Rending the Time/Space Continuum

My sister, a font of things weird and webby, sent me a link from the JC Penney's website. Clicking through, I was confronted by what may be the absolutely weirdest thing I have seen in recent memory.

It has captured my attention all day, but I wonder if my reaction is in some way disproportionate. Granted, there's the profound kitsch factor, and of course the darkly unsettling creepiness of the thing, but that's not what's captured me.

It was the fact that the existence of a Carol Channing ventriloquist doll in the JC Penneys catalog was something directly out of 1965. It is such a real world anachronism that I keep thinking that there must have been a tear in the time/space continuum, just large enough to let this thing slip through. The feeling this has created has left me a bit off-kilter. It's the inverse of the old wrist watch on the soldier in the gladiator movie. The reason it's funny in a movie is because we I'm practicing being with this sense of disorientation and recognizing my attachment to the rules of how things should be, how I expect events to line up with my expectations, and how I respond to having those expectations and assumptions disrupted. It gets particularly interesting when it involves my perception of the linear nature of time.

Anyway, in an attempt to find a nice little Carol Channing clip I found this. Here's the thing in motion. It's not brilliantly clever or entertaining, but it does show that someone actually bought it.