though. In fact, his best-known failure was in his push for concrete housing complete with concrete furniture, even concrete pianos. Edison believed these cheap creations would be a good way to solve the housing crisis and allow low-income families to enjoy the finer things in life without spending a fortune. In 1917, he and Charles Ingersoll offered 11 concrete homes (that’s them above) up for sale for only $1,200 –a third of the cost of an average home. Even so, they didn’t manage to sell a single one.
more …
Now this is advertising so clever it's criminal: Y&R agency in Amsterdam, The Netherlands came up with an unusual ad to feature the slim LG's new TV. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Ads of the World
Find out how your food spending compares to the rest of the United States with this nifty calculator over at Mother Jones:
Link - via MoneylandMost of the data comes from Bundle.com, a startup that tracks US spending trends by studying the credit card transactions of 20 million American households each year. Bundle gets credit card data from Citigroup—one of its major investors—scrubbed of names and other identifying characteristics. We looked at Bundle data from 2009 for the biggest 100 US cities and noticed some fascinating foodie trends. For instance, Austin, Texas, spends almost twice the national average for dining out; five Detroit households could eat for a year on an average Austinite's food budget.
When a five-year-old girl recognizes your brand logo, you’ve done it right. Of course, when your dad is in the logo design business, you might have a leg up. Adam Ladd’s daughter knows her logos, but as far as big cats go. she just likes cheetahs. -via Laughing Squid
Talk
about preparing kids for the real world. Four public high schools in Detroit
have partnered with Walmart to train 60 students to work at its stores:
Advocates say with Detroit's unofficial unemployment rate nearing 50%, jobs at Walmart are a golden opportunity. Sean Vann, principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, has 30 students in the program. He told the Detroit Free Press he's enthusiastic because along with earning money, since the schools are in the suburbs, the students will be around people from different cultures.
Not everyone, however, is convinced that it's such a good idea:
Donna Stern, a representative of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is outraged. "They're going to train students to be subservient workers. This is not why parents send them to school."
What do you think, Neatoramanauts? Better a crappy job than no job at all?
Link (Photo: GeneralCheese/Wikipedia)
The upcoming film Chronicle is a dark story about teenage boys who develop superpowers. To promote it, marketers made RC planes that look like human beings and flew them around New York City.
-via Colossal | Chronicle Movie Trailer
Rovio,
the company behind the smash hit Angry Birds, took a look at the music
industry's struggle against piracy and decided that piracy ain't so bad
after all. In fact, it may actually be a good thing:
"We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products," said [Rovio CEO Mikael Hed].
"We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy."
Hed explained that Rovio sees it as "futile" to pursue pirates through the courts, except in cases where it feels the products they are selling are harmful to the Angry Birds brand, or ripping off its fans.
When that's not the case, Rovio sees it as a way to attract more fans, even if it is not making money from the products. "Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day."
Like Tim O'Reilly said, obscurity is a greater threat than piracy: Link
See also: Angry Birds stuff from the NeatoShop
You may not know the name News Media Animation, but I’m sure the video they’ve created to discuss Nintendo’s 2011 economic fiasco will look familiar to you, as their wacky animated shorts have been showcased on TV shows and the interwebs many times before, mostly because their videos have some serious WTF factor going on in them.
Product of Taiwanese news animators with less than reliable sources of information, and a surreal sense of humor, the slapstick cartoon strangeness in these “news” vids never fail to crack me up.
–via Kotaku
This ad for Moe’s Southwestern Grill shows either how terrible or awesome microwaves are. I had no idea that bar soap would do that in a microwave.
Question: what would happen if you tried to microwave a microwave?
-via NotCot
It used to be that composing a quality résumé and wearing pants to a job interview were critical to a successful job hunt. But that’s changing. Well, one of them is. Hiring managers are increasingly looking toward applicants’ web presence to gauge what they have to offer:
Instead of asking for résumés, the New York venture-capital firm—which has invested in Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and other technology companies—asked applicants to send links representing their “Web presence,” such as a Twitter account or Tumblr blog. Applicants also had to submit short videos demonstrating their interest in the position.
Union Square says its process nets better-quality candidates —especially for a venture-capital operation that invests heavily in the Internet and social-media—and the firm plans to use it going forward to fill analyst positions and other jobs.
Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates’ suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether.
Do you think that the age of the résumé is over?
Link -via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Flickr user bpsusf
Over
at USA Today, Don Campbell is hoppin' mad about the economic injustice,
nay reverse "ageism" that is the senior citizen discount. He
opines:
... the question is, why should someone who is 50 or 55 and likely to live to 85 or 90 be considered a "senior citizen" worthy of special treatment?
I've now passed all the age benchmarks for senior status, and I'm committed unequivocally to a free market, but I think that such discounts are absurd, illogical, and helping fuel the growing economic divide between struggling younger generations and a self-obsessed, mostly well-to-do, older generation. To me, these "deals" add insult to injury to the very people who are being saddled with trillions of dollars in debt to support entitlement programs for the elderly, such as Medicare and Social Security.
I also find them to be a delightful source of amusement when they pit vanity against financial self-interest as cashiers try to guess your age and customers ponder admitting in public that they're a certain age in order to save a few nickels.
I was in line behind a woman at a grocery checkout in Atlanta a couple of years ago on a Wednesday, the day the store gives people age 60 and over a 5% discount. When the cashier said to the woman, "And are you taking our senior discount today?" the woman exploded: "Don't insult me like that! I'll have you know I'm 54 years old!" (She looked closer to 64 than 54, if you ask me.)
More recently, I was in one of those trendy organic food stores when the checkout clerk said to me with a big smile: "May we offer you our military or wise-man discount?" I had no idea what defined "wise man," so I just smiled back and said, "Ma'am, I am wise beyond my years." (I later found out you became "wise" at 60.)
What do you think? Should senior citizen discounts be banned? Answer after you get off Don's lawn: Link - via Moneyland
Photo: Older Than Dirt T-Shirt from the NeatoShop
