First Wonder Woman Concept

First Wonder Woman Concept: "
Illustrator Harry G. Peter's 1941 concept of Wonder Woman is fascinating to me --not so much the character design itself, which here resembles an early Snow White -- but the penciled-in correspondence between the artist and WW's creator, William Moulton Marston.

Dear Dr. Marston,

I slapped these two out in a hurry. The eagle is tough to handle as when in perspective or in profile he doesn't show up clearly — The shoes look like a stenographer's.

I think the idea might be incorporated as a sort of Roman contraption.

Peter


Dear Pete -

I think the gal with hand up is very cute. I like her skirt, legs, hair. Bracelets okay + boots. These probably will work out + see other suggestions enclosed. No on these. See suggestions enclosed for eagle. Braziers I suggest may work better in curved or slanting stripes - red + white. With eagle's wings above or below breasts as per-enclosed? Leave it to you. Don't we have to put a red stripe around her waist as belt? I thought Gaines wanted it — don't remember. Circlet will have to go higher — more like crown — see suggestions enclosed.

See you Wednesday morning — WMM

The sketch recently sold for $33,350.



"

Other Makes: Luigi Colani LeMans Concept

Other Makes: Luigi Colani LeMans Concept: "I suspect that the fearless German designer Luigi Colani has always expected, but never waited for, The Future to catch up with him.

For a 1970 LeMans Concept Car, Colani grafted a hand-sculpted, biomorphic, plexiglass-domed, pivoting cockpit pod onto the business end of a Lamborghini Miura.



This one-of-a-kind, once-a-millennium vehicle somehow made it off the European auto show circuit and onto a trailer, three decades later, in Cross Plains, Indiana.



Where it now awaits--less than 20 hours to go!--the first bid from its new steward:



$74,999, not including shipping or the costs of refabricating the plexiglass pod roof.



How odd that the seller would offer to refabricate the bubble, for money, on a car that clearly stands in need of a complete restoration. Why not offer to replace the missing downdraft carb [which is ornamental anyway, as there is 'no engine at this time.']



Whatever its fate, it does make one wonder what other insane projects lurk in the heart of eBay Motors > Other Makes.

1970 Other Makes Other Colambo
Luigi Colani Lamborghini Miura LeMans Concept Car, starting bid, $74,999.00
[ebay via mondo-blogo]


"

Sweet memoir of a golden age of toy design

Sweet memoir of a golden age of toy design: "

Prolific 1970s toy designer Mel Birnkrant wrote an absolutely charming, lengthy memoir of his history in the field (including the unlikely story of how he got into the business). It's called, 'The Colorforms Years,' and it's free to read.


I remember the moment the Outer Space Men were conceived as clearly as if it were yesterday. The heavily armored big front door of our NYC apartment opened into a tiny hall, hardly bigger than a phone booth. And a phone booth, in a manner of speaking, is, more or less, what it turned out to be. It measured 3'X3'. The door, when swinging open, barely missed the walls, one of which was a closet with sliding doors. The other was the portal that led to a small kitchen, hardly bigger that the hall. The third side opened out to the front room and a primitive early version of the toy collection wall, that later grew to gargantuan proportions, when recreated in the house we live in now...


The only telephone in the apartment was attached to the kitchen wall. Thus, the marathon phone conversations with Harry, that took place nearly every day, always began with the long phone cord stretched and me standing in the hall. Sooner or later, I would, inevitably, end up lying on the floor with my feet resting high up on the chained and double locked front door. But, on this occasion, I remained standing, too excited to lie down. I had just seen Matt Mason in the stores for the first time, and an earthshaking IDEA was counting down: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - to BLAST OFF in my mind.



Mel Birnkrant, The Colorforms Years

(via MeFi)


(Photo: Mel Birnkrant)






"

What it's like to be a cocaine submarine captain

What it's like to be a cocaine submarine captain: "A former Columbian narco-sub pilot anonymously recounts his life captaining a homebrewed semi-submersible filled with millions of dollars' worth of cocaine, at gunpoint all the while:




At around 8 p.m., the tide was high and the night sufficiently dark as the ocean water tugged at the submersible. A speedboat pulled the vessel out to sea, where the crew started the engines. They accelerated to 12 knots and set off on a 270-degree course heading west, toward the open ocean. The guard provided by the drug mafia for each transport, armed with a revolver and an assault rifle, stood at the door to the engine room. It was incredibly hot in the submersible, where the engines remove oxygen from the air and enrich it with carbon monoxide, despite ventilation pipes. 'You constantly feel like you're suffocating,' says Alonso. 'Every four hours, we reduced the speed from 12 to six knots. Then we opened the hatch in the front for exactly one minute, let some fresh air in and accelerated again.'


The four-man team worked in shifts, while Alonso kept monitoring the route. Once they were in the open ocean, the man with the assault rifle gave him a piece of paper showing the target position. Their instructions were to arrive there on a specific day and at a specific time.


Each of the men tried to sleep after his shift, but the stench and the noise on board made this impossible. They had to drink copious amounts of water to make up for the buckets of sweat constantly running off their bodies. Their main source of nourishment was condensed milk, the Peruvian 'Leche Gloria' brand. The stench from fecal matter, which couldn't be disposed of during the trip, soon became almost unbearable.



Former Drug Smuggler Tells His Story

(via Beyond the Beyond)


(Photo: Luca Zanetti/DER SPIEGEL)






"

Von Braun's Moon Suit

Von Braun's Moon Suit: "


Paleofuture brings us these delightful moon-suit scans from 1960's 'First Men to the Moon' by Wernher von Braun -- [insert wry remark about slave labor and von Braun's design sense here]. [Sorry, I went to the Imperial War Museum's Auschwitz exhibit yesterday and I'm not up to it.]


First Men to the Moon (1960)





"

Mid-Century Architecture for Model Railroading

Former Disney creative guru, Mike Cozart has unveiled the first prototype in his tremendous series of space-age kits for scale model train enthusiasts. The fictitious but authentic 'Aloha Lanes' bowling alley features an A-framed coffee shop and 'Pele Room' cocktail lounge.

Also in the works are 1/8th (HO scale) modern department stores, shopping centers, a movie theater and a car dealership. Mike based his miniature objets d'architecture on real buildings that fascinated him as a kid growing up in San Diego. For me, this is one of the spiffiest new 'gotta-have-its' that I've encountered in a long time. Obviously, one doesn't have to be a Model Railroader to appreciate them.



"

Subterranean Secrets: 10 Tunnels for Smuggling & War

Subterranean Secrets: 10 Tunnels for Smuggling & War: "[ By Steph in Abandoned Places, Architecture & Design, History & Factoids, Travel & Places. ]


Perhaps there’s one beneath you right now: a hidden underground passage, crumbling and half-forgotten or even modern and air-conditioned, actively whisking contraband goods from one hidden entrance to another. Tunnels are found all over the world even in what seems like the unlikeliest of places – like a mountaintop public park in New York, or the Rock of Gibraltar. These 10 passageways are just a small fraction of those built for shadowy operations like smuggling or top-secret military strategies, most of which will literally never see the light of day.


Sophisticated California-Mexico Drug Tunnel



(images via: san diego news net)

While most drug smuggling tunnels are little more than a hole in the ground, this one discovered in November 2010 was surprisingly sophisticated, with lighting, air conditioning and a rope-and-pulley system that pulled untold tons of marijuana from one end to the other. The tunnel stretches the length of six football fields between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico.


Cu Chi Vietnam War Tunnels



(images via: wikipedia)

Imagine being stuck inside dirt-walled tunnels where there’s no escape from poisonous spiders or from the mosquitoes that are giving everyone around you malaria. Life was no picnic for the Viet Cong soldiers who hid in the Cu Chi tunnels during the Vietnam War, but one thing’s for certain: the tunnels were well disguised, the entrances virtually invisible in the dirt and leaves above. In fact, this hidden tunnel system – packed with food, weapons and medical supplies – played a crucial role in the Viet C ong’s successful resistance. Though many were discovered by American troops, they were incredibly dangerous, often rigged with booby traps and bamboo spike pits. The tunnels are now a popular tourist destination and some have been ironically enlarged to accommodate oversized Western visitors.


Canada-U.S. Smuggling Tunnel



(image via: msnbc)

Mexico isn’t the only border where drugs enter the U.S. through secret underground tunnels. In 2005, federal authorities shut down a passageway between Aldergrove, British Columbia in Canada to Lynden, Washington in the U.S. At 360 feet, the tunnel was nowhere near the size of tunnels running between the U.S. and Mexico, but it was just as sophisticated as the aforementioned Tijuana tunnel.


Gaza Smuggling Tunnels



(image via: the telegraph)

Of course, not all smuggling tunnels are made for the transfer of narcotics. Gaza’s infamous tunnels were once a lifeline for Palestinians, bringing in food and religious supplies – even live animals like cows and goats, needed for the traditional holiday slaughter – and are now used to export goods. Built to get around Israel’s economic blockade, the tunnels are naturally used for contraband as well, including weapons, and tunnel collapses are all too common. Egypt recently discovered 13 tunnels leading into the war-torn region, and that’s likely the tip of the iceberg.


Krankenbunker “Breuning” Tunnels, Germany



(image via: opacity.us)

Somewhere in Germany, there remains a World War II-era underground air raid shelter – one of the few that are still accessible so many decades later. But its location is known only to the authorities… and a few urban explorers who aren’t willing to expose it to the public. Referred to by the psuedonym ‘Krankenbunker Breuning’, the tunnels include a partially-built underground hospital that was meant to be a place to treat the wounded, safe from the Allied weapons that destroyed most of the town above the surface.


The Sarajevo Tunnel



(images via: wikimedia commons)

During the Bosnian War, citizens of Sarajevo were cut off from the world, lacking the most basic of supplies for over three years. A tunnel standing barely four and a half feet tall, dug with a pick and shovel and controlled by the Muslim mafia and black marketeers, was the only source of outside food, fuel, newspapers and weapons. A house owned by the Kolar family stands over the entrance of the 20 meters that remain of the tunnel today, and is now a historic landmark and tourist attraction.


18th Century Smuggler Tunnels in England



(images via: the daily mail)

Ten feet below the remains of a medieval castle in Somerset, England, are a series of brick tunnels – but they aren’t nearly as old as the castle. The smuggling tunnels were discovered in 2008 by water engineers performing routine maintenance on underground water pipes, and are believed to have been built around 1720 after a duke purchased the Bridgewater Castle, which was destroyed during a Civil War siege in 1645. The tunnels likely supplied households in the area with illegal and untaxed goods delivered by boats at night.


Camp Bluefields Tweed Tunnels



(image via: kristian20)

In Blauvelt, New York, the remains of a tunnel that was once part of a World War I-era shooting range are today one of the creepiest abandoned sites in the state. The center of a number of urban legends, including rumors of Satanic ritual activity, the Camp Bluefields tunnel and bunker complex – known simply as ‘Tweed’ – is now a dangerous draw for urban explorers due to its dilapidation. The tunnels are said to cover approximately 90 square acres at the top of Clausland Mountain.


World War II Tunnels in the Rock of Gibraltar



(image via: wikimedia commons)

During World War II, a massive complex of tunnels and chambers was built in what seems like the unlikeliest of places: the Rock of Gibraltar. This monolithic landmass, property of the United Kingdom and bordering Spain, played a pivotal role in Allied war strategy and its dark subterranean passages were the operational headquarters for General Eisenhower. The 30-something miles of tunnels, dug with diamond-tipped drills, held 30,000 troops as well as a hospital and power station. Even now, the Rock of Gibraltar has more tunnels than roads.


Battle of Messines Tunnels



(images via: worcester regiment)

If it weren’t for the mines under the village of Messines in Belgium, the First World War might have had an entirely different end. Little did the German forces know that 120 feet beneath their own trenches, the British Corps of Royal Engineers were building tunnels and laying them with 22 mines. The night before the attack, British General Plumer said to his staff, “Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.” And that they did – detonating the mines at 3am, taking out 10,000 German soldiers along with the entire town of Messines in a blast that was heard as far away as Dublin, Ireland. The Messines detonation is now known as history’s deadliest non-nuclear man-made explosion.








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[ WebUrbanist - By Steph in Abandoned Places, Architecture & Design, History & Factoids, Travel & Places. ]








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