Friday, July 2, 2010

Public-Health Posters of the Late 18th Century, #13

This widely-circulated poster warns against the pernicious habit of Tourneuring. It depicts the cautionary example of a young man who has only been doing 'tea' as the kids are calling it -- or "la The' in French -- for a month or two, and already he is mainlining ladders and chair-legs straight to the head.

Such was the scale of the Tourneur epidemic, carrying a spinning wheel in one's right hand escaped from being a token of drug-culture membership to become a general fashion item, much as carrying bottled water was once restricted to E-using party ravers before it entered the wider culture.

That first free taste is the thin edge of the white elephant, or the slippery slope down into the jelly-wrestling pool. Before he knows it the Tourneur abuser is reduced to the level of a human baluster, breathing fire and staring at leaves.

Rule 34 leads us ineluctably to the prediction that somewhere on the intertuba there will be balustrade porn.

8 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I see you and raise, S.C.
~

J— said...

The white elephant of Tourneur will ride you to hell, to hell.

77south said...

Sounds intriguing. I'm in. Where can I score some?

Substance McGravitas said...

Before he knows it the Tourneur abuser is reduced to the level of a human baluster, breathing fire

I think I'd do more cooking.

fish said...

I think the second picture is just someone eating Korean food.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Chilleth thee out, Tourneur!

There's nothing wrong with the lad that the application of leeches (or the smoking of dried leeches) can't cure.

Hamish Mack said...

"Drug paraphernalia" had real meaning back then.

ckc (not kc) said...

...it reminds me why I hate Halloween parties