Twelve Ways to Decorate a Dog: May

Felt Fido...

...and Finals

Easter Parade

I have to admit that I spent several minutes transfixed in the aisle at Aldi with Easter promo stuff.

It was the German-made chocolate bunnies, chicks and lambs that had this hypnotic effect. In several different styles: all wacko, and all sugary stuff I don't need. In the end, I couldn't resist this group—

The outfits got me, complete with animal logos. And jolly Gumby-esque creature—

Sister J's immediate reaction: these must come from an East German factory, where the graphic style is unchanged since the 1950s.

I thought the googly-eyed faces are part of a more general German style. Sure enough, J later found this company site with similar stuff.

Although some of these products are a bit higher end ["Fairtrade"; "MinusL" lactose-free], there are others that definitely have appeared at the local Aldi.

Christmas for us; "First day of school" to Germans—

Sadly, there's also a sample of the New Year's fun and luck that we miss—

Twelve Ways to Decorate a Dog: April

April for Appliqué—

Satin appliqué—

On the April 1976 agenda: nothing noted, other than "Easter Vacation"—

... I would settle for it (sigh)...

Survival Under... Attack

Reprint of a federal booklet, with added illustrations and local content. (A scan of the original booklet's text is here.)

The original's cover—

SURVIVAL UNDER ATOMIC ATTACK
THE OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BOOKLET

Part of the front matter—

Executive Office of the President
National Security Resources Board
Civil Defense Office
NSTB Doc. 130
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON: 1950

The federal booklet has a notice that's also on the back of the Detroit version—

Permission is hereby automatically granted to any responsible organization, institution, individual or concern which wishes to republish this booklet for free distribution, legitimate promotional purposes or for sale.

In reproducing the booklet, however, advertising, promotional material, art work, and typographical styling should conform to the tenor of the text.

Other back cover detail of the Detroit booklet includes a word from the sponsor—

Here's the fine print (and only sign of the booklet's date)—

"DETROITS 250 ANNIVERSARY 1701-1951
1881-1951 HUDSONS 70-YEAR"

Front matter added in Michigan includes names of the military, police and political dignitaries on the state Civil Defense council, a forward by Governor G. Mennen Williams, and a call for CD volunteers.

This is followed by the Feds' Cold War boilerplate text, which urged readers to "KILL THE MYTHS," to learn "SIX SURVIVAL SECRETS FOR ATOMIC ATTACKS," and so on. Some samples of bland reassurance on what to expect when the big one dropped—

WHAT ARE YOUR CHANCES?

WHAT ABOUT BURNS?

Among the practical tips offered—

Take Cover in the Cellar; Upper Floors May Collapse.

Avoid Getting Wet...

Change Outer Garments After Leaving Contaminated Area.

By whatever combination of dumb luck and (eventual) diplomacy happened, we never needed to test these theories.

A few years ago I read this interesting look at post-war Civil Defense planning. The National Security Act of 1947 established institutions to enable a process of continuous civilian, economic, and military mobilization. Andrew Grossman writes that what was aimed at the public used "a sophisticated version of 'communication science' developed during World War II..."

For decades it's been easy to mock the absurdity of the CD efforts (for example, here, and at that blog's links). Grossman's book instead focuses on the seriousness of official planning for a World War III expected to be fought with nuclear weapons. But Grossman also acknowledges that planners at the highest levels—

... distrusted the very social order they were defending... These "wise men" of American foreign policy believed that postwar consumerism, combined with the kind of democracy that was practiced in the United States, would not generate the kind of citizen necessary to combat what was known as "Red Fascism."

To counteract its perceived softness the post-war public had to be made—in Grossman's words—"the consumer of the home front mobilization process." The civil defense planners' target—the growing middle-class that was relocating to suburbs—were also the consumers driving the post-war economy. Not coincidentally, suburbanites were also likely to have space for installing fallout shelters.

Grossman compares Cold War civil defense planning with the late twentieth century focus on terrorism. Of this (late 1990s?) chart—

—Grossman notes the threats to civil liberties inherent in a "hydra-headed bureaucratic planning structure."

As it happens... his book was published August 2001—just around the time of this.

The next month—Presto!—we're at "war," without end.

Oh well... after World War II we got ourselves, in Gore Vidal's words (Screening History), a "military-industrial-political combine that has locked us all up inside a National Security State and has thrown away the key."

The Reds never launched an atomic attack on Detroit, after all. Though with the 1966 accident here, Detroit and vicinity may have had a near miss.

Hudson's met its end the capitalist way: a move to the suburbs, change of ownership and eventual closing. The company's historic downtown store was leveled—not by bombs, but by implosion (1998).

The fate of the city itself is another story, currently in the re-writing. Much like the Cold War, myths are created to support the agendas of moneyed power. Not only is this the perfect opportunity to starve public pensions, there is land for the grabbing, and the big chance to get private hands on all sorts of things that have been held in public trust until now.

A different context, yet prophetic?
)

Twelve Ways to Decorate a Dog: March

"The Hooked Rug dog

is made on a canvas with five squares to the inch, using knitting yarns..."

And then there's that enviable calendar note, which students get to make...

Game of Intrigue

A mysterious publication, found on a giveaway shelf at the library.

Challenge Bridge
Reference Manual
Volume 1
Deals 1-100
1972, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company

First mystery (to me) was that this company had ever published stuff.

It turns out there was a "3M Bookshelf Game Series"—made from 1962 to 1975, and meriting its own Wiki page. According to which—

These games were marketed towards adults and were designed to fit onto a standard bookshelf. Each game fit into a slip cover that was made to resemble the spine of a hardcover book. 3M's catalog described them as follows: "bookcase games, packaged in attractive leather-like slipcases, make a handsome set of volumes for any bookshelf."

Sure enough (once I bothered to look beyond the cover and title page), there's a photo of the missing box and its contents.

According to Wiki, freelance designers created 3M's games. That may account for a cover image that seemed to be another mystery. I know pretty much zero about card games, but have long had the impression that bridge players are elderly people, not dashing intriguers.

At least, that was going by players I've known. And remembering the guy on the left, whose columns ran in the newspapers of my youth.

Here's his Wiki page.

Poking around in this stuff, I find there was also a TV show, from 1959 to 1964 (Theme Song: "Music to Play Bridge By").

I like the credits' low-budget stop motion effects, which are very early TV. Here's an entire show: an episode with Chico Marx.

He was known as a compulsive gambler, and the brothers' bad late movies supposedly were made to pay off his debts (unless Groucho told that story to excuse the turkeys).

But enough digression, as tempting as it is to pursue the tangents of odd things people have left around the tubes. (Whatever kind of person puts time and effort into such things ...)

Back to the game booklet: 3M had an expert of its own, who, like Charles Goren, seems less than glamorous—

"After playing each deal," reads the booklet, "your foursome should refer to the corresponding deal in the Reference Manual for scoring and valuable comments on the bidding and play, written by one of the world's foremost bridge authorities, Oswald Jacoby."

Mr. Jacoby does seem a bit of a contrast to the James Bond-ish feel of this group.

Twelve Ways to Decorate a Dog: February

Bargello bow-wow—