Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

Interview • daydreaming • inspiration • kitsch • event

Vintage Halloween Costumes from the 1950s to the 1970s

Ah, Halloween. The streets fill with children in trendy, creepy, and cute costumes all hot in pursuit of the best candy. This year, households can expect the classics: some werewolves, witches, and wizards. As well as culturally hip get-ups parents with some free time conjured up (take a shot for every Hogwarts student, minion, Trump and creepy nun costume). This holiday also brings with it...

Live At The Purple Pit – An Interview with Nutty

It all started with the familiar opening notes of “Take Five”. It was a lazy day off in 2012 and I was doodling at my art table with the sounds of Cocktail Nation with Koop Kooper in the background. Because the room reverb was slightly flat in the recording, I knew this version of “Take Five” wasn’t The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s original. And I was...

When Satanist Anton LaVey seduced Jayne Mansfield

Halloween is here, a liminal time when the boundary between this world and the nether realms can more easily be crossed by all manner of evil spirits. Lest one be carried away by them, tradition dictates that we mere mortals disguise ourselves to fool the spirits into believing we are one of them. It was part of a tradition the Scots called “guising.” And while...

Retro Slot Machines Used Today
Written by Featured Post in Kitsch

Retro Slot Machines Used Today

With advancements in technology come advancements in one of humanity’s greatest vices, gambling. Of course, slot machines are no exception, but some gambling fans prefer the old retro slot machines of yesteryear. In some parts of Las Vegas, the demand for retro slot machines hasn’t faltered but instead it has increased. For some people the new slot machines just take the fun out of it,...

Games and Gadgets of the ‘60s
Written by Guest Writer in Kitsch

Games and Gadgets of the ‘60s

The ‘60s is a decade known for Beatlemania, fallout shelters, go-go boots, tie-dye shirts and some of the most well-known games and gadgets ever made. If you were lucky enough to be a kid in the ‘60s, you were alive to witness the creation of brand names like G.I. Joe, Twister, Life and others that are still family favorites today. Die-Cast Army Men The 1960s...

Lotus Esprit – The Quintessential 1970s Supercar

In the mid-1970s, English automaker Lotus replaced the Europa, a boxy, mid-engined pocket-racer for driving enthusiasts, with a now-classic wedge design, and called it the Esprit. With sharp ‘folded paper’ lines and flat surfaces courtesy of legendary designer Giorgetto Guigiaro, the outrageously low and wide Esprit looked like nothing before it – and nothing since. It represented Lotus’s attempt to step into the higher-end exotic...

A Tale of a Pink Flamingo
Written by Koop Kooper in Kitsch

A Tale of a Pink Flamingo

I remember the first time I saw the mighty Pink Flamingo formation. It was in front garden of my Aunt’s 1949 Art Deco Home. A spectacular home with a perfect lawn and a distinct late fifties sixties furnishing inside the house and a 1956 Ford Customline in the driveway. The cool thing about all of this was that the year was 1988. Not much had...

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