commentary by Michael L. Bromley
copyright 2005

Graphic of the Week
(or every other week or so, and sometimes sooner...
...or every other year...)

Jun 8/07: from this autos entry, more freak automobile siblings:

  
Scion xB                                    Ice Cream Truck               

This is hardly an original insight, but it's just got to be noted here.
 

Jun 16/06: Uh oh, I discovered another freak automobile DNA coupling..

An old Studebaker come back to life ... as a Mercedes-Benz Super Car? Talk about good Karma! Or maybe, the M-B's the one with the bad luck? Truly, those M-B hood ornaments are looking more and more like the front-end of a Studebaker:

Seriously, this "aggressive" styling on the SLKs is God-awful.

I guess I'm gonna have to start a new page for these. Maybe I'll call it "Separated at birth?"

May 25/06: The Student Driver Car:

From the annual "Everyone's Art Car Parade" parade in Houston, as reported in the New York Times::

Alternative Cars Indeed: A Parade for Whatever Moves You

A classic!

Mar 29/05: Okay, I've done it now...

In my Jan 20 entry of a scary comparison of the AMC Pacer with the Studebaker Avanti I declined to leave you with the far more frightening image of the Chevrolet Corvair as progenitor of the modern Ford Thunderbird. I can hold back no more:

vs

Sorry, but a quad of whitewalls and there's but an ugly grill between 'em. At least it didn't take Ralph Nader to kill off this ugly 'bird on the right... (see autos entry March 29/05)
 

Mar 16/05: Yeah, buddy..

ANWAR here we come!
(Pictured here is a Texas gusher in 1922)

Mar 11/ 05: Parking Ticket?

Here's a new addition to the Bromleyisms Parking Jobs file...

This came up on a Freerepublic.com thread, posted by "dead," whose father instigated this incident. As he explains:

My father was in a bar back in Washington Heights, NYC back in the fifties. Some drunk guy in the bar insisted he was a pilot, but they all just kept scoffing at him, so the guy left furious. A few hours later, at 3 in the morning, he walked back in the bar and told him he had proof. They went outside and he showed them the plane he had just landed outside the bar on St. Nicholas avenue. He had taken a bus to Teterboro NJ, stole a plane, and landed it on a street in Manhattan, just to prove a point.

Never underestimate Google: "Dead" went wandering on the web and found this photograph of his father's handiwork.

Oh, and, LOVE all those cars!

Feb 8/05: Lest we forget...

Jan 31/ 05: Fallujah, je ne pleure pas pour vous...

Beautiful, Iraq, just beautiful.

For a Marine's view of the election in Fallujah see: The Greenside.com (entry 1/30/05 -- or see Bromleyism 1/31/05b)

Jan 28/05: Okay, so this is supposed to be a graphic a week... just had to put this one up as soon as I found it:

On this eve of the Iraq elections, we're constantly told that democracy is a "work in progress," and not to expect too much. Hell, it's been but three years since the Taliban, and less than a year into self-government in Afghanistan, and look at democracy's fruits!
(Yes, click on the image for a larger version.)

Jan 27/05: Following last week's blizzard, car websites have been having fun with snowbound vehicles: Cars!Cars!Cars! wants you to guess the snow-bound makes and Autoblog has a Porsche 968 snow plow (!) -- a hoax, that one.

That's all good and well, but hows 'bout let's try NYC c. 1917:

Any guesses?
(Click on photo for larger image)

Jan 20/05: My latest automobile rant leads me to this scary thought: Did  Raymond Loewy invent the AMC Pacer? Please say it ain't so:

Heh, no offence Avanti lovers, but... well, they kinda look alike.

(I also got into trouble for saying that the new Ford Thunderbird looks like a Corvair. I won't scare you with photos, but think about it next time you see one of the new T-Birds..)

Jan 6/05: Rules of Conduct in Florence, from the entrance to The Duomo (see my review of a book on its construction)

For 6 euros and a climb up the Duomo, there's not much you can do but look around: no ice cream, no cell phones, no smokin' and no dogs. But, yes, you may pick your nose.

Jan 1/05: Let's kick off the New Year with a celebration of the 2nd Amendment, this from 1922:

By showing off her lovely .32 just below the hemline, "Mary Jane," likely a trick-shot performer for "Keith's Circuit," a roaming vaudeville show, here proves herself exempt from a New York City concealed weapons prohibition. 

You go, MJ!

Dec 9/04:The SPUGS: too much Christmas giving?

If we had a little more sense

As today, so in 1912, the SPUGS were just silly.
See commentary Dec 9/04

Dec 7/ 04: Something terrifically satisfying about this image...

It's quite something, actually: the Seebee here is crushing the car for use in rebuilding a bridge. Now, I'm hoping those bullet holes are courtesy the U.S. Marines...

Here for older files: Graphic of the Week