15 49.0138 8.38624 both 0 bullet 0 4000 1 0 horizontal https://www.messynessychic.com 300 4000

Category / Editor’s Picks

MessyNessy’s 21 Favourite Little Stories of 2021

A remarkable year perhaps it wasn’t. Life as we know it seemingly remained on pause in 2021; in limbo and on shaky ground. It was about finding some kind of “normal” in the aftermath of chaos, picking up the pieces and figuring out if they’re worth gluing back together in the exact same way. Probably…

Forget Roadside America, Let’s Location Scout in “Weird France”

I’ve been yearning to get back across the pond for a good ol’ dose of “weird America”, but I tend to forget that my own country has some pretty odd, quirky and wonderfully nostalgic sights to see when you venture off the main road. Wes Anderson would have a field day with Atlas des Régions…

The Surrealist Magical Mystery of Leonora Carrington

On paper, she is Britain’s lost surrealist; an English debutante who cut herself off from her wealthy family, fell in love with Max Ernst and eloped with him to Paris, finding herself in the centre of surrealist movement. Separated from Ernst by war, she later ended up in Mexico, and became one of the country’s…

The Japanese Fishing Village That Vanished From Los Angeles

Imagine being given 48 hours to pack up and leave for an unknown destination. What would you bring with you? What would you do with your house, your business, all your clothing and furniture? On February 25th, 1942, some 3,000 Japanese-American residents on Terminal Island in Los Angeles county were faced with this unimaginable situation.…

Ode to the Asian-American Faces in the Shadows of Hollywood’s Golden Age

Silver screen icon Anna May Wong is likely the only Asian-American actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood that any of us have heard of. From the dearth of information on any other Asian-American actress, it may seem as if Wong was all alone. But contrary to what mainstream narrative would have you believe, there…

Renoir’s Art Model Was the Greatest Painter You Never Heard Of

Name a post-Impressionist woman painter and most people would draw a blank. Or they would cast their mind back to Mary Cassat or Berthe Morisot and their pastel domestic scenes. Few know of Suzanne Valadon, who shocked the turn-of-the-century art world with her boldly outlined nudes. A circus performer, single teenage mother, and art model…

When Montmartre was Harlem-on-the-Seine

After the Great War, a new kind of music began to waft through the winding streets of lower Montmartre. Unrestrained, audacious, with a potent syncopated rhythm unlike anything ever heard in Europe. It was the music of Black Americans who had started to move into the neighborhood. For a brief time, far away from Jim…

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

1. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and illustrated letters from Father Christmas to his kids every year from 1920 to 1943 Xmas 1925 My dear boys, I am dreadfully busy this year — it makes my hand more shaky than ever when I think of it — and not very rich. In fact, awful things have been…

The Nautch Girls: India’s Forgotten Dancers

You arrive at the gardens after nightfall with the full moon casting a cool, pale glow over the muggy evening. Two dozen torch bearers stand by to light your way, and as you approach the crowd, you sense the anxious anticipation of the delights to come. Soon the musicians strike up their instruments, and a…

Buried Secrets of Montauk’s Menacing Military Camp that Inspired “Stranger Things”

There are places in New York and the northeastern coast of America, where a pleasurable trip to the seaside can take a turn for the peculiar. You may be wandering along a bucolic beach only to stumble across the abandoned ruins of brutalist concrete structures lying half buried in the sand, evoking the iconic end…

NEWER POSTS 1 … 56 57 58 … 189 OLDER POSTS