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Category / Editor’s Picks

The Forgotten Housewife who Invented your Dishwasher

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Case in point: there’s a certain 19th century American housewife and single mother we should thank for giving us the mechanical dishwasher. You’ve probably never heard of her but Mrs. Cochrane forever changed the landscape of household chores and revolutionised the kitchen. Fed up of…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 657)

1. Owlsley Stanley, the Acid King of the 1960s Stanley was a rather famed clandestine chemist who manufactured large quantities of LSD in the 60’s, provided LSD to the Beatles during the filming of “Magical Mystery Tour”. He also designed the Grateful Dead’s early sound and was the inspiration for the Bear logo (he was…

The Famous Parisian Potheads of the Belle Epoque

Ah, Belle Epoque Paris: a lost world of artists, writers, dancers, philosophers and …. potheads? Today, we’re getting acquainted with the long forgotten Club des Hashischins, “Club of the Hashish-Eaters”, a 19th century gang of Parisians dedicated to drug-induced experiences, whose members included a gaggle of the most prolific intellectual names, including Victor Hugo, Alexandre…

Meet the President’s Daughter, a “Wild Animal That Had Been Put Into Good Clothes”

In a world rife with lifestyle influencers and “content houses,” where building one’s own notoriety is big business, it’s tempting to dismiss being famous for being famous as the most banal and basic kind of renown. But there was a time, with a burgeoning American press beginning to define itself and a brash and pithy…

From Corsets to Culottes: The Women who Dared to Change Wimbledon

Wimbledon today is known for showcasing the tennis talents of both male and female competitors, but in the tournament’s earlier days, one does wonder how women were expected to make a decent serve dressed in full-length skirts, corsets, and fiddly blouses: the ‘tennis whites’ of the time. It took some real champions to make a…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 656)

1. The colourful covers of a Japanese lifestyle magazine, in production since 1948 The magazine is Kurashi No Techo, found via Present & Correct 2. Lewis Carroll’s Illustrations for “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground” (1864) Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript of Ailce in Wonderland (then titled “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground”) is littered with thirty-seven of his own…

The Whiskered Odyssey of Body Hair and Hairless Bodies

Plucking, shaving, waxing, epilating, threading, lasering – whatever preference one has for grooming body hair, we can probably all agree that most of the time, it would be easier if we didn’t have to do it all. And for a good part of Western civilization, underarm, leg, and pubic hair were simply expected parts of…

Long-lost Erotica of a Pre-Freudian Sexologist

Forget Freud. Today, we’re snooping around the personal archives of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a 19th century psychoanalyst and sexologist extraordinaire who history has often been forgotten despite his groundbreaking research in sexual pathology. His chef d’oeuvre is undoubtedly Psychopathia Sexualis, the book that made jaws drop across Europe in 1886 and the first-ever scientific study on sexual…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 655)

1. Avast online archive of vintage interior advertising ADSAUSAGE preserves material relating to 20th-century advertising and popular culture, with a focus on film and Los Angeles history. Holdings maintain a collection of over 40,000 artifacts, encompassing newspapers, magazines, slides, and photographs. Found via Present & Correct. 2. This virtual hotel wants you to vacation in…

If Cher Horowitz Became an Astronaut…

Welcome to Saint Delphine, where the socialites go to outer space, the brownstones are cotton candy coloured, and the ever-green manicured topiaries are the proven antidote to stress. “I refer to the goings on here as the Socialite’s Science Fiction (SSF),” says Cara Deming Butler, the artist, unofficial mayor, and overall space cadet behind this…

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