A dive into the fascinating pre-history of cinema (or rather, as that grouping seems unfair, several disparate inventions that when lumped together chronologically sort of point the way to what would eventually become cinema) led to the phantasmagoria, a macabre performance incorporating special effects and gruesome projections by way of some form of magic lantern. Several popular phantasmagoria were even staged in tombs, though as they were abandoned Capuchin tombs I doubt the good monks minded much.

image from the Magic Lantern Society

One standout show was put on by Johann Georg Schröpfer, a coffee-shop owner-turned-necromancer/illusionist. He claimed he summoned spirits during his performances, and even held a seance for Prince Charles of Saxony. Unfortunately for Schröpfer, he believed his own hype and committed what appeared to be suicide, shooting himself in the head after telling a small group he would resurrect himself soon. Most sources repeat the same small bits about him, though this account goes a bit deeper.

Historically the phantasmagoria’s been wildly popular in lands rife with fear and uncertainty, including post-revolutionary Paris and America. Considering the current climate, perhaps it’s time for a revival.

Below are some magic lantern images, courtesy of Early Visual Media Archaeology

This lovely volume is a compendium of chunkier knits from previous Monarch issues, chosen ‘for quick knitting!’.

This could be YOU admiring Mexican folk pottery!

The giveaway is a thank-you to all you readers I was surprised to find I had, who came out of the woodwork with your greatly appreciated well-wishes. Now, I hold no truck with this ‘random number generator’ pap, nor do I appreciate having to jump through hoops ‘friending’ this and tweeting that just to earn the possibility of getting free stuff. No, all you have to do to enter this contest is, in 500 words or less, explain what is happening in this photo:

That’s it! Don’t by any means feel constrained to literalness or logic. Email your response to heythere@rarerborealis.com with the header ‘CONTEST ENTRY’ by, let’s see…MIDNIGHT, May 18th. That should give everyone ample time. I’ll announce a prizewinner on May 21st, and post the winning entry. Huzzah!

On a down note, this officially marks the end of free vintage pattern posts on the site. However, as I have waaaaaay too many vintage pattern books, this is by no means the last contest or giveaway over here. I just won’t post any more pattern scans, which blows because my love of obsessive hoarding is matched only by my need to compulsively share that which I’ve hoarded. In the future (the near future!), I’ll share patterns I’ve come up with myself, both free and for sale, of the knitting and stitching variety. Here’s to the future!

Here’s one from the classic ‘Are You Popular?’, featuring The Bad Girl. She is not popular because of/despite ‘parking’ with the boys. THE BOYS! PLURAL!

No wonder everyone at this table shuns her and talks about her behind her back! Unlike The Good Girl, who’s not wearing jewelry or makeup and instantly gets asked out by every guy.

Compared to today’s message of…actually I don’t even know what they’re foisting upon the youths of today- superabstinence? Fear and mystery of the Other? In any case, it’s refreshing to see dating a wide variety of people was considered not only normal but necessary to develop good social skills and learn what sort of person you liked to be with. It did NOT make you a tramp, though apparently it did if you ‘parked’.

The following are from what I consider the gem of the Prelinger collection, ‘Live And Learn’, aka ‘You’ll Poke Your Eye Out: The Movie’. Every scenario shows the horrifying results of…well, pretty much doing anything at all.

The staginess of him ‘pausing’ and checking the canister KILLS me. Also it eventually kills him.

ACTING!

Not a gif but it nicely captures the tone of the film.

This is what I imagine when someone suggests I watch their kids:

I could watch this for years:

His ‘fall’! The dummy! I cut it out, but the part where he gets up just fine and THEN remembers he ‘broke’ his wrist! GENIUS!

What indeed, except it’s a nonsensical Technicolor delight. The disorientation starts with a disembodied head singing ‘Brazil’, which turns into a scene at a Brazilian port introducing the living cartoon that is Carmen Miranda before turning into a song number about thinking you’re in Brazil when really you’re in New York! Because they are in New York! At a swanky nightclub called Club New York, that’s Brazilian-themed!

We’re introduced in short measure to the fathers of two wealthy families and the leading man- what with the War going on I guess leading men were in short supply, as this one’s only a looker at exactly the right angle. Most angles, and his uniform, made his head look like David Byrne’s wearing The Big Suit. But who cares about the men when Carmen Miranda’s shaking her stuff in 6-inch gold wedge heels, 20 lbs. of ruffles, and 3 foot eyelashes!

The ‘plot’ is a wafer-thin confection existing solely to leap from one musical number to the next, and sometimes even that pretext is thrown to the wind. In typical Berkeley fashion, several numbers have no ties to the plot or reality – here it’s ‘Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat’ featuring the aforementioned giant bananas -NO FREUDIAN SYMBOLISM HERE, NO SIR!

…and the grand finale, ‘Polka-Dot Polka’, where the lovers’ reuniting is brushed aside in favor of an extended tribute to the Polka Dot. An extended, head-floating, TRON-neon, redheaded children dancing tribute to the Polka Dot.

I don’t think ‘The Gang’s All Here’ has Berkeley’s most successful dance numbers- he’s used neon and abstracted the human body much more interestingly in ‘Shadow Waltz’, for example. Then again, this was a film he didn’t just choreograph, but directed – the difference can be similarly seen in the far-superior ‘Gold Diggers of 1933′, which he only did dance numbers for, vs. ‘Gold Diggers of 1935′, which he directed. While the latter had the immortal (and surprisingly dark and depressing) ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ number, again featuring his pet disembodied heads, ’1933′ had a plot that made sense, and actors acting. Still, ‘The Gang’s All Here’ absolutely delivers on sheer ridiculousness, all in glorious color. Check it out while you can! BUY WAR BONDS!

These are but a small fraction of the bootleg Simpsons images scrounged up from all over the internet. This one in particular – why is it copyrighted? Was it published somewhere? Maybe MAD or CRACKED or something?

This sweater perfectly illustrates the Simpsons show dynamic – even on the rare occasion Maggie and Lisa are front and center, they look wary as they’re bracketed by an unaware and smiling Bart.

I have no idea which episode this is from, and that’s coming from someone who watched over 3 hours of MST3K this weekend alone. Who’s a precious Kitty Bride?

Stare

STARE

Speaking of Ebay, it’s strange, but if I collect all the images from an auction, it lessens the need to own the actual object. E-hoarding? The colors in all three of these are wonderful to me.

Ah yes. Gothic Holy Mountain is my ‘look’ for 2012. I just need to find the right hat.

An image from my David Lynch party invite.

In the future, all communication will be through animated GIFs. I stared at this one for 3 full minutes. Why? I cannot say – the bus is clearly endangering EVERYONE….I cannot say.

Ah, Jean Harlow. I find the image above, with her chubby cheeks and unairbrushed-eyes, is more appealing, though the strawberry-blonde/emerald green coloration below is very appealing.

Thank you once again, Internet Archive. You have created the Most Ironic Thing on the internet – a downloadable copy of Playboy, in braille, scanned into a computer. By the Library of Congress.

So, to restate – my site was taken down for 5 days because this blatant, unrepentant thief had the sheer balls to claim I stole her image in a post demonstrating “her” image was a badly photoshopped rip from my site.

I’ll wait a moment to let the uproarious laughter die down.

Now, I’ve already called her out for her theft. I’ve made the majority of the vintage knitting community quite aware of it. And I’m pretty sure anyone who reads the post that caused all this bother would agree that the image is clearly stolen. However, we are living in a fearful and litigious society, and while I have generously (and many have warned me, foolishly) shared these patterns with you all, she is selling them. That she stole them from my and several other sites is moot. Because she’s selling them I am ‘infringing on her livelihood’ and therefore I, the one providing content, am the one the hammer comes down upon. Angry Jim wrote a full summation of the situation on his site, including her full contact information, which I’m also reposting below should anyone wish to get in touch with her concerning their own stolen images being sold, or perhaps their sites being threatened with takedown notices for pointing this out.

While I dearly enjoy knitting, this site is far more for me than just a place to share patterns. It’s the platform from which I’ve chosen to speak to the public, a full compendium of over 5 years worth of writing, worrying, animated gifs, research and yes, free patterns. That someone would dare threaten all that over something so petty, not to mention backwards, speaks to an avaricious and narrow mind.

She actually signed a document reading “I, the undersigned, do solemnly declare that the image represented at the following website address is my creation, my intellectual property and copyright and I have not given authorization to anyone, including the owner of rarerborealis.com, to use or display it.” Well, if badly cutting and pasting an image onto a new background and slightly changing its color makes it yours, then I’d like to share some more of my own personal, copywritten, totally my own and not anyone else’s vintage images:

Before Ms. Shearer runs to the nearest keyboard to type out yet another infringement claim, I’d like to point out these follow THE EXACT parameters she’s claimed make the images she stole from ME, HERS. Calling me out will by the same stroke invalidate her own threadbare claims. As an additional gauntlet thrown down, I’d like to ask Ms. Shearer to see a photo, ANY photo, of the vintage knitting books she’s culled her ‘digital scans’ from. I’m more than happy to share photos of my collection; IN FACT, this week I’ll be giving away some duplicates I have in my physical, non-imaginary vintage knitting collection that really exists!

Ms. Shearer claims I have infringed her copyright. Well, she has infringed on my now-lessened belief in the decency and thoughtfulness of humanity by persisting in her greedy, dishonest ‘business’ venture. If anyone out there feels similarly, please do let her know. Also, please do link to and repost this; I would love it if one of the first things that came up searching for vintage patterns was a warning away from her sites.

Mariella Shearer
Telephone number: +44 (1424) 819224
email addresses: mariella@coolers.fsbusiness.co.uk mariellashearer@yahoo.co.uk
address:
39 Station Road
Bexhill-on-Sea
East Sussex
TN40 1RG
England

Go Santa, go Santa, go Santa…

“THE GREATEST CRIME IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY”.

This book was republished in 1910. Wasn’t there maybe something, say, about 40 years earlier, that might have been just as, if not a tad more great in its magnitude of criminality and immorality? No? You sure? Okay then, onward and upward!

I don’t mean to make light of any form of slavery; the horrors that this book speaks out against are still going on today – if you’d like to see a modern take on the exact message presented here I recommend watching ‘Lilya 4 Ever‘. Human trafficking is a deplorable and shameful practice we all need to help eradicate, especially those of us in countries where these women, and yes, the majority of the victims are still women, are taken.

What gets me about this book is the thick layering of Victorian morality over the message, how once a woman ‘falls from grace’ she’s doomed forever, how she’s to blame for whatever happens to her. Hence the major focus being how to prevent women from falling in the first place, which happens to include bringing down traffickers and making sure ladies are aware of potential traps. Of course, once the trap is sprung, if they’re caught it’s their own fault.

Below is a gallery of all the images from the book – click for comments on each image and a larger view.

CLICK FOR BLATANT, ‘COPYRIGHT INFRINGING’ THIEVERY!

Here’s the link to the original FREE pattern, which I will again clarify is for personal use only, NOT FOR RIPPING OFF AND BADLY PHOTOSHOPPING INTO A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BACKGROUND. Also, for the briefest lesson in pattern copyright – the pattern is not just for the image, IT IS FOR THE PATTERN INSTRUCTION, so guess what sister, you’re still stealing even if you did make some collages. And you also just blatantly stole a bunch of my patterns and stuck your stupid name over the top.

What’s even worse, this louse has set up her own website full of stolen patterns, presumably as a hedge against the inevitable shutdown of her completely stolen Ebay store. If you’d like to contact her through her new shop, as the email she lists for the ebay store, mariella@coolers.fsbusiness.co.uk, doesn’t seem to work (or perhaps she’s just blocked my email, possibly the only intelligent thing she’s done), please feel free to click here and write away.

I am absolutely crushed by this. This is the second time, after personally contacting them to stop no less, patterns have been stolen from my site. Until I can figure out a better way to share these images with good honest folk without getting burned again, I won’t be posting any more free patterns. Sorry guys. If anyone out there slightly better at watermarking or protecting images has any suggestions, please do let me know.

Also, be sure to tell as many people as you can, internet or in person, that thanks to the generosity of a large group of vintage pattern lovers, so many wonderful patterns are available absolutely free on a variety of sites. In fact, there are several sites out there that exist just to aggregate free patterns. Some have ads and probably derive revenue from clicks, but they at least link people back to the original and don’t try and sell them hogwash. It just boils my potatoes to think not only is someone making a profit off of stolen goods, but someone on the other end of the transaction is getting bilked out of their hard-earned money. Or if they’re a kept man or woman, someone else’s hard-earned money. And this person has already had over 14,000 sales. Times the ridiculous $5.00 for a PDF, that’s quite the stolen income, and until I can figure out a better way, I’m not helping them make another dime.

Again, that thief’s name is:

Mariella Shearer
24A Silver Street
Dursley
Gloucestershire
GL11 4ND
sims@coolers.fsbusiness.co.uk