Spooky Abandoned Farmhouse

Here's a spooky abandoned farmhouse Mrs. Phillips spotted on a two-lane highway outside of Modoc, IL:

I should have waited for Halloween but I haven't posted much of late.

Buffalo Remains and the Saddest Piñata in the World

I've been very aware that my taxidermy-related posts have of late been lacking. So here are two shots of a pretty moth-eaten buffalo (Bison bison, for you scientific types):
 
Here's a plucky-looking dog, from the same undisclosed location in Kentucky:

 And their friend, Mr. Trout:

 And, finally, the Saddest Piñata in the World:

More of Cape Girardeau

 Coca-Cola Ghost Sign!

 Stag Beer Ghost Sign!

 Spooky Abandoned Restaurant! Inside and Out!

 And finally, the Cape Wiggery Shop, sadly defunct but with its sign intact.

Human Remains for Sale, Paris, 1985

I'll bet that headline is going to get me some interesting Google searches. This skeletal hand and its companion foot were on sale at a bookstall on the Left Bank of the Seine in that halcyon summer of 1985:

Sorry I've been backsliding this week! I've been busy scanning and cleaning up old negatives like this one. Tomorrow I head for Oxford, Mississippi to talk to my friend Jack Pendarvis's class about Wichita in the 1940s, thence to Atlanta, Georgia to record some video with my friend Lane Davies, thence to Columbia, Tennessee to see my cousin Lindsey Page and then to Nashville to visit Roy Acuff's Record Store! So believe you me I will have lots to blog about.

The Cabinet of Dr. Sweeney, plus Bonus Ghost Sign

 A couple of years ago my filmmaker friend Mark W. Stone took me on a tour of the neighborhood where Dr. Francis Sweeney, almost certainly Cleveland's infamous Torso Killer, had his practice.

 Which building it was is impossible to say at this point, but these were the buildings that held those sorts of offices at that time.

 This one still houses some medical offices.

 On the right, a library converted into a chapel.....

 And here, windows both broken and boarded up.

And finally, a really nice Ghost Sign, in multiple languages (Czech?) advertising Mail Pouch tobacco.

Illinois Haunted House

 After dropping my kid off at camp this summer Mrs. Phillips and I passed by this Haunted House attraction in rural Illinois.

 I imagine that in-season this portasign is illuminated and marked with directions. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it just sits there.

 "In season" would be right about now. I should go up there and check it out! Or you should.

 Here's the sign you see as you're driving away. See the tiny little car next to it for scale!

That's all I have in terms of rural haunted house attractions.

Used Thrift-Store Underwear for the Discerning Woman

Today was supposed to be the day I thrilled you with some vintage erotica from the 1930s. Unfortunately, the lab I used only scanned one-half of the stereoscopic glass slide , thereby robbing you, my loyal readers, of the full 3-D experience! And so while I return to the lab to explain to them the concept of stereoscopic photography, I present a slightly less exotic but still titillating spectacle:

 Yes, somewhere in eastern Kansas is a flea market selling used underwear! And cheap used underwear at that.

 In case the fifty-cent bras don't meet with your standards of excellence, here are some fancier ones hanging on the wall.

 The lady who runs the place is very sweet so I'm not going to name the town here. But boy howdy, ladies, if you're ever traveling through the Sunflower State and you run out of underwear, you could do worse than hitting the thrift stores.

How Times Change

It used to be you had to look far and wide and go into some pretty seedy places to get this kind of material under the counter. Now they're stocking it at suburban retail establishments for all to see.

What a great age we live in!

Car Wash Camel

Continuing this week's "Belgium" theme, here's a stuffed camel advertising a restaurant in Brussels in the mid-eighties. It's parked in the lot of a car wash right next to the Hôtel des Colonies, which used to be (might still be for all I know) a decent and inexpensive place to stay very close to the Gare du Nord. It's also on the outskirts of Brussels's picturesque red light district.

 

This is what you might call Bad Taxidermy!

Good Taxidermy

Mrs. Phillips and I, on the way home from dropping our little one off at camp, stopped in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to see my elementary school pal Barry "Manolo" Sanders and his significant other Chantelle, and while there we went to the "Blind Pig" Brew Pub, wherein hangs this magnificent Gnu head.

ALL HAIL THE GNU!

Also, the Blind Pig makes some lovely beers.

Dead Coyote

From the attic of an antique mall in Alton, Illinois, a rather sad-looking coyote.

He almost looks tame! I wish I'd taken a better close-up picture of him and his bedraggled lower jaw and broken ear.

 Now compare him with his fierce relation in some town I passed through in the Kansas Flint Hills sometime in the eighties:

 

Double Bonus! On the floor to the right is a coyote rug, and in the shadows of the upper right-hand corner, there's a bobcat. Bobcats are increasingly important to this blog.

I seem to recall I was passing through late on a Sunday afternoon and the whole town was shut down and spooky. I'd say this was the scariest sporting goods store in America.

ANGRY BOBCATS!

 He's ANGRY!

 He's in an antique mall in St. Charles, MO, if you want to take him home. And here's another one from a place not far from my house:

It's the same place that had the painting of Good Monk/Bad Monk! If you're looking for stuffed bobcats, I can help.

Jimmy Bob Teeth

In case you've been wondering what hillbilly stereotypes are held by Chinese manufacturers of novelty teeth intended for sale in American truckstop vending machines, here's an example.
  They're Jimmy-Bob Teeth! "LIKE ONES SEEN ON TV!"

Truth to tell, I'm not sure if Jimmy-Bob is supposed to be a hillbilly with meth mouth or some sort of supernatural creature, given those vampire ears.

They were only fifty cents! What was wrong with me that night that I would pass up such a thing?

the Basement Sublet....of Horror!

This week creator/writer/director Joel Sanderson has posted for your viewing pleasure the entire "Atomic Brain" episode of the Basement Sublet of Horror:

http://www.basementsubletofhorror.com/

This is one of two episodes that I guest-hosted. In this one I play regular host Gunther Dedmond's meth-addled landlord. Here are some Basement Sublet trading cards, including the two associated with this episode:



And I get the card right after Herc "Carnival of Souls" Harvey!

Move over, Art Snow--F. Dressen's in town!

Another Thrift Store (or "Antique Mall" for you fancy-pants types out there) painting for your amusement and edification, this one painted by one F. Dressen.



I didn't buy it--$95 seemed a bit steep--but I'm starting to regret it. It's at that perfect juncture between competent (Mr. or Ms. Dressen clearly possessed some technical skills) and crazy, and the sad clown's face is rendered well enough that it feels like an actual portrait of some morose Pierrot.

Creepy, creepy clowns

Picked up these two circus posters in Cambria, CA, eleven or twelve years ago. The one with the girl and the horse (sorry about the image quality) is by far the creepier of the two and would make a great cover for a book about a murderer clown.