sweasel.com

I had no clue this place existed. I’ve driven on I44 right past it countless times. Whew. I never knew how close I was to kitsch-death at those moments.

Angels with flashlights? I don’t want this to be….

McGoo! You’re near this thing!? Field trip! Awww…c’mon!

Dead baby angels always make my day.

Thanks.

And, why is there so much weird shit in Missouri?

Absolute dead-bang center of the country, is my guess.

The lowest level of hell is reserved for the people who come up with this crap. I can just see Jesus Christ with a whip kicking over tables and attacking the vendors.

I’m over on other side of the state, by the river. But I have to admit it would be an interesting saturday day-trip.

Hmmm….”Weasel Guest Minion?” I kinda like the sound of that. Maybe I could try my hand at fleecing tourists, too.

Let me check my medical insurance to see if it covers treatment for Taste-Cooties. I could die, y’know.

Mesablue, I think there is so much weird stuff here because its the Show-Me state. So people think that means “Show me that you’re an asswipe idiot, with no taste or breeding, and that you are also a hopeless doofus.”

Chris’s imagery is right on target. I can see red-hot holy vomit by the metric ton materializing out of thin air over this Precious Moments place. Probably while I’m in there.

Weasel, where do you find this stuff? And….why?

To be fair to the guy (Butcher, not Jesus), I have a terrible feeling he’s sincere. Admittance is free and, if they sell stuff there, the web site doesn’t flog it.

I’m not sure if that doesn’t make it even more painful to look at.

McGoo, I used to be a library junkie. I worked in a huge library as a teenager, and into my twenties and thirties I haunted libraries for fun. I had cards for a dozen libraries. I even paid for non-circulating privileges in the library system of whatever the local university was. I have an insatiable yearning for small, strange pieces of information.

The Web is like endless weaselporn delivered directly to my eyeballs 24/7. Keep hitting links, and out it pours.

After I posted that last, I remembered that while driving down I44 I often noted a billboard with “Precious Moments” and some stupid images on it.

(In the last 5 years I’ve made the Dallas-St.Louis run about 15 times. Its gotten really, really old. I always got a ticket in OK til I switched routes. Every friggin’ time, it seemed. I hate OK.)

Its THOSE images, by cracky! Big-eyed kids, I mean. I always thought it was a photography studio for kids or sumpin. Its close to Joplin, waaay over on the “odder side” of the state.

I don’t think your site could take TWO reviews of this subject.

I’m a bookworm myself. Love books. I’d eat ’em if I could, and digest the info directly. I want to read ALL of ’em. (Except the romances and westerns).

The net is a strange and wunnerful place, yes it is! And there is weird stuff there, to be sure.

But that’s what Weasels site is for – to provide us folks with neat stuff to read without having to chase it down and kill it ourselves! I do so hate skinning fresh factoids. Worse than fish.

Bibliophile here too!

Precious Moments also spooks me out. I thought all those cute kids and angels I saw on book covers were kids or angels. Then I found out they are dead babies. Totally freaked me out. I do not want to think about dead or dying babies, thankyouverymuch.

The creator is sincere; but still.

I must say I admire your protectiveness of religion, CT. I must agree. I work in retail: a cross should not cost thousands of dollars. It is supposed to be a statement of faith, a testimony, not “bling”. The commercialization of religion is something I am quite displeased with.

I work in retail: a cross should not cost thousands of dollars.

Ah Muslihoon – but what if is worth thousands of dollars? I worked in a gallery years ago that had one of these for sale at around $25,000.

This is truly an amazing piece of work to look at in person. The internal reflections are such that when it’s turned you can see an image of Christ rise off of the cross.

It’s such a loss that Hart died so young.

Spam filter ate your link, Enas.

Dang it! Let’s try this one: Cross of the Millennium

Thanks, Enas! Religious art, of course, is something different all together. Some is priceless, such as the Sistine Chapel.

Is that the technique where they etch into glass and then light it from below? Because that can be eithe tacky or very cool, depending on how well executed it is.

Have you seen the thing where they take a dark piece of polished stone and (laser, I guess) etch it? The more they rough the stone, the lighter the apparent color. The first time I saw it was on an outdoor war memorial. It’s a striking effect. Looks just like the original photo. Lately, they’ve begun selling little ones using your photos. It’s a neat effect and not too expensive. Dreadful tacky in the wrong hands, of course. Here’s a local supplier who’s been flogging them over the radio.

Actually, it’s lucite and yah it sits on a light stand. The Christ figure is another fully formed, lightly frosted lucite sculpture completely imbedded in the cross itself. I looked at the one we had in the gallery a lot. There were no visible seams anywhere on or in the sculpture itself. The construction baffled me for the longest time until I saw another one at a different gallery where there was a small flaw that gave you a clue as to how he did it.

You ought to use your google-fu and look up some of Hart’s stuff.

I took a look at your link – interesting. I hadn’t seen that before. I look forward to seeing Elvis interpreted in the medium, with James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.

Yeah, the pictures are bad and the samples are tacky. It doesn’t convey how startling the effect is. It’s one of those things you itch to run your hands over.

Lucite was the Space Age Miracle Material of Tomorrow when I was a kid. I remember my dad had a Lucite cube paperweight with fifty pennies suspended in it. I’m still not sure how they get things suspended just the way they want them, but I loved that thing. I looked up buying the liquid form; it was devilish expensive. But ever since, I’ve had a burning desire to have my dead body encased in Lucite in lieu of burying. As I was pretty sure nobody would do that for me, I had to work out Rube Goldbergian schemes for topping myself while lying in a mold and releasing the liquid with my final breath. I had faith once they found me and realized what a cool paperweight I was, nobody would try to chip my remains out.

I was a cheerful child.

Late to the party again……But, HEY, there are great places in MO – you haters. Hannibal – Mark Twain, St. Charles – launching of Lewis and Clark…etc…
If you like the Precious Moments statues, the chapel is cute. (Seeing it once was enough for me) If you go an hour or two east (or was it west?) of it, you can visit Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, of Little House on the Prairie fame, home.
Thank you.

Look, I’m from Tennessee. If I can grow up with the legacy of Dollywood and Twitty City and suck it up, you can damn well wear Precious Memories Chapel like a man!

Yep – there are some great places in MO, Missourian. You mentioned St. Charles (where I presently reside) – the start-point of L&C, and the site of the first interstate highway (I70?) and some of Danial Boone’s various homes and saltlicks. Yes…I said saltlicks. Why these are of historical significance – I do not know. Maybe DB had a salt craving.

The St. Louis Gateway Arch is strange. I remember that when they were building it Ill. threatened to build a giant crochet(sp?)-player with mallet and ball right next to it.

MO is still strange. But that’s ok. Lots of places are strange.

“Croquet”, dear sir. Would you like a spot of tea and some crumpets with that?

Why is it always a “spot” of tea?

Mus’ – I say ol’ boy – thanks awfully for the spelling correction. I need all the help I can get. I knew it was wrong but was convinced I wouldn’t get it right no matter what.

I think its called a “spot” because that’s what folks always get on their shirt. And..it rolls off the tongue better than “dribble”.

Weasel, most people in MO have no clue Sam Butcher has his own little kitsch resort here. If you’re into the statues, you’ll visit the chapel (and the huge ‘gift’ shop on the property – surprise, surprise). Women are gooey like that and drag their husbands along. Who wind up waiting on benches. We discovered it on a road trip to the only Bass Pro shop in the state at the time. Since then, they have built a Precious Moments Hotel and resort type thing for the type of people who visit Branson. (websurf that)

Hey Steamboat, we’re neighbors. I’m in St. Charles county.

Illinois should have built the mallet.

It is amazing how many people are finally finding the chapel. I guess nobody Googled it until Googling became a phenomenon. This thing has been there for two decades, and the man himself (Butcher no God) IS rich from the royalties he’s collected off of paraphanelia. He now lives in the Philippines with “young boys”, if you get my drift.

Oh ho! The plot sickens!