1.  Peter P. Plasencia – While on a search for some cool Jules Verne ephemera (for some reason), I came across Peter P. Plasencia.  Plasencia was an illustrator for children’s books among other things, and his illustrations are pretty terrific.  Here’s some art he did for a book called Jules Verne: The Man Who Invented the Future:

And a few illustrations from Space Alphabet, shared on Wardomatic:

Really beautiful, inspiring stuff – particularly so when done in homage to Verne, one of the great futurists.

2.  The Mysterious Cities of Gold –  Another early-ish Nickelodeon gem in the US, this was a Japanese-French animated series about a young Spanish boy named Esteban who travelled to the New World to find the Cities of Gold as well as his father.  I was so obsessed with this show as a second grader; I’m a tiny bit ashamed to admit I would act out the opening song in my own interpretive dance.

3.  Color 1930s-40s – CBS News has a post featuring rare color photos from the 1930s-40s.  The feature is titled “Rare Color Photos from the 1930s-40s”.  The cool thing about this post is that it features rare color photos from the 1930s-40s.

That’s all I’ve got.

4.  Pom Poms – Pie Shops shares this Waffle Whiffer post of a box of Pom Poms candy from 1977 – featuring a Happy Days sweepstakes and a mail-in offer for your own Fonzie doll!

5.  Putting the Dog to Sleep – I haven’t been able to stop listening to this song.  I considered posting a live version, but the studio version nails it.

6.  What?! – A sixth thing? It’s all right, you’ll be okay.   Just a brief note that I’ve added a new sample page for my latest book, arizona, on the book’s page.  I’m also including it here.

-ds