Life Inside a Genie’s Lamp, in Brooklyn

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who furnish, and those who decorate. “My apartment is something that has evolved over time,” says New York City interior decorator Sean McNanney, “Ultimately my main inspiration is an Upper East Side classic six transported to Wes Anderson’s take on Old Constantinople – if that…

The Real Holy Grails: A Brief Compendium of Elaborate Chalices

There is arguably no more iconic, big bling accessory than ye olde goblet (if only we had a dollar for every time someone in Game of Thrones took a saucy sip from a chalice, right?). Because these babies let their materials do the talking, from gilded seashells, precious metals, to glass; eggs, gems, and everything…

Someone should Buy this Old Captain’s Mansion in NY, before it gets Demolished

History is its own, curious commodity in the United States (where we are notoriously good at razing architectural treasures), and what makes this home – known as “the Turtle House” – so special. A rare pearl nestled in the Hudson Valley, New York, it was constructed in 1822 and just hit the market for the…

The First Man to Reach the North Pole was an African American Desk Clerk the World Forgot

“I think I’m the first man to sit on top of the world,” is not something many people can boast, especially if they lead perfectly normal lives, say, working a desk job in the city in relative anonymity. But for many years, that was the truth of Matthew Henson. In 1908, the unsung African American…

If We Ever Start a Cult, this is Where We’ll be Sourcing the Outfits

Meet the Fashion Brand for lizards, sexpots, and three-headed babes. The lazily but brilliantly-named “Fashion Brand Company” was founded in 2018 by Penelope Gazin, and has been delivering deliciously irreverent apparel ever since. Like a sweater covered in nipples, or a three collared dress. It’s as if Gazin has vacuumed up the detritus of our…

These Magical Outsider Art Temples Need Our Help

It’s no secret that our favourite art lives on the fringe. So when a reader wrote in with a tip about a temple of Outsider Art in Prenton, England, that needed our help, we dove right in. Known as “Ron’s Place,” the house is a portal into one man’s obsessive love of antiquity (with an…

Oh, Disney, You Never Should Have Fired Kay Nielsen

Kay Nielsen knew his way around a fantasy. The Danish illustrator was raised in a “tense atmosphere of art” (his words) during the Golden Era of Illustration – a time when folks one-upped each another with books bearing golden spines and marbled end papers; elaborately illustrated copies of Grimm’s Fairytales, The Wizard of Oz, and Oscar…

The Bread & Puppet Theatre: A Living Museum of American Hippie Culture

The year is 1979. Thousands of people flock to a farm field in Vermont, and wait for their stilt-walking hosts to christen the “Circus Ring” field with their presence. When they do, it’s in a parade of unbridled joy – a celebration of misfits, mainstream dissent, and all the freshly-baked rye you can eat. It’s…

So What Were UFO Sightings like in the Really Old Days?

Who made the little green spacemen, well, green? Long before the midcentury Space Race set the standard for collective extraterrestrial clichés, people were having out-of-this-world experiences that chilled them down to their frilly, 1850s pantaloons. The snag being, of course, that no one had any evidence. In 1919, American author Charles Hoy Fort came forth…

How did the Heart Become the Symbol of Love anyway?

Once upon a time, a knight was really pissed off. He had just discovered that his wife took a lover, and naturally, sought revenge in a joust to the death with his rival. But even that victory wasn’t enough to quench his rage, so he cut out the heart of his wife’s lover and gave…