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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities

The Wicked Art of the First Fantasy & Horror Magazine

We’ve been patiently waiting for Halloween to give us an excuse to take you on a tenebrous trip back in time inside the first horror magazine. With only 51 issues in existence, Der Orchideengarten, was an Austrian magazine printed between the years of 1919 and 1921, predating the American fantasy-horror magazine Weird Tales, which is…

The Buried African Folklore behind the Pop Culture Zombie

There is a law still in effect in the Haitian criminal code that dates back to 1883, making it illegal to try to turn someone into a zombie. The word “zombie” in fact, comes from “nzambi,” a word that means “spirit” in the voodou religions of Haiti and the African diaspora, but the Haitian zombie…

Making a Miniature World for Marie Antoinette

Let them eat tiny cakes! Just when you think the world of miniatures couldn’t get any more impressive, you stumble upon the exquisite work of June Clinkscales. The Californian miniature artist has the kind of artisanal skills that we might have believed were almost lost to the world – not to mention, she’s working on…

Take a Surreal Brain Break with our Artist of the Week, Jacek Yerka

Ah, to visit Yerkaland in the fall, where the clouds have a strange surrealist sheen, and the trees a soft otherworldly glow. If you’ve never heard of the imaginary universe of Jacek Yerka, you’re in for a treat. You may have seen bits and pieces of his work around the interweb but perhaps not had…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXXV)

1. The Hedgehog Highway That Knits A Village Together With their miniature ramps, stairs and holes cut into fences and stone walls, the gardens of Kirtlington in Oxfordshire are a haven for wildlife … home to the UK’s longest volunteer-run hedgehog highway. It passes through 60 properties in the village, all linked by CD-sized holes…

Meet the Opossum Lady, the Undisputed Queen of Youtube

This picture may not need any explanation. It is arguably perfect as it is. But in these strange and uncertain times, I had an inkling that this might be exactly what we all need. So allow me to formally introduce you to Pearl de Wisdom, aka the Opossum lady. She has been making spiritual opossum…

A Brief Compendium of Vintage Cigarette Dispensers

“Tobacciana.” That’s a big ‘ole blanket term for all things smoking-obsessed. Not very 2020, perhaps (and for good reason! Don’t smoke, kids). But the reality is that until relatively recently, folks smoked a lot. So they were getting rather creative with the ways they lit-up, especially when it came to their cigarette dispensers. These often…

What We’d Bid on at the Historic Waldorf Astoria Hotel Auction

The Waldorf Astoria became an icon of Manhattan glamour ever since it first opened in 1931. One of New York’s oldest and perhaps grandest of hotels, it closed its doors as we knew it for the last time in the winter of 2017. We were there to say goodbye. Nearly four years later, the Waldorf…

Remembering Robert De Niro, one of the “Strange Great Secret Painters of America”

In chapter five of Jack Kerouac’s timeless 1960 travelogue, Lonesome Traveller, the great American novelist takes us to New York to meet the inner circle of bohemian artists and beatniks in Greenwich Village: “Let’s go see the strange great secret painters of America and discuss their paintings and their visions with them — Iris Brodie…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXXIV)

1. Wife Selling The custom of Wife selling in England was a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by mutual agreement that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the…
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Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.

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