Startling Lady of Gore

Hey man what the fuck

Child dressed as a superhero. Wearing shorts over his mums tights, a big S pinned to his jersey, a cape made out of a curtain, and a domino mask.

Child in fancy dress, undated (1960s?).
Ref 2407/2643/324484, Hawkes Bay Knowledge Bank.

Nine people in sort of camo pyjamas wearing giant papier mache heads. One is Mickey Mouse. The others might be other pop culture figures from 93 years ago, who is to say. Black and white.

Napier Mardi Gras, 1933. Photograph by Alexander Lavery.
Ref 656303, Hawkes Bay Knowledge Bank.

A man dressed as a clown wheeling a barrow. He is looking out of a mask made to look like an extremely long clown neck, with a clown head on top.

The most normal man in the Wairarapa.
Carterton Centennial Parade, 1957.
Ref 20-143/29, Wairarapa Archive.

A person in a multicoloured horned mask shrugs elaborately at the camera.

A Touch of the Sun, between 1967-1997.
Ref 311-13, Wellington City Council Archives.

Man in rubber mask and checked suit. Im not sure how much is costume and how much is the way people dressed in 1957 honestly.

Man in costume in Carterton Centennial Parade, 1957.
Ref 20-143/26, Masterton District Library.

Purim commemorates the deliverance of Persian Jewry from the annihilation planned by the king's vizier, Haman, in the 5th century BCE. His plot was foiled by the Persian queen, Esther, who was Jewish, and by her uncle, Mordecai. The story, told in the biblical Book of Esther, is recorded in scroll form. On Purim, during the reading of the Scroll of Esther in the synagogue, it is customary to rattle noisemakers or groggers, whenever the hated villain, Haman, is mentioned. Jewish tradition often links past and contemporary oppressors of the Jewish people, as seen in this grogger that associates Adolf Hitler with Haman.

A gragger from Poland, 1933. The hammer makes a noise when it strikes either Haman or Hitler.
Ref M 424
The Jewish Museum (United States)

A sweet bread called ‘Haman’s Eyes’

Haman’s fingers, a Moroccan Jewish dish

Image of Caveos de Aman, or ‘Haman’s hair’. It’s noodles with eggs and olives.

This Purim, think sustainably and eat your whole Haman, not just the ears!

It's the Purim story, you know the Purim story. I will point out that everyone is smiling, even Haman on the gallows.

A Purim wall hanging stitched by Sarah Eydl Weisberg, late 19th century. The expressions on everyone's faces make me think they already don't know Mordechai from Haman.
Ref S1337, The Jewish Museum (United States)

Gorgeous cup and saucer!

Checking on 1 day old #kakapo chick Waa-A3-2026 in Waa's nest on Pukenui/Anchor Island. We check the chicks twice in the first 4 days, and then less frequently as they get older. #kakapo2026 #conservation #parrots

The phrase “preemptive strike” is as insulting as when we were sold “humanitarian pauses” in the middle of a live-streamed genocide. The powerful looking you straight in the face and telling you your common sense simply doesn’t matter.

Lmao

I’m listening to the YWA episode on one now and did you know that most people protesting the Vietnam War and institutional racism in America were secretly Satanists?

Showing a soldier peeling onions wearing a gas mask, black and white.

Alert! Gas masks for onion attack!

Auckland Weekly News, 22 August 1918.

May it be speedily and in our time.

Headline: 'They all called me Ol' Seaweed' I found 1970 a long tough year and at the end of it I was showing signs of wear.

New Zealand Herald
30th January, 1971

shows four children carrying out kerb drill with the help of an adult. A GIANT EYE WATCHES AND JUDGES.

"When crossing the road, halt at the kerb; then EYES RIGHT, EYES LEFT, QUICK MARCH."
New Zealand Transport Department, ca. 1945.
If children didn't cross the road correctly, they were instantly vaporised by the TRAFFIC SAFETY EYEBEAMS.
Eph-A-SAFETY-Road-1945-01
National Library of New Zealand.

ponges glue themselves extremely firmly to rocks, so a male dolphin sporting one on his head might show a potential mate that he is strong — at least strong enough to pry a sponge off the bottom of the ocean. So — does it work? Do the ladies love it? To paraphrase Queen of Country Pop Shania Twain, it don't impress them much. Simon Allen, a dolphin researcher now at the University of Bristol who co-authored a study about the behaviour, told the ABC in 2017 that females tend to ignore the males' display. "And on a couple of occasions we've witnessed the males, perhaps in frustration, toss the sponge at the female. "So essentially 'If you don't want these roses, I'm then going to throw them at you.'"

Imagine an influencer dolphin telling insecure teenage boy dolphins women won't look twice at a guy without a sponge on his head, and all the woman dolphins going 'sponges are a red flag tbh'

Beach where Wellington mayor Andrew Little took dip now rated 'unsuitable' for swimming

Oh my god what did he do

Mask of a blue-eyed white woman, in a leather hat box.

Death mask of Dame Nellie Melba, in hat box.
Ref 1980.130, Auckland Museum.

Black and white picture of women in gas masks.

A football grandstand in England turned into a shop for the manufacture of gas masks: women workers trying on the masks

Auckland Weekly News, 14 September 1916.

do you think the problem with the labour party is that every 10 years they have a competent woman leader who has to basically do everything herself and then she leaves and nobody thought to learn how to be good at anything so they're like a divorced man learning how to use the washing machine

O God ! O Montreal! " The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar, He hath neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs; I, sir, am a person of most respectable connections, My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon." O God ! O Montreal ! Then I said, " brother-in law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher ! Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls, Thou callest 'trousers' 'pants' whereas I call them 'trousers' Therefore thou art in hell-fire, and may the Lord pity thee ! O God ! O Montreal!

A Psalm of Montreal is such a ridiculous overwrought poem and I like it SO MUCH, it is easily in my top ten nineteenth century castigations of Canadian cities:

Went to an absolute shit party but cornered a second-year and explained how MMP works (he was planning to vote Labour because Green will never have a majority); all is not lost

My bubbe died earlier this year, I think she’d really go for ‘ginger biscuit kept in Sistema container for too long’ or ‘very old packet of curry powder’.

Doing Purim shopping online and being advertised unscented yarzheit candles, which raises the intriguing possibility of scented ones.

The ADL is going to regret deciding that it was more important to deport random college students for writing op-eds than to fight back against bringing people like this into positions of influence in the US state.

Bark cloth costume made of trousers, shirt, and mask.

Costume from Rarotonga, probably at Arorangi village. In the 19th and early the 20th century, Cook Islanders from Mangaia and Rarotonga wore tapa costume for certain ritual ceremonies.
Ref 1899, Auckland Museum.

Black and white picture of couch cushions in a corner. Above them is graffiti that reads: THIS TOWN IS FULL OF LOSERS YOU'RE ONE, I'M ONE, SHE'S ONE

"A bed for the night"
Photo taken by Paul Allen in Dunedin, 2014.
Dunedin Public Libraries.