Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Canned Air

Imagethief's mordant post about Beijing's air reminds me of Del's entrepreneurial frenzy at the advent of Seattle's World's Fair in 1962.
One of Seattle's boasts was the clarity and freshness of its air compared to that of LA at the time, say. Seeing Mt. Rainier all year long from downtown was an unremarkable event. Del tied the thought of cosmopolitan visitors marveling at such transparency to the folks he knew who ran fish canning plants. A bit of time in the composition room of the label printer produced a clever label which he then had applied to a short run of a few thousand tins sans fish. The result was Pure Pacific North West Air which sold to fair goers eager for souvenirs of the lighter sort.
Another product he offered called on his friendship with a supplier of biological lab specimens and a dentist. From the first he purchased preying mantises. These were carefully placed in the dental molding centrifuge which replaced all of the insect with molten dental gold. The result -- the seven or eight times out of each ten that it worked successfully -- was a solid gold replica of a praying mantis complete with delicate gold feelers.
--ml

No comments:

Post a Comment