JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

Nothing quite spells out the duties of subjugation as being a one-dimensional-purposed two-dimensional object.  And in the world of these things few seem to come as close to becoming-a-real-girl in the Pinocchioiana sense than this item.

It is a cigarette-lighting girl for beachgoers, found sleeping lightly on page 556 of the October 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics.  It seems that it is an issue for people being able to light their cigarettes on the beach, so cigarette manufacturers or their agents or agents of agents manufactured this device to make sure that no ill wind would come between the cigarette consumer and the uninterrupted consumption of cigarettes.  And so this device was created–the lightless ciggie smoker would come up to the cut-out and place their cigarette tip into the recesses of the lighting element in the cutout’s mouth.

Weird, filled with dread, and true.