Oddball

The newest Sarah's Scribbles collection from New York Times bestselling author and Goodreads Choice award winner Sarah Andersen. The fourth book in the enormously popular graphic novel series, the latest collection of Sarah's Scribbles comics explores the evils of procrastination, the trials of the creative process, the cuteness of kittens, and the beauty of not caring about your appearance as much as you did when you were younger. When it comes to humorous illustrations of the awkwardness and hilarity of millennial life, Sarah's Scribbles is without peer.

This zany travel guide presents a more peculiar state than the Iowa Tourism Office might like out-of-towners to imagine. Leaving out the traditional scenic trips to the Mississippi River bluffs and the Amana Colonies, this guide will take the adventurous traveler to the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk, the home of the "Lonely Goat Herder" marionettes from The Sound of Music, and the world's largest Cheeto. To enhance the experience of this unusual side of Iowa, the guide includes facts about numerous events in Iowa's history, such as Ozzy Osbourne's infamous bat-biting incident and Jesse James's first moving-train robbery. Iowa is depicted as the birthplace of the Roto-Rooter, the Delicious apple, the electronic computer, the reinforced concrete bridge, and the Eskimo pie. The accompanying photographs and maps will direct travelers to other fun vacation spots and attractions, including the butter sculptures at the Iowa State Fair, the annual National Skillet Throw, the Hobo Convention and Museum, the Ice Cream Capital of the World, and the National Balloon Museum.

"Are you completely normal? 100% devoid of the peculiar? Or have you embraced your oddness: odd jobs, odd socks, odd one out, odd reactions and odd boyfriends. Step right up. Step right up. Step inside to see live acts of the slightly weird and the nearly harmless. Feast your eyes on the miracle of the mildly freakish. Step inside and experience Oddball for yourself."--Publisher.

Updated and even stranger, this new edition boasts more than 400 unique destinations for tourists looking for attractions off the beaten path. Bizarre locations and landmarks include Chainsaw Gordy's Garden of Saws, Smokey Bear's head, the World's Largest Soup Kettle, the Toilet Bowl Parade, and the world's only upside-down White House. This book offers fascinating and little-known historical tidbits and answers burning questions such as Where was Liberace born? What is a hodag, and where do you catch one? Who invented the hamburger? and Will a Polka Hall of Fame ever be built? This is the real guide to Wisconsin, birthplace of the snowmobile, the typewriter, and the ice cream sundae. The address, phone number, hours, cost, directions, and website of each oddity accompany its description.

In this updated edition, it's plain to see that the state of Illinois has only gotten weirder. Where there was once just a single Popeye statue in downstate Chester, today the town has monuments to Olive Oyl, Swee' Pea, Bluto, the Sea Hag, and more. The creepy Piasa Bird petroglyph on the bluff in Alton now has a roadside pullout with picnic tables, and the two-story outhouse in Gays has a new contemplative garden. With almost twice as many destinations as its predecessor, this edition boasts detailed information on each site—address, phone number, website, hours, entry fees, and driving directions—as well as maps, photos, and a wealth of regional history in the descriptions. Some new sites include Henry's Rabbit Ranch, the World's First Jungle Gym, Ahlgrim Acres (a miniature golf course at a funeral home), the Leather Archives and Museum, General Santa Ana's two wooden legs, the World's Largest Sock Monkey, the Friendship Shoe Fence, a truck stop with a marionette show, and a coin-operated fire-breathing dragon. There is more between Chicago and St. Louis than cornfields and plenty of fascinating places in the Windy City that aren't on Michigan Avenue, and here is a chance to see these underappreciated sites throughout the state.

“By playing with notions of collecting and cataloging, this anthology offers a range of investigations into detritus and forgotten ephemera.”—Colin Dickey, coeditor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology The modern age is no stranger to the cabinet of curiosities, the freak show, or a drawer full of odds and ends. These collections of oddities engagingly work against the rationality and order of the conventional archive found in a university, a corporation, or a governmental holding. In form, methodology, and content, The Year’s Work in the Oddball Archive offers a counterargument to a more reasoned form of storing and recording the avant-garde (or the post-avant-garde), the perverse, the off, the bent, the absurd, the quirky, the weird, and the queer. To do so, it positions itself within the history of mirabilia launched by curiosity cabinets starting in the mid-fifteenth century and continuing to the present day. These archives (or are they counter-archives?) are located in unexpected places—the doorways of Katrina homes, the cavity of a cow, the remnants of extinct animals, an Internet site—and they offer up “alternate modes of knowing” to the traditional archive. “An unruly―and much-needed―model for how to do the archive differently.”—Scott Herring, author of The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture “It was a pleasure to read through this collection, and I suspect some of the essays, if not the entire book, will find itself on the syllabus for my Archive and Ephemera graduate course.”—Museum Anthropology Review “A finely wrought collection of curiosities . . . A vital intervention into how we talk about the stuff that surrounds us.”—Colin Dickey, coeditor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology

Alice Pearce, once called “the adenoidal lass with the most beautiful, homely face on Broadway,” carved a unique career playing wallflowers, nitwits, nags, and other oddball characters, all of whom contrasted sharply with their portrayer. As the shy daughter of an international banker, she experienced a privileged upbringing, attending exclusive schools in both Europe and the United States. Against her parents’ wishes, she pursued acting, eventually enlivening thirteen Broadway productions and winning acclaim for her smash act at New York’s chicest nightclub, the Blue Angel. Although Alice’s Hollywood career was comparatively fleeting, the Emmy-winning actress was featured in fourteen films and in dozens of top television series. She achieved her greatest fame—ironically, at the very end of her brief life—for playing Gladys Kravitz, the snoopy neighbor on the TV sitcom Bewitched. Sweet Oddball, exhaustively researched and illustrated with 225 rare photos, chronicles the public and private lives of a lady much beloved by her fellow actors and fans. Fredrick Tucker is a retired educator who enjoys studying character actors of stage and screen. Sweet Oddball, the culmination of research begun in 1975, is his second book for BearManor Media. His biography Verna Felton was published in 2010. "Many of us fondly recall actress Alice Pearce (1917-1966) as the nasal oddball Lucy Shmeeler in the MGM musical ON THE TOWN (1949) and as the often hysterical nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on TV’s BEWITCHED during its first two seasons (1964-1966). But there was far more to character star Pearce who came from a privileged background including a fine college education. During her impressive career Alice—who was not conventionally pretty—performed in NYC clubs, on Broadway, on road tours, in summer stock, and on radio, TV, and the movies. "In a true labor of love accomplished over several decades, author Fredrick Tucker has done a remarkable job of researching his subject to the nth degree. During this lengthy period of digging into the world of Alice Pearce he gained the assistance of several of her show business coworkers, perceptions from many of her friends, and personal recollections from her extended family that encompassed two marriages. And seemingly Tucker has documented most every media mention of this offbeat talent who typically played wallflowers, spinsters, and eccentric individuals in a long list of memorable performances. As a result he has produced a marvelous, dimensional, well-written biography of Pearce. Equally of interest Tucker has provided in his book an informative background of the times in which Alice worked in various media. Thus SWEET ODDBALL: THE STORY OF ALICE PEARCE is not only a richly textured narrative but it provides a cultural history of bygone decades of various arenas of American show business. Completing this outstanding chronicle are over 200 photos documenting the professional and private lives of gifted Alice Pearce whose time with us was sadly cut short by cancer. This book is a highly recommended read!" - James Robert Parish

The St. Louis Cardinals is one of the most successful franchises in National League history. Having won a record ten World Championships, the team has cultivated a huge fan base. 365 Oddball Days in Cardinals History combines easy-to-browse baseball trivia with a never-out-of-date annual. It delivers historical and statistical information in quick nuggets, elevating this collection to the perfect water cooler book or bathroom reader for Cardinals fans everywhere.