texas

SOLD: 1957 Yearbook - The Tiger - Texas Southern University of Houston, Texas

I love flipping through old yearbooks, especially when there are signatures and personal messages all over, and you know the name of the person who the yearbook belonged to. This yearbook is full of personal scrawlings, some friendly and some flirtatious. This yearbook's hero can be seen front and center in the third image. A glimpse into the past, indeed!

This is a yearbook for Texas Southern University of Houston, which was an all black university. It's interesting, browsing through yearbooks on Etsy; they are overwhelmingly white. Selling vintage items, sometimes it's easy to forget that many of the incredible items for sale come from a time of horrible segregation and brazen racial disparity.

But, this yearbook defies the bigotry of the era, and shows an entire university of cheerful, enthusiastic students. Great to flip through, and interesting to read. It is in wonderful condition.

http://www.etsy.com/transaction/50006624

Thirteen year old Carter Pope of La Salle, Texas, woke up on Sunday and saw a strange creature walking through an open field. "Something slowly came across and started shaking, slowly moving across," Carter said. "It was gray, no hair at all. I thought 'That's a chupacabra.'" He then shot, and killed the beast.

While there are myths of some legendary Chupacabra which stalks the Texan and Mexican landscapes, sucking the blood from livestock like some sort of animal vampire, usually it is just some poor miserly coyote that's lost its hair and is all mangy from disease. Then it wanders into some human habitat, scares the shit out of some people, and gets shot. Pope has collected skin and hair samples to test whether or not this is the case.

Watch the video report from KPRC, Houston TX:

SOLD: 1960s Vintage Lone Star beer can

LONE STAR BEER, the National beer of Texas. Jealous? Texas has it's very own brand of crappy, cheap beer. What is right now, my favorite beer.

This can is from the 1960s, and was most likely, drank by a 1960s Texan. Then, at some point, the entire top was removed, possibly to use as a storage can, or for other drinking purposes. Also, a small hole has been punctured near the top, possibly for beer can hanging around the home. Or something.

At any rate, this is a beautiful old can, ready for display, or to be used as an ash can, to put a plant in, or even a storage device (pens, straws, what have you).

Can is old and scuffed up a little bit.

http://www.etsy.com/transaction/49311695

SOLD: Vintage Masonic ALZAFAR Beer Stein - by Marzi & Remy

ALZAFAR. This stein is somewhat shrouded in mystery.

I have been trying to think of what Alzafar could originally refer to, besides the Alzafar Shriners in San Antonio, TX. The closest match I can think of is the ancient Himyarite tribal confederation capital city of Zafar (110 BC - 525 AD), located in modern day Yemen. The image in the center of the crescent, could be some long forgotten Himyarite ruler or god, the memory passed down over the years in Masonic and Shriner culture. 

Or perhaps it is something else entirely.

At any rate, this ceramic Stein made by Marzi & Remy in Germany for the Alzafar Shriners in San Antonio features a sword above a crescent enveloping a star, which seems to burst through scenery of what appears to be a Bavarian village. This stein's career on my shelf has fired my imagination, every time it captures my gaze. It would be beautiful in any home, as a functional beer stein, office supply holder, or decorative piece.

This stein is seven (7) inches deep and four (4) inches wide at the base. There is a very small and smooth chip on the inside of the rim.

Further reading:

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/Shrine_Alzafar_Beer_Stein.htm
http://www.alzafar.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafar,_Yemen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite

http://www.etsy.com/transaction/48918861

SOLD: 1966 - SLEEP - A creepy book I find wholly disturbing - Gay Gaer Luce and Julius Segal

There is something wholly disturbing to me about this book. Just open up to any page, and

"Recently, however, brain blood has been taken from a sleeping animal and passed through a fine seive process known as dialysis, removing all large particles so that it could be injected into the brain of a wide-awake animal."

Right, this book is full of information from really creepy science, bordering on the supernatural occult. Furthermore, is the included "bookmark" and the creepy inscription that simply says "Ma" in scribbled letters. And finally, the stamp which tells you this was bought at the Silva MIND CONTROL BOOK STORE, in Laredo, Texas

Everything about this book creeps me out, and I am pretty sure I haven't had a non creepy dream since this book has entered my home.

Table of Contents:

The Meaning of Sleep
The Clocks of Life
The Tides of Night
Man Without Sleep
Poor Sleep and Good Sleep
Abnormal Sleep
Drugs
The Natural Chemistry of Sleep
The Body of a Dreamer
The Meanings of Dreams
Unconscious Learning
What is Sleep?

A perfect book to disturb your guests with. Actually, this book seems really interesting, and I may read it as it is waiting for a new home. Copyright 1966, 335 pages.

http://www.etsy.com/transaction/48774269

SOLD: Vintage Pony Express Spittoon

CHHHOOOOOOUUGGHHCK, *spit*, DING. At some point, this thing was probably sitting in some old Texan bar or Saloon, cowboy's spitting their nasty chewing saliva into this pot. "Chewing Tobacco Cut Plug", it reads below it's raised emblem.

Or, and more likely, this is an antique reproduction made by AA Import Company, made in the 1970s during the Pony Express craze, as literature and film were made on the subject. Which is a pretty interesting subject; 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express

I don't know, but in either case, it's pretty damned cool.

Perfect rustic item for your home or office, possibly an amazing plant holder! Or, for those of you who chew tobacco, this would make an excellent spittoon!

9 inches wide by 11 inches high. Item has a few dings and dents, adding to its bad ass quality.

http://www.etsy.com/transaction/48474043

Eric Fischer, who previously brought us maps illuminating just how racially segregated cities in the US really are,  has created maps of Twitter and Flickr usage around the globe, beautifully displaying the geotagged usage almost like star charts. The red dots are geotagged Flickr posts, the blue dots are geotagged Tweets, and the white dots are items that were posted by both internet services. Let's take a look at some choice samples from the Flickr photo set "See something or say something":

twitter and flickr usage of the big bend area of far west texas

Here is the region of the country I live in . . . if you look at the center of this image, you'll see four white star clusters, surrounded by red clusters; those white clusters are Marfa, Alpine and Marathon, with Fort Davis to the north. A lot of red dots surround them, plus a white cluster down in Terlingua, and a huge swath of reds representing Big Bend National Park. El Paso can be seen in the top left, and Odessa/Midland near the top right, with the white lines connecting everything being highways. In this region of the world, there is pretty much only cell phone coverage along the highways and the towns that the highways go through. The rest is open country, for the most part.

Now let's check out my home town of Boston:

boston is brightly lit with twitter/flickr activity

As expected, very very bright. Boston's a bit of a distant memory for me, but I'll tell you, it is so damned internetty there. Probably has something to do with the sheer amount of college students living there at any given time (250,000 in Boston and Cambridge alone).

​Let's take a look at the entire planet:

this image makes me feel uneasy for some reason

​Oh, uh, hmmmm. What does this remind me of. Hmmm. Perhaps this is an image of a younger version of this:

a borged up earth

What starts with Twitter and Flickr might end inevitably with the Borg. It would be interesting if Fischer would put these maps out annually, so we could watch the quick assimilation of the entire planet.

We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

The ninja "didn't say anything," Turnello said. "He ran off attempting to hide behind things that were too small for him to hide behind."

'Ninja' spotted in Sunland Park yard | El Paso Times

El Chupacabras -- a name meaning "goat-sucker", coined for a mythical being first spotted in Puerto Rico in 1995, legends of which migrated to Mexico and South Texas. It's been spotted this time 60 miles south of Houston, in Lake Jackson, Texas, by retired couple Jack and Linda Crabtree. "Look at that dog. I've never seen a dog like that," Jack Crabtree recalled. "That's the response that a person would have."

omg el chupacabras hide your goats!

Well, he had joked around with and sent photos to a local newspaper suggesting that the creature he took photos of (in image above) might be El Chupacabras. The paper picked up on the tabloidy opportunity to report on a Chupacabra sighting, which eventually led to national attention from the likes of ABC news. As a former state wildlife biologist though, Jack knew full well what it was -- a sickly old mangy coyote, which is what most sightings of the Chupacabra have turned out to be.

Watch the local news report from ABC 13, KTRK-TV Houston:

SOLD: 1976 - San Antonio Cookbook II, as collected by the Women's Committee of the Symphony Society of San Antonio

This is a pretty amazing cookbook. Full of illustrations of San Antonio locales and culture, and friendly recipes credited to the random person who's recipe it is, it just really makes you want to eat some goddamned food.

From Mrs. Thad M Ziegler's "Deer Steak Magic" to Mrs. Gilbert L. Curtis's "Jalapeno Corn Bread", I sort of wish this book was a restaurant.

Published in 1976, 292 pages. A previous owner of this book has "enhanced" some of the recipes, and added his own thoughts using pencil.

http://www.etsy.com/transaction/45298851