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Category / Editor’s Picks

Don’t Miss the Miniature Wine Windows of Florence

Of the 16 million tourists that visit Florence on average per year, I wonder how many of them walk by the old palazzos without ever noticing their most interesting little secret hiding in plain sight. At about 18 centimetres wide and 35 centimetres high, they are just the right height to fit a bottle of…

Digging for Treasure (and Love) in New York City

Their’s is a love of strange and beautiful proportion. The kind measured in porcelain, peanut-sized dolls, and antiqued oysters as big as your face. “It’s hard to imagine a time when we’d stop digging,” says Belle, back-lit by a wall of technicolour glass bottles, “I mean it’s addictive. And when you have someone who gets…

What you can find Mudlarking on the Thames Foreshore in London

A few years ago, a worldly friend who’s always in the know posted something to her Facebook wall that went something like this: Mudlarking on the Thames is the best way to spend a Sunday morning in London. She had me at “mudlarking”—I had no clue what it was. It seemed like something curiously obscure. And…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 686)

1. Mystery image of the day Having real trouble finding any information at all about this photograph that’s been uploaded onto the internet. Any leads would be appreciated! Found via Tumblr. 2. Something to watch on your Coffee Break: How Humanity Got Hooked on Coffee 3. Stay up all night in the Hidden Library of…

The Chinese Village of Long-Haired Rapunzels

In 2023, the global shampoo market had an estimated value of $32 billion. But deep in the mountains of southern China’s Guangxi province, the women of Huangluo Village won’t be contributing a single dime to the industry – because apparently, it’s not worth it. For the Yao minority of ethnic women, hair is their most prized possession. The…

The Real Ice Queens: Women Who Conquered the Cold Wearing Corsets

Can’t bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females who braved the ice in petticoats and traversed the world’s harshest environments at a time when wearing trousers was still a serious…

A Forgotten Ode to the Little Paris Shopfront

I was walking along the Seine this weekend, slowing my pace for the lonely bouquinistes (the open-air booksellers that have squatted the quays of the river since the 18th century), when a dog-eared paperback caught my eye. Inside, it was filled with the most delightful illustrations of French boutiques from the 1920s; each storefront’s name inspired…

The Secret World of Pageant Pigeons

They’ve been increasingly antagonised over the last century, reduced to nothing more than a plague upon Midtown Manhattan, Trafalgar Square, Notre Dame (we could keep going). But today at MessyNessy, your internet watering hole for misfits and chic oddities, we’d like to show you that pigeons, yes pigeons, can meet those two categories with flying colours.…

The Mystery of History’s Only Female Pope

According to popular legend, there was once a female Pope – Pope Joan, who reigned for two years between 855 and 857 before coming to a very sticky end. If you’ve never heard of her, it’s hardly surprising as her existence has been questioned for centuries and her name wiped from official history. It seems…

How Humans Have Toyed with Time

Who dictates Time? Depends on who you ask, and in what century. Like us, you probably rely on a Western, 365 day calendar to tell you that today, it’s such and such date in 2020 AD. But if you asked a French Revolutionary, “Year 1” began in 1789. And if you asked an American Kodak…

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