Insidious Round About Book Banning

Vintage children's books -- vintage being anything printed before 1985 -- are now illegal. You can't sell them, Goodwills and libraries, etc. are urged to remove these books from their shelves, and sellers of vintage books, on-line and not, are also urged to stop selling their books.

Some places have gone so far as to burn these books, others have put them in storage, and others, in acts of civil disobedience, ignore this new law. (The law was passed in January of this year.) Others however are paranoid and have stopped dealing with vintage books altogether. There seems to be a loophole; that you can deal in the children's books as long as they're listed as collectibles and sold to collectors -- adult collectors -- of children's vintage literature.

The reason for this law? Lead. The U.S. government has decided that the lead content in printer's ink used before the 1980s (though they admit they're not sure exactly when) is dangerous to children, even though there's been no documented cases of lead poisoning concerning books and children.


This is a weirdly under-reported story. For more see my item on my blog Octopus Confessional, which has many links to sources about this story.

I plan to keep reporting on this; for example, I'm curious how many people are aware of this law, what the local schools, libraries and booksellers are doing, and so on.

Tarot, Maxi Pads, and Animal Sacrifice

Richelle Hawks has a great piece on commercials and advertising, on Binnall of America in her Medusa's Ladder column:Strange Days, Indeed: Notes on Identity and the Super Bowl Commercials And when I read this I just had to find out more:

"I found a magazine ad of an Always maxipad slapped on a tarot card."

If that isn't esoterica I don't know what is. It's teeming with esoteric symbolism.

I found the image; it appears on The Tarot Channel blog. Of course there isn't really a Tarot card called "The Protector" but here's what Tarot Channel says about the number II assigned to the ad card:

I'm thinking that the ad creators had to have some knowledge of Tarot because "The Protector" is assigned Roman numeral II, The High Priestess (who is, of course, associated with the moon).

And in a bit of synchronicity, my Trickster's Realm column for Binnall of America is also about commercials and advertising. Conspiracies and Cannibalism: Animals and Advertising.I didn't know Richelle's column was about commercials until she told me the other day; after I had been working on mine. I avoided reading her column until I sent mine off to Tim Binnall.

Richelle's is up now, mine will be up sometime tomorrow. And be sure to read all the great columns over there as well.

Esoterica: Not Just the Weird, But the Face . . .

It's also face cream, to fade away those "liver" spots on the body. All those age spots that mar the flawless skin you know.


She looks like she's been using both face cream, as well as being weirdly esoteric. . .


We don't know if she uses esoterica face cream or not, but she's doing something for her face. Maybe it has nothing to do with the face at all, and is some kind of vintage Alien Communication Device.