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Category / Editor’s Picks

What’s Up with all the Lady Parts in Medieval Prayer Books?

Let’s say you’re flipping through a medieval Christian prayer book (as you do), and suddenly you come across a curious illustration amongst the prayers and psalms of something that looks unmistakably like female genitalia. A scolding voice in your head tells you to get your mind out of the gutter. But you wouldn’t be alone.…

Hunting for Harold Lloyd’s Legendary Christmas Ornaments

Harold Lloyd probably isn’t a name that rings many bells in the 21st century, but spoiler – he’s one of the most influential film comedians of the silent era, making up the the first trio of the silver screen’s laugh-makers, alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. With his signature straw boater and round horn-rimmed glasses,…

Churches and their Hidden Basement Bowling Alleys

Churches have bowling alleys? Yes, they do, but they’re a dying breed. There are thought to be less than 200 churches with bowling lanes left in America today, but as early as the 1860s, they were quite common across the Midwest and parts of the Northeast. It’s not the kind of thing you expect to find…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 723)

1. Japan’s Love Hotels Feature in François Prost Definitely need to stock this one at the Cabinet. 2. These paintings of Paris by a lesser known impressionist By Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow (1847-1906). 3. Really nice news: an anonymous donor gifts $3.54 M. to Milwaukee Art Museum to Make Admission Free for Kids Found on…

Messy Nessy’s Cabinet, a Little Shop in Paris

Update: We are now open, come say hello! I have news: Next month, I’m opening a brick and mortar cabinet of curiosities in Paris. It’s only been a few months in the making – a rather spontaneous decision spurred by the lease on our office expiring. But I’ve also been feeling for some time that it…

The Ritz Hotel Heir who Taught Hemingway How to Fish

Hemingway was an erratic character – one we associate with the greatest novels of course. His short, precise prose about his image of manhood are thick within the canon of American literature: women, hunting, liquor, and fishing. So you know that story about old Hem liberating the Ritz in 1944. The one where he famously rolled…

A Life Less Ordinary with a Real-Life Snow White

Deep inside one of the last remaining primeval forests in Europe, in-between Belarus and Poland, stands an old hunting lodge straight out of a fairytale. For over 30 years, ecologist Simona Kossack lived in this secluded glade without amenities nor electricity or running water and with an unusual band of forest friends. There was a…

The Factory Girl who Became an Art Deco Ceramics Sensation

When English ceramic artist Clarice Cliff first started designing pottery in the 1920s, her work was so out there, the styled garnered the name “Bizarre.” But the curious and colourful decorative pieces with abstract shapes and pastoral scenes soon gathered an impressive following. Ahead of her time, Cliff’s rise to fame during the mid 20th…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 721)

1. An abandoned theatre in Portugal for sale Theatre 1854 is the sixth oldest theatre still standing in Portugal. In Portugal’s Portalegre, it’s asking €400,000 and is classified as a building of municipal interest, meaning its future restoration, conversion, or adaptation would be subject to planning consent. More found on The Spaces. 2. Watched Gladiator II…

When Dangerous Dancing Dandies were the Bad Boys of Paris

The Paris of the Belle Époque saw the emergence of a certain type of street outcasts; a subculture that combined killer style with the criminal underworld. They were known as, les Apaches. They lived in secret dens in the city outskirts, shunned the idea of honest labor and took their name from the allegedly savage native American…

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