Posts Tagged ‘amusement park’
“Artistic tricks divert from the effect that an artist endeavors to produce”*…
After spending much time on Instagram, a pattern quickly revealed itself: covers of Kinfolk magazines, wood, American flags, lattes, etc.
These similarities popped uo without even trying to look for them specifically, and so, a project was born. Not out of spite, but out of a fascination with the redundancy of almost identical subject matter.
Four images, one Instagram account per set. A whole lotta the same shit.
Welcome to the Kinspiracy…
“Kinfolk Magazine: making white people feel artistic since 2011″– more at The Kinspiracy.
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As we contemplate composition, we might send amusing birthday greetings to George C. Tilyou; he was born on this date in 1862. Tilyou was the man most responsible for turning Coney Island into a entertainment destination. Having open the first theater there, he began to experiment with rides, most successfully with a copy of the Ferris Wheel that he saw on his honeymoon at the Columbian Exhibition. (Tilyou tried to buy that one, but as it was already promised to the upcoming St Louis World’s Fair, he built a replica.)
He parlayed those rides into an attraction: Steeplechase Park, known round the world for its trademark “funny face” logo.
Any resemblance to Batman’s nemesis, The Joker, is not coincidental: illustrator Bill Finger, who co-created the character attests to being influenced by the Steeplechase Park mascot.
The Park’s unique appeal lay in its power to involve visitors…
Many rides were calculated to play with gravity and so encourage couples to grab a hold of each other. In addition to the famous Steeplechase, which took its customers down a wavy track on mechanical horseback, the attractions included the Human Roulette Wheel, the Human Pool Table, the Whichway and the Barrel of Love, which spun humans in directions they’d never been spun in before. Equally involving was the Blowhole Theater–a stage built into an exit that forced customers to become actors, as they endured blasts of air and electric shocks to the delight of other recent victims.
Steeplechase burned down in 1907, but Tilyou didn’t miss a stride. After charging admission to the burning ruins, he rebuilt the park, this time introducing the roofed Pavilion of Fun. After Tilyou died in 1914, various managers took their turn running Steeplechase, although ownership remained in the family. The park finally closed in 1964, ending what amounted to a 69-year run of comic relief from the modern world.
“Slow but steady wins the race”*…
Slow TV comes to the U.S…
TV viewers in Duluth, Minnesota had the opportunity to witness a record-setting premiere last Staurday: the world’s first thirteen-hour-long commercial– an ad for the the chain that Jon Stewart loves to hate, Arby’s.
The door of a smoker will open, the brisket will be placed inside, smoke will flow in, and for just short of 13 hours, the viewer will watch it smoke through a window. A small logo in the corner of the screen identifies Arby’s…
At 13 hours, the commercial will be longer than pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl (6½ hours), and not much shorter than Richard Wagner’s operatic “Ring” cycle (14½ hours)… Indeed, when the commercial passes the one-hour mark, it will have exceeded the Guinness World Record for longest TV commercial, currently held by Nivea…
The manager of My9, the Duluth station that aired the spot, reported that he got “a ‘ton’ of media calls about the stunt—that is, six or seven.”
Read more here.
* Aesop
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As we proclaim “Out damned spot! Out, I say!“, we might recall that it was on this date in 1957 that Chuck Berry opened “Berry Land” (AKA “Berry Park”), an amusement park and resort built on his estate outside of St. Louis. The 30-acre complex had hotel rooms, a miniature golf course, a Ferris wheel, a nightclub, children’s barbecue pits, and a guitar-shaped swimming pool. The attraction closed in 1961, when Berry was convicted of a Mann Act violation.
Ready… Aim…
In 1936, 16-year-old Ria van Dijk from Tilburg, Holland, fires a gun in a fairground shooting gallery. She hits the target, triggering a camera to take her portrait as a prize.
At the age of 88, Ria van Dijk still makes her annual pilgrimage to the Shooting Gallery.
– Lens Culture
Watch Ria’s progress in Retronaut’s “Shooting Gallery, 1936-2009.”
As we remember to exhale, then squeeze, we might recall that it was on this date in 1519 that Moctezuma welcomed Hernando Cortez and his 650 explorers to his capital at Tenochtitlan. The Aztec ruler, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy– until it became clear that the Spaniards were only too human and bent on conquest.
Cortez and his men, dazzled by Aztec riches and horrified by the human sacrifice central to their religion, began systematically to plunder Tenochtitlán and to tear down the bloody temples. Moctezuma’s warriors fought back against the Spaniards; but Cortez had thousands of Indian allies (resentful of Aztec rule), Spanish reinforcements, superior weapons and disease; he completed the conquest of the Aztecs– approximately 25 million people– late in the summer of 1521.
Moctezuma imprisoned by Cortez (source)
No Joy…
For over half a century, from 1949, Joyland was Wichita’s family fun park… Toddlers could ride one of the oldest miniature steam trains in the U.S.; grade school kids could bring their reports cards and trade A’s of B’s for ride tickets; and teens could get an adrenaline rush in the Whacky Shack or on “Nightmare”– an H.P. Schmeck-designed wooden roller coaster, one of only 44 original coasters designated as an ACE Coaster Classic… it was central Kansas’ Xanadu, its Oz, its… well, its Joy-Land.
But Joyland is no more; in 2003, it closed for the last time.
Photographer Mike Petty returned recently to the park; the resulting montage is an essay on the fragility of fantasy and the inexorable erosion of time.
The history of Joyland and photos of the park in its prime (and after) are here.
And for a different kind of desolation on the midway, readers should check out Carnival of Souls, a 60s masterpiece that is available in the Criterion Collection (and thus streaming on Hulu Plus and Amazon– and for free here).
As we make sure that we keep our heads down and our hands inside the cart, we might recall that it was on this date in 1956 that The Pinky Lee Show aired for the last time. Lee, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, had parlayed a career as a “baggy pants” burlesque comedian into a brief 1950 run with a variety show on NBC. He returned in 1954 with the children’s show that made him famous (he was the lead-in for Howdy Doody). But Lee’s success was short lived: he collapsed on camera in late 1955. The show continued without him, but was never the same; it was cancelled on this date the following year. Though his abrupt disappearance spawned wide-spread rumors of his demise, Lee returned to television in 1957 as the host of Gumby. And of course his influence stretched well into the future, helping set the tone of, for example, Pee Wee’s Playhouse.
Yoo hoo, it’s me,
My name is Pinky Lee.
I skip and run with lots of fun
For every he and she.
It’s plain to see
That you can tell it’s me
With my checkered hat
And my checkered coat,
The funny giggle in my throat
And my silly dance
Like a billy goat.
Put ’em all together,
Put ’em all together,
And it’s whooooo?
(Audience): Pinky!– Pinky’s opening song
Pincus Leff, aka “Pinky Lee” (source)
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