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The Saga Behind America’s Giant Government Cheese Vaults

Not all cheese is created equally. Any American who has been around long enough to taste a slice of “government cheese” can tell you that. While the phrase sounds surreal, and is often used as a derogatory shorthand for any form of welfare, the original concept of government cheese lives on today in a very…

Who Was the Love Doctor of Belle Epoque Paris?

Dr. Samuel Pozzi may be a father of modern gynaecology, whose name is still tied to a pair of surgical scissors used to operate on fallopian tubes around the world today (the pozzi forceps), but his story would be much better placed in a steamy romance novel than a medical textbook. The “disgustingly handsome” celebrity…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 664)

1. It’s Mushroom Hunting season! Here’s an 1827 Atlas of Mushrooms The edibles… Mushrooms that can cause mild illness (from vomiting to indigestion)… Poisonous mushrooms… Lithographs from M. E. Descourtilz’s Atlas des Champignons (1827), found on The Public Domain Review. 2. Rainbow Clouds, aka Iridescent Pileus Clouds A group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar…

The Lost Art and Innovation of Milk Plastic

Got milk? Pour yourself a glass and gulp down some little-known history about the household staple. In the early decades of the 20th century, milk was commonly used to make many plastic ornaments, including jewellery, gemstones, buttons, decorative buckles, fountain pens, fancy comb and brush sets and even piano keys. Milk plastic was even used to adorn Chanel’s…

Struck with Style: Lightning Rod Fashion of the 18th Century

Unfathomably whacky fashions have seen the light over the ages. Take the perilous hobble skirt of the early 1910s that deliberately impeded its wearer’s ability to walk, or the gentleman’s codpiece that drew eyes to his genital area for most of 16th century Europe. We’ve dug up yet another surprising fashion trend of yore courtesy…

Murder at the Tiki Palace: When Swinging Went Sour in the 70s

Chattanooga, Tennessee: known for its southern charm, Civil War battlefields and … an infamous swingers palace? Indeed, perched in the hills overlooking the city, Tennessee once had its own Playboy mansion of sorts. The tiki-themed estate was centered around a highly unusual indoor swimming pool, built with underwater canals that disappeared into bedrooms where Chattanooga’s…

Ode to the Rag-and-Bone Man

When Parisian garbage collectors went on strike in the Spring of 2023, suddenly everyone was talking and thinking about trash. Sanitation and waste management services are so commonplace for the majority of the world, it takes an almighty “big stink” for us to realise just how important and valuable sanitary services are. Just under a…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 663)

1. This penthouse by Le Corbusier in 1920s Paris During the Parisian annèes folles, he [Carlos de Beistegui] selected Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret to design a machine à amuser, a penthouse on the Champs-Élysées dedicated entirely to entertaining and hosting crazy Parisian parties typical of those years, characterized by a brilliant and festive atmosphere of…

A Brief History of the Mom & Pop Business of Public Execution

In Paris, when his father died in 1644, Louis Desmorest inherited his family’s execution business at the age of 10. His mother had been part of an established execution family that had been in business for the past 100 years. Desmorest’s mother’s clan also hatched the most notable of all the execution families, the Sansons,…

All Hail Rosaleen Norton and her Wicked Cool Revival of Witchcraft

When did witchcraft actually become “cool”? At the beginning of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, three witches chanting “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble, something wicked this way comes”, were described as ‘old bearded hags’ by the playwright. Persecuted and hunted by the church for centuries but now popularised in modern culture, the hashtag…
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Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.

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