15 49.0138 8.38624 both 0 bullet 0 4000 1 0 horizontal https://www.messynessychic.com 300 4000
Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Life is Messy

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

1. The Supremes in Paris, 1965 Found here. 2. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers The university’s A capella group, was established in 1871 – to generate further income for the institution. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, became world renowned, especially favoured by Queen Victoria who commissioned a painting in…

How Black Cowboys Built the American West: A Living History

You may hear it, before you see it. The gentle trotting of hooves backdropped by the sounds of New York City’s JFK Expressway. Even locals do a double take when they cross paths with a member of the Federation of Black Cowboys. When they ride, they tell the true story of the Wild, Wild West:…

The “Other” Lost Generation of Black American Artists in Paris

Originally, this was supposed to be a pretty straight-forward piece on an American ex-pat artist whose enchanting paintings of 1930s Paris I’d recently had the fortune of stumbling across via the internet. She was a young woman who had moved to France before the war, where her painting career began to flourish. I was going…

An Educational Haven at Harlem’s Little Black Book Shop turned B&B

A foreword from the founder of Messy Nessy Chic: “I’m so tired,” are words that stand out to me in all of this. I’ve heard them uttered repeatedly from members of the African American community in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, which has sent shockwaves throughout the world. What those…

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

Today’s edition was compiled with our hearts & minds vicariously marching with the Black Lives Matter Movement.  1. Fabulous in New York City, Summer of ’69 Vernon Merritt III/Time Life Pictures, found on Pinterest. 2. Where the term “Dreadlocks” came from The term “dreadlocks” comes from a movement of guerrilla warriors who vowed not to…

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

1. Restaurants using mannequins to make social distancing less awkward An American Michelin-starred restaurant, the Inn at Little Washington, hopes to make its dining room feel less empty once customers return at limited capacity…. From mannequins to stuffed animals to pool noodles you wear on your head, restaurants around the world are getting pretty “creative” in…

Before the Internet, there was the 1960s Dial-a-Poem Hotline

On any given night in 1970, a teen somewhere in rural America could dial a number and hear the radical wisdom of Patti Smith, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Bourroughs – the list of poets was long, and painfully hip. One needed only the ten sacred digits of “Dial-a-Poem,” a revolutionary hotline that connected…

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

1. A 1962 Italian Magazine showing how the world would look in 2022 Found on Mildly Interesting. 2. An Open-Air Museum of Abandoned Soviet Trains In a railway deadlock surrounded by a dense forest, there are decommissioned locomotives and tractors… a strategic reserve in case of war… some locomotives are in relatively good condition, with…

An Ode to the Unexpected Whimsy (and Strength) of Your Mail Delivery

It was the Little Mail Truck Who Could. An odd American vehicle – looking more like a patriotic Good & Plenty than a post truck – but by the 1960s, the “Mailster” made up one-third of the post’s vehicular fleet, according to The Smithsonian, somehow schlepping 500 lbs of brown paper packages tied up with…
1 2 3 … 152
ABOUT NESSY
Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.

INSTAGRAM

messynessychic

Messy Nessy Chic