The post with 18,000+ pageviews

A "popular" new Papergreat post will get maybe 20 pageviews in its first 24 hours. This blog isn't exactly a buzzing hub of internet activity. So it was to my great surprise last month when I discovered that the quick and silly post Ingredients list found in the parking lot of a Circle K in Florence had thousands of pageviews during its first day. It has now accumulated about 18,400 pageviews.

All of this is because the post was chosen for aggregation by an AI-powered "news" site called Newsbreak, which gathers others' reporting on community news and puts it together in one stream for local readers. 

I imagine that the "found in the parking lot of a Circle K in Florence" portion of the post title is what caught the "eye" of the AI. Because a human being with journalism training would never have selected such a post to aggregate as "breaking news." So let that part be yet another lesson regarding the deep limitations of AI. 

At least Newsbreak states up front: "It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency: Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation."

I'm not sure how many people read that note, though. Newsbreak's readers questioned why it was aggregating an incredibly nonessential post from Papergreat. Some of their comments:

• Why is this news worthy?
• how is this news
• lmao why is this in the news?
• lmfao I cannot believe this made the news!
• Well this source is getting blocked
• why in the f**k is this a news article
• Why is this even a post.
• slow day huh
• why is this news and why did someone actually take the time
• This is news worthy because of what??? I’ll wait for a reasonable answer

Clearly, some of them still don't understand this is what you're going to get when you remove humans from the equation and let a bunch of code try to figure out what's "newsworthy." It just so dumb that we're trying to have AI reinvent a wheel that wasn't broken.

Thomas Baekdal asked in 2024, "Why do news aggregator apps keep failing?" and found that the initial answer is quite simple: 

"We already have all the news aggregators we need. ... Every single national and local newspaper is a news aggregator. It's a publication where the journalists look at millions of different things that have happened in the world over the past 24 hours, and then they have picked out (aggregated) the news stories that they feel you need to see. ... So, newspapers are news aggregators. Which also means that all the news aggregators are just aggregating other news aggregators... and that just doesn't make much sense, neither in terms of audience or business model. ... For some strange reason, many tech entrepreneurs never realized this."

* * *

For what it's worth, all of the interest generated did get some folks to comment on the blog post (not the Newsbreak post) with ideas regarding what all the ingredients were for.

Guesses ranged from "some sort of sweet and spicy marinara sauce using honey" to pork roast with hot honey drizzle to pizza to pork barbecue. It's not clear whether they might have asked an AI chatbot to generate those guesses...

Zacherley's 1960 Transylvania passport for fan club members

This night of a nearly full moon seems like an appropriate one for this post about a parody passport that TV horror host John Zacherle (1918-2016) made available to members of his fan club in 1960. 

Zacherle got his start as host of Philadelphia WCAU-TV's Shock Theater in 1957 (playing a host named "Roland") and after a year or so moved to New York's WABC-TV for Zacherley at Large (they added the Y to the end of his name, and it kind of stuck).

According to an article on Zacherley.com (yes, he still has a fan website): "Zacherley was aggressively merchandised. One of the most fondly remembered souvenirs from that era was the 'Transylvanian Passport' which was available by sending two labels from Strawberry Cocoa Marsh Syrup to the manufacturer." Indeed, the back of my passport states "PRINTED IN THE MOONLIGHT BY COCOA MARSHMEN IN TRANSYLVANIA."

It's most fun on the inside, though. The text begins: "The undersigned CREATURE is hereby granted entrance to the SOVEREIGN STATE OR [sic?] TRANSYLVANIA DURING THE YEAR 1960; the year of the FRANKSTEIN JUBILEE."

The passport holder could check a box to classify themself as a He-Wolf, She-Wolf, Vampire, Mummy, Ghoul and/or Monster.

Then there's a spot to check boxes if the holder has been inoculated for Werewolf Fever, Moon-fright, Coffinitis, Sunrayphilia, Banana Blight, Fur Fullout, Egyptian Itch, Chronic Fangosis and/or Embalmer's Rash.

The "Restrictions" are described as follows: "This PASSPORT is issued by the AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE with the understanding and condition that the BEARER CREATURE will travel only during the hours of DARKNESS and will do no EXCAVATING IN THE STATE GRAVEYARDS after visiting hours. WOLF-CALLING is restricted to nights of the FULL MOON."

The ambassador-at-large is, of course, Zacherley, whose photo and signature appear at the bottom.

There are quite a few books and magazines filled with information about Zacherley. If you're interested in horror hosts in general, a good place to start is Elena M. Watson's Television Horror Movie Hosts: 68 Vampires, Mad Scientists and Other Denizens of the Late-Night Airwaves Examined and Interviewed.

Please share any memories you have of Zacherley (or other horror hosts) in the comments section. I'd love to hear them! 

 

Shades of Clark Ashton Smith

I had the high (only?) bid on this thing at a recent fundraising auction to help folks recover from early autumn flooding in Miami, Arizona, my favorite small town that I've discovered since we moved here in 2021. 

Now the thing sits on my bookshelf. 

It reminds me a little bit of the eerie sculptures of Clark Ashton Smith, which I wrote about in 2017.

Also, I've read enough paranormal short stories and seen enough episodes of "Night Gallery" — not to mention those episodes of "The Brady Bunch" with Hawaii, the tiki idol and Vincent Price — to realize that I'm now cohabitating with a cursed object, and I should probably tread very lightly.

Saboteur (1942, Alfred Hitchcock)

(Apologies to Norman Lloyd)

(P.S.: Spice is 110% fine. She's standing on a shelf.)

Milkwalker knows where you live

I drank from a lot of milk cartons during my K-12 school days in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida (maybe that's why I've never had a broken bone). But I never came across anything as creepy as Milkwalker. 

Indeed, Milkwalker is real. Or, at least, the milk-carton public service campaign by Darigold that featured Milkwalker was real. When I first came across Milkwalker in one of my social media feeds, I figured it was too good to be true. It had to be a clever fake, because it looks too much like something that someone would invent as Slenderman's weird cousin. 

But Know Your Meme has the lowdown:

"Milkwalker, an anthropomorphic milk carton, was originally created by Seattle-based dairy and agricultural co-op Darigold, Inc. [in the mid 1980s] as the mascot of the company and a public service announcement character that encourages children to remember their full name, address and telephone number in case of emergencies. On November 28th, 2016, over three decades after its introduction, various images of the obscure mascot began circulating online after it was highlighted by the Tumblr blog Heck-Yeah-Old-Tech."

I even found this short article in the June 5, 1985, edition of the Whidbey News-Times of Oak Harbor, Washington (click to embiggen):

Some folks embrace Milkwalker and reject the creepypasta angle of it being just another thing to fear. In a Facebook comment in August 2024, Holly Gee wrote: "Yes, the milkwalker definitely looks like a spooky cryptid, but I like the idea of him being a force for good, protecting the innocent by milkwalking all over the wicked from the shadows. He's terrifying, but terrifies only the deserving."

But while Milkwalker seemingly originated with Darigold in the 1980s, how long has it actually been around? Is it, perhaps, ancient? I'll leave you with this curious excerpt from the March 24, 1876, edition of The Stockport Advertiser in Stockport, England. Interpret it as you wish: 

Strath Haven's David Letterman Club

In February 1988, The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story about the coolest club we had at Strath Haven High School in Wallingford, Pa. Yes, indeed, we had a David Letterman Club, in which students gathered after school to watch VHS tapes of his shows on a rolling AV cart.

The Inquirer story was reported and written by Gloria Hoffner¹, with a group photo that was taken by Al Tielemans. I'm way in the back of the photo and clearly in need of a haircut. This wasn't my only appearance in the Inquirer. I was also mentioned numerous times, in conjunction with the Steve Jeltz Fan Club, in Jayson Stark's Baseball Week in Review. And a ridiculous full article about that club, with a photo of me wearing a tie, was published by the Inquirer in, I think, the summer of 1990. I'll have to dig that one up.

Here are some excerpts from Hoffner's article:

• Each Wednesday afternoon, about 20 Strath Haven High School students gather around a TV set in science room 211. But instead of of watching the usual educational-television fare, they watch stupid pet tricks.² Did someone sabotage the videotape? Nope. It's Late Night with David Letterman, and it's no mistake.
• Armed with a fast-forward control button, the club members search past the commercials³ for the meat of the programs. They say their favorites are the animal acts and the sports foul-ups.
• Rick Kosel, a Strath Haven science teacher and the club's adviser, said that "about three or four years ago" Jamie Hooper, a resident of Swarthmore who is now attending Dartmouth, asked if we could have a club to watch taped videos of David Letterman because the show comes on at 12:30 p.m., and he didn't want to stay up that late. "We have a school policy that if a student comes up with a club idea, has 10 interested students and an adviser, then it can be considered an after-school club," Kosel said.
• "When I heard about the David Letterman Club, I thought it was a good idea because there are many students from one-parent homes or from homes where both parents are working, and this was a place they could go while waiting for their bus," [Activities Director Charlotte] Higler said.
• [Higler] said the David Letterman Club costs the district about $200 a year — the cost of Kosel's adviser's salary of $11 per hour. Kosel pays for the tapes, and the school already owned the videotape player.
• "I think it is a good thing because this way the kids who love David Letterman don't stay up until 1 a.m. watching, and it keeps their minds on their homework rather than on TV," Higler said.

That was 37 years ago. In 1993, Letterman left NBC's Late Night with David Letterman and began hosting Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. He retired in May 2015 after more than 4,200 episodes at CBS, including being the first talk show to return after 9/11. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert took over the famed Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan after Letterman retired, and Colbert was still going strong when CBS abruptly announced Thursday that his show will be canceled effective May 2026. There are strong indications that CBS's announcement represent a form of appeasement to the president of the United States, who has long expressed disdain for Colbert. Silencing comedians who poke fun at you is apparently what we do now in our democracy.

Speaking of the president, this is what David Letterman himself had to say about him way back in an interview with The Associated Press published on July 10, 2017:

QUESTION: Speaking of the current administration, late-night seems to have become mostly Trump jokes and tirades. Do you miss not being part of that?

LETTERMAN: "Here's what I keep saying: We know there's something wrong, but what I'm tired of is people, daily, nightly, on all the cable news shows telling us there's something wrong. I just think we ought to direct our resources and our energies to doing something about it. And other people have made this point: If the guy was running Dairy Queen, he'd be gone. This guy couldn't work at The Gap. So why do we have to be victimized by his fecklessness, his ignorance? But it's just the behavior is insulting to Americans, whether you voted for him or not — and I feel bad for people who did vote for him because he promised them things that they really needed and one wonders if he's really going to come through. I know there's trouble in this country, and we need a guy who can fix that trouble. I wish it was Trump, but it's not, so let's just stop whining about what a goon he is and figure out a way to take him aside and put him in a home."

That was eight long years ago. Which paradoxically seems even longer ago than when I was watching Letterman VHS tapes at Strath Haven in 1988.

Related posts

• Sorry "Infinity War," the greatest Avengers crossover was 34 years ago
• 33 years in perspective: It was really all about a monkey washing a cat

Footnotes

1. What a cool story Gloria Hoffner has! Here's an excerpt from her About the Author page on Amazon: "When I was a little girl my dream was to be an astronaut. So in 7th grade I wrote to NASA to ask what I needed to study in high school and college to travel into space. NASA sent me a form letter. It said study Latin and German, the language of scientific papers at the time, to study physics, math etc. Then as I reached the bottom on the page, in blue ink, handwritten, was a note that said, 'Of course we do not accept women into the space program.' It was 1967 and discrimination against women was legal and accepted. So, I turned to my second love, science fiction, and decided I would be the next Jules Verne. I read and wrote stories constantly(asked my teachers, family and friends to read them) and planned my career. I met a science fiction writer in high school and applied to college. I realized that I needed a full time job as I worked towards a career in fiction, so I majored in journalism." That led her to a career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and later she published the award-winning book Science for Seniors: Hands-On Learning Activities.

2. Some "Stupid Pet Tricks" trivia from Wikipedia: "When Letterman left [for CBS], NBC asserted their intellectual property rights to several of the most popular Late Night segments. ... Notably, however, 'Stupid Pet Tricks' originated on Letterman's 1980 early morning show The David Letterman Show, to which Letterman, not NBC, owned the rights. This meant 'Stupid Pet Tricks' was able to cross over to the CBS show with its name and concept unchanged."

3. Nowadays those commercials would make those VHS tapes (if they still exist) pure gold. VHS tapes are making quite the comeback, as I plan to delve into later this summer. But even more valuable and collectible than certain commercial VHS tapes are home recordings of shows, movies and live sporting events onto blank tapes. They can contain commercials, news broadcasts, bumpers and other content that would otherwise be long lost. If you have these from the 1980s or 1990s, they usually sell for a decent price on eBay.

One orange cat to beam up, Scotty

Merry Christmas Eve from Bandit, who likes to stand 

right in front of the Christmas laser lights. 

He's not helping with the perception that orange male cats have a few loose bulbs in their string of lights, 

if you know what I mean.

Saturday's postcard: Cat luchadores

This awesome-sauce postcard arrived this week from penpal Cynthia in Mexico. The Larenn Syanne illustration shows lucha libre (Mexican pro wrestling), but with cats as the luchadores and the spectators. It's quite the free-for-all taking place in the ring. "It's a really fun activity," Cynthia writes of the human version of lucha libre. "You choose a team and scream to support."

As a member of Gen X, I grew up during peak WWE and Wrestlemania. But, with a few exceptions, I mostly left that behind years and years ago. The fact that the co-founder of WWE could soon lead the U.S. Department of Education, which may subsequently be dismantled, is more than a little sobering.

The most famous luchador of all time is Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta (1917-1984), best known as El Santo. The thing I find most interesting about him is that, at the height of his popularity, he made a long series of movies (more than 50!) featuring El Santo as essentially a crimefighter/superhero. The English version of their titles tell you what kind of films they were. Some of the best titles:

• Santo vs. the Evil Brain
• Santo vs. the Zombies
• Santo vs. The Vampire Women
• Santo in the Wax Museum
• Santo in The Witches Attack
• Santo vs. the Martian Invasion
• Santo in The Treasure of Dracula
• Santo in The Mystery of the Black Pearl
• Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolf Man
• Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein
• Santo in The Bermuda Mystery

As a movie buff, I feel an obligation to track down and watch at least one of these some day. We'll have to see if El Santo can live up to Rowdy Roddy Piper's performance in They Live. I'll have to do some research and figure out which El Santo movie would be best. Feel free to make a suggestion in the comments section.

As a final note, Cynthia's postcard was mailed with this very cool Día de Muertos stamp:

Note: This is Papergreat's 3,700th post. At my current posting rate, I won't hit 4,000 until early 2028.

The terror of AI image generation

Deep into the spooky season of Mild Fear 2024 seems like a good time to check in with one of this year's most existential horrors: artificial intelligence. It's fairly certain at this point that AI will lead directly to the the doom of civilization, if not the entire Earth. But while we passively wait for the apocalypse — whether it's from economic collapse spurred by AI, autonomous AI warfare or simply the AI servers swallowing up every available joule of energy on the planet — we can also just sit back and do stupid things with AI.

I asked AI, for example, to generate images of me writing a Papergreat post. So here they are:

My cats and I have no further comment. 

The "magical" world of early 1970s interior decorating

I came across the 1970 book Better Homes and Gardens Creative Decorating on a Budget a while back at a Goodwill store and knew that it contained vast horrifying treasures inside that would be worth sharing here. The late 1960s and 1970s were indeed an, ahem, magical time when it came to interior decorating, and most of that "style" was still around, albeit in grungier and smelling-of-smoke form, when my generation was growing up in the early 1980s.

Weirdly, when I search Google now, I mostly find articles that say 1970s interior decor was unfairly maligned and/or is making a well-deserved comeback. It's kind of crazy. I think most of this must be coming from hip younger folks who didn't live through the era in their parents' and grandparents' houses. 

James Lileks had it right with his 2004 book Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s. (There's also a valuable website documenting the horrors to go along with it.)¹ 

Without further ado, here are some images from Better Homes and Gardens Creative Decorating on a Budget. Prepare to be triggered.

Leading off with a daily double: 

What if the entire room were green?

I'm not sure this in an upgrade from the green rooms

Wood paneling, a jaguar pattern and Snoopy

I have so many questions. Let's start with the rugs. That little statue. And the chair that looks like it would be at home in "The Changeling."

At least the TV isn't the center of the room

We are not discussing the thing hanging on the wall²

"Butt joints and glue" sounds right

That's one way to establish a maritime theme

We're sitting on WHAT to eat our watermelon?

The infamous beaded divider curtain

Finally, we're not finished until we show a bathroom with a carpeted toilet cover

Footnotes

1. James Lileks was previously mentioned in the 2019 post "Matchbook: Hartwig's The Gobbler Supper Club & Gobbler Motel."

2. And we are definitely not revisiting this clown painting on the wall.

Today's silly thing I made

Many mornings, neighborhood feral cat Creamsicle (aka Creamball Rally) gets into our fire pit and attempts to hide so that he can stalk the birds that feed near the pit. He gets cranky when I blow his cover. It reminds me of Sadako/Samara coming out of the well for vengeance in Ringu/The Ring. Just an amusing image that I thought would be fun to share. (P.S: Nothing about Creamsicle is remotely spooky.)

Book cover: "Will Eisner's Gleeful Guide to Occult Cookery"

Here's a curiosity from the wild and wacky 1970s. Between this and the Lovely post, you might think things are getting too racy here on Papergreat. But it's just a coincidence. I'm doing my best to keep it a PG-13 blog.

• Title: Will Eisner's Gleeful Guide to Occult Cookery
• Subtitle: The Saucerer's Apprentice (the first of many, many puns to groan at)
• Additional cover text: "Brimful with tasty, enchanting recipes anyone can make in any average modern kitchen — each carefully selected to be used in casting spells, leveling curses and causing supernatural results in money and sexual affairs!"
• Author and illustrator: Will Eisner (1917-2005), previously featured in a post regarding Will Eisner's Spirit Casebook Of True Haunted Houses And Ghosts.
• Editor: Ivan Klapper
• Recipes by: Judy Mann
• Dimensions: 8½ inches by 11 inches
• Publication date: 1974
• Publisher: Poorhouse Press. According to the Lambiek Comiclopedia, the other books Eisner did with Poorhouse Press in the mid 1970s included The Gleeful Guide to Communicating with Plants to Help Them Grow; Incredible Facts, Amazing Statistics, Monumental Trivia; Living With Astrology; and How To Avoid Death & Taxes ... and Live Forever.
• Format: Paperback
• Original publication: January 1969, by Doubleday & Company
• Pages: 64
• Cover price: $1.95
• Excerpt from the introduction: "OCCULT COOKERY is designed for the middle-of-the-road citizen who has never consciously compounded a curse or cast a spell ... but would like to know how. If you've ever suspected that a strange psychic force was toying with your fate, or yearned to possess the extraordinary power to alter the lives of friends and foes, this book is for YOU! OCCULT COOKERY is dedicated to the adventurous soul who would like to manipulate others. For good or evil. The anem of this magical force is WITCHCRAFT. You've heard of it, of course. But have you ever really believed it existed? ... Much help in this eerie enterprise was supplied by Judith Mann, a young sauceress and a no-nonsense professional caterer. She furnished all the recipes, which have been scrupulously tested for practicality."
• Recipe names: These names, paired with Eisner's illustrations, are the best part of the book. Here's a large sampling: Bookie Bouillon, Miserable Mulligatawny, Adultery Ghoulash, Pox Meat Loaf, Wrack of Lamb, Drop-Dead Duck, Swamp-Bottom Lobster, Evil-Eye Eel, Toad Stool Flounder, Amorous Beef Stroganoff, Intercourse Pheasant, Grapes of Wraith Salad, Forbidden Zucchini, Fornication Fondue, Lust or Bust Soufflé, Gnome Cake, Inhuman Burgers 'n' Beans, Shrimp Psych-Out, Orgasmic Tidbittys, Cream Obscene, Ghastly Cake, Noodle Nut Necromancy, Chicken Caligula, Rigid Cheese Digits, Agony Niblets, Salmon Succubus, Lost Sole Fillets (groan), ESP Tea, Dracula Toddy and Warlock Wine. 
• Trigger warnings: The book is absolutely a product of its time, containing some offensive material and often using references to sexual assault for "humor."
• Cranky Amazon review: In 2015, Maine Rose wrote: "Not amusing, not interesting, not a good read — nothing."
• More forgiving Amazon review: In 2019, Oldman437 wrote: "The chapter titles are cute, like 'Magic Charms' or 'Terrible Curses' with recipes for Adultery Ghoulash and Drop-Dead Duck. This book was published in the early '70s, so some of the ingredients are no longer fashionable (e.g. real butter, vermouth, etc.), but each recipe we made was delicious — and that's how I judge a cookbook."

Recipes!

Here are two pages from the book, complete with their recipes, followed by a couple more recipes.

 

Fornication Fondue

(which surprises me, because it's a non-cheese fondue)

• 3 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup onions, sliced thinly
• 4 tomatoes, peeled and cut in eighths
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons parsley, minced

Melt butter in a saucepan; saute onions until transparent. Stir in tomatoes, salt, pepper and garlic. Cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Noodle Nut Necromancy

• 2 lb. broad noodles, cooked and drained
• 1 pint sour cream
• 4 tablespoons grated lemon rind
• 4 tablespoons grated orange rind
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups toasted almonds
• 1 cup white raisins, plumped in hot water
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

Separate noodes with a fork; add sour cream, grated lemon and orange rinds, sguar, almonds and raisins. Blend well with a wooden spoon, being careful not to mash noodles. turn into a serving casserole and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Serve.

Spacing out with Brad Steiger in Switzerland

While researching the post about Brad Steiger's Strangers from the Skies last summer, I came across a Goodreads review for another one Steiger's books that made me laugh.

The reviewer, Documentally, was writing in 2022 about Steiger's Mysteries of Time and Space, which was first published in 1974. He wrote:

"I picked this up off a shelf in a Swiss mountain hut while working as a Pastore in 1999. According to my journal it was 20th of July and I read it in one sitting. The cows were behaving and there was little else to do.

"It sounded like I enjoyed it. I loved Brad's daring predictions from 1974. I especially liked his writings on how important it is to be childlike and not childish. That it's important to realise you can fashion reality.

"I was also pretty stoned on that particular day and this might have assisted in my appreciation of his book. For that reason I have given it 4 stars."

Documentally has a Substack, if you want to check out more of his writing. It's described as "A human authored journal in search of novelty, exploring what we share, how we share, and where we’re going." Sounds like it shares a lot in common with Papergreat, with the big difference being that I rarely leave home anymore. Also, I'm more of a saké guy.

Lost Corners food humor and a recipe from a Vincent Price book

As regular reader(s) of this blog know, Papergreat has a strong interest in preserving tiny corners of the internet — personal blogs and websites, message boards, social media — that are especially susceptible to disappearing and/or being forgotten. The Lost Corners label features those posts from over the years.

I recently came across a Twitter thread from four years ago that was started by comedy writer Cullen Crawford¹, and I knew I wanted to "tuck it away in an envelope" for preservation. It's a laugh-out-loud look at food horrors that left at least two of us in this household ROTFL.

Here's the original post, plus my curation of the best (most horrifying?) responses, where things really get rollicking.

 

Nothing worse than sleeping at a friend's house and their family has some weird ass thing like calling spaghetti "Billy Dinner" or some shit

— Cullen Crawford (@HelloCullen) May 14, 2019

• @karakabangpow: "Sleepover at my friend's house, 8 years old, she served us an appetizer of saltine crackers with some weird spread on top. I asked her what it was she said 'its more crackers but I chewed them up!' like it was a normal thing."
• Cullen Crawford: "Jesus lord!"
• @karakabangpow: "I forgot she called them Kelly Crackers!!"
• @RecreantA: "That’s enough internet for one...lifetime."
• @MaraWilson: "My aunts made macaroni from a box of macaroni and cheese but without any cheese or butter or salt. It might have also been cold?"
• @Arithered: "Other People's Families are like the first experiences we ever have with the warning signs of cult indoctrination."
• @snartdeco: "I knew someone whose entire family called spaghetti 'daddy noodles' and I cannot"
• @alexvtunzelmann: "I’ve never forgotten some absolute lunatics who claimed that in their household they put orange juice on their breakfast cereal instead of milk. I assumed they were joking. Then they did it and lapped it up"
• @SocksUnterShoes: "Reminds me of my cousin. Always went to this friends house after school. They had something called 'sweet milk' and he loved it. Then he slept over. Sweet Milk is when you finish your cereal and pour your leftover milk into the Sweet Milk container."
• @mimva: "SCREAMING INSIDE MY SOUL FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. I CAN NEVER UNREAD THIS."
• @mtobey: "It was always something normal that was ruined by an extra ingredient like spaghetti with raisins"
• @Blarrknulp: "This tweet has opened up a secret door in humanity's unconsciousness."
• @EricDSnider: "I don't think we ever inflicted it on guests, but my mom made something with macaroni, cream of mushroom soup, and ground beef that she called 'Hamburger Whoop-Dee-Dee.'"²
• @LynnAAR: "I had a college roommate who made soup with chicken broth, a ton of pepper and a can of spray cheese.  Sometimes she'd throw in chopped celery."
• @HELLA_GIRTH: "my idea of spaghetti as a kid was plain noodles covered in a mixture of melted velveeta block cheese and milk, with chopped-up hot dogs"
• @AdamPateman: "My family would eat cereal 3 hours after dinner and call it Bed Lunch."
• @Gadgetgirlkylie: "My dad would make something he liked to call 'Daddy’s Gunge' it was a mixture of crushed up spam and tomatoe ketchup. It was gross. Yet he seemed proud of it like it was the best food ever made."
• @emikaj2: "my dad made 'Dad Ramen' which was ramen, black beans, and feta cheese. 2nd grade was a nightmare."
• @pixelkitties: "Went to have dinner with a new boyfriend's family for the first time.  Sat down and there was nothing to drink at the table.  No glasses, no water, nothing. Partway into the meal I asked for a glass of water and they looked annoyed, like I farted at the table."³
• @emzeewoolzee: "This cursed thread made me recall a repressed memory. Must have been 8-10 yrs old...first and only sleepover at strange friend’s house. They gave me honeydew melon with kraft singles melted on top in the microwave. oh god."
• @HoustonBig3: "First time I ate a meal with girlfriend and her parents, they crack out an appetizer and I thought it was a joke. A banana sliced lengthwise...with mayo slathered on it...and the mayo topped with crushed peanuts. They were not pranking me. I respectfully declined to partake."
• Cullen Crawford: "I didn’t ask for any of this"

* * *

OK, we need a palate cleanser, after all that. So, obviously, we'll turn to Vincent Price. It's my 10-year anniversary this month of switching to a pescetarian diet, so here's a summer recipe for ice-cold gazpacho from Sobrino de Botín in Madrid, Spain. The recipe was included in Price's 1965 book A Treasury of Great Recipes. (I'm going to take a much deeper dive into that incredible volume one of these days.)

Vincent Price at Dodger Stadium

Footnotes

1. Papergreat is in full solidarity with the Writers Guild of America in its ongoing strike. Writers deserve fair payment and fair residuals payments for all uses of their work.

2. We had "Mommy's Favorite Hamburger Hash," which, to the best of my recollection, was ground beef, cream of mushroom soup and chopped-up hard-boiled eggs poured over toast.

3. That same thing happened to me once, and it's probably my only uncomfortable experience while eating at someone else's house. I guess I was pretty lucky. But now I'm wondering if I really examined all the crackers and spread I've had over the years.

Bonkers book title: "Garlic, Grapes and a Pinch of Heroin"

• Title: Garlic, Grapes and a Pinch of Heroin
• Cover secondary text: "Disappearing heroin and a missing brother ... can she prove his innocence and stay alive?"
• Author: Elaine Turner, about whom I cannot find any biographical information. Contact me if you can help out!
• Cover illustrator: Unknown, but we can assume the artist knew very little about the plot or actual genre.
• Publication date: 1977
• Publisher: Manor Books, which was in business for about a decade, from 1972 to 1981. As Wikipedia notes, "A marketing gimmick used by Manor was the Seal of Guaranteed Reader Satisfaction, which offered compensation if the customer was not pleased with his purchase." This book, however, does not offer that guarantee.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 226
• Cover price: $1.50 (about $7.44 today)
• Strange hyphenation in back cover blurb: "hi-jacker"
• First sentence: Wisps of fog danced, slowly encircling the evergreens.
• Last sentence: "I don't think we have to worry about his answer, but whatever it is, not much, not much at all."
• Sentence from the middle #1: Her detecting had produced a big fat zero.
• Sentence from the middle #2: Violet's formidable array of cosmetics were arranged on the dresser, a magazine lay on the slightly mussed bed.
• Excerpt from the middle #3: "Well, howdy, it's sure been good to see ya'all. The tour's been mighty dull without you," Bernie boomed.
• Online review: This book is rated 3.33 stars (out of 5) on Goodreads and there are no ratings on Amazon. But there's only one actual review online, and it served as the inspiration for this post. The review is by Justin Tate of SpookyBook, and it begins: 

"Let’s take a moment to admire that title. Wow. I mean, if that doesn’t catch the eye, what will? Of course the cover is less appealing. It has all the ingredients of Gothic standard, but on an eighth-grade art class budget. Nevermind that the novel itself is 0% Gothic."

Please go and read the entire excellent review. Other books reviewed by SpookyBooky include Lord Satan, The Ladies of Holderness, The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories, and the wonderfully titled Let the Crags Comb Out Her Dainty Hair. In addition, Tate wrote wrote a journal in the first half of 2020 that combines thoughts on the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with a first reading of Stephen King's The Stand. It's well worth reading and an important time capsule of a moment in history.

Varmint-enhanced eBay listing of the day

It takes some true chutzpah to list this copy of The Haunted House Handbook on eBay for $11.98 plus $4.50 shipping. At least there's full honesty in the description: "Front cover shows considerable varmint damage to top, side & lower edges -- otherwise this copy would have been graded as Good Minus, with wear & chipping to edges & corners, plus creases, scratches,folds, indentations, small tears, rub-wear, browning pages, soiling, etc -- OVERALL CONDITION = Fair"

"Fair" might be pushing it.

The Haunted House Handbook, by D. Scott Rogo (1950-1990) was published in 1978, and it's moderately sought-after by folks who collect that genre. Good copies aren't cheap, but a quick search found some nice ones on Amazon, eBay and AbeBooks in the $25 range. And there were also a few paperbacks in the $10 range that could definitely be considered ragged — but far less ragged than this mouse-eaten one.

But who knows? Maybe collecting chewed-up or weirdly battered paperbacks is a hobby for some collectors. They can have their unique charm, I reckon, though I don't think I'd pay the $16.48 (plus tax) in this instance to be able to hold this one and call it my own.

I've certainly stumbled upon some books at the end of their usable lives over the years, including Mystery of the Third Mine and a volume from an 1882 encyclopedia set. Crucially, I paid a combined 25 cents for the two of them. And I no longer have them — I'm not one of the Collyer brothers! I do, however, still have the "Best. Book. Ever." that I detailed in 2015.

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The cats of Papergreat join the Barbie movie meme fun

I'm a sucker for a fun and easy-to-use meme-making tool. So I joined the fun this past week and made these movie posters with the Barbie Selfie Generator that's an ingenious part of the marketing for Greta Gerwig's upcoming film.

Enjoy!