Behold what is perhaps the most perplexing comic book cover of all time. In 1971, when Jack “King” Kirby left Marvel for DC Comics, he took over the Jimmy Olsen (“Superman’s Pal”) title. It’s hard to imagine a more dull comic franchise for the co-creator of Spider-man and the Fantastic Four to be assigned, but the story was that Kirby didn’t want to take anyone’s job when he arrived at DC, so Jimmy Olsen is what he got. And then he promptly turned it inside out, as should be obvious from this preposterous cover featuring, uh… Don Rickles??? That’s right HOCKEY PUCK, Don Rickles, who in this (and one more issue) is seen fighting off his alternate world doppelganger, “Goody Rickels.”

So weird. I mean, why Don Rickles and not… like Bob Newhart or Shelly Berman???

 
Dangerous Minds couldn’t think of a better 111th birthday salute to the Hitch than to review his far-too-short dream-sequence collaboration in Spellbound with the clown-prince of surrealism, Salvador Dali.

Rachel Campbell-Johnson wrote in detail about the team-up for the Times Online, and Joel Gunz at Alfred Hitchcock Geek went into Hitch’s affinity with surrealism.

 
Get: Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound [DVD]

 
Just wondering…

(via The WOW Report)

Soothe me with your caress
Sweet marijuana… marijuana…
Help me in my distress
Sweet marijuana… please do…

You alone can bring my lover back to me
Even though I know it’s all a fantasy

And then put me to sleep
Sweet marijuana… marijuana…

Sweet Marijuana from the 1934 film ‘Murder At The Vanites’, pre-Hays code.
 

 
Thanks Missy Büttner !

 
70 years before Lady Gaga, there was Carmen Miranda. In this wild and wonderful clip form The Gangs All Here, Carmen sings her signature tune ‘The Lady In The Tutti Frutti Hat’.

The Gangs All Here was made in 1943 and was Busby Berkeley’s first color film and, like in all of his films, he held nothing back. The colors, choreography and Carmen Miranda all come together in a surreal spectacle. Wow!
 

 
The seemingly borderless nature of our digital age renders bizarre the idea of nationalized walls separating people. Current items like the Israeli West Bank “security” barrier and the demand for a wall on the entire Mexican border just seem absurd and brutal.

Those were walls that kept people out. Today marks the 49th anniversary of a wall that kept people in and fired the imaginations of artists like Pink Floyd, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols.

In an effort to stave off “fascist” influence from the West, German Democratic Republic General Secretary Walter Ulbricht closed the border between the Western and Soviet sectors with barbed wire and fences, on order from Nikita Khrushchev. It soon became the symbol of national alienation.

Below are two of the most fascinating pieces of media about the Berlin Wall that I’ve found. Walter de Hoog’s The Wall was produced by the United States Information Agency, the global propaganda arm started by the Eisenhower administration in 1953. Strangely, the USIA was prohibited to screen their films to the American public, so this stark, immediate and emotive piece wasn’t released here until 1990.
 

 
After the jump: Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker’s remarkable narrated slide show of his 40 years covering the Wall…
 

 
Attention good people of Los Angeles, this weekend marks the opening of David Yow’s solo art exhibit. Yow, best known as the front man for confrontational noise-meisters, The Jesus Lizard (and before that, Scratch Acid) will be showing at the DIY Gallery, 1549 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026. You can see an online selection of his paintings and digital work at his website. I love this one.
 

 
Ultra-creepy flesh furniture sculptures by Jessica Harrison. Jessica, was this really necessary? Ack!
 
See more fleshy-furniture-madness after the jump…

 
1981 was a dark time. Lennon had just been murdered and Reagan was freshly inaugurated. Thinking people all around the world were horrified that this clownish ignoramus had come to power and generations to come will be dealing with the ramifications of “Reaganomics”. I do remember this LP, released in the early 80’s, as being a therapeutic slice of gallows humor, though. Released by the wonderful Stiff Records label offshoot Magic Records,The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan is a blank record. It also sold 30,000 copies !