Ode to the Ice Man

In his autobiography Timebends, Arthur Miller recalls an occupation lost in time – that of the ice man, who wore “leather vests and a wet piece of sackcloth slung over the right shoulder, and once they had slid the ice into the box, they invariably slipped the sacking off and stood there waiting, dripping, for their money.” From…

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

1. Inside America’s Largest Abandoned Mansion with over 110 rooms 2. What the Leaning Tower of Pisa looks like Inside Totally empty! More found here. 3. Sylvia Plath’s recipe cards for Sale Including Fish Chowder, Cherry & Cottage Cheese Cobbler, Drop Molasses Cookies, Carrot Cake, Beef Stew and a much-coveted recipe: ‘Ted’s Mother’s Scots Porridge…

This Guy (Almost) Convinces us to Go Freight Train Hopping Around America

Freighthopping or trainhopping, the (usually illegal) act surreptitiously boarding and riding a freight railroad car became a common means of transportation following the American Civil War and continued to be widely used by those unable to afford other transportation, particularly during the Great Depression when the jobless took to the rails to find work. The practice is less common today, but a…

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

1. East Brother Island, in the San Francisco Bay, is hiring an innkeeper It’s been called a “dream job”, earning $140,000 a year — housing and health benefits included — to live on your own private island in the San Francisco Bay, one of the most expensive and spectacularly beautiful places in the world. If…

Were an Ancient Christian Sect of Nudists the World’s First Hippies?

Today we’re taking a brief look at some hippie heretics of yore known as the Adamites. The 2nd century Christian sect, claimed that its members were re-established in Adam and Eve’s state of original innocence, called their church “Paradise”, practised “holy nudism”, rejected marriage and pretty much claimed they could do whatever the heck they…

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

1. Once upon a time, you could ride a train right through the orange groves in Southern California The Super Chief was one of the named passenger trains and the flagship of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The streamliner claimed to be “The Train of the Stars” because of the various celebrities it carried between Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California. Florida had one too:…

He made a Fortune in the 1920’s Transplanting Monkey Testicle Tissue into the Ballsacks of Millionaires

The poet E.E Cummings once wrote of a “famous doctor who inserts monkey glands in millionaires” and in a pre-code Hollywood musical starring the Marx Brothers, they sang the line, “If you’re too old for dancing / Get yourself a monkey gland” performing a number entitled “Monkey-Doodle-Doo”. There was a famous Chicago surgeon who wrote…

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

1. The real urban jungle: how ancient societies reimagined what cities could be They may be vine-smothered ruins today, but the lost cities of the ancient tropics still have a lot to teach us about how to live alongside nature. Not only did societies such as the Classic Maya and the Khmer empire of Cambodia…

When Big Brands were Getting High in the Seventies

In the late 1960s and 70s, America’s big corporations could see the psychedelic writing on the wall and they knew they had to do something. A wave of psychedelia was taking over pop culture and the LSD-infused hippie aesthetic was huge. The influence of drug culture on some of the most iconic brands saw everyone…

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

1. Cano’s Castle “After first building an underground potato cellar on the site, the castle began in 1980 when Cano built a steam room above the cellar, and took improvised shape as found materials presented themselves over about twenty years.” Born in 1948, ‘Dominic “Cano” Espinoza’s enlisted in the US army in 1968 and, upon…