I Played With Dolls

I had probably just about forgotten about it, and then it all came to me. With it a strong urge to go to some meeting and purge myself - "My name is P-E Fronning and I play with dolls". Well, I don't actually, anymore. But I used to. Big Jim was his name. I really longed for the soldier type doll like Action Man, but what I got was Big Jim - a muscular, handsome man in his prime who would do a karate chop when you pushed the button on his back. Of course I didn't reflect on it then but I get a lot of gay vibes from Big Jim and his friend Josh. I don't know. Anyway, I had a lot of fun playing with my doll. I had a gorilla and a net catapult to catch it with and a van for cruising. There was also a camping set so you could make your own grub. Ah, and then I got a second doll and I just can't remember his name. He was a sailor/pirate who had lost one arm to a shark; so now he had a metal/wooden arm that you pushed inwards to shoot it out with a fierce and lethal force (see update!). Ok, I've come clean; what do you have to confess?


Big Jim in Wikipedia

The Big Encyclopedia of Big Jim


UPDATE
Meet Torpedo Fist:

Gordon Wiebe

I found this illustrator through Drawn! and his name is Gordon Wiebe. His work reminded me of a game I ran across some time ago. Well, it's not much of a game really, but it look kind of nice in my opinion.

Fun In The Sun

Fun In The Sun by The Three Suns - summer songs released in 1961. Download at Roman's Easy-Listening- & Instrumental-Corner.

Hey There Lonely Girl

Eddie Holman singing
Hey There Lonely Girl (mov)

Observe the minimalistic and nice studio set. Preoccupied with looking at the set his voice kind of took me by surprise.





From Bedazzled! Where else?

Random Groucho Marx Quote

Random Groucho Marx Quote
Via Josephzohn and PCL LinkDump

La Roller Girl

It's time for another one of Gainsbourg's girls, or rather Godard's - Anna Karina. She started out as a Danish model but made a name for herself as an actor in french Nouvelle vague movies directed by Godard. Read more here and here.

Serge Gainsbourg, of course, made her sing a little too. Their great song Rollergirl can be found here on the wonderful blog called Spiked Candy specialized in french 60's pop, ye-ye girls and so on.

UPDATE: Mr Bedazzled - Spike Priggen - sent me this song he wrote about Anna Karina some 20 years ago. Thanks Spike!


Some of the other "Gainsbourg girls".





Spiked Candy









Radio: Oh-la-la /Franco á gogo

Guardiana

Guardiana - the Safety Woman teaches us about the three A's of safety: Aware, Alert, Alive.

Safety Woman: In Danger Out of Doors
and Safety Woman: Harm Hides at Home


Found in Internet Archive.

Mannen till höger

Ok this is for Swedes: Vem är mannen till höger? Ser han inte bekant ut?

Uppdatering:



Ok, jag sa aldrig att han VAR någon vi kände till. Jag sa däremot att jag tyckte han påminde om någon. Det tyckte tydligen ni också. Mittenfiguren består av Bert-Åke Warg, Carl Bildt, Thomas Bolme, Peter Wahlbeck, Mannen från Bedazzled!-bloggen. Förlåt Mr J - Jag glömde ta med Di Leva. Till höger ser ni nu den jag tänkte på - Joachim Posener - och ni får bedöma själva om det ligger något i mina associationer; jag misstänker dock att ni kastar virtuella tomater på mig. Tack får att ni deltog i mitt lilla associationsexperiment!

In short, in English: We've been having a little game of associations. I asked who the man to the right in the photo on the top of this post resembled. I received quite a lot of suggestions and I put them all together and you can see who I was thinking of to the right. (A Swedish swindler and fugitive from law).

Bilden är från Bello Púbico

The Green Parachutist

This picture, that I found via Bello Púbico, took me back to my childhood in the mid 70's and I just had to blog it. Does anyone else get a just a little bit notalgic from this?

Caped Crusaders

I'm not sure what this blog in spanish is all about but there sure are a lot of people in costumes; people who wants to be superheroes, I guess. They look stupid.

FRUNOBULAND, el blog de Frunobulax y sus cazurros enmascarados (obsolete)

also FrunoFlickr

Probably via A Best Truth, Bello Púbico or Otomano

Getting the Blues

Get the blues facts and mp3s at SqueezeMyLemon

Via PCL LinkDump

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Vintage Ads

A great set of american 40's wartime ads. Movie ads, car ads and much more.
Check it out: Flickr: Photos from [c21de] RetroGrafix

Via NIBLOG

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100 Most Often Misspelled Words

If you are one of those few who has visited Martin Klasch for some time you might have noticed that we, since a few weeks, have gone from "talking" mostly Swedish to using English as our main language. " Why?" you might ask. Well, the reasons are many, but in the end it boils down to: why be more exclusive than necessary? Swedes are used to reading english which of course doesn't work the other way around. But this transition will not only have positive consequences. Some of the negative you'll encounter envolves having to put up with some strange ways of expressing things, stylistic faux pas and misspelled words. Misspelling English is, however, not only a matter for people who doesn't have english as their first language; heres a little something about that:

yourDictionary.com • 100 Most Often Misspelled Words

By the way; I'm not a masochist but I would be glad if you'd point out my mistakes. How do I learn otherwise. Thanks.

Update: Thanks to Maximilian who already has corrected me!

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Toon Diet

A toon diet? Yes, I guess you could say Swedish kids were on a toon diet when I grew up; it was like Christmas when there were cartoons from Disney, Hanna Barbera or Warner Bros on the telly (Swedes will appreciate there was a joke in there). Mr Feckenbrenner reminded me that we had to make do with stuff like the British toon Roobarb.
Watch him move in this short example (mov / wmv).

Some more 60's poster art

Hey man! Like those groovy, freaky, far-out psychedelic 60's posters? I would sure like 'em bigger but you can't have it all. Turn on, tune in and click: pOoTer's pSycheDelic shAcK - Art

Via Stationsvakt

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Posterman

Posterman: Original, Rare & Vintage Film Poster


Thanks to PCL LinkDump and Stationsvakt

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"Fru Gårman"

"Herr Gårman"("Mr Gårman") - is a play with the words "Här går man"("Here One Walks") - and also the popular swedish name for the sign for pedestrian crossing. (left)
The green party - Miljöpartiet - has, in the name of equality, proposed a female complement to the male symbol. I was surprised to know that the original designer, and the designer of most swedish road signs (Pdf) - Karl-Gustaf Gustafsson - already designed a female version back in 1979. (right)
(Source: Aftonbladet)





My favourite road sign, by the way (off the road)
Create your own Swedish road sign.



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A Swedish Tiger

"En Svensk tiger" - "A Swedish Tiger" is an ambiguous phrase also meaning "A Swede Keeps Silent". It was a slogan created during WW2; reminding Swedes, especially those in the Armed Forces, not to speak of more or less sensitive matters which could possibly harm the nation. The enemy was out there with big ears.
The symbol - the tiger in Swedish blue and yellow - was created in 1941 by Bertil Almqvist. It has for some time now been used by Beredskapsmuséet - the Museum For Military Preparedness but Militära Underrättlse- och Säkerhetstjänsten (MUST) - the Military Intelligence and Security Service urges the museum to stop using it claiming that the Swedish Military Defence has the copyrights to it. The museum is threatened by a fine of 500.000 Skr (about 65.000 USD) but maintaining that the rights should belong to Almqvist's daughters. To be continued. (Source: among others DN)

I hope they don't fine me for this!

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...On The Prairie

Ok, let me just apologize right away. This is a really immature little video clip and it's NSFW, but I just had to...

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Musselsoppans Vänner has been updated

Martin Klasch's picture blog Musselsoppans Vänner has been updated with some scanned pocket book covers from The Martin Klasch Library.