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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities

Category / Life is Messy

January 29, 2019

All Aboard the 1970s Sex Raft Experiment: the Best Reality TV Show That Never Was

Five men, six women and one 101-day, sex-starved ocean adventure. Has a catchy ring to it, no? “It was a fabulous adventure story,” said Marcus Lindeen, director of a 2018 documentary called The Raft that chronicles 1973’s “Acali Experiment,” in which an eclectic group set sail to find out if the best– or worst– of humankind rears its…

January 28, 2019

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

1. Pyramid of Unas “The sword of Orion opens the doors of the sky. Before the doors close again the gate to the path Over the fire, beneath the holy ones as they grow dark As a falcon flies as a falcon flies, may Unis rise into this fire Beneath the holy ones as they…

January 21, 2019

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

1. When we used to eat off Radioactive Glassware Uranium glass was once made into tableware and household items, but fell out of widespread use when the availability of uranium to most industries was sharply curtailed during the Cold War in the 1940s to 1990s. Most such objects are now considered antiques or retro-era collectibles, although there…

January 18, 2019

Oh, just an Utterly Insane Ghost City of Fake French Chateaux

This is not Photoshop. I repeat, this is not Photohop. Ever heard of “duplitecture”? It’s the term that’s been coined to describe replica architecture which has been popping up all over China since the 1990s (and let’s not forget Las Vegas either), where iconic landmarks and entire towns are constructed using lower-quality building materials to clone centuries…

January 18, 2019

Greetings from Rabbi Shaul’s Sacred Taxidermy Museum, Brooklyn, NY

It’s a day like any other in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Yiddish-painted school buses go to-and-fro, and women tighten the tichels around their heads; every man is silhouetted by a pair of perfectly curled sideburns, and the local grocer has a two-for-one deal on blintzes. Tel-Aviv notwithstanding, the Big Apple is home to our planet’s largest Hasidic…

January 17, 2019

Vacationing at the Edge of a Giant Hole in the Earth

You might have seen photographs around on the web of this giant hole that’s so big it can be seen from space (and very likely takes you straight to the devil’s basement). But have you ever wondered what actually exists around a godforsaken place like this? What’s daily life like? And can you find a decent…

January 14, 2019

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

1. The ‘Hippiedilly’ Squat on Hyde Park Corner in 1969 Found on Flashbak. 2. The British Library has a collection of over 60 million newspapers stored in an airtight, low-oxygen room The latest, state-of-the-art facility featuring robotic cranes to retrieve newspapers from shelving that are 20 metres (65 feet) high. The newspapers are stored…

January 8, 2019

Can We Talk about the New “Las Vegas”?

Imagine wrapping up all of Las Vegas in a neon-lit bow, and tossing it onto 29 square kilometres of land overlooking the South China Sea. Stir in a few Komodo Dragons and European-inspired skyscrapers, and you’ve got Macau, the gambling capital of the world across the way from Hong Kong. It’s been called “the Monte…

January 7, 2019

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

1. Living in a old Sea Captain’s House Our favourite decorator, John Derian, lives in an 18th-century Provincetown home that once belonged to a sea captain. “ I renovated the plumbing and electric, but left the rest of the house how it was, even the peeling wallpaper. A year afterward, my brother visited and said, ‘Take your time…

January 4, 2019

The Movie of the Year Is a Stolen Cult Film That Almost Never Was

A few weeks ago, I fell in love with a movie called Shirkers. It felt like discovering a lost Wes Anderson movie. It felt like watching all the things I’d ever set out to portray here on Messy Nessy Chic– secret childhood drama, unappreciated beauty, deeply personal nostalgia, conspiracy, vulnerability, creativity– all perfectly wrapped up…