The picture doesn't do it justice but this string art mandala that I recently scored is really gorgeous. Plus, it has some cool history. When I saw it at the thrift store, it was just sitting on the floor. I immediately picked it up and flipped it over. That's when I saw this letter:

(Notice that it's addressed to "Rus," and that my name is Rusty!)

And this handwritten note by the artist:

I didn't recognize the artist's name and don't know much about string art but I liked the piece (and that terrific logo!), so I took it home. I soon discovered that the artist, John Eichinger, is the person who kicked off the string art fad in the late sixties with his String Mandalas. I also learned that he later designed patterns for mass-produced string art hobby kits.

String of the Art:

A popular hobby kit distributor at the time, Open Door Enterprises, first marketed his string art kits in the late 1960s. This is noted as one of the first times everyday people took interest in string art. It became widely popular in the 1970s with an uncountable amount of U.S. homes boasting home-made string art on their walls.

This was a real thrift score for me. I got this original Eichinger mandala for just $6.99.

Here's a closer look at the piece's details:

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Not sure what Yankee Stadium food vendors wear now but, apparently, sometime in the late sixties or early seventies they donned this far out, font-heavy number. Baseball photo historian Baseball by Bsmile shared this recently on Twitter and points out that the shirt was designed with ketchup/catsup and mustard colors.

A 2008 Uni-Watch (a site that follows sports teams aesthetics) article shares:

...Reader Paul Wiederecht has provided a wealth of interesting background info...

I saw that vendor’s shirt used from 1968-72 at games I attended. Sorry, no pics, but I think I may be able to shed some light on the shirt’s design history.

Much of the Yankees’ look during the team’s CBS ownership era can be attributed to Lou Dorfsman, who was CBS’s creative director for more than 25 years. Except for the eye logo, which was the inspiration of his predecessor, William Golden, Dorfsman was responsible for CBS’s corporate and on-air look. His contribution to graphic/interior and set/broadcast/advertising design is legendary, he set the high standard that artists like me have trying to measure up to our whole careers.

Anyway, back to the shirt: If you look here, you’ll see an example of the three-dimensional wall treatment in the CBS employee cafeteria, which was executed by Herb Lubalin (a typographer of note in his own right). You will see many design similarities [between the wall treatment and the vendor’s uniform], and similar design treatments can been seen in many Yankees publications from that era. I would not be surprised if Dorfsman used Lubalin’s design studio for many Yankees projects, possibly even this shirt.

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It's cool just seeing these images of the original Santa and Rudolph puppets from Rankin/Bass' 1964 TV perennial classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. They're so iconic, so familiar, even if that Santa was a real jerk.

It's exciting to dream about owning them. I mean, you could own them, as they've been put up for sale on eBay recently. But, what's not cool or exciting is that they are listed for TEN MILLION DOLLARS.

Now before you whip out your checkbook, put down the crack pipe and take note of how small they are. Both of them fit comfortably in a briefcase:

Also keep this 2006 Antiques Roadshow story and estimate in mind:

The man who brought them in said he got them from his aunt, who worked at Rankin/Bass in the 1970s. She bought these two puppets from the company, as well as other ones from the Rudolph production, including Yukon Cornelius and Hermey, the elf who wants to grow up to be a dentist. (She also had bought the other characters, such as Sam the Snowman, played by Burl Ives, but they "got melted in our attic," the owner explained.)

Judging by what he saw of Rudolph and Santa, Lipman was convinced that these two dolls were the original production puppets, not replicas merchandised later. "You can tell by the way they were constructed," he says, noting that they were built of wood, cloth, and plastic. "These were hand-made. They weren't toys. They had mechanisms to make them move, to make them come alive almost.

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We are thrilled to announce that our friend Coop, famous rock poster illustrator and fine artist, is joining us at our Weekend of Wonder extravaganza, September 18-20 in Riverside, California.

Some users gave it the acronym CADET: "Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try."

[Boing Boing Video Link.]

"The Source Family" a documentary by Boing Boing pal Jodi Wille and Maria Demopoulos, tells the story of Father Yod and his Source Family, a radical, utopian social experiment that emerged from the Los Angeles freak scene in the 1970s. You can download it on Amazon or iTunes, and it's a terrific film.

Isis Aquarian, one of the Source Family members featured in that documentary, sat down with Boing Boing at her home on the island of Oahu to share a special artifact from the Source Family treasure chest. It is the "Birth Rope," a handmade rope on to which were tied the names of each child born into the flower child cult—including Isis' own daughter Saturna.

In our video above, Isis references a mugshot of her. It was taken by Hawaii police when she was arrested for not turning over a fellow Source Family member's body to authorities when he died. The group believed in natural ceremonies for both births and deaths. That police photograph is below. Read the rest

Left to right: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin, the crew of Apollo 11. Photo: NASA.

On this day in 1969, humans walked on the moon for the first time. The Apollo 11 spaceflight brought Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC.

Michael Collins, the mission's third member, remained in lunar orbit. All three men returned safely to Earth after an 8-day mission that began with a Saturn V rocket launch from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida on July 16.

This was the fifth manned mission of NASA's Apollo program, which ran from 1963 to 1972 and included 6 missions that landed on the moon. These were the first and last times human beings set foot on another world. Read the rest

LIFE.com has a beautiful gallery of Michael Rougier photographs from Japan in 1964: runaways, rock and rollers, biker gangs, "pill kids" and other Japanese teens. LIFE Magazine published some of these in September, 1964, but some have never before been published.

Above, the original caption from 1964: "Kako, languid from sleeping pills she takes, is lost in a world of her own in a jazz shop in Tokyo." Read the rest

Image Link. Boing Boing reader MewDeep, who has an awesome Flickr stream of '60s-'70s ad scans, points to this YouTube clip of a notable television commercial from 1968: it's a promo for the Peace Corps, set to "Age of Aquarius." As MewDeep excerpts here, the ad is mentioned in The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, by Thomas Frank. Read the rest

Dress in your best 1960s attire for a grand-opening party this Saturday at the Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site on the UCLA campus. The site is like Colonial Williamsburg for nerds (or is that redundant?), with a historical reconstruction of the lab where the Internet was born in 1969. The party starts at 1:00 pm. There will be drinks, snacks, and Internet pioneers to gawk at. They are not joking about the period costumes. Read the rest