Invisible Themepark

Author: Lee Wallender

Flying Boat (Generic) Cutaway, 1935

I reproduce this Popular Mechanics cover of April 1935 in all of its ball-throbbing glory–because that is the only way to describe the muscularity of 1930s popular journalism. There is nothing I don’t like about this cover. I love the orange and blue contrast, the NRA Code logo in the bottom left, the typography, and most of all, the cutaway airplane.

Cutaways – you can get lost in them, imagining yourself inside. Models, miniatures, cutaways – pretty much a lost art today.

I will pick apart this cutaway in separate posts. See here to look further inside the Flying Boat airplane.

April 15, 2009
Super-Ultra Miniature Hybrid Car

What the hell isn’t wonderful about Tracey Ullman? Below, her miniature hybrid car from Tracey Ullman: State of the Union.

April 15, 2009
Tramway

Sky buckets, gondolas, sky-trams–technically, aerial tramways–are the most visible invisible transport around.

Contrast the Disneyland Matterhorn tramway from the 1950s…

With the real aerial tramway at Zermatt, Switzerland–also the Matterhorn…

April 15, 2009
Fake Iraq

Fake Iraq, by Maria Schriber.

April 14, 2009
Decora Doors

Some companies have narrow specialties, and that describes Decora Doors of Dallas, Texas. Decora supplies hidden doors of many types: art niches, wine doors, DVD doors, and of course, the popular hidden bookcase door.

Important to remember that these are not steel security doors. As Decora says…

Decora Doors are often utilized as a passive security feature. While our doors are not true security doors like a steel door, they create the illusion of being a built-in wall bookcase or interior piece of built-in furniture. Many of our doors can also be equipped with secret latches.

April 14, 2009