Turned On To Jesus in California

This is not, in fact, a groovy underground rag out of San Francisco. It is, in fact, a pseudogroovy, anti-drug rag done by a preacher in Texas. Be careful, kids: the propaganda pusher can take many forms.

Brian Ruud's "Scenes from the Trip Beyond"

1971

from Feed Your Head

Facts and Figures

Well, that is easily the tallest one of those I have ever seen. (Though maybe not - does that look like a blueberry bush to you?)

Wisconsin Rapids

1948 - 1952, photographer Donald Krohn

from South Wood County Historical Museum

King Neptune and Company

Does going to sea make you do crazy things, or does wanting to do crazy things make you go to sea?

USS Soestdijk, on the Equator

1918/1919

from Naval History and Heritage

Swoop

Oh crap, an eagle's got the baby again.

no information available

from All Things Amazing

a good place for a picnic

I want to eat a picnic in a river. Maybe a tuna sandwich.

Alaska

from the DOI: BLM: Image Library

The Good Life

Nothing wrong with a fun time.

no information available

from ElectroSpark's flickr stream

World Unicorn

Imagine this is your daily view. How do you get up to go to your office job and see this every day and not just chuck it all and go to sea?

Newcastle upon Tyne, England

1973

from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

connection

They look like the last two creatures in the world.

Pelican Island NWR

Sebastian, Florida

1907, photographer George Nelson

from The US Fish and Wildlife National Digital Library

oh shit

Buddy, I don't think that's a tame bear. I'm surprised whoever took the photo could stop laughing long enough to get a clear shot.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

1950s

from Harpers Ferry Center

Psych-Out Freak-Out

I grabbed this one because the image is, frankly, awesome. The staring eye! The naked band! The spanking! But then I looked up J. X. Williams and found out that he was a blackballed, mafia-funded underground/porn director who's now withdrawn from public life*. And now I have to share with you his filmography:

The 400 Blow Jobs (1964); Peep Show (1965); L'Homme La Femme Le Film (1966); Hollywood Play Girls (1966); E.S.P. Orgy (1967); Supermaniacs (1968); Mondo Vietnam (1968); The Phantom of the Cinema (1969); Norwegian Wood (1970); The Virgin Sacrifice (1970); Prison Girls (1972); kaboom! (1973); Sex Crimes of the 21st Century (1974); L.A. Death Trip (1975); Morrie (1976); You Axed For It (1978); Nunf*cker (1979)

ESP Orgy cover

1968

from retro-space's flickr stream

*this is probably actually a big hoax, but I'm still a fan  -
any number of people wrote stroke books for Greenleaf Press under the name

Self Realization Fellowship Church of All Religions

I don't know about this church thing, but I'd sure live there. I've found that I really like photos that wind up looking like fake landscapes or viewmaster slides.

LA, CA

1952

from Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection

harder than it looks

Boat shoes! I want some! I bet this is far, far more difficult than it seems. I've worn waterwings on my ankles, I know these things.

no information available

from ADiamondFellFromTheSky's flickr stream

Hell yes.

This somehow makes Empire Strikes Back even more awesome. I want to see the movie someone would make based on this poster.

Hungarian movie poster

artist Tibor Helényi

from SW:TOR,

seen at Sci-F-O-Rama

The Fae and Doris Caudill family eating dinner in their dugout

Back in the 40s, a guy working for the Farm security Administration took photos of a small community called Pie Town. I've looked at that photos near a hundred times in searching for images to add here. Some are fairly beautiful and all are worth lingering over. That's why I was so struck when I saw the collection this picture came from. An artist took some of those Pie Town photos and altered them to be of all women. I suggest following the links and taking a closer look.

Pie Town, New Mexico

2010, artist Debbie Grossman

original 1940, photographer Russell Lee

from The Morning News,

original located at the Library of Congress

Watchful

I think more babies should be photographed while lolling around on big furs. Looks comfy. I'm going to talk to my sister on this matter, regarding my young nephew.

Essex County, Ontario, Canada

from Old Settlers Reunion

She Wasn't Ready for Death

I love this! Look at those hands, and her hair and her cleavage. I even kind of love the blinds in the window behind her.

The Old Battle Ax

1943, artist Rudolph Belarski

from x-ray delta one's flickr stream

Family Szymanski

When you don't have a shower, you have to make do. I love the little girl scrubbing her papa's hair.

Poland

1986, photographer Średnia Wieś

from Camara Democratica

Strange Blue Lake is Strangely Blue

Seriously, y'all, that is one blue lake. I don't know why I love this photo so much, but I do. I want to swim in it, except that I expect it to be like swimming in paint.

Ohio

from Gyro.Pilot's flickr stream

Colorful

Well now. I feel like having secret ink in an era like that would give you a sort of sly joy all the time.

no information available

Wot a Fright!

Ever since the Blitz, the English have been hard to ruffle.

"The Stone Man" from Venus Comics

1951, by Bill Everett

from The Horrors of it All

Leveling the Hills

In the early 1900s, Seattle decided that they needed more flat land, so they got some shovels and horse carts and shit and went and leveled out a hill or two on the edge of town. That's what this is. And when I say hill, well, note the ladders at the bottom for the scale we're talking about. Get enough people on a project, you can do anything. That's both one of our greatest strengths and our greatest weaknesses as a species.

Seattle, Washington

1910, photographer Asahel Curtis

from Vintage Seattle

Dangerous Thing

It's the feet that make this horrifying.

Koskimo person in Hami mask,

British Columbia

1914, artist Edward S. Curtis

from the Library of Congress

Monkey Island Army Base

What do you suppose the goat was for?

Jackson, Mississippi Zoo

photographer Harry Hiatt

from Monkey

How to Strip Your Baby

You know, I don't envy the guys who had to figure out how to keep a bunch of young soldiers, probably drafted, paying attention long enough to learn shit that could save their lives. Then again, they did come up with some really freaky shit. And they certainly employed big name talent in the process.

Treat Your Rifle Like a Lady - The M-16 U.S. Army Rifle Maintenance Booklet

1960s, artist Will Eisner

from Comics with Problems

Giant Beetroot

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip...

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.

- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume (possibly his best work)

Martincourt, France

1917

from drakegoodman's flickr stream

A Startling Attack

Lazertits is a come back in past. Breast are free and they bright, they blind like the sun. Be careful gentleman or you should get toasted by tits!

I have nothing to add to that.

The photo has got to be 80s,

but the lasers are last year.

from Lazertits, natch

seen at Lagonie

History of Science Fiction

I don't usually choose to feature stuff that's making the rounds, but this is so beautiful that I honestly couldn't help it. If blogger doesn't want to host the full size of this one and you can't make it large enough to see all the details, go to Ward's site, below, and enlarge it there. 

Artist Ward Shelley

seen at Virtual Futures 2.0

Airlift

What would you do if you looked up and saw this? I suspect I would stand around with my mouth open and then run to find someone to confirm it was happening.

no information available

from La boite verte

Met de slee van de springschans

Serious business, y'all. Flying is not for the frivolous.

Alexandra Palace, London, England

1933

from Nationaal Archief

the force is with them

It's like a publicity shot for some small town staging of Romeo and Juliet as a gay space opera.

1978

from unexpectedtales' flickr stream

The Naked Rationer

This isn't just a silly fellow taking Johnson for a walk. He's out protesting rationing by the occupying SS. And clearly he can't wear pants because of his enormous balls.

The Netherlands

1941

from Vintage Photo