NOT TODAY, EBAY (24)
By:
June 12, 2025
One in a series of posts via which Josh Glenn will share recent examples of stuff that he was tempted to purchase from eBay… but, heroically, didn’t.
A Magic Motion Book Hardcover 1970s Random House Lot 3 Childrens Lenticular VTG
$65.00
Man, did I enjoy Magic Motion books when I was a kid. I still find lenticular printing — in which lenticular lenses are used to produce printed images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as they are viewed from different angles — mildly enthralling. The technology, which emerged in the world of novelty items after WWII, thanks to military research into the mass production of plastics and injection molding — is a descendant of 16th-century tabula scalata, and long before that (according to some cave-art experts) Paleolithic “corrugated” cave paintings that change when viewed from different angles.
Shakespeare supposedly (according to a 1977 scholarly essay by Allan Shickman, anyway) uses tabula scalata as a metaphor in Richard II, when Richard’s retainer Bushy refers to “perspectives, which rightly gazed upon / Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry / Distinguish form.” Thanks, Bushy — yes. This is precisely what I find enthralling about lenticular printing — the manner in which two “forms” morph into one another, back and forth, via a moment of “confusion,” depending on whether you look at the image “rightly” or “awry.” It’s so goofy, so low-tech — and so fascinating.
I didn’t own the particular Magic Motion books shown here; they look excellent. Also, objectively speaking, The Magic Motion Martian Book is a primo book title.
MORE FURSHLUGGINER THEORIES BY JOSH GLENN: SCHEMATIZING | IN CAHOOTS | JOSH’S MIDJOURNEY | POPSZTÁR SAMIZDAT | VIRUS VIGILANTE | TAKING THE MICKEY | WE ARE IRON MAN | AND WE LIVED BENEATH THE WAVES | IS IT A CHAMBER POT? | I’D LIKE TO FORCE THE WORLD TO SING | THE ARGONAUT FOLLY | THE PERFECT FLANEUR | THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY | THE REAL THING | THE YHWH VIRUS | THE SWEETEST HANGOVER | THE ORIGINAL STOOGE | BACK TO UTOPIA | FAKE AUTHENTICITY | CAMP, KITSCH & CHEESE | THE UNCLE HYPOTHESIS | MEET THE SEMIONAUTS | THE ABDUCTIVE METHOD | ORIGIN OF THE POGO | THE BLACK IRON PRISON | BLUE KRISHMA | BIG MAL LIVES | SCHMOOZITSU | YOU DOWN WITH VCP? | CALVIN PEEING MEME | DANIEL CLOWES: AGAINST GROOVY | DEBATING IN A VACUUM | PLUPERFECT PDA | SHOCKING BLOCKING.