This is the somewhat all-new Institute  - now with more old material rebranded and rearranged!

Since so many small sites on lileks.com seem to belong here, we’ve consolidated some stray material, upgraded some old sites, and added new material. The Institute is updated weekly here and there, so stop back often – and if it’s your first trip, well, enjoy.

Note: Some of the sites date back to 1997, and they look like it, too.

Hey, there's a new book!

 

I’ll put this as bluntly as necessary: it's the long-awaited sequel to the Gallery of Regrettable Food. Lurid food photography, squirm-inducing meals, chipper clip-art, strange Australian bacon. Foodies, retro-enthusiasts, old and young: it’s a book for everyone. (PG language, so you can give it to Mom.) Best of all, it’s the same size as its three Institute-based predecessors. Looks great on any shelf!

Look, Random House thinks it’s worth publishing. I think it’s my best one yet. If you don’t agree, the rest of this website will be free forever. You can’t lose! 

 

  

 

 

   We’ve three different comic sites for your entertainment. Covers - well, that's self-explanatory, no? Big Little Books examines the chunky comic genre, and Strips deals with newspaper comics through the eras. (The last site is particularly large.)
   

 

 

Let's go back in time to 1973 to the Sears catalog, shall we? No? You don't want to go? I have a gun. Don't make me use it. And where did I get the gun? The Sears catalog, of course. Updated Thursdays.

 
   

 

 

The Institute is loaded with fine, nutritious ads – heck, it’s practically all ads – but here are two ongoing projects. Magazine ads feature big scans of interesting old ads; newspaper ads raid the microfiche of the 20s, 30, 40s for scrachy, hard-to-love B&W scans.

 
   
 

 

A salute to everything deeply creepy about 50s and 60s "men's" mags. REVIVED AND UPDATED in late 07.

 
   

 

 

   A salute to WW 2 homefront propaganda. Due for an update & and upgrade in late 08; in the meantime, it’s still open for your perusal.
   
  For years the Institute sent out a monthly magazine, the American Home Ironizer; here are some selections from the archives. Updated as our ongoing digitization of the archives continues.

 

 

  Or, the effects of celery on loose elastic. Art Frahm was a curious, second-rate pin-up artist; his work would probably be forgotten had he notpainted a curious series of works in which women's underwear falls down in public. Warning: no nudity here, drat the luck.
   
  Majestically, the majestic Gobbler Motel & Supper Club sat atop a hill in majestic Gobblerland, Wisconsin. In retrospect, it was an utter piece of crap. But an important one.
   
  Whoa, Nellie. A collection of men's fashion photography from the 50s, 60s and - shudder - the 70s. Warning for anyone offended by occasional strong language: contains occasional strong language.
   
  In 1949, the Sunbeam Bread company put out a comic book to get kids to eat bread. Their secret weapon: an interminable history lesson that tied the jobs of iron miners and classical violinists to your toast.
   
  How do you get kids to eat right and take their vitamins? Simple - scare the urine out of them with hideous meat collages! Meet the Dayalets - they're child-tested and doctor approved. (c. 2000)
   
  A 1972 vacation promo. Yea, how times have changed. (c. 1999)
   
  Advertising painting and photography, stripped of its context. It wasn't meant to be permanently considered . . . but it is now. (c. 1998)
   
  Once they were beloved by, well, hundreds; once they proudly shilled for products that filled the shelves of your local store. These are the orphans of the commercial culture, ready for you to adopt them as your own. As seen in Forbes! (About a billion years ago.)
   
 

For years, newspapers could always rely on a dog photo to soften the grim news of the day. It was a boon for humans; we like dogs. It was hell on the dogs. A collection of newspaper photos from the 40s, 50s and 60s.
   
  No such thing, you say? Wrong. Every star, every famous person was captured doing something stupid, and they willingly released these pictures to the media. We've collected a few poses that, in retrospect, might not have been the best idea.
   
  Here's where you can learn all about the Institute, its mission and its history. Not required reading to enjoy the Institute's fine products, but when you've burned through everything else, this might make a little more sense.
     
     

 

  The original Gallery is now a book, published by Crown. Enjoy these outtakes - er, pre-edited selections. Updated sporadically.
     
  A stripped-down but still disturbingly powerful indictment of 1960s and 70s home design. They shall not be forgiven.
     
  Parenting advice from the Castor-Oil Years. (Somewhat incomplete; updates to follow.)