Coming up to the end of 2017 and was thinking back on all the postings and which one or ones, were outstanding.
This is what I came up with...the first 763 are all Wanswheel..period.
At 764th place and the first to be not Wanswheel is Overmods/RME posting of the "End of the world siren". The meaning, placement and punch combined with perfect timing and humor was exquisite. I still play the sound through my huge Paul Sue Barton's and shake the windows. What a hoot.
As for worst....most of mine, obviously, undoubtably.
MiningmanThis is what I came up with...the first 763 are all Wanswheel..period.
Speaking for myself, I think this is a conservative number.
Runner-up would be one of NDG's. If they were still here.
I second the choice of Wanswheel, just how he finds the arcane, the obscure, and the forgotten are just amazing. The man's got the magic touch.
I can't figure out just how I missed the "end-of-the-world" siren, could someone re-post that one?
Found it....the sad thing is that NDG has deleted nearly all of his postings so the context of how this came about is lost. It was about people with loudmouths, braggarts and such.
NDG Its called Bouche Moteur in French.
Wouldn't it be "Bouche a Moteur" or "Bouche Motrise"?
(Regrettably perhaps, orthographic French appears only to have 'big mouth', using the typical French word for animal mouth as in 'ta gueule!', which loses the engine-driven quality of the original expression...)
Insert appropriate reference to Diaphones, Klaxons, and that most wonderful of devices the 331-Hemi-powered end-of-the-world siren, 'l'accoutrement de la farce de frappe' perhaps?:
Best posting in 2017 nominee. Nothing digital about that monster.
Well, if that thing didn't get your attention nothing would!
Alors, mez amis, ze Luftwaffe's coming back for ze visit! Sacre bleu!
That was in Rochester, NY!
I want it on top of our roof at the Mining School....don't know why but man oh man that would wake up the town after which they would likely lock me up for a bit.
Yeah, Rochester, I just took a closer look, that "Bouche Moteur" confused me.
OK, instead of "Alors, mes amis..." it should be "OK folks, put your heads between your legs and kiss your butts goodbye!"
Just the thing for New Year's at zero hour!
The only thing that tops that is the Billups neon "Death" railroad crossing, now non-existant but re-created here by computer animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGhFHKtDhns
Talk about an attention-getter! If you ignored this thing you deserved to die!
Firelock76OK, instead of "Alors, mes amis..." it should be "OK folks, put your heads between your legs and kiss your butts goodbye!"
Why embellish "le Cochonnet"?
About 6:10 to the end; sorry about the sound quality - I'm looking for better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i71T0W6s0mo
Miningman, Overmod and Firelock, thanks several hundred, I mean a million.
You da man Wanswheel! Don't know how you do it!
I must have studied that group of commuters as the "Empire Express" streaks by and the aftermath for an hour.
The young gal with the goofy little hat staring at the lovers is priceless.
Did Larry David steal Funkhouser from Mad Magazine? I think he did.
That posting is a KEEPER!
Miningman I must have studied that group of commuters as the "Empire Express" streaks by and the aftermath for an hour. The young gal with the goofy little hat staring at the lovers is priceless. Did Larry David steal Funkhouser from Mad Magazine? I think he did. That posting is a KEEPER!
Look again at that last magazine cover... check the name of the magazine and the date... then look for dear ol' Alfred next to the father figure (who has cut off his thumb!). That IS (a) "Mad Magazine" (parody)!
Also, about that Empire Express sequence... notice the Marine was not fazed at all by the event.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Probably just back from Korea. After that, nothing's going to faze him.
Well yes of course it's Mad Magazine. Funkhouser, Illinois? Big character, the former "Super Dave" is named Funkhouser on "Curb your Enthusiasm" , Larry Davids show on HBO...maybe it's a common New York thing.
Great touch with the Marine.
This isn't exactly what I had in mind- by Benjamin Franklin
Our State Department-Do we need it?
Still funny today and probably true.
wanswheelMiningman, Overmod and Firelock, thanks several hundred, I mean a million.
Which celebrity or politician is that in the background groping the 'help'? So relevent this year.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
New York Central evidently gave Mad a photo op once (or didn't).
BaltACD wanswheel Miningman, Overmod and Firelock, thanks several hundred, I mean a million. Which celebrity or politician is that in the background groping the 'help'? So relevent this year.
wanswheel Miningman, Overmod and Firelock, thanks several hundred, I mean a million.
You know, so many of them have gotten in trouble this year maybe we should get a "pool" started as to who's going to be the next one in the crosshairs!
It's bad enough that the fellow cutting the Thanksgiving sausage with the bayonet looks like Donald J with better hair. All by itself that tells me the MAD staff will be preparing a terrifying 'first' ... a parody of their own parody...
All I can say is "+1" to most of the comments above.
Mike/ wanswheel, you've outdone yourself again with this one. There's a lot of railroading culture and nostalgia there. Almost every one of those covers is worthy of further discussion. Note how central the railroads - especially passenger-carrying one - were to the public back then, as evidenced by the frequency/ closely spaced dates of those covers. Hard to say which one is my favorite.
The several Christmas themes are funny or evocative, too.
In the Empire Express one, I wonder if a particular station is the basis for that scene. Has to be one along the NYC-Albany line, as that sure looks like the Hudson River and one of the eastern mountain ridges in the background. Also, since the Post was almost certainly produced from New York City, that's the railroad with which its staff would have been most familiar.
As to the rest of the world and the culture more broadly, the article titles or headings on the rest of those covers are instructive as well. A decent mid-20th century* American history course could be structured around those as well.
*Pun intended. And so, I wonder why that train wasn't used as the action element of the illustration instead? Perhaps because Express has a better connotation of speed?
As to illustrations as art, these are great - most depict a vignette or short story of some kind. There are several great "illustrators" from this part of the country - N.C. Wyeth**, Howard Pyle, Frank Baum, to name just a few - but I like these better.
**Who was killed in a grade crossing collision with a Wilmington & Northern train, as I recall.
Thanks again, Mike!
- PDN.
Wow ... Mad magazine... I wonder if Al Jaffee ever did a railroad related fold-in ..
I remember forcing myself to "read" the entire magazine before doing the fold-in. :)
Paul, thanks! The Saturday Evening Post was published in Philadelphia.
http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/ead/ead.html?id=EAD_upenn_rbml_MsColl51
Until it moved at least the printing plant to "Curtis Park" in Sharon Hill (2), a few miles away on the SW side of Philadelphia, circa 1946 (1). Back in the 1980's I supervised repairs to some trackwork serving the carcass (3) of a building there - for the import and storage of cocoa beans!
In any event, those posters ought to be published in Trains at - say, once a month - as was done with the Bern Hill advertisement drawings for EMD, as frontispieces back in the 1980's.
(1) https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blogs/real_estate/2010/03/berkadia_mortgage_unit_in_on_refinancing_of_pa_properties.html
(2) http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/ead/ead.html?id=EAD_upenn_rbml_MsColl51
(3) http://www.philadelphia-reflections.com/topic/48.htm
https://www.homefacts.com/environmentalhazards/Pennsylvania/Delaware-County/Sharon-Hill/Superfund-Curtis-Publishing-Co-Pad981033228.html
The Curtis building downtown is still there, complete with the Tiffany/Parrish mural.
Took some work, though: Steve Wynn almost bought the mural a decade ago, and renovation work started causing problems last year.
Paul_D_North_JrIn the Empire Express one, I wonder if a particular station is the basis for that scene. Has to be one along the NYC-Albany line, as that sure looks like the Hudson River and one of the eastern mountain ridges in the background. Also, since the Post was almost certainly produced from New York City, that's the railroad with which its staff would have been most familiar.
Which had me wondering about the holiday scene on the station consourse. It definately isn't Penn Station, or GCT. I don't know the New Jersey ferryboat terminals well enough to say it was any of them. But the clock, and the gates remind me of North Western Station, Chicago.
Great magazine covers! Wasn't there a Kurt Vonnegut novel where the guy had a siren powered by the engine from a Messerscmitt? Can't recall the title.
Kevin C. Smith Paul_D_North_Jr In the Empire Express one, I wonder if a particular station is the basis for that scene. Has to be one along the NYC-Albany line, as that sure looks like the Hudson River and one of the eastern mountain ridges in the background. Also, since the Post was almost certainly produced from New York City, that's the railroad with which its staff would have been most familiar. Which had me wondering about the holiday scene on the station consourse. It definately isn't Penn Station, or GCT. I don't know the New Jersey ferryboat terminals well enough to say it was any of them. But the clock, and the gates remind me of North Western Station, Chicago.
Paul_D_North_Jr In the Empire Express one, I wonder if a particular station is the basis for that scene. Has to be one along the NYC-Albany line, as that sure looks like the Hudson River and one of the eastern mountain ridges in the background. Also, since the Post was almost certainly produced from New York City, that's the railroad with which its staff would have been most familiar.
That holiday scene on the station concourse may not be representative of any one station. Since the "Post" was made for nationwide distribution possibly Mr. Rockwell just came up with a generic big city railroad station and went with that.
Just a guess, mind you.
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