The Nazi Olympics

With Olympic Fever in the air we should all pause to remember the 1936 Summer Olympics. Hosted by Berlin and a giddy Adolf Hitler who was anxious to show off to the rest of the world his well trained athletes and enthusiastic, orderly (robot)citizens. Nazi propaganda was everywhere, even in the printed (in Berlin, in English, offset) Olympic programs, as seen here. To see the Olympics in action, see Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia. 
It makes you wonder - how many athletes who performed during these Olympics were killed in World War 2? Or how about the printers of these programs? Did their printshop even survive the war?

 

Are those THE four horsemen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yikes

 

 

Three-Man-Naked-Juggling! My favorite! The Olympics has (sadly) since banned this particularly lovely-to-behold sport.

Some people just look funny when they're being sporty.

For whom does this Nazi bell toll?

Poorly named mouthwash for athletes only.

Eye-less (soul-less) Aryans?

Ugliness Abounds

Sometimes people send the art library their unsolicited hand-made books. Sometimes they're ugly. This is one of them. 

Great-great-Grandma risen from the grave, complete with buttons, lace, shells, and ribbons. Grandma, why??

Better tie it closed or it will barf trinkets all over you!

When in doubt, whitewash it.

Pretty vintage hat-pins gone to waste in this miasma of Victorian slop.

Doodles and filthy fabric pieces included.

Greetings, Earthling!

Who's got UFO-fever!? I know I do!! Be sure to read the NASA funded study by some lucky college guys about what might happen if (perhaps WHEN!) aliens come to planet earth. These incredibly illustrated journals of science fiction (the future??) are not from Stanford, but picked up by myself at a yard sale last weekend.

Post Roswell future!

Add caption

Nice tunics, Adam and Eve.

Lost?

Look closely! That's the "Futurama" dude!

Feathers, fur-bikinis, gloves and a deep tan are requisite if you're gonna survive the Sand Doom.

Bummer, for both of them.

Come Fly With Me

Two thumbs up for old advertising! Madmen is nothing but a soap opera for people with good taste. An old-lady-bored-at-home-must-watch-something-livelier-than-the-snoozing-cats soap opera. Only difference between Madmen and All My Children is the impeccable art direction of the nighttime soap. But look here! REAL advertising beautifully rendered just prior to Don Draper's takeover of AMC. And really, if that show was worth anything, they would've kept Sal(vatore) Romano, the only really likable character of the whole bunch.

Four-color perfection

NOT starring Keanu Reeves

Looks like the milkman? Maybe all delivery personnel wore bow ties in olden days.

You're going to need unlimited vision in a squall like that.

 

 

Oh, the places you'll go. There will even be men in sombreros with donkeys!

Visualizing and Wanting

Who are these "Rosicrucians?" I'd heard the word before, reminiscent of "crucifix" and "roses." But roses smell nasty and crucifixes are for dead people, so who would've thought, upon further investigation, that the Rosicrucians were so awesome as to constantly question life's mysteries? And for those of you who think life is what-you-see-is-what-you-get, well, I feel sorry for you. Even Albert Einstein knew just how cool mysteries are when he said "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." Don't think you know everything...

Blurry-lady with red-vines in her hair and christmas lights all around! What a powerful mind!!

Yes, that's a soul patch on this contemplative doctor.

I want to go to that strange world!!

Special guests of the society in special pants.

Save on design costs by only having four different cover images per 12 issues a year!

I'm heading to San Jose to find these guys...

See David Lynch!

The word "berserk" is just not used enough these days.

cool

Hmmm... can I trust the society??

Maneater! Beware!

India is lucky enough to have tigers roaming their jungles, though there aren't many left. Here's what happens to folks who mess with these most awesome animals. A life-size sculpture, c. 1793, with a mechanical organ housed inside the victor. Music and tigers - oh my!! Want to help save tigers from extinction? Click here and cross your fingers... this is a nasty world we live in.

From the book "5000 Years of Indian Art" with text by Sushma K. Ball